Riptide Press's Storm Grant is here & a Contest

Contest Information is after the interview.

Welcome to Dawn’s Reading Nook, Storm Grant. 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: What do you consider to be the key elements of a great story?

Character is always the key. Whether a mystery, sci-fi or romance—especially romance—a great, memorable character is the most important part of a book. After that, I’d say plot. What makes this character’s journey different from any other book out there? What happens to him/her? How do they react? How do they grow and change? Show your reader a great character going through a character-building journey or experience, and you’ll hook your reader from the start.

Q: Could you tell us a little about how you develop your characters? Who has been your favorite character to write? The most challenging?

In my latest release from Riptide, FEW ARE CHOSEN, I wrote about a teenage boy who’s a “Chosen One” in the traditional sense. Not a Buffy type who comes into their role after a normal upbringing, but someone who’s been raised within a dedicated order of monk-like older men. He’s be exposed to the outside world, but isn’t really of it.

Since he’s a teen, which I haven’t been for a loonnggg time, and he’d led an unusual life, I had to put myself into that headspace. What are teens in 2012 like? How would he be like a normal teen? How would he be different? I hung around the local mall’s food court watching teens until I worried Security would have me arrested.

Q: What is your favorite way to relax after a hard day working and writing?

They say writing is a lonely profession, but I don’t find it so. If I’m not interacting with other writers and readers via the internet, I’m out having dinner or visiting with other writers, attending lectures on writing, or supporting my peers at their readings and signings.

I belong to the Toronto Romance Writers, a chapter of the Romance Writers of America, and have made many writer friends through that group. A few of us have formed a brainstorming group, and we get together at least once a month to plot or work on marketing materials for our books.

Since writing is my obsession, I relax from a long day of writing by talking about writing.

Q: What is the one era you would love to go visit and why?

To answer a variation on that question, what I really want is a do-over for my own life. I want to go back to the 70s and re-live my life from there forward with what I know today. That young gal needed some guidance—or rather she had the guidance from good parents, but she needed to listen. And I’d tell her not to get that perm!

Q: What is one historical figure you would love to chat with and why?

Hard question. I’m not a person who looks backwards very much. Most of the people I admire are current. Maybe go visit Gutenberg and thank him for the printing press.

Q: Please tell us about your latest release. What inspired it?

I was watching a cop show where the cops show up and clash with another law enforcement group that’s working the same case. Then I thought what if this happened with paranormal enforcers? Then I decided a young apprentice warrior would go out after his first demon, only to discover he’s not the only Chosen One. It rocks his little world at first, but then first kill turns into first kiss turns into first time. It’s a character-driven piece about a young man’s exploration of both his destiny and his sexuality.

Q: What genres and authors would we find you reading when taking a break from your own writing?

Anything funny. I read across genres in order to find the funny. I love the Stephanie Plum series, Discworld, Hitchhiker’s Guide. Lately I’ve been reading funny mysteries. I didn’t realize murder and mayhem went so well with mirth!

Q: What do you hope readers take with them, after reading one of your stories? What do you hope they feel, or learn?

I want to make people laugh. Although FEW ARE CHOSEN isn’t so much a laugh-out-loud story as a story to make you smile while you watch Blake St. Blake’s growing pains. It has some surprising twists and some charming moments. Plus my demon is truly awesome.

Q: If you could describe yourself in three words, what would they be?

Nasty, brutish and short? No, wait. That’s what 15^th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes said about life. Me? I’m funny, caring and short. You can see how I got that mixed up. 

Q: What is the strangest source of writing inspiration you’ve ever had?

My first novel began with a flash of an image. A man has another man pressed up against the wall in a sexy come-on while the other man turns his head away. Not pushing him away, but claiming to be straight while obviously sending a very mixed message. I thought: this is sexy, now how do I make it a love story? And so I wrote: GYM DANDY: A gay tale of seduction and denial, humor and sweat.

Q: So a bit of naughty truth, do you ever do a little real life research to make your books spicy or do you just have a great imagination?

Whenever I do a reading, invariably someone asks, “How do you, a straight woman, do the research for an m/m romance?” My answer? “I have slept with men.” It gets a laugh, but it’s the truth. Romance is about the characters and their relationship. After many years of dating many men, followed by many years of marriage to the same man, I think I know as much about men as an outside observer can.

Q: What is the most ridiculous thing that you have thought about doing to any of your characters but never did?

Oh, no. The ridiculous stuff I keep. It’s the serious stuff I cut. In my shifter novel, SHIFT HAPPENS, I have a character imprisoned and forced to labour against his will alongside a number of other captives. Originally I had several scenes from the captive character’s point of view including torture and attempted rape. I then decided this had no business in a novel with an overlay of humor, so I cut those scenes, and instead, gave the rescuer a dream in which he (and through his vision, the reader) gets an overall impression of the imprisonment without any of the details. Bye-bye three entire chapters!

Q: Want to tell us about any projects you are working on?

