Guest Author Day with Tinnean

Please give a warm welcome to Meg Parkinson from Surviving the Apocalypse – Long Leggity Beasties by Tinnean today as we sit down and see what makes her tick.

Hello, everyone. Hi, Dawn, and thanks so much for giving me this opportunity. I love talking about what finally got me back together with the bravest, most wonderful woman in the world, and this gives me the ideal opening

Let’s get started then, shall we? What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re not saving the world?

You mean aside from making love with my cutie? Well, now, you know—I don’t really have much spare time. I go to the seminars my captain lines up for me. I see my family every week when my mom has us get together for dinner. I argue with my sister Beth quite a bit. But that’s siblings, right?

Uh… yes. What is it about your love interest—Jenn Canaday.

Excuse me?

Jenn Canaday. She’s my love interest. And let me tell you, it’s fantastic having a girlfriend who’s almost as tall as I am.

Yes, well. What is there about her that makes you crazy in a good way?

She’s got a mouth, you know? I had girlfriends before her, but none of them could hold a candle to her when it comes to giving—Oops, sorry, this isn’t supposed to be the naughty interview. She’s honorable, you know? She put my wellbeing before thoughts of herself. Which was fine, but she really didn’t have to, and I’ve told her more than once that if she’d just talked to me, we wouldn’t have wasted five years!

Okay, moving right along. Do you sometimes want to strangle your writer? Thrash her to within an inch of her life? Make her do the stupid crap she makes you do?

Are you kidding? How about all the time? First she lets Jenn get the cockeyed idea that it would be a good thing for her to break up with me. I mean, come on, we’d just spent the best week together, but then Jenn gets the notion I’d be better off without a woman who’s a few years older than me.

She’s actually almost ten years your senior, Meg.

Shut up, Tinn. What do you always say? Age is simply a question of mind over matter, and if you don’t mind, it don’t—doesn’t—matter. I wouldn’t have left Jenn. And not only that, what’s the idea of making my mother cuckoo for Little Women?

It seemed like a good idea at the time?

Please. My sisters didn’t mind being named Amy, Jo, and Beth, and I’m okay with Meg, but naming our poor brother Laurie? Do you have any idea how many times I had to beat up some jerk for bullying my older brother?

Fine, but we’re talking about your story, not his.

Okay, then how about telling me what Laurel Hill’s done to you that you take such pleasure in tormenting my town?

I wouldn’t call it tormenting exactly.

Oh, no? Turns to the readers. Do you have any idea what she’s put my poor home town through? No, probably you don’t. Well, let me tell you: a nuclear holocaust, a pandemic, and then an attack by those damned—

Shush. You don’t want to give that away.

Don’t I? Okay, next time, you go deal with those mother—

Margaret!

Next question?

Favorite food?

Lamb shanks.

That was a quick response.

Hands down, the best meal my mom makes. See, she puts on a metric ton of salt and garlic powder, then sprinkles it with rosemary leaves, then sticks them in the oven to roast until they’re fall-off-the-bone tender. Jenn loves them too.

Do you make them for her? Okay, I’ll take that look as a no. Suppose you tell me a little bit about your world. What are your greatest challenges in that world?

Well, you see, things have gotten hinky in the southwest. People are going missing, and not just migrants coming up from Central America. The governor’s niece and her kids were camping, and then “poof” they’re gone and the campsite looks like something big and mean took it apart. And ranchers are losing their prize breeding stock. That’s how Jenn got involved. She’s an FBI agent—

You sound proud of her.

Damned straight I am. She was called in to deal with it, although her boss is an asshole and just wanted to her fail so he could fire her.

But she didn’t fail.

Nope. As for challenges, they’re the usual—bureaucrats who care more about keeping their jobs than doing them. They get in our way and make things more difficult. No one needs that crap.

They don’t. All right, moving right along: Describe yourself in four words.

