Hi Charlee and welcome to FAR.

Thank you for inviting me. I am honored to be interviewed.

2005 has been a busy year for you with many new releases and multiple new contracts. Please tell what you’ve been up too.

Well, I’ve written and turned in several new novels for publication at Ellora’s Cave (Rapture’s Etesian, Pleasure’s Foehn, Passion’s Mistral, Lucien’s Khamsin, as well as two short stories in their Fated Mates and Legendary Tails I anthologies are already out). Ardor’s Leveche releases on October 26 with Prisoner of the Wind coming out in December; WyndRiver Sinner; and WyndRiver Reaper’s Revenge coming out in 2006. I’ve also turned in four novels for Cerridwen Press (BlackWind: Sean and Bronwyn, coming out in November; BlackWind: Viraidan and Bronwyn; In the Wind’s Eye; and Taken by the Wind.) I have also written six other novels currently awaiting contract. I have also re-worked the first nine books of the WindLegends Saga series which began with Windkeeper and hope to be releasing it as a 20-volume series in the next three years.

Passion's Mistral is your newest release. Tell us about it.

Silkie Trevor is a private investigator who has been sent to a Caribbean island to find a woman’s missing son. The tropical resort she goes to is a nudist camp for ladies where buff men fulfill their clients’ sexual fantasies. Silkie’s only clue to what her target looks like is that he has an anchor-shaped birthmark on a very private part of his body. In order to find him and his wicked birthmark, she poses as a photographer for an urologist doing a book on penises. There are some pretty funny moments before Silkie gets her man….literally.

Your Reapers are some of the most tortured hero’s I’ve ever read. What compels you to write about them?

Kamerone Cree—my first Reaper from the novel BloodWind—came to life from a vision of Darth Vader striding toward the camera in the very first Star Wars movie. There was something so sinister, so lethal, so powerful about that image of the black uniform with the cape swirling behind Vader, the Stormtroopers lined up to either side of him as he struts forward. That image clicked like a Polaroid in my head and would not leave me. For years, I kept seeing that image in my mind until one night he morphed into my Prime Reaper Cree. From there, I began writing Cree’s tale. It is an outer space story and I made my Reaper nearly invincible and completely powerful. With each new Reaper who comes along, I add a bit more of the Reaper history. I’ve now introduced the first female Reaper and you’ll see more of them. They’re nearly as bad as their male counterparts…but nowhere near as sexy!

You’ve been writing for years. How do you keep your ideas fresh? Where does the inspiration for new books keep coming from?

I get inspiration from just about everywhere. It might be a particularly arousing stanza from a song that sets the motion picture camera in my mind to playing. It might be a passing scene I happen by on the interstate or simply a phrase a newscaster uses on the news. My Muse will sit up and take notice and since he perches on my shoulder all the time will kick me with his little boot and demand I pay attention to something that has caught his eye. (His name, btw, is Sean if you’re wondering *grin*)

What is your favorite part of a book to write?

I love doing scenes in which the hero shows his angst or comes to the realization that he just can’t live without the heroine’s love. I’m a real meany and love to torment my poor heroes so I can kiss ‘em and make ‘em better. An incredibly handsome man with tears in his eyes, his heart breaking, his body brusied, just melts my cheese, you know?

If you could go anywhere, be anyone, do anything for 24 hours, what would it be?

I would love to be an actor with the cast of LOST doing a hot and heavy love scene with poor, tortured Sawyer. It would be one of those really strange flashbacks after he’s had a concussion in which he would regress to a past life as a gunslinger in the old west. I’d be a widow woman who hides him in her hayloft from the law and he would forever remember our brief, passionate time together and dream of it in flashbacks. He’s a southern boy and that drawl of his is like pure black velvet! Him in a black Stetson pulled down low over those fascinating eyes of his, the stubble prickly on his handsome face, a gunbelt riding low on those hips? Oh, man! Be still my wayward heart!

What is the biggest misconception about being an author?

