Hello Katrina, we have our Coffee Time Romance guest author Katrina Strauss with me today to discuss her latest release in the Eldritch Legacy, Fates Fulfilled. We are also LIVE chatting together on Yahoo so this is an extra special event for me.
Katrina: How are you today?
Lainey: I am fine and I noticed you love Johnny Depp I see?
Katrina: Oh yes I’ve been drooling over him since 21 Jump Street and he just gets hotter with age. Yes we can always talk about Johnny *laugh* that sounds fine.
Lainey: Any other role models or crushes you have had besides Johnny; if you do a pirate book you have inspiration right?
Katrina: Oh yes, my favorite actors have made it into my stories.
Lainey: I was just going to ask that one, any actors in particular make it?
Katrina: I’ve based hot leading males on Shane Brolly, Julian Sands and Cillian Murphy…
Lainey: Oh very nice you mentioned Shane earlier so this is fun.
Katrina: It certainly makes writing the love scenes more…interesting.
Lainey: That is for sure, do you have pics up of them while you write for comparison so to speak?
Katrina: I tend to run a Google image search and keep files on my hard drive. I’m surprised my computer has blown up from all the hotness!
Lainey: That is great I was going to say maybe you need to make your own pinup calendar so you have reference pics of all those you use for your books at hand and on the wall.
Katrina: Seriously though, it helps me get a better grip on offering physical descriptions that sound “real”. Though I take poetic license and change things, like height, eye color, hair style…after all, there is that disclaimer at the beginning of the book about any resemblance of characters to living persons being coincidental……..
Lainey: No that makes total sense. And the names are changed to protect the innocent as they all claim too…
Katrina: So yes, I confess, half my research is collecting hot pictures of handsome men.
Lainey: So does this mean we can tell readers to send pics of hotties to you for consideration?
Katrina: Sure!
Lainey: Very Good, now beware once they read this they will definitely go to your site and let you know who they love so you will have many more men to choose from.
Katrina: I am basing a character in a current WIP on Viggo Mortensen. So my fellow author Sabrina Luna, who also looks to Viggo for inspiration, has been sending me a daily Viggo fix.
Lainey: Ah be still my heart, I just love Viggo, he is the quintessential responsibly mature male of all time and can do it all.
Katrina: Then HS Kinn, Kayleigh Jamison and I have shared the same Muse a few times, including Stuart Townsend, and singer Gerard Way. So we send each other pictures all the time. Hey, we got to have a little fun while we are working. Yes, Viggo is hot. Even my mother thinks so.
Lainey: See this is why a live interview is so fun our readers love to know the day to day stuff and can definitely help you out on some pics, I think from now on especially Viggo maybe?
Katrina: He made a hot Lucifer in the first Prophecy movie. That works for me! Donations accepted! Well the character I’m basing on Viggo is a cowboy, though with long hair like Viggo in his role as Aragorn.
Lainey: Now I have another quick question. Do you want to mention your current works for readers to be on the look out besides your Fates Fulfilled the last in the Eldritch Legacy?
Katrina: Sure! I have a short story, Windswept, coming up in the next installment of Aphrodite’s Apples “Masquerade” series. While my work tends to be very dark, this one is actually very lighthearted with a traditional Happily Ever After! Believe me, I was shocked more than anyone
Lainey: OH that is great we love departures from the usual that is what our readers love, something new and exciting.
Katrina: The premise of the Masquerade series is that every year, the Gods on Olympus host a masquerade ball, with invitations sent to mortals who request which God or Goddess they want to meet. It plays on the timeless theme of the gods dallying with mortals, and the first two anthologies in this series have been well-received. I thought I’d take a stab at it, and wrote my story about a mortal meteorology student, Tempest Rayne, who asks to meet Aeolus, the Greek Keeper of the Winds. Hence the title, Windswept.
Lainey: Wow that sounds great and fun; do you also have anything on the promotional scene for any book signings or chats or other things our readers might be interested in finding out about your coming releases?
