Tag Archives: Big Bad

Sommer Marsden: Long Lost and Then Some

I’d like to welcome one of my favourite authors, Sommer Marsden, back again. This time Sommer is answering questions about Long Lost,  her yummy paranormal sequal to Big Bad. Welcome, Sommer!

KD: After finishing Long Lost, without giving anything away, it seems pretty clear we’ll be seeing more of Ruby and Ellis and Tyler and their friends. Without giving anything away, can you give us a teaser?

SM: Nope! In order to give you a teaser, I would have had to have written some of the book. As of yet, there is no book. The door has been open for there to be a book. But no book is in the works. Eek!

KD: *Folds arms across chest and pouts* Guess we’ll just have to wait then.

I was intrigued by the idea of ‘The Town,’ the place where the werewolves lived. How did you come up with the idea of a town as werewolf central?

SM: I would love to say something clever, but I have no clue. To me wolves/weres are pack animals. So pack animals tend to stay in their own pack and out of the lives of others. Town just made sense on some level to me, without me really thinking about it. And the name was just sort of my own little joke.

KD: When you wrote Big Bad did you already have a series in mind, or did that come later?

SM: I had no intention of there being a second book until about ¾ of the way through. Then I realized if the story played out the way it seemed to be going, there had to be a second book. No question.

KD: What inspired the series?

SM: I have to admit, I have no idea! I just got the idea one day while walking the dog. It came out of nowhere and once the characters started talking to me—Ellis, Ruby and Tyler all at once—I had no choice but to go home and start.

KD: What did you find the most fun about writing Big Bad and Long Lost? What was hardest?

SM: The humor was the most fun. The characters, even ‘side characters’ like Peabody, had a true back and forth with one another that was fun to sit and transcribe. When they bickered or gave each other a hard time, I’d often get the giggles. The hardest part for me, especially for book two, was to make sure I had a good balance of drama and humor and all that jazz. But my characters usually tend to themselves pretty well, I only have to monitor so much.

KD: Other forays into the paranormal on the horizon?

SM: Always! I have a book that’s been done for a while but I tucked it away for various reasons. But now I think I’m ready to dust it off, clean it up, put it out and work on the sequel. I also have plans for another paranormal in the near future that hopefully will be really fun but also kind of touching.

KD: Who was your favourite character to write?

SM: Ellis! EllisEllisEllis. He is one of my favourite characters ever. He’s based on a very real person who’s on TV pretty regularly. When this guy came on TV the other night, the man happened to have his hand on my foot and he said, “I just felt your pulse go up…through your toe.”

Ellis has a wicked but subtle sense of humor. I think that’s why I adore him so much. And he handles Ruby’s lunacy pretty well. And God, does he love her.

KD: Who did you find most difficult?

SM: The bad guys. The bad guys are always hard for me because I’d always rather write the fun and the humor and the sex. But I knew I did okay from my beta reader. He got goosebumps in the first book when I introduced my bad guy and he didn’t sniff out the villain in this one until the appropriate time. So I was pleased with myself.

KD: What was the highlight of 2011 for Sommer Marsden.

SM: Most unfair question ever! LOL. There were so many, to be honest, and for that I am grateful. I would have to say Big Bad and Long Lost coming out. I have such a love for those two books, I was very excited (and terrified) for them to come out. But so very glad when they did. So of a year full of good stuff, I guess I’d have to choose the release of those two novels as the cherry on top.

KD: What are you most looking forward to in 2012?

SM: My novel Restless Spirit comes out with Xcite in April, and I am so vibratey over that release! Also, an unnamed (secret!) novel that comes out soonish from Excessica is very anticipation-worthy too. Plus there are some super-secret upcoming projects that I am equally psyched and scared of 🙂

KD: *Rubs hands together conspiratorially* Ooooh, I love secrets! And one last Long Lost question: In your head, have you pictured what the movie version of LL would look like? If so, who would play whom and do you have a specific setting in mind?

SM: That is always a hard question for me because I don’t think that way about my books. Willsin Rowe was my beta reader for these books. I think that would be a super good question for him. I might have to ask him since he would leave me comments in the sidebar like ‘when the movie version of this comes out…’ 🙂 For me Ellis Bach is the celebrity chef Scott Conant. Ruby is faceless because, as sad as this might sound, all my heroines are sort of written from some small part of the core of me, so I don’t give them faces. Tyler is also faceless in my head as is Peabody. Wow. I am very unexciting. I tend to write more with a feel of a characters personality in my head than their actual appearance.

