New interview with contemporary romance author Liza O'Connor

I have a return guest today, author Liza O’Connor, to tell us a bit about her new novel, a contemporary romance titled Ghost Lover. 

You can read her first interview, about her YA novel Saving Casey, here.

Liza will be awarding a digital copy of "Worst Week Ever" to a randomly drawn commenter at every stop, and a grand prize of one $50 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn commenter during this tour and her review-only Virtual Book Tour. To enter, use the form below. And if you’d like to increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit other tour stops and enter there, too.

Welcome back, Liza. What would you like readers to know about you?

I’m tired of my Liza behaves bio. I’m an adventurous nut with a bizarre sense of humor that a surprisingly large quantity of people actually gets. The others don’t think I’m funny at all. That hurts my feelings by the way. No matter, it does not stop my muse from writing more silliness. In fact, it only encourages her to be sillier.

Please tell us about your newest release, Ghost Lover.

Two sexy English brothers. One irresistible ghost. Who would you choose as your lover? (I know, that’s not telling, that’s asking. Okay, here’s telling:

Completely broke and with a criminal record to boot, Senna Smith is one day from eviction from her apartment when Brendon, her promiscuous roommate from London, suggests she go to England, marry him, and manage his fortune. With few other options, she agrees to an open marriage. But she’ll never, ever, have sex with him, knowing if she falls in love with him, he’ll break her heart.

As trustee of Brendon’s family fortune, there is no way Brendon’s older brother, Garrison Durran, is going to let his brother marry a self-professed American gold-digger. As Senna tries to embrace castle life and English society for Brendon’s sake, Gar discovers Senna is the perfect woman for him--beautiful and intelligent, kind and caring. Now, if she wasn’t already engaged to his brother…

The ancestral ghost of Durran Castle has to intervene if the Durran brothers have any chance of an heir. He can’t leave them to fix matters on their own. They are useless buggers when it comes to love. As counselor to Gar, matchmaker for Brendon, and lover to Senna, a ghost’s work is never done.

CONTENT WARNING: Allergy warning: Ghost cat in book.  

What inspired you to write this book?

I had a dream where a ghost made love to me. I sort of fell in love with him.

Excerpt:

Brendon moved to the window and stared out. “I don’t think you realized how bad things became for me when Nan died. I’d lost the only person who cared for me. I had no one left. The million dollars I lost on a roulette wheel wasn’t done just to get rid of the cook. I did it to get your attention. While you didn’t give a shit about me, you’ve always loved money. And it worked. You finally noticed me.”

“And sent you away,” Gar said with remorse.

“Yeah.” Brendon turned and gave him a faint smile. “Not exactly the response I’d hoped for, but it turned out all right. I met Senna and since then life keeps getting easier with each day. Now I find I even like you most of the time.”

“Well, the feeling is mutual. You’re still eccentric, but you’ve a good heart and good intent, and I’m proud you’re my brother.”

Suddenly the door opened and Senna walked in looking at both men with concern. “Are you two having a fight?”

“Not at all.” Brendon smiled. “In fact, Gar told me he’s proud I’m his brother.”

Senna’s eyes filled with appreciation as she grinned at Gar.

Her smile almost broke Gar’s heart. God help him, but Brendon had nailed the truth. He did love Senna, and more than anything, he wanted her to be his wife.

What’s the next writing project?

The next book to be published is the last of the A Long Road to Love series, in which things get serious and Carrie finds her true love. Coming in Feb 2014. Then comes a delightfully funny Late Victorian Mystery series. It’s rather a comic version of Sherlock Holmes meets Victor/Victoria.

But if you really meant ‘writing’ and not ‘publishing’ then the next book I’ll write will occur in Iowa where one of the characters will be a blind man who acts upon the law they recently passed allowing blind people to carry and discharge firearms in public. I’m going to have so much fun with that real law. Thank you Iowa!

