Today is my very first time interviewing another author! To make it even better, there’s a CONTEST! I know I did a contest last time, but you know you want to win something and this is a really cool prize! I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. What’s even cooler? That the something to win is the author’s very first book! Check out end of the blog for the contest rules.

So who is the author, you ask?! Just one of the coolest ladies ever – AJ Chase! AJ is a romantic suspense author, and her first published story is Cat and Mouse.

Here’s a little bit about the book:

For Katherine Stapleton (aka Kitty), being a shape-shifter isn’t nearly as glamorous as the novels and movies make it out to be. It isn’t all raw, animalistic sex and superhuman physical prowess. There’s also the hairballs.

Kitty has spent her entire life being a less-than-perfect were-cat. She can’t control her animal changes, so she decides to excel at matters human. After a decade of worldly successes, she’s back home for her ten-year high school reunion. Yet, she feels just as insignificant as she did back in school–except with Sam Philmore, a fellow D.C. lawyer and past classmate. And her former secret crush. In just three days Kitty gets the bad memories, the good times, the bitter truth, and a mouthful of one very sexy man who just happens to be a mouse sometimes…

And now…. for the interview. Woot!

Rachel Jameson: Welcome to Romantic Inks, AJ! It’s such a treat to have you here!

AJ Chase: Thanks. This is fun.

Rachel: WOW! This is your first book to be published! What an amazing experience! How HAS that experience been?

AJ: I don’t know. Kind of weird because it wasn’t like other people’s epublishing experiences. I always hear how much quicker it is than New York but somehow it took me a year to hit the cyber shelves from the date I sold the book. So I kept waiting and waiting and towards the end it got kind of anti-climatic. I think it might have been more exciting, had it been more whirlwind. But it’s interesting and fun to have it out now.

Rachel: Wow. A year! You do like to do things the unique way *G*! I’ve got a really loaded question for you. How did you get started writing? More importantly, what KEEPS you writing? And what’s your writing process like?

AJ: I don’t know why I started writing exactly. I had a pretty bad childhood and I sort of lived in a fantasy world anyway. I read a lot and then one day when I was fourteen I just grabbed a notebook and wrote an entire novel. There was no poetry or fan fiction or anything first. Just suddenly a book. It was really horrid too. But I was hooked from that point out. Not only could I live in a make believe world, I could help other people live in them too. It’s a real savior for a kid who needs to believe there’s something better in the world. My writing process is odd. I always say I never get writer’s block but I think that’s because if I don’t feel like writing I just don’t. But when I do write I have huge outpourings. It’s not unusual for me to have a three or four K day even with small children.

Rachel: Man, I wish I was so lucky to have outpourings like that. I tend to slowly and painfully tug the story from my warped mind. But back to you! What would you like our readers to know about Cat and Mouse? Can you tell us a little bit more about than what’s in the blurb?

AJ: It’s a story about a woman with some identity issues and some issues with her family who gets to go back home, face up to what she is and isn’t, and have a second chance with that guy she just couldn’t forget. There’s a paranormal aspect which plays into her problems with her family and into her relationship with the hero. But it’s really a story about the baggage that we always take with us and never quite lose from high school.

Rachel: Have you gone to any of your reunions? I’m not sure I, personally, would want to see most of the people from mine again.

AJ: No, but not because I have too many hang ups, though the people I went to school with are all insanely successful, but because it just wasn’t convenient and I don’t live in the same state where I went to school. I still talk to most of my good friends from high school regularly. Either on the phone or on things like Facebook. The people I’d be seeing that I don’t communicate with regularly, well, that might be sort of weird. But when I saw the pics from my ten year reunion I realized I couldn’t figure out who most of the people were. And there were only a hundred people in my class. I knew who they were but I just couldn’t tell, they looked that different. So that was interesting.

Rachel: That’s pretty wild. One could almost say…. paranormal. Well that’s a bit of a stretch. But why write paranormal? Why suspense? What do you love about the genre(s)? Do you write other genres?

AJ: I don’t normally write paranormal. But I have enjoyed the few I’ve written for the pure escapist aspect. I love mysteries and suspense because I just love the idea of all things unsolved. I’ll spend hours researching real unsolved cases, and that isn’t just murder. Even unsolved medical mysteries, paranormal events, anything that has no immediate answer. In addition to romantic suspense I also write quirky first person series mysteries in a very similar voice to the one used in Cat and Mouse as well as YA. But I love rom sus because I get to explore a lot of the dark side of people, and I don’t just mean the villain. I think readers are a little more forgiving of a questionable hero in a rom sus than they are in a standard contemporary. So I can make my heroes more screwed up, which is my favorite kind of hero.

Rachel: Oooh, I love things like that. Of course, I want to know everything there possibly is to know. About everything. Which brings us back to you. From your research, do you think you could actually get away with murder? How would you do it?

