Welcome to Dawn’s Reading Nook, Mike Arsuaga. Please let my cabana boys/girls get you a drink and make yourself at home. Comfortable? Great…now let’s get down to business.
Q: For the readers out there who might not know about you or your work, can you please tell them a little about yourself.
My name is Mike Arsuaga. I grew up in New Orleans. In high school I edited the school newspaper. Upon graduation from Tulane University, in 1966 I joined the Navy. After completing careers in the submarine service and Transportation Security Administration I retired and resumed writing in the fall of 2008 when the TV line-up turned out to be so abysmal. I live in Orlando Florida with wife Cynthia, also a published author, daughter Jennifer, Official Apple of my Eye granddaughter Larrna, and partner in crime Thumper our Yorkie.
I’ve written on and off for fifty years when the mood hits. The last time I picked up the thread occurred because I’d recently retired and with no decent TV to watch I needed something to do.
Q: Where do you get your ideas for your stories, characters?
I’m the classic “pantster”.I make up the stories as I go. This often results in a lot of going back and rewriting but adhering to an outline never works for me. Ideas buzz in my head like aroused hornets, too numerous and powerful for the confines of a prewritten script. Characters are usually patterned on people I know or have known. Sometimes there’s a straight relationship with an acquaintance but most time my characters represent a combination of several individuals.
Q: Are you a by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of writer, or do you have to use an outline to put your collective thoughts into some semblance of common sense?
Pansters forever!
Q: Tell us all about your latest or upcoming release. What inspired it?
“Subspecies, Inc.” is the second installment of a five book series. It’s the sequel to “SUBSPECIES”. A desire to create a plausible paranormal world for and genesis of lycans and vampires (The Subspecies) inspired me. I began by asking the question, how subspecies could realistically live among us.
Q: If you had super powers, what would they be? Why?
Flight. I’m always in a hurry.
Q: What genre haven’t you tried yet but want to in the future?
I have a rough idea for a Steampunk story.
Q: What is one thing readers might be surprised to know about you?
In high school I set a state record in the long jump, earning me a scholarship to college.
Q: If we asked your muse to describe you in three words, what do you think they might say?
Dedicated hard worker.
Q: What authors can be found in your library of books (print, audio or e-books)?
Harold Robbins, Homer, George Orwell, and HG Wells.
Q: Have any guilty pleasures you want to share with us?
Lattes with writing
Q: Is there anything you’re currently working on that you can give us a taste of?
An untitled sequel to “My Life as a Dog”, co-written with Cynthia. The story picks up twenty-five years later. Shape shifter Drake Martin, AKA Yorkshire terrier “Precious”, and Kady have a grown son. Drake is the respected “Sufi” or leader of the shifter clan, all the packs in North America. We learn about their complex society and how Drake and Kady deal with government attempts to infiltrate their private life. Son Rex renews acquaintances with Tracy, daughter of the irrepressible Linda from the first book. Voodoo queen/shifter Marta discovers a cure all among her potions attracting villainous interest. Follow their adventures through New Orleans. Will Tracy and Rex rekindle love? Can Marta’s potion be used for good or will rogue government elements appropriate it for sinister purposes. And how does Rex’s parentage figure in all this?
Q: When creating your characters, do you have models in mind or are they totally fictional?
As I said most are combinations of people I’ve known. There are two exceptions. The character Cynthia, appearing throughout the Subspecies series is based on my wife. The character evolves from a head strong teen lycan into a demigoddess. The second is Samantha, the main female character of the series. After completing the last book, I ran across a picture of actress Amy Adams on the cover of Marie Claire magazine. For me she was Sam.
Q: Are you in control of your characters or do they control you?
They control me. I never know where one might take me. The “Old Sufi”, Drake’s predecessor from “My Life as a Dog” began as an effort to set a scene for Drake’s pursuit of Kady. Before I knew it, I’d written a detailed protocol of shifter society with him, at the center.
Q: If you came with a warning label, what would it say?
Tragic hero inside. Open at your own risk.