What is your biggest challenge when writing a new book? (or the biggest challenge with this book)

Names are my biggest challenge. If I had my way all heroes would be named Xavier and all women would be named Senna. But alas, that would confused the dickens out of my readers. So I have a First published rule. Whichever book is first published gets dibs on the names and all the other books waiting to be published have to give them up.

I also have a problem with not keeping track of minor character’s names. Once I named three characters in the book Davy. Fortunately, I noticed before I sent the book off for submission.

If your novels require research – please talk about the process. Do you do the research first and then write, while you’re writing, after the novel is complete and you need to fill in the gaps?

I do research on the spot. My characters are happily going along when I question something. Sometimes a google will resolve the issue, but sometimes I have to send questions to lawyers and doctors. (I’ve used 5 different lawyers in one book—my characters get into a great deal of legal trouble.) Then during editing, sometimes an editor will question something that I hadn’t and I’ll research further. In one case, I was right, but the editor insisted I change it anyway because it sounded wrong to her. I removed the whole topic instead. I didn’t like the idea of knowingly stating something wrong.

However, my biggest problem lies with legal issues. Different states have different laws, thus I need lawyers for the state in which the situation takes place, which means I need to start searching for a lawyer in Iowa now.

What’s your writing space like? Do you have a particular spot to write where the muse is more active? Please tell us about it.

I have a home office, but the chair hurts my butt, so I moved to the living room where I sit in a giant recliner with my feet up and type on a laptop all day. There’s a huge TV screen on the wall I face, but it’s on only when I’m eating lunch or when I’m thanking Tweeters late at night. Which means I watch mostly recorded shows.

What authors do you enjoy reading within or outside of your genre?

For Contemporaries, Kary Rader’s A Taylor Made Life is one of the best love stories you’ll ever read. (Buy an economy size of tissues, because you’ll cry your eyes out.)

My favorite Werewolf/Shifters novels are Rebecca Royce’s.

My fav vampire novels go to Annie Nicholas’ Angler series, starting with Bait.

For Regencies, it’s Ella Quinn’s Marriage Mart series.

Westerns go to D’Ann Lindun.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers today?

Just that the book I’ll be giving away today, Worst Week Ever, is my best seller and the funniest book I’ve ever written. It is the first book of three book series, so you may feel compelled to read to the end. Book 2 is available, and Book 3 will release in mid February.

Thank you for coming back to Reviews and Interviews!

And thank you for having me.

Liza's Blog and Website | Facebook | Twitter

Buy links:

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Interview with YA suspense author Liza O'Connor

Liza O’Connor is here to tell us a bit about her new YA suspense novel Saving Casey.

Liza will award a $25 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour. A random commenter at this blog stop will receive tattoos like Casey’s on a jpg picture supplied by winner. For more chances to win other gifts (different gifts offered at different stops), visit Liza's other tour stops and leave comments.

Bio:

Liza lives in Denville, NJ with her dog, Jess. They hike in fabulous woods every day, rain or shine, sleet, or snow. Having an adventurous nature, she learned to fly small Cessnas in NJ, hang-glide in New Zealand, kayak in Pennsylvania, ski in New York, scuba dive with great white sharks in Australia, dig up dinosaur bones in Montana, sky dive in Indiana, and raft a class four river in Tasmania. She’s an avid gardener, amateur photographer, and dabbler in watercolors and graphic arts. Yet through her entire life, her first love has and always will be writing novels. She loves to create interesting characters, set them loose, and scribe what happens.

Welcome, Liza. Please tell us about your current release.

Having been diagnosed with cancer, Cass Goldman decides to opt out of any futile medical care and end her life. While she has some thoughts on afterlife, she never expects to reincarnate into the body of a seventeen-year-old girl named Casey Davidson.

When she awakens in a hospital, Cass discovers two disturbing facts: One, she is now inside the body of a troubled teenager, and two, the former owner of this body committed suicide, but only Cass knows that. Everyone else believes Casey has survived, but suffered a complete memory loss. Cass has two choices: to take on Casey’s life and turn it around, or to confess the truth about her reincarnation and end up in a mental asylum. Given this second chance to life, Cass decides to take on the future life of Casey—the frightening ghoul-faced teen with short, black, spiky hair.

