Special Guest: Author Seleste Delaney

When I first got into reading as a child, it was all talking dogs and magic waterfalls and flying carpets. I tried to get away from it for a while, but in my teen years, I was pulled right back in. Science fiction, fantasy, the pre-cursors to modern urban fantasy (*cough* showing my age *cough*), I loved it all. Once I was out of high school and the realm of required reading, I rarely strayed from the path of speculative fiction. (Though, I did exchange the talking dogs for a talking unicorn—thanks for that, Allison Pang.)

That meant when I started writing for publication, speculative fiction was a natural fit. It all started with a (very shelved) fantasy romance about Avalon and the descendents of Arthur and Merlin. Then I dove into werewolves and vampires and demons. The second project I ever sold was the first in my Blood Kissed series (Of Course I Try), a short story about a woman who falls in love with the wrong man. Or does she? The second story in that series came out at Christmastime (The Ghost of Vampire Present) and follows up with our intrepid heroine as she tries to move on with her life. These are quick, sexy reads. A trilogy of novel-length books is going to follow.

The first piece I ever sold was one that didn’t start out very much like it ended at all. Badlands, my steampunk romance started out in a different genre. It was a space western romance complete with weird aliens and a star system and a huge history. It… didn’t work. So, I took the core story and re-wrote it on a smaller scale in an America divided by war. I still got to have my crazy warrior woman and my noble airship captain and my motley crew. In doing that, I was bitten hard by the steampunk bug. I’m working on more stories in that world now (anticipating four total in the series), and don’t get me started on the new ideas screaming for a voice.

In between working on those series, I also wrote a couple pieces for Evernight Publishing’s holiday anthologies—about Santa’s elves. As far as stories that are just fun to write, these win hands down. They’re short and spicy and filled with mistletoe and magic. They connect to each other through characters, but they aren’t really a series, per se. With how smoothly things went with this publisher for the anthos, I wanted to work with them on something else, but I didn’t have time to devote to another series on my own. I had this piece I’d started for a contest. It was about a rock star and a high school principal falling in love. I adored the couple, but the story started out as a contemporary… and it wasn’t working. After pondering what kind of magic it needed to make it work, I realized old magic was the way to go, and I pitched GunShy as the first in a multi-author/shared-world series called Cupid’s Conquests. There are only two novellas out in the series right now, but a bunch of authors have jumped on board wanting to be part of it, so I hope more will come soon.

As for that contest? My first foray into a contemporary world with no magic in it actually won. Forever Summer is about two people shoved together by fate in the heat of the Florida Keys. I enjoyed writing it, and I no longer have a never attitude about contemporary romance, but I prefer the alternate worlds where myth, magic, and might collide. It was my first home in this crazy world of publishing, and it’s the one I will always come back to, because there in the world of the imagination, anything is possible, and that’s an incredible feeling.

This Giveaway is International! All you need is an email address.

I’m giving away a digital copy of the winner’s choice of one of the following backlist stories: 

Of Course I Try, The Ghost of Vampire Present, Badlands, GunShy, or Forever Summer. 

For your comment entry, let me know what fantasy world you’d want to live in for a day? (or longer), 

and don’t forget to hop over to DemonLover’s Books & More to fill out an entry for the rafflecopter contests and enter for a chance to win one of 2 books by Best Selling author SHANA ABE! 

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