Hello
everyone, please welcome LeTeisha Newton to Sensuous Promos today as she shares
with us a little bit about themselves and their work.
LeTeisha,
thank you for joining us today. I know the readers are eager to get to know
you, so let’s get started.
When and why did you
begin writing?
I began writing
because it felt right. I was always drifting off into some dream world, or
creating other places in my head. My mother thought it might be good for me to
write them down. So I started writing, and never stopped. My mother has been
grinning like mad every since!
What inspired you to
write your first book?
I wanted to write a novel to thank me mother, who helped me put pen to paper. I
wanted to write a character who would do anything for her children, face any
obstacle, and prevail. So Yfel Basol was born. I wrote her story I Baile. It took me four years to write
it. I edited it as I got older until it was exactly what I wanted. It’s still
my mother’s favorite book J
How did you come up
with the titles to your book(s)?
The characters tell
me. Honestly. I write the novel and they tell me their story. The essence of
their story chooses the title for me. In my first book Yfel was a dancer, and Baile is dance in Spanish. In Stolen Warrior, my second novel, my main
character, Remi, was a child stolen and forced into a gladiator world, hence
the name. It goes on so forth and so on until my latest book, number thirteen
in my career, Dragon’s Ward, is named
such because my main heroine, Brook, claimed by a dragon as his ward and it
leads to a most unusual love square.
How much of your book(s) have a bit of you in the characters?
I think most of
them. Other than my first one that personified my mother, the other books have
something in it of me. Either a character has a mannerism that I often do, a
thought pattern like me, or, in the case of my novel Instinct, looks like me! I try to use something real to add to my
characters. For example, I suffer from asthma. One of my heroines, Jezzie from The Fire of His Claim, has asthma as
well. I could write her asthma attack from personal experience and it was
harrowing for the reader.
If you had to
choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
You know, that is
hard. I suppose I would say that depends on my time in writing. When I first
began? Anne Rice, I mean Interview with
the Vampire, Anne Rice. I fell in love with her vampire stories. My God,
the prose she used! Later I fell in love with Diana Palmer’s romance novels, Fit for a King entranced me. When I fell
for Paranormal Romance, then I was a big follower of Christeen Feehan’s Dark
series and Gene Showalter’s Lords of the Underwold. Those writers are my
mentors because they wrote different genres, and so do I. I mainly stick to
Interracial Paranormal Romance novels now, but I have a few different genres
under my belt.
What book would we
find you reading right now?
Patricia Knight’s Hers to Choose. I’ve read it already but
I’m re-reading it. I just love her books! The romance is to die for, the men
sexy, the women feisty, and the love scenes…wow. She knows what she’s doing!
Are there any new
authors that have grasped your interest?
Kassana. She writes
for Amira Press and her recent novel Stone
Guardian was excellent! She’s a phenomenal talent and I wish her the best
of luck. Readers really should look into her.
What are you currently
working on? Can you give us a sneak peek?
Right now I’m
actually working on my manuscript for the So You Think You Can Write 2013
contest hosted by Harlequin books! I’m entering under the Nocturne line and I’m
really excited about it. It’s an amazing chance to win a book contract with
them. I suppose I could give you a small sneak peek J
The dense sucking sound of the bullet
slamming into his side made bile rise to his throat just before fire and agony
spread in its wake. He grunted, shutting down emotionally as much as he could
to ignore the pain. He couldn’t afford to stop now. Too much was at stake. He
had to keep going, but he’d brought Lei, the only Watcher not busy at the
moment, with him on this mission, and he knew the immortal would open his mouth
sooner or later, and Sevani’s determination would go with it.
3…2…1
“Old and slow. Man, you gotta see
Valerie soon for some more seeds.”
Sevani chose not to respond, even if inside
he smiled-just a little mind you. Standing a hair over six foot three with
cropped blond hair and dancing green eyes Lei was what Valerie called a prime
piece of meat. His slender frame belied the strength in his body, and the
accuracy of his shot. The man could shoot the wings off a fly without even
taking time to aim. He’d also been the warrior that had absorbed the changes
over time. He’s gravitated to human technology and their weapons specifically.
Even now, clad in black cargo pants, boots, and a fitted t-shirt the man was
covered in guns. Two handguns were strapped to his hips, an assault rifle slung
across his back, two more guns strapped to his thighs and under his arms.
Sevani would bet the man even had a couple tucked into his boots and the band
of his pants. Valerie, by contrast, was the only female of the Watchers, and
the, cough, strongest of them all. Born immortal, she carried with her the
seeds of immortality, something that he, Lei, and Alexander had to consume at
least once every fifty years to stave off death and aging. She didn’t need any
weapons. When she fought it was with her bare hands, and it was a sight. She
would just as quickly rip a man’s head off his shoulders as hug him. She’d done
it enough during his lifetime. He may be thousands of years old but he wasn’t old.
He still looked no more than being in his early thirties.
“Quiet, Lei, and shot. Or are you
getting old?” A gun blasted just shy of his ear and he knew Lei had taken down
the man who’d shot Sevani. Ear ringing now he growled at Lei and kept moving.
