Thursday, May 16, 2013

(Interview) with author Ashley Lavering

Welcome to another awesome author interview. Today we have Ashley Lavering with us. 




Bio

A nomad at heart, Ashley currently claim Nevada as her home. She has a wonderful husband and two young children that put up with her “writing time.” When she’s not pondering a spell that will magically calm the ferocious winds that plague the air around her, you can find her, with notepad in hand, frantically jotting down ideas in those short moments between caring for her girls and working full time at the Elko Institute for Academic Achievement.

Art and science have always been her yin and yang. Throughout her college career, she shifted between the two, but in the end graduated with a Bachelors of Mathematics and Science from the University of Wyoming.

Charging into adventures and discovering something new has always been a passion of hers, but as a teenager she used to run screaming from a reading or writing assignment. Looking back, the irony isn’t lost on her. Now you can’t catch her without a book in hand or an open word document. Every time a new idea pops into her mind her heart races and her hand twitches to write it. In that moment, she has her writer's high and prays it will sustain her through thousands of hours of revision.

Curse of the Beast Blurb:

Seventeen-year-old Tayla Jonas longs for a simple life, but after a traumatizing family loss, she is forced to be both mother and sister to her cousins while caring for her mentally unstable aunt. Moving to her grandma’s quiet town of Cody, Wyoming, Tayla finds some normalcy with her quirky green activist friend, Chel, who spends no time converting her to vegetarianism.

A few weeks into her new school, Tayla catches the eye of Kyle Harrington—the high school quarterback and resident millionaire—who can seduce any girl with his charismatic charm, including Tayla. But Kyle is anything but what he seems.

Walking through City Park, Tayla is unaware that an ancient curse has her in its crosshairs. The silver moonlight illuminates the path to her van, sprinkling shadows like evil twinkling eyes. Tayla’s skin prickles, and she turns. Something—or someone—is watching her.

A powerful werewolf steps from the shadows. An iridescent blue cord shoots from him and slams into her stomach, dissolving instantly. Pain wracks her body, and she tries to scramble to safety, but his silver eyes freeze her in place as the curse binds them together. The cord settles deep inside her body, coiling with dread around her heart.

Dismayed by the prospect of a werewolf for a shadow, Tayla fears for the safety of her friends and family. How will she keep the werewolf’s insatiable hunger in check? Her plans for a vegetarian lifestyle quickly dwindle away, and Tayla wrestles to fit her frazzled life back together—piece by piece. But what she didn’t expect was her attraction to the werewolf or the power of the full moon.

Will Tayla be strong enough to survive the Curse of the Beast? Or will it consume her like so many before? Find out in the first installment of this unique retelling of Beauty and the Beast. **2012 Whitney Award Nominee**



Star Cursed (Curse of the Beast Book 2) Blurb:

Chel finished tying me to the chair and stood. “This is crazy.”
I ignored her comment. “Go down to the basement.”
“Now, I know you’ve lost it.” She folded her arms. “How will this prove that your giant dog is the hot guy that got in your van?”
“I’ll explain later. Just trust me.”
One of her eyebrows rose.
“Please?” I waited for her to nod. “Once you’re down there, I want you to whisper something. Then come back up.”
“Whatever.” With an eye roll, she left the room.
I focused on her feet thumping against the wood stairs and heard the change when they slapped across the tiled kitchen floor. Once the basement door closed, I strained to hear her, but all I caught was a beetle scuttling across the kitchen. Nerves tangled in my gut. Had I missed it?
“If this doesn’t work, I’m calling the loony bin, Tay.” Chel’s voice rang so loud that I jerked back, toppling the chair. I hit the floor with a thud.
Beast’s airy chortle resonated from outside the window.
“Shut up. This isn’t funny,” I told him.
Chel walked through the door. “Geeze, what happened?” She hurried to me. “Are you okay?” She righted my chair with a grunt.
“That depends.”
“On?” She cocked an eyebrow at me.
“On whether or not you’re going to untie me.”
“Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry.” She scrambled to untie the knots.
My hands slipped free and I rubbed my bruised arm. “What kind of friend are you?”
“What?” She startled.
I shook my head at her. “I can’t believe you’d commit me.”
“Wait, you heard that?” Her eyes widened.
I repeated it word for word.
“Whoa, that’s, like, creepy and awesome at the same time. But I still don’t understand how this proves your dog is a werewolf.”
The dreaded moment had arrived and nerves attacked my stomach. “Because, Chel—he bit me.”

Seventeen-year-old Tayla will never forget Beast’s fiery-venom spreading through her body like an infection. Now, with her best friend Chel’s help, she must find a human true love before the last petal falls from her enchanted rose or the full moon will transform her into a wolf forever.

But Tayla never expected that her biggest obstacle would come from inside—a wolf presence threatening to take her very soul. At every turn, the she-wolf exploits Tayla’s weaknesses and gains enough control to sabotage her dates. Tayla struggles to control her unruly wolf and her forbidden attraction to Beast. But can she resist his southern charm, the she-wolf’s attraction to his alluring scent, and still fall in love with a human?

Tangled in a web of wills, Tayla must risk everything to break the Curse of the Beast. With failure and possible death looming overhead, Tayla will do anything to find true love. But will one moon cycle be long enough to conquer her wolf and remain human? Or will she become a permanent member of Beast’s pack? Find out in the second installment in the Curse of the Beast series.


Interview



Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I love to create stories because one life time isn’t enough to experience it all. Lol. So I get to do things through my characters that I personally might never do, especially magic. When I’m not in a magical world, I work as a teacher’s aide at a charter school and have two daughters and a husband that vive for my attention. I love spending time with my family and am looking forward to summer when we can do more outdoor stuff. I am a scuba diver and miss the ocean, but the high desert I live in has its beauties, too. I enjoy so many things that I dabble in just about everything to try it at least once.
How did you choose the genre you write in?
Each book finds me and tells me how old my characters are. So far they have all been teenagers. LOL. So I guess I love to write about that first love and all the changes and choice you have to make as a teen. 
Where do you get your ideas?
Where ever I am there are story ideas all around me. Things will just strike me as intriguing and it begs me to tell its story. I have a whole file of book ideas that are clamoring to be written. It is way fun when these ideas hit me. The stronger ones are the ones that get written first.
Do you work with an outline, or just write?
Not a formal outline. I think about where the story needs to goes and have bullets or points that I have to reach. Then I sit down and write it out. When I hit a “snag” I have to do more research and thinking it out.
Is anything in your book based on real life experiences or purely all imagination?
I use to live up in Cody, Wyoming. So yes, I lot of stuff came from my teenage years up there. The capture the flag scene was something I did with my friends. I even horse sat the horses that are in the story and I really hated having to get into the pigeon coup and feed them. They would slap me in the face with their wings. Not fun.

Are you a person who makes their bed in the morning, or do you not see much point?
I make my bed. I like to keep it clean. I have two kids and I never know what they are going to put on my bed. Lol







Amazon Author Page link: www.amazon.com/author/ashleylavering
Amazon Links for Ashley’s books:
Website/Blog Link: Creative Thoughts: http://www.ashleylavering.blogspot.com/
Goodreads Book link, for each book:
Star Cursed (Curse of the Beast bk 2): http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16155124-star-cursed




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