UFI welcomes Author Marcia Colette. Thanks for Joining us!!
What can you tell my readers about yourself that they might not know from looking on your bio or reading in another interview?
I love amusement parks. I have Hershey Park, King’s Dominion, and Disneyland still on my bucket list. I’m hoping to check off Hershey Park sometime this summer. My all-time favorite is a cross between Busch Gardens (Tampa Bay or Williamsburg makes no difference) and Disney World.
What do you enjoy doing on your down time?
Watching movies. The scarier the better, but they have to make sense. No gore for the sake of gore. Like sex, it has to further the story along or it’s pointless and I’ll start rooting for the bad guy(s). Any movie where they say, “Don’t go into the basement” and the protagonist does it, I’ll be turning the channel or leaving the theater.
What is your Favorite part of writing?
Coming up with the ideas. Fleshing them out is a close second. Notice, I didn’t say “plotting”. Plotting tends to steal the thrill for me. I just want a basic idea or premise, get a good feel for the characters, and then I let the story take off from there.
Do you have any certain routines you must follow as you write?
Not really. I guess you could say that I have my first and only cup of coffee in the morning while I’m writing.
What are some of your Favorite books or Authors in the Urban Fantasy/ Paranormal Genres?
I love Kelley Armstrong and Laurell K. Hamilton (pre-Obsidian Butterfly). I’ve also come to love Richelle Mead and cannot get enough of her. Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, Carrie Vaughn, Seressia Glass, Kalayna Price, Lori Handeland, and Sherrilyn Kenyon. Those are just the ones I could name off the top of my head.
How would you pitch Stricken to someone who has not heard of it before?
A concierge doctor with a small conscience meets a werewolf hybrid who’s trying to run from hers.
Can you tell us a little bit about the world that Stricken is set in?
It’s set in the present day where the supernatural world hides in in plain sight among the humans. Anyone who risks exposure will find a bounty on their head. Alexa York is a human hybrid, and also considered a contamination to the gene pool. So to prove her worth, she joins a bounty hunting group as a sniper whose specialty is the crossbow. She’s also married to a full-blooded werewolf, who is considered an interloper, now that he’s an outcast from him insane pack. So he and Alexa are on the run, dodging one pack after another who have sworn allegiance to her husband’s former pack. Or as Alexa likes to call them, “a cross between Sons of Anarchy and The Hills Have Eyes.”
Do you have a favorite scene in Stricken?
Yes! It’s when Alexa confronts one of the staff members for not calling Dr. Aiden Joss to the plate when his personal problems put the rest of the staff and the patients in danger.
Which one character out of all your books was your favorite to write about? What about the hardest to write about?
Without a doubt, Alexa has been my most favorite. Even though it’s been a few years between the first book and this one, which even resulted in a new publisher, her story has always stuck with me. I love her and the world she’s in. The hardest one to write about was Loreal Ingram in The Spider Inside Her because I had to touch upon some deep stuff that I’ve held close to my heart for years. Things that make me wish I really could shapeshift into a Hyde-like spider and seek revenge for those who can’t.
What Other Projects can we look forward to reading from you?
I’m currently working on the next book in my Alexa York series and another book that’s about her sister, Genevieve. I’m also in the process of rewriting book #2 in my other urban fantasy series about an angel, Yvette Mills, who lives as a human on Earth and is tasked with sending ghosts into Judgment. It’s not an easy job because some of them don’t want to go and will even go so far as to enlist demons and wraiths to help them get rid of her.
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Born and raised in upstate New York, Marcia now lives in North Carolina with her mom and beautiful daughter. They’re not raising zombies in the backyard. There aren’t any hellhounds living in the den, only a rabbit and a cockatiel. So where she gets her ideas is as much a mystery to her as anyone else.
The best place to find her--when she's not stirring up trouble--is on her blog where she loves connecting with readers.
Find Marcia and her books
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StrickenAlexa York #2
Purple Sword
A bodyguard job like no other.Excerpt:
Personal tragedy convinces half-werewolf Alexa York to get away to the town of McCormick, Pennsylvania where she's charged with protecting Dr. Aiden Joss, physician to the supernatural community. Not only does she need the money, she needs the distraction. Unfortunately, she gets it in spades when Joss's personal issues and a myriad of dangerously sick patients make her new job nearly impossible.
A mysterious disease is running its way through the New York Order of the Amazons and leaving bodies in its wake. The same warrior who had chosen her clan over Joss has asked for his help. Even though the disease is real, Alexa has reason to believe his ex's sincerity is not.
