Author Interview w/ Robert Shields

Today I have the wonderful Robert Shields with us. He is the author of Diminishing Paige. Robert Shields is a bestselling author and has been a syndicated sports writer for over fifteen years. Diminishing Paige is his latest novel. He also authored “Daphne and the Mysterious Girls Secret Bathroom Society” that will be a fictional series. He has authored other books including “The Three Skirts,” “The Economics of Sex”, “Confessions of the Self Absorbed Observer: What I Saw Today” and “Scarlet Fever: A Razorback House Divided”. Shields is also an expert witness as an economist in the utility industry. He has testified in a multitude of dockets and other legal proceedings. He graduated at the top of his economics class at the University of Arkansas and won the award as the “Most Outstanding Student in Economics.” He lives in Arkansas with his wife and children.

1.) Please tell us in one sentence only, why we should read your book?

 Because we have all been in love with a person that we thought was greater than us, but in the end you find out their only human.

2.) Who are our favorite authors?
 As a child I loved S.E. Hinton and all her books being the Outsiders, That was then this is now, Rumble Fish, Tex etc... I did not realize until later that the “S” stood for Sue and the “E” for Eloise. If I had known the author was a woman from the beginning, I may have never read the books. I do believe although it is contrary that women can write great men characters and men can write great women characters.

3.)What inspired you to become a writer?

 I started writing at an early age. I give the credit to my seventh grade teacher, Mrs. Gowen, because she made us write all the time. The first thing that I ever wrote was a fan fiction piece on Star Wars where the rebels actually stop the Empire from boarding their ship in the opening scene and they kill Darth Vader. I also started my own sports newspaper that had a whopping circulation of one when I was ten. I have since been writing a weekly syndicated sports column in Arkansas for over fifteen years on the side.

A fool knows the price of everything and the value of nothing is the romantic theme between Paige Wheeler and Storm Lancaster. The intelligent high school expellees serendipitously meet at a garage sale and end up approaching sex in an awkward text book fashion. They start viewing the relationship through the lens of economics as if sex was a commodity.

As they grow closer together, Paige’s promiscuous past comes to light that haunts her, which leads to complications in their relationship. Storm’s ineptness in handling the pressures of a relationship from previously attending an all-boys school causes problems while Paige finds some amusement in his immaturity. Her sterilized view of sex creates consternation for Storm over their rapport.

At their new school, they make a mutual friend in Jamal. The trio engages in pranks as their friendship with him develops. Storm’s proclivity as an adolescent male leads to poor decisions with Paige as Jamal, often the voice of reason and conscience is ignored to the detriment of the couple.

Emotions spin out of control after a frolicking camping trip with Paige’s old high-school buddies and the sexual economics experiment explodes.

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | iBookstore