I am very pleased to welcome author Erica Hayes here to DarkFaerieTales.com to talk about her debut dark urban fantasy novel Shadowfae, which officially releases today.
Erica is giving one lucky commenter a chance to win an autographed copy of Shadowfae. Details are listed at the end of the post.
Note: Erica lives in Australia so there will be a short wait involved for the winner to receive their prize!
You can also visit Erica at her website: www.ericahayes.net.
Welcome Erica!
DFT: Could you start things off by telling us a little about Shadowfae and the sequel, Shadowglass?
Erica: Thanks for having me, Angela. I’d be delighted! SHADOWFAE is a steamy urban fantasy/romance set in a fairy-infested city ruled by demons. The heroine is a succubus, Jade, who’s trying to escape her demon lord’s thrall. Here’s a quick blurb:
Imagine a secret world veiled in fairy glamour and brimming with unearthly delights. A city swarming with half-mad fairies, where thieving spriggans rob you blind, beautiful banshees mesmerize you with their song, and big green trolls bust heads at nightclubs. And once you’re in, there’s no escape…
Enslaved by a demon lord, Jade is forced to spend her nights seducing vampire gangsters and shapeshifting thugs. After two hundred years as a succubus, she burns for freedom and longs to escape her brutal life as a trophy girl for hell’s minions. Then she meets Rajah, an incubus who touches her heart and intoxicates her senses. Rajah shares the same bleak fate as she, and yearns just as desperately for freedom. But the only way for Jade to break her bonds is to betray Rajah—and doom the only man she’s ever loved to a lifetime in hell.
It’s spooky, sexy, dark and gritty, as well as desperately romantic 
It’s the first book in my new series, the Shadowfae Chronicles. If you like, you can read an excerpt and a little prequel short story called HELLCURSED at my website, http://www.shadowfae.net
Book 2 is due for release in March 2010. It’s called SHADOWGLASS, and it’s about Ice, a fairy pickpocket, who steals more trouble than she can handle when she swipes a magic mirror that sucks away her common sense. Ice has a big crush on a gorgeous hot-eyed fairy whom she thinks doesn’t even know she’s alive — Indigo, a frosty professional thief. But Indigo wants Ice with a dangerous passion, and has his own reasons for standoffishness — there’s a dark side to his glittery fae personality that he longs to destroy. Guess it’d be a bad idea for him to peek into that magic mirror, then…
DFT: What motivated you to write Shadowfae?
Erica: A few different things. I wanted to write something different to what I’d done before. Up until that point I’d written mostly high fantasy, and I wanted to try some steamy romance as well as something contemporary. Also, I kind of felt like I was getting nowhere with my publishing aspirations. My work was okay, but it just wasn’t standing out. So I wanted to try something a bit more in-your-face. I think I succeeded SHADOWFAE certainly didn’t come from my shy, retiring side!
Also, I thought succubi had gotten a raw deal so far in all the novels I’d read. They hadn’t been given a chance to tell it like it is. Jade, my succubus from SHADOWFAE, lives in a dark, gritty world where she has no say in much of what happens to her, and I wanted the story to reflect that. I mean, it’s her job to seduce whomever her demon lord orders her to — whether she finds them attractive or not — then suck out their souls and send them to hell, whether she thinks they deserve it or not.
Technically, she’s a supernatural assassin, with the added bonus of eternal damnation. That’s not a very nice job, and it doesn’t do a lot for Jade’s self-esteem. Happily for Jade, she does find some compensations along the way and that’s why Rajah is the perfect hero for her. As an incubus, he understands what she’s going through, but it’s still going to take a lot of work on his part before she’ll trust him.
DFT: Tell us something about your research process and the choices you make when creating the story.
Erica: I research mostly on the internet, and mostly just to see what’s gone before, firstly in terms of supernatural mythology, and secondly to see what other urban fantasy authors are doing with it. I think it’s a mistake to get too hemmed in by the ‘rules’ when it comes to fantasy. Giving the creatures and the mythology your own spin is what makes your work unique, so I’ve tried to do that. For instance, my vampires aren’t undead, but in the grip of a strange virus that halts the ageing process and forces the need for blood. My succubus isn’t a demon, but a human in thrall to hell. I don’t use the light/dark or seelie/unseelie courts for my fairies.
Not that any of those paths hasn’t already been taken by other authors — but pile up enough little quirks and differences like that, and you’ll have your own unique world to play in.
My creative choices tend to serve the story first, the characters second and my own whims a distant third. So if I really love something I’ve done with a character, but it’s not serving the story, I ditch it. Although sometimes those two can be inextricably intertwined, and I end up doing it the other way around!
DFT: What influences and inspirations (both literary and non-literary) did you draw from while writing Shadowfae?
Erica: I listen to a lot of music, though not while I’m writing. SHADOWFAE turned out to be kind of a grunge/emo book, all dark and moody and dangerous with a twisted sense of humour. You can blame Disturbed and My Chemical Romance
There’s an organised crime subculture that features in the series, too, so I read a lot about gangsters and watched some true crime dramas. Oh, the writer’s life is a terrible one!
DFT: Who is your favorite character in this book, and why?
Erica: Oh, that’s tough. Do I have to pick just one? I love them all. Even the nasty ones!
I admit I have a soft spot for Dante, my vampire bad guy in SHADOWFAE. I love it when the vampire gets to be the villain, and Dante has a rather delicious mean streak that was loads of fun to write.
Kane, Jade’s demon lord, is another of my favourites. He’s very powerful — he can bend mortals to his will with a flutter of his lashes, call down thunder and lightning, sniff out an adversary from miles away — but when it comes to everyday things, like asking a girl out on a date, he’s quite clueless.
