Keir by Pippa Jay: Interview & Excerpt

Science Fiction Romance

Outcast. Cursed. Dying. Is Keir beyond redemption?

For Keirlan de Corizi--the legendary 'Blue Demon' of Adalucien--death seems the only escape from a world where his discolored skin marks him as an oddity and condemns him to life as a pariah. But salvation comes in an unexpected guise: Tarquin Secker, a young woman who can travel the stars with a wave of her hand.

But Quin has secrets of her own. She's spent eternity searching through space and time with a strange band of companions at her back. Defying her friends' counsel, Quin risks her apparent immortality to save Keir. She offers him sanctuary and a new life on her home world, Lyagnius.

When Keir mistakenly unleashes his dormant alien powers and earns instant exile from Quin's home world, will she risk everything to stand by him again?

WARNING: Contains sweet romance, some violence and plenty of adventure.

A Lyrical Press Science-Fiction Romance

Goodreads  |  Amazon  | Lyrical Press  |  Amazon UK  |  Barnes and Noble

Once more he found himself somewhere strangely other. An alien planet. A fierce thrill flowed through him, and he drew a long breath. It was early evening on this world, and humidly warm, as Quin had warned him. The blue of the sky was streaked with the colors of sunset, the red-gold sun sinking behind them, throwing long shadows. They stood before a building that put the palace of Adalucien to shame with its splendor, twisting up into the sky and reminding him of the convoluted interior of a tall cone shell, broken open to reveal the chambers inside.

It had a fluid, organic shape to it, as though it had been grown rather than built. Made of a pale, marbled orange material and shot through with threads of different colors– pinks and mauves, greens and blues– it looked as though it were flaming in the scarlet light of the evening sky. There was no regularity to its structure. Numerous pillars of varying thicknesses seemed to have sprung up like trees wherever they had felt they were needed, curving into broad ribs to support the ceilings.

It was hard to be sure with such an asymmetrical construction but Keir estimated it to be perhaps twenty stories upward, soaring in ever-tapering tiers into the clouds. Terracing curled around the outside of each level, aerial walkways lit by tiny blue-white stars strung like beads. He could see people walking along them and hoped they would not have to travel quite so high.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Quin asked enthusiastically.

“It is beautiful,” he agreed. “What is it made from?”

“Coral. A marine creature. They lower a titanium frame into the ocean and the coral colonizes it. When it dies, they lift it into place and grind the surface down to make it smooth. The whole palace took over a hundred years to finish.” Her grin wreathed her face in lines of happiness and he could not help but share her exuberance. “I never get tired of seeing places like this!”

Starting a blog

Do you use a pen name? If so, how did you come up with it?

Yes, Pippa Jay is a pen name, but it’s basically just a shortened version of my real one. My first name is Philippa (quite a mouthful!), but everyone calls me Pip or Pippa anyway. And Jay is from my middle name of Jayne. My surname is pretty common, and since I’d used the pseudonym since I was a teenager I decided to stick with it. I’ve had a couple of compliments on it too, so I’m happy.

What was the scariest moment of your life?

My ‘near death’ experience that wasn’t, lol. When I was heavily pregnant with my third child, I had a really nasty cold that made it hard to breathe. One night it was so bad I thought I was suffocating. I managed to get myself out of bed but collapsed on the landing. Luckily my husband was coming up to put the older two kids to bed, because I really thought I was dying. Apparently I’d gone a rather attractive shade of purple. Anyway, he rang for an ambulance. By the time they came, the worst of it was over. It turned out I had a chest infection aggravated by a panic attack, and not a near death experience after all. The strangest thing was I remember feeling really angry about it too. If Death had turned up for me, he’d have been in for one heck of a fight!

Are the names of the characters in your novels important?  How and why?

A friend of mine commented recently that I “like strange names.” I can live with that. Names, to me, are essential and usually one of the first things I give to a character. Names define them. The Shakespearean quote is "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". But names and words have associations. An image springs to mind with certain words. Or in my case, a name springs to mind when I see my characters.

Do you have a favorite quote, quip, or saying? What is it?

It’s from the scifi spoof film Galaxy Quest, and seems to be a favourite with a lot of the authors I know. Commander Quincy Taggart said, “Never give up - never surrender!” It’s probably the best piece of advice I could give to anyone, but especially to an aspiring author.

