Interview:
1. I write because… not writing is simply not an option. Really. I had about
a decade of not writing, and it drove me crazy!
2. If I were your favorite cookie, what would I be? Double
choc chip. With extra chocolate please.
3. Plotter or pantster? Pantser. And a non-linear pantser at
that.
4. What is your favorite type of character to write about
and why?
I love tortured souls, mostly so I can torture them some more. It means there's
as much, if not more, internal conflict as external, and without conflict you
don't have much of a story. Also I feel they deserve their happily ever after
that much more.
5. Hamburgers or sushi? Hamburgers. Especially homemade
barbecued burgers as done by my husband.
6. Name three things on your desk. Laptop, notebooks and pens. Pretty
boring but essential.
7. What books have influenced your writing style? I read
a really diverse range of genres growing up, from nautical war novels by
Alexander Kent, James Bond books, murder mysteries by Agatha Christie and
Arthur Conan Doyle, to animal adventures by James Herriott and Gerald Durrall.
But I mostly read heavy SciFi and fantasy, then moved onto Anne McCaffrey in my
late teens. Her books probably had the biggest influence on my writing.
8. Tell us a little about your book. Restless In Peaceville is essentially
Warm Bodies meets Supernatural in a Louisiana that never was.
It's my first zombie story, and my first paranormal, but not with your usual
Hollywood-style zombies.
9. What advice do you have for new and aspiring authors? Never
give up - never surrender! Write lots. Research lots. Get feedback but bear in
mind twenty different people may give you twenty totally different opinions.
You need to figure out which to listen to. And write with your heart.
10. What is next on your writerly horizon? I have
a paranormal short coming out in October, a superhero romance novella in
November, and a fallen angel UF short in December. Plus I have a trilogy of YA
zombie shorts in progress.
Top 5 favorite movies:
Warm
Bodies, Star Wars IV: The Empire Strikes Back, A Knight's Tale, How To Train
Your Dragon,
and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Blurb:
Welcome
to Peaceville, population 2067 and rising...from the grave...
Luke
Chester has had enough. He’s the school geek, the girls laugh at him, he’s lost
his dead-end job at the pizza place, and in the midst of the world’s messiest
divorce his parents don’t even know he exists. An overdose of his mom’s
tranquilizers and a stomach full of whiskey should solve all his problems...
But
they don’t. Instead, Luke finds himself booted out of the afterlife for not
dying a natural death, with nowhere to go but back to his recently vacated
corpse and reality. How the hell is he going to pass for one of the living
without someone trying to blow his brains out for being one of the undead?
And
it just gets worse. He’s got to fight his own desperate craving to consume the
living, evade the weird supernatural hunter who’s having a field day with the
new undeads rising, and there’s this creepy black shadow following him around.
Add to that the distraction of female fellow undead Annabelle burning to avenge
her own murder, and clearly there’s no rest for the wicked. Jeez, all he wanted
to do was R.I.P.
Buy Link
Excerpt:
You
gotta be kidding me...Waking up inside a small dark space is a pretty bad
experience. Although I didn't wake as such because I wasn't asleep. I just
became...aware maybe? The darkness kind of faded away until I can see I'm
inside this metal box. Well, as far as I can tell. I tap the wall with one
knuckle to check, and the hollow metallic knock proves at least part of my
assumption right. So, what is this? I died and got kicked out of the afterlife.
As far as I know, coffins ain't made of metal. So at a guess, I'm in the mortuary,
and since I'm not laid out on a slab I must have been put away in storage. I've
never been stuck in a drawer before, but somehow this fits with how I imagine
it would be.
I
suppose I should count myself lucky they hadn't started carving me up, and that
I'd gone for an overdose rather than throwing myself in front of a truck or out
of a window. I'm in damn good condition...for a corpse. Still in one piece as
far as I can ascertain, and that ain't easy to determine, let me tell you. You
know how an arm or a leg goes after you've sat on it for a while, cutting off
the circulation? But before the blood flow starts again and you get pins and
needles? That numb heaviness? My whole body is like that. Like every part of me
is full of lead.
Also,
the not breathing is weird. I take a couple of breaths out of habit, for the
familiar feeling of air moving in and out of my chest. After that I don't
bother. It takes too much concentration and there are other things I need to
focus on. Like, what do I do next, for instance?
So,
what, I'm just gonna lie here?
About the author:
After spending twelve years working as an Analytical Chemist in a
Metals and Minerals laboratory, Pippa Jay is now a stay-at-home mum who writes
scifi and the supernatural. Somewhere along the way a touch of romance crept
into her work and refused to leave. In between torturing her plethora of
characters, she spends the odd free moment playing guitar very badly, punishing
herself with freestyle street dance, and studying the Dark Side of the Force.
Although happily settled in the historical town of Colchester in the UK with
her husband of 21 years and three little monsters, she continues to roam the
rest of the Universe in her head.
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