Yesterday is Never Gone by Ilona Sally

Title: Yesterday is Never Gone

Author: Ilona Sally

Publisher: iUniverse

Genre: Thriller/Crime

Format: Ebook

Niki is no stranger to horrific personal challenges. As a child, she bravely endured abandonment by her father. While in her teens, she witnessed her mother’s murder and the abduction and presumed death of her only sibling. Although her secrets have always been carefully cloaked from others, they have shaped her personality more than she would like to admit. But with a past as terrible as hers, how can Niki ever hope for a bright future? Years later, Niki is a dedicated profiler in a criminal investigation agency with no idea her life is about to change exponentially. One day, through a quirky twist of fate, she receives startling news that her sister, Inge, is alive. As a driving force compels Niki to search for her, she embarks on a quest that takes her through cities and wilderness on two continents. She encounters difficult decisions, threatening mobsters, near-death experiences, and romance, yet nothing deters her from reaching her goal—not even a gruesome discovery about her father. But Niki is about to discover that things are never what they seem to be. In this thrilling tale, deception and inner turmoil hamper a young woman’s journey toward a new reality as she attempts to reconcile her past and find the truth.

Ilona Salley emigrated from Germany to Toronto, Canada, with her family when she was three. Throughout her life, her interests have included squash, skiing, wood carving, literature, art, and languages. Her fascination with architecture and archaeology has led her to travel in search of ancient places and artifacts. After a long career as an educator, she expanded her horizons by teaching in England and China. Now, she spends part of each year in Fort Myers, Florida.

Interview with Ilona Sally

Question1- What is your favorite quality about yourself? My favorite quality is my versatility. This allows for something new to emerge and take root. It opens my eyes to so many possibilities.

Question2-  What is your least favorite quality about yourself? My least favorite quality is my reluctance to speak in large gatherings. I am always worried that I will forget what I want to say. Now, I no longer stress myself out, and have a paper in my hand to read when I get lost.

Question3- When did you first know you could be a writer? I have always known I could be a writer. Even as a very young child, I used to sit and make up silly poems. In high school, English teachers would often choose to read aloud something I had written. Then I thought about journalism briefly but realized that I was not aggressive like the people you see on TV pushing microphones into other people’s faces. Once, as a teacher of 13-year-olds, I was asked to help out. An important person had travelled to our school from across the ocean. He did not know any English and was about to address the audience most of whom spoke his language. A thirteen-year-old translated his speech, but when it was brought to me by an organizing teacher to fix, I could not decipher what was actually being said. Translation is difficult. I had perhaps a half hour. I picked out the images, key words, and what might be the focus for this audience. I had no real idea what was in the speech, but wrote a glorious English version. Afterwards, the speaker’s friend who had read the English version came up to me and thanked me for my efforts and for the wonderful translation.

Question4- Who or what influenced your writing over the years? Before I decided to write a thriller, I was watching a lot of crime stories and thrillers on TV. Criminal Minds and CSI were two of the big ones. And I was reading in this genre too, to analyze plot, and pick up ideas. First, I was into Kathy Reichs and Patricia Cornwall, then a lot of David Baldacci and John Grisham. My challenge in the book was the style, so I took an online writing course with a mentor. This helped a lot, as did working with the editor.

Question5- How did you come up with the title of the book? My husband sings and plays guitar as a hobby. I kept hearing the same line over and over. “Yesterday is dead and gone”. As my book progressed, I realized that the title, “Yesterday Is Never Gone” was a good fit. It also applies to my life in so many ways.

Question6- What was the hardest part of writing your book? I have to chuckle at this. My greatest challenge was and still is the computer. So much time was wasted trying to fix things that went wrong. I was completely new to Word and every new step was a challenge. Sometimes, I would suddenly have only half a page vertically, or I would have dashed lines in the middle of a page, or I would have two paragraphs on one page, a huge blank area, then the rest on the next page. I spent hours on this sort of thing and finally would have to call in my husband for help. Chuckle I say, because just yesterday, after I had finished 14 KB of work, I lost the whole thing. It was entirely my fault because I had unplugged the thumb drive to plug in the printer. I was saving to the computer, but with one wrong stroke, everything disappeared. An hour and a half of trying to retrieve it did not end in success. So, now I am doing it again.