The Next Big Thing!

Hi all.  It's been a busy time since September, with family medical issues as well as life in general keeping me from Rambling at you as much as I would have liked.  Now, however, it would seem that I have been tagged with the writer's equivalent of a virtual chain letter, so below are my answers to "The Next Big Thing," a Q&A blog that's been going around the Internet for quite some time.  I'm coming in on it at the tail end, so unfortunately I have no one to tag at the end of the questions.  I did ask six people, but of those six, only three answered-- they either said no or had already participated.  The other three didn't bother to respond at all, so maybe they're sitting somewhere poking pins into a doll that represents me for trying to get them involved in it to begin with.  In any case...

Behold my answers!

What is the working title of your next book?

Concrete Savior

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Concrete Savior is the second book in a series called The Dark Redemption Series.  The idea for the entire series was germinated from a Wayne Barlowe painting showing a fallen angel contemplating a snow white angel’s feather.

What genre does your book fall under?

When I wrote it, I thought horror because that’s always been my chosen genre.  When it was bought by Pocket Star, the editor told me it was urban fantasy.  At the time, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as an urban fantasy genre.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Brynna would definitely be played by Keira Knightley, and in my mind, Eran Redmond was played by Hugh Jackman.  Okay, so I’m a huge Hugh Jackman fan, but seriously, in poking around the Internet I ran across a photograph of Jackson wearing very bookish glasses.  It made him fit the role of Redmond perfectly. 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

A fallen angel returns to Earth seeking redemption and a return to her original angel status.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It was represented by the FinePrint Literary Agency.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

About four to five months.  It was a pretty tight deadline.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I’m really not sure.  HIGHBORN, the first book in the series, was published in 2012, and CONCRETE SAVIOR came out in 2011.  As I said about, I didn’t even know there was an urban fantasy genre, so I haven’t paid much attention to it, and I definitely haven’t read anything in it.  When I wrote HIGHBORN, I was simply writing the story I wanted to tell.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Pretty much covered that in the second question.

What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

What different about the series is the main character, who goes by the name Brynna Malak.  Reviewers have called her “refreshing,” because there is nothing sappy sweet or “do gooder” about her.  She’s spent millennia in Hell as a demon dedicated to destroying souls, not saving them.  Now, even though she wants redemption, she has to learn to deal with the humans she despised for so long.  But tolerance is not enough-- she has to learn like them before she can make herself help them and, just maybe, re-earn her path to redemption.

Questions?  Dump them in a comment box below and I might have answers.  (Don't bother with that Secret to Life thing though; it's already been covered by someone else.)