New Series to Share!

Hi there readers! I have a new series to share with you!

Please stop by our Mystery Isle to see what the new series is and which eBook you can get for only 99 cents!

Mystic Monday

Welcome Author

Rachel Vincent!!!

Some of you may recognize her from her visit the YA Room last week, but for those of you who don't know her, she is one of the leading authors of the creepy and scary. If you don't believe me, check out her free YA novella, My Soul to Lose. In fact, I'd have to call her the Queen of Creep! Okay, maybe Queen of Scream too! Lol! [That last one's a play on words as her YA series is about Soul Screamers! HAHAHAHAHA!]

Sure, I know I gave high praises to YA Author Alexandra Sokoloff, but Rachel Vincent is in a different class. While Sokoloff focuses on the ghosts and unseen worlds that many of us believe exists within our own realm, Vincent delves into macabre myths and legends and brings them to life in truly scary, creepy and downright tingly tales of urban fantasy fiction.

What is urban fantasy? 

Well, for those of you who do not know, urban fantasy is when the fantasy realm collides with the real, everyday realm. Examples you might recognize: Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Supernatural, Lori Handeland's Phoenix Chronicles, Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series, Stephen King's Salem's Lot.  I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

So, why is Rachel Vincent being featured here? Well, because she also has her Shifters series targeted for adults. It started with Stray, then went on with Rogue, Pride, and Prey, and continues with her latest one Shift, which is released today, but some places were nice and put it out early! This series isn't ending yet! There's also a new one on the horizon, Alpha, due out in October of this year! Oooh, in time for Halloween! Very Cool!

Before we get to the excerpt for Shift, let's get to why you're here, her interview!

ME: March has a few popular dates to celebrate. Which one are you more apt to celebrate, St. Patrick’s Day, or the First Day of Spring, or both and why?

RACHEL: Actually, I don’t know that I actually celebrate either one. Though I’m always happy for the few mild days of spring. I live in southern Texas. It’s hot most of the time.

ME: Because of it’s Irish heritage, St. Patrick’s Day is a big party day in Wisconsin (and many other areas) in which everyone gets in on the action from free pub crawl busses to breweries making green beer/spirits and some stores selling green colored/decorated food and sweets. Does anything similar occur in your area? Even if you do not participate, please tell us what activities are going on around you. Anything you feel is unique or especially interesting?

RACHEL: I’m not sure, actually. I’ve only lived here since October, so this will be my first St. Patrick’s day in the area.

ME: Do you like to decorate for spring/St. Pat’s Day or is this the time of the year where your house has a break from special décor?

RACHEL: No, we don’t really decorate for spring.

ME: Ireland is steeped in myth, legends and lore. Do you have any favorites? Please briefly share them with us (include links to other information for interested readers).

RACHEL: Obviously, I enjoy the bean sidhe lore (I write a YA series about a teenage bean sidhe) and some of the other Gaelic folklore I’ve read about the sidhe. (Faeries)

ME: Spring is considered a time of renewal, a time of rebirth. Do you do anything “special” to commemorate this idea such as planting flowers or cleaning out your house? Please share with us your way of celebrating this time of rebirth.

RACHEL: I do plant flowers in the spring, because that’s when you plant most flowers, but I’ve never really thought of it as commemorating spring. Although I guess you could call it that. I do like to grow things. ;-)

ME: Magic is often tied into Celtic myths and legends, or at least we like to think it is. Why do you think that is? Why, in your opinion, does Ireland carry so much mystery and magic for the rest of us?

RACHEL: I think it feels mysterious and magical because there’s so much about Celtic legends and culture that we don’t know. There’s plenty of room for our imaginations to fill in the blanks.

ME: If you could be any mythical or legendary Celtic creature or character, what/who would it be and why?

