Wide Open Giveaway Winner

Congratulations Carl winner of our Wide Open Book Giveaway at From the Shadows!  Carl will receive a print copy of Wide Open by Deborah Coates.

Thank you to all who entered.

Didn't win?  Don't miss our Royal Street Book Giveaway.  We are giving away two *signed* copies of Royal Street by Suzanne Johnson.  (International, ends 4/12)

**Giveaway winners selected using Random.org**

Q+A with Suzanne Johnson + Royal Street Giveaway

Please welcome today's paranormal guest author Suzanne Johnson.  Suzanne is author of Royal Street.

Keep reading for a chance to win a signed copy of Royal Street by Suzanne Johnson.

EJ:  When did you begin writing?

Suzanne:   I've been writing for years as a journalist, but only began writing fiction in 2008, at first as a way to exorcise my demons of being in New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina. Then I got the writing "bug"!

EJ:  What brought you to the paranormal genre?

Suzanne:  I grew up reading Stephen King and Anne Rice, so it was a natural. I've always thought paranormal was the perfect blend of the speculative and the emotional aspects of fiction.

EJ:  If you could be any paranormal or have any one supernatural talent, what would it be? Why?

Suzanne:   Hmm...teleporting would be awesome. No planes, no long drives, no airport security. All good!

EJ:  Tell us why readers will enjoy your new release.

Suzanne:  I hope they enjoy it on a couple of levels. It's a story of wizards and voodoo and undead pirates set in New Orleans, which is one of the world's most interesting cities. It has a lot of humor in it, but the humor's tempered with sadness because it's also about Hurricane Katrina and what life was like in the city afterward. So I hope readers will have fun with it, but also will have an emotional connection to it.

EJ:  If your book(s) were being made into a movie, who would you cast for the leading roles? Why?

Suzanne:   My lead character, DJ, is a wizard, and I've always envisioned her as looking sort of like actress Emilie de Ravin. I thought artist Cliff Nielsen, who did the book cover, captured DJ really well. She's pretty but she doesn't look artificial. Very real and down to earth. No leather or bustiers for this girl. As for her partner, Alex...I'm still doing auditions for that role! For the pirate Jean Lafitte, I think Giles Marini would do very, very nicely. Mais oui!

Royal Street (Sentinels of New Orleans #1) by Suzanne Johnson.

As the junior wizard sentinel for New Orleans, Drusilla Jaco's job involves a lot more potion-mixing and pixie-retrieval than sniffing out supernatural bad guys like rogue vampires and lethal were-creatures. DJ's boss and mentor, Gerald St. Simon, is the wizard tasked with protecting the city from anyone or anything that might slip over from the preternatural beyond.
Then Hurricane Katrina hammers New Orleans' fragile levees, unleashing more than just dangerous flood waters.

While winds howled and Lake Pontchartrain surged, the borders between the modern city and the Otherworld crumbled. Now, the undead and the restless are roaming the Big Easy, and a serial killer with ties to voodoo is murdering the soldiers sent to help the city recover.
To make it worse, Gerry has gone missing, the wizards' Elders have assigned a grenade-toting assassin as DJ's new partner, and undead pirate Jean Lafitte wants to make her walk his plank. The search for Gerry and for the serial killer turns personal when DJ learns the hard way that loyalty requires sacrifice, allies come from the unlikeliest places, and duty mixed with love creates one bitter gumbo.


Thank you Suzanne for joining us here today at From the Shadows!

To learn more about Suzanne Johnson and her books, please visit her website.

**Royal Street Book Giveaway**

We are giving away two *signed* copies of Royal Street by Suzanne Johnson.

To enter, leave a comment on this post (please include your email address so we may contact you if you win).  This giveaway is INTERNATIONAL.  Giveaway ends April 12, 2012 midnight EST.

Q+A with Ruth Warburton (A Witch in Winter)

Please welcome today's paranormal guest author Ruth Warburton.  Ruth is author of A Witch in Winter.

EJ:  When did you begin writing?

Ruth:   I think I started writing stories pretty much as soon as I could write - the first proper story with a beginning, middle and end that I can remember was written when I was about seven. But even when I wasn't writing, I was telling stories. My sister and I had a long-running saga about a girls' school which we used to relate to each other on boring car journeys. It went on for years.

My written stories started off as a couple of paragraphs in my school books or bashed out finger by finger on my mum's typewriter. They just got longer and longer, and one day I found I was writing proper book-length manuscripts.

