Interview
Novel Reaction is very excited to welcome Alyxandra Harvey as part of her blog tour for Haunting Violet.
Alyxandra Harvey lives in a stone Victorian house in Ontario, Canada with a few resident ghosts who are allowed to stay as long as they keep company manners. She loves medieval dresses, used to be able to recite all of The Lady of Shalott by Tennyson, and has been accused, more than once, of being born in the wrong century. She believes this to be mostly true except for the fact that she really likes running water, women’s rights, and ice cream.
Among her favourite books are ‘The Wood Wife’ by Terri Windling, ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte, and of course, ‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen. Elizabeth Bennet is her hero because she’s smart and sassy, and Mr. Darcy is, well, yum.
Aside from the ghosts, she also lives with husband and their dogs. She likes cinnamon lattes, tattoos and books.
NR: In Haunting Violet, Violet assists her mother in conning people into believing they were being visited by ghosts, where did you get the specific tricks used by them?
AH: I researched a lot and then made quite a few of them up myself or altered them. Bellows were used, but I had Violet’s Mom strap them under Violet’s petticoats which was my own personal version. I researched which chemicals could be thrown into fireplaces to create colorful flames and thought long and hard about how to hide things in a Victorian parlour!
NR: Did you try those tricks out to see if they worked, and if so, any funny or disastrous results?
AH: Happily I did not have to pluck chickens bald to see if their feathers would look like snow! I did throw salt in the fire place to see what would happen (you’d have to use quite a bit for it to be really dramatic) and we hired a medium to come to our house. My husband has always been interested in ghost hunting so I got to play with his EMF and sensor gadgets but that was more useful for my modern day paranormal I have coming out in 2012/3 than Haunting Violet.
NR: Will we get to visit Violet again in future novels?
AH: I hope so! I wrote the first draft of a sequel years ago because I couldn’t help myself but it’s uncontracted so no promises. If the readers want it though, it’s definitely a possibility!
NR: Haunting Violet is a historical novel, which is very different from your contemporary set Drake Chronicles series, how did writing in a historical time period compare?
AH: I love historical fiction and historical fantasy so it was a real pleasure to write Haunting Violet. I actually wrote it before Drake Chronicles. I’ve always felt more comfortable writing historical fantasy than modern-day…but now my favorite is definitely a combination of the two! (Like in Blood Feud)
NR: On Novel Reaction each month we do a books to movie challenge where we read the book and watch the movie and discuss it. Which is your favorite book to movie and why?
AH: A great question!
Pride and Prejudice, of course, has to be high in the list. I do love a little Mr. Darcy. But Elizabeth Bennet has to be awesome. I’m even pickier about her portrayal!
And I adore the Harry Potter movies. The feel of them, the flavor of the books they maintained, everything. And I’d love it if the set designers wanted to come and redecorate my writing studio. That would be brilliant.
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Thank you so much Alyxandra for stopping by and sharing with some more information on Haunting Violet, your new historical paranormal young adult novel (and that is a mouthful). 
I am also a huge fan of the Harry Potter movies and can’t wait for part 2 of The Deathly Hallows to come out next week. Alyxandra is the author of The Drake Chronicles, a paranormal contemporary ya series with the fourth book Bleeding Hearts scheduled to be released in November of this year (I am really looking forward to it, I am totally team Nick and Lucy!!).
Novel Reaction is excited to welcome Hope Ramsay as part of her Welcome to Last Chance blog tour, the first book in the Last Chance series.
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Hope Ramsay was born in New York and grew up on the North Shore of Long Island, but every summer Momma would pack her off under the care of Aunt Annie to go visiting with relatives in the midlands of South Carolina. Her extended family includes its share of colorful aunts and uncles, as well as cousins by the dozens, who provide the fodder for the characters you’ll find in Last Chance, South Carolina. Hope earned a BA in Political Science from the University of Buffalo, and has had various jobs working as a Congressional aide, a lobbyist, a public relations consultant, and a meeting planner. She’s a two-time finalist in the Golden Heart, and is married to a good ol’ Georgia boy who resembles every single one of her heroes. She has two grown children and a couple of demanding lap cats. She lives in Fairfax, Virginia where you can often find her on the back deck, picking on her thirty-five-year-old Martin guitar.
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NR: What events led you to want to become a writer?
HR: I was about six years old and in second grade. It was November and I had to write my first ever term paper about the Pilgrims. I have a vivid memory of writing that paper — holding one of those big fat red pencils in my little hand, and writing on that newsprint that comes with the big double lines. I remember going on and on about the trials the poor Pilgrims faced in their long, ocean voyage to the New World. I think I wrote four pages detailing all their adversities. My mother said she didn’t think I needed to write such a long paper, but I was having too much fun to self-edit. When the paper was finally finished, and copied out neatly on better paper, I announced that I was going to be writer when I grew up.
