I talked to Terreece M Clarke at the Ohioana Book Festival.

Tell me about your book or books.

The first book in the series is, “Heartbeat: A Courageous Love Novel. It is a romantic suspense novel about Maya who is an architect on the run who has just taken a no men vowel and Mike, who is a lonesome detective moving back to his home town to help the home town heal. Neither one of them are in a place for a relationship and are not looking; but, of course they find each other in the end.

Sidebar: It looks like you have more than one book.

The second book is “Love Never.” It is a novella based on Maya’s parents. The third book in the series, “Chaser” will be coming out May 11.

Brag on yourself, I see something that says Amazon best seller.

“Heartbeat” is an international best seller in two categories; black romance and thriller and mystery. You have love and heat. I won’t give it away; but, somebody dies.

Did you always know you were going to write at least one book?

I did not start out to do all of this. My background is in journalism. I worked as a freelance journalist for a long time. I did digital marketing for a long time. I am an avid romance reader. One night two characters, the ones from my first book, showed up and would not leave me alone. The more they talked and got on my nerves, the more I decided to write the scenes to get the voices out of my head. One notebook turned into six and the series was born.

Is there anything that I didn’t ask you that you think I should have asked you? If so, go ahead and answer that question.

Probably the most obvious question is, “why should anybody read my book?” This book is not just a romantic suspense. It’s got fun. It is putting black women in a positive light where they are in a romantic relationship that is safe. It helps her feel safe in not only discovering who she is; but, also what it is to be like that with another person. It is an awesome book. It will make you angry, and laugh. You are probably going to DM (direct message) at 2:00 am, asking “why would you do that?” But, you are going to love it.