Today we would like to welcome to Book Lovers Inc. the wonderful Felicity Heaton who has penned countless paranormal and sci-fi romances! She is here to celebrate the release of her latest novel Her Guardian Angel, and I took advantage of the occasion and asked her a bunch of question. Please give a warm welcome to Felicity Heaton and read on to discover more about her writing and her many series!

 

Felicity: Sure. I’m a romance writer focusing on the paranormal romance and science fiction romance genres. I’ve been writing since 2005 and have been an independent author since 2006. I’ve written over forty stories and around thirty of those are still available. At the moment, I’m focused on paranormal romances and my existing series in that genre, as well as new ones. I write primarily as Felicity Heaton, and my best selling Her Angel series falls under than name, but I also write my ongoing Vampires Realm series as F E Heaton. In March 2011 I became a full-time writer and my career as a web developer has taken a backseat while I pursue my dream.

 

Felicity: I’m very definitely a planner. I outline everything and sometimes those outlines can run to around twenty or thirty thousand words depending on how long I’ve been thinking about the book. I write out scenes as they come to me, or ideas for the characters and plot, and then sit down and merge everything into a detailed outline that is broken into rough chapters. That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for manoeuvre or that I don’t go off the rails sometimes. Whenever I feel the story is changing, I stop and think and re-plot the story, and then start off again.

 

My average day at the moment involves an equal split between writing and everything else associated with writing. An author’s work isn’t just writing books, but marketing and promoting them too, and increasing their reach by bringing in new readers. I’m often either editing or writing a book, so I do spend half of my day or sometimes more doing that, which to me is the best part of the day. I’m a reluctant promoter as I’m actually quite shy, but I make a conscious effort to get out there and let the world know about my books. I tend to hit my office at 9am to check emails and do some social networking, and then start writing around 10am at the latest. I do that for a few hours and then go and take care of everything else that needs to be handled like emails, sending out prizes to giveaway winners, writing blog posts, networking, creating e-book format files, designing a new cover or advertising etc. It’s a little too common for me to work from 9am to 7pm daily, seven days a week. I’m trying to bring that under control now as I’ve realised that although it’s great for promotion, it’s really not great for my health and not even that great for my writing.

 

 

Stella: What do you think is the difference between a reader and a real Book Lover?

 

Felicity: I think a book lover is one of those special types of reader who once they pick up a book, they can’t put it down, and who really enjoy devouring a good novel or three each week. I think they share an obsessive gene with writers. We can’t stop writing because we would feel lousy and not at all like ourselves if we did that for any period of time, and they can’t stop reading for the same reason. I’m a secret book lover. I would happily spend every day with my nose in a great book but my muse doesn’t allow it, and I don’t think my readers would either! I’m lucky if I get to read at all outside of times when I’m on holiday and on a flight somewhere or sitting bored in an airport.

 

 

 

Felicity: I started out in romance and for me it felt as natural as breathing. When I was growing up, I devoured a lot of classic romances novels by the likes of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell and other fantastic authors of their time. I also read a lot of fantasy novels, and plenty of horror stories. When I was very young, I loved reading children’s books involving vampires, werewolves, witches and creatures like Frankenstein’s monster, and that developed into a love of writers like Edgar Allen Poe and H P Lovecraft and Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley. I also loved science fiction movies and was fascinated by other worlds and space. I think classic romances, paranormal literature, and science fiction just sort of merged for me. When I started writing, it wasn’t paranormal romances. I started with historical and contemporary, and then finally found my way to paranormal romance and then took a greater leap to write some science fiction romances. Once I had found those two genres, plus fantasy romance, I knew I had come home. It felt so right and I can’t imagine writing any other genre now.

 

 

 

Felicity: I am very prolific. Outlining everything and having scenes prepared for writing leads to a faster first draft for me. I can rattle through it and I know what comes out the other end is often in good shape. Of course, like any other writer, I have to revise the story to get the best out of it, but I do write a mean first draft. It’s all in the preparation. I can also type very quickly and with high accuracy, although often not fast enough to keep up with my mind as it plays out the movie that is my book. I’m happiest when I’m writing though, and once I’m done with one book, I generally leap straight into the next. I just have so many stories that I want to tell, and whenever I finish one, another one or two come along. My work is never done. I tend to go through a system of alternating between two or three books at various stages. The process for all is the same: planning and then writing the first draft, letting it sit while I work on another story, second draft, letting it sit, polish edit, letting it sit, proof. Sometimes a book needs more revisions so will have an extra draft in there.

 

 

 

Felicity: At the moment, I’m quite hooked on angels. Since writing Her Dark Angel last year, I haven’t stopped thinking about them, and the stories are getting bigger and darker too. I like to write dark paranormal romances, and I find that with my Her Angel series I’m playing with a whole different world to my vampire series. There’s a stronger connection between readers and this world because it’s something most readers are familiar with—angels, Heaven, Hell, all the biblical stuff. Vampires are still my first love, but with them you have to build a world from scratch and you don’t tend to get involved in something as monumental as Heaven and Hell, God and the Devil. With my angel romances, the stakes are higher, humans are more involved, and the powers held by both sides are unfathomable. It’s very high-stakes action and romance.

 

 

Stella: What can we expect of Her Guardian Angel?

