Today I am happy to bring you an author interview with Megan Tayte, the author of the Ceruleans series. If you are a fan of paranormal romances and are looking for something new to read, check out her series and the excerpt from her latest book, Devil and the Deep, which releases today! Ms. Tayte was also generous in providing a giveaway, just fill out the Rafflecopter below.
In a few words can you tell us what Death Wish, the first book in the Ceruleans series, is about?
An isolated cove. A tragic suicide. A girl alone, but for two boys who’ll do anything to save her. A summer of discovery. Of conquering fear. Of falling in love. Of choosing life. Of choosing death. Of believing the impossible.
There are so many books in the paranormal romance genre. Why should readers pick up Death Wish?
Because if they start reading Death Wish, they may find they don’t want to stop. Common themes coming through in reviews of my books are ‘read it in one sitting’, ‘couldn’t put it down’ and ‘when’s the next one out – I need more now, dammit’. I write twisting, turning books with plenty of intrigue and suspense and drama. If that’s your cup of tea, you may like The Ceruleans.
What influenced your creation of The Ceruleans? What can you tell us about them without giving too much of the book away?
The series is quite personal to me, based on a mix of experience and fiction woven from my imaginings and ponderings. The setting – in a part of coastal Devon where I spent every summer as a child – was a key inspiration. But the story, about love and loss, light and darkness, good and bad, is based on my own efforts to make sense of a world in which people close to you can die; in which being true to yourself can be incredibly difficult; and in which love – for people, for places, for a way of being, for a passion and an ethos – is the only reason to hold on.
If you could match Death Wish with another paranormal romance readalike what would it be?
Well, one reviewer compared it favourably to Twilight, so I’ll guess I’ll go with that. But the story and characters are very different, and the mood is sometimes darker and sometimes much lighter. And the writing style is more creative. And the romance is different: more grounded in realism. And the paranormal world is more unsettling than appealing to the main characters. So, er, not that much like Twilight then...
Love triangles are the bane of most readers’ existence. What is your biggest pet peeve as a reader and as a writer?
Characters that don’t feel real. Whether it’s a hero/ine, a foil, a villain or a secondary character, I want to believe in them. I don’t like perfect; I like perfectly flawed. That’s how I aim to write my characters: messily real. I don’t want to approach writing like a colouring book, shading neatly between the lines. I want to scribble madly over the picture, going right over the lines; I want to draw the picture for myself.
It began with screaming. Shrill, ear-piercing, horrified screaming.
Buy the book on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
Once upon a time a little girl told her grandmother that when she grew up she wanted to be a writer. Or a lollipop lady. Or a fairy princess fireman. ‘Write, Megan,’ her grandmother advised. So that’s what she did. Thirty-odd years later, Megan is a professional writer and published author by day, and an indie novelist by night. Her fiction – young adult romance with soul – recently earned her the SPR’s Independent Woman Author of the Year award. Megan grew up in the Royal County, a hop, skip and a (very long) jump from Windsor Castle, but these days she makes her home in Robin Hood's county, Nottinghamshire. She lives with her husband, a proud Scot who occasionally kicks back in a kilt; her son, a budding artist with the soul of a palaeontologist; and her baby daughter, a keen pan-and-spoon drummer who sings in her sleep. When she's not writing, you'll find her walking someplace green, reading by the fire, or creating carnage in the kitchen as she pursues her impossible dream: of baking something edible.
You can find Megan online at: her website, Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
In a few words can you tell us what Death Wish, the first book in the Ceruleans series, is about?An isolated cove. A tragic suicide. A girl alone, but for two boys who’ll do anything to save her. A summer of discovery. Of conquering fear. Of falling in love. Of choosing life. Of choosing death. Of believing the impossible.
There are so many books in the paranormal romance genre. Why should readers pick up Death Wish?
Because if they start reading Death Wish, they may find they don’t want to stop. Common themes coming through in reviews of my books are ‘read it in one sitting’, ‘couldn’t put it down’ and ‘when’s the next one out – I need more now, dammit’. I write twisting, turning books with plenty of intrigue and suspense and drama. If that’s your cup of tea, you may like The Ceruleans.
What influenced your creation of The Ceruleans? What can you tell us about them without giving too much of the book away?
The series is quite personal to me, based on a mix of experience and fiction woven from my imaginings and ponderings. The setting – in a part of coastal Devon where I spent every summer as a child – was a key inspiration. But the story, about love and loss, light and darkness, good and bad, is based on my own efforts to make sense of a world in which people close to you can die; in which being true to yourself can be incredibly difficult; and in which love – for people, for places, for a way of being, for a passion and an ethos – is the only reason to hold on.
If you could match Death Wish with another paranormal romance readalike what would it be?
Well, one reviewer compared it favourably to Twilight, so I’ll guess I’ll go with that. But the story and characters are very different, and the mood is sometimes darker and sometimes much lighter. And the writing style is more creative. And the romance is different: more grounded in realism. And the paranormal world is more unsettling than appealing to the main characters. So, er, not that much like Twilight then...
Love triangles are the bane of most readers’ existence. What is your biggest pet peeve as a reader and as a writer?
Characters that don’t feel real. Whether it’s a hero/ine, a foil, a villain or a secondary character, I want to believe in them. I don’t like perfect; I like perfectly flawed. That’s how I aim to write my characters: messily real. I don’t want to approach writing like a colouring book, shading neatly between the lines. I want to scribble madly over the picture, going right over the lines; I want to draw the picture for myself.