Q: Please tell us where we can find you on the web
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BOOK TRAILERS, Websites, Networks, and Buy Links
My Life as a Dog:
Book Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADvZ1EEN21U
BUY LINK: http://secretcravingspublishing.mybigcommerce.com/products/My-Life-As-A-Dog.html
SUBSPECIES:
BUY LINKS:
ALL ROMANCE BOOKS: http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-subspecies-546381-139.html
BOOK Strand: http://www.bookstrand.com/node/812004
Muse It Hot Publishing:
https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=151&category_id=9&keyword=subspecies&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1
http://www.amazon.com/Subspecies-The-Series-ebook/dp/B004ZH3DYE/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1
Smashwords/Barnes and Noble:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/58858
Favorite scene and trailer:
http://museithot.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-favorite-scene-in-subspecies-by-mike.html
http://bit.ly/jHy9Ud.
WEBSITES:
Catch trailers and long excerpts of all works at Mike and Cynthia’s websites:
http://www.mikearsuaga.weebly.com
http://www.cynthiaarsuaga.weebly.com
LINKED IN: http://www.linkedin.com/home?trk=hb_tab_home_top
FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/mike.arsuaga1
Blurb for “Subspecies, Inc.”
UNITED BY LOVE
Samantha ‘Sam’ Johnson, a Lycan, and Jim White, a Vampire, are founding members of Subspecies, Inc., a Fortune 500 company, formed to promote the interests of Lycans and Vampires. The main objective is to integrate their kind into humanity. Life for Sam and Jim seems blissful, a wedding in the future, and three children. After events force The Subspecies to reveal themselves to the world, the love of Sam and Jim is tested.
UNITED BY MARRIAGE
While on a mission in the Spanish Pyrenees to save a family friend, Jim is lost for 15 months with amnesia. As memory returns he uncovers a rogue operation working to create an army of super soldiers, and putting Subspecies, Inc., at risk. After Jim’s rescue the two lovers are reunited and a spy determined to undermine Subspecies is discovered.
UNITED BY FAITH
Themes of salvation and redemption blend to evolve The Subspecies, reviled and feared by humans for centuries, toward becoming the finest expression of Creation. Can Sam and Jim continue meeting the challenges of persecution and resume the effort to deepen and perfect their love?
Unedited Excerpt (Graphic Sex)
I entered the hut Sam and I shared and threw off the towel that wrapped me. Goose bumps popped out everywhere from the chill. To warm the place for Sam’s arrival, I fired up the kerosene heater and turned. Encased in thick terry cloth my wife stood in the doorway. Despite the fabric wrap and recent shower she broadcast a frank readiness for making love.
“You can’t hide it from me,” I quipped.
She smiled with the thin-lipped, wide V-shaped mouth. Her eyes sparkled with desire. “Who’s trying to?” she retorted and slipped from her covering garment.
I surveyed the small and impeccably crafted body as if seeing it for the first time, and maybe in some subtle way I was. The ageless tautness of defined musculature and polished creaminess never changed, but each encounter with the image opened my mind to new possibilities and dreams about us and our love.
In front of me was five feet two inches of perfection with arms folded over small breasts while a trim foot in a shower sandal tapped impatiently on the wood floor. A rush of heat slipped through me in the presence of the firmness of her muscle.
“I’m freezing, Jim,” Perfection said in a thick and pouty voice. “Warm me up.”
That broke the trance. I swept the curvy little parcel in my arms and carried it to the bed. The sheets smelled fresh and the room had been recently and thoroughly cleaned, meaning our scents quickly overwhelmed the vestiges of any others that lingered.
She laughed and burrowed into the covers with me hot after her like a fox chasing a hare.
Once underneath, she slipped away and mounted me, wrapped in covers and rising like a red-topped gray teepee. Her body felt wonderful and responsive, as if every nerve ending networked with all parts. Each movement stretched me taut as she brushed peaking nipples and hair, both appearing auburn in the room’s light across my heaving and titillated chest with strokes that pleasured without satisfying. When she moved, with a wonderfully sensuous flow of muscle, she seemed more aware of the capabilities of her wiles than I had ever seen before.
“Close enough?” she purred, lowering a warm cleft just above a tortured, swollen manhood.
I lay below in a hot sweat, speechless. In complete arousal, my skin seemed stretched to the point of ripping, so taut over my body there wasn’t sufficient slack for even a blink. The eyes of the fine boned face hovering above gleamed with a wonderful dreamy light. She twitched her pelvis and eliminated the last millimeters separating us.
