Lindsay McKenna

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Livia:  Hello and welcome to The Romance Reader's Connection. Tell the readers of TRRC a little about yourself. 

Lindsay:  In the 'real world' I wear many 'hats'.  My readers know I'm a writer.  In my other life career, I've been a homeopath for 33 years.  I’ve written 4 books in that alternative medicine specialty, and I travel the world giving workshops on the topic.  I'm known within the homeopathic world as being a specialist in bioterrorism and knowing about homeopathic remedies can help if we are caught in a chemical, biological or nuclear attack.  I'm presently writing a book called POISONS THAT HEAL, which will have remedies to keep on hand that can, quite literally, save you or your family's life if we are attacked.  Readers can find out more at my website, www.medicinegarden.com.  I have departments there, and many articles are written to help anyone who interested and wants further education. 

Along with my alternative medicine background, I own a flower and gem essence company known as Blue Turtle Natural Essences.  Readers who are interested, can visit my website, www.medicinegarden.com.  On the left hand side is the 'gift shop’, which has gorgeous photos of the flowers and gemstones that I've taken, along with information on how they can help a person's level of health.  Toward this end, I've just finished a 10-year long project on a book, which is tentatively titled:  WHAT FLOWER ARE YOU?

The importance of this book rests on the following premise:  what we love can heal us.  Or, like cures like, for example, let's say your most favorite flower is a red rose.  In my book, I teach you how to make a flower essence from it, how to take it, and to improve your health.  Further, there is a very detailed report on the "red rose personality" and the individual can read up on themselves and see the positive and weaknesses (and to take the red rose essence to strengthen what is weak).  I have 'broken' the language of flowers in terms of what it means to human beings.  Every part of a flower's anatomy has a corresponding connection with a human being.  For example, a rose's roots are fibrous.  That means something very specific and if a person loves the red rose, then they will know a great deal about their 'roots', as a result.

Another 'hat' I wear is as a professional medical astrologer.  My mother was an astrologer and I grew up reading books on it when I was 9 years old.  In 1970 I turned pro and in 1975, I devoted my life to learning medical astrology.  I wrote a book, Medical Astrology in 1980 (Blue Turtle Publishing, Cottonwood, Arizona), and it continues to be a global bestseller.  It is now in Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian.  In Russian hospitals, they use my invention called the Med-Scan, to help in misdiagnosed or undiagnosible cases and with it, they know where to test to find the root cause in the person.  I give 5-day workshop on beginning and advanced medical astrology in Sedona, Arizona, every 3-4 years. 

The last 'hat' I wear is that of being a shaman.  My father, who was part Eastern Cherokee, began to train me for this spiritual medicine, when I was 9 years old.  I wrote a book on it, Soul Recovery and Extraction under my E. Cherokee name, Ai Gvhdi Waya (Blue Turtle Publishing, Cottonwood, Arizona).  I train people to learn this technique around the world.  For example, I'll be training 16 people in New Zealand in February 2003.  And in October 2003, in Chesieres, Switzerland, 16 more people will learn SR/E. 

My life is devoted to helping alleviate suffering.  I believe my books spread love, and to me, love is the most powerful healer of all.  There are people who want alternative medicine 'tools' to help heal themselves, and I offer flower and gem essences.  Others, who believe in spiritually based tools, such as SR/E, find incredible help through this technique.  In medical astrology, doctors around the world use my technique to help their patients--and again, it shortens their pain and suffering, saves money for everyone, and finds the root cause of their symptoms. 

Livia:  Your website has a riveting picture of you in flight aboard a military helicopter. Can you share with us how this picture came to be? 

Lindsay:  My husband, David, took this photo.  We were in a Coast Guard search and rescue helicopter from Port Angeles, Washington.  At the controls was the captain of the base, Captain Bud Breault.  I was doing research for BEGINNINGS (Warner) and spent 7 days at Port Angeles interviewing the captain, pilots, crew chiefs and others to get the background info on this book.  On this particular flight, Captain Breault showed us how a helicopter can approach a yacht or ship in trouble and rescue people on the deck.  We had a great time at this base and I'm grateful to the Coast Guard for their cooperation. 

Livia: You've written so many wonderful military romances it's hard to know where to begin the book questions. Let's first start with the Trayhern Family, Morgan's parents and siblings all have military back grounds, for readers that have not met this family can you briefly run through the backgrounds? (Lindsay this will be for new readers to make a connection to Morgan because many, believe it or not, don't know that Morgan's family have their own stories, if you can just give the hero and heroine's name and book title and relationship to Morgan.)

