I want to welcome Nina Croft to Books R Us. Nina is the author of Break Out (Blood Hunter) a Paranormal/Sci-Fi romance. Thanks for stopping by.
Can you tell
me who or what was the inspiration for the book?
Break out is a mixture of sci-fi and paranormal
romance, and there were actually two things that inspired it.
The first was watching the sci-fi series Firefly for
about the third time. I love the series and I decided I wanted to write a space
opera, because they’re fun and absolutely anything can happen.
The second was a serious case of paranormal
deprivation. A while back, my husband asked me—why didn’t I write a good book?
By ‘good’ he actually meant without any romance, vampires, werewolves or
aliens. So, I wrote him a thriller, which I loved doing (it’s called The
Descartes Legacy and will be out early next year!) And while a little (okay, a
lot) of romance sneaked into it and maybe just a little bitty alien, there were
no vampires and no werewolves, and by the time I’d finished writing I was in
desperate need of a paranormal fix. So when I started plotting Break Out, and
the pilot of my space ship turned out to be a vampire, I wasn’t too upset and
actually welcomed him with open arms.
So there I was – vampires in Space.
Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?
If so, what do you do about it?
I go through stages where I find it difficult to
get the words down. When that happens, I tend to just force myself to work
through it. Usually though, I’ll give myself a change of scenery and perhaps
try a different method from typing into my laptop. I’ll maybe take a notebook
into the garden or up the mountain or… and I’ll write longhand for a change. It
usually gets me going again.
Can you tell
me your experiences in finding a publisher for the book?
I always knew that Break Out would be hard to find
a publisher for, because it’s such a mixture of genres: sci-fi, romance,
paranormal. I’d had another book accepted by Entangled Publishing through a
pitch competition on the Savvy Authors site (that book was Bittersweet Blood, a
paranormal romance to be released this December). I’d loved my dealings with
Entangled up to that point and so when I saw that they were actively seeking
space opera submissions I thought why not—maybe they’d like my space opera with
a vampire. My manuscript found its way to Liz at Entangled who got back to me
within the day. She asked me if it was part of a series, and if it wasn’t could
it be? It was one of the nicest days of my writing career!
How long did
it take you to write the book and how long did it take to get the book
released?
Break Out was first released last July as a
novella. The first draft took me probably a month to write and then another to
edit. It was accepted in April last year and released in July so things moved
pretty fast.
Who is your favorite character in the
book and why?
Definitely the hero of the book, Ricardo Sanchez or
Rico. He’s probably my favourite of all my characters. Rico turned up almost
fully formed. He just about wrote himself and in fact, has a tendency to take
over every scene he’s in (which was okay for Break Out, as he’s the hero but a
bit of a pain for the later books.)
What are your current / future
projects?
I tend to have a few things on the go at once. I’m
contracted to write another three Blood Hunter books so I’m planning those, but
right now I’m working on a paranormal romance, a sequel to my December release,
Bittersweet Blood.
Do you have
any tips for a young writer just starting out?
Write what you love, because that’s what will
sustain you when the going gets tough—which it will.
If your book
was to be made into a movie, Who would you like the main character to be played
by and why?
This is so hard. I think as writers we get such
strong images of how are characters look that it’s hard to accept a real
person. But I think for Rico, maybe a young Antonio Banderas (Rico is Spanish)
or maybe Ian Somerhalder (I’ve just started watching The Vampire
Diaries!) he could pass for Spanish.
What do you like to do for fun when
you’re not writing? Where do you like to vacation? Can you tell us
briefly about this?
I live on an almond farm in southern Spain with my
husband and a whole load of animals. So when I’m not writing, I’m usually
either walking the dogs, riding my horse, Gencianna, or lying under an almond
tree reading.
We used to travel a lot before we moved to Spain, and we loved getting off the beaten track. We visited
Africa, India and South East Asia. But we don’t really get to go on holiday
anymore, it’s just not possible because of all the animals, so we spend holidays
at home. But as we live in a spectacularly beautiful part of the world, that’s
not really a hardship.
Can you tell
me where we can purchase your book?
Buy Links
About the Book:
The year is 3048, Earth is no longer habitable, and man has
fled to the stars where they’ve discovered the secret of immortality—Meridian.
Unfortunately, the radioactive mineral is exorbitantly expensive and only
available to a select few. A new class comprised of the super rich and immortal
soon evolves. The Collective, as they’re called, rule the universe.
Two-thousand-year-old Ricardo Sanchez, vampire and rogue pilot of the space
cruiser, El Cazador, can’t resist two things: gorgeous women and impossible
jobs. When beautiful Skylar Rossaria approaches him to break a prisoner out of
the Collective’s maximum security prison on Trakis One, Rico jumps at the
chance. Being hunted by the Collective has never been so dangerous–or so fun!
About the Author:
Nina Croft grew up in the north of England. After training as
an accountant, she spent four years working as a volunteer in Zambia, which
left her with a love of the sun and a dislike of 9-5 work. She then spent a
number of years mixing travel (whenever possible) with work (whenever
necessary) but has now settled down to a life of writing and picking almonds on
a remote farm in the mountains of southern Spain.
Nina writes all types of romance often mixed with elements of
the paranormal and science fiction.
Find me at:
.JPG "Nina Croft")
