What can you tell my readers about yourself that they might not know from
looking on your bio or reading in another interview?
I guess I’d say that I love the interaction with readers. When I first
decided to write, I thought all my energy should be put into just the writing
part. That’s true, and you do have to make sure you are learning, growing and
getting better as a writer, but the most important thing to do is to grow your
fan or reader base. Readers have divergent tastes. Some read everything under
the sun from BDSM to sweet romances. Others are strictly paranormal, or military
romantic suspense. The NA category is what we used to call the ChickLit. These
readers were always there. Just because we don’t call it that anymore doesn’t
mean the readers have gone away. Readers are reading a variety of genres now.
With the new explosion of new titles on all the devices, they now can get just
about everything. Caribou shape shifters? Bear weres? LOL.
So I didn’t realize that all my past experience in business has actually been
a good training ground for me being a writer. What was perhaps something that
was encouraged but not required (social media presence) is now more important in
some cases than the genre, or stories themselves.
Now we’re writers, but we create these big media events around our books,
where readers can come and have a lot more facetime than what used to happen ten
or twenty years ago. I do enjoy this part of the business.
What do you enjoy doing on your down time?
I am an avid organic gardener. Where I live, in beautiful Sonoma County,
California, I can have a garden nearly year-round. I also like to quilt,
although am not the expert at that like I am with the gardening. We live within
a half hour to about 200 wineries, and doing wine tours is also fun (when we
have someone to drive us).
What is your Favorite part of writing?
That first spark between the hero and heroine, when they first begin to wake
up to the fact that there is an attraction there, with or without an attitude
trying to mask it (that can be fun) or denial. Seeing them get closer, and
closer, perhaps separate and find each other again, that is what I love to read
and write.
Do you have any certain routines you must follow as you write?
Only that I work best all alone, or in an area where I can listen to music
with my headphones. I also do best in the beginning of the day, or late at
night, mostly again because there’s complete quiet. If I’m on a deadline, I can
write until I get tired, go to bed for a couple of hours, wake up, doing this
2-3 times so I can get an extra 2-3 “mornings” out of my day. You can’t do this
for more than a few days, but it works for me in a pinch. I like writing
intensely like that. Like Bikram Yoga, where they turn up the heat and you sweat
while you work out.
What are some of your Favorite books or Authors in the Urban Fantasy/
Paranormal Genres?
My first loves were Nailini Singh and Kressley Cole. I’ve read Anne Rice for
years, her early ones, and those haunting books still call to me on occasion.
Tina Folsom has been a good friend and I enjoy her vampire series. Lara Adrian
is another favorite author of mine. But I have to say I love J.R. Ward the best
today. I love her dialogue, especially on some of her great audio books read by
male narrators (I always prefer male narrators for UF and Paranormal).
How would you pitch the Guardians Series to someone who has not heard of
it before?
Newsflash: Director gets knocked up and fears expulsion from the Underworld
or death.
One of my themes in the so-far 3-book series, The Guardians, is this:
Heaven isn’t 100% perfect by design. The Underworld isn’t 100% evil by
accident.
My Underworld could be found in Washington, for instance. Anywhere there’s an
enormous about of huberous in advance of any evidence of talent. Oops, is my
bias showing?
The highest form of power is that earned, not demanded or commanded. Earned
loyalty and difficult choices. In a way, in my series, the human world is the
breeding ground and the proving ground of all the theories of Heaven or the
Underworld. It’s where the action really is.
Can you tell us a little bit about the world that the Guardians Series is
set in?
My Guardians are charged with saving humans from giving up their souls. I
have them preyed upon by dark angels, who convince them a forever life of sex
and fun is way better than nothing, or nothing and a chance of nothing else.
The guardian isn’t allowed to really interfere with a human’s life like a
dark angel does, so each side has their strengths and weaknesses.
Audray, my heroine, wanted the power of the leadership, but when she meets
the love of her life, and she discovers she’s pregnant, her better self, her
self that knows right from wrong, is beginning to grow along with the child.
I threw in some witches and half witches, dark angel minions, and black
fire-belching dragon-type dark angel creatures. I have a snake hail and powers
to transform humans to mice and frogs. I really had fun with this book, and had
some characters I’d never used before. The audio book was outstanding, performed
by my talented narrator, J.D. Hart. You should hear his witch voice!!
Do you have a favorite scene in Underworld Queen ?
