By: Jill Cooper
Release Date: October 10, 2012
Series: The Dream Slayer Series
Description:
The only thing worse than dying, is running away…
Since becoming employed by a supernatural protection agency, Natalie Johnson’s life has been more interesting than ever. While most teens are working on their summer tans, Natalie works on slaughtering the undead lurking just outside her town’s borders.
The workload takes more than just a toll on her love life, it dampens her spirit and her health, as the town is plagued by a mysterious murderer intent on stealing the residents’ souls. Natalie’s investigation is hampered by her declining health and the sicker she gets, the more inadequate she feels.
Guilt over her inability to act, weighs heavily on Natalie’s shoulders during a time when her strength is needed more than ever. As some of those closest to her begin to lose faith, she must make the hardest stand yet to save the soul of the one person she can always count on:
The Slayer.
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Interview:
What inspired you to create this series?
Good question and one I love answering.
I was in Vermont, so that was inspiration number 1, on vacation and happened to catch a Buffy rerun on TV late at night. Buffy was always marketed as a normal girl with extraordinary power. But she’s not REALLY normal. She’s beautiful, popular, has it all.
I wanted to write a story about an empowering heroine who is the exact opposite of Buffy. She’s not pretty, kinda plain, not popular, and her home life is a mess. I wondered what power would do to that sort of girl, and how it would affect her.
Then I wondered what she would do with her time and realized, she’d be lonely. She’d want friends. And over the course of time, kind of invented them in her dreams.
Are the characters based on people you know?
Some traits come from people I have met, or seen, but not one character is taken completely out of reality.
The one closest to me would be Natalie in the real world. While I would wish to be more like Natalie in the dream world. Which is pretty much why I wrote the book!
Charles Buckle comes from a lot of points of inspiration. My love for British things, Dr. Who, Giles from Buffy.
Out of all the different Genre's you like to blend which one is your favorite and why?
That’s a hard question because I love them all so much. I guess comedy, whether it’s just witty dialogue, or a funny awkward situation.
I like it because you can take a very heavy situation like domestic abuse, or being ill in the hospital in Natalie’s case, and find a way to laugh through what is a horrible thing.
The Dream Slayer series is a paranormal series and it has some heavy themes, but it is still entertainment, so I wanted to make sure that there was still stuff to enjoy, laugh at.
Plus when you have people laughing through the narrative and dialogue, they let down their defenses, and that’s when something HORRIBLE can happen and catch readers off guard.
What was the hardest part about writing a second book?
The hardest part for me was making sure that I got Natalie’s journey right. I knew where she was in the first one, kind of mousey and afraid of her shadow.
Book 2 is different because she’s kind of in the middle. She isn’t completely confident, but she’s no longer afraid.
So I decided I would focus on her acceptance of her life. Then the book became so much more real, and intimate for me.
Does she accept it? Does she want this power and responsibility? Focus on her remorse on what she had done in the previous book to cause so much heartbreak and death. Even though she couldn’t control her dreams, she feels responsible.
And she had to conquer that guilt if she was going to move forward to where I was going to need her to get for Book 3 in the series.
Do you have any advice for other writers?
Just keep at it! Don’t get frustrated with the process, or anything along the way. Keep writing, every day. Seek our advice and let other writer’s read your work. Always be ready to start the next project once your current one is done. It’s how we grow and how you get better. And you WILL get better. Each book, you learn something and can just keep pushing forward.
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About the Author
She loves soft cuddly cats, warm blankets, and paranormal romances.
Jill resides in Massachusetts, is constantly renovating her home that she shares with her husband, young daughter, and two skittish cats.
Book Links:
http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Royale-Slayer-Series-ebook/dp/B009NIE3J4 http://www.amazon.com/The-Dream-Slayer-Paranormal-ebook/dp/B007ZRYPV6
Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15753987-demon-royale
Author Links:
www.jillacooper.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jill-Cooper/319251368110396 http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2997619.Jill_Cooper
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