RACHEL: Oh, I don’t know! There aren’t a lot of happy endings in Celtic lore, which pleases me as a writer, but I don’t know that I’d want to live through them! People get drowned by kelpies and die when they hear bean sidhes wail. They get seduced, then abandoned in the immortal lover legends, they have their children replaced by changelings. I think I’d much rather read about or write about Celtic lore than live it. ;-)

ME: Please tell us some of the favorite/best books you’ve read with Celtic myths/legends or ties in them. (They can be fact or fiction, just be sure to indicate what type of books they are in case our readers might want to check them out.)

RACHEL: Holly Black’s Tithe, and Melissa Marr’s Wicked Lovely and sequels.

Me: Now, let’s switch the focus to your writing. What genre is your writing considered to be? Why this genre? What was the draw for you?

RACHEL: I write urban fantasy, because I love to read it. Nothing’s impossible in urban fantasy. You can base your stories on established myths and legends, or you can make it up entirely. I love the creative freedom.

ME: If you could describe your writing with a word or phrase, what would it be? Please be creative 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.

RACHEL: Action, angst, and drama. I like to put my characters in tough positions and watch them dig themselves out—mostly. But honestly, the digging out part usually leads to more tough situations.

ME: Do you prefer magical or human ingenuity for problem solutions? Does that show through in your writing? If so, how?

RACHEL: Human ingenuity. My characters use their brains to figure things out, then back up their smarts with super-human strength/abilities. But the thing is, there are no easy outs. My characters lives are made harder thanks to their supernatural abilities, not easier. That’s what keeps things interesting.

ME: Who decides what you write about, you or your muse? What kind of influence do you have over your story, or is the muse always the one strumming the harp?

RACHEL: I’m not a big believer in muses. In reality, at least. (I do have a YA short story out about a leanan sidhe—a sort of vampiric muse.) I spend hours and hours and days and days researching and brainstorming for new plot and character ideas. Rarely (if ever) do these things just drop into my lap, via some unseen brain-behind-the-writer. Writing is very, very hard work, and I do it whether I feel like it or not, because it’s my job. I don’t have time to wait around for some intangible creative partner to decide to show up. If I had a muse, she got left behind years ago. ;-)

ME: What was the character or creature that you had the most fun creating and why?

RACHEL: There are two: Andi the siren and Mallory the leanan sidhe (a muse who feeds from those she inspires) from “Binge,” my short story in the Immortal anthology (YA). These girls fascinated me, quite simply. They’re both very, very dangerous, but still young and kind of stumbling their way through life. They have urges and appetites they can’t quite control, and this really brutal, twisted-sister kind of co-dependant relationship. I would love to write more about them.

ME: If you had the opportunity to meet just one of your character/creature creations in real life, who would it be and why?

RACHEL: Probably Faythe. I’m in awe of her. She’s grown so much since the beginning of the Shifter series, and she’s so strong.

ME: Which of your character/creature creations would you never want to meet under any circumstance and why?

RACHEL: Colin Dean, from the Shifters series. That man is a monster. In many ways, he’s worse than the series big-bad he works for, because he actually does the dirty work. And enjoys it. He’s brutal, vengeful, and probably psychotic.

And Avari, one of the hellions from my (YA) Soul Screamers series. Avari is a hellion of avarice, and he pulls no punches. The only thing keeping him (and his kind) from completely destroying civilization is the fact that hellions can’t cross into the human world. But he still causes a good bit of murder, mayhem, and some serious angst even from the Netherworld.

ME: Of all the stories you wrote, which was the storyline that you had the most fun fleshing out? Why?

RACHEL: Probably My Soul To Keep (the third Soul Screamers book). That one let me explore addiction, insanity, betrayal, agony, and action. It was really hard to write, but the creepy moments that came out of that book were totally worth it.

ME: As writers, inspiration comes from everywhere. What, specifically, inspired your latest story, the one we’re promoting here today?

RACHEL: So far in the Shifters world (books 1-4) we’ve seen the werecats fight one another. Humans are no match for them, and for the most part, my shifters leave humans alone. They exist in completely different spheres. But for Shift, I decided to see what would happen if I threw in another element—another species of shifters—that the cats weren’t prepared for. That species is my thunderbirds.

