I am so excited today! In my long experience of being an avid reader, there are a few authors that have left their mark, that I have stuck with, that I have made a point of getting my hands on every single book they have written. Today's guest is one such author. Her words are literally magic.
Today's guest has written books that have fueled my imagination, that have given me courage, and hope.
I am delighted to welcome Maggie Shayne!
She is touring some fantastic blogs this month to promote her latest release; Twilight Guardians: Wings in the Night Reborn
(from the publisher)
Maggie
Shayne is best known as the New York Times bestselling author of more than 50
novels, nearly 30 novellas, a former soap writer, (The Guiding Light, As the
World Turns,) a former advice columnist (Shayne on You,) and RITA Award winner.
But what’s less known about her is that she’s been a practicing Witch for
almost as long as she’s been a published author.
Known
within the Craft of the Wise as LadyHawk the Mythmaker, Maggie studied in the
Black Forest Circle Seminary for three years, earning her 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
degree elevations there. A licensed minister of Wicca, Maggie was later made a
Craft Elder, and co-founded a new Wiccan tradition called RavenMyst Circle. Her
coven, The Coven of the Redtail Hawk, turned out five new high priestesses,
several of whom went on to form covens of their own, and making Maggie,
according to the Old Ways, A Witch Queen.
Maggie has
published westerns, category romances, romantic suspense, paranormal romances,
urban fantasy, women's fiction, and just about everything in between. She's a
winner of the RITA Award, the romance fiction industry's most prestigious
prize, and has won countless others including several RT BOOK RREVIEWS
"Reviewer's Choice" Awards, two RT Career Achievement Awards, the
Daphne du Maurier Award, The Golden Leaf Award and numerous others.
Maggie's
"Twilight" series of vampire novels, officially known as Wings in the
Night, began in 1993 with TWILIGHT PHANTASIES from Silhouette Shadows. The
series concluded with TWILIGHT FULFILLED in October 2011, but has come back to
life now that she has gone indie.
Q1: Can you tell us 3 random
things about yourself?
A:
1. Every time we go out for ice cream, I get a peanut-butter cup flurry. 2. I
love birds. I’m actually kind of a bird nut. My ring tone is “I like Birds.” 3.
I’m a hermit. It takes a lot to get me to leave my home. I love it here. Bonus
Random Thing 4: I’m a mystic and a witch. I meditate. I channel. I counsel. I
cast and conjure. I read tarot cards and interpret signs in nature. I
philosophize. I have frequent spiritual breakthroughs and “aha!” moments. And I
am constantly seeking a deeper level of understanding about all things.
Q2: What’s a typical
writing day like for you?
A:
First there are several hours of procrastination, followed by repeatedly
sitting down at the desk and getting up again because I forgot something (fresh
coffee, a cordless phone, my glasses.) Then finally, I get started. I usually
write hard for a solid two or three hours, during which time I become so
enmeshed in my fictional world that I lose track of the one around me. I’ve had
experiences when I was writing a blizzard scene during the summer, and when I
finally looked up from my desk, and out the window beyond it, I was momentarily
lost, wondering where the snow had gone. It’s very very intense and exhausting.
Anything over two hours, and my brain is mush for a few hours afterward. I take
a long long time to answer questions, and mostly just act like a zombie for a
while. But then I come back around.
Q3: You’ve been
writing for quite awhile. Can you tell us a little bit about how your journey
to getting your first book published went and how it’s been since then?
A:
Oh my first one! I had five little girls, about two years apart. The oldest was
14 and the youngest was about to start kindergarten. I had been writing and
submitting for a few years by then, but nothing was happening. I had promised
myself that if I hadn’t sold a book by the time my youngest daughter Lisa (who
is the model on the cover of Twilight Guardians, by the way) started
kindergarten, I would get a “real job.” Two weeks before that fateful day, I
had a call from an editor at Silhouette (now Harlequin.) I tried to take the
call in my bedroom for privacy, but all five girls followed. 5, 7, 9, 11, and
14, and every one of them knew how important this was to me. The editor said
she wanted to buy RECKLESS ANGEL for Intimate Moments (now Romantic Suspense)
and to suggest revisions to TWILIGHT PHANTASIES which I had submitted to the
“Shadows” line. I managed to sound very businesslike and calm as I sank to the
floor, because my knees had given out. The girls were all bouncing and
clenching their jaws to keep quiet, wide eyed, wondering if this was it. (Except
the little one, who was probably just bouncing because everyone else was.) And
as soon as I hung up, and turned to them, and said, “Mommy’s book is going to
be published,” all six females in that room started screaming and jumping and
hugging. It was a good thing we lived in the country. Close neighbors would’ve
called 911!