I never waivered from that declaration, although my writer’s road meandered through songwriting, speechwriting, public relations, and marketing before arriving at the destination called Last Chance, South Carolina.
NR: How old were you when you wrote your first book?
HR: I am a big one for setting goals. So in high school and promised myself that I would write my first novel before I reached the age of 30. I managed to achieve this goal just months before reaching my third decade. The book was a traditional fantasy that started with “it was a dark and stormy night.” Not a very good book, but a great achievement. About two months after finishing the novel I gave birth to my first child. The typewriter — yes I wrote the first book on paper with a typewriter — was put away for a number of years, and when I was ready to write again, the typewriter was an anachronism.
NR: I also come from a large extended family, what did you love and not love about spending summers surrounded by your big family?
HR: I was the kid in my generation who came along kind of in-between. My first cousins were way older than I was, and my second cousins were way younger than me. So when I went to South Carolina there were very few young people to hang out with. So even though it was a big family, it didn’t always feel that way to me. There was a noticeable absence of children my age.
Because I had few young playmates, I spent a lot time in the company of adults. That had its good points and bad points. My aunts, uncles, and older cousins taught me things that I don’t think I would have learned if there had been kids around to play with. So when the church ladies gathered to make curtains for my older cousin’s new house, I came along and learned to sew a straight seam on a sewing machine — even though I was only about eight at the time. My uncle, the butcher, let me help make sausage one time — that was an experience, too. And I heard stuff that I probably wasn’t supposed to hear, too. In a lot of ways my character, Haley, is based on that experience. She is often in the company of much older people, and like me, she sometimes stands apart and observes.
NR: Are we going to get to find out more about Dash and his back story? ( I have to admit he is one of my favorite characters in Last Chance.)
HR: Oh bless you! I love him, too. In fact, I have to work hard to make sure he doesn’t steal every scene he’s in. I hear from a lot of readers who’ve fallen in love with Stone Rhodes, but, to be honest, Dash is probably my most favorite male character — ever.
We’ll see more of him in the forthcoming books, and he figures pretty prominently in the third book, Last Chance Beauty Queen, which I’m writing right now. If the Last Chance stories are successful, I’m hoping Forever Romance will be interested in another series and I’d like to give Dash a book of his own.
NR: On Novel Reaction each month we do a books to movie challenge where we read the book and watch the movie and discuss it. Which is your favorite book to movie and why?
HR: To Kill a Mockingbird, is probably my favorite. I just love, love, love this book on so many levels. It’s the quintessential southern story, but more important, when I first read the book as a child I completely identified with Scout, the book’s narrator. In a lot of ways I saw myself as Scout, and Jem as my older brother, Randy. Some of the adventures Jem and Scout get into were completely consistent with the adventures that Randy and I got into during our summers in the South. So To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my all time keepers.
Usually, when a book reaches this status with me, I loathe the movie adaptation. But in this case, Gregory Peck’s performance as Atticus Finch was so amazing that it probably tops my list of performances by an actor in a movie. Harper Lee wrote the quintessential American hero, who uses words and love instead of weapons and hatred to change the world. Gregory Peck played him to perfection.
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Thank you Hope for stopping by and answering our questions. To Kill a Mockingbird is also one of my favorite books-to-movies, I tear up every time I watch when everyone on the balcony stands up in respect as he is leaving the courtroom. While I am looking forward to the rest of siblings stories I am eagerly awaiting Dash’s story. (hint, hint, Forever Romance)
Novel Reaction is very excited to have our first mystery author posting and our first interview by Jocee, one of our regular reviewers. Michael Palmer has just released A Heartbeat Away and has answered questions for us.
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Michael Palmer, M.D., is the author of the forthcoming The Last Surgeon (2010), The Second Opinion, The First Patient, The Fifth Vial, The Society, Fatal, The Patient, Miracle Cure, Critical Judgment, Silent Treatment, Natural Causes, Extreme Measures, Flashback, Side Effects,and The Sisterhood. His books have been translated into thirty-five languages. He trained in internal medicine at Boston City and Massachusetts General Hospitals, spent twenty years as a full-time practitioner of internal and emergency medicine, and is now an associate director of the Massachusetts Medical Society’s physician health program.
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NR: Where do you get your names for your characters? We were wondering if they are people you know or if you just make them up?
MP: Never anyone I know unless (as I do for every novel, and many other authors do as well) they have won a charity auction to have their name be a character in the book. I get my names from the sports pages, name Websites, books on my shelves, and people who have crossed my path at one time or another (never their full name). Sometimes, when desperate, I simply make them up.
NR: Where did you get the idea for the WRX3883?
MP: I knew I needed a virus to fulfill my “What if?” question for this book. What if a deadly, highly contagious virus is released into the House during the State of the Union Address, forcing the president to quarantine the Capitol. The properties of the virus evolved as I was writing, bit by bit.
NR: How did you learn to write by keeping the reader in suspense for each chapter? I really had a hard time putting the book down because I had to keep reading to find out what was happen.
