Teresa Noelle Roberts on Writer Wednesday on a Thursday

Teresa Noelle Roberts on Writer Wednesday on a Thursday

Folks, I double-booked Writer Wednesday this week, so instead of putting both authors on the same day, I’m giving Teresa her own day. Please give Teresa a warm welcome! I first met her when she staggered into the hotel room she was sharing with me and two friends, at two-something in the morning, RWA Conference in Dallas, several years ago. I’ve been privileged to call her friend since then.

Teresa Noelle Roberts, on a beach Somewhere in Maine.

Teresa Noelle Roberts, on a beach Somewhere in Maine.

CA: First off, get comfy and kick those shoes off. Now – what can I get you? Coffee, soda, beer, wine, or a mixed cocktail?

TNR: Wine, please, preferably a rich Cabernet.

CA: Speaking my language, woman, but then I knew that. So, what drew you to writing?

TNR: It was inevitable, perhaps genetic. My mom was an English teacher, the grandmother who helped raise me was an avid reader, and though I didn’t know my father, he was a poet and nonfiction writer. My mother has stories I dictated to her before I even knew the alphabet.

CA: Oh, I totally understand the genetics! So for our reading audience, what genre(s) do you write in, and why?

TNR: I write erotica, fantasy and romance, so it’s not surprising I write a lot of erotic paranormal romance, combining my three loves. I admit I first dabbled in romance because the genre seemed friendlier to new writers than fantasy, but as soon as I got started, I got hooked. I love happy endings, I love writing sexy, and I love incorporating my fascination with myth and legend into some of my stories.

CA: How did you start this particular book, Witches’ Waves – with a title first, a character first, or a situation first?

TNR: I started with the character of Meaghan the blind seer. She’s mentioned briefly in the first book of the series, Lions’ Pride, as “the Agency’s tame seer.” As soon as I wrote that line, I started asking myself “What if she’s not as tame as they think and wants to escape them?” That idea burbled in the back of my brain until, in a later book in the series, Cougar’s Courage, I created an infant likely to grow up with unusual powers. Well, the seer might have a vision about this baby…and the story of Witches’ Waves was born.

CA: What do you do when you’re not writing? Do you have a Day Job?

TNR: I cook a lot, bellydance, do yoga, hike, and work on our “suburban homestead.” As for a day job, I’m a part-time admin for a Realtor®, working from home with flexible hours. So I’m pretty busy.

CA: That sounds fantastic. I’ve seen the things you do with your garden harvest, and totally wish we were neighbors. Okay, now name three things your fans would be surprised to learn about you.

TNR: 1. My favorite day job ever was picking grapes at a small winery in the Finger Lakes of central New York.

2. I can say “I can’t eat pork” in five European languages.

3. I’ve lived in Manhattan and Paris, but these days I can’t imagine living in a big city. (OK, maybe that won’t surprise my readers, considering most of my books aren’t exactly urban.)

CA: The fact that you can say “I can’t eat pork” in five languages makes me giggle! And I’m so jealous that you’ve lived in both Manhattan AND Paris! Which brings me to my next question. Where would you live, if you could live anywhere in the world?

TNR: The coast of Maine…except you can’t really enjoy it during summer because all of us tourists are cluttering up the place. Drat! So much for that fantasy.

CA: LOL! I’d love to spend a summer on the coast of Maine!  Name 3 simple joys in your life.

TNR: 1. Eating a sun-ripened tomato from the garden, or brushing snow off the floating row cover to harvest some cold-sweetened kale.

2. Sitting with an overstuffed cat in my lap reading a good book.

3. Sipping an adult beverage by a fire in the backyard with my husband (a.k.a. the Cat-Herder), while watching the sunset over our domain.

CA: Ah, all of those sound lovely and very similar to my simple joys. If you could have dinner with any person, living or dead or fictional, who would it be and where would you go to eat?

TNR: I feel like I should say someone famous like Jane Austen, but honestly, if dining with the dead is an option, I’d take one more evening with my friend Gregg. As for where we’d eat, I’d ask him, because if you’re back among the living for one dinner, you get to pick the meal.