A
month later, the editor bought the revised Twilight Phantasies too, and I was
published in both lines. That was in 1992. As excited as I was to have a dream
come true, there is no way I could’ve known then how thoroughly my life had
just changed.
By
the end of 2014 I will have published 60 novels and 28 novellas for almost
every major publisher in the industry. I’ve hit the New York Times and USA
Today Bestseller Lists many times over. I’ve won a RITA Award and countless
other industry awards. I spent a year writing for CBS Daytime soaps. And
earlier this year, I took a huge leap of faith to become a fully independent
author, writing for my own label, Thunderfoot Publishing.
Q4: If you could choose 3 words
to describe yourself and your journey as an author so far, what would they be?
A:
Dream. Believe. Receive.
Q5: Are you a plotter or a
pantser?
A:
Pantser, all the way. I almost never know what’s going to happen until it does.
Once I have an idea, I’ll usually generate a handful of major turning point,
big important scenes that I know I want to include, but even those can change
as I write. It’s all channeled. At least that’s how it feels. Like I’m
“finding” the story somewhere in the astral, and writing it down to be shared
here on earth. It’s not at all like I’m making it up. It’s like it already
exists somewhere and I’m just locating it, uncovering it, brushing it off, and
putting it on display. Like an archaeologist digging up bits of ancient
civilizations.
Q6: What are you the
most proud of with regards to your career thus far?
A: A
reader was pregnant and the baby, she was told, would not survive. The
pregnancy was high risk to the mother. She should abort right away. She was
despondent, naturally. Her teenage daughter found one of my books at a lawn
sale and brought it to cheer her mother up. It was EDGE OF TWILIGHT. The daughter
had no idea what it was about, but knew her mom had enjoyed my stories in the
past. In that book, there is a doomed pregnancy, and a miraculously happy
ending. The reader took the storyline as a message, as a sign, and she decided
to keep her baby and take her chances. Her choice, and fully her right to make
it. Anyway, she continued the pregnancy against medical advice, and later
delivered a healthy baby girl. Both of them are fine and well to this day. She
wrote to me after the baby was born to tell me about all this. I still have
that note. It’s one I’ll cherish always. I think the Universe used my book to
reach that reader, and I’m so very grateful to have been a small part of what
can only be described as a miracle.
Q7: Was there any specific
inspiration behind the creation of Twilight Guardians?
A: I
wanted to begin a new chapter of Wings in the Night, where new readers could
begin without having read the earlier novels. This is a new start, hence the
“Reborn” part of the series name. But at the same time, I knew longtime fans of
the series would want to catch up with beloved characters. This was a big
challenge, but I think we’ve hit the balance here. We have two couples, a
beloved pair, Rhiannon, the diva of the entire series, and her mate Roland,
coming to the aid of a young vampire named Killion who believes he is the last
of his kind, and the girl who’s being trained to hunt his kind, Charlie
O’Malley. It’s hard to put any heroine into a book with Rhiannon because
Rhiannon tends to outshine everyone around her. However, Charlie really rose to
the occasion, and even Rhiannon grudgingly admires her by the story’s end.
Q8: What are you the most proud
of with regards to Twilight Guardians?
A:
Besides the fact that my youngest daughter is on the cover? :) I’m proud of the
growth of female lead Charlie. She starts the story as a young woman who’s been
treated like a piece of fragile china her entire life, and she ends the story
kicking ass and taking names. It’s a huge evolution for her, and it’s an
extremely empowering story for women, young and old.
Q9: Can you tell us a little bit
more about the characters of Twilight Guardians?
A:
Killian is one of the loneliest people I’ve come across. He thinks he’s the
only vampire left in the world, as this story opens after human/vampire wars
have supposedly wiped them all out. He doesn’t know about a group of undead in
hiding across the Atlantic. Charlie is a tragic case of a woman who learns
she’s going to die very young, and suddenly realizes she has not yet lived.
These two have so much to teach each other as we go along. Rhiannon, who can
sometimes come off as a bit of a diva bitch, is brought to her knees by a
little surprise in this book, (and Roland by a big one) and she and Roland
enter a very new phase of a very old relationship.
Q10: How long have you had the
story for Twilight Guardians in your head and how did it come to be?