Does your significant other read your stuff?

He read the first couple of books that I finished. At the time I didn’t really have anyone else to sound off ideas from, although that’s now changed. He isn’t really into the genre that I write, but he’s always honest about not liking something. He reads far more widely than me so even though he doesn’t write he can tell me if something isn’t coming across very well. Now I spare him that torture and use Critique Circle or rely on some of my more experienced author friends.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be an elf. Then a Jedi Knight. When neither of those worked out, I decided I’d be a veterinarian. Instead I ended up as an Analytical Chemist, then became a mum, and now an author. At least I still get to legitimately pretend to be variations of the first two in my head.

 

A stay-at-home mum of three who spent twelve years working as an Analytical Chemist in a Metals and Minerals laboratory, Pippa Jay bases her stories on a lifetime addiction to science-fiction books and films. Somewhere along the line a touch of romance crept into her work and refused to leave. Between torturing her characters, she spends the odd free moments trying to learn guitar, indulging in freestyle street dance and drinking high-caffeine coffee. Although happily settled in historical Colchester in the UK with her husband of 19 years, she continues to roam the rest of the Universe in her head.

LINKS:

Blogsite  |  Twitter  @pippajaygreen  |  Facebook Fan Page

Pippa Jay(Facebook profile)  |   Goodreads

 

Reviews:

Romance Writers Reviews 

5 Stars

"Romance was sweet, suspense was very intense…..interesting story!" Wanda

The Masquerade Crew
4 Stars

"There’s magic, romance, multiple worlds, a mysterious being and many different races of beings thrown into the mix. Altogether Keir proves to be a pageturner." Bec 

 

One ebook copy of Keir, available internationally in Kindle, PDF, HTML or ePub formats

Ends July 21, 2012

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Way of the Black Beast by Stuart Jaffe: MY REVIEW

 Malja wants answers. She wants to know why the two most powerful magicians in all of Corlin ripped her from her mother's arms, raised her only to fight, and then tossed her away to die at age ten. She wants to know why they are trying to recreate the spells which caused the Devastation that wiped out most of the world's population, leaving behind skeletal cities and abandoned technology. And she wants to kill them.

With Tommy, an orphan bearing the tattoos of a sorcerer, she crosses this shattered land. Despite the challenges they face -- crazed magicians, guitar-playing assassins, mutated beasts -- Malja pursues her vengeance with a single-mindedness that may destroy all she holds dear, forcing her to make a terrible choice between the family she lost and the one she has built.





MY REVIEW
My Rating 3.5 stars

As an infant, Maija is torn from her mother’s arms and thrust into the guardianship of two brothers. The brothers, both powerful magicians with an unusual type of shared magic, quickly became disappointed when, as a young child, Maija fails every test they force upon her, and continuously rebels against their tyranny. Maija is then abandoned; left for dead at an early age. Unknown to Jarik and Callib, Maija somehow survives and is later rescued and adopted by a kind-hearted man named Gregor.


As the years pass Jarik and Callib became ever more powerful and god-like. Bound together by their magic, the brothers’ sphere of influence and control continues to expand. However, several years pass and the magicians learn that Maija actually survives and prospers. They dispatch assassins who kill Gregor. Now, Maija is more determined than ever to track down the evil brothers and exact vengeance for her beloved guardian’s untimely, horrific death. Thus the story begins as Maija sets upon her blood quest, following clues, building alliances, and earning the loyalty of new friends and strange denizens.


An enjoyable read that kept me entertained and guessing, this story unfolded with multiple twists and unexpected moments. I loved the flow and musicality of the descriptive phrases. Maija evolves, and we learn more about her background as the narrative progresses. Indeed, most of the characters, including the brothers, become more complex as their motivations and fears are uncovered. By the end, the reader ultimately recognizes the black beast for exactly what it is.

