Earth Reclaimed, Book One
by Ann Gimpel
Publisher: Musa
Genre: Urban Fantasy/Romance
Our Interview with Ann Gimpel:
Welcome to Paranormal Romance Fans for Life, Ann. We're delighted you could join us.
Ann: Thanks so much for hosting me! It’s a pleasure to be here.
PR: We want to get to know a little bit about you, so here goes. Can you tell us where are you from and from where/who did your love for writing come from?
AG: I’m originally from Seattle, but I’ve lived in California for a very long time. Currently, I live in Mammoth Lakes, a little mountain village in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There’s a world-class ski area, Mammoth Mountain, five minutes from my house. I’ve always been a reader. And I’ve always written something, but for most of my working years, the “something” was case notes, or reports, or grant proposals. Writing has always come
easily to me. I never seriously considered writing fiction until one day late in 2008 when I simply sat down at the keyboard and let the story that had been running around in my head have a voice. It was an experiment, but I’m ever so glad I paid attention to my muse.
PR: Can you say that your journey to publication was difficult? If so, what were the hardest moments to get through?
AG: Compared with others, I’ve had a fairly easy go of things. When my first novel went nowhere,
for the very best of reasons—it wasn’t any good—I started writing short stories. I didn’t realize my first novel was terrible when I wrote it. A few years later, I not only could see what was wrong, I gutted that book, cut 50% of its length, did a total rewrite, and sold it to a publisher under another name. I felt pretty good about that because it was validation that I’d actually learned something about the craft of writing!
Anyway, I sold a bunch of science fiction and fantasy short stories during 2010. My first novel was accepted by a publisher in 2011, and they’ve been accepted pretty regularly since then.
To answer your second question, I’ve always looked at rejections as a learning experience. They’re particularly useful if a publisher tells me why they didn’t accept my book.
PR: How do you overcome i-suck-at-this, that little voice in your head that tells you your writing
isn’t good enough?
AG: Oh, you mean that place every author hits in the middle of every, single book? Snort! I just motor on through. I’m always amazed when I go back to self-edit—by a number of things. First, my book wasn’t nearly as bad, boring, draggy, as I’d feared. Two, gosh, how did I miss that plot hole? Three, oops, big POV slip, etc. You get the picture. I think all those things happen because my creative brain and my editor brain live in different houses. They not only don’t talk to one another, they don’t even know the other one exists.
PR: What is your dream vacation?
AG: A backpacking trip to a remote location.
PR: Describe your writing style in five words.
AG: Sharp, concise, intense, paranormal, HEA
PR: What movies are you currently excited to see?
AG: Catching Fire, the second Hobbit one, anything Brad Pitt.
PR: What are you currently reading?
AG: An early Patricia Briggs book, Aralorn. Just finished JD Robb’s latest. Love Eve and Roarke.
PR: If you weren’t a writer, what other careers would you pursue?
AG: I had, and still have, another career. I’m a psychologist. It was my first love and I’ve never been sorry I spent a lengthy career as a therapist and a teacher and running mental health programs for the disadvantaged.
PR: If you could create a holiday of your own, what would it be called?
AG: Be kind to animals day.
PR: For people who haven’t read your novel, how would you summarize the plot?
AG: Resilient, kickass, and determined, Aislinn's walled herself off from anything that might make her feel again. Until a wolf picks her for a bond mate and a Celtic god rises out of legend to claim her for his own.
PR: What are two of your pet-peeves?
AG: People who can’t own their faults, step up to the plate, say I’m sorry, and mean it.
PR: To you, what makes a good story?
AG: Characters I can care about and fast paced plot lines.
PR: What usually turns you off about a story?
AG: Not surprisingly, it’s the opposite of the above. Plastic, caricature characters are a turn off. So are wandering plot lines and story pieces that the author never gets back to. Or worse, convenient plot twists. In one series, where I read the first two books and stopped, the author says over and over how rare it is for shifters to mate as other than one on one, yet both books feature ménage couplings, as did the third and fourth that I didn’t read. If it’s rare, you wouldn’t have threesomes getting together in every single book.
PR: If you could collaborate with any author, who would you choose, and why?
AG: Oh my, hard choice! I’d love to work with Diana Gabaldon or Nora Roberts/JD Robb. I’d learn
so much from both women. Aside from being awesome writers, they’re genuinely nice human beings. At least they appear so from places I’ve seen them speak.
PR: What is on your night stand?
AG: My Kindle and my iPad, both loaded with books. There are also real books, including a couple of
Sierra guide books, Mountaineering Freedom of the Hills, Addicted to Danger, and a couple of wonderful candles.
PR: What is your favorite book?
AG: If I had to pick one, Lord of the Rings. But the first few Robert Jordan books would be a close
second. I also like all of Carl Jung’s writings, but they’re not fiction.
PR: Thank you for stopping by today, Ann. We look forward to reading Earth's Requiem!
About the Book:Aislinn Lenear lost her anthropologist father high in the Bolivian Andes. Her mother, crazy with grief that muted her magic, was marched into a radioactive vortex by alien creatures and killed. Three years later, stripped of every illusion that ever comforted her, twenty-two year old Aislinn is one resilient, kickass woman with a take no prisoners attitude. In a world turned upside down, where virtually nothing familiar is left, she’s conscripted to fight the dark gods responsible for her father’s death. Battling the dark on her own terms, Aislinn walls herself off from anything that might make her feel again.Fionn MacCumhaill, Celtic god of wisdom, protection, and divination has been laying low since the dark gods stormed Earth. He and his fellow Celts decided to wait them out. After all, three years is nothing compared to their long lives. On a clear autumn day, Aislinn walks into his life and suddenly all bets are off. Awed by her courage, he stakes his claim to her and to an Earth he's willing to fight for.
Aislinn’s not so easily convinced. Fionn’s one gorgeous man, but she has a world to save. Emotional entanglements will only get in her way. Letting a wolf into her life was hard. Letting love in may well prove impossible.
About the Author:Ann Gimpel is a clinical psychologist, with a Jungian bent. Avocations include mountaineering, skiing, wilderness photography and, of course, writing. A lifelong aficionado of the unusual, she began writing speculative fiction a few years ago. Since then her short fiction has appeared in a number of webzines and anthologies. Several paranormal romance novellas are available in e-format. Three novels, Psyche’s Prophecy, Psyche’s Search, and Psyche's Promise are small press publications available in e-format and paperback. Look for three more urban fantasy novels coming this summer and fall: To Love a Highland Dragon, Earth’s Requiem and Earth’s Blood.
A husband, grown children, grandchildren and three wolf hybrids round out her family.
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