Excerpt from Devil and the Deep (Ceruleans #4)
It began with screaming. Shrill, ear-piercing, horrified screaming.
A girl shrieked, ‘Blood! Look, look – it’s everywhere!’ and pressed her hand to her mouth.
A man shouted, ‘Good grief!’ and another, ‘Great Scott!’
An old lady swooned gracefully and would have tipped over the balustrade of the riverboat had a lanky lad not caught her.
The cause of the excitement – a woman lying slumped on the long table on deck, cheek on her bread plate, headdress in the butter dish – twitched a little.
‘She’s alive!’ cried a lad beside her delightedly. ‘She moved!’
‘Did not,’ argued another.
‘Did too!’
‘Gentlemen,’ interjected a short, portly man with a twirly black moustache, ‘if you will forgive my intrusion, it must be noted that this woman has a bullet hole in her head and is logically, therefore, quite definitely deceased.’
Another old dear folded to the deck with a prolonged ‘Ohhhhhh’ and her husband grabbed a feathered fan and began wafting cool evening air in her face while calling, ‘Smelling salts – does anyone have any?’
I tried to keep a straight face. Really I did. I bit my bottom lip until I tasted my cherry-red lipstick. I pinched my leg through the cream satin of my gown. I dug my long cigarette holder into the sensitive flesh of my arm.
But it was no good.
The ‘What ho, chaps’ posh accents.
The buxom woman sagging in the arms of an elephant hunter wearing Converse All Stars.
The production of smelling salts in a bottle whose label read Pepto-Bismol.
The corners of the little round man’s moustache coming looser with his every word.
The fast-pooling puddle of pinkish blood on the bread plate, buffeted by the steady in-and-out breaths of the corpse.
Take it from a girl who’s really died – death on the River Dart, Devon, is hilarious.
‘Dear me, Ms Robson here appears to be quite overcome with shock,’ said the guy at my side suddenly, and he slipped an arm around me and turned me away. ‘Come, madam. Let us get some air.’
I smiled at him. Then grinned. Then choked back a guffaw. Thankfully, by the time full-scale hilarity hit me I’d been led to the rear of the boat, away from the rest of our party, and could bury my face in the bloke’s chest and shake mutely with laughter.
The gallant gentleman rubbed my back soothingly as I let it all out and said loudly, for the benefit of any onlookers, ‘There there, pignsey, there there.’
‘Pigsney?’ It was the final straw. My high-heeled sandals gave way and I melted into a puddle of mirth on the deck.
‘I’ll have you know, Scarlett Blake,’ hissed Luke, my boyfriend a.k.a. gallant gent, hoiking up his too-tight corduroy trousers so he could squat down beside me, ‘I Googled “old-fashioned terms of endearment” and pigsney’s a classic.’
I wiped tears from my eyes, dislodging a false eyelash in the process, and tried to catch my hiccupping breath as Luke went on.
‘Means pig’s eye. No idea why that’s appealing, but apparently in the seventeenth century, calling a lady pigsney was the very height of courting.’
Through his fake specs Luke’s blue eyes fixed me with a stare so earnest I almost managed to stop laughing.
‘But this is a Death on the Nile-Stroke-Dart murder mystery night, Luke,’ I managed to get out. ‘Set in the nineteen thirties, not the seventeen thirties.’
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘but my character tonight, Mr Fijawaddle, is a historical fiction writer, isn’t he? So as well as dressing like a brainy recluse – and I’m warning you now, I won’t hear another slur against this tweed jacket – he’d know all kinds of obscure terms. Like ginglyform and jargogle and nudiustertian and bromopnea and farctate and quagswag and philosophunculist.’
His showing off sobered me just enough to control the giggles. ‘You made those words up,’ I accused, poking a crimson talon into his mustard-yellow shirtfront.
He blinked at me innocently. ‘Did not. I told you before we left the house, I did my homework.’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘All right then, Mr Fijawaddle, what does that last word you said mean?’
‘Philosophunculist?’
‘Yes, that.’
‘Er…’ Luke gave me a sheepish grin.
‘Spill it,’ I said menacingly. As menacingly as a girl dressed up as a vintage Hollywood starlet with cute little pin curls and rouge aplenty can be, that is.
‘Philosophunculist,’ recited Luke. ‘Noun. A person who pretends to know more than they do in order to impress others.’
I threw my head back and laughed. ‘Busted!’
Luke slipped an arm around me and pulled me close. Really close.
‘Bet you like it when I use long words,’ he said huskily, eyes fixed on my too-red lips.
‘Bet you like it when I wear a clingy nightgown as a dress,’ I replied, eyes fixed on his too-kissable lips.
‘Brazen hussy,’ he growled at me.
‘Randy boffin,’ I murmured back.
Then neither of us said another word for quite some time.
About Megan Tayte
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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Thank you for taking the time to share this.
Megan x
Oh this looks good and the premise for the series sounds so intense. I'm going to have to check this one out.
I agree! You have to connect to characters and all they do has to be believable otherwise it just doesn't work no matter how well written the rest of the story is.
Great interview!
I've never heard of this book before but it sounds really interesting.the new books cover could do with some work though.