Author Q&A: Sierra Dean, author of the Secret McQueen Series

I'm very pleased to welcome to the blog an author that has a great new series out!  The Secret McQueen series by Sierra Dean is full of mystery and action.  Here's some info on Sierra:

Website:  http://www.sierradean.com

Sierra Dean is a reformed historian. She was born and raised in the Canadian prairies and is allowed annual exit visas in order to continue her quest of steadily conquering the world one city at a time. Making the best of the cold Canadian winters, Sierra indulges in her less global interests: drinking too much tea and writing urban fantasy.

Ever since she was a young girl she has loved the idea of the supernatural coexisting with the mundane. As an adult, however, the idea evolved from the notion of fairies in flower beds, to imagining that the rugged-looking guy at the garage might secretly be a werewolf. She has used her overactive imagination to create her own version of the world, where vampire, werewolves, fairies, gods and monsters all walk among us, and she’ll continue to travel as much as possible until she finds it for real.

She’s also a book lover (of course!), obsessive collector of OPI nailpolish and the owner of way too many pairs of shoes.

Welcome to Hanging With Bells Sierra!

Tell us a little about your Secret McQueen series and how you came up with the concept for it.

Secret was a character I'd been playing with for a long time. In my original stories, she was only 16, but as the ideas progressed she aged a little and came into her own. The funny thing about the Secret series, is that I used to only work on Something Secret This Way Comes when I would hit a block with my literary fiction novel. Now, I'm spending most of my waking hours writing urban fantasy, and try to fit in my literary fiction whenever I can.

In book 1 of the series, Something Secret This Way Comes, Secret gets in touch with her wolf side.  I loved how it all played out in the book. 

Thank you! I like that Secret has parts of two very different creatures in her. Werewolves and vampires classically don't get along very well, so I think it's interesting to see how she tries to fit in with two worlds when neither one is accepting of the other. It made for a unique character I think.

I think that Secret is a strong female character and I love reading her action scenes.  How many books do you have planned for her series?

I have such fun writing Secret's action sequences. As of right now I'm planning 8 books in the series, not including novellas.

I love Secret's relationship with the character Holden and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we'll get to see these two do the horizontal tango. (Hehe!)   Will your readers get the opportunity to learn more about him?   I think Holden is a great future candidate for my Book Boyfriend list.  ;)

Aww, I'm so glad Holden is getting his due. I love that guy. Yes, there will be more Holden in the future, but I can't give too much away without spoiling things for those who haven't yet read Something Secret This Way Comes.

What else do you have planned for your readers in the future?

I'm keeping myself busy, which means there will be a constant stream of new goodies for my readers. Right now I'm working on the third Secret novel, Deep Dark Secret, and this fall I have a few non-Secret projects to sink my teeth into. Then right back to more Secret books. I'm trying to be diverse, but urban fantasy is my big writing love. So while I am writing a contemporary this fall, I'm also going to try doing the first book in a new UF series, something totally different from the Secretverse.


I'm telling you folks, if you haven't read this series yet do so!  It's exciting and refreshing and I enjoyed it very much!  You can read my review of Book 1, Something Secret This Way Comes here, as well as the review of the prequel of the series, The Secret Guide to Dating Monsters here.

Book 2 in the series:

Release date: September 20, 2011