We have a treat for you today. I was so happy to be able to interview Kate, she is really nice, plus an amazing writer. This interview is going to be a little about Kate and about her DemonFire series.
BbPNR-Please give us a little about Kate Douglas?
Kate Douglas- I’m a 60 year old grandmother of five—(property of our two grown kids—a son and a daughter and their spouses) and I’ve got a husband I’ve been hanging on to for 38 years. Of course, he’s REAL cute and the man vacuums...what more can a woman ask? J I’ve been writing forever—I wrote commercials for a country-western radio station in the early 1970s, right out of college, worked as a newspaper reporter and even did a public information cartoon strip for 17 years for the American Mosquito Control Association. (Anyone remember Skeeter Mosquito?) Now I write full time for Kensington Publishing with two successful series—Wolf Tales (which includes the Sexy Beast anthologies) and The DemonSlayers.
BbPNR-How did you get into writing?
Kate Douglas-I started writing fiction back in the mid 1980s, and since I loved reading romances, that’s what I decided I wanted to write. It took me a lot of years and a lot of rejections before I finally sold my first romance to Hard Shell Word Factory, an epublisher, in 1998. That was before anyone knew what an ebook was! I wrote four books for HSWF and then began writing erotic romances for Ellora’s Cave in 2001, and then moved to Loose Id and Changeling Press, two other epublishers. In 2005 I was writing a series called Wolf Tales for Changeling when my agent showed the stories to editor Audrey LaFehr at Kensington Publishing. Audrey loved the stories but didn’t have an imprint where they would fit, so the company started the Aphrodisia line. Those stories have done very well (the 18th comes out this month) and Kensington has since contracted me for a second series which is part of the Zebra imprint—The DemonSlayers.
BbPNR-What do you like to read?
Kate Douglas-I read everything, but my favorites are well-written romances. I probably read more paranormal than anything, though I love a good contemporary and will, on occasion, read historical romances. I also love science fiction, but paranormal romances are my first love.
BbPNR-You have been writing paranormal erotic. Why did you decide to write paranormal romance?
Kate Douglas-I think it was a natural choice, considering the fact I love science fiction and fantasy, and I also love the idea of starting out a book with “what if?” That’s really a cool question to answer, and it’s how I begin all my books.
BbPNR-What did you enjoy the most while writing DemonFire?
Kate Douglas-I loved the entire process, but the research was especially fun. My husband and I spent time around Mount Shasta, where the story is set, and that was really cool. We also went to Sedona, Arizona, and spent time there checking out the area, since that’s where HellFire is set. I love to travel to the places where my stories will be, as I think I can write better descriptions when I’ve actually seen the places where I set my stories.
BbPNR-For those who haven’t heard of Demonslayers, can you give them a little on this series?
Kate Douglas-The DemonSlayers is a four book series: DemonFire, HellFire, StarFire and CrystalFire. There’s also a novella (Crystal Dreams) coming out in an anthology in September called NOCTURNAL that’s part of the series. The DemonSlayers works with the real mythology of the energy vortexes that are supposedly in Mount Shasta and in many areas around Sedona, Arizona. It also draws on the mythology of the ancient Lemurians, a people who, according to legend, were forced from their island home by a great cataclysm and relocated to another dimension within the extinct volcano of Mount Shasta.
When I wrote the first book, DemonFire, I took those ideas and asked myself, “What if demons were using the vortexes to power portals between the hell of Abyss and Earth, and what if the only one who could fight them was an ex-demon who’s been kicked out of hell? AND, what if he is cursed before he can even fight the demons, and needs the help of a human woman who can control his curse, and a Lemurian capable of killing demons with a crystal sword? See? My “what ifs” gave me the whole concept!
BbPNR-Demons are not the only paranormal creature in this series, can you tell us what others exist?
Kate Douglas- I mentioned the Lemurians, who live within Mt. Shasta. There are also the Edenites—angels—they’re incapable of fighting, and they’re the ones who hire Dax and give him a human body to use as an avatar, but he’s only got it for one week. There’s also Willow, a little will-o’-the-wisp who looks like Tinkerbelle and helps Dax draw energy from the air around him. And, of course, there are the demons. They can’t function in Earth’s dimension without an avatar, and they begin taking over all kinds of critters, from ceramic garden gnomes to carved stone figurines and a big bronze statue. Eddy Marks is the human woman who gets caught up in all the excitement.
BbPNR-In the first chapter, you used a garden gnome to attack the hero, it cracked me up. I have to ask why the garden gnome to attack Dax and not something bigger?
Kate Douglas-When I first began to “see” this story in my head, the image of a demon-possessed garden gnome was one of the first things I had. For some reason, they’ve always looked pretty creepy to me, and I thought that would be the perfect way to open the story, with a demon-possessed garden gnome going after the hero.
BbPNR-Do you know how many books your going to write in Demonslayers?
Kate Douglas-The series will end with the fourth book. I’m not sure yet if there’s going to be a spin-off or not. Will have to wait and see what happens when I write that fourth book:)
BbPNR-Your second book is about Alton the Lemurian and Ginny, can you give us more about them?
Kate Douglas-Ginny Jones and Alton the Lemurian are both secondary characters who almost took over the first book. Sometimes that happens, where a character has such a strong presence that you can’t ignore them, and both of these were like that. Ginny is Eddy Marks’s best friend. They’ve been buddies since they were little kids—Ginny is African American and works as a 911 dispatcher and the first time Alton sees her, she’s fighting a huge, demon-possessed concrete bear that has her cornered behind a Dumpster in a parking lot. Alton falls hard and fast, though he knows there’s no hope for a relationship with a human woman because Lemurians are immortal and Ginny’s not. However, Ginny’s got secrets that even Alton can’t figure out, and they’re really going to change the dynamic of the relationship between the two. In DemonFire, Alton gives Ginny a subconscious compulsion to leave town and visit her cousins in Sedona—he says he’s doing it to keep her safe, but in reality, he wants the temptation Ginny represents to be as far away as he can get her. Unfortunately, demons are slipping into Sedona through a vortex powered portal outside of town, and Ginny ends up right in the middle of a demon invasion. Alton heads to Sedona to help her, and of course the sparks fly—and it’s NOT just from exploding demons!
Thank you so much Kate!!
Here is Kate's WEBSITE, so you can check out more on Kate's books.
If you would like to know more about Kate, click here
DemonFire available in stores now
Click here for the first chapter of HellFire, the release date is Sept. 7th 2010. I myself can't wait!!
Now for the book giveaway, it's open for all US and internationally.
One lucky winner will win a free DemonFire form Kate herself. All you have to do is be a follower and post a comment below, with your email.
I will leave this open over the weekend, so if you want a chance please have your comment below by Monday April 5th.
No comments:
Post a Comment