I would love to hear what people who have read the books think. Who they’d cast as Ellis, Ruby, Tyler and Peabody.

As for setting, most of my settings are local. I pick a piece of my city that I’ve lived in and write with that in my head as a setting. It tends to make it more realistic. Plus, I don’t mess up as much!

KD: What’s on the horizon for Sommer Marsden?

SM: Lots of freaking out, two books coming soon, more books being written, shorts in various anthologies, some novellas in an exciting project and hopefully some kind of Zen epiphany where I calm down and get organized. And then a pig will fly by my window. On a unicorn’s back. Carrying a leprechaun.

Blurb:

What’s a girl to do once she’s gotten her wolf? Spend Christmas in the belly of the beasts…or at least their Town. Ruby’s loving her new life until a single phone call makes her knees go weak, bringing the near past back into her cozy present. Seems an old evil has returned in a brand new nasty package to take another swipe at Ruby. Ellis isn’t about to let that happen, and neither are her friends, but Ruby discovers she will be the only one who can really do what needs to be done. And it turns out there are things at stake she never imagined. Things she’s willing to die for.

Buy Links:

Sold through Excessica: http://www.excessica.com/books/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=22&products_id=492 and numerous other online vendors.
Print Version:  https://www.createspace.com/3687776

Sommer Marsden Tells Us What Happens on Page 237, Or Not

I’m elated to have the totally yummy Sommer Marsden as my guest today. Sommer’s on a blog tour to promote her sizzling new paranormal novel, Big Bad.  And to celebrate the release of Big Bad, Sommer is giving away a copy of this fab new novel to a lucky commenter.

Welcome, Sommer! I can’t wait to find out what happens on page 237!

And on page 237 they will…

Yeah, see that’s not me. The plotter, the planner, the index card holder. See that title up there? You will never hear me say that. Which is why it can be terrifying writing something like paranormal. I swore I’d never do it for reasons just like that.

If I’m on page 237…I might know what happens on page 238. I might not. I tend to fly by the seat of my pants and blindly follow characters wherever they  go. Down dark alleys, into houses that are currently being stalked by bad guys, down a long dark highway to another state in the rain. I fall in love with them, sometimes when it’s a good idea, and sometimes when it’s not. Sometimes with more than one person. I just…follow.

See, they are very much in charge. Not me. Imagine if you will, the quiet court reporter in the corner, slowly but surely taking down everything that happens as it happens—in shorthand (in my world shorthand=typos…heh). That is me! I am the court reporter.

Which is why you will NOT find world building in my paranormal. You might find a reality with…accessories? Something that is pretty much real life but a smidge left of center. I write men (or women) who just happen to be able to turn into wolves. The way I happen to be able to remember pretty much every single lyric to every song I’ve ever sat to listen to. I write shifters who have shifting ingrained in their history the way Native American or Scottish is ingrained in mine. People who inadvertently become psychic. Like dropping an ice cream cone on the sidewalk. And hey, as far as past lives, I’ve done my share of research and talked to my share of people—but that was out of sheer interest. It just happened to crop up in my book through no fault of my own.

Basically, I do what they tell me. I sit in the corner in my little skirt and nerd glasses with my hair in a bun (okay, leggings, big socks, funky tees and possibly a messy bed head hair twist) and do as told.

And I never know what is going to happen on page 237 for sure until page 237. When I feel that nervous ‘oh no! what happens next!?” I usually go take a long hot shower or a long wiener walk with the dachshund and the characters tell me. Ellis and Ruby and Tyler were known to whisper to me while I was washing my hair or doing dishes or walking my wiener. And they usually only gave up little snippets of info. Mostly, I had to sit down, shut up and take notes.

I don’t build worlds. It’s not my deal. I leave that to the pros who can spin entire worlds out of nothing but gossamer and lace. Me, I write about people who are somewhat accidentally special and then I listen to what they have to say. They always know what’s going to happen on page 237…they just take their sweet time tellin

Blurb

Lust according to Ruby:

You read those books where they explain it all away. They make it fine with rationalization. But what if I just want to? What if that’s my whole reason? My life is not a romance novel. I don’t need justification. I’m a grown woman who knows what she wants.

I want Ellis. And I want Tyler.

