Interview of Jacquie Rogers

Today it's my pleasure to present an interview of romance author Jacquie Rogers.

Latest Book: Much Ado About Marshals

Buy Link: Not yet released but learn more at http://www.jacquierogers.com/maam.html

BIO: Jacquie Rogers (http://www.jacquierogers.com) is a former software designer, campaign manager, deli clerk, cow milker, but always a bookworm. She lives in Seattle with her IT guy who inspires her to write action-packed fiction with a touch of whimsy and romance. Her current releases are Faery Special Romances http://amzn.to/kmSNPs (royalties go to the Children’s Tumor Foundation) http://www.ctf.org/, (ending neurofibromatosis through research), Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues http://amzn.to/fvuC6k, and a novella, Faery Merry Christmas http://amzn.to/icbKO7

Her stories have won the P.E.A.R.L. Award for Best Short Story, and the NOR Award for Best Print Sci-Fi/Fantasy Romance novel. She’s a former Golden Heart® finalist, and a frequent speaker and workshop instructor, both in person and online. She’s co-owner of 1st Turning Point (http://1stturningpoint.com/), where authors teach, share and learn all about marketing and promotion. Listen to her as host of Meet the Parrots, the 1st Turning Point instructional internet radio program.

***CONTEST ALERT!***
I’ll give away a signed copy of Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues and a sneak peek at Much Ado About Marshals to one lucky commenter. Fine print: USA mailing only. Otherwise, an ebook version.

Q: Who is your favorite character in your Much Ado About Marshals and why?
A: The hero is Cole Richards—a buff and drop-dead good-looking cowboy. Of course I love him. The heroine is Daisy Gardner—bright, energetic, engaging personality. Of course I love her. But there’s a special place in my heart for Bosco Kunkle, Cole’s sidekick.

This character actually started out as my brother’s dog. That dog had so much personality, but the one thing he did that tickled my funnybone was to pretend he was invisible. Hence, the beginnings of Cole’s sidekick. Then I needed a last name. Since this character is also comic-relief, I wanted a name that let you know he’d be funny, so I picked my friend’s last name, Kunkle. I think Bosco Kunkle is a great name for him, and creates exactly the right concept for this character.

But one problem with making such a fun character is that Bosco always wanted to take over any scene he was in. I spent half my writing time convincing him to go do something else and let the other characters have some screen time. He’s a happy-go-lucky guy so always cooperated, but then he’d forget and back he’d come. And so it went for 100k words. LOL.

Q: If Much Ado About Marshals became a movie, which celebrity would you like to star as Daisy? Tell us about her.
A: Daisy Gardner wants to be a detective, just like her dime novel heroine, Honey Beaulieu. She does not want to be a farm wife, but that’s what her parents want. So what better solution to her dilemma than to marry the new marshal?

She’s a combination of Laura Ingalls and Punky Brewster, only grown up, so Daisy could very well be played by Soleil Moon Frye. Wouldn’t that be nice!

Q: If Much Ado About Marshals became a movie, which celebrity would you like to star as your hero? Tell us about your hero.
A: Cole Richards is honest, forthright, and stuck in a situation where he must lie and deceive or he and Bosco might end up as honored guests at a necktie party. That’s why he plays along with being the town marshal. He didn’t count going toe to toe with a lady detective who has marriage on her mind.

The cover model for Much Ado About Marshals is Kyle Walker, and that’s exactly what Cole looks like, down to the ornery eyes. Truth is, if this book were made into a movie, I’d just as soon have Kyle play the leading man. I can’t think of any current twenty-something male actors that do this character justice. Of the older actors—maybe a Star Wars era Harrison Ford. Yum.

Q: What hobby do you enjoy when not writing?
A: I love baseball and photography, and now I’m getting into video, too. My first heart’s desire was to be a baseball announcer and I’ve never lost the love for the game. I play fantasy baseball every year and my team is the Shoreline Sharks, which is the name of the team in Faery Merry Christmas (http://amzn.to/icbKO7).

As for photography, I got into it professionally at one point, but then kids and life got in the way. Now with computer graphics software, photography, book videos, family reunions—you see where all this is going . . . so my husband bought the hardware and software for me to make amateur videos. The first video I produced with it was for Norman W. Wilson, PhD and his book, Shamanism: What It’s All About. You can see the book video at http://www.melangepublishing.com/shamanism.php I’m currently filming the video for Much Ado About Marshals. I’m not good at video yet but it’s a lot of fun.

Q: What genre would you like to try writing in but haven’t yet done so? Why?
A: I’m on a Young Adult Fantasy kick right now. In the last few months, I’ve read the Harry Potter series (because I was the only one on the planet who hadn’t read them), the Percy Jackson series, and several other books that intrigue me, like Taggerung by Philip Jacques. I might just give YA a whirl because it seems as if there’s a lot more freedom there right now. People who have read Faery Special Romances tell me it reads like a YA, so the pacing and tone is not an issue.

Q: Facebook, MySpace, Blogs, Chats, or Twitter. Which do you like best and why?
A: On a personal level, I get along with Facebook the best. I enjoy the flexibility of both a long and short format, and connecting with high school friends as well as my readers has been a blast. We discuss everything from cowboys to yoga to cat hurk. You just never know what someone will post and it’s a lot of fun.

My professional viewpoint is that all social networks should be considered tools, and each author, and in fact each book, has its own “best” tool at any given time. Twitter seems to be a fertile ground for our non-fiction books, maybe a little less so for fiction. Many disagree with that. But no matter—in six months everyone will be on a completely different social network anyway, so I don’t worry too much about it.

