Month: November 2017

Nicki J. Markus joins us today!

 

1. If you had to spend a week snowed in at a mountain cabin with one of your characters, who would you choose and why?

 

Loki from The Ragnarök Chronicles of course. I would happily be snowed in anywhere with him. We’d find plenty of ways to keep warm *wink* Just don’t tell my husband!

 

2. Aliens kidnap you and put you in a zoo. What does the sign on your cage say?

 

Caution—May Bite If Provoked

Maintain Correct Grammar At All Times

 

3. Write a haiku poem about your favorite beverage.

 

Lovely chocolate drink

Creamy, hot and rich delight

Please stay off my thighs

 

4. Describe one especially fond childhood memory—for yourself or for one of your characters.

 

Visiting a forest filled with gnome statues with my parents and grandparents

 

5. What is the dumbest thing one of your characters has ever done?

 

Loki deciding to join forces with someone who’s always wanted to kill him (The Ragnarök Chronicles)

 

6. Describe your ideal writing environment.

 

Absolute quite in a room in which I’m surrounded by books

 

7. Name two of your pet peeves.

 

Bad grammar and people who step out of shops without looking first

 

8. What is the oddest thing on your music playlist?

 

Well, I have a pretty eclectic and wide taste in music, so what’s ‘odd’ on my playlist will depend on your own point of view and musical preferences.

I love musicals (including European shows), opera, classical, easy listening….

I guess some of the Czech folk rock stuff might be up there on the obscure scale.

Here’s a link to one of the songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNEeZV-W7zk

 

 

9. Which of your characters would make a good BFF?

 

I guess Cassandra in The Ragnarök Chronicles, as many aspects of her personality and tastes are based on my own, so we should get along just fine. 🙂

 

10. Describe a beloved item of clothing owned by one of your characters.

 

As a girl after my own heart, Cassandra would never be far from her favourite pair of comfy jeans!

For Ragnarök will be completed….

Nothing marks Cassandra out—except her visions. She’s only ever seen small, insignificant things. That is until the strange frost arrives.

With her normal life turned upside down, Cassandra is plunged into an extraordinary and terrifying world of Norse gods and rampaging giants, ancient feuds and broken prophecies.

A handsome stranger offers aid. But can Cassandra really trust him? More importantly, can she trust her own judgement when his slightest touch sets her heart and her body aflame?

 

Book buy links:

Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SW0TV46

Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/ dp/B00SW0TV46

Kobo:  http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/the-ragnarok-chronicles

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-ragnar-k-chronicles-nicki-j-markus/1121134764?ean=9780994234605

Book Depository: http://www.bookdepository.com/Ragnar%C3%B6k-Chronicles-Nicki-Markus/9780994234605

 

Author bio:

Nicki J. Markus (aka Asta Idonea) was born in England but now lives in Adelaide, South Australia. She has loved both reading and writing from a young age and is also a keen linguist, having studied several foreign languages.

Nicki launched her writing career in 2011 and divides her efforts not only between MM and mainstream works but also between traditional and indie publishing. Her works span the genres, from paranormal to historical and from contemporary to fantasy. It just depends what story and which characters spring into her mind!

As a day job, Nicki works as a freelance editor and proofreader, and in her spare time she enjoys music, theatre, cinema, photography, and sketching. She also loves history, folklore and mythology, pen-palling, and travel, all of which have provided plenty of inspiration for her writing.

 

Author contacts:

Blog: http://www.nickijmarkus.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NickiJMarkus

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NickiJMarkus

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nickijmarkus/

Pinterest: https://au.pinterest.com/nickijmarkus/

Google+: https://plus.google.com/+NickiJMarkusAstaIdonea

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4567057.Nicki_J_Markus

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolamarkus

Amazon Author US: https://www.amazon.com/Nicki-J-Markus/e/B004JM0UC8

Amazon Author UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nicki-J-Markus/e/B004JM0UC8

Today’s player is Tinnean!