Laurie-J
Reviewer for Night Owl Reviews


View all my reviews

Sullivan's Secret by Robin Murphy: Character Interview

Paranormal Mystery

Dr. Marie Bartek's life has been uneventful as the local veterinarian on Sullivan's Island, SC, until her ability to see spirits returns after eighteen years. After confiding in her best friend and realizing their interests in the paranormal, they organize a paranormal investigation team called Sullivan's Island Paranormal Society, SIPS. Marie learns to channel her ability through the help of one of the team members, but not before learning the spirits are trying to warn her about the murders taking place on Sullivan's Island. Sullivan's Secret captivates the reader with murder, suspense, and the world of the paranormal.

Amazon Paperback  |  Kindle  |  Goodreads  |  Barnes and Noble Paperback  |  Nook

I'm excited to welcome the star protagonist of Sullivan’s Secret – Dr. Marie Bartek. Thanks for agreeing to sit down with me for this interview.  Without further delay let's go!

Where do you dream of traveling to and why?

·        I’d love to travel to France to see where my ancestors lived and especially to learn about my spirit guide who was of French descent.

Tell us about your family.

·        I grew up in Rhode Island and my parents, Paul and Helen Bartek still live there.  My oldest brother, Edward, is a teacher and living in North Carolina.  My other older brother, Warren, is a retired Marine pilot living in Texas.

What was the scariest moment of your life?

·        When my ability to see spirits came back after squelching it since I was twelve years old.  My abilities have increased and I continue to develop new ways to communicate with the other side.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

·        What I am now, a veterinarian.  I have always loved animals and love helping them.  I guess I was destined to help animals, as well as people.

What are you passionate about these days?

·        I am most passionate about my psychic ability and continuing to control and develop it.  I now understand why I was given this gift.  The other thing I am passionate about is our paranormal investigative group called Sullivan’s Island Paranormal Society, SIPS.  We have acquired a professional reputation and have helped so many of our clients with answers to their paranormal issues.  Oh, and we seem to have the capability of helping solve crimes.

What do you do to unwind and relax?

·        I love to swim.  I live on the beach of Sullivan’s Island, so when the weather is right I swim in the ocean.  I have an indoor lap pool to use when the weather doesn’t cooperate.

Do your friends think you are an introvert or an extravert? Why?

·        I actually feel I’m a bit of an introvert and my best friend, Gale Winters, does as well.  She has helped me stretch my confidence to become more of an extravert.  I think this all stemmed from me seeing spirits as a child.  When I realized I could see and talk to spirits everyone thought I was weird or crazy, so I just learned to keep all my “secrets” to myself and never really learned to trust anyone for fear of rejection.

Is there a piece of advice that you have received that has really stuck with you? If so, what was it?

·        I would have to say the best advice that has stuck with me was from my very dear friend and mentor Myra Cummings.  She too is a psychic and a member of SIPS.  She has helped me to accept my ability.  She told me that being a psychic was a gift and that having it didn’t make me odd or eccentric and that I was blessed to help others in ways not understood by skeptics.  I no longer feel the need to squelch my psychic ability and now embrace each new area that develops as I continue to grow from within.

Robin Murphy was born in the small coal mining town of Windber, Pennsylvania and remembers a wonderful childhood with her parents and two older brothers.

She has worked in the administrative field over the last thirty years and has gained a wealth of knowledge and experience. She is currently employed as an Administrative Associate at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

Robin has four children – two daughters, Jennifer and Sue, and two sons, Michael and Nathan – and three granddaughters – Tessa, Anna, and Abigail, with a fourth grandson on the way.

She and her husband, Bob were married in Sharpsburg, MD in 1998 by local historian, Rev. John Schildt. After falling in love with the town, they decided to move to Sharpsburg three years later. In 2002, they bought a log home, circa 1783, and continue to restore the fourteen-room house. It’s been a true labor of love.

Even though Robin has to squeeze her writing into creative times of the day, it is during those moments she feels exhilarated and renewed. “There is no greater feeling than to have found my passion in writing.” She also finds time to swim and loves to travel.

Website  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |   Goodreads   |   Google +   |  Amazon  |  Barnes and Noble

Winner's choice Print or PDF copy of Sullivan's Secret (Open to US only)
Non-US reader may enter to win a PDF copy

Ends July 27, 2012

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tyfear by Bonnie Wright : Sneak Peek Excerpt & Interview

YA Fantasy

Tyfear is hatched the exact same way as other dragons. But something's wrong. He can't breathe flame. Shunned and humiliated by most of his fellow dragons, Tyfear goes off in search of Rojen, the god of fire, to ask for the power to breathe flame. But the minute he leaves the safety of his home, danger comes rushing towards him. He gets captured by humans. Now he has to figure out a way to escape them and get his fire breath.

