David Tindell was born in Germany and grew up in southwest Wisconsin. Together with his wife Sue, he’s traveled the world, seeking new locales for his novels. He trains in the martial arts, dabbles in radio and joins Sue in the never-ending search for the perfect chai tea latte.
His latest book is The Dance We Shared (Book 3 in Men of Honor). Other books include The Heights of Valor (Book 1 in Men of Honor) and The Man In the Arena (Book 2 in Men of Honor.
Visit his website at www.davidtindellauthor.com.
Connect with him on social media at:
╰┈➤ X: www.x.com/davidtindell1
╰┈➤ Facebook: www.facebook.com/DavidTindellAuthor
╰┈➤ Instagram: www.instagram.com/djtindellauthor
Why did you decide to write The Dance We Shared? Did the inspiration come at a particular moment or had you been planning to write the book for a while?
My wife and I were watching a documentary about Garth Brooks, and he discussed “The Dance,” one of his biggest hits. It came out around the time Sue and I started dating, when I was working as a radio announcer. It’s about a man recalling the lost love of his life, and at one time it looked like Sue and I might not make it. One morning I played the song and it really hit me. Fortunately, we made it; we’ll be married 31 years this fall. But when we watched the show, the song hit me again. I thought, “What if we hadn’t made it? What would I have done?” That started the idea for the novel, and within a few days I had a rough outline sketched out.
From the time you started writing The Dance We Shared, how long did it take to get it out there? Any obstacles along the way or none that you can think of?
It took about two years. I was finishing another book at the time the idea for The Dance came to me, which is pretty common. I’m generally working on three projects at once: promoting my existing books, writing the next one and planning the one after that.
What are some of the positive results or responses you have received since publishing your book?
I was a little concerned at first, because I’ve been writing action/adventure novels and this is my first foray into “romantic suspense,” as it’s called, but my readers have responded quite positively. I focused on character development a bit more in this one, since there wouldn’t be as much action to carry the story. Some of my male readers have confided in me that it hit home for them, because there’s hardly a guy out there who hasn’t been through something like this.
Men are supposed to handle these things a lot more easily than women. “Water off a duck’s back, take your lumps and move on.” But in my experience, and talking to other men, we usually have a very tough time of it. Culturally, we’re supposed to just tough it out, and unfortunately that’s evolved into the impression that men just shake it off and move on to the next woman. In reality, a man who’s really in love with a woman is going to take it very hard if it doesn’t work out. It won’t be that easy to move on, but we have to.
List three interesting facts about your book.
The setting: Wisconsin (the city of La Crosse, on the Mississippi River; Birchwood, a village in the northwest) and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
The second chance: Ben discovers that he might possibly have what he’s wanted for the last twenty years, which is a chance to make things right with Ronnie, but nobody’s seen or heard from her in five years. The only link he has is a telephone number. What are the odds that it’s even still active? But it’s his last shot, so he goes for it.
The stakes: There’s more going on than just a man’s search for a woman. It’s about the woman’s search for a life free of the danger that loomed over her marriage. She thinks she may have found that freedom, even if it comes at a rather severe strings price, and then Ben shows up out of the blue. It’s thrilling for her, but also alarming, because Ben’s not the only person who wants to find her.
List three interesting facts about yourself.
I was born in Germany, where my father was serving in the US Army, but we came home to Wisconsin when I was just three months old. None of us ever got back to Germany for fifty years, until Sue and I took my parents on a cruise of the Rhine. The German connection goes back further; two of my great-grandfathers emigrated from Germany, one of them to avoid service in the kaiser’s army. My family on my father’s side goes back to the River Tyne in northern England; one of my ancestors is William Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English.
Growing up in a small Mississippi River town in southwest Wisconsin, the idea of traveling the world was far beyond our experience. But I was smart enough to marry Sue, an award-winning travel agent and businesswoman, and with her I’ve been to nearly 40 countries on five continents. We’ll add a sixth when we visit Antarctica about a year from now. We do a little more than just the typical tourist’s itinerary: we’ve hiked the Andes in Peru to Machu Picchu, ridden horses in Tibet, and climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, to name a few.
I’ve trained for some 25 years in the martial arts, and I hold chodan (1st-degre) black belt rank in two disciplines, taekwondo and Ryukyu kobojutsu, which is the study of Okinawan weaponry. Sue also holds chodan rank in that discipline. I’ve also studied Russian Systema. People often ask me, “Have you ever had to use your training?” I tell them about the Five Tenets of Taekwondo: courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control and indomitable spirit. So yes, I use my training every day.
How can our readers reach out to you?
They can reach me via my social media pages on Facebook, X and Instagram, and also through my website: www.davidtindellauthor.com.
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