Tantalizing Tuesday

The guest bloggers this month have been working in tandem on something special for all of you! I'm really excited about what is happening and I hope you will be too! On October 31st I'll post what the surprise is and you'll be given a chance to win something fun! So, be sure to return on October 31st and enter the fun...

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Please welcome new to me author, Marissa Farrar! Join Marissa at her blog to keep up-to-date about her current WIP and coming releases. Sit back, relax, grab your favorite drink and enjoy getting to know Marissa!

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GRACEN: Do you have a movie that you must watch every Halloween? What's your favorite scary movie? Do you have a favorite scary character or character type?

MARISSA: I am a total horror movie fanatic. I have so many favourite horror movies I hardly know where to start! Hauntings are my favorite type of scary movie, mainly because they are the ones I believe in the most, but I like anything that is intelligent and above-all, scary! Some of my favourites include Pans Labyrinth, Jacob’s Ladder, Silent Hill, and The Changeling (1980). If I have an evening alone with any of these movies, I am happy!


GRACEN: I love horror movies too, Marissa! Do you dress up for Halloween? If so, what will you be dressed up as this year? What was your all-time most favorite costume that you ever wore? Why?

MARISSA: I won’t be dressing up this year, but I will be dressing up my two kids and taking them trick or treating. My three-year-old wants to be a witch (and a scary one, she has insisted) and the baby will be the obligatory pumpkin! My own personal favourite costume was back when I was a student. I got some latex rubber and turned one half of my face into this burnt ‘freddy’ look. I then painted one side black and the other white. I looked seriously scary and none of my friends even recognized me!


GRACEN: How cool of a costume, Marissa! Are you superstitious? Do you find yourself knocking on wood or throwing salt over your shoulder? If not one of these two, what is your superstition?

MARISSA: I do knock on wood, though I wouldn’t say I was particularly superstitious. I usually only believe in things if the outcome is going to be a good one – like when a money-spider walks across your palm you are going to get money!


GRACEN: Do you believe in ghosts? If so, have you ever had a ghostly encounter and tell us about it?

MARISSA: I totally believe in ghosts. My grandmother saw spirits all of the time. She would go up to people in the street and tell them that they had a little dog walking beside them and it would be a pet that recently passed. My mother used to take me to medium shows and some of the stuff they came out with was amazing. However, I do have a healthy dose of skepticism as well. I think my belief in scary things helps me to write about scary things.


GRACEN: Tell us 3 funny or strange things that happened to you, or someone you know, on past Halloweens?

MARISSA: In the UK we don’t really celebrate Halloween. I often end up sitting, waiting for trick or treaters to turn up, only for no one to arrive and I end up eating a whole box of mini chocolate bars. Any other stories come from my student days and revolve around too much alcohol and doing things I probably shouldn’t, so I think I may have to keep those to myself!


GRACEN: LOL We completely understand, Marissa, but I've got a pretty good naughty imagination to fill in those blank spots… ;-) If you could be any paranormal creature, what would it be and why?

MARISSA: I know I am not going to be very original here, but it would have to be a vampire. There is something about the sex appeal that I have loved since I was a teenager.


GRACEN: Ditto here, Marissa. Vampire for me too and an obsession since middle school. Swashbuckling pirates like Johnny Depp are sexy, but e-pirates are not. How do you handle e-pirates in your writing world? Do you have any advice or wish to share any experience with other writers? Anything you wish to say to e-pirates in general?

MARISSA: Unfortunately piracy is a reality of our time. However, people have often shared real books as well. I know I’ve often borrowed a book off of a friend without considering it piracy. At the moment I just want to increase my name and profile. Of course I would much rather someone bought a book, but I would rather gain a reader by someone sharing.
All I would say to anyone copying files is please remember, writers need to eat too!


GRACEN: Now, let’s get to your writing, Marissa…Why the paranormal genre? What was the draw for you?

MARISSA: I’ve always been obsessed with the paranormal, ever since I was a small child. I grew up reading Stephen King, Dean Koontz and James Herbert. I’ve never wanted to write anything else.


GRACEN: Love me some King as well! The Shining my all-time favorite book. If you could describe your paranormal writing with a word or phrase, what would it be? Please be creative and look beyond words like vampire, werewolf, etc., and delve into the core of your writing to tell us what word or phrase you want readers to take with them when they've finished reading your story.

MARISSA: Threads of reality, brutality and darkness, all woven together by romance.


GRACEN: Oooo…intriguing! Do you prefer playing tricks on people or bestowing treats? Does that show through in your writing? If so, how?

MARISSA: Oh, I am much more of a treat-giver. I would hate to do anything to upset somebody in real life! But no, this definitely doesn’t show in my writing. Maybe the horrible side of me comes out in my work, so I can still be lovely to the people around me!


