An Interview with Cindy Spencer Pape

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1. How did you celebrate publishing your first book? I honestly don’t remember. I think my husband took me out to dinner.
2. Your novel is being made into a TV series/movie. Who’s in your dream cast? (Rember, this is just a fantasy!) Kris Holden-Reid (from Lost Girl) as Seb and Joanne Froggat (Downton Abbey) as Minnie.
3. How much of yourself is hidden in the characters in the book? I think every heroine has a tiny part of me. Maybe it’s my hatred of coffee. Maybe she’s ticklish like me. Maybe she has brown eyes. I find it easier to write if there’s something for me to grab onto. However, None of my characters are totally me. That wouldn’t be any fun to write at all.
4. Do you eat comfort food/listen to music when writing? I have to have noise. Usually it’s music, sometimes even television. If I’m totally isolated from stimulus I can’t write at all. Usually, the faster the music, the faster I type.
5. Covers. Ever get one you wish you could change? Oh, absolutely. You just have to smile and hope the marketing folks know what they’re doing.
6. Give one advice tip to an aspiring author. Just don’t quit. Write, revise, submit. Rinse, repeat. You’ve got to keep at it. It’s a tough business but if you quit, you’re guaranteed not to make it.
7. If you could give a younger version of yourself advice, what would it be? I truly wish I’d started writing a LOT earlier in life. Also, maybe to major in what would bring me long-term happiness, not something I thought would be cool IF everything worked out.
8. What genre would you like to try writing that you haven’t yet tried? Mystery, maybe.
9. Have you ever used an incident from your real life into one of your books? Sure. Usually well-disguised. Generally it will be something small and humorous, like getting peed on one of the first times I ever tried to change a baby boy’s diaper. (It’s in The Cowboy’s Christmas Bride.)
10. How many stories are swirling around in your head? Do you keep a mental list, a computer file, or a spiral notebook filled with the ideas? Zillions, some big, some small, and some that are totally ridiculous. I keep all kinds of notes—paper, files, notebooks, you name it!
11. What is your favorite holiday and why? I’m a total 5 year old when it comes to Christmas. I LOVE spending time decorating, thinking of the perfect gift, then seeing faces as they’re opened. I also love unwrapping presents. It can have cost a dollar, but if I know thought went into it, I don’t care. I love knowing my family is thinking of me.
12. What are two things people might be surprised to know about you? 1) I’ve been a history buff all my life. As a little kid, I used to beg my parents to stop at every little museum we passed when we traveled. I still love to do that. 2) Though I live in the middle of the country, I love the ocean. Someday…
13. As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? Either a Muppeteer (too short) or an assistant to Jacques Cousteau. (he didn’t allow females on his crew.)
14. Favorite food. Salty, buttery, real movie theatre popcorn.
15. Favorite happy memory. Falling in love, I suppose. That mental realization that OMG, this is IT!
16. Favorite drink. Diet Coke with Lime.
17. Hot summer days or chilly winter nights? I like a little variety—but not too hot or too cold, please!
18. What is the top thing on your bucket list? Travel. I want to see it all. Everything. I think the person who dies having had made the most of their life wins.
19. If you could have a super power, what would it be? Definitely healing. It would make life so much easier!

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Ashes & Alchemy

Carina Press, Audible, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and All Romance e-Books.

London, 1860

Police inspector Sebastian Brown served Queen and country in India before returning to England to investigate supernatural crimes alongside the Order of the Round Table. If his wifeless, childless life feels a little empty sometimes, that's not too great a price to pay in the name of duty.

Minerva Shaw is desperately seeking a doctor when she mistakenly lands on Sebastian's doorstep. Her daughter Ivy has fallen gravely ill with a mysterious illness—the same illness, it seems, that's responsible for taking the lives of many of Ivy's classmates.

Seb sniffs a case, and taking in Minnie and Ivy seems the only way to protect them while he solves it. But as mother and daughter work their way into his heart and Seb uses every magickal and technological resource he can muster to uncover the source of the deadly plague, it's he who will need protecting—from emotions he'd thought buried long ago.

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Cindy Spencer Pape firmly believes in happily-ever-after and brings that to her writing. Award-winning author of 18 novels and more than 30 shorter works, Cindy lives in southeast Michigan with her husband, two sons and a houseful of pets. When not hard at work writing she can be found dressing up for steampunk parties and Renaissance fairs, or with her nose buried in a book.

Website: http://www.cindyspencerpape.com

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Twitter: http://twitter.com/CindySPape

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