Now that’s gonna be tough. Okay, let’s see. Caring—As much as I can, I look out for the homeless people who live in Dupuis Town, which is the poor side of Laurel Hill that hasn’t been restored yet. I bring them food, clothing, toys for the kids, pet food, whatever fits in the trunk of my cruiser. Dedicated – especially to my girlfriend. I love her with all my heart and soul. She’d the best thing that ever happened to me, and I thank my lucky stars every day I wake up beside her. Snarky—I can get really snide if I’m dealing with people who try to make my job more difficult than it has to be (see my above comment about bureaucrats) Honest—especially when it comes to how I feel ab0ut the people in my life. Well, except when Jenn came to Laurel Hill and I saw her with—Never mind, you’ll see.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a deputy in the Laurel Hill Sheriff’s Department. My mom always said that sounded as if our little town was part of the wild west, even though it’s in Delaware. If I had to work in law enforcement, she’d have been a lot happier if it were for a police department. Anyway, my beat is Dupuis Town, which is where our small town’s homeless camp is located. Was located. As I mentioned, I keep all kinds of supplies for them in my cruiser’s trunk. And I consider that part of my job.

One last question. What do you fear the most?

My mom trying to fix me up with one of her friends’ sons. No, seriously, that would be losing my family to those long leggity beasties. I don’t have to worry about Jenn, because as I said, she’s an FBI agent and an extremely capable woman. She doesn’t need me to watch her back, although she knows I always will. My family, though—my sisters are all younger than me and don’t know the muzzle of a revolver from its grip, my brother is a tin knocker who’d rather be a hairdresser, and my mom and pop—well, they’d deny being old, but they’re getting ready to retire, and the last thing they need is to face those monsters. Family can be a pain, you know? But I swear, if anything happened to any of them—it would kill me.

Long Leggity Beasties

Surviving the Apocalypse

Genre: f/f

Buy link: https://www.jms-books.com/erotic-romance-c-34_117/surviving-the-apocalypse-long-leggity-beasties-p-2734.html

Blurb:  Dark deeds are being done, and Jenn Canaday, a special agent with the FBI, has been assigned to look into them. This takes her to New Mexico, where cattle are being rustled and people are going missing -- one of them the niece of the state’s governor.

Meg Parkinson is a sheriff’s deputy in the small town of Laurel Hill. She and Jenn had once spent a steamy week together, but then Jenn had sent her away, something Meg hasn’t gotten over, as reluctant as she is to admit it.

When Meg notices that the homeless camp on the edge of her town has become deserted, Jenn is brought into her vicinity to aid in the investigation. Will the former lovers be able to work together? Can they rekindle the flame that had once burned so brightly? And will they learn what’s behind all the disappearances without disappearing themselves?

 And that’s it for today, folks. You’ve been a wonderful audience. Please enjoy this excerpt:

She slung the rifle over her shoulder by its strap, grabbed up her jacket, and began filling the pockets with the boxes of ammunition. “I’m on my way to Dupuis Town.”

“I’m coming with you, Margaret.” Genevieve came to her side.

The last thing she wanted was her former lover coming along for the ride. She might be helpful, but she’d also be distracting. “You don’t—”

“One second, Sergeant.” Dr. Hallstadt’s words stopped her. “Captain, I’m afraid those rifles might not be enough. Do you have any flamethrowers?”

“Really, Nicola?” The professor looked aghast. “You’d pass up this opportunity to study a species that’s been considered extinct for millions of years—”

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. These scientists who put the search for knowledge ahead of the safety of the human race—

“Nicki might not, Professor.” Genevieve seemed to have no problem interrupting the older woman. “But I’ve seen those things and the damage they can do, and if it comes to us or them….”

“You really think it might?”

“I do.”

The professor turned as pale as her dusky complexion allowed. “In that case, you’re right, and I apologize.”

Meg had never seen her former lover at work, and her panties dampened. Jesus, get a grip, Parkinson. Although she had to admit she was impressed at how Genevieve made the older woman back down.

“Do we need to call in the armed forces?” the captain asked.

“Not just yet,” Dr. Hallstadt assured him. “This species appears to be diurnal. It’s dark, and they’ll have taken shelter for the night. Once we’ve discovered the location of this colony, I’ll need canisters of chlorpyrifos.”

“Chlorpyr-whatsis?”

“It’s a pesticide.”

“That was banned by the EPA in 2018,” Meg snapped. It paid to have a sister who was fascinated by stuff like that and who enjoyed nothing more than passing on that information.

“How dangerous is this going to be to anyone in the surrounding area?” the captain demanded.

“From what I’ve been led to believe, that part of Laurel Hill is deserted,” Dr. Hallstadt reminded him.

He snorted and cut a glance in Meg’s direction, impatience writ large upon his face. As if it was really necessary to remind them—Meg had been the one who’d first discovered the apparently abandoned homeless camp.