Tena StetlerAuthor of Paranormal Romance/Suspense & Cozy Mysteries With Magic Spark!

This is a tough question for me because I fall in love with all of my characters. How can you not when you spend so much time with them? HOWEVER… if I must name an all time favorite it would be Sir Cailen Braithnoch, the ghostly Scottish Knight from Spirit of the Knight. He is brave, strong, loyal, captivating and quite charming. When this man wants something, he doesn’t let anything or anyone stand in the way of him getting it, regardless of the impossibility of the task. He will find a way!

Still, I feel I must also tell you that the character of Wolf Dircksen Van Ness, our hero in the Heart of the Storm, is a mere heartbeat behind Sir Cailen when it comes to my favorite characters. In fact, the only reason Sir Cailen wins the contest is because he speaks with that incredible Scottish brogue of his that just melts me all the way down to my toes (which, by the way, Dawson McBride captures perfectly in the audio version of this book).

Why do you write what you write?  e. Contemporary, paranormal,  suspense, etc.

I love stories where love conquers all despite overwhelming odds and obstacles. In the paranormal setting, especially when it comes to the love between a ghost or immortal and someone who is very human, I can write a story where an impossible love becomes quite possible after all. What can be more satisfying than that?

If writing is your first passion, what is your second?

My second greatest passion is genealogy and family history. I love digging into the past and uncovering my family roots. I even have some DNA test results to prove that. Many of my lines can be traced back well over five centuries. As I come to know some of my ancestors, their stories of hardships, sorrows as well as those things that gave them their greatest joy, they often find their way, in one form or another, into my books. One such ancestor is a great-great grand uncle who died at the battle of Chickamauga during America’s Civil War at the age of nineteen. He shows up as a ghostly soldier in Spirit of the Rebellion.

You’ve got a time machine, a cloak of invisibility, and one hour. Where would you go, and what eavesdropping would you do?

Being the history buff that I am, this too is a most difficult question because there are countless places I’d like to go, people I’d like to meet and historical moments I’d like to witness. However, since we are talking romance today, I think I would choose to get in that time machine with my invisibility cloak wrapped tightly around my shoulders and head off to India, early 17^th century. I’d like to witness the very moment Shah Jahan first gazed at and became smitten with Arjumand Banu, who later became known as Mumtaz Mahal or “the chosen one.” Though their conversation was probably brief that day, it was significant enough that Shah Jahan never forgot Arjumand. In fact, he waited five years before he could take her as his bride. The deep love they had for each other was legendary and when she died after giving birth to their 14^th child, he was inconsolable. His grief and despair compelled him to build one of the famous “Seven New Wonders of the World” in her honor. We know this monument as the Taj Mahal.