EJ:  What brought you to the paranormal genre?

Ruth:   I've always really loved stories about magic and witchcraft - two of my favourite writers, growing up, were Diana Wynne Jones and Ursula K Le Guin who both write beautifully about witches and wizards. They definitely influenced the magic in this book. I also loved Alice Hoffman's novels, in particular Practical Magic. The idea of combining heady magical powers with everyday problems is fascinating.

But somehow I never wrote about it myself - my stories were always realistic. Then the kernel of this story popped into my head pretty much fully formed - a girl who casts a spell on a boy she fancies, and then can't take it off. It kind of wrote itself from there.

EJ:  If you could be any paranormal or have any one supernatural talent, what would it be? Why?

Ruth:   It would be incredibly convenient to be able to fly. Just think of all the possibilities - not to mention the saving in commuting time! But I think in reality huge powers would bring more problems than they'd solve, so perhaps my life is complicated enough already.

EJ:  Tell us why readers will enjoy your new release.

Ruth:  Well it's got magic, gorgeous boys, a feisty "solve-my-own-problems" heroine, and lots of heart-ache. Is that enough?

EJ:  If your book(s) were being made into a movie, who would you cast for the leading roles? Why?

Ruth:   Blimey, this is TOUGH. Um... well, Anna, in my head, looks a little bit like a younger Zooey Deschanel. Only Anna is 17 of course, and Zooey is a bit older. But I think she manages to look a portray characters who are a bit vulnerable and a bit kick-ass at the same time, which is Anna to a tee.

Seth is really hard. Maybe something like a younger, scruffier Tom Welling or Ashton Kutcher? He's an essentially good person who can snap and lose it if he's pushed too far, and I think they could both portray that.

A Witch in Winter (Winter Trilogy #1) by Ruth Warburton.

Anna Winterson doesn't know she's a witch and would probably mock you for believing in magic, but after moving to the small town of Winter with her father, she learns more than she ever wanted to about power. When Anna meets Seth, she is smitten, but when she enchants him to love her, she unwittingly amplifies a deadly conflict between two witch clans and splits her own heart in two. She wants to love Seth, to let him love her – but if it is her magic that's controlling his passion, then she is as monstrous as the witch clan who are trying to use her amazing powers for their own gain.

Although a perfect fit for the paranormal romance genre, A WITCH IN WINTER avoids fangs, excessive body hair and submissive female leads, and tells the heart-wrenching story of a couple meant to be together, but being forced apart. Seth is utterly irresistible and Anna is an empowered, proactive young woman with unimaginable magic inside her. This is fast-paced, sensuous writing with believable incantations inspired by Warburton's research into witchcraft legend and old English.


Thank you Ruth for joining us here today at From the Shadows!

To learn more about Ruth Warburton and her books, please visit her website.

Q+A with Deborah Coates + Wide Open Giveaway

Please welcome today's paranormal guest author Deborah Coates.  Deborah is author of What Makes a River and Wide Open.

Keep reading for a chance to win a print copy of Wide Open by Deborah Coates.

EJ:  When did you begin writing?

Deborah:   I didn't do much writing at all until after grad school and initially I concentrated on short stories.  I wanted to try lots of different things and short stories were made for that.  I wrote a mystery novel, set that aside because I didn't know how to fix it, had some more success with short stories and finally got the idea for WIDE OPEN a little over four years ago.

EJ:  What brought you to the paranormal genre?

Deborah:  I love books with a strong sense of place and interesting complex characters.  Writing about the paranormal lets me ground my stories in the contemporary world with characters who have recognizable life experiences, but then take all that and add a paranormal twist.  What would people really do if our world had ghosts or sorcerers or ancient gods?  I think the stronger and more solid the grounding, the more impact the paranormal elements have.  I'm still working on how to do that, how different elements affect different characters and where particular stories lead.  It's fun!

EJ:  If you could be any paranormal or have any one supernatural talent, what would it be?  Why?

Deborah:  No contest.  Immortality.  Not only would I love the chance to read all the books and learn all the things, but to watch the world and the people in it grow and change, would be extraordinary.  The long-term accumulation of wealth thing wouldn't be too shabby either.

EJ:  Tell us why readers will enjoy your new release.

