Q+A with Gina X. Grant (The Reluctant Reaper)

Please welcome today's paranormal guest author Gina X. Grant.  Gina is the author of The Reluctant Reaper.

EJ:  When did you begin writing?

Gina:  Like everyone else, I started writing as a kid. In high school, I wrote what was considered a weird story although it would now be considered post-apocalyptic YA. I suspect the school administrators wanted to send me for counseling. Instead, the brilliantly insightful teacher typed it up and distributed it around the school.

But then, real life kicked in. I earned a degree in business that near sucked the life out of me.  Eventually, I started writing fanfiction back when the internet was young. Anyone remember when YahooGroups was still OneList? When we used HotBot as our search engine?

I switched over to the pro-writing side after heaving yet another “bestseller” at the wall. “I, too, can write this badly!” I declared. Well, maybe I don’t write badly after all. I began writing m/m romances, eventually writing my Reluctant Reaper trilogy which releases this summer—three books, no waiting!

My big claim to fame is, at this point, a vicarious one: I have the same agent as Suzanne Collins. W00t! Perhaps one day Ms. Collins will say, “I have the same agent as Gina X. Grant!” Well, I can dream, right?

EJ:  What brought you to the paranormal genre?

Gina:  From fairy tales and superhero comics to Narnia and Lord of the Rings, I’ve been reading sci-fi and fantasy as long as I can remember. While I was deciding what to write, I stumbled upon Mary Janice Davidson’s Undead and Unwed, the first of her Queen Betsy series. I was delighted by the combination of fantasy and humor. I loved the balance of darkness and comedy that made Buffy/Angel/Firefly and now Supernatural work. I try to use that my own writing.

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

Gina:  I’d love to be able to turn invisible in the dark. No, just kidding. I would like to be able to make people happy, to be an anti-dementor. Just as JK Rowling used her dementors to represent the bleakness and pain of depression, I’d like to be able to suck that out of people (but not into myself!) Actually, that’s not a bad plot bunny. I’d dissipate the depression into the air, or instill it in the person’s shadow or something. Hmmm ::goes off to write that down::

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

Gina:  What makes THE RELUCTANT REAPER and the other two books in the series different is their over-the-top humor, characters and setting. If you like bad puns and good wordplay, a character who gets herself into all kinds of trouble, plus plot twists and turns you’ll never see coming, then this is the book for you.
If you’re a fan of Discworld or Stephanie Plum, you’ll like heroine Kirsty d’Arc. My agent sold my book to Simon & Schuster based on the pitch, “it’s Sookie Stackhouse meets Thursday Next” (Thursday is Jasper Fforde’s intrepid heroine in the Jurisfiction series.)

Plus it has feral desk accessories. Name one other urban fantasy with feral desk accessories. Go on. I’ll wait.

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

Gina:  Main character Kirsty d’Arc is a sassy 25-year-old ex-office worker turned Grim Reaper. She’s 25 forever so I’d cast someone young in order for her to stay young enough to play the part for ALL the movies. I like Summer Glau for the part.

Love-interest Dante Alighieri is 700 years old but looks around 30. I think Jensen Ackles would be perfect (for just about anything).

The Reluctant Reaper (The Reluctant Reaper #1) by Gina X. Grant.

Life for Kirsty d’Arc might not be perfect, but it’s far from hellish. She likes her job, has a great BFF and truly admires Conrad, her boss. But when she dives in front of a lunatic’s blade to save him from certain death, she finds out Conrad isn’t so admirable after all. In fact, he’s traded her soul to the Devil!

While her body lies comatose on the Mortal Coil, Kirsty’s spirit is dragged straight to Hell…which is not quite the fire-and-brimstone abyss she’d expected. In fact, the place is quirky, wacky, and not without charm. Desperate to reunite body and soul before her time runs out, she seeks out allies, earning the friendship of a powerful drag demon, a psychic server and most importantly, Hell’s civil servant. But what of her growing attraction to Dante, the sexy Reaper with a flair for romantic language—can she forgive him for scything her soul?

Stuck in the netherworld, Kirsty vows she’ll do everything on her postmortem bucket-list, starting with getting her life back and ensuring that Conrad has Hell to pay!

Release Date: June 17, 2013

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

To learn more about Gina X. Grant and her books, please visit her website.