1. If you could be any other living person for a single day, who would you be? If you’d asked me this years ago, I’d have said Cher or Kathleen Turner or Sigourney Weaver. Who can forget Cher playing Loretta Castorini in Moonstruck, or Kathleen Turner as the femme fatale Matty Walker in Body Heat, or Sigourney Weaver as the totally badass Ripley in either Alien or Aliens? I know, I’m shallow, and I suppose I should say women like Hillary Clinton or Ruth Bader Ginsberg or even Judge Judy, who doesn’t take guff from anyone. But seriously? I’m happy with who I am right now, and even if it’s just for a single day, I wouldn’t want to be anyone else.
2. You’re on a ship with Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, Catherine the Great, David Bowie, Billie Holiday, and Gengis Khan. But oh no! The ship is sinking and the lifeboat only holds four people. You get to decide—who gets on that lifeboat? If I include me, that only leaves three, so I’d go with Albert Einstein, because we always need genius, Billie Holiday, because she was a fantastic singer, and Catherine the Great, because she was an enlightened ruler, even though the poorest of her people never fared well. So those are the three plus me. However, if we’re doing four plus me, that’s going to take a bit more thought. Genghis Khan? No way. He’s too brutal for my taste. I mean, who else chucked bodies of plague victims at his enemies to demoralize them? So that leaves Mark Twain and David Bowie. I never was a huge fan of Mark Twain, although I did enjoy The Adventures of Mark Twain, the movie about his life, and the only thing I kind of, sort of know about David Bowie—other than how hot he looked as the Goblin King in Labyrinth—is that his wife, Iman, starred in Exit to Eden with Rosie O’Donnell. Would it be too bad if I made them toss a coin? 😉
3. What are you wearing right now? Fern-patterned shirt and sleep pants, even though it’s only 8:10 p.m.
4. Which holiday is your favorite and why? Boxing Day, because then we have about eleven months before we need to start worrying about buying Christmas presents again.
5. We all know about those big prizes such as the Nobel and Pulitzer and Academy Award. If someone invented a new prize that you were a shoe-in to win, what would it be? I’d love to be the first recipient of the Heinlein-L’Amour Award (named for Robert Heinlein and Louis L’Amour) for excellence in the Sci-fi/Western M/M genre. *cough*
6. What did you have for lunch yesterday? I was really, really bad. I had left-over pizza, Cheez Doodles, and salt and vinegar potato chips. Told you I was bad.
7. Describe your dream house. Pictures of it are on my desktop and both laptops, and I actually used it for inspiration for Josh’s house in Best Laid Plans. This is how I described it. Compared to the ranch it was tiny, but with its red tin roof and Savannah gray stone chimneys, it was a real gem. The expanse of roof was interrupted by twin gables as well as a chimney to the left and another in the center. A paved walk of red and gray stones wound up to a set of wooden stairs, which led to a banistered veranda that stretched across the front of the house. Large, multi-paned picture windows framed the white double door in the center of the house.

And while I have no pictures of the inside, this is how I imagined it, also from the book: The interior of the house was as incredible as the exterior. The foyer opened to a huge living room on the left. The windows at the front of the house let in an amazing amount of light. There wasn’t a lot of furniture, though, just a sectional sofa, a coffee table, a bookcase, and a TV sitting on an entertainment center set between two windows. To the rear of the room and off to the side were a pair of french doors. Two of the bedrooms on one side of the ground floor had been combined to make a large master with an en suite. The room was huge, with a king-size four-poster bed draped with mosquito netting, a pair of night tables, a triple dresser, and a rocker near another set of french doors that opened on to the veranda. A whitewashed brick fireplace was against the outside wall, between two windows that looked out on to the side yard and let in a lot of natural light.

The en suite bathroom was done in sea-foam-green subway tiles and had dual vessel sinks, a stand-alone shower, and a claw foot tub.

 

Book blurb: This is my latest Mann of My Dreams, You Were Made for Me.

Can things possibly run smoothly when a CIA spook moves in with a WBIS spy? If they’re Quinton Mann and Mark Vincent, they damned well better had.

Quinn, having resigned from the CIA after the debacle of a covert agent being outed, is now living with Mark. Over the next year and a half, they learn to navigate the seas of their relationship together, dealing with a death in the family and Quinn’s new career as a writer, while friends from Mark’s previous life reach out for help and the CIA tries to get Quinn back.

 

Book buy links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/You-Were-Made-Continuing-Adventures-ebook/dp/B0763XZ4VW/

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/you-were-made-for-me-tinnean/1127176105?ean=2940154573471

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/751346

 

Author bio:

Tinnean has been writing since the 3rd grade, where she was inspired to try her hand at epic poetry. Fortunately, that epic poem didn’t survive the passage of time; however, her love of writing not only survived but thrived, and in high school she became a member of the magazine staff, where she contributed a number of stories.

It was with the advent of the family’s second computer—the first intimidated everyone—that her writing took off, enhanced in part by fanfiction, but mostly by the wonder that is copy and paste.

While involved in fandom, she was nominated for both Rerun and Light My Fire Awards. Now, although she still dabbles in fanfiction on occasion, she concentrates on her original characters and has been published by Nazca Plains, Dreamspinner, JMS Books, Wilde City Press, and Less Than Three Press, as well as self-publishing five books to date. Recent novels have received honorable mention in the 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 Rainbow Awards, and two of the 2014 submissions were finalists.

A New Yorker at heart, she resides in SW Florida with her husband and three computers.

Ernest Hemingway’s words reflect Tinnean’s devotion to her craft: Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it.

Author contacts:

• Website: www.angelfire.comfl5/tinnssinns/Welcome1.html
• Blog: https://tinnean.dreamwidth.org/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Tinnean
• Twitter: @tinneantoo
• Email: tinneantoo@gmail.com