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Interview with Author Suzanne Johnson
Today I’d very much like to welcome Suzanne Johnson, author of the totally awesome Sentinels of New Orleans series (check out my reviews of Royal Street and River Road).
Marlene: Suzanne can you please tell us a bit about yourself?
Suzanne: I’m a seventh-generation Alabamian but consider New Orleans and Houston more my “hometowns” because I lived and worked in both of those cities for a long time, especially New Orleans. At the time of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, I’d been living in New Orleans for twelve years, working as a magazine editor at Tulane University. I stayed and helped with rebuilding for a few years after the hurricane but then moved back to Alabama for family reasons. My Katrina experiences are what drove me to start writing fiction after a career in journalism and longform feature writing. Royal Street, the first in the Sentinels of New Orleans series, came directly from my own Katrina experiences. By the time I finished that book, I was hooked on fiction! Now I can’t imagine not writing it.
Marlene: Do you also write as Susannah Sandlin? What do you see as the difference between your two “identities”?
Suzanne: Yes, that’s me! The books written under the Susannah Sandlin name are darker paranormal romance. They’re written in multiple points of view, each book in my dystopian vampire series features a different hero and heroine, and they have a strong thriller element—a lot of action. The urban fantasy books are more playful, they follow a single heroine and her cast of followers, and while there are romantic elements, the characters’ romantic journeys are not the main reason for the book. I love writing both genres. They have a lot in common from a reader perspective, but they’re very different to write.
Marlene: Describe a typical day of writing. Are you a planner or pantser?
Suzanne: I have a full-time job in addition to writing from three to four novels a year, so I have to stay organized…which means I’m definitely a planner. I spend a good bit of time working on the story before I ever begin writing. I don’t plot it down to the nanosecond, because I want to be able to let my characters take over the story and surprise me, but I need that structure to keep the story moving ahead. A typical day? Man, this sounds boring. On weekdays, I work my day job, then come home and write three or four hours after dinner. On Saturdays and Sundays, I usually put in from eight to twelve hours of writing per day. That’s when I get the most done.
Marlene: You’ve made New Orleans as much of a character in the Sentinels series as any of the humans or preternaturals. How much of real life in New Orleans is in the story?
Suzanne: The New Orleans in the Sentinels books is VERY real. I’ve been gratified by the number of New Orleanians who’ve emailed to tell me how right I got not only the post-Katrina city but life in the city in general. It’s a beautiful, frustrating, fascinating place to live, and I wanted this series to pay homage to that because I love the city so much. Living in New Orleans is SO different than what visitors experience when they come and only see the French Quarter. Bourbon Street really is not New Orleans; it’s like a New Orleans-on-steroid theme park for visitors. So in the books is life as a resident. Most of the places the characters go are real places, and the settings and situations are real…well, except for the preternatural part!
Marlene: Do you see the Sentinels of New Orleans series as Drusilla’s journey?
Suzanne: Definitely. When I had the idea for Royal Street, I had been thinking a lot about the lessons Katrina taught me and a lot of my friends. That your whole life can be ripped apart in a matter of seconds. That a lot of the things you value in life are just so much stuff and when it’s taken away, you survive. That you have to let people help you, hard as that is. And that people respond to stress in different ways, and you have to respect that. Some people cry. Some make jokes. Some lead. Some fall apart.
So I created DJ as a young woman who’s just beginning to find her place in the world when the hurricane hits. Her journey is that of a woman (okay, a wizard) who has to learn who she is and what she can do without being able to rely on the things—parents, mentors, social networks—that most of us rely on to help us define ourselves. Wow, that’s too deep. It really is a fun series, with a lot of humor!
Marlene: Will there be more books in this series? What is next on your schedule?
Suzanne: The third book in the series, Elysian Fields, will be out on August 13 and readers will really start to see the brewing conflict as the different preternatural groups—especially the elves and wizards—begin to figure out who are allies and who are enemies.
Marlene: Now can you tell us 3 reasons why people should read your books?
Suzanne: Well, despite my nerdy answer above, first and foremost, they really are a fun read, especially as they begin to move away from the Katrina tragedy. Two, they differ from a lot of urban fantasy in that they really make use of the South Louisiana setting (my merfolk in River Road, for example, are aquatic Cajun shapeshifters). Three, they have wizards and undead French pirates and sneaky elves—seriously, how can you resist that?
Marlene: What made you choose to start writing urban fantasy? Or what genre do you think that the Sentinels series falls into?
Suzanne: Urban fantasy has been one of my favorite genres for a long time—back to when Anita Blake was about the only urban fantasy game in town. I’d definitely classify the Sentinels series as urban fantasy. There are romantic elements in the books, but they aren’t the dominant storyline. That story is what happens in New Orleans and in the preternatural world when Hurricane Katrina tears down the borders between our world and the world beyond. And DJ’s journey of growing up and growing into her skills, and part of her journey is learning to love and accept love in return.
Marlene: What is your favorite thing about the writing experience and why?
Suzanne: I love the creative rush—that point where the characters kind of take over and spin the story in a way you hadn’t expected. It’s mysterious and cool, and I have no idea how it happens…but it does.
Marlene: Tell me something about yourself that I wouldn’t know to ask.
Suzanne: Where I get a lot of my character names—LOL. Drusilla was a great-grandmother. Another great-grandmother had the surname Jaco. Eugenie’s mysterious boyfriend, Rand, is named after my great-grandfather Rand Sandlin….and yes, Susannah Sandlin was my great-great grandmother. So I steal family names shamelessly.
Marlene: What’s a book you’ve faked reading?
Suzanne: Probably the most shamelessly, Moby Dick. And I made an A on the exam because it was essay questions and I’m good at b-s. I still haven’t read it.
Marlene: What’s a book you’ve bought for the cover?
Suzanne: I really can’t think of one. I tend to buy online and that kind of cover-browsing that’s possible in a physical bookstore doesn’t work online. I’ll buy for the blurb, or because I read the first few pages and liked the voice. Or because I know the author’s other work.
Marlene: What book would you most want to read again for the first time?
Suzanne: The Harry Potter series. What fun! It’s good on the re-read, but the discovery was amazing.
Marlene: Morning person or night owl?
Suzanne: Despite having to do most of my writing at night, I am definitely a morning person. I zone out about 3 p.m. and don’t re-energize until about 8.
Thanks for having me here!