That we make scads of money, have envy and respect from everyone we know, and people are lining up around the block to have us sign their copies of our novels. The truth is: there will be those who aren’t impressed by your accomplishments and some who are downright dismissive of them. You are doing something they’ve either dreamed of doing or tried to do and it didn’t work and they dislike you for it. Most people are very supportive but you are going to find those who will go out of their way to let you how unimpressed they are…unfortunately many times it’s your own family and friends doing that. A few years ago, a beginning writer was sent to me by our publisher for me to give him a realistic take on exactly what he could expect as an e-author. He had the notion that the publisher would have his books on the shelves of every major brick and mortar store within six weeks of the book’s release, that he could expect the Today Show and Good Morning America to contac! t him for an interview, that there would be radio stations and tv stations lining up to talk to him and a limo waiting for him at the airport when the publisher paid for his multi-state PR fling. He actually believed that was what being a published author was about. I hated to deflate his balloon but those things only happen very, very rarely to new authors and never for e-authors whose works will only be available in digital format. He got very angry at me and vowed he’d be an exception to the rule. I haven’t heard from—or about him—again.

While writing, how does the story develop for you? Do you go from start to finish or create scenes as they come to you?

I start with an idea which I begin fleshing out as I write. I start at the beginning and work my way through without an outline. I never plan ahead although I do have a vague notion of where I want the story to go. Most of the time, the characters change direction on me and we wander off to a place I had never intended to go. I must say, though, the characters are always right. They know where the story is going even if I don’t and most of the time they’ll gently lead me there. ALTHOUGH, I have been yanked kicking and screaming and pulling hair to places I would never have thought I’d travel by a stubborn character intent on having it told his way. That’s okay most of the time. After all, who knows the tale better than the one living it? I might grumble and mumble and whimper, but eventually we wind up where he intended to go from the start. The only downside is, you have to endure his smirk when he proves you right. A smirking Reaper is not a pretty sight.

What makes a great book to you?

The ability of the author to: (1. make you lose yourself in the storyline, (2. so engross you in the telling of the tale that you lose track of time, and (3. fashion a plot that will pull you so into a story you never want to see end. A good book leaves you with dreams of the hero. Heroine? Schmerione. Who cares about the silly heroine? She’s window dressing and someone put there in whom you can live vicariously with the hero. Otherwise, she’s just ‘there’. A truly great book leaves the hero and his story with you for all time.

You write in numerous genres, sci-fi, fantasy, historicals - sometimes within the same book. Do you have a favorite genre?

I really prefer sword and sorcery adventure romances set in another galaxy. I am particularly fond of my Reapers and most of the novels I’ve written lately feature those sexy shapeshifting vampire lords. I am about to start the second sequel to my WesternWind series, Her Wicked Reaper, in a few days and I am really looking forward to it. Even though it will be a paranormal western, there will be sf and fantasy elements in it along with a new type of entity I think the readers are going to love. ;)

Ardor's Leveche is your next release. Can we get a sneak peek?

Here’s an excerpt:

Breva stepped up to their prisoner and took her chin in his hand, jerking her face around. He anchored her head as his overlord came to stand beside him. Despite the squint of the woman’s eyes, the major was surprised at her unexpected beauty.

“Not half-bad for a Riezellian, eh?” Breva inquired.

Ardor’s back stiffened and she lifted her chin as high as she could in the taut grip of her captor. Although she could not see his face, she could make out a gleam in his eyes from the light reflecting off the titanium walls behind her and that put a chill down her spine.

“Not as lovely as I’ve heard it said Chastain Neff is, but it isn’t the face that counts, is it, Milord?” Breva asked.

There was a whisper of speech in a tongue Ardor did not understand from the other man who had entered her cell. He was nothing more than a black, bulky shape but he was—by far—the more menacing of the two. It was in the steely vibrations he was giving off, the essence of power and authority that radiated from him, and it set the hair to stirring on Ardor’s arms.

“My overlord says you might be moderately attractive if you weren’t a treacherous fox placed in his henhouse. He wishes a better look at you.”

Able to pull her chin from the first man’s grip, Ardor watched him slide like a will o’-the-wisp from in front of her only to have the second man step up close, crowding her, his towering height and breadth of body intimidating and menacing. There was a warm fragrance of cinnamon and musk coming from the tall one. That scent was almost intoxicating in a sultry, sly way. She could feel the heat of his body and the roughness of whatever garment he wore rasping against the bare arms she had instinctively crossed over her chest.

Staring into what she thought was his face, she was struck with dread when his eyes glowed crimson red, closed and then opened again to gaze fixedly at her. Once more the strange whisper of speech in that unknown tongue came from the deep depths of stygian blackness looking down at her.