The thunderbirds are vicious fighters, and they have a significant advantage: the ability to take off into the air, to avoid confrontations they think they can’t win. The werecats don’t know how to fight them, and they find themselves completely outmatched and on the defensive for the first time. Which means Faythe has to use her brain instead of relying on her brawn. But that’s not as easy as it sounds

The thunderbirds have a completely different social system than anything the werecats have ever seen, and while they’re fanatically honorable, their idea of honor doesn’t overlap much with the werecat (or the human) understanding of the word.

So, I guess my inspiration for this one was the idea of throwing something completely new at my characters. Or… maybe one too many Sylvester vs. Tweety cartoons. ;-)

Now let's take a look at her newest release, Shift:

TROUBLE IS IN THE AIR...

Being the first female werecat enforcer isn’t easy.

Scars accumulate, but I’m stronger in so many ways.

As for my personal life? It’s complicated. Choices worth

making always are. Ever since my brother’s death and my

father’s impeachment, it’s all I can do to prevent more blood

from spilling. Now our Pride is under attack by a flight of

vicious thunderbirds. And making peace with our new

enemies may be the only way to get the best of our old foe.

With the body count rising and treachery everywhere,

my instincts tell me to look before I leap. But sometimes

a leap of faith is the only real option.…

EXCERPT: Excerpt from ch. 1 (edited for one major spoiler from Prey)

----

I turned to glance at Kaci—halfway to the apple tree, and loping at her own pace—and idly noticed a pair of hawks circling overhead.

“How is your arm?” Manx asked, recapturing my attention.

I held up my cast, frowning good-naturedly at the small doodles Kaci had drawn between the enforcers’ perfunctory signatures. A flower with purple petals and X-shaped eyes in the center. A pink skull and crossbones. I’d sat still for several of her masterpieces. Anything to make her smile. Though, I threatened to paint over them with black nail polish if she plastered any more pink on my arm.

Still, I had to admit that thinking of Kaci when I looked at my cast was much better than thinking about how I’d broken it. About the bastards who’d stolen Marc and beaten him to get information out of me—when beating me hadn’t worked.

“It’s fine. Dr. Carver says I can try Shifting in a couple of weeks.” I was already itching for the transformation—and from the cast, which somehow made my arm sweat, even in the middle of February.

“She really misses him.” Owen nodded at something over my shoulder, and I twisted in my seat to see Kaci on the ground beside [character deleted]’s headstone, one knee brushing the freshly overturned earth.

“Yeah, she—”

“What the hell?” Owen demanded, and I leaned to the side to peer over the porch railing. “Have you ever seen hawks that big? They must have their eyes on something, from the way they’re circling.…”

I followed his gaze and was on my feet in an instant, a sick feeling of dread churning in my stomach. “Those aren’t hawks.…” They were too big, for one thing. And their wings were all wrong. Especially the tips. Even from a distance, the ends looked…weird. The birds must have been really high up before, because now that they’d flown lower, swooping in from over the woods behind the eastern field, they looked huge.

My heartbeat suddenly felt sluggish, as if it couldn’t keep up with my body’s natural rhythm. The birds were too huge. And too low. And too fast…

Oh, shit… “Kaci!” I screamed as the first bird dove toward her. She looked up and screeched, and I was already halfway across the yard.

Kaci leaped to her feet, then ducked as the first bird swooped, huge talons grasping perilously close to her head. She screamed again, and when the bird rose effortlessly into the air, beating giant wings so hard I could hear the air whoosh from two hundred feet away, she stood and took off toward me.

Kaci raced across the dead grass, screaming at the top of her lungs.

I kept moving toward her, unwilling to waste energy on screams of my own. But in human form, neither of us was fast enough. I was a heartbreaking fifteen feet away when the second bird swooped, his powerful wings displacing so much air I was actually blown back a step. His talons opened wide, then closed instantly around her upper arms.

For a moment, as he regained his balance with his new burden, I had a breathtaking view of the magnificent creature. Smooth, brown wings. Terrible, curved beak. Powerful, horrifying talons. And long, sharp wing claws, protruding from beneath the feathers on the tips of his wings.

