Saturday, August 1, 2009

Julia Harper

Hi Julia!
Thanks for agreeing to chat with us at Enchanting Reviews. We are so excited to have this opportunity to get to know you better.

1. HOT is your first contemporary novel. Please tell us more about it.
Thank you, Aemelia, for inviting me to chat! HOT is my first contemporary book. When inept robbers disguised as Yoda and SpongeBob SquarePants hold up the bank, local librarian Turner Hastings uses the distraction to pull a little heist of her own. Now she’s on the run in rural Wisconsin with one very sexy, very determined FBI agent hot on her trail.

2. You also write historical romances as Elizabeth Hoyt, how are you able to separate your writing identities? Do you have a favorite genre to write? Or a different genre you'd like to explore?
I have separate websites for my historical books and my contemporary books, but it’s not like I do a whole lot to separate my identities—they are both me, after all! ;-) I like writing both historicals and contemporaries. Writing in different sub-genres keeps me on my toes and keeps my writing fresh—both for me as the writer and for my readers.

3. Have you ever been in the middle of writing a book where you had to stop because another story would speak louder in your head? If so, were you able to finish both?
LOL! Ideas come to me constantly, but if I stopped working on my current manuscript I’d never finish anything. One of the things that professional writers have to learn is to put ideas on the back burner until you can get to it.

4. When you are in the middle of a book, are you able to turn off/shut off the story you are writing when you leave your office/turn your computer off, in order to interact with family and friends and do all the every day life stuff? Or are the characters and story bickering in the back of your mind while you fake normalcy?
“Fake normalcy”? What are you implying? ;-) My family manages to distract me pretty well when I come home from work (I go to a coffee shop to write for just this reason!) But once in a while I’ll zone off into my book. Oddly, most of the time no one notices the difference! ;-)

5. If you could be one of your characters – Who would you be? And why?
Oh, probably Turner Hastings, the heroine of HOT. She just takes off one day, disregarding society, family, even laws. It might be fun to cut loose like that.

6. When did you first decide to submit your work? Please, tell us what or who encouraged you to take this big step.
I always wrote with the goal of publishing, so when I finished my first book the natural thing to do was submit it. I suppose I was a self-motivator.

7. What kind of research do you do for your books? Do you enjoy the research process?
For HOT I called up an old friend and asked if she wanted to spend the weekend driving around back roads in Wisconsin. We stopped at a lot of antique shops, which was not necessary for the book so it was lots of fun.

8. What do you like to do when you're not writing?
I garden, although considering the state of my garden at the moment, maybe I should say I weed.

9. Chocolate or Vanilla? Shower or bath? Blue ink or black ink? Beer or Wine? Jeans or slacks?
Chocolate. Bath. Purple ink. Neither beer nor wine since I don’t drink, and jeans.
10. I hear that you have Dante Torelli's story done and to hit bookstores in January 2009, can you give us a sneak peek? Yes we are begging for an excerpt, blurb … anything! Please don’t keep us in the dark –
You’re in luck! My editor just sent me the back blurb for FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, Dante Torelli’s story:
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN OPPOSITES ATTRACT?
Free-spirited Zoey Adler is about to hijack a federal agent. And not just any federal agent, but very Special Agent Dante Torelli, a man whose designer suits and Italian shoes are more GQ than FBI. But when her baby niece, Pete, is snatched right in front of her eyes, Zoey doesn’t hesitate to scramble into Dante’s spotless BMW. She needs his help to rescue the baby . . . if only she can ignore his Lips of Sin.
OH, BABY!
Dante’s original mission is down the drain and he’s dodging bullets with a loopy redhead by his side. He likes quiet. She never shuts up. He likes to follow the rules. She throws the rules out the window. But these opposites do more than attract—they ignite. With a henpecked hit man running wild, cooking-obsessed matrons chasing down contraband spices, and a relentless killer tracking them all, Dante and Zoey will risk everything—for themselves and . . .
FOR THE LOVE OF PETE

11. Before I go, I have to ask, because as a native of Wisconsin, even I am shocked by your “Tick-Queen” title, please tell me, did you really have 36 ticks on your body at ONE time? Were you wearing some sort of tick-love potion, i.e. eau de deer?
No! I was wearing near-fatal amounts of DEET, but I was walking a trail that obviously the ticks had staked out—probably it was a favorite of local wildlife. And yes, those were the ticks on my body at one time—I counted them as I plucked them off and threw them in the toilet (I hope this tale of mass tick-icide doesn’t offend any tick lovers out there.)

Julia, thank you for your candor in answering our questions and allowing us a glimpse into your world. It's been great hearing about your books, experiences as an author and some of your insights on life. Congrats on your next release. We can't wait to review more of your work!
Thanks for interviewing me, Aemelia!

Interviewed by Aemelia
June 2008

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