trueromance

The Mane Squeeze, by Shelly Laurenston

Setting: New York-New Jersey, modern day

Subgenre: Paranormal Romance

Hero: Lachlan “Lock” MacRyrie

Heroine: Gwen O’Neill

One sentence summary: Easily startled Jersey grizzly meets the Philly feline of his dreams and, tragically, most of her pain-in-the-butt family.

Scene you like most and would never cut:

The Halloween party scene! My crazy wild dogs are on a quest to get my hero into a costume that he would rather fight a clan of rampaging polar bears to the death than wear.

Thing your heroine would never be caught dead doing/saying: “You can get a good cheesesteak anywhere—it doesn’t have to be from Philly.”

Scene in the book moved you the most as you wrote it, or made you the most happy? Although I loved writing all the scenes with my hero and heroine, I also enjoyed writing the scenes between Gwen and her older, annoying, lion male brother Mitch. He’s super overprotective and has a tendency to treat her like a kid. So their constant bickering made me laugh.

Have you learned or found any bizarre facts while doing research?

Because I was writing about a bear shifter, I ended up watching a lot of documentaries on bear maulings. I probably now know more about how (and sometimes why) a human being would be mauled by a bear than a normal person should. Yet I will not horrify you with the details of those stories. Instead I’ll tell you about the piece of information that I learned that did take me by surprise.

I always thought of grizzly bears—because of their size (from 6 to 9 feet long and up to 800 to 1000 pounds)—as slow and lumbering. How fast could they go with all that tonnage they’re dragging around? It turns out they can go super fast. In fact, they can lumber up to 35 miles per hour. Which is why experts say you shouldn’t run from a bear. They will chase you and catch you and that will most likely lead to a good mauling.

Ooops. Went to the maulings anyway, didn’t I?

Ancillary character you had the most fun with: Blayne Thorpe. She’s Gwen’s best friend and a happy-go-lucky wolfdog. I’ve always found good-natured instability fun to write.

What is one thing in your history that has influenced your writing, whether it’s a character, your work habits, or your favorite plot conflict? My family’s love of British comedy. I grew up on “Fawlty Towers,” “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” “The Good Life,” “Solo” and later “The Young Ones,” “Comic Strip,” and, of course, “Absolutely Fabulous.” Even now I can’t get enough of any of these shows.

Your hero’s favorite hobby: Woodworking, and finding beehives and devouring its contents. What? He’s a grizzly. What did you expect?

What do you think readers will like best about this book:

I hope they’ll like the humor and my hero. Personally, I think he’s a hottie, but when I’ve said this sort of thing out loud, well, my friends…they worry.

The person that readers want you to write about but you haven’t yet:

Aleksei Vorislav, tiger shifter and brother of Nikolai from Book 3 in my Magnus Pack series, HERE KITTY KITTY.

What’s next: BEAST BEHAVING BADLY is the next in my Pride series and is due out this summer. I’m also working on my next book for my Dragon Kin series under my G.A. Aiken name.

Question: The last month and a half had a lot of ups and downs for me personally and I found the need for some comfort reads to get me through the more stressful moments (as well as some Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Brownies with walnuts or specially ordered Stella D’Oro Swiss Fudge Cookies since I can’t get them in sunny Los Angeles, but that’s neither here nor there). So what are your comfort reads? What do you grab from your keeper shelf when life has blindsided you? Or you just need to sit with old friends again?

For me, the ones off the top of my head are Lori Foster’s Too Much Temptation and Casey, Rhyannon Byrd’s Waiting For It, and MaryJanice Davidson’s Santa Claws and Bride Fight (all of which I re-read a couple times a year, more if it’s been a tough year). So tell us about yours.

To celebrate my upcoming book release on October 27, 2009, I’ll be giving away three signed copies of THE MANE SQUEEZE.