An instant later, the bird was aloft again, and I came to a stop with my fingertips grasping air three feet beneath Kaci’s dangling sneaker.

My heart raced along with my feet as I followed them, knowing my chase was futile. I couldn’t fly, and I couldn’t run fast enough to keep up. Because Kaci hadn’t been picked up by hawks. Our new tabby—my own beloved charge—had just been kidnapped by the first thunderbirds seen by werecats in nearly a quarter of a century.

Intrigued yet? I know I am! Don't forget to look for these previous releases in the series:

Mystic Monday

Book Reviews

Okay, I had the opportunity to read some of the books available on HSN through Ravenous Romance as well as a lot of other books. I may not always get to read the books when the authors guest blog with us, but I do try to get to them and read at least one.

YA Spotlight Books
Give Up the Ghost by Megan Crewe - I really liked this story. Okay, yeah, so I've liked most of the stories by authors featured in the YA Spotlight. The characters were well developed, all of them, including the ghosts.

Cass McKenna started seeing ghosts the night her older sister, Paige, dies. The problem is, she didn't just see Paige, but she saw others and it scared her. It scared her so much that she tells her best friend all about it, to get some perspective, but that friend abandons her. The friend tells everyone Cass' secret and they all end up taunting her, making Cass an outcast, severing their friendship. Cass' social life deteriorates to the point that she prefers the dead to the living.

As an outsider, Cass sees the cruel treatment given to the lower students for what it is, cruel and mean. Wanting to balance the scales, Cass soon learns that her otherworldly connections offer insight to do just that, so she sets her sights on putting these "uppity" people in their place by humiliating them as much as they humiliate other people or have humiliated her. Now, after a couple of years in the school of her knowing things she couldn't possibly know, Cass has earned a relatively hassle free life, even though it's as an outcast. But that's okay, because she still has Norris' face and Bitzy's dancing to look forward to everyday.

In all of her standing up for the poorly treated, there's one thing Cass has yet to accomplish, and that's getting even with Danielle. In her pursuit for revenge, nothing could have prepared Cass for what happens next. She never expected to be completely discovered, but somehow, Tim seems to have figured it out. He approaches her not because he wants to make fun of her, but because he desperately needs to talk to his mother, to know that she's alright. She was the best thing in his life, and now she's gone, and he's left with a drunken father. Cass does find his mother, but Cass soon realizes that his mother makes it Cass' mission to save Tim. Can she do it? You'll have to read the book to find out.

This book has complex characters mixed into complex storylines and plot twists. It's a page turner! I definitely recommend it!

The Harrowing by Alexandra Sokoloff - So not what I expected! Yes, I expected a tale of ghosts, but not to the extent to which this story is taken!

FOR THE MORE MATURE YA READERS - due to the content in the story. This story takes place on a college campus, so it has drinking, sex and some drug usage and harsh language in it. We know that this behavior is typical of college kids, so be sure that your teen is mature enough to handle reading about these topics. There's also some violent sex depicted here, but it's not gratuitous in anyway, it's just slightly graphic and is probably not suitable for the under 17 crowd.

Okay, now that I've given the appropriate warnings, I can tell you what I found in the pages of The Harrowing: So, what happened that I didn't expect? Well, I didn't expect the degree to which Alexandra did her homework. She really delved into the religious aspect of the spirit world and used it to tell a gripping and scary tale of mammoth proportions. This is one book I can honestly say would make an awesome scary movie to rival The Exorcist, the original version.