Although a minor character, Drucilla, the witch is one of my favorites and
here’s a scene when she is speaking with her granddaughter’s (Molly is a ½
witch) new lover, a college professor named Carl. The hero and heroine in this
excerpt are in it as well, but have minor roles here.
Carl looked around the room, clearly uneasy with his situation. Molly leaned
over and took his hand. With a sweet smile, she tried to reassure him.
“Sweetheart, you’re going to have to get used to my family. We are a bit
eccentric.”
Carl was going to say something, but the big white fluffy cat jumped into his
lap and he spilled his teacup, which had been balanced on his knees.
“Off! You are the devil himself!” Drucilla screeched at the cat, who found a
patch of rug in the sunlight to hunker down on. The cat looked back as if
unmoved by the event.
Carl stood, exposing a dark stain of spilled tea, front and center on his
jeans in the groin area. He cursed.
“Not in my house!” Drucilla screamed. “You will not defile this holy place
with obscenities.” Drucilla glanced at Jonas and Audray adding, “There are times
for those kinds of words, and times when they are not appropriate.” She turned
around and addressed Carl again. “Since we’re not having sex, I don’t want to
hear you say the f-word, understood?”
Everyone but Carl laughed. Carl put his hands on his hips and hung his head.
“If you can’t stand the heat, boy, better get out of the kitchen,” Drucilla
needled him further. Audray began to feel sorry for the young professor.
“Look, you old bag,” Carl began, drawing strength as he continued, “I think
your manners are horrible. I was raised to have more respect for others.” Carl’s
breathing was ragged, his face red. He looked like he was could punch Drucilla
if she said something else he didn’t like.
“Ah, there’s hope!” Drucilla sauntered up to Carl, extricating the tea cup
from his hands, wiggling her eyebrows up and down. “It’s been a whole
twenty-four hours since I’ve been called that.” She rushed to the kitchen and
brought back a jar containing another mouse. The top was covered with netting,
secured by a blue ribbon tied in a bow. The little mouse inside stood on his
hind legs, paws pressed against the glass, sniffing and looking at Carl.
“Molly,” she began, but she remained focused on Carl’s face, “Your cousin
Tremaine called me the very same thing yesterday, so I’ve given him a time out.”
Carl’s eyes got big as saucers.
“Now, son,” the old witch said as she thrust the jar into Carl’s quivering
hands, “call me that name again.” Audray noticed through her sickly smile that
all of her teeth had returned to her head. But this time, instead of sparkling
white, they were pearlescent yellow.
Carl looked at Tremaine through the glass jar and began, “Holy sh…Holy
succotash.” He stopped and took a deep breath. Composing himself carefully, he
spat back, “Not only are you an old bag, but you are a heartless old bag.” He
held the jar up in the air. Tremaine shit a green liquid that started to pool at
the bottom of the jar. “You vile woman, hurting members of your own family. You
should be ashamed of yourself.” As an afterthought, Carl held out the jar. “You
should apologize to this little fellow here, and set him free. Or should I?”
Drucilla smiled from ear to ear. “Ah, I do love a man in uniform.”
Silence descended on the room. Audray didn’t know what was going to happen
next.
“Go ahead, release him. If the cat doesn’t get him, he’s free.” Drucilla had
folded her arms in front of her.
Everyone watched as Carl loosened the top and poured Tremaine out onto the
rug. The little figure made a beeline for the mouse hole Tabitha had disappeared
into.
“When are you going to release him?” Carl asked.
“You just did, my boy. He’s gone home to Tabby. They have a nest of little
squeakers that keep me up all night long.” She smiled again and patted his
shoulder. “Good job, son. You don’t think I would really turn a member of my
family into a mouse, do you? Although, I must say, I don’t mind that you think
so.”
Which one character out of all your books was your favorite to write about?
What about the hardest to write about?
I can’t say that happens to me. I fall in love with each hero I’m writing
about. If I don’t feel passionate hat way, I can’t write him.
Sometimes scenes where this beautiful, perfect couple is dashed to bits
because of a misunderstanding or some event that they didn’t anticipate, those
can take a toll on me. I hate hurting them like that sometimes. It always works
out in the end, of course, but I’ve cried at coffee shops and had people walk up
to me and ask if I needed a hug. LOL.
What Other Projects can we look forward to reading from you?
I have a hybrid paranormal coming out in the late summer, two other Navy SEAL
romances this spring and summer, and probably Book 3 in the Golden Vampires of
Tuiscany series in the fall/early winter. I also have a time travel, and a
futuristic romance calling to me, not in any of my three current series.