Katrina: I have some exciting online events scheduled in February. On February 15th, I’ll be reviewed live over the radio at The Darker Side of the Moon. Listeners can tune at 11 PM EST at http://www.darkersideradio.com/
Lainey: Oh that is just what we need for everyone to know and tune in for it. Is there anything else you would like your readers and ours to know about today?
Katrina: Fates Fulfilled, the final installment of the Eldritch Legacy, will be out on February 13th. After that, I am going to go back and write a series of novellas that fill in the back stories of the Legacy.
Lainey: Sort of like prequels then?
Katrina: Sort of. One as a prequel, one as back story, and one as sequel. While I will cover three different time periods again, these will not be BDSM-oriented, though I will still explore erotic themes!
Lainey: That makes sense since it covers a great time period so you are filling in the blanks so to speak with the novellas?
Katrina: Yes, the second book particularly has an off-camera back story that I’d love to tell.
Lainey: That is also good to know for all of our readers and something great to look forward to. I am on that one now as we speak with Stefan. *big grin*
Katrina: I originally meant to write one book. I had no idea I’d create this entire universe in my mind! Yes, Stefan holds a special spot in my heart.
Lainey: Isn’t that great about writing, you can create your whole universe a bit at a time.
Katrina: Really, I feel like it was already there, and I just discovered it! Hopefully my readers enjoy visiting it as much as I do.
Lainey: Oh I am sure they will, I have the 2nd book and Fates Fulfilled is fun with the excerpts out but now I want to read your first one. I am going backwards but I am glad I have Stefan.
Katrina: The first one is the most hardcore!
Lainey: Now they are stand alone books if anyone reads them out of order though?
Katrina: Yes, Stefan is fun to play with. I wrote the series so that it can be read out of order and still make sense, and I even fill in blanks backwards as much as I do forward; though by book 3, certain passages read as more profound, if you know the story behind them.
Lainey: So now readers may enjoy any or all as they find them then go back and get the rest and wait for the novellas to fill in any other blanks.
Katrina: Yes, hopefully! There is a little bit of something for everyone, with each book bearing a different style.
Lainey: Very nice, I love that it can be done that way; I have found favorite authors with whatever current book out then gone to get the rest to read.
Katrina: I read William Gibson’s “Neuromancer” trilogy backward. By the time I figured out what the heck he was talking about, I found he’d explained everything in the first book. *laugh*
Lainey: Oh fun, I bet you enjoyed the books and would not have wanted it any other way.
Katrina: I know I’ve been reading JD Robb’s (aka Nora Roberts) In Death series out of order, and it still reads fine. Yes, I am kind of proud that I figured out the Gibson books on my own.
Lainey: I have found if you read the 2nd book first it then read the 1st, it fills in blanks you might not have read, of course I then reread the 2nd one next, it makes even more sense.
Katrina: That’s what I had in mind with the Eldritch books based on my own experiences with haphazard series reading LOL I love generational approaches to series. I definitely look to Anne Rice in that respect. More sensitive readers have found the first half of the first book difficult, as it details, well, a dungeon imprisonment. However, readers who stuck with it until they reached the twist to that story have understood why I wrote it that way, and if readers will stick with me through all three books, I think they’ll be happy to see that in the end, my female characters are truly empowered.
Lainey: That is exactly what readers need to know if they have not experienced your first book yet to be prepared and stick with it. Now is there any criteria for those pics you like?
Katrina: Um, just that I’m looking forward to all these hot pictures filling my in box. I like ’em tall, usually dark though fair works too, and always brooding; with long hair as an added plus.
Lainey: OK you heard it here folks, please send all your pics of hunks and hotties to Katrina. Now what address would you prefer them to use for all these goodies to come to?
Katrina: katrina_strauss13 at yahoo dot com. Hopefully we won’t burn up Yahoo’s server…
Lainey: You know Katrina’s preferences especially Viggo, so start sending your pics to her!
Katrina: Oh dear! LOL, yes bring on the deluge of hotness.
Lainey: So give it a couple weeks before all those hotties come pouring in from everyone *laughs* you will have to keep me updated, hmm you can also send me the hotties too.
