Interview & Giveaway: Cassie Alexander

I was first introduced to  Edie Spence in Nightshifted and as I continued on in the series, Moonshifted and Shapeshifted, Edie has become one of my favorite female protagonists in the paranormal genre for the fact that she is a nurse and she is human, which means that is long as Edie is around I will continue to read Cassie Alexander's novel. Please Welcome to Blood Rose Books:

Cassie Alexander

 

If there was one author you could co-write a novel with (they can be alive or dead) who would you choose and why? 

That inspired a lot of looking around my office-library, trying to figure out an answer! I think if I had my druthers, I’d co-write a book with Zelazny, because Lord of Light was an amazing, amazing, book.  

Is there a book, author, story or person that inspired you to become a writer? 

D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths – in the third grade. I checked this book out for the entire year, I think, until I’d memorized the thing. I knew wanted to tell stories like that, about epic and crazy things that happened larger than life people.  

The Urban Fantasy / Paranormal genres appear to be the genre that everyone is writing in these days (even authors that are well established in other genres), what do you think draws authors to these genres? How do you believe your novels stand out from the rest of the crowd? 

Well, mostly because my protagonist is very level headed, and up until the last two books, had a real job being a nurse. She wasn’t special or fancy, she just cared a lot about other people and wanted to protect them, just like nurses do – only she had to worry about vampires and werewolves. 

You began writing in the Urban Fantasy / paranormal genres and recently you released two Erotica based novels (The House and The Haunted), why did you decide to write within the Erotica genre? What were some challenges you had when writing in a new genre, especially one that can be highly criticized? Did you find out anything about yourself by writing Erotica? 

I’d gotten a fair amount of fan mail that said that people really liked my sex scenes in my Edie books, so I felt pretty confident branching off into erotica. Plus, The House (the choose your own adventure erotica I wrote) was written right after I found out my publisher wasn’t going to continue to my Edie Spence series. It was really nice to work on something that was just for me and didn’t even have to have a linear plot. 

After that, I wrote the Haunted because I really wanted to write a girl-and-a-

ghost story, and I’ve written The Hunted, which’ll be my girl-and-a-werewolf novel – it’s been really fun to break with traditional genre expectations and write more soap-opera-y stuff. While assorted relatives have expressed mild disappointment, I haven’t gotten any criticisms yet – and I’m also working on some more mainstream books too. It’s the best of both worlds, really.  

What do you think would be the hardest or most challenging genre to write a novel in and why? 

I don’t think I could do military historical fiction ;). I love research, but when I start researching guns and ammo for books my eyes glaze over.  

I think the aspect I love about Edie the most is that she is Human trying to make her way in a monster’s world. Why did you decide to keep Edie as a human and not have even a spark of power in her? What do you think Edie’s real power is? 

Her power is that she cares. Shamelessly, openly. You never wonder where you stand with her. You can trust her. You know.  

One of the most interesting creatures that Edie comes in contact with are The Shadows. I have not read another book in the paranormal genre that anything close or similar to them. Where did the idea of The Shadows come from? Are we going to see more of them and their manipulative ways? 

They come from the basement of my own hospital. You do not want to go down there in the middle of the night. It’s a creepy place.  

The Shadows play a very large role in Deadshifted and Bloodshifted :D. 

You obviously use your nursing experience in order write about Edie’s own career. While you are at work and something strange, unusual or gross comes in, do you start to think (of course after helping the patient out), how can I apply that to a paranormal creature or a situation for Edie? Do any come to mind that you would be able to share with us? 

Ha, no…it’s not quite like that. It’s more the moments than any one person. Like I was watching a coworker pull gauze out of a wound, and it was a deep one so there was a ton, and it looked like they were performing some sort of shitty magic trick where you just keep pulling knotted scarves out of someone else’s pocket, only this time it was someone else’s body and the scarves were gauze soaked in blood…things like that ;). 

Do you have any information on upcoming works or events that you are able to share? 

My werewolf erotica, The Hunted, will be coming out on 10/1 if you’d like to keep an eye out for it! :D  

What is one book (other than one of your own) that you think should be a must read for everyone? 
Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson. 

I was very sad to read that her Edie Spence series will not be continuing on but sometimes this leads you to new ventures in your life and new projects like it has for Cassie. Cassie has very nicely provided an Giveaway (US) to go along with her interview, anyone who like paranormal, urban fantasy or paranormal romance will want to enter this giveaway. Please fill out the rafflecopter information below to enter. Thank
 you once again Cassie

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