Five students don't go home for the Thanksgiving holiday because they all have something to avoid, which means they are all vulnerable in ways they do not understand. The main character, Robin Stone, thinks she's all alone for the holidays, but slowly comes to find out that five other people share her predicament:

Patrick - the jock boyfriend of her annoying roommate Waverly, who she secretly has been crushing on since she met him

Martin - the quiet guy in her psyche class

Cain - the cute guy who happens to play guitar and studies law, but she's never really talked to him before

Lisa - the resident slut, or at least as far as the stories, rumors, and her own outward personality go

What about Robin? What is she? Well, she is someone trying to escape life. In fact, on that first day, she is so depressed with the way she sees her life going, she wants to die. In fact, that's how she learns she's not alone. Her situation isn't helped by Waverly, who constantly puts her down and makes her feel even more inadequate than she already does. She has no relationship to speak of with her mother, which is why she doesn't go home in the first place. In an effort to console her aching soul, she goes into Waverly's stash of alcohol and pills. Robin decides that this is the best weekend to end her sorry life and no one will be there to stop her. They'll find her body when they all return from their holiday and that will be that. Robin makes her way down to the dorm common room, half-drunk already, bottle of pills in the pocket of her black skirt. As she sits there further contemplating her death and her eyes adjust to the darkness of the room, she realizes that she is not alone.

This realization puts some sort of weird fear inside her, and when she sees Patrick strut into the common room, her thoughts move to the back burner as she wonders why he made Waverly think he was going home and why he doesn't want her to know and asks for Robin's silence. For now, she has something to distract her. But for how long?

The five students are bored of studying, want to connect but are afraid to because of what it might mean, what secrets of their lives might be revealed. So, they play games to avoid any real connecting. However, the one they choose to play connects them even stronger than they ever could have expected.

What game do they play?

Why, the Ouija Board of course! But not any ordinary board, but one of the original boards from the Baltimore Board Company in the 1920's. They find more than simple parlor tricks here, much more than any of them are ready to believe or able to handle. They open a door, a door that five students did once before. Those five did not survive. What did they open the door to? Only one of them knows for sure, but he wasn't sharing because he didn't truly believe, and thought to use this "game" to prove or disprove the beliefs he's been struggling with. The struggle that kept him from going home that weekend...

What they didn't expect is that their game would go beyond the weekend and have real world consequences. None of them realized that what they opened the door to could effect the mortal coil. But when they do figure it out, they are in a race to save themselves and each other from what they unleashed.

This is a well-constructed, well-developed tale of horror with characters so well-defined and real that it's hard not to identify with at least one of them. It's a page turner that draws you in deeper and deeper. It stays with you even after you close the pages. That is how deeply haunting The Harrowing is.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone 17 and older!

Adult Romance Books
Ripping the Bodice by Inara Lavey - This story is about a woman, Cassandra, obsessed with the bodice rippers from the likes of Kathleen Woodiwiss and a host of others. She has one idea of what the perfect man is, but finds her perfect man is not what she thought.

I was excited when I was given the opportunity to read it, but was disappointed in the outcome of it. The characters are flat and the plot is weak. In my opinion, it overuses a neat idea to the point of nausea for the reader. For the 192 pages, there's not much there when you subtract the blank pages in between each chapter and the overdone, super-cheesy romantic imaginings of the main character, there's not much room left to really develop the story or the characters created.

I was hoping the author would have explored the characters of Cassandra, Connor, Rafael and Val a bit more. Why does Val choose the superficial and overly-annoying Gerald? What happened in Cassandra's life that reinforces her sexual beliefs that bodice-ripping romance books initiated? What makes Rafael seem so cold and indifferent? What about Connor? Why does he understand these romance novels so well? How is it that he knows what Cassandra is looking for?

All of these questions arise, but none of them are answered and yet we're supposed to believe that in just 3 days, Cassandra can change her outlook on romance that has been in existence her entire life.

I wanted to believe it, but there's just not enough to the characters or the plot to make it believable. It's a good start, but it needs much more work on the characters and plot before I would honestly recommend this one to anyone.

Erotica tries to distinguish itself from porn by declaring that if you remove the graphic sex scenes within the story, the story still floats. While with porn, there really isn't much to it besides the sex scenes.

My impressions of this book - that it's more like soft porn than a romance novel. Take away all the sex scenes, or hints of sex, and there's not much left to it to enjoy. How can there be when it's limited by 192 pages and 16 of them are blank and 3 of them are the title pages? Not to mention the close to 20 pages of the unnecessary cheesy romantic imaginings of the main character.