“My overlord asks if you fear him, wench,” the first man translated the strange words.

Although her knees were threatening to buckle, Ardor knew the worst thing she could do was show fright to her enemies. That they would make good use of such an admission was a given. She was no coward and refused to behave as one.
“Tell your overlord I never fear what I cannot see,” she said, forcing her voice to be as strong and unwavering as she could make it.

She flinched for the man standing in front of her raised his hand, and for the first time she realized he was wearing a flowing robe of some sort for she could just make out the voluminous sleeve of the garment. Slowly, the lights came up in the cell from near-total darkness, lit only from the spill of light from the corridor to dark gray then to duskiness. As the volume of light continued increasing, Ardor could see the man—nay, the being—who stood in front of her and for the first time in her life knew the true meaning of terror.

Your website offers a wealth of information to authors. What advice do you have for an aspiring author?

If an aspiring author never remembers anything else from this review, I hope they’ll remember this: DON’T let your family, friends, and co-workers destroy your dream of becoming a writer. They might think they are doing you a favor by ‘keeping your anchored’ or ‘bringing your feet back to earth’ but what they are doing is limiting your Muse from doing his or her job. Just about anyone can write a book—no matter the quality—but it takes a rare individual to craft something others will embrace and take to heart. If you have that ability—and you won’t know until you expend blood, sweat, and tears to create it—you shouldn’t let anyone dismiss your dream. When my mother was alive, she didn’t take my writing seriously. I would be working on something and she’d come to my office door and ask: “Are you writing in your little book again?” She had no way of knowing just how much those words hurt me. She was dismissing my work as casually as flicking away a piece of lint f! rom her sweater and putting it on the level of a diary entry. Even when my first mass market paperback came out, she didn’t fully understand what it meant. She looked at it, smiled, put it in her dresser drawer, and that was that. We never discussed it again.

The pictures on your site are great. Is there somewhere you’ve never been that you’ve always wanted to travel to?

I would love to go to Australia, Greece, and Ireland. I feel such an affinity to both Ireland and Australia. It would be heaven to visit there and I’ve got a real ‘thang’ for Australian men’s accents. Oooohhh, baby!

Tell your fans something about you they would never guess.

I am extremely claustrophobic! I even hate very short elevator rides. If we have to drive through a long tunnel, I am a nervous wreck by the time we get to the other end and am generally drenched in sweat. My husband will take my hand, tell me to close my eyes, and he’ll talk quietly to me while we’re inside the tunnel. Several years ago, we went with some of our friends on a trip to Chicago and we went up in the Sear’s Tower. I was actually panting by the time we reached the top and had buried my head in one of the guys’ shoulders because my hubby was jammed in behind me. Our friend later told me I trembled violently the entire time he was holding me but I don’t remember it. All I remember was rushing out of the elevator, knowing I’d have to make the return trip down. The same thing happened to me when Tom and I went up in the CNN Tower in Toronto four years ago. You’d think I would have learned, huh? My only rationalization is the views were worth the torture. !

If you could be invisible for one hour, what would you do and where would you go?

I’d soar over to Hollywood and follow a few actors around to get a sense of who they really are as they are working. There are some whose work I have admired over the years and for whom I’ve created characters in their honor. Just lately, I’ve become obsessed by Mark Ruffalo after seeing him in Tom Cruise’s movie Collateral. I’ve now got all Ruffalo’s movies I can find on DVD and I’d love to run my fingers through his tousled dark curly hair….ah, just to get a sense of its texture, you understand. Eric McCormack doing drama instead of that tacky Will & Grace crap, Julian McMahon, James Denton, and Josh Holloway (Sawyer from LOST) have all been Reapers in my books so I’d love to follow them around and do some research. Yeah, that’s the ticket: for research. *grin*

Is there anything you’d like to add?

For those who have read my books and would like an autographed bookplate of that book, I would be happy to send it out. Information can be found on my webpage. I also have postcards of several of the books as well as bookmarks.

Thanks for chatting with us Charlee.

Thank you so much for inviting me. I truly appreciate all the terrific opportunities your website has available for authors. I am extremely proud of the three Recommended Reads my books have been awarded.

Charlotte Boyett-Compo is a multi-published author. Her newest releases can be found at Ellora’s Cave. Be sure to stop by Charlee’s website for all the latest on her books.

Interviewed by: Jaymi