But I think I love my fairies the best. They’re colourful, weird, sexy, unexpected and a little insane, and they hide from human eyes behind enchanted glamour that makes them seem like ordinary people. They’re a subculture of outcasts, the bottom of the paranormal food chain, though some of them don’t stand for any nonsense. My fairies are based on elements — I have waterfae, firefae, airfae, earthfae — but some wacky ones creep in there too. Indigo from SHADOWGLASS is a metal fairy — yeah, never mind about that afraid-of-iron thing! — and in my WIP I have a crafty gangster called Diamond who’s glassfae.
DFT: Do you have a long-term plan or goal for this story universe? What happens after Shadowglass?
Erica: Oh, definitely! So long as readers keep enjoying the series, I’ve got a few more books planned. Right now I’m working on book #3, currently titled SHADOWSONG. It stars the villains from SHADOWGLASS: a kick-ass banshee and her shapeshifting ganglord boss. It’s a dark little tale of revenge and redemption. Let me tell you, it’s been loads of fun to write! And I’m also contracted for book #4, which I believe will feature Diamond, that glassfairy gangster.
Each book has a separate heroine/hero, so there’ll be happy endings galore but there’s an ongoing story involving the demon lord, Kane, and his struggles to keep control of his city. He’ll have to face vengeful angels, plagues, body snatchers, spooky evangelists, other jealous demon courtiers and his own horribly dysfunctional demon family (just wait until you meet his mother!) before he’s through. And who knows? He might even get his own happy ending
DFT: What other projects are you working on that you would like to tell us about?
Erica: Well, there’s the covert, hidden-in-the-drawer, one-day-you-never-know-your-luck Shadowfae manuscript, which I don’t have a contract for, that features a djinni and a reanimated corpse. We’ll both just have to wait and see about that one, heh heh… And I sort of have a post-apocalyptic science fantasy in the works. But shhh! That one’s a secret
DFT: If you could choose only one, which would you choose: for Shadowfae to be award-winning, or for Shadowfae to be bestselling? Why?
Erica: Definitely bestselling I’d much rather lots of people enjoyed my work, and the sad truth is that often, not many people actually read or enjoy the books that win awards I have no aspirations to being a literary writer. I’d much rather write popular fiction — for, as I heard romance author Mary Jo Putney say at the Romance Writers of Australia conference a few months ago: why on earth should anyone want to write unpopular fiction?
DFT: What books/genres do you read when you have the chance? Any must read authors or series?
Erica: I read urban fantasy (of course!) and a bit of straight fantasy and horror. At the moment I like Jenna Maclaine, Caitlin Kittredge, Jim Butcher. Paranormal romance, not so much these days, unless I can find something that looks a bit different. I really like Anya Bast’s Elemental Witches series. But few things are auto-buy for me — I like to try new authors, and there are only so many reading hours in the day.
Having said that, I’m hanging out for the next George RR Martin Song of Ice and Fire book. You there, George? {nudge}
DFT: What is your definition of a “bad writing day”? How do you deal with bad writing days?
Erica: For me, a bad writing day is when I don’t actively *want* to write. It’s all too easy to waste the day away on other stuff when the enjoyment isn’t there.
How do I deal with it? I write anyway. Even if it’s just for a few hours. And usually, the intricacies of constructing sentences and paragraphs and building scenes sucks me back in. I’m a techie geek. I like the technical processes, writing for effect, word choices and so on. If I can get excited about that, then a bad day can become a good one.
But every now and then, I just need the day off to recharge my imagination.
DFT: Do you have a particular writing process or any writing rituals?
Erica: Normally I start with a quick read of what I wrote the day before, and I make a few tweaks. And then I go ahead with the day’s words. I try to write every day, even if I don’t always make my daily quota of 2,000 words. I find that the longer I leave a story, the harder it is to get back into it. As you can imagine, I am a total pest to go on holidays with.
My crit partners would probably call my outlining process a ‘ritual’. In fact, they’ve dubbed me the Outline Queen. I do love my outlines and structures
It sounds all scientific and precise, but really I just spend a couple of weeks roaming around the place muttering to myself like a madwoman and figuring out character arcs. I try to make the plot fit a three-act structure, just because I like it and it works for me. I end up with quite a detailed document that describes scene-by-scene what happens and how the characters change along the way. Then, I start writing, and don’t stop until I get to the end. Easy
DFT: If you could be any paranormal creature. Which one would you be and why?
Erica: Oh, that’s another tough one. Something immortal and forever young. Maybe a vampire. Yeah. But I’d have to move somewhere tropical. All that hanging about at night. Brrr, I hate the cold. Hmm. I can see it now. Lounging in my bikini in a moonlit seaside bar in Barbados, sipping my O-negative with sea-breeze ruffling my hair. Yeah, that’s definitely me
DFT: Thank you Erica for taking the time to stop by. I can’t wait to give Shadowfae a read.
GIVEAWAY GUIDELINES:
One lucky commenter will have a chance to win an autographed copy of Shadowfae.
To enter, leave a comment below answering the following question:
If you were a succubus or incubus, whom would seduce first, and why?
1. +1 entry for answering the question (required).
2. +2 entries for becoming a follower of this blog and Dark Faerie Tales on Twitter.
3. +3 entries for tweeting about this contest, blogging about it, linking via your sidebar etc…(please tell me where!).
4. Giveaway is open to everyone.
5. Please include your email address in your comment.
6. Giveaway ends Tuesday, October 27th at 11:59 PM EST.
7. The winner will be picked with the help of Research Randomizer.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
why not get the best of both worlds, eh?
: inale87 (at) gmx (dot) at
on 
on 
on