Spotlight New Release Interview | BITTEN: Confessions of a Menopausal Vampire by Melinda Rucker Hayn
Please make welcome another sister from The Wild Rose Press, Melinda Rucker Haynes! We're celebrating her new release, BITTEN: Confessions of a Menopausal Vampire. I'm enjoying this delicious paranormal romance and it's a page-turner. The Tavern is serving a pitcher of spicy Bloody Mary's and cheese tarts. Get comfy and let's hear what Melinda has to say...
MM: Welcome, Melinda! Delighted you could join us today. Congratulations on your new release! Describe a typical writing day. Are you a morning, afternoon, or night-owl writer?
MRH: Depending upon the deadline, I write very early a.m. and through the day. I’ve never been a night-owl studier or writer.
MM: I can totally relate. Can you tell us about your current work-in-progress?
MRH: I’m working edits on two TWRP books. (Fantasy Rose) is the second book in The Soul Searchers series of reincarnation romance thrillers about a soul group caught in a deadly Eternal Trust reincarnation cycle.
A Business Affair is the first book of the Mysterious Affairs series (Crimson Rose). Think of the 80s Heart to Heart tv series but a now edgy, humorous romantic suspense with a rich investment banker and former fighter pilot who happen to be step-sister and step-brother who fall for each other. Book 2 is a A Matrimonial Affair. Wonder who’s getting married and what’s going to stop them?
MM: I'm intrigued, Melinda. What inspired you to write BITTEN: Confessions of a Menopausal Vampire?
MRH: I’ve survived a scary blood disease and laughed my way back to health by writing about a menopausal vampire who could possibly rule the world.The symbolism or subtext of these conjoined experiences are not lost on me!
MM: Truly amazing and good to hear that your health has improved. What’s your favorite item on your writing desk?
MRH: Clear space. I like a tidy workspace.
MM: You’ve been given a golden ticket to time travel into the past. Whom would you meet and why?
MRH: I’ve been given a golden time travel ticket as a certified past life hypnotherapist and have visited many lives, eras, places of my own and others. My hypnosis practice (Personal Time Travel©) was focused on working with writers and other creatives in creative development and creative block removal.
MM: Fascinating, Melinda. Now for the fun questions. Do you prefer...
Champagne or Beer? I prefer a Manhattan up with a glass of ice back. If it’s beer, I like Bohemia (Mexican). If champagne, I like Taittinger.
Southern drawl or Scottish burr? Posh British, American Southern and Southwestern.
Kilt or Leather pants? Leather, I suppose. The kilt thing reminds me when we lived in England and my little boy joined the Beaver Scouts. Their uniform was a jumper (sweater) and shorts with long socks—no matter the weather. The little boys’ knees were ever chapped and red. So I would imagine that would be the same situation with the bits under a kilt . . .
First romance you read? In the 1970s I read Angelique series historical romances. However, Naked Once More by Elizabeth Peters is my very favorite romance.
Print book or e-reader? I buy mostly ebooks and have a Kindle app on every device I own.
And now for a special treat, we have the heroine from Melinda's story here today!
MM: Welcome! I'm thrilled you could join us here in The Tavern. What is your full name?
Kristen Nielsen Ottiosman
MM: What is one word that best describes you?
KNO: Undead/Menopausal (Pretty much the same thing, IMO.)
MM: Do you think the author portrayed you accurately? If not, please explain why.
KNO: She thinks so, and I find that hilarious.
MM: What makes you laugh out loud?
KNO: A certain former love-of-my-life, now international corporate vampire, who thinks he can fly back into my life, buy me dinner then suck me dry and dump my body at the morgue. He is so not enjoying what I’m becoming. And getting payback is my reason for living, or un-living, these days. Cracks me up!
MM: What makes you angry?
KNO: See Number Four above.
MM: What is your favorite drink?
KNO: It’s sure not blood anymore. In fact, I’ve gotten kind of blood-phobic. My favorite drink lately is anything liquid alcoholic. Dirty Shamus Irish Cream in great coffee is more than just my breakfast drink—I am a Seattleite, after all.