 

Felicity: Her Guardian Angel is the fourth book in the Her Angel series, and it is the first novel, and it’s a real turning point for the series. Up to this point, we’ve met angels of various divisions and a mixture of witch, mortal and half-demon heroines… and everything has been very firmly set in the mortal realm, with side trips to Hell, or a brief mention of Heaven. We haven’t really seen what Heaven is like, or any of the inhabitants of Hell other than the Devil himself, and even then we’ve only heard his voice. Her Guardian Angel changes all that, and also establishes a version of Heaven that isn’t perfect and that there is no such thing as black and white in this world, or definitive right and wrong, good and evil, etc. Heaven can be just as deceitful as Hell in their pursuit of something, and when that something is so integral to the story as it is in Her Guardian Angel, then it becomes a wild rollercoaster ride of a book that is full of passion, betrayal, redemption and a love that will shake Heaven and Hell.

 

 

 

Felicity: It means that I have to handle everything, all of the things that an author usually deals with plus everything normally handled by a publisher. I not only have to dream up plots and characters and write my books, I have to get them edited and critiqued, and then I have to polish them to within an inch of their life. Once that is done, I have to think about marketing strategies, about securing promotion and advertising, writing blog tour posts and hosting giveaways. I have to create covers for the books and the advertising graphics for the promotion I’ve put into place. I have to create all the different book formats for the e-books, and turn the book into a paperback if it’s a novel. It’s basically the whole process, from concept to final product, and then marketing that product to my audience and as many people as I can. It’s a lot of work, especially considering that I do all my own covers and graphics, and my own website and promotion materials like email newsletters etc. It’s something I love doing though, and since I’m quite technical I’m perfectly capable of handling having to create several different formats for e-books and creating files to submit to sites like Amazon for the Kindle Store.

 

 

Felicity: Like I said, I loved paranormal stories and horror stories since I was very young, probably no older than six or seven. I often declared other stories were boring in my old book reports. If it had vampires and other creatures of the night in it, I adored it. That love of paranormal literature became a love of horror stories as I grew older, and TV or films that had paranormal elements. It’s something so deeply ingrained in me that it’s now impossible for me to figure out why I love it so much. It’s definitely about the vampires. There’s something alluring about them. They’re powerful, beautiful, dangerous and deadly, and so mysterious. I think I could forsake writing any other creature, including humans, if I had to choose one and stick with it. It would be all about the vampires.

 

 

 

Felicity: I’m no good at this sort of thing, but here goes: Angels walk amongst us, beautiful passionate men torn between duty to Heaven and an intense desire and need for the woman taming their heart.

 

 

 

Felicity: Each book is passionate, overflowing with desire and need so intense that it will scorch your heart. Each hero is hot as Hell on a summer’s day with a deep hunger for the heroine and a dark need to protect her from anything, no matter the cost. Each heroine knows how to handle herself and her angel, able to tame the powerful otherworldly man and bring him to his knees, and helping him defeat any enemy that might stand between them and their happiness.

 

 

 

Felicity: Well, I have one more novel planned and then we have to see after that. Originally, I was going to write the three novellas (Her Dark Angel, Her Fallen Angel, Her Warrior Angel) and then the novel (Her Guardian Angel) but when I had reached the mid-way point in the novel I knew I had to write a book for one of the characters in it, so now I’m working on Her Demonic Angel. Whether there’ll be another hero that pops up in that one and screams for his own story, we’ll have to wait and see.

 

 

Stella: What shall we expect from you, what is next on your schedule?

 

Felicity: I’ve just finished the second draft of Heart of Darkness, which is a stand alone vampire romance novel, and now I’m planning Masquerade, which is the tenth Vampires Realm story. Once I’m done planning it, I’ll write it and then I’ll be back to revising Heart of Darkness. Heart of Darkness is due out on October 22nd. I don’t have any release dates set after that one. Masquerade will likely come out in January 2012.

 

 

 

Felicity: I love TV shows that are set around a fantasy / paranormal / science fiction theme. Same goes for movies. I used to really enjoy watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, although I didn’t follow it over to Angel as I didn’t like him. He was a wimp. I don’t like wimpy vampires. I also really liked watching Star Trek series and Stargate, and I like Heroes. I’m big on watching anime and have a lot of supernatural series that I adore and I love mecha (huge robots that people pilot, often with a futuristic setting and involving space). I watch them all subtitled with the original Japanese voices as it’s good Japanese practice for me.

 

 

 

Felicity: Live forever. I think it’s part of the appeal of vampires. Immortality. Not having to fear death and growing old and that sort of thing. Of course, I’d like to be able to give that gift to others too, like my husband, so we can live forever together.

 

 

Stella: Can you share with us some little secret trivia, something that not many people know about you?

 

Felicity: It’s growing more and more difficult to think of secret things. Lol. I really like J-rock and theme tunes from anime. I have a vast collection of Japanese music. In fact, I’m listening to music from Macross Frontier, an anime mecha series, right now. I don’t think I’ve revealed that side of myself to many people.

 

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Felicity has generously offered an ebook copy of Her Fallen Angel and some signed book cover postcards and bookmarks to a lucky commenter!

All you have to do is leave a question/comment to Felicity, or tell us what is your favourite paranormal creature.
(You can read our full giveaway policy here)

Please leave us a way to contact you.
(Email in blogger profile or twitter name – no way to contact you – no entry).

Giveaway is open worldwide!

Giveaway ends on Saturday 10 September 2011 and we will announce the winner on Sunday.

Good luck!