Lindsay:  I created the Trayhern military dynasty in 1988.  This involved a family where the eldest son of each generation went into the military, to uphold the heritage.  I wrote LOVE AND GLORY, the first 3 book series that introduced Morgan, Noah and Aly Trayhern.  In the fourth book, I introduced their parents, Rachel and Charles Trayhern.  After that, I wrote a second three-book series that introduced Morgan's super secret company, Perseus.  The readers loved it!  I kept writing series, which would bring in Morgan in the beginning of the book, handing the hero and heroine their "mission."  I would also give tidbits about Laura, Morgan's wife, and their children as they were born: Jason, Catherine, Pete and Kelly (twins) and lastly, their adopted daughter Kamaria Trayhern.  This is 29 books later!  Right now, I'm writing Jason Trayhern's book (March 2004 publication date) Silhouette Single title release.  So I'm moving into the next generation, although Morgan and Laura will always be in the background, and readers will get the chance to "peek" into their lives through these newer books.  

Family is a strong theme for romance readers, and if you love family sagas, then you will love Morgan's.  My readers have gone through joy and sadness with Morgan and Laura.  I had a lot of fun bringing them into my latest four-book series, a crossline:  MORGAN'S MERCENARIES:  ULTIMATE RESCUE.  The enthusiastic emails and letters that I've gotten on this series has been heart warming.  Readers have grown up with Morgan, his wife and their trials and tribulations.  They are a wonderful couple who have real life problems, struggles, joys and triumphs just like we do!

Livia:  Of the entire Trayhern family, what made Morgan's character so fascinating and powerful that he's expanded to more than fifteen books as the head of his own covert agency?

Lindsay:  Morgan is a man with a past, who carries a 200-year-old family military dynasty who is branded a traitor to the US.  During the Vietnam War, Morgan was a captain in the US Marine Corps.  In the closing days of this unpopular war, his company was over run.  Only he and one other man, managed to live through it.  But Morgan was badly wounded, an injury to his head, and he had amnesia.  He wakes up not knowing anything, his name, his reason for being in the Japan military hospital, or his family heritage.  Because of top-secret government decisions, Morgan is sent off to the French Foreign Legion where he spends years, a stranger to himself.  Then, one day the memories start flooding back.  When he finds out that people in government have set him up as the 'fall guy' and is branded a traitor, he goes home to the US to clear his name and his family's honor.

In Love and Glory, "Return of a Hero", we find out what happens to Morgan in his quest to find out who set him up to brand him a traitor.  He meets the love of his life, military writer, Laura.

Readers have watched Morgan, who is a man of honor, struggle to turn the tide against his enemies.  He is ahead of his time in recognizing that women are as good, if not better, at being warriors.  In Perseus, he devises a mission where a man and woman go on it.  He is an advocate and supporter of women being all that they can be.  Love of family comes first to Morgan.  Fiercely protective of his growing family, he stumbles and learns how to be a parent.  Nothing comes easy to Morgan, but he tries, and that is why readers love him.  He is a man who is not perfect.  We watch him struggle.  Sometimes he fails, miserably, but we cheer when he gets back up and tries again.  He has integrity, high morals and values.  More than anything because of Morgan's own experience of being abandoned by his government, he has created Perseus, which helps people in trouble around the world.  And Morgan makes sure that his mercenaries are there to help them - unlike himself, when he had no one.  He won't let it happen again.

Livia:  Readers met Morgan's son as a young boy in Silhouette Special Edition #992 MORGAN'S SON.  He's been referred to throughout the other books as well.  Has he aged enough that we will be reading his story soon?

Lindsay:  Yes!  I'm writing Jason Trayhern's story right now.  Silhouette is thrilled with this development and I know my readers (who have been begging me for years to write it)!  Right now, it is tentatively scheduled for March 2004.  It will be a Silhouette single title release.  Silhouette is going to reprint MORGAN'S MERCENARIES: LOVE AND DANGER, which is the four-book series that re-introduces Morgan's family, their kidnapping tragedy at the hands of vengeful drug lords, and their rescue.  MORGAN'S SON is book two of this series that you are referring to.  Readers will get a chance in 2003 to get this series - so be on the look out for it this summer/fall period.  It will bring readers up to speed so that when Jason's book comes out in early 2004, everyone will truly enjoy his story.  Like his father, he too, must struggle.  But that's all I'll say at this point.

Livia:  We now have an offshoot of the Morgan's Mercenaries series that involves military women that support the fight on drug traffic in Latin American countries to the United States.  This group of women seems very real, and I was wondering, with your military background, have you met real-life women that perform this type of job?

Lindsay:  Because I was in the US Navy during the Vietnam War, I met plenty of women who were warriors--even if the military didn't 'get it' at that time.  They have now!  Women are just as good--if not better--than men at being warriors.  The US has military advisors in South America, training troops in those countries, to stop drug trade.  It was easy for me to create the Black Jaguar Squadron, hidden deep in the Peruvian jungle, near the sacred temple of Macchu Picchu, to chase down the druggies.  Only, this offshoot series is an all woman Apache combat helicopter squadron that daily challenges drug runners and turning them back from the border so the drugs can't get out of the country. 

To my knowledge, there is no all-women squadron, but the idea has roots in reality, not fiction.