MM: What is your greatest fear?
KNO: I’ll have to think about that one. Wait, I’m afraid my vampire powers will disappear before I can really enjoy them. At the rate they’re changing, or growing, seems sardonic that they could just disappear one day like my former lover who now claims he’s my master.
MM: What do you wear when you go to sleep at night?
KNO: My dancing-cat-patterned flannel pajamas. Old habits die hard, even in undeath.
MM: What is the perfect romantic date?
KNO: My perfect romantic date is one that I actually have and after which I’m not left for dead at the morgue.
MM: When you look at your master Rick what catches my interest?
KNO: He’s so beautiful, handsome, sexy and undead. Unfortunately, he wants me really dead. I don’t know that we can ever work that out.
MM: What is one word that best describes Master Rick?
KNO: I cannot say that here.
MM: Is your book part of a series?
KNO: Yes, the Bitten Confessions series. Can’t tell you the title of Book 2 as that would be a big spoiler.
Backcover blurb from BITTEN: Confessions of a Menopausal Vampire ~
She’s undead in Seattle, starved of estrogen … and ravenous for payback!
Kristen’s fiancé Rick turns into Houdini and pulls a disappearing act. Now years later her husband deserts her for a younger woman. Disgusted with life itself, menopausal to boot, she doesn’t know what to do when Rick turns up—still young and handsome. Against her better judgment, but with her hormones going haywire, she accepts a date, and finds herself waking up in the morgue as an illegally made vampire.
Rick must hide his mistake or everyone dies. But Kristen refuses to go quietly undead into the dark, because her age, lack of estrogen and other physical and mental anomalies make her a very unusual powerful vampire with none of the limitations. And she has a bucket list a mile long of people who have done her wrong, and an eternity for payback.
Excerpt from “…a hilarious new twist on the vampire genre with Melinda Rucker Haynes’s menopausal vampire’s outrageous tell-all, BITTEN: Confessions of a Menopausal Vampire.”
Instantly self-conscious, I wanted to hide under the covers. “Um, well, I haven’t been feeling all that great since our date. Not sleeping. Dreaming crazy stuff … I’m not dreaming, though, am I?” My memory began to reinstate itself in startling detail. “Oh. My. God.”
Rick sat again and put his arms around me, drawing me to his chest. “No, my sweet Kristen, you are not dreaming.”
I couldn’t even summon tears. Strange images clarified into horrifying memories. “You brought me here that night!”
He held me away from him and laughed at my terrified anger. “Yes, I did. I owed you that much. One last go for old time’s sake, you know? See if that hot chick was still in there someplace.” He peered at me as if searching for the girl I once was.
I pushed him away and tried to get up. Rick pinned me down, his mouth so close to my nose that I got a good whiff of what he was. He smelled of potted meat, dead and preserved with a hint of sweet decay.
“Yes, that’s a good description,” he answered my thought.
Available from AMAZON
And check out other titles by Melinda here!
Meet the Author ~
Before becoming a multiple award-winning, best-selling fiction author, Melinda Rucker Haynes worked as an adult education research project director and published nonfiction. She jokes she learned to write fiction as a grant writer who moonlighted as a corporate trainer of fascinating people working at an area in the Nevada desert that didn’t exist. After gypsying around the world, living in four foreign countries—most recently Washington D.C. and Tucson, Arizona—Melinda continues to search out enchanted stories beyond her imaginary magical story pool in ghost towns, massive cities, vast night skies, and mysterious ancient sites throughout the world. Her interests and hobbies include magical thinking, frequent fantasy flying, past lives exploration, and opus magnum experimentation. Melinda keeps busy doing hot laps in her magical story pool with the menopausal vampire and her next BITTEN tale.
Social Media ~
Website: http://melindaruckerhaynes.com/
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Melinda-Rucker-Haynes/e/B001K8HWC0/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