A: I
came up with the barest bones of the story in February just as I finished the
final book of my publishing contract. I wrote an outline for it to begin my
next contract, and to my surprise, my publisher had very different ideas. This
was a large part of my decision to go indie. That’s how much this series means
to me. I had tried to let it go for two years, and it just wouldn’t leave me
alone. So I took a giant leap of faith. I started writing immediately and had a
first draft in about 10 weeks.
Q11: What was the most
challenging thing about bringing Twilight Guardians to life?
A:
Not letting Rhiannon take over the story. Keeping the focus on the main couple.
Writing a younger heroine and not having her sound and think like someone my
own age. But those are little things. I’m finding the hardest thing right now
is to finish the story and let it go. I keep thinking it needs one more draft,
and one more and one more. I don’t have a big payment waiting for me the day I
finally declare it done and let it go so I can keep polishing as long as I
want, and I’m finding I’m jittery and nervous about calling it finished. It
will be my first entirely independent full length novel, so...I’m riding
without training wheels here.
Q11: What are you hoping readers
will take away from reading Twilight Guardians?
A:
My message is always some version of “Love is the strongest force in the
Universe.” That’s the sermon I preach with every story, and it’s why I write in
the genre I do. There are really only two motivations behind every act we
undertake in life. Love and fear. Hate is just a manifestation of fear. If we
can trust in love, and try always to make the decision that’s based on love, I
think our lives would be happier and there would be peace on earth.
Q12: What’s up next
for WINGS IN THE NIGHT: REBORN?
A:
It hasn’t come to me yet, but it will. :)
Thank you so much for stopping by the blog Maggie, it was so much fun!!
Twilight Guardians
WINGS IN THE NIGHT: REBORN, Book 1
Print Length: 400
pages
Publisher: Thunderfoot
Publishing
ASIN: B00LXJGKLU
COMING: SEPTEMBER 1, 2014
Discounted price
Pre-Order ($2.00 off regular price!):
"My
inspiration has always been Maggie Shayne's Wings in the Night." #1 New
York Times Bestselling Author, Christine Feehan
They told
20-year-old Charlie O’Malley that they had a cure for the rare blood condition
that would eventually kill her–an untested, experimental cure. All they wanted
in return was for her to join their elite military team and train to kill the
Undead.
She took the deal,
not because she cared so much about extending her life, but because it would
make her strong–stronger than ordinary humans. Strong enough to kill the
vampire who’d pretended to love her, taken her blood, used her body, and
murdered her mother.
Killion was the
last of his kind, or so he thought. When he found Charlie, he felt the pull.
She had the rare Belladonna Antigen all vampires had as humans. Vampires were
compelled to protect those rare mortals they called The Chosen. But with
Charlie, the bond was different, more powerful than anything he’s felt before,
and impossible to resist, even though surrendering to it will probably get him
killed.
Ancient vampire
elders Rhiannon and Roland come out of exile, risking their lives to help their
mortal friend Roxy reclaim her granddaughter. But before the tale ends, their
lives will be forever changed.
Join Maggie Shayne
as she returns to her most beloved series of all time with this new beginning….
Wings in the
Night: Reborn
To celebrate the release of Twilight Guardians, Maggie has some giveaways!
GIVEAWAY:
Maggie is offering up a $100 Amazon Giftcard to
a lucky grand-prize winner at the end of the tour, a Runner-Up prize of a new
Kindle, PLUS an eCopy of Twilight Guardians for a random commenter at each
Tour Stop.
Find the Rafflecopter for the Event here, follow
the directions, take action, and mark as ‘Done’.
To see the complete list of tour stops so you
can read some great Q&A’s, Interviews, Guest Posts and more check out the full
Wings in the Night Reborn Celebration Tour Schedule HERE.
You didn't think we could finish without mentioning the original series did you?
I'll let the expert take over from here, Rhiannon, if you please?
WELCOME to the World of Wings in the Night!
You may begin here…
I am the vampiress Rhiannon. I would like to
tell you how I, and my stories, came to be.
In 1991, before “paranormal
romance” even existed, my authoress, Maggie Shayne wrote a vampire romance
short story she called Twilight Phantasies and submitted it to several fiction magazines.
One responded favorably, saying they loved the tale, but had a policy of only
buying from their subscribers. So if she would kindly send them the hefty
subscription fee, they’d be happy to make her an offer. Maggie was not yet a
published author, but she was also not an idiot. (Had she been, I would not
have chosen her to tell these tales I’ve been whispering into her brain for the
past twenty years.) So she decided to just keep working and the story grew into
a novel.
