Interview With K D Grace

Interview With K D Grace

So many interviews contain the questions – When did you start writing? What gives you inspiration? I like mine to be a little different, because I’m nosy.

I therefore welcome KD to my blog with a set of questions I hope you'll find as interesting to read as I did.

1.       As a reader, what are your favourite books? Not necessary those which have influenced you, but those you like to read to make you happy, or excited, or just to feel something.

KD: First let me just say thanks for having me, Nephylim, and thanks for such an interesting interview. It’s been a pleasure. As for my favourite books, I love books with lots of chemistry between the characters and with a very strong sense of place. My all-time favourite book is Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon. I think it strongly influences anything paranormal or anything having anything to do with magic that I write. It’s a lovely, powerful novel, and one I never get tired of.

Nephylim I had to sneak in here to say that Mists of Avalon is one of my favourite books too. It's not that widely known but MoA was actually one of a trilogy.

And now there are even more. I love them all 

2.       What is your favourite character in the books you read?

KD: Morgain in MoA is one of my very favourite characters because she’s strong and powerful and very flawed. The journey she’s on is tragic and not one that can end happily, and yet she plays out her hand with such finesse and single-mindedness that she shines throughout the whole novel.

3.       What is your favourite character in the books you write?

KD: I adore Anderson, who is the 150 year-old ghost in the Lakeland Trilogy. He’s power and virility and hotter than hot. He speaks like he just stepped out of a Jane Austen novel, and yet he never takes himself too seriously. With Anderson, you always get the feeling he got the joke you missed, but he is way too polite to crow about it. But my very favourite character in all of my books still has to be Tino, from The Pet Shop. I love his outrageous sense of playfulness, and his ability to express himself exquisitely without ever uttering a word.

4.       Take one character from your new book and tell us why you love them – and why we’ll love them when we read about them.

KD: Well, I’ve already said why I love Anderson. And I think my readers will love him for the same reasons. I think Anderson is by far the sexiest character I’ve ever written, but my favourite character in Riding the Ether, and the one I expected to be so much more difficult to flesh out is Cassandra. Cassandra, I love because she’s so deliciously flawed. She’s full of self-loathing for who she is, what she is. Cassandra’s a succubus, BTW, and not very happy about it. Anderson says of her, that her lust for knowledge is almost as great as her lust for the pleasures of the flesh, and he’s right. Cassandra wants to know what she is and why, and because she lives in fear of what she’s capable of doing, she’s deeply compassionate. She’s never been concerned with her appearance, which makes her carelessly and honestly sexy without trying. Her whole life has been focused on finding out who she is and how she can control her powers. She’s a woman who considers herself untouchable, and yet a woman with tremendous capacity to give and to love. And she has no idea just how powerful she really is. God, she was fun to write! Especially when she’s rubbing up against Anderson and his power. I had so much fun with this book!

Nephylim I've found that the stories I've had most fun writing have been the ones which attracted the most positive comments. I think the reader gets out the passion we put in. So be prepared to thoroughly enjoy this book

5.       What’s your worst nightmare?

KD: I have two, actually, being helpless and waking up some morning and finding that I can no longer write.

6.       If you had the opportunity to make your new release into a Hollywood blockbuster, list your dream cast.

KD: I get asked this a lot, and it’s a really hard question for me because number one, I don’t watch a lot of films or telly and number two, I never base my characters on anyone. Anderson is really hard. I suppose I could see him being a cross between a slightly older version of Aiden Turner and a slightly less Wolverine-ish version of Hugh Jackman. And Cassandra might be Jessica Biel, the blonde version from the Illusionist.

7.       Tell us ten things about yourself that you’d like your readers to know

KD: 1. I grow my own veg.  2. I walked across England. 3. I’m very shy, though no one believes me when I tell them. 4. I love good coffee. 5. But I adore good iced tea. 6. I choose salty over sweet given the choice. 7. I feed the birds in my back garden. 8. I love to write almost … almost more than I love sex. 9. I love long baths. 10. I don’t like loud noises.

8.       Tell us ten things about your book you’d like your readers to know

KD: 1.The places in the book are real, and they’re amazing! 2. The research about Wicca is based on my own time spent in a coven. 3. The first words of the Lakeland Heatwave trilogy were penned in the middle of the stone circle in Avebury in the Red Lion Inn, which is reputedly the most haunted pub in England. 4. I’ve walked all the routs and trails that are mentioned in Ether. 5. Raven Crag, where Anderson and several other members of the coven go to recover the lost scrying mirror, really is as dark and creepy as I wrote it. 6. It really is a place where suicides happen. 7. My inspiration for the Ether came from getting caught out in the mist on the fells. 8. Cassandra is the most fun female character I’ve ever written. 9. Though Ether tells the story of Anderson and Cassandra’s love, a key relationship in the novel is that between Anderson and Tara. 10. Sex is often used to set magic in motion in Ether.

