Please help me welcome Rosetta Diane Hoessli with an interesting interview and her latest book now available for pre-order, releasing May 6, 2024
Please tell us a little about yourself, where are you from? Where do you live now? Family? Pets?
I’m an Air Force brat, so I’m not really from anywhere – but I claim Texas as my home. I live in San Antonio with Kevin, my high school sweetheart and husband of 50 years. Our daughter, two grandchildren, and one grand-godchild live eight miles away, so I’ve never really experienced the ‘empty nest syndrome’. Kevin and I rescued two big dogs—one is a Shepherd mix and the other is a Lab/Retriever mix—and they’re definitely part of this family.
Where did you get the idea for TIP THE PIANO MAN?
Many years ago, a six-year-old child in our family was sexually abused by her next-door neighbor for two years and I became intimately involved in the battle against child abuse in our city. The idea for TIP THE PIANO MAN came from my work—I saw first-hand what was happening all around this country, and I was determined to write about it. I decided that a mystery/suspense novel would be the best way to convey, in a really good story, the message I wanted to get across.
Why did you choose this genre (is it something you’ve written in before)?
The story as it gradually came to me is perfect for the mystery/suspense genre. I love to read mysteries, both true crime and fiction, so when I began putting what I’d learned over several years down on paper, it came very naturally. My first novel, WHISPERS THROUGH TIME, is a historical, paranormal mystery, so, yes, I’ve written a mystery before. But these two novels are very different from one another.
Was there anything unusual, any anecdote about this book, the characters, title, process, etc., you’d like to share?
I’d like readers to know that the story in TIP THE PIANO MAN is real. The characters are bona fide. The plot is a combination of several true stories. Some people will find it difficult to read, others may be triggered, but I hope everyone recognizes that this is life for a frightening number of children in this country and we need to know about it. Each one of us can—and should—get involved. The title simply came from some very important dialogue.
What is the most difficult thing about writing a book? What was the most difficult thing about this one in particular?
To me, the most difficult thing about writing any book is trying to keep my brain from becoming too cluttered and fragmented, and not allowing myself to become side-tracked by the clutter in my head. (In my house, we call this ‘something shiny’. -😊) But writing TIP THE PIANO MAN was incredibly difficult because I worked on it for many, many years before I finally found the story I wanted. (For example, TTPM has had at least eight drafts and twice as many endings.) I wrote it from the heart, from the inside out, if that makes any sense.
Are there any tricks, habits or superstitions you have when creating a story?
I have to get my house clean before I start a new book, and I talk to myself while I’m cleaning. No music, no company—just me in my head, removing all the clutter from my surroundings. Sometimes Kevin and I drive out to the canyons of west Texas or down to the coast, always using the backroads, and we talk out the book. (We also do that during the course of writing the books if I get stuck.) He’s great at building plots, and I try to create the characters that belong in them. I set written goals for myself, too. But no superstitions.
What book have you read that you wish you had written?
That’s a great question! I think, GREEN DARKNESS, by Anya Seton. It’s fabulously written—history during the time of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth I, a mystery involving reincarnation, an impossible love story filled with passion and unrequited love, murder and suicide—the best book I’ve ever read, and I read it about twenty years ago. Now that I’ve told you about it, I think I’m going to have to read it again.
Do you collect anything?
Kevin and I raised wolf-dogs in our younger years, so anything wolf-related finds a home with us. Also, my house looks like the inside of a tipi—we collect indigenous pottery, jewelry, and artwork. A great deal of my first novel, WHISPERS THROUGH TIME, came as a result of this obsession.
What’s your favorite book of all time and why?
My favorite book of all time has to be EXODUS, by Leon Uris. It changed my life—the way I viewed the underdog, WWII, the right of the Jews to have their own homeland…It’s an awesome book.
What’s your favorite childhood book?
THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD. I first read it when I was about nine years old, and I still rely on its message of optimism in the face of insurmountable adversity. My daughter cut her teeth on my actual book when she was a baby.
What do you want readers to come away with after they read TIP THE PIANO MAN?
I want people to close this book and say, “What can I do? This can’t go on!” I want them to understand that sexually abused children will never get over what’s happened to them; they just get through it. But more than anything else, I want people to say, “Man…what a great story!!”
What do you want your tombstone to say?
She did the best she could with what she had. But my ashes are going to be strewn all over Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas, so I won’t have a tombstone.
What is the toughest criticism given to you as an author?
My first agent was an elderly man who read my first novel—a western historical set in Texas—and he told me I was far too young to try to write something like that. (I was about 30.) He said that I was a diamond in the rough (which I thought was a nice way to smooth over the situation) and I needed to spend the next decade reading. He was right, and that’s what I did.
