About The Author
About Hazel Mattice
I grew up on a farm near Wimbledon, North Dakota when hair was big and shoulder pads were a fashion statement. I milked cows and had no fashion sense or time to fix my hair. What I lacked in style, I made up for in imagination. I spent Saturday morning watching cartoons and fell in love with the neighbor boy. “I will marry him one day,” I decided. (Never actually happened)
Then one fateful day, my dad threw out the TV. I thought I was going to die. For about a week. One night, I woke close to midnight, snuck into my sister’s bedroom, and read my first romance. Again, it was love at first sight. “I will write my own gut-wrenching love stories like this one day,” I sighed. In 2011, I woke from a dream and wrote my first novel The Dark Days, and discovered writing such tales was quite devastating. A scientist I knew read it, was intrigued by the plot (stayed up all night to read it) and encouraged me to get it published. (First published on Kindle in 2014) After that, I was hooked.
I wrote The Chosen Five series based on my life in the ‘80s, Bent Trees from events at a grocery store near me, and Conventional Pursuit was inspired by a close friend with mental health issues and a duck hunter’s group. Many settings in my novels are inspired by people at the dinner table, in restaurants, the gym, and library. I feel deeply, and weave these emotions, good and bad, into each character.
A few of my favorite authors who inspire me are John Saul for his intrigue and character definition, James Patterson and his pace. And Tedd Dekker has redefined the hope and Christian genre. I love Sandra Brown’s dialogue and Denise Hunter’s conflict between characters produces angst inside me every time.