TA Ridgell, Author of Romantic Suspense

Biography

Write what you know. I heard that from the start. However the start for me wasn’t when I was a youngster, or even a teenager. No the writing bug bit me at much more mature age allowing a lot more time and experiences to be the background of my books. That’s why my first manuscript was about an arm’s smuggler in Brazil. Don’t think so. And just because you might wonder, no that manuscript has not been published.

Somehow the advice didn’t sink in even though my early years weren’t the all American norm. After being born in St. Cloud, FL years before Disney World came in built a dynasty among the swampland of my birth, I was carted off to Lago di Como, Italy at the ripe age of 6. My father, an award-winning offshore powerboat racer, became head of the European powerboat racing team. I spent my grammar school years traveling by train to Milano to attend an English-speaking school and my summers traveling with the family to surrounding countries to play in the pits of the boat races. Have I written a manuscript with any of these components? My best reply, not yet.

My second manuscript was about a geologist. Finally I took a bit of the advice as I graduated from Millersville University with a BSE in Earth Science. Like many other parts of my life I achieved my degree quite circuitously. From Europe my family headed to Tennessee. Falling in love with the state, I dutifully headed to the University of Tennessee proud to be a part of its rich heritage. I didn’t exactly join the academic heritage, but football fever struck deep and I am a Vol fan for life. For three seasons, I never missed a home game, and still express my volunteer pride with numerous orange wearable items and a singing, mechanical blue tick hound dog, Smokey.

The next time I stepped back onto the luscious landscape of a college campus I was newly married. My husband had just left the Navy as submarine officer and was in that elusive search for the perfect job. General Electric decided he would be a good candidate and sent him to Fulton, MO for training. The nearest college? The University of Missouri. I spent one semester there and that would start a trend that would continue through a Community College in Monroe, MI, the University of Toledo, Penn State and finally ending at the University of Millersville. Which is where we started before I went off on my schooling tangent.

The resulting degree created the eventual manuscript, which ended up being the third book published, FRACTURED SOULS. That’s right the third book sold was not in the same order that I wrote them. Let’s fast forward a bit through my Maryland teaching career, which lasted long enough for me to complete a MS in Environmental Biology at yet another educational institution, Hood College. My father didn’t live to see my second graduation, but my Mom showed immense pride enough for two people as I walked across the stage.

My father’s passing sent me in a whirlwind of life readjustment. Making a change, I dove headfirst into the world of finance and worked very quickly up to the position of Regional Vice President. Becoming a securities broker and overseeing numerous offices in the Washington D.C. provided the background I would eventually use in my first novel, WHEN OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS. This was the fifth manuscript I wrote, but the first one where I actually took the advice and wrote what I knew. Or at least an entertaining, overblown, exciting version of what I knew.

Getting the call that a publisher wanted my manuscript was thrilling, exhilarating and any other ‘ing synonym you can think of. And knowing I enjoyed that call so much, you think I would tattoo the advice, write what you know, on my forehead so that I would forever see it and heed this priceless guidance. But life doesn’t work that way.

The minute my editor finished WHEN OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS, she wanted Python’s story. My first interview and reviewer wanted Python’s story. Python was a secondary character that developed as the story unfolded, a loveable mountain of a man with a baldhead full of tattoos. Countless readers started asking for his story. How was I going to write a romantic suspense about him?

OPERATION: STILETTO is the result of not listening and diving into a world I know nothing about. Pro wrestling. The story skims into the actual bouts with brief entertaining details and more on the FBI infiltration and resulting murders. Of course I don’t have actual experience of that either so the write what you know concept only goes so far.

I readjusted my life again when I left the finance world and we moved to Florida. I had the most wonderful opportunity to spend time with my 100 year old grandmother in the last year of her life as well as with my mother while our house was being built.

I’ve learned not to take for granted the good things in life. In 2003 when my first book was published the high of that success was humbled by the losses. My father-in-law, grandmother and sister-in-law all lost their lives, February, June, and December, respectively. Life is unpredictable and always remembering to not take anything for granted a very important lesson. One I need to remind myself occasionally.

My life in a nutshell. Of course I left out things like ‘gator pickin’ a favorite pastime of my family during our time in St. Cloud, the moving stop signs of Lancaster, PA when my husband and I lived there, my love of cows and how that came to be and the real story of how I met my editor. A little mystery is always good and besides it leaves something for me to write about later.

For now, I’ll end with a short list of some of my favorites:

Favorite color: Brown with Green coming in a close second

Favorite action movie: The Mummy with any of the Pirates of the Caribbean or Bourne movies ranking up there too.

Favorite ice cream: Rocky Road

Favorite soda: Coke Classic

Favorite snack: M&Ms mixed with peanuts. Not M&M peanut, I do the mixing thereby adjusting the chocolate to nut ratio depending on my mood.

Favorite food: Pizza - any kind, almost any way

Favorite pastime: Golf

Book List

FRACTURED SOULS - 159080-471-6

OPERATION: STILETTO - 159080-2934

WHEN OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS - 159080-3922