By way of introduction, Ms. Smith has agreed to a short interview, then we’ll dive into her post-apocalyptic science fiction with If Darkness Takes Us. Very intriguing title!

So, stay tuned. The author will be awarding a $50 Amazon or B/N Gift Card via Rafflecoptor (random drawing) during the tour.

What is your greatest temptation:

In food:  Barbecue pork ribs. So bad for me, but so delicious. Luckily, I don’t have access to them very often.

          In clothes: Flamboyant blouses with artistic designs.

What is your greatest weakness (example: buying shoes)?

Buying gifts for my family and friends, especially for Christmas, and almost any cocktail with tequila in it.

If you could have any kind of car, what would it be?

An electric blue Tesla Model Y – a bit sporty but also practical, and it would make me happy to create less pollution in the world.

Your dream home – mountains or ocean?

If I have to pick one of the two, it would be the ocean. But I’m a fan of low, rolling hills, and even the plains with their spectacular skies.

What inspired you to become a writer?

          I’m not actually sure what inspired me, but I have wanted to be a writer ever since I wrote my first story as a six-year-old. Something just burns inside me so that I have to tell stories, and it’s most fulfilling if they are stories that I’ve invented myself.

Do you have a daily writing routine?  If so, please share.

          I don’t actually sit down to put words on paper every day—I work part-time doing accounting and income taxes, and it also takes a lot of time to market books. But I do think about my stories pretty much constantly, and for me, thinking is the most important part of writing. On the days that I do write, I usually start around noon and write until 6:30, when I stop to eat dinner and spend time with my husband. He goes to bed early because he has to get up at 4:00 a.m., so I often write more after he goes to bed. I have to stop a few hours before bedtime, or I will never get to sleep.

What is your favorite book?

          To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is my favorite, but there are so many other excellent books that I love: Cider House Rules, by John Irving; A Constant Gardener, by John LeCarré; Beloved, by Toni Morrison, and dozens more.

What is your favorite movie?

          Cold Mountain, based on the book by Charles Frazier, is very high on the list, but also: The Sixth Sense, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, On the Beach (the Gregory Peck version), Mystic River, and dozens of apocalyptic movies, the best of which by far is The Road, based on the Cormac McCarthy novel.

Who is your favorite historical figure?

          Mahatma Gandhi, for his courage and his love of justice and for coming up with a nonviolent means of accomplishing his peace and justice goals.

If you were given the opportunity to spend a day with any person, living or dead, who would it be?

          My parents, who passed on in 2001. I have so much I want to ask them.

Who is your favorite heroine and please introduce her?

In If Darkness Takes Us, my favorite heroine is the protagonist, Bea Crenshaw. She’s almost seventy and has been worried about environmental collapse. When she inherited two million dollars, she hid it from her family and bought the house behind hers, which she filled with food, seed, water, and survival gear. A solar pulse destroys modern life while she’s alone with her four grandkids, and their parents don’t return home. Bea has to teach the kids to survive without power, phones, cars, or running water. She’s whip-smart, funny, and too controlling, but she is fierce about protecting her grandchildren and teaching them to live with love and grace in an altered world. I could only hope that I would be half as heroic if I were to find myself in Bea’s situation.

In your books, who is your favorite hero and please introduce him?

In If the Light Escapes, the protagonist hero is Keno Simms, Bea’s 18-year-old grandson. He’s a young man who loves his grandmother and the rest of his family mightily and will do what has to be done to protect them. He wears his heart on his sleeve and is under immense pressure to become a man in the face of an apocalypse with all its dangers. He lifts me up with his heroism, and he makes me ache for him.

Would you date your favorite hero/heroine?

No, dating Bea would be too much like dating myself. And Keno is fifty years younger than I am. He’s like a grandson to me, so no. Now, if I were a teenage girl who didn’t create Keno as a character, then absolutely. And there is an old man in both books that I would date, Jack Jeffers, who is based on my stellar husband. Also, in my first novel, Something Radiates, a paranormal thriller, I would totally date the hunky carpenter, Johnny Trahan. He is based on a younger version of my husband.