EXCERPT

His left wing suddenly screamed in pain as something long and sharp went through it. Tyfear yelled out. The arrow hit some type of nerve and now Tyfear couldn’t move his wing. Tyfear and Kendra both fell straight down, the air blasting in their faces and making their eyes water and their screaming mouths dry up. They heard the voice of Yuya calling out to them getting smaller and smaller.


They landed with Kendra on top of Tyfear. His scaly back hit and broke the tree branches and he landed on relatively soft ground. Tyfear still suffered some pain but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He felt like he maintained a bruise but his tough skin made it so that nothing was broken. Kendra had Tyfear’s belly as a cushion. Though it didn’t make the best cushion in the world, it helped her not break anything. She groaned in pain.

Tyfear just wanted to stay lying down. He whimpered from his wound and he wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and fall asleep. He made himself comfortable on the soft ground.

But his body started to sink further and further downwards. Kendra sat up, her eyes wide in fear.

“Quicksand! Ren, get up! Get up!”

By this time Tyfear was already too deep to escape. His belly went completely under and before Kendra could do anything her knees were grabbed and being pulled into the sand like fish being pulled out of the water with a net. Their hearts rose all the way to their throats.

“Ren! Ren!”

“My name’s not Ren! It’s Tyfear!”

INTERVIEW

What is the hardest part of writing your books?

      Getting myself to sit down and just do it. I have tons of ideas in my head but having those ideas and constructing them into detailed sentences that everyone can understand are two different things. Discipline is key to success for anything, so I try to set a goal everyday. I usually force myself to write at least 500 words of fiction.

 

 

      Who are your books published with?

             Xynobooks. I must admit this is my first book and they are wanting to publish it. I am forever grateful to them that they’re helping me fulfill my dream as a writer. Sure, you should do most of the work yourself when talking about achieving your dreams but there is nothing wrong with having help.

 

 

      How do you develop your plots and your characters? Do you use any set formula?

             I don’t really have a set formula. I daydream all the time and some of my daydreams get jotted down on paper. When creating characters, I like to make little notes about who they are. What are their likes and dislikes? What are their goals in life? Hobbies? Personalities? History? I even consider what their orientation might be. And after I’m done creating what I call a base of a character, I put them in a scenario in my head and see what happens. If Bob, who likes to fish, is on a boat with Sarah, who dreams of being an actress, what would happen? Then all the possibilities run through my head. Maybe Bob will fish and silently listen to Sarah’s endeavors. Maybe Sarah will mention something about acting like a mermaid and Bob would suggest how she might act it out. He does know a lot about fish after all. In the end, a plot slowly forms and that’s how I do it sometimes.

 

 

 

If you were to write a series of novels, what would it be about?

             I hope to write a story about dragons. I have always loved dragons since I was very small. When I was a girl, I didn’t want to be a princess. I wanted to be a dragon. My fascination with the mystical beasts is the reason I wrote Tyfear.

 

 

 

Do your friends think you are an introvert or an extravert? Why?

             I’m very much an introvert and my friends know it. I’m shy to the point that I hardly say anything at all. It’s probably due to how much I daydream, though I wish I was a little more extraverted. I’m still working on that.

 

 

 

Do you have any special routines or rituals?

             I walk continuously around my neighborhood block. Most people seem to think I’m doing it for the exercise but it’s actually more of a comfort thing. When I move I can think easier. I don’t know how to explain it except that it’s like when I’m standing still, it’s harder to daydream. When I’m moving, it’s like a well built machine just turned on. Everything is running smoothly. It feels alive. My brain has a purpose, just like a machine does. It sort of reminds me of the movie Hugo, now that I look at what I’m writing.

 

 

 

Use no more than two sentences. Why should we read your book?

             Tyfear is an outcast, like many people feel at times but he finds out that he’s stronger than everyone gives him credit for. I think my book will help you care more about how you judge yourself rather than how other people judge you.

 

 

 

Entice us, what future projects are you considering?