Deborah:  What I hope is that readers will be drawn to the setting--western South Dakota on the prairie--and the characters.  Hallie is sharp-edged and brave and a little bit reckless (ha!).  Boyd is thoughtful and steadfast and at least as brave as Hallie.  I write for character much of the time and I hope readers fall in love with these characters in this place and want to come along for the ride.

EJ:  If your book were being made into a movie, who would you cast in the leading roles?  Why?

Deborah:   Oh, wow.  I have clear pictures in my head of all of the characters, but I know that good actors can become their roles in pretty amazing ways so I'm not sure I can point to someone and say--that one, that person, looks just like Hallie or Boyd or Hallie's dad.  I'd love to see actors cast who are the same age as my characters because so often actors age down for roles and then we picture people in their teens and twenties as looking older than they really are.  But honestly, I'd love to see WIDE OPEN made into a movie.  I'd love to see what they do with it, how it looks, and even what they change.  Maybe it would be awful, but the flip side is--it could be amazing!

Wide Open by Deborah Coates

When Sergeant Hallie Michaels comes back to South Dakota from Afghanistan on ten days' compassionate leave, her sister Dell's ghost is waiting at the airport to greet her.

The sheriff says that Dell's death was suicide, but Hallie doesn't believe it. Something happened or Dell's ghost wouldn't still be hanging around. Friends and family, mourning Dell's loss, think Hallie's letting her grief interfere with her judgment. 

The one person who seems willing to listen is the deputy sheriff, Boyd Davies, who shows up everywhere and helps when he doesn't have to. 

As Hallie asks more questions, she attracts new ghosts, women who disappeared without a trace.  Soon, someone's trying to beat her up, burn down her father's ranch, and stop her investigation.

Hallie's going to need Boyd, her friends, and all the ghosts she can find to defeat an enemy who has an unimaginable ancient power at his command.



Thank you Deborah for joining us here today at From the Shadows!

To learn more about Deborah Coates and her books, please visit her website.

**Wide Open Book Giveaway**

We are giving away a copy of Wide Open by Deborah Coates to one lucky winner!

To enter, please leave a comment on this post and include your email address (so we may contact you if you win).  This giveaway is open to US mailing addresses only.  Giveaway ends March 29th midnight EST.

Q+A with Cat Hellisen (When the Sea is Rising Red)

Please welcome today's paranormal guest author Cat Hellisen.  Cat is the author of When the Sea is Rising Red.

EJ:  When did you begin writing?

Cat:  I decided to begin writing seriously about nine years ago. Before that I quite liked the idea of being a writer but wasn't all that keen in putting in the hours. I still prefer having written to the actual writing part.

EJ:  What brought you to the paranormal genre?

Cat:  I've always been fascinated by the Other - and the symbolism of supernatural and paranormal creatures and humans as they relate to our society.

EJ:  If you could be any paranormal or have any one supernatural talent, what would it be? Why?

Cat:  Probably a vampire, since I'd get to live more or less forever. All it would cost me is my soul and I'm not using it anyway, I mean, I can't even remember where I left it.

I'd be a very orderly and ordinary vampire - sunblock and sensible clothes and blood donors and art exhibitions for the free wine. Also it would give me more time to learn to play the ukulele.

EJ:  Tell us why readers will enjoy your new release.

Cat:  When the Sea is Rising Red would probably appeal most to readers who want to immerse themselves in a fantasy world rich with social strata and grey moralities and human emotion, and aren't looking for the usual love story.

EJ:  If your book(s) were being made into a movie, who would you cast for the leading roles? Why?

Cat:  Since it's unlikely that I'd get any say in casting, I'd just have to hope that if ever a movie was made, that the actors would be talented unknowns who more or less match up to their literary counterparts.

When the Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellisen.

After seventeen-year-old Felicita’s dearest friend Ilven kills herself to escape an arranged marriage, Felicita chooses freedom over privilege. She fakes her own death and leaves her sheltered life as one of Pelimburg’s magical elite behind. Living in the slums, scrubbing dishes for a living, she falls for charismatic Dash while also becoming fascinated with vampire Jannik. Then something shocking washes up on the beach: Ilven's death has called out of the sea a dangerous wild magic. Felicita must decide whether her loyalties lie with the family she abandoned . . . or with those who would twist this dark power to destroy Pelimburg's caste system, and the whole city along with it.  


Thank you Cat for joining us here today at From the Shadows!

To learn more about Cat Hellisen and her books, please visit her website.