What has been the best compliment?
The best compliment I ever received was given by my senior accelerated English high school teacher about a book report I wrote for my senior term paper. She was incredibly difficult, and it was for the book EXODUS. It was a 28-page dissection of how the book was written and why it was written that way. She wrote: If this is your work, it is excellent craft. I’ve never been so happy to be accused of plagiarism in my life! I still have that report somewhere.
Are your characters based off real people or did they all come entirely from your imagination?
TIP THE PIANO MAN’s characters are all based on real people or composites of real people. Even the primary setting, Hope’s Home, is based on a lovely Victorian home owned by a woman I worked with who searched for missing and/or abducted children.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
Our children are defenseless; they have no one to advocate for them except us. As JFK asked, “If not us, who? If not now, when?”
How much of the book is realistic?
Every bit of this book is realistic. I haven’t added anything to it, I haven’t sensationalized it—the abuse and trafficking of our children doesn’t need embellishment. It is what it is. The characters are as genuine as I could make them, and since they’re based on real people, I understand their motivations and why they are like they are.
What is your favorite…
Movie: Dances With Wolves
Music: Classic Rock from the ‘60’s and ‘70’s
Place you’ve visited: South Dakota
Place you’d like to visit: Norway
TV show from childhood: Bonanza
TV show from adulthood: Blue Bloods
Food: Italian
Sports team: San Antonio Spurs, back when Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobli, and Tony Parker were playing. When the players started taking a knee, I stopped watching and I haven’t watched since.
Which do you prefer: Board games/card games or television? Card games, specifically, Spades or Poker
When it appears that someone is trafficking abandoned foster children to an anonymous online sex ring, only one person can truly save them: a murdered young mother seeking retribution…and atonement.
Excerpt:
The child’s blood-curdling screams filled the room, pounded in his head, slammed into his chest with such force his entire body shook. As the shrieks of pain and terror dissipated into moans, baby-like whimpers, and finally silence, tears streamed unheeded down his face.
Suddenly the screen went blank and the only sound in the room was Madison’s muffled sobs. But then, just as he reached for the remote to turn off the film, Lacy reappeared on the screen, now seated on the very mattress he’d seen in her bedroom yesterday.
She wore the gaudy silk nightgown he’d noticed draped over her mirror. She looked exhausted and ill, with only the fragile bone structure in her face reminiscent of her once-luminous beauty. She leaned forward, hands clasped in her lap, her purple-shadowed eyes filled with pleading and tears.
“I have to talk fast…I don’t have much time. Luke, if you’re watching this…please take Piper away from here. No one will listen to me…” Her smoke-husky voice cracked. “They’re going to hurt her, and then they’ll kill her…” She leaned even closer to the camera. “You have to remember this: Tip the piano man.”
Buy link(s):
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tip-Piano-Rosetta-Diane-Hoessli-ebook/dp/B0CW19VFR4/
AllAuthor: https://allauthor.com/page/rosettah21/3/
The Wild Rose Press: https://www.thewildrosepress.com
Barnes & Noble Book Store: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tip-the-piano-man-rosetta-diane-hoessli/1144905691?ean=9781509254415
BooksAMillion: https://www.booksamillion.com/p/9781509254415
Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/tip-the-piano-man/id6478547553
About the Author:
Rosetta Diane Hoessli has been a freelance writer since 1985. A winner of national and state-wide writing contests, she has served as senior feature writer, columnist, and executive editor for three (3) regional publications – two in San Antonio and one in Houston, Texas.
Rosetta also collaborated with New York socialite Jeanette Longoria in Longoria’s self-published book entitled Aphrodite and Me: Discovering Sensuality and Romance at Any Age, co-authored biographical novel Falling Through Ice with Carolyn Huebner Rankin, and edited a book of short stories, Working On the Wild Side, compiled and written by Florida Fish and Wildlife officer Jeff Gager.
WHISPERS THROUGH TIME(2021) was Rosetta’s first solo novel. Her book, entitled TIP THE PIANO MAN, is a mystery/suspense novel to be released by The Wild Rose Press on May 6, 2024. She’s currently working on the second book in her WHISPERS THROUGH TIME series, entitled FIRES OVER TEXAS.
Today, Rosetta focuses most of her attention on writing historical fiction and traveling with her husband, Kevin, in their RV. They reside in San Antonio, Texas with their two rescued fur-kids, near their daughter and two grandchildren.
Facebook Author’s Page: https://www.facebook.com/RosettaDianeAuthor
AllAuthor Landing Page: https://allauthor.com/page/rosettah21/3/
Follow me on Twitter (X)! My handle is @DianeThomp3419
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21788498.Rosetta_Diane_Hoessli
Author Alicia Dean 