Hi,everybody! I just want to thank Danita for having
me today and all of you for stopping by. Feel free to ask any questions or make
any comments you like — I love talking to readers!

1.  How did you choose your genre? What made you write
this book?

I think the genre chose me a long, LONG time ago. I’ve
been a vampire fan since I was a child in the 70’s, when all that was around
was Dracula, Anne Rice, and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. I got addicted to all things
vampire the first time I read INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE — I must have been
about nine years old. Talk about inappropriate! — and it’s never abated much
since. The thin stream of vampire romances that came out through the early 90’s
were my favorites. Then as the genre grew and expanded, Buffy the Vampire
Slayer and Angel came along. It was like heaven! I was a freak for those shows,
seriously. I don’t think I ever would have become a writer if I hadn’t gotten
involved in fanfiction. When the time came to consider professional writing,
there was really no question what I would write.

When it comes to individual stories and books, the
inspiration all depends. Sometimes it’s something that just comes to me from a
song, a poem, a brief clip of a character’s life or a scene in my head.
Sometimes I write to a particular submission call to a publisher and have a
world explode around that seed. It’s cliché, but a story really can come from
anywhere.

2.  Writers write what they know, and must observe the
world. Are you a first born, middle or last child and how does this shape your
view of the world? 

I’m the one and only, so I suppose I have a general
viewpoint of being the center of the universe. LOL! Seriously, though, it has
advantages and disadvantages. When it comes to writing, I think I have the sort
of built-in ability to sink into an imaginary character’s head and BE them —
like having an imaginary friend. I had a lot of those when I was a kid. I also
had a wild imagination that my parents always encouraged. I used it to
entertain myself, and now I try to transfer that into words. Can’t do without
that if you’re a writer. A downside is that you don’t necessarily develop the
thick skin you need to be out in this business, which can sometimes be vicious
and mean-spirited. I attribute my ability to do that, again, to fanfiction. You
think commercial readers and reviewers can be bloodthirsty? Try dealing with
the fans of a popular TV show!  

3.  Where is your favorite place to write?

I write almost exclusively in what I call “The
Comfy Chair” — a ratty old recliner in my basement office. I have a sort
of rolling cart with my laptop on it, and a wireless keyboard I type on in my
lap while I’m kicked back. There’s nothing more decadent than working while
you’re lazing in your jammies in a recliner! 

4.  How do you feel about killing your darlings, and what
do you do with the remains?

        Scenes? Characters?
Chapters? Entire books? It all depends. For the most part,        if it serves the story, I have no problem
chopping the head off anyone, anything,    anywhere.
I’ve abandoned entire novels when I got to the point where I didn’t think
anything I could really do would save them or make them publishable (I’m
talking to you, my sweet, utterly unreadable first novel. Man, I love that
thing. *sigh*). Others I cannibalized. I’ve done that with scenes, dialogue,
characters or bits of characters, you name it. I reduce, reuse, recycle.
Whatever it takes to make the story say what I want it to say.

Sometimes it makes me cry. You really do slice a vein
and pour yourself on the page, and it’s painful to have to mop that up and toss
it in the trash.

5.  You are introduced to your favorite author. Who is it,
and what is that one burning question you must ask them?

Diana Gabaldon, and I would ask her how the heck she
made Jamie and Claire so freaking amazing. Seriously. I don’t just love them, I
want to BE Claire, and HAVE Jamie, even with all the horror they’ve been
through over their books.

I did meet Anne Rice once, but I was so starstruck, I
think I just squeaked at her as she signed my book. She’s so open and frank,
though, I don’t know that I could think of a question before I started
squeaking again. She’s like the goddess of sexy vampires. I guess if I had to,
I’d ask her what stood as the basis for her vampires — they’re some of the
most complicated in the genre, and I’d love to know where the ideas for their
basic nature came from. Also: Lestat. How? I mean…he’s the original hot, wild child,
world explorer, bad boy, kick ass semi-hero vamp!

6.  Inquiring minds want to know…tell readers something
about you that no one knows.

Heh. Well, I’m pretty open too. I don’t hold back very
many things, and those that I do are very private. Something that NO ONE else
knows? Oh! Here’s one — I have an inner girly girl who adores pink, painted
nails, makeup, the whole nine. I just don’t indulge her very much.

