Very belatedly, because I am doing everything very belatedly at the moment, I'm delighted to welcome Shari Elder to the blog for a chat! Her novella SHIFTER TRIALS was recently released and promptly added to my TBR pile. Shari has kindly agreed to answer a few questions for me, and I have finally carved out the time to actually post them, so let's get to it!
Welcome, Shari! Let's start by hearing a little bit about your
newest release.
First, thanks so much for hosting me.
I’m thrilled to be here and to share my novella, Shifter Trials.
Its based on the greek myth, Atalanta, a huntress who would only
agree to marry a man who could beat her in a footrace. I turned
Atalanta into Talia, an alpha shifter, who would have trouble finding
a mate who is her equal in strength and spirt. Voila, Shifter Trials.
Here is the blurb.
On
the night of the full moon, any male shifter can call the Trials to
race against Talia Orion, alpha of the united wolf-eagle clans. Clan
law requires Talia to marry the winner of the Trials, a grueling
twenty-mile marathon through dangerous, rugged terrain. The product
of an unhappy, political alliance masquerading as a marriage, Talia
trains obsessively to ensure she avoids her parents’ fate.
Her newest vampire trainer, Hayden Mitchell, makes her powerful even
as he knocks down her defenses, and finds his way, first, into her
bed then into her heart.
Hayden
has loved Talia since the first moment he saw her. As the destined
ruler of the vampire clan, he has another agenda – to politically
unite Talia’s clans with his own—what Talia fears most, and will
never forgive him for.
I love a bit of mythological re-working! It's a great source for story ideas. Do you have a favourite genre to
write in?
I love to create worlds and culture,
design cities and governments, imagine what ifs. Given that, I love
paranormal and science fiction romance. Both genres give me the
freedom to pull out the entire mental lego set, throw it on the
floor and just create.
If you could have dinner with any
three writers, living or dead, who would they be?
Jane Austen, Mary Shelley and Maya
Angelou. Each one created rich, innovative stories that challenged
how we saw the world and how the world should look in fact. The
weren’t just writers, their lives broke barriers for all women. I
would love to sit at their table and soak up their personal stories,
and be a better person for it.
Are there any books you can just
read over and over again and never get sick of?
Yes, my favorite children’s books –
Dr. Seuss‘ Oh the Places You Will Go, Green Eggs and Ham and Yertle
the Turtle; Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, Shel
Siverstein’s The Giving Tree, and Ogden Nash, The Zoo and Custard
the Dragon. Even now, I find them inspirational. If I need a lift,
I always turn to these classics.
The tough one: tea or coffee?
I have to choose! I can’t get out of
bed or get to the page without a cup of coffee. But, in the
afternoon, I crave a good cup of hot tea. Earl Grey. Hot.
Nothing beats a good cup of Earl Grey, it's true. What else are you working on right
now? What's up next from you?
I am completing a science fiction
romance novel at the moment, called Race to Redemption. Here’s a
quick summary.
Terran Alliance storm
racing champion Elaina Carteret has it all—wealth, celebrity,
respect and a god-of-a-fiancee—until betrayal and tragedy sends her
into exile. Resurfacing as Lainie Carter, a medical transport
driver on the isolated desert planet of Ranhar, her rule-bending
approach to her job infuriates the med facility director, Dr. Erik
Hansen, who runs the outpost with an iron hand, a permanent scowl and
the tightest bod on the planet.
So if you fall in love with SHIFTER TRIALS, you know there's more coming from Shari soon! Thanks for dropping by, Shari :)
Thanks, again, for hosting me. I love
visitors, so please come by and chat. Virtual coffee and cookies for
all. You can find me at:
Twitter: @ShariElderBooks
You can pick up a copy of SHIFTER TRIALS at:
