🏰 AUTHOR INTERVIEW: 'The Twilight Tsunami' Shelby Londyn-Heath

Shelby Londyn-Heath, a transplant from New York, has been a world-traveler, crossing the Sahara Desert on the back of a salt truck, working on banana plantations in Spain, an oil company in New York, and on coffee farms in Hawaii. She has jumped freight trains across the United States, and she was the proud owner of a beachfront bamboo hut on the Canary Islands. She has worked as a counselor, social worker, and teacher.

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About the Book:

Grey is a hard-hitting foster care social worker who removes babies and children from dangerous drugged parents, violent homes, and families joined with criminal gangs.  He

is unstoppable until a
new social worker enters his department.  She is hungry for power and position, as she challenges Grey in malevolent and unexpected ways. As Grey yanks newborns from mothers, confronts irate parents, and lives through suicides of foster children aging out of the system, nothing stops him, until he meets his nemesis, a truly power-hungry woman. He must find her "Achilles Heel" and his inner truth, in order to rise up to conquer her. One of them must be transformed or destroyed.

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As a book bloggin’ and book luvin’ Princess, I’m always curious to find out how authors got the ideas for their books.  How did you come up with the idea for your book?

I counseled children and families in the foster care system. I also raised a child who lost his mother,, and I had friends who were social workers. I knew I had a kaleidoscope vision of the subject people rarely talk about.. I felt a responsibility to create a story from multi-perspectives. I think the greatest messages for society come from stories.

Can you tell us what your book is about?

My book opens with a social worker named Grey removing a baby from its drugged mother. Grey has been in the field for many years, but he starts to experience anxiety and doubts after the baby’s mother has a terrible freak-out. To make matters worse, when he returns to the social services office, there is another social worker plotting to take his seniority away.

You see, social workers want to climb the work ladder. The better the position, the better the pay, and the less field work they have to do. There can be in-house conflicts and personality struggles on the job. The stress of their work is another factor that creates tension for them constantly.

Anyway, this conniving social worker does the most terrible thing to Grey that anyone could do to a person working in social services. She brings him to his knees, literally. Afterwards,  she goes after other social workers and adds to their daily work traumas by trying to control them. It is only when Grey makes a bold move that everyone’s lives change.

Can you tell us a little about the main characters of your book?

Grey:          the dedicated social worker who struggles to keep himself together

Marjorie:    the social worker who wants to get rid of Grey and control the department

Christine:   Christine, Grey’s supervisor, who sees what is going on and tries to save Grey. She ends up having to save herself.

If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would that be?

Write. Take risks. Write more. Take more risks.

What would you say is one of your interesting writing quirks?

Waking up in the night and thinking about my characters as my story builds.

Do you hear from your readers?  What do they say?

A lot of readers say they cannot put my book down once they start reading it. They tell me there is a lot of suspense and action that keeps them reading.

What is the toughest criticism given to you as an author?

The toughest criticism has been from my family. Some of them open my first chapter, shut it, and tell me it’s too heavy to read. That’s a shame because there are fun parts to the book and in the end, everything works out in unique ways.

What has been the best accomplishment?

Finishing this book. I put it away quite a few times.

Do you Google yourself?

All the time.

How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?

Four.

Do you have anything specific that you would like to say to your readers?

Yes. Read my book. You’ll have a wild ride.