MP: From the very beginning, well before I knew HOW to write, people were talking about my “natural” sense of what’s dramatic. According to the editors and agent who read my initial stuff, people can be taught how to write, but no one can be taught that sense of what is dramatic. I try hard to make sure no one can easily close my books at the end of a chapter.
NR: Do you believe that we have viruses like the WRX3883?
MP: Viruses can do just about anything. Controlling them and shutting them off is the problem. As to whether WRX viruses exist now, I would say that I certainly hope not.
NR: Do you believe we should use viruses like that if they are available?
MP: If the virus were controllable—utterly controllable—and lives could be saved by using them on terrorists, I would support their enployment. But that’s a lot of “ifs.”
NR: I have to say, I read the ending before I finished the book, which I do for every book, and still had to read the book to see what happened. That doesn’t happen a lot for me! I was very intrigued with the story. Who are the authors that you read?
MP: I read lots of first time authors to support their books with “blurbs.” Recently I enjoyed Law of Attraction by Allison Leotta; Consumed by Hilary Reddy LiDestri and Alisa Griffin, and of course Delirious by my son Daniel. Otherwise, I read what’s hot, and anything by Lisa Gardner, Tess Gerritsen, Lee Child, and Harlan Coben. My favorite writers ever are Charles Dickins and Robertson Davies.
NR: Which is your favorite book that you have written?
MP: Always the most recent one. I also particularly like The Second Opinion and Fatal.
NR: This is the first book of yours that my husband and I have both read. We would love to read another, which would you suggest?
MP: For medical/political thrills, try The First Patient.
NR: On Novel Reaction each month we do a books-to-movie challenge. What is your favorite book to movie?
MP: I have two—Six Days of the Condor by James Grady and Marathon Man by William Goldman. Terrific books, perfect movies.
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Thank you Michael for stopping by and answering our questions. The reviewers of A Heartbeat Away gave the book five stars, high praise so check it out.
Novel Reaction is excited to welcome Cara Elliot as part of her To Tempt a Rake Blog Tour.
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I started creating books at the age of five, or so my mother tells me. And she has the proof — a neatly penciled story, the pages lavishly illustrated with full color crayon drawings of horses and bound with staples — to back up her claim. I have since moved on from Westerns to writing about Regency England, a time and place that has captured my imagination ever since I opened the covers of Jane Austen’sPride and Prejudice.
I have a BA and an MFA in Graphic Design from Yale University and now work as the creative director of a lifestyle sporting magazine, a job which lets me combine my love of the printed word with my love of art. I’m very fortunate in that my work allows me to travel to interesting destinations around the world — however, my favorite spot is London, where the funky antique markets and used book stores offer a wealth of inspiration for my stories
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Cara is going to tell us about her favorite and least favorite books-to-movie adaptations.
Picking my favorite period film is so hard—there are lots of them that I really love. That said, I really adore the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice. For me, she’s a perfect Elizabeth Bennett—sharp-tongued, sharp-witted, full of verve and intelligence . . .and a little too headstrong for her own good. The rest of the casting is really excellent, too (love Donald Sutherland as Mr. Bennett) but what really makes it for me are the settings. The houses really struck me as so real—not too elegant, or perfect, but with worn chairs and chickens scratching in the yards. It just struck me as so real. I’ve watched it a few times just to stare at the settings and lose myself in the Regency world.
(Now before fans of Colin Firth start yelling at me, I love that version too! But there is something about the interiors of the Knightley version that I really thought was extra special.)
As for one that is my least favorite, I’ll stick with Pride and Prejudice (which is one of my all-time favorite books.) There is a version from the 40s or 50s (not the Laurence Olivier version) that has terrible costumes that look like they were made for Gone With the Wind. The acting was also very strange, and very un-English in feeling. It was as if they hadn’t a clue about what era or society they were trying to create, so for me it was funny . . . but not in a good way.
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Thanks to Cara for sharing with us her favorite books to movies. While I enjoy the 1940′s version as a silly fun version of the novel (all the daughters are beautiful) my biggest issue is the fact they made Lady Catherine De Bourgh into a nice old lady who is concerned with Darcy’s happiness, instead of the curmedgion that she is.
I agree that I love the 2005 version with Kiera Knightly, one of my favorite scenes is when she is twirling on the swing and it shows the different seasons in the yard. I feel that it accurately shows how muddy and different the yard of a working estate would be from the highly landscaped estate owned by Darcy.
I am excited to be able to give away three copies of To Tempt a Rake courtesy of Hachette Publishing. The Rules:
-Contest ends Feb. 19th
-Only residents of the U.S. or Canada are eligible to win
-No P.O. Boxes, please.
-Please let your readers know: Winners will be subject to the one copy per household rule, which means that if they win the same title in two or more contests, they will receive only one copy of the title (or one set in the case of grouped giveaways) in the mail.