I don't mind graphically described sex scenes, but I do need a decent story to go with them and well-defined characters. People complain about the bad rep that Erotica gets, well, then change the way you write them. Add more content and develop the characters and storylines enough to be believable!

Haunted Seduction by Morgan James - So far, I'm only 23 pages in and not as turned off by this one as I was Ripping the Bodice. Of course, I wasn't impressed by the first chapter because it seemed to throw in what I consider to be gratuitous sex and not really relevant to the story, at least not right away. In fact, even though I understand why the author wanted to start with that chapter, it should have been marked as a Prologue or skipped entirely. What little information there was in that first chapter could have been sprinkled in later.

As unnecessary as I feel the first chapter is, I already feel like there is more substance to this story and the characters. Jaz seems much more defined compared to Bodice's Cassandra. No, the reason that I like this one has nothing to do with the fact that Jaz stumbles onto a defunct amusement park.

This story is proving to be a page turner already. I went to scan a few pages and had difficulty "putting it down" to come back and finish this post.

So, I guess I'd have to say that I'd recommend this one, as it seems to have a decent story with it. However, it too is only 192 pages and has a blank page after every chapter. The question here is: Does it make efficient use of the space allotted to it? I'll let you know.

Starlight Saturday

YA Author Spotlight Presents...

Alexandra Sokoloff!!!

For those of you looking for the dark side of the Thanksgiving holiday because all the sentimental mush makes you gag, then you’ll like what I’ve got on the menu for today!

The Harrowing by Alexandra Sokoloff is a horror story that takes place over Robin Stone’s Thanksgiving weekend. Of course, she isn’t one of Them, the Normal Ones who go home to be with family and friends. Oh, no, not freshman Robin. To Robin, staying alone in the Gothic buildings was a more appealing concept than trying to have a conversation with her lunatic mother who, even at the best of times, barely has a hold on reality. It also beat having the constant reminder that, even though he did his duty and paid for her to come to Baird College, her father wanted nothing to do with her and preferred his new family.

What did it matter to her if she had nothing to do for Thanksgiving? It’s not like she was anything special. Oh no, she was nothing.

Robin’s outlook is pretty bleak, huh? Yeah, and Alex does a great job of painting that picture. The only thing that worries me is that the slow start might be enough to turn heads away.

Some of you familiar with the story might be going, huh?

Well, in truth, I had a difficult time getting into the story. The first five pages made it feel like I was wading through something heavy. While I know we’re taught to set the setting, there’s something to be said for the story that goes to hook you into the characters and then real you in and set the scene.

Seriously, I honestly would have preferred if the story went from the Prologue to this part found on page 7 because this is where I was hooked, where I asked, “What’s going to happen to this girl?” and where I felt I wanted to read on:

“In the two months she’d been at Baird, she’d made exactly zero friends. It wasn’t that she was a monster…”

Call me crazy, but all of the stuff written before this point could not hold my attention, but this did. Then, by the next page, you read her thoughts about herself, understand why she hasn’t made any friends, and it makes you care about her and very curious about what will happen when she’s left alone.

Yes, I do suggest this book because it looks to be a great read once you get into it. I think if I wasn’t so distracted by Rachel Caine’s Carpe Corpus, I would have been able to take the time and sink my teeth into this book. But I will do that after I finish with Book 6 of the Morganville Vampire Series because Book 7 isn’t quite available to me just yet.

Let’s get on to the interview!

Let’s start with some trivia about Alex:

Q. Do you have any favorite Thanksgiving movie or program that you enjoy watching every year? If more than one, tell us all of them!

A. Oh, for sure: Holiday Inn. Good for so many holidays! And I’ll watch Philadelphia Story on any holiday, too. And Holiday. My family is also very into doing the Fawlty Towers and/or Absolutely Fabulous marathon on Thanksgiving weekend.