Last year I wrote a mainstream novel (if you can call a novel set in Hell with all sorts of wacky characters and creatures mainstream) that landed me an agent. She’s currently shopping it around. Then just last month I completed another mainstream novel. I’m in the process of polishing that and will send it to my agent shortly.

Q: Anything else you want to add?

FEW ARE CHOSEN is my first YA book, but I think I really got into the main character’s head. He’s your normal sulky, self-oriented kid, but also out to save the world. It’s a hard balance for a young person, and by the end of the book, he finds he doesn’t have to do it alone.

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy FEW ARE CHOSEN.

Contest from Storm Grant.....

Play The Name Game for FEW IS CHOSEN and win a copy of ALL THREE of these entertaining books from Storm Grant’s backlist: Gym Dandy, Shift Happens, and Tart and Soul. (Two full-length novels and a novella!)

1. What is Shadow’s real first name? ___  ___  ___  ___

2. What is Shadow’s mentor’s first name? ___  ___  ___  ___  ___

3. What is the name of the Order that raised and trained Blake? The Order of the ___  ___  ___  ___

How to enter: DO NOT POST YOUR ANSWERS! Instead, to qualify:

1. Email your answers to the three questions, above, to storm.grant@gmail.com.

2.  Then post a comment to this blog stating that you’ve emailed your entry.

You may enter once for each stop on the blog tour, thereby increasing your chances of being the grand prize winner!

One grand prize winner will be selected March 5^th.

Blog tour, details here.

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Storm Grant Bio: Storm Grant is a writer of short and long tales, her work spanning both genres and genders. Storm's stories offer titillation and merriment, and in a few cases, horror. In the last few years, she’s published with MLR, Torquere, Phaze, Blood Bound Books, eXessica, Amber Quill, and Riptide Publishing.

Storm Grant (also writing as Gina X. Grant)

Email / Website / Blog / Twitter / Facebook / Goodreads

FEW ARE CHOSEN by Storm Grant

YA Paranormal

Sparks fly between virgin teenage demon hunters when the Chosen One turns out to be… the Chosen Two?

Apprentice warrior Blake St. Blake is the Chosen One, raised by an ancient order to defend the world against evil. Well, maybe not the whole world, but at least his neighborhood in downtown Detroit.

When a dreaded reflux demon is sighted in a local cemetery, Blake is sent off to his very first battle, armed with his sword, his super-senses, his black leather duster, and a few well-rehearsed one-liners.

But another Chosen One gets in Blake’s way—an apprentice wizard named Shadow. While the boys argue about who’s the more chosen of the two, the demon escapes.

Blake wants to be angry, but it turns out he and Shadow have a lot in common. Besides, Shadow’s pretty cute, and Blake can’t help but think that the wizard’s skills (and hands and lips and other bits) might make the perfect complement to his. Blake and Shadow are brave enough to challenge the reflux demon in a second battle, but will they have the courage to tell each other how they feel?

Excerpt:

Crouching low, I followed the noise toward the huge mausoleum in the middle of the graveyard. A massive demon stood before the crypt. It was like no demon I’d ever seen before. Okay, I’d never seen one alive before. The tomes and scrolls I’d studied did not do justice to my evil foe in the flesh.

Its eyes bulged from its toad-like head, which swiveled about, searching for prey. I stepped further back into the shadows. It sniffed at the air, its noseless nostrils hairy and moist. Where its bare flesh poked out of its clothing, its pink skin rippled as if walnut-sized parasites roamed beneath it. It raised a giant ax. For a moment I thought the ax was its hand, until the clouds drifted aside and moonlight illuminated filthy clawed fingers wrapped around the ax handle.

An awful grating sound echoed from the depths of its flabby belly, sending a wave of flame and noxious fumes on its putrid breath. I tried not to cough, reining in my enhanced sense of smell. It pursed its puffy red lips and horked. Where the spit landed, the earth sizzled. Only one type of demon belched fire and spit acid: the dreaded reflux demon!

According to my studies, the reflux was a crafty son of a bitch. It’d be no easy prize to be won with a few sword strokes and a witty one-liner.

I felt my phone buzz against my hip, but chose to ignore it. I knew it’d be Hadley calling to remind me not to engage.

But how could I not? Who knew when I’d get another chance? Or how much damage the reflux would do before I could dispatch it?

I rose from my half-crouch, a war cry gathering in my throat. My balls once again surged upward. Ignoring my scaredy-cat testicles, I took a deep breath, raised my sword, and rushed at it.

“Fear me, oh spawn of Satan. For I am Blake St. Blake and I have come to return you to Hell!”

I had to slow my run a bit to get that all out before I arrived.

A flicker of movement caught my eye, but it was too late for me to stop my charge.

Another creature sprang from the darkness, weapon at the ready, crying, “Yo, asswipe. I’m gonna rip off your head and spit down your throat!”

I ground to a halt in front of the confused demon. And honestly, I was as confused as it was. I didn’t know which one to smite: the ax-wielding, acid-spitting, fire-belching demon, or this other thing, cloaked in dark cloth and brandishing a glowing stick.