Sunday, December 2, 2012

Welcome Sharon Kleve

Please give a warm welcome to author Sharon Kleve today as we talk music, books and food.


Do you like to listen to music while you write?
Yes, I absolutely have to have music on while I write. I still have a day job and even there I have a small radio that I keep on low while I work. I have very eclectic taste in music. I like to write to Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Madonna, and Taylor Swift. I love pop music from the 60's, and 70's like Atlanta Rhythm Section 'So In To You' and Bobby Bloom 'Montego Bay'.

Tell us a little bit about your newest release. 
Klutzy Love is a Paranormal Romance and the third book in the Corny Myers Series. It takes you back to when Corny and Steve first meet.

Klutzy Love Blurb:
Corny is a hot chick with a great job that she loves. All that changed in the blink of an eye when her boss had an accident involving an oversized rubber band. She’s still a hot chick, but her boss is dead.

Steve Spears is a seasoned narcotics cop who ends up wanting to strangle Corny on a regular basis. After finding out Corny’s dream of opening a pet detective business, he decides he doesn’t want a girlfriend who routinely puts herself in danger. That’s his job!
Corny misses Steve, but she’s getting on with her life. She decides to get a month’s worth of dating out of the way in a single night, by combining her three favorite things—men, food, and alcohol.

Steve’s big gun and cop’s intuition saves Corny’s life, but not from another trip to the emergency room. He makes Corny promise never to get hurt again—she agreed, but has her fingers crossed behind her back.

Klutzy Love Excerpt:
I raised my salty-rimmed margarita, "Let's make a toast to Mr. Langfield; he was kind, kooky, and had poor taste in women."
"Here, here. God bless the silly romantic fool," Kitty cheered and twirled her hair around her finger.
"I second that," Brenda clinked her glass to ours and munched on chips and salsa.
After a sip from my drink my sexy-guy radar started to beep. I did a quick scan of the restaurant and spotted my target. I discreetly waved my hand above my head and said, "Target acquired... target acquired." We laughed until we about peed our pants and then I leaned forward and quietly asked, "Do you think he heard me?" then giggled more. "I've seen my share of gorgeous men, but that guy is smok’n hot."
"Oh boy, is he ever," Kitty and Brenda said in unison and fanned their faces dramatically.
"He's been looking my way. I'm giving him my, 'you can buy me a drink' look."
All of a sudden Kitty rolled her eyes toward the bar and whispered, "Holy moly, he's coming this way."
Sure enough he made his way through the crowd on the dance floor towards our table. Before I hyperventilated from excitement, Kitty kicked me in the shin. "Thanks, I needed that." Kitty could be pretty levelheaded in stressful situations.

Where can readers find your newest release? 

If you could be the hero/heroine in any novel, who would it be and why?
I'd love to be Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum. To have two sexy, dangerous men like Joe Morelli and Ranger fighting over me would a girls dream.
My heroine in The Corny Myer Series is similar to Stephanie Plum, but with a psychic twist. She speaks to animals.

What do you like more? Coffee or tea?
I'm a Starbucks snob, through and through. (Double, tall, soy, latte)
What inspired you to start writing?
Well, because the little voices in my head tell me to—seriously, I’ve always talked to myself—now I put the voices on paper.

I was a late bloomer and didn’t start my love of reading until I was in my twenties and then I couldn’t get enough of the wonderfully, smutty Harlequin books with really sexy hot guys on the cover.

I’ve worked in the government sector for fifteen years and always dreamed of having a job that I could work from home. This crazy idea came to me one night, after reading a particularly sizzling romance. Why not try my hand at writing one? So, out of the blue I told my husband I was going to write a Harlequin novel. He said, “Okay.”

I figured I’d read enough of them, I could write one—no problem. Eight thousand words later; I realized it was harder than I thought. I also realized, I wasn’t writing what I was most comfortable with—animals.
I put my Harlequin attempt on the back burner and started writing “The Boss from Hell”. My boss, who I adored, had been fired and his replacement was a living-terror. It was really easy to come up with material to write about and of course I threw in a bunch of romance and of course animals. Ninety thousand words later I was still optimistic that I could write for a living, but I’d need a lot of support, my cat couldn’t give me. The support came in the form of Romance Writers of America and all the people involved in the local chapter.
Several of the members of my local chapter read my book and made numerous suggestions, one of them came from an independent publisher—Books to Go Now. She told me to put the novel aside for now and try my hand at a short story. That’s where I incorporated the paranormal aspect to my writing and it really clicked for me.

I submitted ‘Flamingo Blues’, as a Christmas short story to Books to Go Now and I was offered my first contract. ‘Be Mine’, a Valentine short story, is book two of ‘The Corny Meyers Series’ and in addition to a contract, I won the holiday contest too. Woo hoo! Klutzy Love is book three of ‘The Corny Myers Series’, which came out in August 2012.

That's why I started writing…

Tell us about your upcoming writing projects.
I submitted the fourth book in The Corny Myers Series, to my publisher and I'm putting the finishing touches on a Christmas story.

Where can others connect with you?

Bio:
Sharon Kleve was born and raised in Washington and currently lives on the Olympic Peninsula with her husband.

She loves romance. She loves reading romance, living romance, and especially loves writing about romance. She gets no greater feeling than watching her characters come alive in each other's arms. Most of all, she loves giving her characters the happily ever after they deserve—with a few bumps and bruises along the way.
One of her favorite things to do is picking up a new book and sinking into the story, immersing herself in the emotions between the characters. She hopes to inspire her readers the same way her favorite authors have inspired her.

When not writing, she can usually be found either curled up in her recliner with her cat and a good book, or in the kitchen baking sourdough bread or bagels; which led her to send in one of her favorite recipes to All Romance. "Lip Smacking Pork Roulade" was chosen to be in Free Recipes from the Hottest Romance Authors Passionate Cooks.

The cookbook is now offered for FREE on All Romance sites including AllRomance.com, OmniLit.com, and AReCafe.com beginning in October. Her recipe is on page 110; check it out along with many other best-selling authors recipes.

https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-passionatecooks-944744-174.html

2 comments:

Sharon Kleve said...

Thank you Dawn for having me here today.

Sharon Kleve said...
This comment has been removed by the author.

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