CA: I love that! *wipes tear* and I totally agree, they get to choose. *sniffs* Okay. If you could give just one piece of advice to a writer just starting out, what would it be?

TNR: Write the book already, or the story, or the poem. It may stink, but remember: you can’t revise a blank page, but you can revise absolute dreck.

CA: Perfect, and I totally agree! Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?

TNR: Witches’ Waves ties up a major plot thread in the Duals and Donovans series. I’m not done with this world of witches and shapeshifters yet, but the next book(s) will go in a different direction. Possibly to Europe. I have an idea for a Duals and Donovans book set in Venice. I wonder if I can do a GoFundMe for a research trip…

Thanks so much, Teresa! Folks, below is the blurb and a brief snippet of the book. Sounds absolutely yummy! So excuse me while I go push the “buy” button…

witches waves

Witches’ Waves (Duals and Donovans: The Different, book 4)
Out 11/18/14 from Samhain Publishing.

“The overall message is one of hope and the healing that love can help bring, w/some really hot sex […] for good measure.” four stars—Romantic Times

“This novel definitely hooked me for this series.”—From Me to You Video, Photography and Book Reviews

“Well written and full of emotional depth.”— Manic Readers

The ocean is on their side. But the fight is on land—and it’s about to get dirty.

Duals and Donovans: The Different, Book 4

Long held captive as the Agency’s secret weapon—a blind witch with visions—Meaghan has come to a line she refuses to cross. Rather than betray the infant “child of five bloods” to the Agency’s scientists, she chooses death. Except when she throws herself into the ocean, she doesn’t die. Her repressed water magic comes to life.

When the sodden, delirious witch drifts into Kyle’s arms, his otter dual instincts tell him to get her to the Donovans as fast as possible. Even though one particular surfer-dude Donovan broke his heart.

Declan Donovan continually kicks himself for pushing Kyle away, but his touchy combination of water, earth and lightning magic is too volatile, and Kyle wanted more than Deck was ready to give.

When they come together to help Meaghan control her new magic, it leads the Agency straight to the child of five bloods. They’ll have to dive head-first into total trust—in their magics, in themselves and in each other—to save the child and stop the Agency once and for all.

Warning: Contains an oceanful of sex between an ethereal blind heroine who swears like a pissed-off Marine, an overly serious otter shifter, a would-be beach bum who may be descended from a Norse god, in permutations as fluid as the sea – and themes of abuse and recovery.
Excerpt:
Water splashed around her legs. Meaghan had reached the water’s edge. That had been her plan all along, to run to the water and keep running and let the waves carry her away. Let the Agency think she’d had a seizure and drowned. Hell, let them realize the truth, that she’d died to get away from them and the weight of betrayal on her soul.

But as soon as the water—frigid, yet somehow welcoming, bracing—hit her skin, her plan washed away. She kept running along the water’s edge, letting the wavelets carry away some of her burden of guilt.

The world shifted suddenly to the left, the way it did when she was about to have a seizure, but she didn’t seize or even get dizzy.

Instead, she was thrown headlong into a startlingly beautiful vision. She felt a man’s arms around her, a man’s body taller and younger and stronger than Shaw’s pressed against her, his long hair brushing at her skin erotically. Another man was beside him, touching them both, only that lithe, slender man was sometimes an animal of some kind. He was the size and shape of a human—a well-built human, probably handsome—but Meaghan felt dense, short fur as she stroked him.

He must be a dual. They were some of the Different people that Shaw had used her to destroy, but this dual didn’t seem to hold that against her. No, instead, he held himself against her.

They were in the water, bobbing gently as they made love.

The way the men touched her was like nothing in her limited experience. A little rough at times, a little controlling, but with an underlying affection and gentleness that was new. She couldn’t see them—even in her visions, she could rarely see—yet she somehow knew they were touching each other, enjoying each other, as well.

In her vision—or maybe it was just a vivid daydream, but she didn’t really care—she could orgasm without seizing. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did, just as she knew that soon one of the men would penetrate her while the other fucked him, and she craved that moment so much it hurt.