Every person around Cass has an ulterior motive and discovering the truth of Old Casey’s life is more complicated than the “new math” she is forced to learn in school. In addition, Cass has to contend with raging teenage hormones and the prior crimes of Old Casey, which she might not remember, but everyone else certainly does. However, her biggest frustration concerns her feelings for her father’s rugged security specialist who sees her only as a teenager and doesn’t want to explore the mutual attraction between them.

As determined as Cass is to turn this life around, Old Casey’s enemies are just as determined to end her life. She has no idea whom she can trust, but she knows she’ll never survive going it alone.

What inspired you to write this book?

When watching my friends teens struggle, I wondered if they were simply deaf to parental advice or our life experiences can’t help them with their problems. So I took an 80-year-old woman, full of life experience, and dumped her in the body of troubled seventeen-year-old teen to see if life experience helps. Turns out she struggles as much as the prior teen.

Excerpt:

Upon settling down on the toilet, Cass noticed the floor to ceiling mirror facing her and screamed at the sight of the creature within it. Short black hair spouted about its head, black circles surrounded both eyes and fell like triangular knives down the cheeks. Black lips, stretched in horror as if in a nightmare. Pulling up her pants, she moved closer to the mirror.

She was a ghoul, an honest to God ghoul!

The door crashed open and her father stared at her, fear and panic clear in his eyes.

She touched her face. “Please tell me these aren’t permanent.”

His panic remained a second longer as her words filtered into his brain and then he pulled her into his arms. “Don’t worry, we will get them removed—if you want to…”

“If? Oh, I definitely want them removed,” she said.

How can I turn around my life if I look like the walking dead from a low-grade monster movie?

What exciting story are you working on next?

Actually, I’m working on three wonderful stories.

Worst Week Ever is a New Adult humorous sweet romance between a middle-class young woman and her billionaire boss. The story covers a week of non-stop disasters and misunderstandings.

The Ghostlover is a New Adult double sweet romance that begins with a tangled mess requiring a lascivious ancestral ghost to intervene before the family line ends forever.

And

Déjà Vu Déjà Adore. A paranormal romance in which only in death can love blossom.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

Long before I should have. However, thinking I was a writer, meant I kept honing my profession, and eventually reality met up with my early delusions.

Do you write full-time?

For the last eight years, I have been writing full-time. Since I became published in 2012, my days are scheduled by the hour to ensure I get everything done. In the morning, I hike with my dog Jess. The rest of my day is split between Email, Marketing, Blogging, Promoting and Writing. In the afternoon my dog and I take an hour walk. Then I’ll work on various publishing/writing objectives until midnight.

Since as writers, we sit an excessive amount of the day, it is vital to get daily exercise. So make sure that gets in your schedule.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

My stories are unpredictable. Truth is, sometimes, I don’t even know where they are going. My muse is mysterious and creative.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I think like most children, I was all over the place with careers. I remember wishing to be an actress, a musician, a singer, a lawyer, and a veterinarian. So when I grew up, I ended up working on Wall Street for the meanest man in the entire world.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

Never take a job with anyone commonly referred to as the meanest man in the world. Life is too short to be daily tortured. But if you do, be warned, they will throw things when you finally come to your senses and quit. So wear a helmet if you resign in person. Honestly, if I had to do it over again, I’d slip a note under the door and run like hell.

If you would like to have a tattoo imprinted on a picture of yourself, then leave a comment saying TATTOO MY FACE PLEASE and your e-mail address. I will select one lucky person to imprint tats and let you know.

And a special note: Saving Casey will be reduced from $5.99 to $2.99 for the duration of the tour (March 5th-April 11th) at Amazon, B&N, DP/Bono, ARe, Coffee Time Romance, BookStrand, and Smashwords.

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