Natalie R. Collins, author of Wives and Sisters, stops by today with her literary soundtrack:

1) The soundtrack to your latest book (what did you listen to while you were writing it?)
Paula Cole, This Fire. She’s one of my faves.

2) one song title (from any album) that would make a great book title (either for the book your touring, or just for some future book you’ve yet to think up)
Crucify, by Tori Amos. Her album, Little Earthquake, was the music I listened to while writing WIVES AND SISTERS. For my next book, SAINTS AND SINNERS, I am listening to a lot of Evanescence.

About the book:
“A white-knuckles ride all the way. Expert depiction of a young woman’s struggle with the oppressive ‘family values’ of one kind of fundamentalism. Newcomer Collins is a talent to watch.”—Kirkus Reviews

Set in the closed world of the Mormon Church, Wives and Sisters is the gripping story of a young woman on the run from evil, powerful men. Receiving phenomenal media coverage and reviews, Collins’s WIVES AND SISTERS portrays a world eerily similar to that of killer Mark Hacking, who killed his pregnant wife Lori. The parallels between the deception Mark Hacking built around his education and the lies perpetrated by the character Mark in WIVES AND SISTERS are uncanny, right down to the same first name.

WIVES AND SISTERS opens with a look back at the sudden disappearance of Allison Jensen’s best friend, who was kidnapped while playing in the woods near home. One moment her friend was beside her; then she was gone. When no leads emerged, she was given up for dead. Now, years later, trying to fill in the gaps of a patchwork memory, Allison still gets no answers from the Mormon community in which she lives. She is stuck in a world where she does not fit with a father who tyrannizes and torments heras the self-appointed messenger of God. Why is she being fed half-truths? When a brutal attack makes her desperate to escape Mormon bonds, Allison finds herself on a collision course with community leaders as they cover up the steps of a sexual predator.

Like Mark Hacking, Collins’ character Mark Peterson is trying to live a life of impeccable standards, dictated by Mormon tenets, and when he fails, the consequences are deadly, as he will do almost anything to protect his standing in the community of Saints. Allison is determined to bring Mark and those who didn’t stop him to justice, before they stop her from piecing together the tragic past that has haunted her for so many years.

As a former member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and lifelong resident of Utah, Natalie R. Collins brings authentic color and voice to Allison. In her extensive research of the history and teachings of Mormonism, she has discovered that it is a very large organization with a violent and colorful past. WIVES AND SISTERS is a story familiar to many young men and women raised inside the strictures of fundamental religions. Many times there is a “protect the Church at all costs” mentality among Church leaders, which leads to a sheltering system that enables offenders to abuse their victims over and over again without consequence. Heartbreaking and thrilling, WIVES AND SISTERS will keep readers firmly on the edge of their seat.

Visit Natalie’s blog, Trapped by the Mormons. Go here to enter Natalie’s Wives & Sisters sighting contest. The winner will receive a basket of signed books by a variety of authors.