             I have several ideas that I’m excited about. One is about an arachnophobic boy who finds out he has the power over spiders. Another is about a woman who finds out that the son she adopted attracts magical creatures. And one is about a man who can literally see his shoulder angel and his angel doesn’t let him get away with anything bad. The man rebels by going completely dark side and only listening to his shoulder devil.

WHERE TO FIND BONNIE WRIGHT

Twitter  |  Blog

Thanks for Looking!

Wolf's Trap by W.D. Gagliani: MY REVIEW

(Blurb from Night Owl Reviews)

It takes a beast to catch a killer!
Nick Lupo is a good cop—with the instincts of a great detective…or maybe a wolf. Lupo has a lot in common with wolves, which is only natural considering he’s a werewolf. He’s battled the creature inside him for years, but now there’s another predator in the area. A bloodthirsty serial killer is leaving a gruesome trail of victims, and it’s up to Lupo to track him down and stop the slaughter. Will Lupo dare to unleash one beast to stop another?



MY REVIEW
My rating: 4 Stars


Nick Lupo is a homicide detective. Bitten when he was a boy by a werewolf, Nick has always tried to restrain his beast; it is a constant battle. He worries that he will be forced into a change, and thus reveal his carefully guarded secret. He has tried for years to understand and control his condition but the results of his efforts have been inconsistent, usually failing.


For years, Nick has led a solitary existence, ever since he accidentally killed his first love, Caroline. When an unlikely friendship develops between Nick and a vivacious call girl, he becomes cautiously optimistic that perhaps this time he can control his inner beast.


When Nick’s friend is viciously murdered, he is overwhelmed by grief and guilt. Somebody from his past wants Nick dead – eventually. But first, he aims to make him suffer.


This story is told from Nick’s perspective, and I enjoyed the way in which it unfolded. It jumps back and forth between the past and the present several times but I found it easy to follow, and thought both story lines were told quite well. While I could have done without some of the redundancy regarding Nick’s tremendous burden of guilt, I actually enjoyed the second half of the book even more than the first; the clicks to flip the pages on my kindle got faster, always a sure sign of a good book for me. A warning, though, this book is graphically gruesome in some places. I enjoy well-scripted horror, always have. This is the best book of its kind I have read in a while.

Laurie-J
Reviewed for Night Owl Reviews

View all my reviews

Savage by Willow Rose: Interview & Excerpt

YA Paranormal

The year is 1983. Christian is 22 years old when he leaves his home in Denmark to spend a year in Florida with a very wealthy family and go to med-school. A joyful night out with friends is shattered by an encounter with a savage predator that changes his life forever. Soon he faces challenges he had never expected. A supernatural gift he has no idea how to embrace. A haunting family in the house next door. A spirit-filled girl who seems to carry all the answers. An ancient secret hidden in the swamps of Florida. One life never the same. One love that becomes an obsession. Two destinies that will be forever entangled.

Savage is a young adult title with some language, violence, and sexual situations recommended for ages sixteen and up.

Kindle  |  Goodreads  |  Smashwords  |  Nook (coming soon)

1

“So how much do you know about St. Augustine, Chris?”

The woman driving gently touched her elegant yellow hair, careful not to mess it up with her colored nails. She spoke with a strong southern accent and was incredibly beautiful for her age, which I guessed was more than twice my age of twenty-two. Her name was Mrs. Kirk. I had just met her at Orlando Airport for the first time a few minutes before. She was waiting for me holding a sign with my name, Christian Langaa, printed on it.

The year was 1983 and I had recently finished my third year of med school at a university in Denmark. I had just left my country of birth for St. Augustine in Florida.  Leaving Denmark was my father’s idea, really. I guess he thought it was about time I left the nest, so he called in a favor with an old friend of his, an American eye surgeon, to take me in and help me get a year at a medical school “over-there.” I can’t say I was unhappy about it. At that time all kids my age wanted to go to the States where stone-washed jeans and Michael Jackson came from. His latest album "Thriller" had just been released and was played on every radio station all over the world. Like so many else I bought the cassette and played it again and again on my Walkman. Where I came from anything that was American was considered hip and cool. That summer before I left, my friends and I had watched the movie Flashdance that made ripped sweatshirts popular and we loved the TV show Dallas and Dynasty that made everybody wear increasingly oversized shoulder pads - even us guys. We drank lots of Coke and dreamt of watching MTV, which at that time wasn’t something you could do in Europe yet and especially not in my small home-country Denmark, where we only had one national channel on our TV.