As I probed deep inside, she slid soft fleshed breasts against me, enjoying the sizzling fires she started with every touch as her sensitive nipples erected even more. I moved a finger toward the point of contact between our fevered cores, around the part of my thick and bulging member outside of her, massaging the wet apex of her womanhood. Even if I knew nothing about her, the gasp and expression of open-mouthed rapture told me I had it right. Her eyes glazed over and we gave ourselves to the mutual orgasm that rolled through like a succession of hot effervescent waves.
“We’re not done yet, buster,” she said, retaining possession of my flaccid member inside as long as possible. After releasing it, she dropped heavily beside me.
Lying side by side, so close as if we could melt into each other, we listened in silence to the harmony of our heartbeats. This was becoming the favorite part of our lovemaking. We would wait until heat rose again like spring sap, the signal to embark on another act of amorous predation.
BLURB for “SUBSPECIES”
A Professor on Campus:
Dr. Jim White, a 130-year-old Vampire, as a mathematics professor and man of science, rejects the ways and lore of old in favor of modern solutions. Lycans and Vampires, The Subspecies, live invisibly in society, because discovery is their worst fear. Resulting from a chance meeting, he has the best sex of his life and regrets the intriguing girl had to be his next victim. But she has a secret. As a Lycan, she hunted him as he hunted her.
The Girl in the Library:
Samantha “Sam” Johnson, a Lycan, lived through world wars and The Great Depression, counting Al Capone and Babe Ruth as acquaintances, before settling into decades of anonymity, quietly preying on humans to live. On a chance meeting with an intriguing professor, her decision to devour him comes into question. Kill after a night of exquisite sex?
A Dynasty is Born:
After discovering each other’s secret, neither can resist the physical attraction. Together they hunt and reach out to others of their kind using modern technology to form a support group which becomes more than either imagined.
Follow The Subspecies’ journey as they open a universe of possibilities with the promise of life being more than hunting, living in shadows, and fruitless mating.
“SUBSPECIES” EXCERPT
“Jim’s First Sight of Sam” (G Rated)
As I said, I had almost consumed my last prey. I continued to check out the young woman on the ladder and debated my options. My last three kills came from various locations on the coast. Going back a fourth time might garner unwanted attention. Laura Teague, a former exotic dancer and recent widow of a prominent attorney, topped my list for local prey. I previously screened her, an ideal candidate without family or complicated social ties, but she left town on an extended cruise to spend part of her new inheritance. My choices narrowed to a hunt on the coast or exploring possibilities with the girl on the ladder.
Normally I checked out a female from the top down, pausing at the usual places, but given our relative positions I started from the feet. She showed perfect symmetry from the ankles to the shoulders. Her legs and arms were a uniform creamy golden texture, the color of tea lightened and thickened by a lot of milk. Two small feet in tan loafers stood together on tip toes. They came out of the shoes, showing a smooth curve of arch, like a diver poised on the edge of the high board right before she flips into the air. Above them, legs the people who mold the mannequin legs for Victoria’s Secret might have shaped. Two inches below her butt cheeks the hem of a white denim miniskirt made an abrupt horizontal cut, precluding further visual exploration. The denim skirt stretched tightly across slim hips and a firm behind. The girl worked out.
Letting my gaze drift farther up, I observed a small waist that I found myself wanting to span with my two hands. Her reaching caused the white chiffon blouse to come unpinned from the waistband of the skirt, revealing glimpses of midriff and the underside of small firm breasts standing erect without the assistance of a bra. I contemplated adjusting my position to get a better perspective for visually exploring the wonders hidden above the hem but thought better of it. I had made up my mind to know her better in the vampire, if not the biblical or social, sense and did not want to blow it by getting caught peeking up her skirt.
This turned out to be a smart move because suddenly she whipped around and overlarge almond-shaped green eyes glittered with aggravation from beneath fiery hair twisted in a coil above her head. They suggested the aloof self-assurance of an animal. Something feline, I thought. Her clean features included a straight nose, except for where it turned up at the end, a wide mouth with thin red-painted lips in a small, oblong face.
She stood, small tan fingers clutching the rail of the ladder platform, and leaned toward me. I caught a glimpse of cleavage before she abruptly straightened, realizing what she put on display. “Are you going to just stand there or help me?” she demanded.
1 comment:
Dawn,
Thanks for having me. I love the layout of your blog>
Mike
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