AJ: Hee hee. I like this question. I always watch forensics shows and think, here’s what I would have done differently. I think it’s possible to get away with murder but I think I’d end up turning myself in just because I wouldn’t be able to stand the unsolved status of my own case. I can’t tell you how I’d do it though, so as to protect the innocent.

Rachel: Dude, that may be the best answer ever! And to get to the other answer you gave me, wow, YA! That must be quite a switch to go from paranormal and rom sus for adults to YA. Which do you prefer to write, your mysteries or the YA? And why?

AJ: I like them both. They are wildly different so it just depends on my mood. YA can be hard because I don’t know how far to go. After dealing with gritty and dark YA’s and sexy paranormals it’s a little hard to know where to draw the line for a younger audience. I don’t know how much violence is too much and how much sexiness is too sexy. So sometimes I get tired of thinking that hard and I want some good old fashioned killing without the worry lol. I like rom sus a lot just because of the same aspects I mentioned earlier. I can be as dark as I want to be and I can explore the kind of baggage teenagers just don’t have. I can create really troubled characters that have real journeys to make before they can engage in a functional relationship. Those are my favorite characters.

Rachel: So how about the proverbial desert island question? What three items would you want if you were stranded on a desert island?

AJ: My husband and my two children. Although I strongly dislike open water so I doubt I’d ever end up on an island anyway.

Rachel: What book have you loved so much you wish you had written it? Are there any books you’d love to set fire to and dance naked around praising the spaghetti god it is out of your life? Well..erm… only Emily Ryan-Davis does that. But you know what I mean.

AJ: Hmm, books I dislike… I hate to be mean to this person so I won’t use names but it will probably be easy to figure out anyway. There’s a certain YA, huge, YA author that wrote this series that makes my brain bleed. The heroine is like nails on the chalkboard annoying. I just can’t deal with the entire thing and it’s popularity confounds me. Not that I wouldn’t mind having that kind of mania around my writing.

I love Anne Stuart. I want to be Anne Stuart when I grow up. I love the heroes that she writes that are just plain old questionable, but she writes them in such a way that you just don’t even care. You love them anyway. I really loved one of her very old books she wrote for Silhoutte Shadows called Break the Night. Awesome. I’m also very fond of Erica Spindler though I wish her books had more rom in the sus.

Rachel: Who are you reading at the moment? Ack… is it whom? Oh well *G*

AJ: J I don’t know. Grammar isn’t my forte. Just ask my crit partners. Actually I’m not reading anything right now. I have two school aged children and I’m about to have a baby, so right now, I’m just too busy. Though I have Inez Kelley’s Mila by Moonlight at the top of my TBR pile.

Rachel: Woot! A baby! Pick a name yet?

AJ: We have narrowed it down to two names. Paige and Gillian. My husband likes Gillian better and I prefer Paige. But he always seems to win even though I do all the heavy lifting, so I’m assuming we’ll end up with a baby Gillian.

Rachel: Other than finding a way to trick your husband into naming the baby Paige (and woot a girl!), what’s up next for AJ Chase? For your alter egos in the other genres?

AJ: I don’t know. Right now I’m pitching a YA urban fantasy series to agents but the genre is over-saturated right now which makes it an instant hard sell. I am hoping to make some progress on that front soon. Other than that, I don’t have a lot of plans because gestation and small babies tend to suck out my brain like little hungry zombies so I don’t want to overwhelm myself. One project at a time.

Rachel: Err…speaking of creatures…Let’s get back to your book. If you could turn into any sort of were-creature, what would it be?

AJ: Oh … Heh, okay you know that thing you showed me the other day? Totally that thing. I don’t even know WTH that thing is but it’s so cute, who cares!

Rachel: This thing?

I completely agree. I’ll have to figure out what the heck it is. Maybe one of our readers will know. Thank you so much, AJ! Have fun with your very first release! Can’t wait to see what you do next! Oh! One more question – what are you going to be for Halloween?

AJ: I was trying to figure out something that would emphasize my tremendous belly. But in the end I just decided Halloween was too much trouble   But my children are going as a cat and Luke Skywalker. I will be going as that huge chick with the swollen ankles. Thanks for having me and stuff…. Whenever you tell someone thanks for having me do you ever feel like you should be talking to your mother? Anyway, thanks for having me today and I hope to return the favor when your masterpiece hits the stands someday.

Rachel: LOL… I tend to feel like my mother is standing behind me ready to remind me if I forget. Thank YOU again, AJ.

So Romantic Ink readers… I hope you enjoyed the interview, and are totally excited about the book! To enter, please comment between now and 10 PM PST on Wednesday, October 21^st. I will randomly pick a winner at 10:15 PM PST.