TBR: Welcome to TBR, Sara Jay. Will
you share a little bit about yourself?
Sara: Thanks for having me! I am a full-time
freelance writer, work-at-home homeschooling mom and novelist…among other
things! I live in the Midwest with my husband (and high school sweetheart) and
our young daughter.
It’s the story of Bane and Tisha, a demon and a mortal who
aren't what they seem... Tisha Sanderson is timid and mousy from a lifetime as
a wallflower. What she doesn’t know is that she isn’t who she thinks she is at
all—and sexy demon Bane has come to remind her that.
Of course, he needs her soul first.
Bane leads Tisha down into a Hell quite unlike the place she
imagined it would be and tasks her with several trials she must complete to
return home. After each erotic endeavor, Tisha finds herself changing both
physically and mentally. At the end of her adventure in Hell, she could be free
to go—
But after tasting the Bane of Hell, will she really want to
leave?
TBR: Please tantalize us with a
story blurb or excerpt.
Sara: Certainly!
Tisha Sanderson tucked her pale blond bangs
behind her ear and grimaced at the envelope. Yet another one of her ex's bills
glared back at her from the contents of her mailbox. Jeremy had left her both
broke and broken-hearted months ago, yet traces of him remained through debt.
Crinkling her eyes to hold back tears,
Tisha could only sigh. If she could go back in time and kick that loser to the
curb before he did this to her, well... She probably wouldn't have, she
admitted to herself.
She was lonely, after all. Jeremy's mess
and callousness and cruelty might have been awful, but the silence she came
home to each day was nearly as unbearable.
Trudging up the sidewalk to her front door,
she couldn't even look up from the paper, yet another reminder of Jeremy.
Wedging the pink envelope between her teeth, she jiggled the keys to her front
door out of her purse and sighed deeply again. Reaching up to push the door
open, she gasped.
The door stood open already.
Pink paper fluttered to the grass as she
opened her mouth in shock. That, that jerk! Tisha's mind sputtered for
an appropriate response, but all she could do was tremble. If he came to beg
for money or cry for help, he would have another think coming.
Some women might have cursed and slammed
the door wide open, demanding an explanation. Some might even whip out a can of
pepper spray, prepared for any intruder awaiting. Timid Tisha, though, could
only hover in the doorway of her own home and meekly squeak out,
"H'lo?"
She couldn't help it. She had always been
the shy one, picked last for sports and unable to fit in with any of her peers.
Feeling as if she never truly belonged, she'd become a kindergarten teacher,
where she fit in with the power level of most of her students. The mild
temperament she displayed at her place of employment wasn't for school alone,
but her entire demeanor. It was as if she had never left kindergarten herself.
When she didn't receive an answer, Tisha
crept into the dimly-lit living area, preparing to see furniture tumbled over
in disarray, or perhaps Jeremy standing there, smirking or drunk as usual. But
everything appeared to be in its place. It did seem hotter than usual in the
house, especially for a light March evening.
Unsure of what to do next, she grasped her
purse tightly, carefully making her way through the home her parents had left
her. "J-Jeremy?" she asked, her voice cracking. "Is that
you?"
She hated the way her heart sped up, almost
hoping that her deadbeat ex had invaded her house. Get a grip!
The closer she got to the kitchen, the
hotter she felt. Sweat began to pearl on her forehead. Tisha absently wiped it
off with the back of a wrist, wondering why her kitchen lights dimmed so low.
She didn't even own a dimmer switch.
The flickering glow seemed to be moving.
Just as she decided that she was seeing
things, Tisha froze in the doorway of the kitchen and stared in shock. Feeling
faint, she grabbed the doorframe, only to pull her fingers back instantly from
the flickering glow.
The entire kitchen was on fire.
Flames ran furiously up and down the walls
in vibrant displays of orange and yellow. Angry red welts slashed at her
wallpaper, though nothing seemed to be burning. No smoke could be seen. The room
was simply set ablaze.
The hairs on the back of Tisha's neck leapt
up.
"Boo," a deep, masculine voice
growled behind her.
Shrieking, Tisha leaped over the flames
into the lit but otherwise empty kitchen. Backing away from the source of the
sound, she saw a creature straight out of her nightmares.
He was unnaturally tall and muscular with a
lean athletic frame hugged with an expensive-looking suit. Long black hair
wildly framed his face in a lion-like fashion, and a goatee of the same shade
framed his quirked mouth. Fiery red eyes that matched the flames in Tisha's
kitchen peered at her in amusement. He could have easily been a human wearing
contacts, but then there was his purple-black skin. And the long, round-tipped
tail.
"You -- you're -- what are you?"
Tisha wailed, cowering back from the creature helplessly. She felt behind her
for a weapon but only encountered her burning wallpaper. Oddly, her fingers
didn't burn from it. They only felt warm.
The man casually brushed off invisible lint
from his expensive suit, sighing. "You know the answer to that question
already, Tisha."
TBR: What inspired you to write
about the theme?
Sara: It started as the answer to a Changeling
Press flash fiction challenge. Each week, the Changeling readers’ loop hosts a
challenge, and that week’s was about a demon coming to collect a debt. Then I
combined it with the whole idea of a woman who lost herself along the way and
needed a reality check to find her true self once again—something that I think
a lot of us need at one point or another. Of course, we usually get this jolt
through therapy or a best friend or a spiritual experience or something, not
from a demon!
TBR: How do you develop your characters?
