What Scares Aimee Laine?

Let’s jump straight in. What scared you most as a child?

The IDEA of not having my family around me. Seriously. I was a true stay-at-home kinda kid. Hated going over to sleep overs and came home every night by midnight because I just couldn’t be away from my mom and dad. I’d get physically ill if they went on vacation without me. I have no idea how they dealt with me.

We’re still very close even though we’re 2 hours apart.

What scares you most as an adult?

I have an inane and ridiculous fear of asphyxiation if I throw up. I’m sure it’s a phobia in fact. I will do EVERYTHING humanly possible not to get sick and when I do, this fear claws at me. My other one is heights. I get anxiety-like symptoms when I even THINK about standing on top of a building and looking down. I went up the Sears Tower in Chicago years ago and stood on the inside part. Luckily there was so much fog, I couldn’t see anything. Went up the needle in Seattle about 7 years ago — same deal about where I stood, but when my girls ran up to the glass, I panicked and had to strap them in their stroller and roll away. I even get nauseous when looking at pictures people took from those heights, looking down. Yup. I do. And that goes back to my fear #1 and thus it is a cyclical problem.

I had the pleasure of meeting Aimee on-line at a writing and critiquing website called Scribophile. Since then, Aimee’s had wonderful success with a number of published books, most recently Hide & Seek.

You can find out more about Aimee on her blog and website, and also on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

Aimee Laine

About Aimee Laine

Aimee is a romantic at heart and a southern transplant with a bit of the accent (but not a whole bunch). She’s married to her high school sweetheart, and with him, she’s produced three native North Carolinians, two of whom share the same DNA.

With an MBA and a degree in Applied Mathematics, there’s absolutely no reason she should be writing romance novels. Then again, she shouldn’t need a calculator to add two numbers, either … but she does.

 

So, let’s ask Aimee a few more questions. Would you prefer to spend the night in a graveyard or a haunted house? (And yes, you
have to choose one or the other.) Please give reasons.

Graveyard absolutely. At least I won’t be contained by walls. And they aren’t scary at night. They are peaceful at night because the dead are asleep and you can’t tell they are there.

What two objects would you take with you on your spooky sleepover? Please give reasons.

My tennis shoes of course. ‘Cuz I gotta RUN.
My husband (he’s the object of my affection, so I think he counts). And there are oh so many reasons for this answer, but some reasons have to stay secret.

Hide & Seek

Hide & Seek

Lie, cheat or steal, no one can catch Tripp Fox. Except one woman.
Lexi Shepherd’s knack for finding whatever is asked of her isn’t sheer luck. It’s a gift from the Greek god Zeus.
That Lexi doesn’t use her ability to search for “Mr. Right” comes from one of many personal rules she has set for herself. Number one is not to let fate dictate her future.
Falling in love with Tripp breaks all the others.
Despite her principles, Lexi’s unable to stay away from the bad boy, and she finds herself toeing the grey line of the law for him.
Zeus, though, didn’t give Lexi and Tripp their talents to make their relationship a simple, easy alliance. He designed it to be exactly the opposite. Impossible. Always.
With their separation, Lexi expects Tripp to forfeit love in favor of destiny. He, on the other hand, intends to beat Zeus at his own game. With a plan in place, Tripp challenges Lexi to take the one action no one else can.
Find him.
The question isn’t can she … but will she?

Favourite six sentences from the book.

He shushed her with the touch of a finger to her lips. “Do you trust me, Lexi? Will you, just for a moment, or a few days, even a week, set aside the moral compass against which you measure me day in and day out and just trust me?”
She bit at the side of her lip. Can I? Wasn’t that exactly the prob- lem that brought me here?

Buy it now from Amazon.

And for my final question…You’re walking your dog late at night. He slips his collar and runs into the local cemetery. You follow him inside and find him sniffing at a freshly covered grave. Before you’re able to drag him away, a hand thrusts up through the soil and grabs your leg. What do you do?

My heart picks up speed, thrumming in my chest. A scream leaves my lips. I kick at the hand, breaking from its skeletal grasp, the piece of bone and dirt whinging into the air like shrapnel. I race off toward the exit, wondering at the fact I hold a limp leash in my hand. I’m not a dog person. Never have been. Have I crossed into another dimension? Did the dog lead me to the cemetery, to the rotting corpse who’d decided to jump up and grab me? And where did the dog go?
I stop at the exit and turn, wonder playing through my mind as my heart’s beat furiously pumps blood through my core.
If it’s not my dog, because how could it be since I don’t own one, then why had I been walking it and where did it go?
Maybe that hand thing grabbed it, too, and ate it.
Yeah, that’s probably it.
I turn back around to leave.
The dog sits just behind me. Teeth gnashing, growl building in its fleshy jowls.
With one push of its legs, it leaps toward me.
I can’t even cover my face before it digs its paws into my chest, knocking me flat to my back. All air in my lungs is pressed out, leaving my gasping. Claws dig into my upper body, over and over.
Over and over.
Over and over and over and over.
Until the face staring back at me mewls.
I blink, unable to understand. The dog is meowing?
How is this possible?
A strangled garble escapes my throat, dryness caking my tongue.
I’m going to die at the hands of a psychopathic, meowing dog.
The pressure above me remains, sounds of purrs and rumbles growing deeper into me as if sucking me into the ground below.
With a last effort, I reach up and push at the creature. I wobbles, claws raking their way down my front as it rolls off.
A shriek follows.
Along with the buzz of an alarm clock.
I blink open my eyes as morning dawns, only to find a cat laying across my neck and another glaring at my from my side, licking her blood soaked paws.
Both gaze into my eyes as I realize, I’m not being attacked by a dog, but by a cat.
My own.
With a shrill cry, I am pummeled into oblivion.
Should have gotten a dog.

Aimee, thank you so much for providing us with such fun and detailed answers. I’m sure readers will join me in wishing you much success with Hide & Seek and all your future projects.