New releases anytime soon?

If the Light Escapes is a standalone sequel to If Darkness Takes Us, and will be published by SFK Press on August 24, 2021. It will go up for pre-order on Amazon by early August.

Thank you for hosting me and my books on your blog. It’s much appreciated. – **You are most welcome, and best wishes with your new novel!!**

GENRE:   post-apocalyptic science-fiction

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BLURB:

In suburban Austin, Texas, Bea Crenshaw secretly prepares for apocalypse, but when a solar pulse destroys modern life, she’s left alone with four grandkids whose parents don’t return home. She must teach these kids to survive without power, cars, phones, running water, or doctors in a world fraught with increasing danger. And deciding whether or not to share food with her starving neighbors puts her morality to the test.

If Darkness Takes Us is realistic post-apocalyptic science-fiction that focuses on a family in peril, led by a no-nonsense grandmother who is at once funny, controlling, and heroic in her struggle to hold her family together with civility and heart.

The book is available now. It’s sequel, If the Light Escapes, is told in the voice of Bea’s eighteen-year-old grandson, Keno Simms, and will be released by SFK Press on August 24, 2021.


“Bea Crenshaw is one of the most unique characters in modern literature—a kick-ass Grandma who is at once tough and vulnerable, and well-prepared to shepherd her extended family through an EMP disaster, or so she thinks.”

—Laura Creedle, Award-winning Author of The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily


“There is real, identifiable humanity, subtle and sweet and sad, and events utterly shattering in their intensity.”

—Pinckney Benedict, Author of Dogs of God, Miracle Boy, and more

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EXCERPT:

No matter how desperately a mother loves you, she can only put up with so much. And so, the day came when Mother Nature lashed out against us.

I understood where Nature was coming from. My family never listened to me either, which is why I didn’t tell them about the guns I’d bought.

The whole thing started with the train wreck.

On a Friday in early October, the young adults in my family went to the Oklahoma-Texas game up in Dallas—a big football rivalry around here. They dragged my husband, Hank the Crank, along with them, leaving me in South Austin with my grandchildren.

At the time, I was glad to see Hank go. He’d been making me crazy since he retired: hovering like a gnat; micromanaging my coffee-making; griping at me for reading instead of waiting attentively for him to spout something terse. Lord, I needed a break from that man. The three-day trip to Dallas seemed perfect.

I wasn’t a built-in-babysitter type of grandma, and I only saw my four grandkids together as a group on birthdays and holidays. For weeks I’d been excited about spending a long weekend alone with them.

A cruel trick sometimes, getting what you ask for.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Brenda Marie Smith lived off the grid for many years in a farming collective where her sons were delivered by midwives. She’s been a community activist, managed student housing co-ops, produced concerts to raise money for causes, done massive quantities of bookkeeping, and raised a small herd of teenage boys.

Brenda is attracted to stories where everyday characters transcend their own limitations to find their inner heroism. She and her husband reside in a grid-connected, solar-powered home in South Austin, Texas. They have more grown kids and grandkids than they can count.

Her first novel, Something Radiates, is a paranormal romantic thriller; If Darkness Takes Us and its sequel, If the Light Escapes, are post-apocalyptic science fiction.

Social Media:

Website: https://brendamariesmith.com/

Twitter: @bsmithnovelist

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrendaMarieSmithAuthor

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brenda_marie_smith/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJlLSnORIyoaygvZ1j49ZKw

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52206957-if-darkness-takes-us

Buy links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Takes-Brenda-Marie-Smith-ebook/dp/B07WK9BQHN/

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/if-darkness-takes-us-brenda-marie-smith/1133374442?ean=9781970137835

BookPeople Austin: https://www.bookpeople.com/book/9781970137835

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE:

Brenda Marie Smithwill be awarding a $50 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js

For more opportunities to read excerpts of If Darkness Takes Us and more chances to win, follow the author on tour at:

https://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2021/05/vbt-if-darkness-takes-us-by-brenda.html