Sara: I listen. That’s the best answer I can give,
for sure! When I want a character to do something—I wanted Bane to be much more
sinister than he turned out to be, for example—and they refuse, telling me,
“No, this is who I am!” I just listen and get it on paper. I have no qualms at
all about putting my characters into precarious situations [grins] but I don’t
mess around with who they are, for sure.
TBR: Any tips or tricks for world
building you’d care to share?
Sara: You know, I don’t have anything really
mind-blowing to share. I would just advise people to take notes. It’s easy to
forget who is related or what color someone’s eyes are when you’re so many
pages in, let alone why the red shoe is so important three chapters away! Those
quick scrawls really come in handy.
TBR: Do you have a favorite quote
you’d like to share?
Sara: Hmm, I don’t have one from the book that I
can share here without an explicit rating, unfortunately. I can say that my
favorite scene is the cave scene [wink!]. It’s a turning point in the book, but
it was also the most fun to write.
TBR: Did any music inspire your
book? Do you have a playlist?
Sara: I did actually have a playlist for my
previous book, Nobody Rides for Free,
but I didn’t for this one. If I had to pick some songs for The Boon Collector, they would be:
“To
the Moon & Back” by Savage Garden
“Highway
to Hell” by AC/DC
“Running
with the Devil” by Van Halen
“I’ll
Be Your Shelter” by Taylor Dane
“Need
You Tonight” by INXS
TBR: Which of your characters would
you most/least like to invite to dinner, and why?
Sara: I would definitely invite Basalt, the
gargoyle in my upcoming book Hard As a
Rock. He’s the sexiest, simply complex character I’ve written, if that
makes any sense! From The Boon Collector,
I think I would actually invite Tisha at the end of the book over. I think I
could really help her out—or maybe she could help me? Then again, I’d love to
invite Bane over just to drool over him.
TBR: While creating your books, what
was one of the most surprising things you learned?
Sara: That I use dashes and dull action words way
too often! That’s basic stuff I learned so many years ago, but years of
copywriting just indoctrinated me with it somehow. I fuss every time I see a
“was” in my work; sometimes it makes me stumble and I struggle to finish just
because I want things to be perfect, even though I know that’s what my
editor—and my next draft—are for.
TBR: Tease us with one little thing
about your fictional world that makes it different from others.
Sara: I really embrace the dark side of my
characters. I don’t use it as something evil to overcome—well, aside from the
villains, anyway!—but instead include it as simply a part of who they are. Do I
sometimes write about literal man-eating creatures as my heroes? Well, yes—especially
in Nobody Rides for Free. But it’s
more like a lion-zebra relationship, and there’s still compassion there if you
look for it. (Don’t worry, nobody gets eaten in the book!)
TBR: What's next for you?
Sara: I am so excited about my next book, Hard As a Rock, which is coming out June
6. It’s about a cursed gargoyle and faery, a love story 3,000 years in the
making, and it’s my best work so far. I am in love with both characters so
much. It was wonderful having them over my shoulder, telling me their story.
TBR: Any other published works?
Sara: As Sara Schmidt, my alter ego, I have
thousands of blogs and articles all over the web—as well as a few print items
in books, magazines and so forth. As Sara Jay, I will have three books at
Changeling Press by June 6 that include the aforementioned titles—and hopefully
several more before the year is out! I’m working on two Halloween-themed
pieces, a fall book about the Green Man, and perhaps my magnum opus for the
year, Darkness Falls, a tale about a
dark nymph who works in supernatural law enforcement.
TBR: What’s the most challenging
aspect of writing? Most rewarding?
Sara: The most challenging is staying on top of my
deadlines right now. I juggle a lot—most people do these days, don’t they?—and
between homeschooling, my day job (which takes a few thousand words a day
already!), running local homeschooling activities and other obligations, I
struggle to find time for my fiction sometimes. It’s sad because it’s one of
the top things that I want to do, but there you go. The most rewarding
thing—aside from reading exactly what I want to read, which is very cool—is
getting emails or texts from my friends and family saying how much they loved
my books.
TBR: What’s
the most interesting comment you have received about your books?
Sara: I have one friend who keeps pestering me to
write a sequel to Nobody Rides for Free.
She just can’t wait to see what happens and she doesn’t believe me when I tell
her that I don’t know yet, either! [Laughs] Seriously, until Sinn, Daka and their
new human friend tell me what happens, I can’t say for sure what is in store
for them just yet.
TBR: Who are some of your favorite
authors and books? What are you reading now?
Sara: I’m a big Neil Gaiman girl. I also love
Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Tamora Pierce, anything edited by Ellen
Datlow… So I’m a big fantasy nut. I’ll read any genre, though. Lately I’ve been
reading a lot of Jim Butcher. I’ve got a massive crush on both him and Harry
Dresden—I can’t decide which one I love more!—and I’ve plowed through the first
14 novels since January. I’m ready to borrow a Time Turner just to read the
next one.
TBR: Thanks for visiting TBR, Sara. Best of luck to you.
Seven feet of black
volcanic rock loomed over patrons’ heads. His mouth pulled back in a menacing
growl, only partly open. Long black hair draped down his back as shiny and
lifelike as any centaur’s. His half-extended wings nearly touched the floor.
They flanked a trunk bulging with muscle and strength, scarred with streaks
that must have been from being moved around over the years. Had he been a real
gargoyle, the sculpture would undoubtedly lead his pride as an alpha.