Livia:  There is no question that women in the military have made great strides toward gaining recognition and respect.  In the early 1990's you wrote a book called POINT OF DEPARTURE (SSE #853), which deals with sexual harassment in the Navy.  If you had an opportunity to rewrite this book now, would the characters and the outcome change much?

Lindsay:  Although gender prejudice is being turned down in volume in the military, I can guarantee you that prejudice against women is alive and well--still--in the military.  I wouldn't rewrite much of POINT OF DEPARTURE.  A lot of the prejudice has gone underground--but it's still there.  For example, a woman passed all of the Ranger training in the USA--but she was not allowed to graduate--because she was female.  There are no pilots in the US Army Apache combat helicopter program.  Why not?  Prejudice is there, unfortunately, it is just dressed up more prettily and practiced more quietly in the background, is all.  Tailhook really blew the lid off what was going on.  The scandal taught the male military to suppress their prejudice, cloak it, and be "pc" to the media and civilians, but it still goes on and is practiced today.

Livia:  You recently exploded on to the Ebook scene with VALKYRIE, which in my opinion was an excellent book but just a little bit "grittier" than your series/single title books.  Do you find that writing Ebooks gives you an opportunity to let your creative juices flow more freely?

Lindsay:  VALKYRIE is how I would LIKE to write all the time, but unfortunately, publishers don't think my readers have the stomach for my gritty, reality based books.  They are wrong, in my opinion.  Readers have written long, emotional letters after reading VALKYRIE and asking why I don't write like that all the time.  I wish I could.  I'm a reality- based writer.  So, I write with one hand behind my back.  Ebooks gave me the opportunity to write how I wanted and I'm grateful.  Every writer needs to "stretch" and "grow", and Ebooks has given me that ability.  I wish they were more popular, however.  It was a wonderful exercise, and very gratifying to me, when Romantic Times Magazine made it E-Book Of The Year in 2000.  That was icing on the cake and I was thrilled about it.  As far as I'm concerned, VALKYRIE is the best book I have ever written.

Livia: You've written non-military romances and historicals, but of the military/non-military books, which are the most challenging to write?

Lindsay:  I love to write both.  A writer needs to stretch and change and grow, and by writing military and non-military (plus historicals), keeps me 'fresh' and eager to sit down and pen the next book.  Each has its own, unique challenge.  For example, if I write a historical, I do an awful lot of research before I start, not to mention, traveling to the area I’m going to write about, and reading a ton of books on the subject.

If it is a military book, I have to do an equal amount of foot work and investigation.  For example, I went down to Boeing Apache Works in Mesa, Arizona for a day and interviewed two pilots, sat in the Apache helicopter and had a test pilot run through the various things this machine can do.  I truly enjoy learning something new, and making new friends along the way.

Livia:  Your email ID refers to a "Doc Bones".  I know why because of another website I've visited that is yours, but for readers that have no idea what I'm talking about will you share the meaning of "Doc Bones" and your other very important occupation?

Lindsay: Doc bones is 19th century slang for a physician.  Back in those days they were called Doc Bones.  And in Star Trek (yes, I'm a trekkie), you had "Doc Bones" as the medical doctor about the Enterprise.  The choosing of this name goes deeper than that, however.  My father's Eastern Cherokee heritage is through the Wolf Clan, and so, I am a member as well.  Wolves crunch bones.  There is a wonderful book by Dr. Pinkola-Estes on Women Who Run With the Wolves (I highly recommend every woman read it), and in there, she has a story about a Bone woman.  The story epitomizes why I chose "doc bones" as my email handle.  It is about getting down to the essence (the bones) of a situation, whether it be a book, trying to understand a person, or situation.  Bones symbolize essence and core or roots for me.  What are your bones?  Your heritage?  Your family dynamic?  The old slang, 'dem bones' hold a lot more heft to them than most people realize.  In my life, I'm always getting down to the 'bones' of a situation--whether it is writing a book (because I have to know my characters and their motivations), working as a homeopath (to see the other person's core to understand their symptoms, and find the correct remedy for them), or working with my flowers and understanding their core or essence, also.  By understanding a plant, I can then know whom it would help, healthwise.

Livia:  In addition to HER HEALING TOUCH, released February 2003 (SSE# 1519) and AN HONORABLE WOMAN released this month, what else can readers expect from Lindsay McKenna in 2003?

Lindsay:  Silhouette will reprint MORGAN'S MERCENARIES: LOVE AND DANGER this year, but I don't know when, as yet.  In October, the second military anthology will come out.  The first, HEART'S COMMAND, was a huge success, and I'm back for the second one with Merline Lovelace and Candace Irvin.

Livia:.  Lindsay, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to visit with us.

Lindsay:  Thanks for the opportunity.

(Click here for a review of AN HONORABLE WOMAN)

(Click here for a review of HER HEALING TOUCH)

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