The older generation in our country thought we were indifferent to the times we lived in and didn’t understand us at all. They named us the “So what-generation” or the “No future-generation” because they felt like we didn’t care about what went on in the world around us. We weren’t even rebellious. We didn’t have ideals and dreams about changing the world like they had back in ’68. Meanwhile they were terrified of the A-bomb, the Cold War and the communists. While we listened to disco music on our ghetto blasters and danced electric boogie, they fought with a bad economy and the fear of someone deciding to push the big red button, dropping the A-bomb and ending the world as we know it. Not to mention the increasing fear of AIDS that was spreading among people, commonly referred to as the "Gay-Plague" since it was believed back then to be an "epidemic of a rare form of cancer triggered by the lifestyle of some male homosexuals," as the headline said in one newspaper.

The older generation simply felt like our generation just didn’t care about anything. And maybe they were right. We weren’t that concerned about political affairs and foreign threats. Politics simply didn’t interest us, especially not me. I was fed up with listening to my father talk about politics and war during my upbringing. I was a dreamer not a fighter. You can’t be both. Not in my book. And AIDS? Well, I guess we thought we couldn't get it since it was a disease for the homosexuals. Plus we were in our twenties. We didn't think we could die at all.

We ran over a bump and I was rudely jolted out of my reverie.

“Not much,” I answered Mrs. Kirk a little timid. “I know it calls itself the nation’s oldest city. I know it was here Ponce de León came to look for the legendary Fountain of Youth. I know the city of St. Augustine is home to the Fountain of Youth National Archaeological Park, a tribute to the spot where Ponce de León is traditionally said to have landed. Though there is no evidence that the fountain located in the park today is the storied fountain or has any restorative effects, visitors drink the water. The park exhibits native and colonial artifacts to celebrate St. Augustine's Timucuan and Spanish heritage.”

Mrs. Kirk looked at me with a small impressed smile. “Very well, you have done your homework. Dr. Kirk will be pleased to hear that you have not come unprepared.”

“My dad gave me a book on Florida to read on the plane. I have a photographic memory. I remember things easily. It helps me a lot in school.”

I stared out the window at swamps and what seemed to me like wild-growing brushes and forests. I was desperately hoping to catch a glimpse of an alligator, an animal I had never seen before and of which I had been told you could find in pretty much every waterhole in Florida. I was deeply fascinated by creatures of the wild. By predators of any kind. But as a city boy, I had only seen them behind their bars at the zoo, never in the wild. By now we had passed several waterholes and I had still not seen any to my great disappointment.

It felt like my headband was getting tighter, and I was sweating in my tight jeans and jacket with shoulder-pads and rolled up sleeves. I took the jacket off and put it in my lap. Florida was a lot warmer than I had expected it to be. And a lot more humid, too. I wasn’t used to this kind of heat, coming from a country where we would be lucky to have three weeks of summer. I still remember the feeling when I stepped out of the airplane in Orlando airport for the first time. It felt like someone had taken a winter jacket and swept me in it. Like the air itself was hugging me and welcoming me home. I remember sweating just from walking from the airport to the big black Mercedes that Mrs. Kirk picked me up in.

She cranked up the air conditioning and I soon felt a little cooler. I touched the nice leather seats and suddenly felt so insignificant. Coming from a rich family by Danish standards I was used to some luxury, yet I had never been in a car like this. 

  “Well, maybe you will have to think about losing some of those unruly curls once you become a doctor,” Mrs. Kirk said.

I touched my hair gently. I liked my blond curls and had let them grow past my ears. And I wasn’t the only one who liked them. The girls did too. Along with my deep-set blue eyes, my curls were my finest feature. Why parents and others older than thirty-five insisted they want me to cut them off was beyond me. My dad was the worst. “You look like a savage,” he would say. But I didn’t care. Deciding what I was going to do for a living was one thing, but he wasn’t going to change the way I looked, too.

