Interview with Angela Verdenius

1. What is your release called and what is it about?

Shattered Soul is a sci-fi/futuristic romance, and is about a warrior woman mystically frozen at the time of her dying. Dragged from the arms of death to do The Overlord's bidding, Rani, a once proud and nobel warrior (though of an outlawed race), loses her mind and becomes insane, but through better forces, is able to regain her senses. However, her destiny is to serve The Overlord and his dark minions in the Outlaw Sector, to keep (ironically enough) the Lawful Sector safe.

The hero of the book is Fredrico, a space pirate who has made brief appearances in earlier books. Now under the control of The Overlord, he is true to his commands, but eventually comes to fall in love with the Reeka warrior woman.

This story has a bit of everything - mysticism, dark mystics, aliens, dark power, demons, space pirates, mystery and romance. The road to true happiness is an uncertain one in this book, but the ending, I feel, comes together quite nicely, because not everyone cane escape their desstiny...but true love must still prevail.

2. Could you give me a short sample passage?

There was a whooshing sound and the ice went to water. One second, frozen ice, the next water rushed across the floor and the warrior was there, clear to see, real to touch. Kneeling on one knee, braced on one hand, her hand at her bloodied throat. Her hair, wet and straggling, slapped against her arm as she looked up at him.

Brilliant green eyes looked directly into Fredrico’s, and he saw the fear and pain, the horror and acceptance, all in one split second. He felt the touch clear down to the soles of his boots. Returned to life, only to find she was dying. It would have been as if nothing had happened to her, as if time hadn’t stopped for years. For the Reeka, this second would never have ended.

Involuntarily, he straightened.

Opening her mouth, she choked, and scarlet spilt down over those pink lips, turning her chin red. She fell forward, the gurgling sound of blood and air combined loud in the room.

It happened fast, everything blurring. The orange spiral of smoke struck, covering her face, forcing itself into her nostrils and mouth, filling her. Tendrils came from the open gash in her throat as she convulsed on the floor. Water and blood drenched the stone floor and the stench of blood and decay filled the air sickeningly.

Fredrico had seen sights enough to make a sane man scream and turn from the world of reality. This wasn’t the worse he’d seen, but he’d never seen anyone fight as much as the Reeka.

3. Whom do you consider your writing influences?

I don't know that anyone actually influences me, but I know that Laurel K Hamilton's books showed me to not fear to tread unknown territory!

4. Where are you from?

I live in West Australia - where it's dry and I can't remember what rain looks like!

5. How experienced are you as an author?

Ummm...I guess I have some experience. I have 18 novels, 2 novellas, a short story and some short stories in an anthology all published. My recent short story is Zombie Hospital ( a lot of fun - satire and horror, what's not to like? Plus Zombies rule!)

6. Is there anything else you would like your readers to know?

I'm currently working on my first contemporary romance, and having a lot of fun. It's on a subject many of us know, and I'm not just talking romance!

7. If I lived in an enormous mansion where you were welcome to stay, what would you want your guest room to be like?

Warm and cosy, with a big window, and room for my cats to come with me

Interview with Zvi Zacks

1. What is your release called and what is it about?

A VIRTUAL AFFAIR. Barbara is computer software that goes from sexual simulation to virtual messiah in 100,000 words. She thinks she knows what's best for humanity, but she isn't human. What if she's wrong?

2. Could you give me a short sample passage?

What an idea. He had come to cyberspace to have sex with a stranger. His real purpose was to test a program, but he thought of it as having sex. The executive board had wondered at his hesitation. Even his wife, Janice, had laughed at his reluctance. No one but him seemed to think it awkward.

3. Whom do you consider your writing influences?

Hard to say. Certainly, Asimov is my favorite writer.

4. Where are you from?

Philadelphia.

5. How experienced are you as an author?

I've been writing for years, but this is the first year I've had success in publishing novels - two already out, and a third on the way.

6. Is there anything else you would like your readers to know?

My stories, A VIRTUAL AFFAIR, and IMPLAC, are wonderful and worth buying at Amazon or B&N.

7. If I lived in an enormous mansion where you were welcome to stay, what would you want your guest room to be like?

Comfortable with good music, internet access, and facilities for my dogs.

Interview with C.L. Shore

1. What is your release called and what is it about?

Seeker of Truth, a mystery/suspense novel has just been released by Eternal Press. The story also contains some romantic themes, including paranormal romance.

2. Could you give me a short sample passage?

In this passage, Sister Lucie is up late, working on aspects of the mystery.

Sister Lucie decided to take a walk around the apartment. Her neck was a little stiff, probably from nervous tension. She rolled her shoulders a couple of times. I guess I was so tense that I didn’t move much while reading those first pages. A book fell from the bookcase onto the floor with a soft thud. She scrambled over quickly to its resting place and picked it up, Look Homeward, Angel. Maybe Mark was agreeing with her.