She sank to her knees at the water’s edge, lost in the vision, lost in pleasure.

Then her vision was bathed in blood and she heard a baby’s piercing, panicked cry.

She’d had this vision before. A child of five bloods, she’d said, and everyone had been excited about that. She’d prayed she’d never learn more about this child, nothing that would help the Agency find her. But prayers weren’t always answered.

She heard the dangerous words again, the ones that would betray the child if she spoke them: Oregon and Donovan.

A wave broke over her, drenching her, knocking her down, jarring her from the vision.

Oregon. Donovan.

It was only a matter of time before she had another vision at the hospital and those words slipped out, dooming that child and all the child’s family—if they hadn’t already. She didn’t always remember clearly after a vision.

The smell of the salt air, the cry of the gulls, the blood pounding in her veins still called her to live, but she owed it to the baby, and the baby’s parents, and the lion man, and the others she’d inadvertently helped Shaw capture. No more. Never again.

Shakily, Meaghan got to her feet.

Then she walked straight into the roar of the surf.

Series blurb:

Welcome to an America where the non-human Different and magically gifted humans live among ordinary people. Witches are both feared and honored, but shape-shifting duals are treated as second-class citizens. The Agency, a government agency that’s supposed to monitor illegal uses of magic and Different abilities, has developed its own dangerous agenda. But when Duals and witches join forces, the Agency and other bad guys aren’t going to know what hit them.

And neither are the witches and Duals. Witch magic grows from the positive energy of love and sex–and the only thing better than one dual for sex magic is two of them!

Buy links: Samhain /Amazon / Amazon UK / B&N Nook / Kobo

Bio:
Teresa Noelle Roberts started writing stories in kindergarten and she hasn’t stopped yet. A prolific author of short erotica, she’s also a published poet and fantasy writer—but hot paranormals and BDSM-spiced contemporaries are her favorites. Or they were until she discovered that SF romance offers new possibilities for wild sex, imaginative adventure and love beyond boundaries, so she’s added that sub-genre to her repertoire. Oh, and she’s also half of the writing team known as Sophie Mouette, writing mostly light-hearted spicy romances (with occasional forays into erotica).

Teresa is a crunchy granola girl who enjoys belly dance, yoga, medieval re-creation, playing in the ocean, cooking, and growing more vegetables than she and her husband can possibly eat.  She’d enjoy sleeping, too. She thinks. But it takes so much time!

She shares her home in southern Massachusetts with her husband, a Leo in law enforcement, and two overstuffed cats. She and her husband often plan vacations around food, history, and/or proximity to water.

Find Teresa at www.teresanoelleroberts.com, like her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTeresaNoelleRoberts or follow on Twitter, where she’s @TeresNoeRoberts.

And check out her alter ego Sophie at www.sophiemouette.com.

Writer Wednesday – Teresa Noelle Roberts

Writer Wednesday – Teresa Noelle Roberts

I’m re-launching Writer Wednesday, and am so happy to introduce Teresa Noelle Roberts to you! The first time I met Teresa, it was WAY early in the morning (or WAY late at night) and she was one of my roomies at RWA National Conference. Four of us crammed into one hotel room for several days – and we had a blast.

The lovely Teresa, beachside on the east coast.

The lovely Teresa, beachside on the east coast.

Here’s Teresa, and here’s the interview!