Nephylim Just had to say that Avebury and especially the Red Lion Inn is one of my favourite places on earth. Where else can you find a village built in the middle of a stone circle and a pub that sells the best snacks ever

9.       Do you identify with any of your characters in your book? In what way are they like you/not like you?

KD: I identify with Cassandra’s self-doubt and with her tendencies toward being a hermit.

10.   If you could be anyone – living, dead or fictional – who would you be?

KD: Nobody I’d rather be than me. Better the devil you knowJ

11.   One of your lead characters is a ghost. Do you believe in ghosts?

KD: I’m intrigued by the idea of ghosts, I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of ghosts in story, but the jury is still out for me as to whether I actually believe in them or not. I’ve never had an encounter with one. 

12.   What do you think your main characters would make of this interview, and this blog. Would they understand the world of the blogger or would they think the whole thing as inconsequential given their daily realities, or would they just laugh at us?

KD: I think Anderson, who has been around for so long, would view it all with a smile and humour us bloggers to do what we need to do. Cassandra, on the other hand, would take it all very seriously, especially if it would help her understand who she really is and how she can control her powers. I, after all, created her, so I just might have the key, and I just might tell you, Nephylim.

Nephylim Oooh, if that isn't an intriguing offer I don't know what is. 

13.   Give us some information about your book – what does it look like, what is it about and where can we get it?

KD: Riding the Ether is available at all book dealers in eBook formats and in print. It’s book two of the Lakeland Heatwave Trilogy, preceded by Body Temperature and Rising.

 Here’s a short blurb:

Cassandra Larkin keeps her ravenous and dangerous sexual appetite secret until she seduces Anderson in the mysterious void of the Ether. Anderson is the sexy, insatiable ghost who can give her exactly what she needs and come to no harm. But no matter how steamy it is, sex in a dangerous place like the Ether is asking for trouble. When the treacherous demon, Deacon, discovers the truth about the origin of Cassandra’s powerful lust, he plots to use her sex magic for his long awaited vengeance on Tara Stone and the Elemental Coven, who practice their own powerful brand of sex magic.

Cassandra must embrace the lust and sexuality she fears and learn to use its power. She must stand with Anderson, Tara, and the Elemental Coven against Deacon’s wrath or suffer the loss of friendship, magic and love, all of which she only now dares to believe herself worthy.

Available from:

eBook:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009H68H8K/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=B009H68H8K&linkCode=as2&tag=lucyfelthouse-21

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009H68H8K/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B009H68H8K&linkCode=as2&tag=lucyfelt-20

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/riding-the-ether-k-d-grace/1112024218?ean=9781908262196

Print:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1908262184/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=kdg0b-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=1908262184

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1908262184/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=kdg-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1908262184

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/riding-the-ether-k-d-grace/1112024218?ean=9781908262189

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Riding-Ether-Grace/9781908262189?a_aid=creativewriter1985

http://www.xcitebooks.co.uk/Book/6619/Riding-the-Ether.html

*****

K D Grace believes Freud was right. In the end, it really IS all about sex, well sex and love. And nobody’s happier about that than she, cuz otherwise, what would she write about?

When she’s not writing, K D is veg gardening or walking. She walks her stories, and she’s serious about it. She and her husband recently walked the Coast to Coast route across England. For her, inspiration is directly proportionate to how quickly she wears out a pair of walking boots.

K D has erotica published with Xcite Books, Mammoth, Cleis Press, Black Lace, Erotic Review, Ravenous Romance, Scarlet Magazine, Sweetmeats Press and others.

K D’s critically acclaimed erotic romance novels include, The Initiation of Ms Holly, The Pet Shop, and her paranormal erotic novel, Body Temperature and Rising, the first book of her Lakeland Heatwave trilogy, was listed as honorable mention on Violet Blue’s Top 12 Sex Books for 2011.

Find K D Here:

Website: http://kdgrace.co.uk/

Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/KDGraceAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kd_grace

Thank you so much for answering my questions so fully and interestingly. I really enjoyed reading them and I hope everyone else will enjoy it just as much and will rush out and buy the book immediately