About Suzanne JohnsonSuzanne Johnson writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance from Auburn, Alabama, after a career in educational publishing that has spanned five states and six universities. She grew up halfway between the Bear Bryant Museum and Elvis’ birthplace and lived in New Orleans for fifteen years, so she has a highly refined sense of the absurd and an ingrained love of SEC football and fried gator on a stick.To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website and blog or follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or Goodreads.
Review: Royal Street by Suzanne Johnson
Format read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: ebook, paperback
Genre: Urban fantasy
Series: Sentinels of New Orleans, #1
Length: 337 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: April 10, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository
Formats available: ebook, paperbackGenre: Urban fantasy
Series: Sentinels of New Orleans, #1
Length: 337 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: April 10, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository
As the junior wizard sentinel for New Orleans, Drusilla Jaco’s job involves a lot more potion-mixing and pixie-retrieval than sniffing out supernatural bad guys like rogue vampires and lethal were-creatures. DJ’s boss and mentor, Gerald St. Simon, is the wizard tasked with protecting the city from anyone or anything that might slip over from the preternatural beyond.
Then Hurricane Katrina hammers New Orleans’ fragile levees, unleashing more than just dangerous flood waters.
While winds howled and Lake Pontchartrain surged, the borders between the modern city and the Otherworld crumbled. Now, the undead and the restless are roaming the Big Easy, and a serial killer with ties to voodoo is murdering the soldiers sent to help the city recover.
To make it worse, Gerry has gone missing, the wizards’ Elders have assigned a grenade-toting assassin as DJ’s new partner, and undead pirate Jean Lafitte wants to make her walk his plank. The search for Gerry and for the serial killer turns personal when DJ learns the hard way that loyalty requires sacrifice, allies come from the unlikeliest places, and duty mixed with love creates one bitter gumbo.
My Review:
The conflict between duty, love and the search for identity make for just the kind of delicious (and generally spicy) recipe that New Orleans is particularly known for.
Suzanne Johnson’s first book in her Sentinels of New Orleans series combines the darkness of voodoo with the sweet spell of jazz, as all the ghosts of this magical city come out to play. However, the word “play” can have a rather sinister meaning for what Johnson has labeled “the historical undead”.
Drusilla Jaco starts the story as the assistant sentinel for New Orleans. She’s a green wizard. Not necessarily green in the sense of untried, although there’s a bit of that, but green in the sense that her powers are from the earth. DJ is a potions mistress. Her mentor, Gerry, is the red court physical power.
Then Hurricane Katrina sweeps in, and changes the game. Katrina wipes away New Orleans as DJ knew it, as everyone knew it. The “rules” force DJ to leave the city, while Gerry stays to maintain the wards against the Beyond. Ten days later, the wards are down, the Beyond is breaking through, and Gerry is nowhere to be found. The Elders (there are always Elders) think he’s dead.
DJ doesn’t believe it. She can’t believe Gerry’s gone. So she comes home to the devastation, the utter wreck of post-Katrina New Orleans, only to find that there is a serial killer stalking the National Guard and leaving voodoo sigils behind…and that there is a Council Enforcer at her doorstep, sent by the Elders to be her new partner.
The Elders believe that Gerry has betrayed his oaths.
Oh, and Jean Lafitte is after her. The pirate wants payback for a previous incident, and now that the barriers are down, he has plans for her. Being dead is not a problem for him. Not at all. The crazy thing is that if he weren’t dead, DJ might be interested.
Her new partner, Alex Warin, is also plenty interesting. Except that he believes that Gerry betrayed everything that the man taught her. But Alex is overbearing and over-protective into the bargain. DJ doesn’t want or need that much protection. What she needs is someone to believe in her.
And help finding the serial killer, especially since he’s marked her house.
Escape Rating A: Royal Street does an amazing job of evoking the mystery of New Orleans and the despair of the Katrina devastation. I would have enjoyed Royal Street just for that part alone. (Another urban fantasy that mines this same period incredibly well is The Map of Moments by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon)
Then there are the two parts of the Royal Street story that made it shine as a fantasy, particularly urban fantasy.
One was the mining of the history and mystery of New Orleans and its melange of cultures and myths. In Johnson’s worldbuilding, behind our own world there is the Beyond. New Orleans is special, because belief in the past is SO strong, that behind New Orleans is Old Orleans, where the historical undead reside as long as people believe in them. A lot of people in New Orleans believe in a LOT of the dead. DJ has encounters with Marie Laveau, Jean Lafitte (frequently), one incredibly evil character and on the flip side, one quite sweet and surprising person.
The city of New Orleans is a character in her own right. As she should be.
Royal Street is the start of an urban fantasy series, and as such, it is really about the birth of a wizard, Drusilla Jaco. She discovers that she is not who she thought she was. She begins the search for her true power. Since the series is going to be her journey, I suspect that search is going to take a while.
DJ is someone who is worth following. She takes an emotional battering and gets up and keeps on fighting. She learns from her mistakes.
What is going to be very interesting will be to see whether any of the possible romantic entanglements develop. There are potentially three men in her life; Alex Warin, the enforcer who shapeshifts into a handsome extra-large golden retriever-type dog (DJ usually likes the dog better), Jake Warin, Alex’s ex-Marine cousin who just found out that the world is more dangerous than he imaged the hard way, and even Jean Lafitte, for whom death does not seem to be a barrier to romance.
I can’t tell you how happy I am that the second book in the series, River Road, is already out!
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
Guest Post by Author Elise Sax: A Day in the Life of Gladie Burger + Giveaway
My very funny special guest today is Elise Sax, the author the recent (and hilarious) romantic suspense book, An Affair to Dismember. Gladie has a terrific chance at stealing away some of Stephanie Plum’s fans (take a look at my review for details).
Meanwhile, here’s Elise’s take on Gladie. You’ll see just how funny they are!
A Day in the Life of Gladie Burger
By Elise Sax
Gladie Burger is the heroine of the Matchmaker Series. I recently asked her to tell me about a typical day in her life. This is what she told me…
Yes, I have to admit my days were a lot more boring before I moved to Cannes, CA to work in my grandma’s matchmaking business. It used to be I would get up, brush my teeth, get dressed, go to work, come home, watch TV, and go to sleep.
Of course, I moved around a lot and switched jobs like some people switch toilet paper rolls, but otherwise, it was a pretty boring life. And safe.
