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

Sep 14th Devil in the Details by Vikki Romano

Give a warm welcome to Vikki Romano , author of  Devil in the Details!

Pull up a chair, grab a drink of your choice from the cooler, a Chocolate Chip or Peanut Butter cookie from the plate, and let’s find out a little about Vikki and her Devil in the Details!

Vikkie ready to answer some questions?

Sure am!

1. What defines you as an author? As a person? Are they one in the same? I don’t think I’ve ever considered myself defined.  I change and learn daily and it’s hard to nail me down on most days.  As an author, I strive to express myself as often as possible and allow my stories to reveal bits of myself and my psyche, but I think that’s a commonality for most writers.  You can’t write and expect to reveal nothing of yourself.  Writing is cathartic and therapeutic for me in so many ways.  Keeps me sane and grounded.
2. What inspired this particular story?  I was asked to participate in Desiree Holt’s Kindle World last year and had reservations.  I write sci fi thrillers and this was a departure from that comfort zone.  Maybe that’s what intrigued me.  I love a good challenge and Desiree had faith that I could do it.  The MCs came to me right away and I knew I wanted the hero to be different.  I didn’t want the typical beefy, broody ex-Marine type.  I wanted a stealthy, athletic man with a curious mind.  Asher Boyce fit that bill and was really fun to write.
3. What secret do you use to blast through writer’s block? Personally, I don’t believe in it.  I’m a writer and if I can’t write, something is wrong.  Most times blocks are caused by stagnation in the story or with the characters.  I usually have two or three books going at a time in different genres so if I find myself stalling, I switch.  The different genre and mindset refresh my thought process pretty quickly.  I also find music suitable to the scene helps stir emotion and thought.
4. Who is your favorite character of all of the books you’ve written and Why? Calder McKenna.  The hero of my Alpha Core Trilogy. (http://smarturl.it/ACT3) He’d been on my mind for years just waiting for a story.  I initially used him as a target, you know, how much pain and angst could I put him through before he cracked.  All the “what ifs” that just piled up.  He’s a strong guy, but he has a rough past full of regret and anger.  Add a hacked brain on top of it all and you have yourself a perfect storm.  I found myself very vulnerable and emotional writing him.
5. What inspired you to write? Life.  Everything around me.  I’m one of the oddballs that has a story running through her head at any given moment.  I can see them like movies and at times feel like I’m taking dictation when I write.  It would be great if I could type as fast as my brain could think.
   Since I was a kid.   Literally since I could hold a crayon.  I used to make little books for my family out of scrap paper and staple them together.  I think my mom still has a few.  Wonder how much they’re worth now? LOL
6. Did you tell friends and family that you were writing a book? Or did it take a while to come out and tell friends and family you were a writer?  No, it was more like “When are you going to publish” from my family and friends.  I had full manuscripts written in junior high and high school and it wasn’t until I was in college that I started seriously pursuing publication.  Back then, there were only a few publishing houses and not much else.  No ebooks or audiobooks.  I got requests for a historical I had written from a couple of them, but I didn’t agree with the changes they asked me to make and decided early on that I wouldn’t sell out, become cookie cutter.  I’m glad I stuck to my guns.
7. Do you see yourself in your characters?  Oh yeah, you can’t not.  You put a little of yourself in everything you write.  I see the stubbornness and the gumption.  I also see the self-deprecation and fear.  It’s all there.  You can’t hide from it.
8. What do you want your readers to take away from your books?  I want to provoke thought.  Again with the “what if”.  I have been in technology since it’s infancy in the 80s and I’m enthralled with where it could go from here.  AI, sentient life, technical advances that we can’t even dream of.  I touch on a lot of that in my sci fi series and want it to spark questions, doubt and interest.
9. Where do your story ideas come from? If they come to you in the middle of the night, do you get up and write them all down?  Life, news, anywhere really.  I’ll hear something in a passing conversation on the street and my mind will just take off.  I have a notebook with me always… in the car, at my desk, in most rooms of my house.  If I don’t have paper, I record snippets on my phone.  I’ve always had a curious mind and have been told I’ve been asking questions since I could speak.
10. Do you find it easier to write from a male or female point of view?  Why?  Male and perhaps it’s a bit of a bad habit.  Romance novels of the past painted women as such needy, desperate creatures with no spine without a man.  I am so not that woman.  I’ve been independent and self-reliant all my life and never felt I needed a man to make me whole.  I never understood that sentiment.  I’ve always had a more aggressive, dominant personality that was easier to express as a male character, but once I started writing sci fi and self-published without the agents pressing for submissive heroines, I could let out what real women could be.  Still learning to let go of bad habits, but I think in my last series, Sierra Mason was a revelation.  She’s strong, vibrant and has a spine.  She was a perfect match for Calder.
11. Why do you write what  you write?  Ie. Contemporary, paranormal,  suspense, etc. I write cross-genre.  For me writing is writing.  As mentioned, I’m a techie geek, so the sci fi stuff was a no-brainer.  It was almost too easy for me.  I’m also a history buff so writing historicals is also a love of mine (see those at www.VictoriaOliveri.com)  As a writer, you need to love your subject.  Your personal passion must be there or the story will just be flat.