I absolutely love author chats, even though I don’t participate that often. It’s just so fun to be in a chatroom with readers and authors, especially when everyone’s so enthusiastic. It’s invigorating. Blogs? I contribute to Unusual Historicals (http://unusualhistoricals.blogspot.com/) and I also read all the other contributors’ articles. It’s a gold mine for history lovers.

Tell us where to find you: website(s), publisher’s page(s), blog(s), Facebook page(s), etc. List them all!
I’m on probably 50+ sites so I’m not going to list them all—I don’t even know where they all are!
http://www.jacquierogers.com
http://www.facebook.com/jacquierogers
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jacquie-Rogers/18676302690
http://www.twitter.com/jacquierogers
http://jacquierogers.blogspot.com
http://jacquierogers.wordpress.com
Publisher: Mélange Publishing http://www.melangepublishing.com
1st Turning Point: http://1stturningpoint.com
Books (in print and ebook): Much Ado About Marshals (July, 2011)
http://www.jacquierogers.com/maam.html
Down Home Ever Lovin’ Mule Blues http://on.fb.me/jY7D0o
Faery Merry Christmas http://amzn.to/icbKO7
Faery Special Romances http://amzn.to/jRursQ

BLURB:
1885 Idaho Territory
Daisy Gardner's fondest desire is to be a lady detective just like her favorite dime-novel heroine, Honey Beaulieu, but her parents have lost patience with her flights of fancy. To avoid being married off into farmwife servitude, Daisy concocts a new scheme--to wed the town's new marshal. She would be his partner in crime solving and have a husband as dedicated to absolute honesty as she is! With just one look at the dashingly handsome marshal, she knows he's the right man for the job.

Shot in the leg while preventing his big-hearted but dim-witted best friend from robbing a bank, Cole Richards must get out of town before he and his friend become honored guests at a hangman's party. But when beautiful vivacious Daisy Gardner mistakes him for the new marshal and sets her hand to nursing him back to health, he succumbs to a new malady--her charm. He has to get away from town and Daisy. Soon. Can he escape with both his neck and heart intact?

EXCERPT:
(COLE is pursuing two dangerous bad guys, and in doing so, investigates a cave, where he finds DAISY, the woman who is just as determined to marry him as he is to remain a bachelor.)

“Stay right there, buster,” Daisy yelled, “or I’ll blow your head into Kingdom come!”

Cole froze. There was nothing more dangerous on the face of this earth than a scared woman, and while Daisy sounded more confident than he thought she ought, surely she was scared out of her wits. ,She kneeled by an old trunk holding a pair of handcuffs in her left hand, training a pistol on him with her right.

“Daisy?” he said softly. “It’s me.” He relaxed, relieved she was safe--and plumb tickled he hadn’t walked down the bore of one of the Rankin brothers.

“Marshal?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Put the lantern up to your face so I know for sure.”

He did. She lowered the pistol and smiled.

Cole hadn’t found the Rankins, but what he had found was far more dangerous.

Daisy uncocked the pistol, set the lantern down, and flew into the marshal’s arms. “I’m so glad you’re here!” He hugged her back, a possessive hug that thrilled her to her toes.

“I’m so glad I found you,” he murmured in her ear. “I was--er, we were real worried about you.” He pulled her even tighter into his arms.

Memories of what he’d done the previous night sent warm tingles from her breasts to her thighs. Her body ached for more--she wanted more. “You found me,” she whispered, and raised her face, licking her lips.

He stared at her mouth, his eyes dark with the same wanting that churned inside her, she was sure. She couldn’t have been more sure. She wrapped her arms around him and rubbed his back. The cave was hard and cool--the marshal was hard and hot.

“Daisy, I can’t . . . We shouldn’t . . .” He lowered his lips to hers in a tender kiss, then deepened it until he’d tasted her completely.

She flicked her tongue on his, urging him on, her breasts tight against his chest, her pelvis moving against his groin. She wanted more than he gave her the night before. She wanted everything he had to give her, now and forever. She sought--demanded--his warmth, tugging his shirttail from his britches, plunging her hands under his shirt to feel the smooth, warm skin on his back.

He gave a low groan. “Oh, God, woman. This isn’t what you want.” He pulled back, but she didn’t let him go.

She wouldn’t let him go! She’d had a taste of the wonders that happen between a man and a woman, and it had only made her hungry for more.Only with the marshal, though. Only him. She pressed her lips against his neck and ran her tongue to his earlobe. He shuddered, the movement urging her to do more.

Unbuttoning the top button of his shirt, she kissed the little indentation below his Adam’s apple, then unbuttoned the other buttons and peeled the shirt off him. He fell to his knees and pressed his face in her bosom. Tingles shot through her body with such ferocity, she thought she might faint with pleasure. She plunged her fingers through his hair and held him at her breast.

This night, she, Daisy Gardner, would discover all the wonders of being a woman.

Released from Mélange Publishing in July, 2011. Trade paperback in August.

Anything else you’d like to add?
Ann Charles (http://www.anncharles.com/) and I have a couple of new non-fiction releases. One is the first installment of our Nail It! The Secret to Building an Effective Fiction Writer’s Platform: Level I: Laying the Foundation series. The other is Growing Your Audience— For Published, Unpublished & Under-published Authors (http://www.jacquierogers.com/nonfic.html for a better look) These are available both in ebook and in print. We are co-founders of 1st Turning Point (http://1stturningpoint.com/ and we invite authors, artists, and musicians to take a look at our Treasure in the Hold (table of contents) for over 600 free articles on marketing and promotion.

Thank you for inviting me to be on RBRU today, Marianne. I love the variety of content here and I’m happy to be part of it.