Since I moved in with my grandma a few months ago, I have had men chase me, murderers chase me, and once a dog chased me—but that was because I was carrying Grandma’s order of ribs, and who doesn’t like ribs?
When I’m not stumbling on to dead bodies, here’s a pretty typical day for me:
- 7:00 AM: I wake up if my alarm clock is working, but I got it on sale at a thrift shop, and the wire is a little frayed and sometimes it turns off in the middle of the night if I turn too much in bed and jiggle the wire. So, if it doesn’t go off, I wake up around 9:00 when my grandma comes in and tells me that contrary to popular belief, love blossoms in the morning, not the night, and I better get cracking if I’m going to be in the love business.
- 7:15 AM: (if I didn’t jiggle the wire): I take a shower and wash my hair with this fabulous coconut-smelling shampoo my friend Lucy gave me during her travels for work. She’s in marketing, whatever that is.
- 7:30 AM: I always put on mascara, no matter what, and usually I wear workout clothes, even though I haven’t worked out since I moved to Cannes. (Note to self: start yoga. Everybody does yoga but me.) I try to tame my hair with gel/mousse/serum, but it mostly does what it wants.
- 7:45 AM: Eat breakfast with Grandma. Usually bagels are involved. “Dolly,” she’s said. “Bagels are indispensable. Like toothpaste. And eyeliner. And control top pantyhose.”
- 8:15: Follow Grandma around and help her with whatever singles class she’s hosting.
- 11:00: Give up on class, wonder if I’ll ever be a successful matchmaker, go to pick up lunch for Grandma from one of her favorite fast food places and stop at Tea Time for a much needed latte.
- 11:15: My credit card gets declined, and I scrounge coins from the bottom of my purse to buy a latte. Ruth calls me a “reprobate.” As soon as I get a dictionary, I will be upset she called me that.
- 12:00: Pick up ribs/fried chicken/tacos for Grandma but am stopped by hunky police chief Spencer Bolton. “What are you up to, Pinkie?” he asks me and then tries to look down my blouse. “You are five years old,” I tell him. He leaves to fight crime.
- 12:15: My car won’t start. I call AAA and eat the ribs while I wait. Sexy yumminess Arthur Holden jogs by and sees me. “Hi,” he says and sticks his head through my car window. I have BBQ sauce on my face but nothing to clean it off with. He doesn’t care. He kisses me, and my eyes roll back in my head. He jogs away, and I realize I’ve forgotten to tell him my car won’t start, but I’m feeling no pain. My uterus is humming love songs.
- 1:30: AAA doesn’t show up, and I decide to walk home. On the way I stumble on a dead body. I scream. I pass out.
- 1:40: I wake up. The dead guy is still there. He has a bullet wound to his head. I think: Why me? Why am I a magnet for death? I call Spencer.
- 1:42: Spencer arrives. “Are you kidding me?” he asks me, as if I drag in dead bodies from neighboring towns just to piss him off.
- 1:45: Spencer warns me not to get involved with the murder case.
- 1:46: I get involved with the murder case.
- 1:50: Spencer gets a police officer to drive me home.
- 2:00: I arrive home with no food, but somehow Grandma knows and has ordered in food, herself. We sit in the kitchen with the food, and my friends Lucy and Bridget come over and talk about the murder. They ask me if I know who the murderer is. I don’t.
- 3:00: Grandma takes a nap. Someone comes over and tries to kill me.
- 4:00: The gardener saves me with his pruning shears. Now there’s two dead bodies.
- 4:10: Spencer arrives and reads me the riot act. Holden comes over and rubs my back and asks if I’m okay. I realize the murderer wasn’t working alone, but I don’t tell anybody.
- 5:26: I solve the crime. I know who killed who and why and how (wouldn’t you like to know?). Spencer yells at me for getting involved and looks dreamily into my eyes, making me hyperventilate. Holden takes me out to dinner, pushing Spencer out of the way.
- 7:00: I choke on a chicken bone at dinner and go home early. Grandma has hot cocoa waiting for me, and she tells me I have “the gift”. Spencer unexpectedly shows up, grabs a root beer, and sits down at the table with us. He gives me the rundown of the aftermath of the murder case.
- 10:15: I kick Spencer out, even though he offers to make me levitate if only I would let him into my bed. I think about this offer.
- 10:28: I go to bed. Good night! Sweet dreams!
About Elise SaxElise Sax worked as a journalist for fifteen years, mostly in Paris, France. She took a detour from journalism and became a private investigator before trying her hand at writing fiction. She lives in Southern California with her two sons. An Affair to Dismember, the first in the Matchmaker mystery series, is her first novel.
To learn more about Elise, check out her website and blog. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, GoodReads,and YouTube.
~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~
Elise is giving away four $25 gift cards for Amazon!
Review: An Affair to Dismember by Elise Sax
Format read: ebook provided by NetGalleyFormats available: ebook, mass market paperback, hardcover
Genre: Romantic suspense
Series: The Matchmaker, #1
Length: 320 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Released: January 29, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository
Three months has been Gladie Burger’s limit when it comes to staying in one place. That’s why Gladie is more than a little skeptical when her eccentric Grandma Zelda recruits her to the family’s matchmaking business in the quaint small town of Cannes, California. What’s more, Gladie is also highly unqualified, having a terrible track record with romance. Still, Zelda is convinced that her granddaughter has “the gift.” But when the going gets tough, Gladie wonders if this gift has a return policy.
When Zelda’s neighbor drops dead in his kitchen, Gladie is swept into his bizarre family’s drama. Despite warnings from the (distractingly gorgeous) chief of police to steer clear of his investigation, Gladie is out to prove that her neighbor’s death was murder. It’s not too long before she’s in way over her head—with the hunky police chief, a dysfunctional family full of possible killers, and yet another mysterious and handsome man, whose attentions she’s unable to ignore. Gladie is clearly being pursued—either by true love or by a murderer. Who will catch her first?
My Review:
An Affair to Dismember, and The Matchmaker series that it starts, seems like a match designed to appeal to fans of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series. It has the same madcap sense of humor, some of the same family dynamic, and a very similar romantic triangle.
But at least so far, Gladie, short for Gladys, Burger, has a chance of avoiding some of the ennui that plagues long-time readers of the Plum books. At least I have hope.
Gladie has come back to Cannes, California to apprentice with her Grandmother Zelda in her matchmaking business. Any resemblance between Zelda and Stephanie’s Grandma Mazur is intentional but superficial.