7.  You are stranded on a deserted island with only a back
pack for company. What three items are in your survival pack?

·       My Kindle,
full of books, photos and music

·       A Solar
Generator

·       A Satellite
Phone so I can get off that damn island! Or if that’s off the menu, I’ll take
David Boreanaz, Charlie Hunnam, or possibly Bradley Cooper.

8.  If you could have one super power in your existence,
what would it be?

It’s so cliché, but flight would be my first choice.
Just because it would be SO COOL. But if I was being practical, invisibility.
You could get in and out of anywhere without being seen, either for
entertainment, heroism, or profit.

9.  Favorite snack? 

NACHOS! Big, giant, piled-high ones complete with
massive amounts of cheese, hot peppers, black olives, refried beans…

I’m drooling now. If there are no nachos, I will also
accept pizza, jalapeno poppers, poutine (a delicious French Canadian heart
attack in a dish made from French fries, gravy, and melted mozzarella). Are you
getting the cheese theme here?

10.             
Indy 500 – Do you
know how to get where you’re going or do you drive the speed limit?

        I like to think a
balance of the two. I was a wild child when I was young, so I learned a lot of
hard lessons about just flailing around without thinking ahead. BUT there is a
lot of joy in being free, as long as that’s tempered by wisdom. In a literal
sense, I drive a few miles over the speed limit, but I can go faster or slower
as the situation demands.

Of course, I almost never know exactly where I’m
going, but that’s okay. When you stop looking for new adventures is when you start
to die. Luckily for us readers and writers, we can just open a book or a blank
page and find an adventure.

11. The Standard Question:
What are you working on now?

I have literally dozens of irons in my proverbial
fire. Wait, is that an oxymoron, using literally and proverbial in the same
sentence? I don’t know, ANYway. I’ve branched out genre-wise in the last year:
I’m still writing urban fantasy and paranormal romance in the mainstream vein
(heh), but I’ve branched out into a whole new pseudonym — a much wilder,
crazier, braver, and frankly, kinkier, writer than I, named A. Sangrey Black.
I’ve been dipping my toes into dark erotica, BDSM (mostly paranormal), m/m and
other more “alternative” fiction than I usually do. It’s very
rewarding to stretch my imagination and my writing skills that way.

Right now I’m working on several paranormal romance
novels in various stages of completion, a paranormal novella (my first
shapeshifter!), and a number of short stories. I also do freelance work to keep
food on the table, so between trying to keep up with my fiction, blogging,
reading and doing book reviews, doing promotion and working, I’m pretty busy!
After the first of the year, I plan on scheduling chunks of time every month
when I don’t schedule ANYTHING, so I don’t burn out!

My most recent published work is under my A. Sangrey
Black pseudonym, a dark paranormal BDSM ménage novella called IF WISHES WERE
SHADOWS. It was a lot of fun to write, and I really hope to have more from
these characters soon!

BLURB:
Calinda Byer is a self-assured, assertive businesswoman who knows what she
wants — and vampire Dominant Adam Stratford is it. Their wild love life has
awakened her inner submissive, introduced her to the special freedom of leaving
her power and will with her clothes on the bedroom floor. She is ready for
eternity with him to begin, to taste the world of immortal BDSM, where bodies
are all but indestructible and there are no rules to keep things sane or safe.

Stratford has been around long enough, and known enough humans, to realize that
the idea of being a vampire is often more romantic than the reality. There is
innate violence, a relationship with blood and pain that mortals can’t begin to
understand, even in the depths of the most depraved dungeon. His truly deep
feelings for Calinda prevent him from agreeing to her pleas to become a vampire
until she has a much better idea of the things he does in the shadows when she
isn’t beside him.

A weekend at his country home promises dark delights like nothing Calinda ever
dreamed, and surprises beyond her understanding. Will she risk her very soul to
step into that sensual darkness, or will she say the safeword and run for her
life?

Excerpt:

Calinda’s heart thundered, her stomach fluttering with nerves, and she
relished each sensation, tucking it away in her memory like some women might
keep tickets to a show she’d attended with her lover. She had been an
adrenaline junkie since the day she was born. Instead of drugs, she far
preferred driving fast cars, jumping out of airplanes, and dating ancient,
sadistic vampires than pills or needles. This occasion, with its mysteries and
uncertainties, was better than any shot of pure heroin straight into her system,
and the vampire she loved was giving it to her. He had become so many things to
her in the two years they’d been together, and adrenaline dealer had been one
of the greatest of them from the moment they met.

