Author Q&A, Giveway with Laura Kaye

I'm happy to welcome Laura Kaye to my blog today!

Welcome to Hanging With Bells, Laura. Tell us a little about yourself. 

Thanks so much for hosting me! I’m glad to be here! I’m a multi-published author of paranormal, contemporary and erotic romance with four books being released in 2011, including my contemporary fantasy romance, NORTH OF NEED, which debuts on November 1! I’m also a mom of two young daughters (ages 5 and 7), wife, college history professor, and total vampire fan.

Your book Just Gotta Say was released last month. It's an Erotic Romance. What makes your book sexy?

Ooh! Fun question! I think a lot of things make this ménage a quatres story sexy. It’s laugh out loud funny, and I think humor can be totally sexy—sex doesn’t always have to be serious and dramatic! It’s also very emotional—as a friends-to-lover story, the foursome involved has known one another for years and had plenty of time to develop that slow burn of attraction. And it plays on one of the most common sexual fantasies among women (according to lots and lots of surveys)—group sex. Yep. Just Gotta Say is sexy to the fourth power! *winks*

You also have a release out next month, North of Need, that is a Fantasy Romance. Do you plan on writing any books in any other genre?

Probably. Story ideas usually just come to me, I don’t really try to ‘think up’ a story idea with a certain genre. Actually, it’s usually the characters that come to me first, and as they reveal their story to me, it breathes life into the type of book it’ll take to tell that story. Outside of paranormal/fantasy, contemporary and erotic, I have a completed women’s fiction manuscript that I’m hoping to query to agents before the end of the year—again, the character took over and demanded her story to be told! On the flipside of this question, I know there are some genres I probably wouldn’t write in. Historical romance, while I enjoy reading it, is a bit too much like my day job. Steampunk and science fiction romance require a level of technological worldbuilding and research that I don’t want to do—although I have great respect for authors who do and do it well!

In North of Need you have a snow god. How interesting! Tell us a little about Owen Winters and how you came up with his character.

Owen Winters is such a yummy character and he was so fun to write. He’s a Greek snow god, and the adopted son of the Supreme God of the North Wind. He’s lived in a state of self-imposed exile from the Realm of the Gods for a long time, and is summoned to return when the spirit of a human man makes a special appeal on behalf of his grieving widow. Oh, Owen. He’s so dreamy! He’s sweet and sexy and funny and completely adorable. He’s gorgeous (let’s just say the cover totally does him justice) and takes pleasure in the smallest things.

How I came up with him? It is a kind of interesting story. At first, I thought he was simply a snow man come to life. Cute, right? Great holiday feel-good story. In the very first scene in which he appears, I couldn’t get the words to work right. And then he started talking to me. He said, Come on, I’m not just a snowman. I’m a god, author lady, a snow god. Thus launched an entire day’s research on various cultures’ mythologies about snow gods and winter deities. And that realization laid the groundwork for the great world of the Anemoi readers will meet throughout the series.

North of Need is the first book in the Hearts of the Aneomi series. Tell us about the other books in the series that will be released next year. What else do you have planned for the future for your writing?

North of Need is the first in a four-book series featuring the Anemoi, directional wind gods the Greeks associated with the seasons. Writing these books will occupy me through the first half of 2012, but I do have some other things on tap. First, a bit about the Hearts of the Anemoi series:
Book 1 features Owen Winters, son of the Supreme God of the North Wind, and a snow god in his own right
Book 2 will feature Zephyrus Martius, Supreme God of the West Wind, and the most powerful of them all
Book 3 will feature Chysander Notos, Supreme God of the South Wind and the golden boy of the group
Book 4 will feature bad boy Devlin Eston, son of the Supreme God of the East Wind, as well as an Armageddon-style battle that will bring all the series’ characters together! In addition to these books, I’m also working on a (so far) two-book dark paranormal romance vampire series for Harlequin Nocturne. This mini-series of novellas will feature ancient vampire warrior kings throughout the world seeking (or resisting seeking) mates as they fight a secret war against the Soul Eaters. The first in this series, In the Service of the King, will release February of 2012. If I’m lucky enough to sell the women’s fiction novel I mentioned above, I also have a planned sequel to it that I’d night to write. Plus, at some point I’d like to finish and release the sequel to my very first vampire romance, Forever Freed. Seriously, my future writing agenda is a mile long!

Thanks Laura for stopping by the blog and for offering a giveaway of one ecopy of North of Need!

Thanks for having me, and thanks everyone for reading!

Find out more about Laura Kaye:

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WANT TO WIN NORTH OF NEED? The North of Need Book Launch Blog Tour runs October 25 – November 20. A giveaway at every stop!  Check out the calendar of events here to see the other stops on the tour!  Just leave your email with comment if you want to enter to win a ebook copy of North of Need as well as a set of trading cards!  Giveaway ends 11/2/11. 

Her tears called a powerful snow god to life, but only her love can grant the humanity he craves...

Desperate to escape agonizing memories of Christmas past, twenty-nine-year-old widow Megan Snow builds a snow family outside the mountain cabin she once shared with her husband, realizing too late that she's recreated the very thing she'll never have.

Called to life by Megan's tears, snow god Owen Winters appears unconscious on her doorstep in the midst of a raging blizzard. As she nurses him to health, Owen finds unexpected solace in her company and unimagined pleasure in the warmth of her body, and vows to win her heart for a chance at humanity.

Megan is drawn to Owen's mismatched eyes, otherworldly masculinity, and enthusiasm for the littlest things. But this Christmas miracle comes with an expiration--before the snow melts and the temperature rises, Megan must let go of her widow's grief and learn to trust love again, or she'll lose Owen forever.

Trading cards

About Laura Kaye:

A multi-published author of paranormal, contemporary and erotic romance, Laura Kaye’s hot, heartfelt stories are all about the universal desire for a place to belong. Laura is the author of the bestselling contemporary romance HEARTS IN DARKNESS and the bestselling and award-nominated paranormal romance FOREVER FREED, as well as an erotic romance novella, JUST GOTTA SAY. Her fourth book, contemporary fantasy romance NORTH OF NEED, is the first in the 4-book Hearts of the Anemoi series. Laura lives in Maryland with her husband, two daughters, and cute-but-bad dog, and appreciates her view of the Chesapeake Bay every day.