GRACEN: Who decides what creatures you write about, you or your muse? What kind of influence do you have over your story, or is the muse always the one stirring the cauldron?

MARISSA: I’m afraid I don’t have, or even believe in, a muse. In the past I’ve wondered if they are like some kind of writing fairy who delivers amazing pieces of writing to other writers while they’re not looking! They sound like a handy thing to have, but the only one who decides what I write about is me.


GRACEN: What was the creature/paranormal character that you had the most fun creating and why? Who—to you—was the sexiest character you wrote and why?

MARISSA: The most fun was Madeline – my designer handbag loving, total bitch of a vampire in Alone. But the sexiest character is definitely in a short story I have recently written for a girl-on-girl vampire anthology. Her name is Nadine and she is a stripper-turned-vampire. I’ve yet to find out if the short story has been accepted, but boy, it was hot!


GRACEN: If you had the opportunity to meet just one of your characters in real life, who would it be and why? Which of your characters would you never want to meet under any circumstance and why?

MARISSA: I would never want to meet Jackson, the abusive husband in my first novel, Alone. Even more so, I would hate to meet him in Alone’s sequel, Buried Alone (hopefully released early 2011). Let’s just say Jackson comes back, and he is seriously pissed.
The person I would most like to meet is Josh, my anti-hero in my new novel, The Dark Road. He’s a bit of a bad-guy-turned-good. He is strong and sexy, and a natural leader, but he has his flaws as well. He is definitely the sort of man I would like to know.


GRACEN: Thanks so much for joining us, Marissa! It's been fun getting to know you! Now to learn more about her books…

Dark Road Blurb:

When a group of travellers are thrown together on a bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap, Cambodia, they have no idea of the journey ahead of them.

Shortly after crossing the Cambodian border, one of their party disappears off of the side of the road. The group quickly learns they have more than just the terrible roads and threat of landmines to worry about.

One by one they start to lose both their minds and their lives, as what was supposed to be a holiday turns into a terrifying fight for survival.

Dark Road Excerpt:

‘Beams of torchlight swung across the sodden landscape. The clouds were low in the sky, a thick blanket that insulated the moon from the earth. The darkness was so absolute it was like a living, breathing thing, sucking in the pathetic beams of light as if it were feeding on them. Even their voices seemed wrong and unnatural in this world.

Sasha couldn’t shake the feeling that they should have been keeping quiet and hiding instead of marking out their positions and vulnerability with noises and lights. It was irrational and stupid but she couldn’t pretend the cold shivers that clawed their way up her spine were not there. She was glad of Josh’s proximity and wondered how well she would be coping right now if he had not got on the bus and she had not met him.

As if hearing her thoughts, Josh turned and caught her eye. A gentle smile caught her heart and she turned away, flustered and confused.

Sasha opened her mouth to call Vicki’s name again, when a sudden movement in the beam of her flashlight caused the word to catch in her throat. She choked on it like a lump of meat, her breath trapped inside her lungs, slowly burning. Where her airways stopped working, her heart went on overdrive. She could feel blood rushing through her veins, could hear it coursing in her ears, the sound similar to that heard when listening to a seashell. Her body froze in the same position: left foot forward, arm outstretched, torchlight shaking...’




Alone Blurb:


Caught in a violent and abusive relationship, Serenity thinks there is no escape. Then she meets a stranger, Sebastian, who shows her the possibility of a different future.

Only Sebastian has a dark secret; he is a vampire.

As Serenity’s life takes a terrifying turn, Sebastian’s past catches up to them both in the form of Sebastian’s maker, Madeline.

Serenity finds herself drawn into a world she never knew existed; one of murder, love, and immortality. She is forced to confront her own weaknesses to save both her own life and that of the vampire she has come to love. But in the end all that matters is; can she find the strength to be Alone ?

Alone Excerpt:


‘Serenity could feel grass beneath her feet and the air was finally still. The sounds of the city were far behind them. She could smell damp soil, and wet leaves on the night air. She had no idea where they were, but she didn’t dare open her eyes until Sebastian told her to...

He had told her not to look and she didn’t want to, especially not now.

“Open your eyes, Serenity,” he roared, his voice raw. “Look at me. Look at what I am.”

“No!” she cried into her hands. “Stop it, stop it!”

“Look at me, Serenity. If this is what you want you must open your eyes!”

She didn’t want to, she wanted to hide away from it, but he was right; it was something she needed to see.

So she forced herself to her feet and opened her eyes.

Sebastian was standing twenty-feet away from her, bathed in moonlight, a body in his arms.

He looked up at her, his beautiful pale face coated in blood, his green eyes now yellow and glowing in the darkness.

“Look, Serenity,” he shouted into the night. “See who I am! I am a monster!”’


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Where to find Marissa: http://www.marissa-farrar.blogspot.com/