ROMANCE CONTEMPORARY GOTHIC AUTHOR
SPOTLIGHT ON:
Anna M. Taylor
CONNECT WITH ANNA M. TAYLOR
All About Anna M. Taylor:
Anna M. Taylor is the women’s fiction and gothic romance penname of Anna Taylor Sweringen, a retired United Church of Christ and Presbyterian Church USA minister. A native New Yorker, she now enjoys the heat of the Southwest. She has been writing seriously since joining Romance Writers of America in 2003 and also writes inspirational romance as Anna Taylor and erotic romance as Michal Scott.
A little in Love with Death
Release Date:
October 31, 2020
Publisher:
Anna M. Taylor
Cover Design:
Dawn Dominique
Give Us The Scoop
Okay lovely lady: today we're doing a character interview with Winston Emerson and later we will record an author interview with you. Let's start the interview with Winston.
How would people physically describe you?
Lanky but nicely built. I get a lot of compliments from the ladies on my biceps.
What’s your backstory?
I was raised by my father after the death of my mother in childbirth. The loss of her and my infant sister is what led me to turn my back on God and religion. I’m a native New Yorker, born and bred in Harlem.
What do you think of Anna Taylor? Did she portray you accurately?
Anna M. Taylor is quite a skilled writer. I appreciate how she respectfully depicted my skepticism about supernatural occurrences. She was also evenhanded by not making me look like a fool when I learned I was wrong or arrogant when I learned I was right.
What is the most inspirational thing you’ve ever done in your life?
In my work as a lay pastor, I’m proudest of helping to create what’s called a Blue Christmas service. This is a worship service that acknowledges how you don’t have to pretend to be happy when the season is a difficult one for you.
If you could map out the next five years of your life, what would that look like?
Not only the next five but the rest of my life will be spent with Sankofa Lawford, the love of my life. Together we’ll use our love to be our best selves with one another and others. We’ll also be dedicating ourselves to the care of her mother Wanda, who has always been a second mother to me.
Life advice for the masses?
It’s an old cliché but for me a true one: “Never put off for tomorrow what you can do today.” Look at all the years I could have spent with Sankofa if I hadn’t waited.
Everyone is made up of both good and bad elements. What are your best qualities and what are your worst qualities? I genuinely care for and about people. I encourage young people to live up to their potential and not let people discourage them. I must admit my worst quality is a stubbornness that would put a mule to shame. However, a good quality that counters it is once I’m convinced I’m wrong, I admit it right away.
A Little In Love With Death Blurb & Excerpt
Ten years ago no one — not even the man who said he loved her — believed Sankofa Lawford’s story of being attacked by a ghost. Ten years later a new ghostly assault brings her back home to a mother going mad, a brother dangling at his wits’ end, and a former love wanting a second chance. She’s at a loss what to do because the pain created by memories of her own attack proves stronger than her desire to heal her family and find love again.
Mitchell Emerson believes science and reason can account for the ghostly happenings at Umoja House. He’s seeking a rational explanation that will prove him right while regaining Sankofa’s trust and love. What he learns leaves him shattered.
Now reluctant allies, Mitchell and Sankofa uncover years of lies that threaten to pull them apart until help comes from an unexpected ally: the ghost itself.
Excerpt 1
For the last hour, Sankofa Lawford blinked through a haze of tears at her mother’s stricken face. She held the glassy-eyed woman’s hand and tried repeatedly to get her attention. No gesture stilled the older woman’s incessant rocking. No words penetrated her intonation of the same awful phrase.
“Them that tell don’t know and them that know don’t tell.
“Them that tell don’t know and them that know don’t tell.”
Wanda Lawford suddenly stopped rocking and stared in Sankofa’s direction. A bright glint of glee shone in her gaze.”
“Hope struggled for a foothold in Sankofa’s heart then slipped as a death head’s grin contorted her mother’s once beautiful features.
“Sankofa?”
Sankofa forced the lump of sorrow down her throat. “Yes, Mama?”
With a grip made strong from madness, Wanda pulled her daughter’s hand to her chest and leaned in so her lips pressed against Sankofa’s ears.
“A word to the wise is sufficient. Have you been wise?”
Her hissed warning parodied whispered confidences mother and daughter had shared in the past. Sankofa kissed away a tear from her mother’s cheek.
“Yes, Mama.” She swallowed the lie with a smile. “I’ve been wise.”
Wanda Lawford cupped her daughter’s face and smiled, too.
“Good. I’m so sorry, so sorry. It shouldn’t have happened to you. It should never have happened to you”
Sankofa took a deep breath and controlled her sadness despite the wobble of her lips.
“Rest now, Mama. Rest. Okay?”
Wanda released Sankofa’s hand only to grip her own, rocking again, repeating again.
“Them that tell don’t know and them that know don’t tell.
Them that tell don’t know and them that know don’t tell.”
For a few moments, she regarded him with a look his mother would have called insightful. The corners of her eyes narrowed, she dipped her chin a hair, and she pulled her mouth into another appealing pout he was tempted to kiss.
“I bet,” she said after a long, drawn-out sigh, “you were the kind of kid who took apart clocks and fans and vacuum cleaners to see how they worked.”
“It was more washing machines and lawn mowers and anything with a motor, but yeah. I was.”
She shook her head, her own lips forming a lopsided grin. “Your poor mother.”
Excerpt 2
“Oh Sankofa, thank God Langston reached you.”
She and Langston turned as one. From down the hall their cousin, Harlan Montgomery Jr. glided toward them in a manner closer to a roll than astride. He waved and spoke again, but Sankofa didn’t hear a word. Beside him strode Mitchell Emerson, the man she’d loved then lost ten years ago.
Her stomach seized now as it had then. Only this time not with regret that punched her gut when they said goodbye, but with an emotion to which she thought herself immune.
Love.
Mitchell swallowed hard. Ten years hadn’t lessened the effect of Sankofa’s beauty on him. Photos in various alumni newsletters showed the gray in hair that had once been charcoal, the roundness in a face that had once been slender, the tiredness in a gaze that had once been energetic. He’d expected his ex-lover’s effect on him to be just as diminished.
His shoulders suddenly drooped, weighed down with the loss of what might have been.
