Sherry Knowlton's passes the "Alexa test" with spirit bears & rogue hippos

HALLIE EPHRON: Sherry Knowlton writes a classic thriller heroine, Alexa Williams, who pushes boundaries and thrives on danger, all the while remaining utterly human. The Midwest Book Review praised her newest book, DEAD OF WINTER, for its "beautiful prose" and "intriguing, suspenseful story which grabs the attention of the reader from the very first page."

For Sherry, that old saw, "write what you know," clearly doesn't apply. And yet...

SHERRY KNOWLTON: The heroine in my Alexa Williams suspense series is a young attorney who keeps finding dead bodies and dangerous situations. In the newest book, Dead of Winter, Alexa becomes the target of an angry mob, has to fight for her life using hand-to-hand combat, and confronts terrorists.

She’s certainly not an invincible superhero type. Quite the opposite; Alexa often second-guesses her own capabilities. She’s a bit of a crusader who has a dogged determination to do what’s right.  The downside is that sometimes she gets carried away and that gets her into trouble. At her core, Alexa is a very brave woman.

As I was editing Dead of Winter, I thought about the challenges I have this fictional heroine face in book after book and wondered: how would I react if I encountered one of the hurdles I throw at Alexa? The closest I’ve come to a test of courage in real life is in encounters with wild animals.

This past autumn, my husband and I took a small boat adventure to see Spirit Bears. These beautiful white bears are found on three islands off the coast of British Columbia.  We spent a day on one of the islands, hoping to catch a glimpse of a Spirit Bear. I assumed we’d observe the bears from a viewing platform.  Not quite.

I was perched on a fallen tree in a creek bed when the Spirit Bear came meandering down the stream.  Our guides had told us to sit still and not panic if a bear approached.  Easier said than done when a several hundred-pound bear stops twenty feet away and looks you in the eye. 

So, I sat there in a mixture of awe and terror, snapping photos and hoping she didn’t decide to investigate this woman with the camera.  But, she seemed more interested in fishing for salmon than me. Soon, the bear ambled away, and my heart rate returned to normal.

Did I meet Alexa’s standard of remaining cool in the face of danger?  Maybe. I followed instructions to remain still (meaning I didn’t jump up and run away screaming). And, being that close to a wild bear, one I traveled hundreds of miles to see, was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The magic of seeing a Spirit Bear in the wild outweighed the fear.  When she left, I had tears in my eyes – not from fright but from wonder.

I was less sanguine in an earlier animal encounter.  My husband, our guide, Josef, and I were cruising by motorboat down a narrow channel in Botswana’s Okavango Delta when a rogue hippo rushed our boat. He swam straight at us, stopping just a few feet away to open his mouth in huge roar.

A note: Rogue hippos are solitary males cast out of the herd.  Living alone makes them ill-tempered and very dangerous.  Hippos kill more people in Africa each year than any other animal. 

When the animal continued to rush us, Josef raced the boat to the shallows, trying to make it harder for the hippo to flip the boat and attack us in the water.  He told my husband and me to get ready to dash to a nearby palm tree and climb it.  The gravity of our situation sank in when I weighed the odds of reaching that tree, chased by an enraged animal with the size and speed of a small car.

Just as we prepared to run, the hippo backed off.  The guide jammed the boat into gear and fled. As we rounded a bend in the channel, the hippo fell back and abandoned the chase.

Did I pass the Alexa test in the hippo encounter? Sort of. I was very scared and aware of my own physical limitations. If we’d been forced to leave the boat and run for that scrawny palm tree, good chance that the hippo would have flattened me. But, I didn’t scream, faint, cry or blubber. Instead, I channeled much of my fear into worry for my husband, who was taking photos each time the hippo leapt at us.

What did I learn from these experiences? Danger can appear in an instant.  There’s nothing to be gained by falling apart. The time to give into the shakes is after the situation has ended. Despite these lessons, I suspect I can still learn a lot more from Alexa.

Readers: Have you ever used information that you’ve read in a book to deal with an unexpected or dangerous situation?  Do you prefer kick-ass heroines?  Or would you rather read about women who show vulnerability?

ABOUT Dead of Winter
A lighthearted trip to test a new drone turns deadly for attorney Alexa Williams
and two close friends when they find a stranger’s bullet-riddled body in a remote field in
rural Pennsylvania. Next to the dead man is a note that declares: Allahu Akbar.

When a second man is executed near Harpers Ferry, Alexa’s old flame, Reese, becomes a suspect, leading her to question just how much he changed while working in Africa. Fear of Islamic terrorism spreads like wildfire through Alexa’s small town after a third murder. When police arrest the oldest son of her Syrian refugee clients, the family becomes the focus of mounting anti-Muslim rage, and a dangerous militia group turns its sights on Alexa.

One dark night in the dead of winter, Alexa discovers who is behind the murders and must race to stop an attack that could kill hundreds. If she fails, she could lose everyone she loves.

ABOUT Sherry KnowltonSherry Knowlton is the author of the Alexa Williams series of suspense novels: Dead of Autumn, Dead of Summer, Dead of Spring and the most recent release, Dead of Winter.  Passionate about books at an early age, she was that kid who would sneak a flashlight to bed at night so she could read beneath the covers. All the local librarians knew her by name. When not writing the next Alexa Williams thriller, Knowlton works on her health care consulting business or travels around the world. She and her husband live in the mountains of South Central Pennsylvania.
www.sherryknowlton.com
@sherry.knowltonbooks (Facebook)
@KnowltonSBooks (Twitter)