And I won’t apologize…

What’s worse than wanting both your best friend who’s a vampire and the just-back-in-town alpha werewolf you find yourself fixated on? Finding out that the werewolf in question wants you, too. But he isn’t too keen on the sharing part. Oh, and by the way, you’re his dead mate.

Okay, okay, dead is harsh—reincarnated.

What’s worse than that? Realizing that you believe the whole crazy tale of reincarnation. Because it seems to be true.

And yet you still want them both—together. Vampire and werewolf and you in the middle. Stuck between two predators who want you and only you. To complicate it all, you find out that you can have it. With your new/old mate’s blessing. But just one time before he claims you as his.

Are you brave enough to take it? That one shot?

Well…Are you?

Excerpt from BIG BAD:

I didn’t want to talk about him being mine or me being his. Or the feeling I got in the pit of my stomach when he said stuff like that. The feeling was akin to peace and security.

“Can I get you a dri—“

I never got the sentence out because he pinned me to the wall outside my small bedroom and kissed me. The kiss was the kind that left no room for talking. His tongue tangled with mine until I felt the wet intensity of his kiss all the way in my pussy. My ears thrummed with my pulse, his shirt was soft under my fingers, his chest hard.

“Back up or it’s right here in the hallway.” Ellis growled.

I walked back as he guided me and finally the bed hit the back of my knees and I folded myself down onto the mattress. Ellis covered me, pinning my hands at my sides with his much bigger ones. His belly pressed to mine, his cock hard against the split of my pussy. I wiggled just to feel the pressure of him through my jeans.

“Christ, don’t do that. I’ll come in my pants like a young wolf,” he laughed. His teeth flashed in the low light of my bedroom—nothing but a golden nightlight lit the periphery.

“I’ve never seen you change. Can I?” Now that it was in my head, I wanted it. I wanted to see him in wolf form, run my fingers through his fur. Possibly other things. But I didn’t think that and I certainly wouldn’t say it. I simply acknowledged that I wanted to experience Ellis in all his natural forms.

“One day.” He rose and shimmied out of his clothes. Slowly. I watched the flex and roll of each hard muscle. The flat of his belly exposed one button at a time. He peeled off his boxer briefs and chuckled at my attentive gaze. “You make me feel like I should have dollar bills sticking out of my waistband.”

I blinked and then caught his joke. “Oh, how rude. I do have some singles. Would you like a tip, sexy boy? Shake your money maker.”

He didn’t flinch, but he didn’t smile either. “Take off the clothes, toots. We’re going to do it right this time.”

“We did it wrong last time?”

“Let me help you,” he said and his voice was so low the fine hairs in my ears felt ticklish trying to make out his words.

His fingers tugged at my black top and then my bra. Naked from the waist up, I tried to focus on breathing. He was perfect and sexy and looked so fucking serious my body buzzed with nerves. “I can—“

“Hush, Ruby.” His lips found my breast and his tongue did lazy tours of each one before his teeth found first one nipple, then the other. I felt the tug and thump of my arousal in my cunt. I touched him, just to feel how warm he was. How hard he was. And prove to myself that Ellis Bach was real.

He dropped small light kisses from my breastbone to my belly button and his fingers worked the button of my jeans with ease. “Up,” he said and I thrust my hips up so he could snag my jeans and panties and pull them down. I kicked off my boots so the jeans could come off and Ellis peeled off my over-the-knee socks.

“I’m like a trained dog,” I joked, my voice shaky with emotion.

“You are no such thing. But I like dogs,” he said. “A close relative of yours truly.” His laugh rumbled through him and vibrated into me as he kissed the sides of my thighs and the backs of my knees. I gave a small squeak and the laugh grew deeper. “Ticklish?”

“Yes. Will you change?” I blurted. I hadn’t even known I was going to say until it was out. But I barreled on, fueled by false bravery. “Will you? Please. Change for me, I want to see you.”

“Soon,” he said, licking my hipbone gently. “Not this time.”

Remember to leave a comment and you’ll have a chance to win a copy of sizzling eBook copy of Big Bad, then find out what’s on pate 237 for yourself!

Warnings: This title contains graphic sex and language, spanking, m/f/m sex, multiple partners.

 

Buy link for BIG BAD by Sommer Marsden from Excessica (also on Kindle, at ARe, Bookstrand, Smashwords and more):

http://www.excessica.com/books/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=22&products_id=463&zenid=d01ee27908400fa90dea4bdce8c1fb87