For one thing, Zelda the matchmaker may have a terrible case of agoraphobia but she otherwise still has full possession of every single one of her marbles. Plus a few extra, as she quite definitely has a supernatural gift for matchmaking. And she’s got a Ph.D. in the study of human nature.
Gladie’s got the family talent, but most of it seems to lie in another direction. Instead of finding perfect matches, it turns out that Gladie has an instinct for finding murderers. A talent that lands her right in the path of Cannes’ commitment-phobic, but incredibly handsome, new chief of police, Spencer Bolton.
Because there has to be a triangle, Gladie’s next door neighbor is also a handsome, single hunk. The odd thing about the hunk next door is that no one in town seems to know exactly where Arthur Holden came from or what he does. They only know that he’s gorgeous.
No one ever gets murdered in Cannes. That’s why Spencer Bolton decided to become the police chief. He saw too much death as a cop in LA. But then Gladie moves in and suddenly old men start dropping like flies, always in mysterious circumstances.
Gladie can’t help herself, she has to investigate. And neither Spencer nor Arthur can help themselves, they can’t stop going after Gladie, if only to see what happens next!
Escape Rating B: An Affair to Dismember should have a sticker on it: “for a good time, call Gladie at 555-1212” or something like that. Gladie is tons of fun. Not much sense, but absolutely a giggle-fit.
There is one thing that drove me crazy, and needs to stop. Gladie needs to stop fat-shaming every three paragraphs. She worked in a health food store before she moved in with her grandmother and was apparently a size 0. She’s gained 10 pounds and rags on herself every 10 minutes about it, always while eating or talking about food. But the one time she puts on a dress, every man who sees her starts to drool, and every woman who sees her literally turns green with envy. As Grandma Zelda would say, “Enough already!”
Someday, there will probably be a romance, either between Gladie and Spencer, or betweeen Gladie and Arthur. I hope, for everyone’s sake, the author doesn’t drag it on through 19 books. That level of indecision would be much too much. Gladie does deserve the chance to try them both out, as far as this reader is concerned. That could be loads of fun.
The mystery was just screamingly funny. Gladie was learning how her gift worked, so she made lots of mistakes. And it made for terrific excuses for Spencer or Arthur to butt in and/or rescue her. Gladie never claims to be a professional anything, so her errors are mostly funny. We haven’t reached nearly the point where we think she should know better. She’s new.
Based on An Affair to Dismember, The Matchmaker has the potential to be a terrifically fun and funny light mystery series. I’m definitely looking forward to Matchpoint in July!
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
Guest Post by Author Carol Van Atta + Giveaway
My guest today is Carol Van Atta, the author of a fun (see my review) new paranormal romance I Kissed a Dog. Her heroine just might be able to fill that upcoming Sookie-sized hole in your reading schedule.
Addicted to Love, Romance, and Relationships?
Remember Reality!
Carol Van Atta
Like most authors of paranormal romance, I like the idea of love and romance with a paranormal twist or two that spices things up for the couple. I’m also a fan of love that is intense, at times irrational, and often impulsive. It makes for great reading. However, because of the hot topics we write and/or read about, we might want to consider adding a warning label to our special brand of sexy, supernatural shenanigans.
Warning: Hot and Heavy Romance leading to heated hormones and hellacious heartbreak may result from attempting replicate the relationships in this book.
What I’m saying … we need to keep our feelings for steamy supernatural romances that have the potential to shred our hearts and maybe even our hope, in check.
So, let me ask you, have your friends ever pointed out your relationship failures? Ever heard the word co-dependent and cringed? Do you excuse and tolerate behaviors that are unacceptable and hurtful in your mate? For example: He makes me bleed because he can’t help himself. He is, after all, a vampire. Or … he only bosses me around when the moon is full; remember he’s a werewolf.
If you can answer “yes” to any of the above questions, you just might be in an unhealthy relationship and possibly addicted to love, romance, or the idea of participating in a relationship despite the painful consequences and high emotional price tag.
I know the scenario all too well. It’s easy to fall for those alpha males we inhale like a breath of fresh air while devouring our favorite romances, paranormal or otherwise. The stories make dysfunctional and dare I say, at times, borderline abusive men appear so tantalizing. They also tempt us with the notion that can’t live without a specific relationship/person … think Bella sitting in that darn chair following Edward’s departure in the Breaking Dawn, The Movie.
Why am I bringing up this depressing topic?
Because it’s important to remember the books we read, featuring men who ultimately bring danger and even disaster to our lives aren’t good for us in the real world. We don’t have super powers, (unless you’re hiding something) to combat the villains and vicious characters that seem to cling to these men like a pair of poured on leather pants. Nor are we equipped to handle all the chaos that accompanies them, roaring down the main street of our heart.
But the main reason, friends, is because I care. I know what it’s like to search for love in the darkness hoping it would light up my life. Unfortunately, I ended up with a blood thirsty vampire latched onto my neck unwilling to release his relentless and painful hold. What seemed so enticing and intoxicating in the beginning became poison to my heart and life. When a vampire is attached to your throat, it’s hard to live life, let alone experience love.
This special post is just a reminder for us to enjoy the lethal love in the books we read, without allowing our desire for love and romance to overpower our commonsense.
On the lighter side, this is what makes reading paranormal romances the safe and better option. I took this from my website.
Why write a series of books about wolfy-men, who according to legend, howl at the moon, shed fur, and shred their victims with their big teeth – oh my?
I think the explanation can’t ignore the psychology of women. Do I speak for all women? Of course, not! But I do know (right or wrong) a wide range of women (myself included) are, or have been at some point in the past, drawn to “bad boys,” men who for whatever reason live daringly adventurous lives, doing things that often cause them to stand apart from other less intense guys, the type of guys we might refer to as uber reliable or b-o-r-i-n-g. Bad boys are so refreshingly far from boring, they’re not even on the same map. They’re typically easy on the eyes, usually in a non-traditional way, and have strong, possibly overbearing personalities; they are decidedly masculine in every sense of the word. Dare we say they’re predatory? They take control, go after what they want, and are nowhere near tame. Feral. Wild. Sexy. Dangerous. Yep. They’re beastly. And what’s more beastly than a werewolf? See my point?
If you want tame, werewolves are not for you. Danger isn’t for everyone. Yet, I challenge you to take a long look at the desires of your heart. Do you crave adventure? Excitement? Passion? If you’re breathing, I suspect you’ve wished for those very things a time or two … or three hundred. Don’t worry. And don’t be ashamed. You’re so not alone.