If writing is your first passion, what is your second? Research.  It’s one of the reasons I love writing historicals, but it’s also a double-edged sword.  I could spend all day researching and not get any writing in.  It’s all-consuming and can go off on a tangent.  I could start in the morning looking for specific info on a historical place and look up and realize it’s 3am and I’m looking at 13th century soup recipes.

Speed Round (one word only answer): Yep, I know torture for a writer!<evil laugh>

Favorite movie:  The Big Blue

Favorite book:  Zen and the Art of motorcycle maintenance

Last book read: Royally Screwed

Favorite color: Purple

Stilettos or flipflops: barefeet

Coffee or tea: chai

Ebook or audiobook or paperback: everything

Pencil or pen: pen

Favorite song:  Two Ghosts

Streak or not: streak

Favorite dessert: Blondies

Favorite junk food: bacon

Favorite thing to do to relax: sleep

Champagne or gin: amaretto

Paranormal or Historical: historical

Wonder Woman or Top Model:  WW

Favorite TV show:  Lucifer

Hot or cold: cold

POV:  third

I’d die if I don’t have: cell

Review or Not: Review

Finally, Tell me something no one knows about you. 

            I’m a tech geek and gadget junkie with a background in hardware and software development.  My first typewriter wrote in cursive and I love info on space exploration and AI.  You can find me at www.VikkiRomano.com

So we have Devil in the Details!

Asher Boyce is a veteran private securities agent with a jaded history in the CIA and with the women in his past.  When hired as a linguistics specialist by the Holden Agency to seek out a missing treasure in Russia, he realizes immediately that danger is inevitable.  And death is imminent.

Tara Harriman had been burned before. Working in conjunction with MI6 and the CIA, she knows what she’s getting into and she knows who she’s being partnered with…. a man she’d worked with five years earlier.  A man whose nearness ignited a passion she never thought could exist.  A man who’d never left her thoughts, even after all these years.

When danger traps them and threatens not only their lives but the lives of their friends, they must find a way to forgive the past so that they may have a chance at the future.  Together.

 

Let’s take a peek between the pages of Devil in the Details.  Shall we?

“If you’re not going to take this mission seriously, I’ll let Grey know that I need a replacement.”

Asher furrowed his brows and sat back from her.

“Jesus, when did you get so uptight?” he asked, his eyes searching hers, noting how she looked away from him. “No, it’s just me, isn’t it?”

“Since I’ve met you, you’ve done nothing but leer and offer innuendos.  I don’t consider that professional behavior.”

“Leer?” he asked with a smirk.  “Is that even a word anymore?”

“You were looking down my shirt!”

“I did no such thing.  I simply noted your bra peeking from behind your sweater.  Kind of hard to miss.”

She turned a sour face back to him and after a moment’s hesitation, started the car and sped away from the palace.

“Besides, I seem to remember you being a little more than interested while we were holed up in that skirmish in Greece,” he said, watching the scenery fly by as she pulled onto the highway.

“That was five years ago,” she said harshly, almost angrily as she shifted the car.  “Some of us tend to grow up and move on.”

“Grow up?” he said with a scowl turning to her.  “I was thirty- two when we met and had already completed over a hundred successful missions.  Just because I happen to have a sense of humor and like to look at a beautiful woman, that makes me childish?”

“It makes you dangerous…” was all she said without even looking in his direction.

This was going to be a long, long mission.

Devil in the Details – Coming September 21, 2017 from Kindle Words. Buy links will be listed on Vikki’s website. http://www.vikkiromano.com/

About the Author:

My love for sci-fi goes way back to my childhood. I mean, who didn’t love movies like Tron and Terminator when they were a kid? Or great oldies like War Games. I grew up in the advent of technology and rode the wave of the dot com lifestyle in my 20s.

In college, I was a true cyberpunk and gloried over works by Gibson and Dick. I reveled in the hackers manifesto like a warrior and actually prayed for a world like BladeRunner. They were very cool, hyper-energized times we were in and it gave me scores of ideas and hands-on experience to dump into my work.

It was a wonderful time to be alive, to see where tech could go. Being involved in the field as a database admin and then later as a hardware tech and web designer, I had my fingers in all of it and I loved what it was all about. To this day, I still follow tech news and grin childishly when something new and spectacular comes onto the tech science scene.

My Alpha Core series reflects all that I have experienced and all that my mind has considered in our tech burgeoning times. And there’s a lot more where that came from. 🙂

 

It was wonderful having you with us today.  Please feel free to stop by anytime. Good Luck with Devil in the Details.

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Posted in Authors' Secrets Blog and tagged Devil in the Details, Kindle Worlds, SCIENCE FICTION TECHNO THRILLERS, Vikki Romano by Tena Stetler with 5 comments.