Katrina: LOL! We can post my phone number if Shane Brolly wants to call!
Lainey: I will be posting all your links so everyone can visit you and see the excerpts for Fates Fulfilled also.
Katrina: Me too, my pleasure! Great! So how do you like Stefan so far?
Lainey: Oh yes the brooding young man with the flyaway hair, I just want to brush it back for him.
Katrina: Oh yes, and then watch it fall right back in his eyes *sigh*
Lainey: *grins* I forgot to ask since it isn’t in Lessons Learned but what time period is this?
Katrina: It’s the equivalent to our Regency era, a blending of Regency England with Napoleonic France.
Lainey: OK thought so but was not positive, just when women were coming into their own.
Katrina: Regencies used to be known for being the most “trite” of the romance genre, so I thought it was time to see these people loosen up a bit. Yes, it’s a fascinating time period, and the fashions were very carefree, though squelched by the inevitable conservative turn that became the staunch Victorian period.
Lainey: And France also brought about that more free spirit in love and sex.
Katrina: Yeah they were wild very much so LOL. Lord Byron was quite the randy rake. The Shelley’s espoused free love. I mention Byron in Windswept; even he snuck in there somehow, and was a huge influence behind Stefan. I have talked to more well-read women who say that if they could go back thru time and get with any historical figure of their choice, it would be Byron, hands down. Yes, they have a very intellectual relationship, in contrast to his great grandparents which was more barbaric and physical.
Lainey: But I want to see a pirate like Johnny Depp in one of yours someday for the fun of it.
Katrina: Though I’ve been rereading Anais Nin’s erotica, and at that time it was considered raunchy, but today it reads very prosaically. I am sure Johnny will turn up in one of my stories sooner or later LOL
Lainey: Yep a nice Pirate book would work to fill in that genre gap.
Katrina: Aphrodite’s Apples is planning a pirate anthology! So I may have to pen something for that one. I was the little girl who dreamt of getting kidnapped by pirates and tied to the mast….and I did NOT want to be rescued. That says a lot about me LOL. Yeah it was a good movie, and my daughter and I drooled together over Johnny and Orlando. I said “I can drool over Johnny, You can have Orlando.” She said “Hey I want Johnny too!”
Lainey: That is so fun you can joke with your daughter like that. I want to see if you get a call from Shane too *grins*.
Katrina: LOL I did get an email from him once, at least they claimed to be him! Yes he is also a poet, a very impressive one, so I told him about my books and that I loved his poetry. I received a thank you and a congratulations, and he said he would love a copy of the book and that’s the last I heard LOL. Yes, and get this, I did not know he was also a poet until AFTER I decided to base this character on him. I don’t want to come off as a stalker, but I would love to send him Lessons Learned.
Lainey: So let him know the interview is coming out next month and you will send him a copy of the book and tell him to look up Coffee Time Romance.
Katrina: We’ll be at chats going hmm, who is this mystery male guest? *laughs*
I will keep my fingers crossed! As my editor says, it says something when a book about absinthe and group sex is the “tame” book of the trilogy LOL
Lainey: Is why I like the idea of the one I am reading now, Lessons Learned..
Katrina: Yes really, the one your reading is the “innocent” one despite some of the bad stuff that goes down, it is a very innocent time for these characters compared to the other books. This is the cornerstone book, and as it turned out, Stefan ties it all together; it’s been fun to delve into each time period and see what happens. I have times in my life where my cognitive senses are stronger than others, the whole way I came into getting published really centered around the pieces just falling into place as I followed my instincts.
Lainey: *smiles* I am posting all the hottie info believe me and will put all your links in there for all to contribute to your daily emails. Ok that is my time to say thanks and go feed him.
Katrina: Yes I look forward to chatting more! I will see you later. Bye for now!
Lainey: Thanks and please show up in our chats some more too and our readers forum, who knows maybe one of your books will make it in there to talk about soon. Bye and thanks again so much Katrina.
On behalf of Coffee time Romance, we want to thank Katrina Strauss for taking the time to chat with us. Thank you.
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