Men with supernatural tendencies tend to live outside the box we call normal. Excitement, danger, and passion cling to them like peanut butter to jelly. Yummy! And we just can’t help but want a taste. Granted, we may live our safe, predictable lives, but opening a book that rockets us into a world of romance, intrigue, and danger, along with a good dose of humor, allows us to experience those bad boys without the not-always-positive side effects. In other words, we can safely enjoy danger and desire without breaking a nail or nursing a broken heart.
That final sentence says it all. We can enjoy our wolfy guys from the safety of our favorite arm chair, without putting ourselves in harm’s way.
However, if you’ve found yourself dealing with an unwanted and toxic relationship, I’d like to recommend a resource you might want to check out. The book Biting Back by Claudia Cunningham, is a no-nonsense, no garlic guide to facing the personal vampires in your life.
Be safe. Love. Live. And read.
About Carol Van Atta
Like most authors, Carol Van Atta is no stranger to the written word. She penned a short novel at age 12 (somewhat frightening illustrations included, and lots of bunnies were involved), and had a creative writing piece published in her high school newspaper (about David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs LP). Yes, she’s an ex-80’s chick.
Devouring books from numerous genres, Carol developed a deep thirst/hunger for more reading material, and could almost always be found with her nose in a book.
She has contributed to several popular inspirational anthologies and devotional books, and lives in the rainy wetland of Oregon with a terrifying teen (another in college) and a small zoo of animals. She is taking an undetermined hiatus away from inspirational writing to delve into her darker side. (Though you can check out her latest spiritual suspense novel, Soul Defenders). It is rumored that this genre-jumping occurred after Carol discovered too suspicious red marks on her neck, and experienced an unquenchable urge to howl at the moon.
To learn more about Carol, look for her on her website, on Facebook, and her blog.
~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~
Carol Van Atta, author of I Kissed a Dog, invites you to enter to win Ebooks and Promo Posters from her publisher.
- I Kissed a Dog, book one of Werewolves of the West, Carol Van Atta, with one poster
- Soul Defenders: The Black Orchids, Carol Van Atta, with one poster
- Black Moon, Jessica McQuay, with one poster
- Blood Betrayal, Alison Beightol, with one poster
- Morningside, Ashley Madau, with one poster
- Drama Queens, Kevin Klher, with one poster
- The Dogman Cometh, Jonathan Womack, with one poster
- Blood Destiny, Tessa Dawn, with one poster
- ONE BOOK OF YOUR CHOOSING FROM THE CHARLES RIVER PRESS/CAMBRIDGE PRESS CATALOGUE (EBOOK)
Review: I Kissed A Dog by Carol Van Atta
Format read: ebook provided by the authorFormats available: ebook, paperback
Genre: Paranormal romance
Series: Werewolves of the West, #1
Length: 446 pages
Publisher: Charles River Press / Cambridge Press US
Date Released: November 21, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository
Chloe Carpenter isn’t like other women. She can communicate with animals, a gift she unwrapped following one of her frequent dances with death.
In her otherwise wacky life, she’s finally found a semblance of sanity working at the Plum Beach Wildlife Park, where her unique talents can make life or death differences for the animals in her care. That semblance is shattered when a new veterinarian roars into the park in his spiffed up sports car and sets his golden gaze on her. If she had her way, he’d roar right back out.
Problem: He’s her new coworker and he’s saved her life twice – in the past twenty-four hours.Zane Marshall, Enforcer for the Pacific Pack of purebred werewolves, has a job to do – figure out who or what is mutilating the young men of Plum Beach.
With orders to find the woman who talks to animals, he accepts a position working alongside the fiery Chloe Carpenter, a female who ignites his interest far more than he ever expected.
Remarkably, she’s the one elusive female with potential to bring meaning and passion to his empty existence.
Problem: She despises him.Together, they’re forced to unravel a mystery of supernatural proportions, a murderous mystery with eternal implications for everyone. In the process, they discover opposites really do attract.
Major Problem: Zane is pledged to another woman, and she’ll do anything to keep him from Chloe.
My Review:
If you are looking for a series to fill the Sookie-sized hole in your reading life, you might want to check out Carol Van Atta’s new Werewolves of the West series. Chloe Carpenter, at least in her first appearance in I Kissed a Dog, bears more than a passing resemblance to a certain telepathic waitress from Bon Temps, Louisiana.
Chloe’s not exactly telepathic, but she’s not exactly not, either. Chloe’s more like a female Doctor Doolittle. That’s right, Chloe talks to the animals, and they talk back. Only telepathically.
Chloe wasn’t born the animal psychic. There was a nearly tragic incident–with a fence, and a doberman, and a swimming pool. Instead of dying, Chloe ended up with this “gift”. Let’s call it a mixed blessing.
She’s great at helping animals. When they’re sick, they really can “tell her where it hurts”. Vets love her. On the other hand, finding out from her ex-boyfriend’s cat that he was a cheating hound was pretty traumatic.
Now she works for a wildlife park as a kind of animal whisperer. Her boss knows about her talent, but it’s somewhat of a mixed blessing for the park, too. Chloe’s not a vet, and they need to call one whenever she finds a sick animal.
That’s where Zane Marshall comes in. He is a vet. He’s also the pack enforcer for the Pacific Pack werewolves. He’s looking for Chloe, because his pack needs her animal telepathy services. He isn’t counting on her ability to read him!
Zane is the first “human” Chloe has ever been able to read, confusing her no end. The revelation that all too many of the mythical creatures she has read about are real knocks her world for a complete loop.
Zane and his friends need Chloe to help them investigate a threat to their pack, but there is also a serial killer on the loose who is murdering men in Chloe’s small town, and the two cases just might be connected.
Oh, and Zane’s intended mate thinks that Chloe is in her way, and plans to eliminate her any way she can. The messier, the better. Ouch!
Escape Rating B: There is definitely a resemblance between the early Sookie and Chloe, particularly if you wanted Sookie to pick Alcide.
Chloe starts out as an innocent. Very innocent, she’s a virgin! Her parents were extremely protective. I’ll say over-protective, and a lot of those lessons stuck. Also, like Sookie, her telepathy causes her some relationship problems. There are other similarities between Sookie and Chloe, but revealing more goes deeply into spoiler territory.
However, Chloe’s ability to talk to animals is not just different, it’s cool. The animals do talk back. And they generally love her for paying attention and taking care of them.