  1. What made you decide to write a novel? Because the voices in my head don’t give a choice? The serious answer is that I started dictating stories to my mother before I’d learned to write, got a subscription to Writers’ Digest for my twelfth birthday, and started my first (aborted) novel in junior high. Story-telling is in my blood.
  2. What genre do you write in, and why? I write romance, erotica, and some fantasy. Cougar’s Courage is an erotic paranormal romance, which combines all three of my favorites.
  3. Is this a series or standalone book? If a series, what is the name of this series, and how many books/short stories do you have planned? Cougar’s Courage is numbered as book 3 in the Duals and Donovans: The Different series. Confusingly, there are currently 4 published books in the Duals and Donovans world, but one, Fox’s Folly, takes place before the series timeline. I’m currently wrapping up what will be the last book in the series. I may set more books in this world, but the big conflict of the series will wrap up with my WIP so I’ll need to find a new antagonist.
  4. Where would you live, if you could live anywhere in the world? That’s a tough question. Definitely near the ocean. Possibly coastal Maine, but there’s so much of the world I haven’t seen yet!
  5. Name 3 simple joys in your life. Sharing daily life with my husband. (He’s hardly simple, though!). Cooking. My big, lazy, loving cats.
  6. If you could give just one piece of advice to a writer starting out, what would it be? Write, write, take a break to read, then write some more. Lather, rinse, repeat. Education, be it degree programs, workshops, or online classes, is valuable, but nothing beats the act of beating your head against the blank page.
  7. What do you do when you’re not writing? Do you have a Day Job? When I’m not writing, I’m often cooking, gardening, or doing something else vaguely homesteader-ish. I’m between day jobs at the moment and am loving it far too much. Past day jobs have ranged from field hand at a winery (my favorite ever, though the pay was just above minimum wage) to development/fundraising officer.
  8. Name one thing your fans would be surprised to learn about you. This crunchy, hands-in-the-dirt woman went through a phase of wearing 4-inch heels and red lipstick no matter what the occasion. I still yearn for sexy heels, but my knees and back will never forgive me for years of abuse, so I stick to flats even when heels would be appropriate. (Still love deep red lipstick, though.)
  9. Is there anything else you’d like to talk about? To celebrate the release of Cougar’s Courage, I’m running a contest on my blogthe prize is an e-book of Cougar’s Courage and a print copy of the first book in the series, Lions’ Pride. (Or an e-book if the winner is outside the US.) Comments on my blog count as entries, but check my site for details.

Thanks so much for stopping by, Teresa, and best of luck on the novel! Off I go to download…

FIND TERESA HERE:

www.teresanoelleroberts.com
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTeresaNoelleRoberts?ref=hl
https://twitter.com/TeresNoeRoberts
Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0047V74PC

Blurb: Toronto cop Cara Many-Winters Mackenzie is still reeling from her fiancé’sCougarsCouragesmaller murder when her orderly life takes a turn toward the weird, complete with voices in her head and phantom bleeding wounds.

This violent awakening is the rise of her Different gift—a chaotic, Bugs-Bunny-on-crack magic that she must learn to control before it destroys her. There’s only one place to get help: her mother’s ancestral village, and a mentor who seems to have stepped straight out of the smoke of her erotic dreams.

Cougar Dual Jack Long-Claw reluctantly agrees to take Cara under his wing, though he’d much rather take the beautiful city girl into his bed. As he guides her through a crash course in shamanic magic, sparks fly—some sexy, some snarky. But when an ancient enemy attacks the village, they must work together to hone a magical weapon against certain destruction.

Common sense tells them it’s a terrible time to fall in love. Their spirit guides have other ideas. And shamans who don’t listen to their spirit guides are dead shamans…

Warning: Hot shape-shifting feline hero. Strong but shell-shocked heroine. Snarky, meddling spirit guides. And lots and lots of sex: angry sex, crazy sex, magical sex, and just plain sexy sex.

Amazon US/Amazon UK/Kobo /Barnes & Noble Nook/Samhain

Bio:
Teresa Noelle Roberts started writing stories in kindergarten and she hasn’t stopped yet. A prolific author of short erotica, she’s also a published poet and fantasy writer—but hot paranormals and BDSM-spiced contemporaries are her favorites.

Teresa enjoys belly dance, yoga, medieval re-creation, playing in the ocean, cooking, and growing more vegetables than she and her husband can possibly eat. She shares her home in southern Massachusetts with her husband, a Leo who works in law enforcement, and two overstuffed cats, who deserve their own shout-out as inspirations for her works. She and her husband often plan vacations around food, history, and/or proximity to water. Next up, Rome, Florence, and Venice!

~oOo~

Remember, Teresa has a contest going – check out her page for all the details!