Q. What, if any, Thanksgiving traditions (decorating, gathering with friends and family for a meal, etc.) do you have?

A. Besides the above entertainment, my family is big on reading tabloids during food prep and clean up. Weekly World News was the best! Bat Boy! Alien Abductions! Bigfoot!

Q. What was your most memorable Thanksgiving and why?

A. I’d have to say one of the biggest was my freshman year at Berkeley when I stayed by myself in my dorm for the holiday weekend and realized only once it got dark that I was all alone in that huge building, with a storm outside, and the bathroom all the way down the hall. It was so memorably terrifying that I based The Harrowing partly on that experience.

Q. Which do you choose: white or dark turkey, white potatoes or yams, green beans or corn, bread rolls or crescent rolls?

A. Dark turkey on a whole wheat sandwich with avocado. Lots of avocado. Yams, green beans and no extra bread.

Q. What, in your opinion, was the oddest food served at a Thanksgiving dinner you’ve attended?

A. I think it was the Thanksgiving in college that my sister and brother and I went out to an oyster bar. I highly recommend it!

Q. Tell us 3 things you are thankful for this year, please.

A. Just three? I have a great family, great friends, and my dream job. It’s ALL good.

Q. Just for fun, if you could be among any of the original members of that first Thanksgiving, who would it be, the Pilgrims or the Wampanoag (Native Americans)? Why?

A. Oh, I would have to do both. As a writer you have to have the entire experience, from all sides. But I would love to live Native American spirituality from the inside.

Q. Considering that feast, what do you think that first harvest celebration meal would be?

A. Trust me, you don’t want me giving anyone any advice on cooking.

Now, let’s get to your writing:

Q. Your father was instrumental in cultivating your love of horror and the paranormal, but why choose to focus on college student fiction over other age groups? What’s the draw?

A. Well, I don’t do colleges every time! But I guess I feature college-age characters in a lot of what I write because I’ve taught teenagers and college age students and so have a lot of characters to draw on. Plus that age tends to attract a lot of the paranormal – at that age you are open to just about everything, hauntings included. You tend to experiment with the dark side and that can open some doors that aren’t so easy to close.

Q. If you could describe your writing with a word or phrase, what would it be? What do you want readers to take with them when they've finished reading your story?

A. Haunting.

I hope they take with them the mystery and wonder of the paranormal, the feeling that there’s more out there than we’ll ever truly understand. And the sense that good does triumph over evil.

Q. Have you ever written Thanksgiving into your stories other than The Harrowing? Why or why not?

A. Not so far. For a long time it was my least favorite holiday, the most ripe for family dysfunction in my opinion, so that was my take on it in The Harrowing.

Q. Who decides what you write about, you or your muse? What kind of influence do you have over your story, or is the muse always the one basting the turkey?

A. Oh, ideas come from the Universe. But I think I’m fed certain stories and characters because I have a natural propensity for certain themes. I would say I believe that all writing prep work is really honing your craft so you have the chops to execute what the Muse presents you.

Q. You’ve said that you’ve based some of your stories on real-life events that happened to people you’ve met or heard about. So, have any of your characters, outside of The Price, been based on a real-life person? If so, who and why? Was it simply to immortalize them or was there more to it than that? If you can, tell us the name of that person, please! We’re all curious here!

A. Oh, lots of characters. In a novella I recently finished, I took great pleasure in detailing a sociopathic producer I worked with and then bashing his brainless head in. No names there, sorry. I don’t think I’m trying to immortalize anyone; sometimes someone just naturally fits into a story.

Q. What character did you have the most fun creating and why?

A. In The Harrowing I’m particularly fond of Lisa, because she has so much energy. She would come into a scene and agitate the other characters on purpose, which made everyone else try to top her, and it gave the whole group a fun dynamic.

Q. 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?

A. Well, since you mention it, I wouldn’t mind spending some quality time with the smoking hot shapeshifter in the book that I’m writing now, part of The Keepers trilogy for Harlequin Nocturne.

I wouldn’t want to meet the villain in The Harrowing. Pure evil is just something I try to avoid.

Keep an eye out for Alex's latest novel, The Unseen!