She opened the volume’s front cover, and an old Polaroid photograph fell to the floor. She picked it up and cautiously fingered the edges. Mark’s gaze met hers. She lay on the edge of the bed and held the photo in her hand, just below the level of the mattress. The picture had been taken on a trip to Michigan about six years ago. Mark stood with his back to a grove of trees. The glint of sunshine sparkling on blue water was in the background. Mark gazed into the camera with his beautiful smoky-gray eyes. “Thank you, Mark,” Sister Lucie said, looking down at the photograph. “I’m so lucky to have known you, let alone love you and have the experience of being loved by you. I’m so lucky.” She rolled over on her back. Dusk had fallen long ago, but every light in the apartment was on. She held the picture above her head, and then pressed it to her heart. “Thank you, Mark,” she said again. She closed her eyes.

Here’s the cover blurb

Detective Jed McCracken is tempted to dismiss his first phone call of the week as a prank, until he realizes he's talking to his late partner's widow, Sarah. Jed hasn’t spoken to her since her husband’s death and is shocked to discover that Sarah is now Sister Lucie. She’s distraught over breaking news about the murder of a former fellow nun and intent on finding her killer. Together, they rekindle their lost friendship while untangling a network of deception, lust and greed. Although they appear to be closing in, the killer proves elusive, prompting Jed to persuade Sister Lucie to bait a trap.

Will Sister Lucie outwit the murderer…or become his next victim?

3. Whom do you consider your writing influences?

That’s a great question. I think I’ve been influenced by some of my own favorite authors. There was a time when I read a lot of Andrew Greeley’s work. Like a lot of writers, I read the works of many authors and try to note what is good or effective about their writing.

4. Where are you from?

I grew up in Wisconsin and have lived in Illinois, Iowa and Indiana. I consider Indianapolis my home.

5. How experienced are you as an author?

I’ve done quite a bit of professional (nonfiction) writing, but Seeker of Truth is my second novel and the first to be published.

6. Is there anything else you would like your readers to know?

Seeker of Truth started out as a novel about running. Originally, I planned to do a series of mysteries that took place near major running events. Then, I came up with the idea of a psychic nun as my protagonist. I made her a widow, because I wanted her to have had the experiences of being in love in a committed relationship. The story took off from there. Now, the running premise is no longer that important. I’ve started working on the prequel to Seeker of Truth. In the prequel, the amateur detective’s husband is still alive. He actually is a police detective..

7. If I lived in an enormous mansion where you were welcome to stay, what would you want your guest room to be like?

At the moment, I would want the room to be very plain. I think this would be most conducive to writing. I would ask room to allow me to stay in the room for hours at a time, so I could concentrate on my writing.

A Warm Welcome to Jane Toombs!

1. What is Sweet Hawk of Love about?

The hero, Coleman, is a man who doesn’t think he’s interested in commitment. He grows and changes as he comes to appreciate the heroine’s qualities.

The heroine, Aldis, is a woman burned by a bad marriage , now ended, and doesn’t want any part of a love relationship. She has a younger sister she believes is far more attractive and vital than she is.

The title refers to her pottery creations, which feature birds in cages.

She’s raising her dead husband’s much younger sister, Moya, in her huge old family home on the west bank of the Hudson Rive in upstate New York.

The theme of the story is how love can free you and change your concepts of life. At the end of the book, the heroine has discovered how she’s superimposed her own beliefs onto the child she’s raising and , like the pottery hawk she’s able to create at the end of the story, allow the girl to fly free, just as she, herself, is able to accept love.

2. Could you give me a short sample passage?

Moya is the young girl Aldis is raising. She was supposed to go back to boarding school, but instead turned up missing, Aldis and Coleman have been looking all over for her when they finally decide to go the local cadet academy in the town:

A graying man in an Army officer's uniform approached them. "I'm Captain Scarborough," he said. "Can I be of help?"

Aldis told him what had happened, showing him the picture of Moya she carried in her wallet, and described the clothes she'd been wearing.

"No, I haven't seen her. Let me ask our cadet officer of the day." He turned to the mess hall. "Lieutenant McCoy!"

A young cadet sprang to his feet, marched up the aisle between the tables, halted in front of the captain and saluted. "Yes, sir."

The young lieutenant frowned when Aldis showed him the picture. He hesitated and finally nodded. "I did see a girl who looked something like this."

Thank God. If only it was Moya.

"At around thirteen hundred hours," the young lieutenant went on. "I didn't think anything of it because our cadets are returning from spring vacation today. A lot of them come with their families and I thought she was somebody's sister."

"If necessary," Captain Scarborough said, "we'll search the grounds. I'll have the entire corps of cadets fall out in barracks square and assign each company an area to patrol." The captain seemed eager to send his cadets into action.

