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Thursday, May 31, 2012

Blood Dreams by Christine Ashworth Interview + Giveaway

Hello Everyone and thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to stop in and follow along as we have a chat with Christine Ashworth, the author of Demon Soul and Blood Dreams, a Caine Brothers Short Story will release on June 1st, for only 99 cents. It's a bridge story between DEMON SOUL, and DEMON HUNT, the next book in the series.



Q. Coming from a family of writers, is there a higher standard your writing is held to for them?

Only in that I am very picky about punctuation and spelling, because I was taught to be picky.

Q. Is there any competition between who writes the best?

No. My brother Scott Cunningham died in 1993, and my dad, Chet Cunningham, tends to write westerns and thrillers (not romance, lol). He doesn't read very well though, because he has wet macular degeneration. But he's very happy that my first book got such good reviews. I will say their success may have intimidated me, but I think I've finally gotten over that.

Q. Why did you choose this genre to write for? Which genre do you think would be the hardest to write for?

Paranormal romance is one of those genres that you can make up anything you like, and no one can tell you you're doing it wrong. As long as the rules you set for your characters are obeyed in the story-world, then you can play to your heart's content. There's a freedom there that you don't get so much in the ordinary world. I will say, though, I love writing contemporary romance, and YA as well.

The hardest? For me personally, it would be an historical romance. I'm not great on research, lol!

Q. Out of all the books you have read or thought about writing/written, who is your favorite villain and why?

I like Hannibal Lecter. He's so creepy, and so suave. And so creepy.

Q. How do you come up with the names for your characters?

Sometimes I'll look up dates and what names were popular then. Baby books work, and so do phone books - putting last names with different first names. Sometimes I'll look around my office frantically, to see if I can twist a name on the spine of my book to use for a character.
Sometimes names are overused (Rafe, for example); or by the end of a book I'm sick of the name, so I have to change it. The first Caine Brothers book, DEMON SOUL, my two main characters went through 4 or 5 name changes before they finally settled into their names. The rest of the family, surprisingly, kept their names with no problems.

Q. Are their descriptions based off of anyone?

No, not really. I like coming up with different dream guys with flaws, or women who are comfortable doing what needs to be done, even if they might die doing it. I find a lot of the time, my descriptions get vaguer and vaguer the deeper into the book you get. With the Caines, because they have such rich diversity in their bloodline, they have different skin colors and eye colors. Only in the planes of their faces and the breadth of their shoulders can you see the family resemblance.
Q. Did you have any music you found yourself listening to more than others as you wrote?

I was listening to what I call my "falling in love" song list because I had been working on a YA novel when I got edits back for BLOOD DREAMS. I continued to listen to the same song set. Don't know why it worked for me, but it did. *shrug*

Q. Every little girl at one point dreams of being a ballerina, what was it like dancing professionally?

Fun. Fun! I adored ballet. I was my most alive when I was 17, and dancing all the time. I was just getting to the point of being considered for major solo roles. I left it too easily, though. I wish now that I had stayed connected to the ballet world, but when I moved up to Los Angeles with my hubby-to-be from San Diego (where I had danced with the California Ballet Company, still going strong), there wasn't a ballet company up here. I took ballet classes from Sallie Whalen, and jazz from Joe Tremaine and Paul deRolf, until I finally had to get a day job. (Though I did extra work on Days of our Lives, and on Square Pegs. Too much fun!) I tried to break into musical theater - but that's a story for another day, lol!

Q. If you could be any Princess from the fairy tales, who would you be and why?

Now, none of them - I'm very happy with my own Prince, my hubby of 32 years ( I married very young!). But when I was a girl, I had a Disney coloring book of Cinderella - and I loved her outfits. Then, I would have given anything to be Cinderella, and ride in a fancy carriage, and wear a fine dress...that was the only coloring book that I made sure to color within the lines, very carefully.

Q. Any last words you would like to leave our readers?

 Follow your heart. It may be hard, it may look like the wrong road, but if you continue to follow your heart and your intuition, you will find yourself exactly where you should be and it will feel wonderful. There are more important things out there in the world than what may readily come to mind. Go, find them, or create them. Be someone wonderful!
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*Disclosure of Material Connection: I am a member of numerous Blog Tours and a copy of this book was provided to me by the author. Although payment may have been received by the Blog Tours, no payment was received by me in exchange for this review. There was no obligation to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are entirely my own and may not necessarily agree with those of the author, publisher, publicist, or readers of this review. This disclosure is in accordance with the Federal Trade Commision’s 16 CFR, Part 255, Guides Concerning Use of Endorcements and Testimonials in Advertising*