She remembered with an electric shiver through her system the first
moment when she realized what he was, when she invited him home knowing what he
could do to her. The biggest charge of her life. She gave his hand a squeeze in
thanks. No, she had no difficulty in taking this journey. There was only one
thing that could be at the bottom of this staircase, spiraling them into the
depths of the earth together: the darkness he kept talking about, made
manifest. The deepest shadows inside him. She was so eager to see it she was
already wet.

Their relationship had started out like a scene from some romance novel
twisted just the way she liked it. Adam had been sitting at the bar in
Ernesto’s, an exclusive Italian bistro she enjoyed after business meetings in
the city. She’d worn her dark blonde hair down that night and had on the tidy,
well-tailored navy business suit that never failed to make an impact paired
with red heels just a tad too high to be strictly proper. Those shoes had a
tendency to impress clients just a tad more than the clothes.

Calinda spotted him from her accustomed table in the corner by the
door, the perfect location to watch the crowd of rich, beautiful people coming
and going. Adam caught her eye the moment he sat down, all yummy and big and
dark, just the way she liked them. Six-feet-two at least, broad of shoulder and
back with neatly trimmed black hair, and a pinstripe suit that no doubt cost
ten times more than her own was worth. His bold, straight posture told her
beyond any doubt that he was the king of all he surveyed. No, emperor was
closer to the mark. 

But it was one fine detail that had grabbed her attention and
imagination in a vise grip and wouldn’t let go, that set her pulse racing and
her junkie heart pounding…

His lack of reflection in the mirror above the bar. Calinda checked at
least four times, even shifted to different places in the restaurant to be
certain, but no matter where she went… there he wasn’t.

It was by far the biggest adrenaline rush of a lifetime spent awash in
them. A vampire. An actual vampire. They not only existed, but there was
an unbelievably hot one sitting right there in her favorite restaurant, casual
as you please. Anyone who looked hard enough would be able to tell—what kind of
balls did that take?

How could she resist?

She’d sidled up to the suddenly mysteriously empty seat beside the
gorgeous vampire and slipped onto the high stool. Not one much for subtlety,
she let her skirt ride up just high enough to allow a peek at her lacy stocking
tops, crossed her long, slender legs to show off the heels, ordered a red wine
for herself, and turned to her attention to her soon-to-be-new vampire friend.

“So I wonder,” she said, looking directly at the place where his face
should appear in the mirror. “Do you drink… wine?”

She caught his smirk out of the corner of her eye. “Why, would you like
to be… I’m sorry, excuse me, buy my drink?”

They laughed. There was no secret about what he was. No doubt that she
knew. They were made for each other. It had been all adventure and blood,
paddles and leather, feathers and handcuffs, hot wax and hot sex in wild and
often public and dangerous places ever since. She didn’t know if it was obsession
or love, and she didn’t care. Adam told her he had never known anyone like her
in two thousand years, and without a doubt, she had never known anyone like him
in twenty-six.

Her “monster.”

After a brief, nerve-shaking eternity, they reached the bottom of the
stairs. Before them stood a formidable steel door that belonged in a high-tech
science facility, not an eighteenth-century country house, complete with an
elaborate security pad on the wall to the right. Adam keyed in a code and
pressed his thumb to the surface, and the silver door whooshed open. Inside was
a pristine white antechamber, walls lined with tall, lacquered bureaus and
hooks in the wall above them. A veritable smorgasbord of clothing hung from the
hooks, with shoes arranged on top of the bureaus, and no doubt a wider
selection waited in the drawers. Everything from soft cotton loungewear to
outfits created from shining patent leather strips and nothing else were in
evidence.

Costumes didn’t really interest her as they usually might. She was
fixated on what lay in wait for her on the other side of the final door just
ahead.

@~~~~~@

Purchase Link:  

Besides voracious reading and obsessive writing, she also enjoys hiking
(very slowly on level ground), yoga, meditation, cooking (mostly for the
eating), travel by train, learning new things and meeting new people, and being
the slave of two very spoiled cats. You can reach her by email at
[email protected], or find her at her blog, Bloodthirsty Muses —
bloothirstymuses.wordpress.com. Her kinky alter ego has a blog at
http://asangreyblack.blogspot.com