Zane and Chloe’s relationship starts out with a huge misunderstandammit and continues through one right after another. These two never seem to be straight with each other. And there is a giant insta-lust thing going on, although I hesitate to call it insta-love, combined with the werewolf fated-mating-bond trope. The amount that these two kept secrets from each other means that their love story needs some more fleshing out, or more trials and tribulations, before I’ll totally buy into it.
I did get fooled by who the villain was, and I stayed up way too late on a work night to finish the book.
One of Chloe’s biggest secrets leads to a potential love-triangle that caused the book to end on a jaw-dropping cliffhanger. This story absolutely requires a sequel, so it’s a good thing that it is book one of a series. I can’t wait to find out what happens next!
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
Interview with Author Jennifer Harlow + Giveaway
What’s a book blogger to do? Welcome today’s guest, Jennifer Harlow, of course! Jennifer is here to talk about her terrific new paranormal mystery/romance What’s a Witch to Do? (to see just how terrific, take a look at my review)
While you’re putting What’s a Witch to Do? on your to-do list, take a look at what Jennifer has to say about it.
Marlene: Jennifer, can you please tell us a bit about yourself?
Jennifer: I like Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain. Okay, not really. I hate getting wet. Um…I’m the Amazon Bestselling author of the F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad series, I’m single, I live in Northern Virginia, and I spend my days thinking up ways to kill people. Just your typical gal.
Marlene: Describe a typical day of writing? Are you a planner or pantser?
Jennifer: I wake up, make the long five step trek to my desk, then spend ten minutes staring at the blank page before getting coffee for twenty more minutes of staring. Eventually the muse gets her ass to the office to help me (she’s in an abusive relationship with procrastination right now and really needs an intervention.) Really I have the main characters and the major plot points worked out years before I even pick up a pen, but sometimes those can change, so I’m both a pantser and planner. I think most writers are.
Marlene: All of your books so far are in the paranormal/urban fantasy/things that go bump in the night realm. Let’s face it, on your blog, you often say “welcome to the Darkside…” So what attracts you to that Darkside?
Jennifer: I don’t know where it comes from but I’ve always been drawn to horror and the paranormal. My grandmother was worried I’d go over to the “dark side,” as in become a feature on Deadly Women or something, but the darkness has always fascinated me. I like horror because it’s so dramatic like riding a roller coaster. You get to touch that darkness, that danger, but it can’t touch you back or hurt you. The paranormal is the unexplained, and we fear what we don’t understand. Plus with the paranormal you get to have a little magic in your life, even if it’s only in a book.
Marlene: What can we expect of What’s a Witch to Do?
Jennifer: This one follows the most powerful witch in America who, on the busiest week of her life, finds out someone wants to kill her and take over her coven. There’s romance, humor, Southern hospitality, and plenty of suspense. Sales pitch over.
Marlene: In What’s a Witch to Do, Mona seems like a heroine for “the rest of us”. She’s not perfectly gorgeous, she’s not 22, she’s not a size 0, and her life is disorganized by a series of to-do lists that never quite get done. She’s wonderful! Was there a particular inspiration for Mona?
Jennifer: I often get asked if my character Bea from the F.R.E.A.K.S. is based off me. She’s far nicer, sweeter, and braver than me. If a horde of zombies was about to attack people I’d be running the other way, not picking up a machete to join in the fight. But Mona is the most like me. She has my former martyr syndrome, my overreaching grasp when it comes to all I commit to, my control freak tendencies, my intimacy issues, and my self-image problems. I think a lot of people, especially women, have the same quirks in being everything to everyone and weight static. Even my size 0 friends have the same static. I just wanted her to be a normal person in extraordinary circumstances. Even if she is the most powerful witch in America.
Marlene: Does your new Midnight Magic series tie into your F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad series?
Jennifer: It does. Some of the F.R.E.A.K.S. even make cameos. I wanted to expand this world to include people who are different but don’t go looking for trouble, it just finds them. Everyone shows up in everyone else’s books and events from the past play into all the books. I have a timeline above my desk to keep it all straight, like a web. Like Mona I just hope my reach doesn’t exceed my grasp.
Marlene: Will there be more Midnight Magic books? What is next on your schedule?
Jennifer: This year is very, very busy for me. Besides What’s A Witch To Do? I have a short story out in Kindle Single form about FREAK teleporter Nancy, the third F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad book Death Takes A Holiday out in August, and may self publish something else. Then this time next year the next in the Midnight Magic book will be out. Mona and Adam appear but really it’s Alpha Jason’s story about his rise to power. And right now I’m working on the third Magic book whose focus is Anna West, who I introduced in the second F.R.E.A.K.S. book To Catch A Vampire. I’m exhausted just thinking about it all.
Marlene: What is your favorite thing about the writing experience and why?
Jennifer: The commute. Five steps and the boss doesn’t mind if I work in my pjs. I also like controlling people who have no recourse. Bea never calls me bossy when I micromanage her life. Fake people are so much better than real ones.
Marlene: Tell me something about yourself that I wouldn’t know to ask.
Jennifer: I am a huge, massive anglophile. I didn’t leave the house for a week when PBS began their all British all the time channel. I watch more British shows than American.
Marlene: Tell us the title of one book that you’ve faked reading.
Fifty Shades Darker. I kind of liked Fifty Shades of Grey, I read it in like three hours and wouldn’t read it again, but the second one was just soooooo boring and Ana’s passivity began to grate so I stopped after about fifty pages. I totally felt like kicking Christian Grey in the balls during those fifty pages. He’d probably get off on that though.
Marlene: What’s one book that you’ve bought just because of the cover?
Jennifer: Soulless by Gail Carriger. That is one of my favorite covers ever. It’s like art.
Marlene: And what is the book that you most want to read again for the first time?
Jennifer: A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin. It was the last book where I had to spend all night reading it because I couldn’t put it down. I’m dying for the show to begin again.
Marlene: Morning person or Night Owl?
Jennifer: I used to be a massive Night Owl, even as a child I wouldn’t fall asleep until after midnight, but then I joined the working world and had to become a morning person. Stupid adulthood.
About Jennifer Harlow
Jennifer Harlow spent her restless childhood fighting with her three brothers and scaring the heck out of herself with horror movies and books. She grew up to earn a degree at the University of Virginia which she put to use as a radio DJ, crisis hotline volunteer, bookseller, lab assistant, wedding coordinator, and government investigator. Currently she calls Northern Virginia home but that restless itch is ever present. In her free time, she continues to scare the beejepers out of herself watching scary movies and opening her credit card bills.