In 1992, she submitted it to Silhouette Books’ brand new line called
Shadows, a line that was far ahead of its time. It was very well received, but
the editor asked her to do some revising. An offer could not be made until she
did, because she was so new. The revisions were mainly about cutting back
heavily on a secondary character, my beloved Roland de Courtemanche, and
keeping the focus on the book’s main couple, Eric Marquand and Tamara Dey. I
had every intention of paying the editor a midnight visit for this insult,
until she said, “Don’t cut Roland’s scenes. Save them for the sequel. He needs
a book of his own.” It was in that moment that the Wings in the Night Series
was born, even though the author didn’t realize it at the time.
When the revisions were complete, Silhouette
bought the novel for a four thousand dollar advance. Sadly, Shadows was doomed
before it began. As I said, ahead of its time. The paranormal romance craze was
only a seedling, just beginning to germinate, and nowhere near the phenomenon
it would later become. The Shadows cover art had a comic or graphic novel look
about it. It did not scream “romance fiction.” No matter. It is my belief that
the line’s chief reason for existence was to help give birth to my stories.
Once Wings in the Night began, even the line’s eventual demise could not
stop it.
My authoress was on fire as I pried open her
channels and continued pouring stories into her mind. She didn’t know where
they were coming from back then. But it was an effort. When she first began my
story, I was drawn as the villainess of the piece, and some weak and pathetic
mortal female was supposed to be Roland’s mate! I schooled myself to patience.
My authoress was just learning, after all. She did not yet understand who I
was.
Trust me when I tell you, she does now.
Twilight Memories, my story, was published next, in 1994. You’ll have to pardon the
blue eye shadow. It was the nineties, after all. I did finally get through to
my authoress. In fact, I opened the lines of communication so widely, that I
dictated the opening of the story. Those first four pages marked “Introduction”
truly were my introduction to my authoress. I was speaking to her, telling her
who and what I am, warning her that I am no one to be trifled with.
She merely wrote down what I said. And I’ve
been dictating the stories of my people to her ever since.
One more novel, Twilight Illusions,
featuring the magician Damien Namtar (formerly known as King Gilgamesh of
Ancient Sumer) and his fledgling Shannon, was published under the Silhouette
Shadows line. Damien is our link to our origins, a link that continues to
unfurl all the way through Book 20 of the series. But I digress.
After this book was published, Silhouette
Shadows closed down. My authoress received two messages. One from her
publisher, telling her there would be no more Wings in the Night. The
second was from me, telling her to begin the next book right away. She listened
to me, and wrote Born in Twilight over the next eight weeks.
Flat.
Shadows died. Silhouette was absorbed by
Harlequin. Harlequin has been purchased by Rupert Murdoch. But Wings in the
Night lived through it all, and still lives on.
My authoress has taken my advice and broken
free of all of them. She will no longer allow fat, rich, mortal men to become
fatter and richer from the fruits of her labor, but rather, will continue to
share her gift and my voice directly with you. This also means my contact with
you will be far less diluted. Less filtered. More like…a direct current.
A brand new incarnation of the series begins
this year with Wings in the Night: Reborn
Book One, TWILIGHT GUARDIANS
will be a September 1, 2014 release in both print and electronic formats, from
Maggie’s own label, Thunderfoot. And for those of you who missed the first 20
books, this is a fresh start. You may begin here….
~Rhiannon
The youngest child of a Navy
pilot and a journalist, Jennifer acquired a love of adventure and an excitement
for learning that continues to this day. She's lived in three countries and
traveled throughout the U.S. An avid reader of classics and historical
fiction, she also enjoys biographies and histories, which she mines for the vivid
details to bring to life the characters and places in her books. She resides
with her husband in North Carolina --where, when not writing or dreaming
up romantic adventures for her characters, she can be found fantasizing about
her next ski trip or European vacation.
A youthful indiscretion has cost Lizzie Poole more than just her honor. After five years living in exile, she's finally returning home, but she's still living a secret life. Her best friend Ria's dying wish was for Lizzie to assume her identity, return to London, and make amends that Ria herself would never live to make. Bearing a striking resemblance to her friend, and harboring more secrets than ever before, Lizzie embarks on a journey that tempts her reckless heart once again . . . 
Socialite Margaret Vaughn is the wealthiest heiress in London-or so everybody thinks. Saddled with debt left by her father, she agrees to marry a rich man who can save her family's estate. But when her fiancé turns out to be just another poor social climber, Margaret faces financial ruin-and social humiliation. Just when she thinks all is lost, she finds an unlikely angel in Tom Poole . . . 