Given the other numerous problems she has to deal with that are outside of her job description, Dr. Joss might be the biggest threat to his own safety. But, protecting him comes first. That’s difficult to do when his efforts to find an antidote put everyone in his remote clinic in danger, including Alexa.
Chapter One
Present day.
I stood on the porch of Dr. Aiden Joss’s luxurious home irate as hell. Someone was supposed to meet me at the airport in Philadelphia. I ended up having to take a cab because all of the rentals were booked from the only airport about twenty-five miles from the small town of McCormick, Pennsylvania. The taxi driver must have mistaken me for an oil baron with the fare he charged. He ended up having to leave me at the front gate because the intercom was busted. Thankfully, being a human hybrid had its advantages. After tossing my duffle over the ten-foot wall, I followed by leaping over. Some security.
The downpour turned my black, wavy hair into thick tresses snaking down my neck and upper back. Sadly, my duffle bag was just as pitiful as I looked, since it wasn’t waterproof. I’d exercised more care when picking out my purse and laptop bag.
The front door opened. A tall, bulky man who looked like he missed his calling as an NFL linebacker stood against the golden glow of the interior. His face was criminal-hard, though something in his dark eyes said otherwise. He wore a white shirt and jeans with a brace around his left knee. He blinked.
“Oh, boy.” He hurried to unlock the storm door and let me inside. “You must be Ms. Alexa York.”
I struggled getting past him with my wet duffle, carry-on and my drenched clothes clinging to my cold body. “I am. I take it the phones don’t work around here.”
He took my stuff and set it aside. “The power has been flickering all night. They just got the lights back on about three minutes ago. The phone is Internet, so when the power goes out, everything goes out.”
I unzipped my sodden jacket. “I get it. No phone, no phone calls. Which is why I was stuck at the airport.”
He sighed. “Again, my apologies, ma’am. With so much going on, I only had a chance to worry about one thing at a time.”
I glanced at him before answering. So much going on? The house was quiet and not a soul in sight. What could’ve possibly had him too busy to pick me up when he knew I was coming? Heck, I was here to be his replacement while he was on the mend. If he didn’t want me here, forgetting me at the airport or not sending a car to pick me up worked in his favor.
He offered his hand to me. “My name’s Sammy. I’m Dr. Joss’s med tech and assistant.”
“Med tech?” I looked him up and down. “But I thought you were his—”
He chuckled. “I’m really his assistant. I’m only his bodyguard when I have to be. And given the kind of world that lies beyond those gates, I find myself playing the latter more often.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry if I sounded a little crotchety, but—”
Sammy waved a large hand. “No need to apologize. I’d be a lot more than pissed had I been in your shoes. Speaking of which, let me show you to your room so you can get some dry clothes on.”
Snorting, I glanced at the puddle forming around my duffle. “Dry clothes, huh. That would be nice.”
“No worries, Ms. York. I’ll find you something.”
“It’s Alexa, by the way.” Those close to me called me Lex. We weren’t there yet.
“Alexa, then.”
My room was upstairs on the second floor along with five other bedrooms. Every piece of furniture was stained pine and sitting against light blue walls. Thankfully, I had my own private bathroom. When I looked out the bathroom window, light was coming from the woods somewhere behind the trees where it shouldn’t be.
I sure hoped Dane had told me everything I needed to know about this so-called mission. I would hate to learn something the hard—painful—way. Though that would never be his intention, I also knew his idea of what information was important to know was different from mine.
Had it not been for Wesley Dane, a full-blooded werewolf friend of my family, I wouldn’t be here to play bodyguard for one of his closest friends. It wasn’t the thousand dollars a day, tax-free money for my services that had brought me here. I needed the distraction more than anything.
“So, how much do you know about me?” After snuggling into a thick, warm robe I found hanging on a hook, I dried off my hair with a towel and opened the bathroom door.
Sammy was still there, though keeping his distance by waiting in the hall. I thought it was weird, but whatever, seeing as this was more his house than mine. “Enough,” he replied. “You’re half-werewolf, which is extremely rare. You’re also married, which means either your husband, who’s a full-blood, or Dane is going to tear Dr. Joss apart if anything bad
happens to you. Although, that sort of defeats the purpose of you being the doctor’s bodyguard.” He half-smiled.
“Are you expecting me to be torn apart?”
“No.” He chuckled. “But I expect you’ll be put through the wringer.”
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