You can find Jennifer at her website, her blog, on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and Pinterest.
~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~
Review: What’s a Witch to Do? by Jennifer Harlow
Format read: ebook provided by NetGalleyFormats available: ebook, paperback
Genre: Paranormal romance
Series: Midnight Magic Mystery, #1
Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Midnight Ink
Date Released: March 8, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository
Mona McGregor’s To Do List
- Make
2013 potions/spells/charms- Put girls to bed
- Help with Debbie’s wedding
- Lose 30 pounds before bachelorette auction
- Deal with the bleeding werewolf on doorstep
- Find out who wants me dead
- Prepare for supernatural summit
- Have a nervous breakdown
- Slay a damn demon
- Fall in love
My Review:
Mona McGregor is a heroine for the rest of us. She’s 35 years old, she’s not exactly gorgeous, and she’s not a size two. What Mona is, however, is responsible as hell.
Mona raised her younger sisters with the help of her grandmother. She owns her own shop. For the past 15 years, she’s been High Priestess of her local coven. Yes, you read that right. Her local coven.
Mona is a witch. Really. But then, so is a significant part of the population of Goodnight, Virginia. And a lot of the rest are werewolves. Some are vamps.
On top of all Mona’s other responsibilities, since her youngest sister abandoned them on her doorstep last year, Mona has been raising her two nieces, Sophie and Cora, ages ten and six.
What Mona has is the world’s longest to-do list and no life of her own. On top of everything else, someone wants to kill her in order to become High Priestess. If it weren’t for the fact that her death was required, Mona might be willing to give them the job just to get a few minutes peace!
About that death threat: she only finds out about it when Adam Blue, beta of the local werewolf pack, drops half dead on her doorstep. Adam is also gorgeous, and Mona would be interested, but Adam hasn’t spoken more than a half a dozen words to her in the twenty years they’ve known each other.
And, the doctor of her dreams has suddenly shown an interest.
There’s suddenly too much going on in Mona’s already overfull life.
The death threat gets backed up by a demon. The werewolf moves in as a bodyguard, and the doctor starts making moves.
What’s a witch to do? Suspect everyone!
Escape Rating B: There are two plots in this story, the death threat and the love story. Both have what mystery stories call a “MacGuffin” and both get resolved by the end.
Although the death threat is real, and is going to be accomplished by magical means, the reasons for it are actually mundane. I don’t mean mundane in the sense of ordinary, I mean mundane in the sense that they are the same as in any police procedural. The questions are “who has a motive?” and the classic “who benefits?” People are still people, even if they can make fire shoot out of their fingers.
The love story had a couple of twists. I think most readers will guess who the intended true love is before the end, and why. But the reasons do fit quite nicely into the world the author has created.
What we don’t find out about, and that I hope is resolved in later books in the series, is the story of Ivy, Mona’s youngest sister, and what the heck she dragged her little girls through. They picked up some stuff they shouldn’t, and some very adult fears and coping skills. There’s a story there.
So, both the mystery and the love story had their predictable elements, but the setting was fun, and I really liked Mona. I’ll be looking for another visit to Goodnight, VA.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
Interview with Author Theresa Meyers + Giveaway!
I’m very happy to welcome today’s special guest Theresa Meyers. Theresa is the author of the action/adventure/steampunk/romance series, The Book of Legends. Each story in The Legend Chronicles has featured one of the handsome Jackson brothers, named after their father’s favorite guns, and destined to save the world. They’ve been marvelous fun! Check out my reviews of The Hunter (Colt Jackson), The Slayer (Winchester Jackson) and The Chosen (Remington Jackson) for glimpses into Ms. Meyers terrific creation.
And now, let’s hear from the author herself!
Marlene: Theresa, can you please tell us a bit about yourself?
Theresa: I’m the progeny of a mad (NASA) scientist and a tea-addicted bibliophile. My father worked at NASA during the space race, and now runs his own testing lab (NWAA Labs) out of the remains of defunct a nuclear power plant in Elma, WA, and my mother collected books, all kinds of books, her whole life, and was an elementary teacher. That gives you an idea of how I ended up with a curious mind (I love the research part of writing) and a passion for stories and books. It didn’t hurt that buying books was always considered an understandable expense and my mother turned our dining room into a library by lining the walls with bookshelves. My mother always read out loud to us, changing the voices for each character (something I still do whenever I read out loud even from my own books at conferences) and that made the stories pictures in my head. That’s how I see when I write. I’m a very visual person (likely because I’m dyslexic and the words didn’t make sense to me at the time anyway!) I’m also a perpetual multi-tasker. I’m a writer, a mom of two active young teens, work part-time as a school secretary at a junior high, and own a few acres including some fruit trees and a selection of roses and herbs, an old Arab gelding, a couple of fat, lazy cats and a mini-Aussie that require attention. I’m married to the guy who took me on my first real date to the Prom and suffered through my little brother sitting between us in the back seat of my parent’s car. I like my tea with milk and stevia, hate the flavor of coffee, and adore chocolate. On occasion I’ve been known to collect teapots and teddybears. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but when I can I keep up on Supernatural (the Dean girl in me is giddy about season 9!), Grimm, Once Upon a Time, The Vampire Diaries and Downton Abbey. I started writing when I was in 8th grade for the school newspaper, and began my first novel at 17. It wasn’t until I joined Romance Writers of America that I was able to get some focus and understanding about the industry and I wrote for 20 years (working as a public relations executive and owning a PR agency in the mean time) before I was published by Harlequin. I now write for three different publishers and have way more stories in my head than I can ever get down on paper.
Marlene: Describe a typical day of writing? Are you a planner or pantser?