“One down, who knows how many more to go,”
Lei quipped with a smile and shot past him at a dead run. They’d fought, and
survived, enough scrapes together in their existence to not have to direct each
other during battle. They moved in opposite directions, Lei firing his handgun
and reloading a clips with dizzying speed, even as Sevani swung his sword. Gods
save humans and their infernal technology, he thought to himself, I like
my sword. It may be old school, but it worked, and Sevani wasn’t going to
make the switch any time soon. He fainted left, dodged another bullet as it
whizzed by, and swung his blade with deadly accuracy. Blood sprayed into the
air, and over him, almost feeling cold to his heated skin. He would not fail.
He couldn’t. Failure meant-well he didn’t want to think about that right now.
When Freya gave an order he listened. The woman knew how to keep a man in line,
even an immortal one.
“Save the girl,” she’d said, blond hair
whipping around her heart-shaped faced as if caught in the wind, her sky-blue
eyes sparking with power. “Or feel my wrath.”
Yeah, like that was even an option.
The Watchers were four immortals souls that
did Freya's bidding. With the exception of Valerie, they’d all committed some
crime in their human lives against the goddess and she’d taken them for
punishment. Instead of just torturing them, however, she’d devised the plan of
forcing them to protect the very thing they’d sinned against. Only Valerie hadn’t
sinned against the goddess, and her reason for being there was still nebulous
at best. But they’d all gotten pass the need to share centuries ago and just
focused on the job. Besides, no one, especially Sevani, wanted to dwell on what
they had done. For some of them it was too painful to even think about.
In those first years of their immortality
they’d been nothing but fiends, riling against the goddess, receiving
punishment, only to rise again and fight once more. Oh how they’d all wished
for the afterlife as they were burned from the inside out, their skin melting
from their bones as the watched. Or they were buried alive for the insects to
eat slowly until their screams drove them crazy. Or they were pecked apart,
piece by piece, by a mass of crows. Or by…the goddess had a multitude of ways
of making them suffer. Only Valerie had soothed them, shown them the awe of
immortal life, and the freedom they had, even in bondage. They’d felt small
next to Valerie who was trapped much more than they because she could give the
gift of immortality. Whatever she had done to get on Freya’s bad side paled
against the thought that she would always be controlled by some god or goddess,
no matter the occasion. She was too precious to be let free. For Valerie they’d
fought to become men once more, and Sevani led them all.
His curse was perhaps the worst of them,
and the others banded behind him. His job, once he’d become lucid, had been to
protect women who’d be murdered by the men who were supposed to care for their
wellbeing. Their curses mirrored what they had failed to do in life, and Sevani
ever mourned the anger, and pride, that had forced his hand. He’d loved Nila
with everything in him. She’d been soft and sweet, everything he’d wanted in a
wife. She’d been shy, virginal, and she’d loved him, or so he’d thought. They
lived for five years happily, and though they had yet to have any children, his
feelings for her hadn’t diminished when others said she may have been barren.
No, he’d lived and breathed for her. The day he’d come home after a hunt to a
quiet house was the worst of his life. He’d smelled no food cooking, heard no
humming as Nila went about her day. He’d thought to surprise her as she was
sleeping and put his meat down and moved silently into their house. The
mud-packed abode wasn’t large, but it had been enough room for them and the
start of a family. He’d moved to the back of the home and heard Nial’s
laughter. He’d smiled, loving the sound, so much like the ringing of small
bells. And then he’d heard a deeper rumble. Everything in him shattered, blew
apart. He taken his sword in hand and stormed into their bedroom.
In the bed they’d started their marriage in
he’d ended her. As she screamed and cried, as she told him she’d thought it was
him, and even as the man had disappeared as if he’d never been there, his blade
had fallen. In his anger he hadn’t been able to stop himself. The point had
plunged into her chest, through her heart. They’d been frozen there, a tableau
of him grasping the hilt, the blade through her body and slicing into the
bedding under her, as she sat up, held by steel. Her tears had never stopped as
she’d cupped his face, her thumbs caressing his cheeks.
“I thought it was you,” she’d whispered, her sable hair falling
around her and her green eyes watery. She smiled as she’d taken her last
breath, and he’d known, to his soul, that she had spoken true. He’d killed the
woman of his heart in a jealous rage, and magic had been at work. Hated god
Loki, enemy of Freya for having a hand in the killing of her son, had come to
Nila as Sevani and bedded her, so that she would be killed, and stripped of her
place at Freya’s side at Ragnarok. Sevani had been punished, severely, over and
over again for centuries. Now, so many years later, they all fought to survive,
to do the bid dig of their goddess. Not for her, but for each other. Their
unflinching support meant that he would never give them reason to worry for
him.
Who is your favorite
author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?
I believe Gena
Showalter is my favorite author, if I had to choose one. I love Paranormal
Romance and her Lords of the Underworld series is my idea of how it should be
done. Her immortals are reformed bad boys, who are always sexy, and they are
deadly. They make a woman swoon, even if she is fighting against her attraction
to them. Her character Reyes really spoke to me. I was so sad for a man who
could only experience pleasure with pain, and was happy he got Danika. They
romance was a long time in the making and I leapt for joy when I read their
story.
Where can our
readers find you on the world wide web?
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