"That might not be necessary," Aldis said as an idea took hold . "Can we look in the stable area first?"

"The stables?" The captain looked surprised.

"She loves horses," Coleman put in.

The captain nodded. "A lot of our cadets do, girls especially. As a matter of fact, I suspect that's why some of them come to the academy in the first place."

Aldis mentally urged them to stop talking and get moving. Why hadn't she followed up after Coleman had told her about talking with Moya about horses? That had to be her reason for asking to transfer to Stanton. If only I'd paid more attention instead of jumping to conclusions.

"I'll be glad to show you the stable," the captain told them.

After dismissing Lt. McCoy, he led them down a road past the faculty houses and across a field dotted with equestrian jumps, some hedges and other bars laid between low uprights.

"For cavalry training," Captain Scarborough said.

The stables, an old, long, low building, was at the far side of the field. Inside the odors of horses and hay, a nostalgic smell that reminded Aldis of the time, at thirteen, when she'd begged her parents to buy her a pony. How could she have forgotten?

The captain turned on a row of four unshielded overhead lights. As they walked from one end of the stable to the other, horses whuffled and stamped their feet in their stalls. Otherwise, the stable appeared empty.

Noticing a door at the far end, Aldis asked, "Does that lead to more
stalls?"

"No, it's our tack room."

She opened the door and looked into a shadowed room redolent with the odor of leather. She saw bales of hay piled along one wall and, curled up on top of them, a dark figure.

"Moya?"

The figure rose from the makeshift bed. Aldis saw it was Moya. Aldis held out her arms and Moya ran to her.

"Oh, Aldis, I'm so glad you came." Moya hugged her so hard it hurt. "I don't want to stay here, I want to go home. Please take me home."

On the drive to the Gorman house, Moya sat in the back to the small car. Aldis, half-turned in her front seat kept an eye on her.

"I thought I'd like the academy," Moya said, leaning toward her, "but I didn't. I was there all day wandering around and all I really liked was the horses. They were fab. But somebody's always telling the cadets what to do. The older cadets give orders to the younger ones, the cadet officers give orders to the older ones, Then the instructors give orders to the officers.
It's as bad as--" she put her hand over her mouth.

"As bad as I am?" Aldis asked. "It's all right, you can say it. Now I can see I wasn't listening to you. Because I was too busy trying to make sure you had the chance I missed."

"I know you want to help me." Moya wiped the tears from her face. "That's why it was so hard for me to come right out and say anything. And maybe painting's what I want to do. I'm not sure. There are so many things I could do, so many possibilities. I might want to paint or be a vet or direct films."

3. Who do you consider your writing influences?

Mostly my father, who was a published non-fiction author who encouraged me to write stories as a child and would always say something good about my work before pointing out ways I could improve it.

I was also an eclectic reader from childhood on--didn‘t matter what it was, I read it. I was published before I joined RWA, but they’ve been a wonderful resource for meeting other authors and making friends. But I’ve made friends on the lists as well.

4. Where are you from?

I was born in California, but my mother brought me home to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula when I was nine months old and I grew up there. Though I’ve lived in several areas of California, in Upstate New York, Northern Nevada and Florida, the Viking and I have come back to live where we grew up--in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula wilderness.

5. How experienced are you as an author?

My first book, a gothic titled Tule Witch, was published by Avon in 1973. In those days all gothics had no more than a kiss or two. How the world has changed. I’ve been writing ever, since so I have quite a few published books. My web site is: www.JaneToombs.com for anyone curious.

6. Is there anything else about you that you'd like readers to know?

With a writer friend of mine, Janet Lane Walters, we published Becoming Your Own Critique Partner, a book for helping aspiring authors. We tried to include what we wished we’d known when we first starting writing, but had to learn the hard way.

7. If I lived in an enormous mansion where you were welcome to stay, what would you prefer your guestroom to be like?

Since we live across the road from the south shore of Lake Superior, I’d need windows in my room with a view of a lake, an ocean, distant mountains--something that changed with the seasons. A garden outside would also be necessary, one birds and butterflies would want to visit. And because I’m no longer young, I’d want a comfortable couch and a chair such as a La-Z-Boy that adjusts. I‘m a writer, I’d need the latest in computers, printers and the like, with wireless access. Something that would play music as well, with my choice of what I like to listen to. I read more than I watch TV, but if I had a good ereader, I would not need an array of print books, since I could download what I wished to read. I’d like the room to be a suite, with the bedroom separate from what would be the writing and living room. I assume a cook is on the premises, one that is appraised of individual allergies or dislikes. One more addition. Since I can’t live without the Viking he’d have to share the suite with me--so add another adjustable chair and a TV to the bedroom so he can watch and not disturb my writing. A private bath with tub and shower is assumed. All this sounds so good, I wish I was there!