He was the one who wanted me to go to med school, not me. All I wanted to do was play my acoustic guitar. “But you can’t make a living out of just playing the guitar. You need to grow up, Chris. It is about time,” my father said just before he told me about his plans for me. It wasn’t like he gave me a choice. I was going to take over the family practice. It had always been his dream for me ever since I was a child, so I never questioned it, simply because it would break his heart. I never said no to my father in these matters and I didn't argue when he told me he was going to send me away for a year, either. Instead, I decided to make the best of it.

Creating a blog

Welcome Willow.  Thanks for stopping by today.  I'm looking foreward to finding out a little more about you and your book. How did you start your writing career?

I have always told stories. I remember telling stories to my friends as a child in school and making them forget that they had to go out and play for recess. Even my teacher would listen in and he told me to keep it up and to write them down. I wrote several notebooks filled with stories that he read. He encouraged me a lot. I went on to become a journalist and wrote my first novel when I was 28. It was published by one of the big Danish publishing houses. 

Tell us about your current release.

In Savage we meet Christian who is a young man torn between the world of science and the world of magic. He has left his country of Denmark and is going to Florida to go to med school. He meets Aiyana who is a spirit-filled girl living in a completely different world than he is. Her family is descendants from the Timucua Indians that lived in Florida before the Spaniards came. They live in a world of magic, music and laughter and Christian feels so drawn to them.  At the same time he has a violent encounter with a savage beast in the swamps of Florida, an encounter that makes him doubt everything he has always believed.

When in the day/night do you write? How long per day?

I say goodbye to the kids at nine and then I write until three o'clock when they are out of school. I try to leave the computer alone the rest of the day in order to be there for the kids, but sometimes I just have to sneak back to it and write something that I just remembered. It's really hard not to write constantly once I have begun a new book.

Do you listen to music while writing? If so what?

I have a thing for James Blunt. I always listen to him when I write. Never when I am not writing. It is weird. There is something about the intensity in his lyrics that makes me want to write.

What was the scariest moment of your life?

New Years Eve 2011. We were back in Denmark to visit the family when my husband took the kids outside to watch the fireworks. He was hit in the right eye by a rocket. He lost the eye but nothing else happened. He was lucky the doctors said. If it had hit the brain he could have been killed. If it had hit any of the kids it would have killed them. That was one scary night when he was at the operating table. I was afraid I would lose him. Luckily he is fine today and lives a normal life with just one eye.

How do you develop your plots and your characters? Do you use any set formula?

The story and the characters come to me. I like to say that they "pop up" in my head. That is the best way I can describe it. The characters are just there all of a sudden and then they start to do stuff and talk to other people and soon there is a whole story that I simply have to tell or else I will burst. I simply adore the characters from Savage and I know everybody else will too. They are so lovable. I have a hard time letting go of them. I will write three books about the main character Christian.  It is sort of a family-saga really. In the first book he is in his twenties and so is the woman he falls in love with. In the second book they have kids of their own and are in their thirties. In the last book they will have young teenagers. I am also planning on doing a book about Aiyana, the spirit-filled Native American girl that he falls hopelessly in love with. About her and when she first discovers who she really is. I might also do a book about her sister who does telekinesis and their grand-mother who predicts natural disasters. I love those characters so much that they each deserve their own book.

Are the names of the characters in your novels important?  How and why?

A lot of my characters are descendants from the Timucua Indians that lived in Florida before the Europeans came so they have Native American names. Each name has a meaning. Like the woman that Christian falls in love with. Her name is Aiyana which means "Eternal blossom".

Willow Rose writes YA Paranormal Romance and fantasy. Originally from Denmark she now lives on Florida’s Space Coast with her husband and two daughters. She is a huge fan of Anne Rice and Isabel Allende. When she is not writing or reading she enjoys to watch the dolphins play in the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

Other Books by the author:
- One, Two ... He is coming for you
- The eye of the Crystal ball
- Beyond - Afterlife #1
- Serenity - Afterlife #2
- Endurance - Afterlife #3

Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Blog  |  Goodreads  |  Smashwords

One lucky winner will get their choice of a Print or Digital copy of Savage. 
2nd winner will receive the other prize.
This is open world-wide.
The print copy can be shipped anywhere. 

Ends July 28, 2012

a Rafflecopter giveaway