Theresa: You know I wish I had a typical writing day. I just don’t. It’s write whenever, wherever, however I can. Sometimes it’s in a cheap spiral notebook in the car while I’m waiting to pick up the kids from football, basketball, dance, track, school club meetings or a friend’s house. Sometimes I’ll take rapid notes on EverNote on my phone for a piece of dialog when paper isn’t handy. Most often I’m writing on my desktop computer, but when that doesn’t work (or I know I’m seriously lagging behind in exercise) I’ll go to my laptop on the tread desk (which is a fancy way of saying a piece of the dining room table extension set over the arms of my treadmill). Normally with my day job I can get in about five pages a day on average. If I’m pushing hard on a deadline, I’ll write when I come home before the kids get home from school and after about 8 pm at night when dinner and homework is done. As for my method? I’m not actually a pantser or a plotter. I like to call myself a planter because I use my plotting board and scene sheets as kind of the trellis for my idea to grow on. I plant the idea and I know it’s going to grow like a vine from the bottom to the top of the trellis every time. But what I don’t know when I plant that idea is which way it’s going to twist and turn as it grows up the trellis. Sometimes it takes some unexpected directions just like the wisteria vine on my front porch!
Marlene: What can we expect of The Chosen?
Theresa: A fun, kick-butt adventure set in the weird wild west complete with banditos, mechanical monstrosities, demons, Aztec bone warriors, a funky steampunk submarine, giant black jaguars, a love triangle between two brothers and the shape-shifting thief China McGee, and the mother of show-downs between The Chosen and archdemon Rathe and his Darkin hordes that culminates in a destructive force the world still remembers to this day. Sound good?
Marlene: So, is this it for The Book of Legends? Are you ever planning to come back to this steampunk world?
Theresa: I’m not certain. I sure would like to continue writing in this world, but part of that is up to my publishers. I have ideas for more stories set in this world that involve some of the extended family of the Jackson brothers we’ve yet to meet.
Marlene: What made you decide to have the three brothers’ stories overlap each other, to show the events from each brother’s perspective?
Theresa: Every writer tries to stretch him/herself. It’s a thing. We have to do more with each book. This was a stretching point for me. You know how it’s always kind of annoying when you find a good book and you think, yeah, but this is number two or three in the series I can’t read this until I read the others. I wanted to do something different with this trilogy. Could I write three books that took place simultaneously so it wouldn’t really matter, you’d still be in the same time in each story? Then when I started writing it and had to change perspectives and jump in the other brother’s point of view in the scene, wow, was that an eye-opener into the characters! Normally you don’t get to see the scene from another character’s perspective which I think added another layer on to their relationship as brothers.
Marlene: What do you think it means that you “put the steam in steampunk”?
Theresa: Well, since the quote came from Cherry Adair, and she writes some seriously hot stuff sometimes, I’d like to think it means that these are truly romances full of “steam” and not just in the mechanical sense!
Marlene: What were your inspirations for The Book of Legends series?
Theresa: Oddly enough, I came up with the idea for these boys off of their names. I was writing historical romance at the time (in the mid-90s) and I started playing with the idea of what if I had three brothers named after their father’s favorite guns? It kind of just spread from there, and I ended up with an entire extended family tree. The Jackson brothers just happen to be from the dark sheep branch of the prestigious European Hunter family that emigrated to America to escape the family’s disapproval. I knew one was just like their outlaw dad, one an attorney and one a law man (opposite of dad). And when I started thinking about how they held things together, well, that’s where the supernatural bit crept in on silent stealthy feet. But at the time no one was buying anything paranormal. So they patient sat on my computer waiting for an editor that would love my Jackson brothers as much as I did.
Marlene: And I noticed that all your books tend a bit toward the eerie and supernatural. What draws you toward the dark?
Theresa: I don’t know that it’s so much the dark as the paranormal. You see, I was raised with a mom who would do things like read the story of the shoemaker and the elves to me, then I’d hear these wee little voices outside my window. The next morning my room would be cleaned and my mother would say it was the elves in the stump in the back yard and I ought to make them some cookies and clothes like the shoemaker did as a thank you. She made it all seem so real that it wasn’t hard to get to a place where you begin to realize that just because you can’t see something, doesn’t mean it’s not real. She was always making us aware of the world around us in a natural sense, and how magical life in general is, and I think that’s just kind of carried through into what I write. Besides, love is the greatest magic of all, don’t you think?
Marlene: What projects do you have planned for the future?
Theresa: Oh, honey, where do I begin? I’ve got four contemporary romances coming out with Entangled’s Bliss and Indulgence lines this year titled The Geek Billionaire Makeover, The Baby Mistake, You & Me…Again and Crossing the Line. Then I’m working on my Shadow Sisters series set with my alpa fae in the dark realms of Shadowland and Wyldwood. I’m also working on putting together a new series with a whole different slant on superheroes for Kensington as well as more vampire and werewolf books for Harlequin.
Marlene: What book would you most want to read again for the first time?
Theresa: Probably the entire Harry Potter series. I read them out loud to my kids when they first came out and we had such fun because I changed the voices for each character just like my mother had done for me. I have one really lovely memory of all of us as a family curled up in the king size bed while we read the last few chapters of the last book together because we all couldn’t wait to see how everything ended.
Marlene: On the other hand, tell us which book you’ve faked reading?
Theresa: Hummm. Hard one. I don’t know that I’ve ever faked reading a book. I like reading so much that if I have the slightest interest in it, it isn’t hard to just go grab the thing and start reading it for real!
Marlene: Tell me something that I wouldn’t know to ask. Just for fun.
Theresa: I make up soundtracks to my stories. It helps get me in the mood to write. Each book gets its own kind of theme song to kick off the sound track so I know which book I’m working on (as I’m usually working on two or three at a time between edits, writing and proposals). For The Chosen the theme song was Cowboy Casanova by Carrie Underwood. It just sounded like something China McGee would have been singing to herself in her head after meeting Remington Jackson.
Marlene: Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Theresa: Morning person, definitely. I’m that person who can roll out of bed, brush my teeth, slap my hair up into a ponytail and be ready to go. My family insists I’m way too perky. I insist they all take after their father who needs an extra half hour after the alarm goes off just to wake up. LOL.
About Theresa Meyers
The progeny of a slightly mad NASA scientist and a tea-drinking bibliophile who turned the family dining room into a library, Theresa Meyers learned early the value of a questioning mind, books and a good china teapot. But it wasn’t until third grade that Theresa overcame her dyslexia and learned to read, going on to make words her lifes work. With a degree in Mass Communications she became first a journalist, then a public relations officer in both the corporate and agency realm. But by far the most challenging has been using her writing skills to pen paranormal and steampunk novels in the turret office of her Seattle-area Victorian home. Shes spent nearly a quarter of a century with the boy who took her to the Prom, drinks tea with milk and sugar, is an adamant fan of the television show Supernatural, and has an indecent love of hats.
You can find Theresa at her website, on Facebook, and on Twitter.
