Monday, June 21, 2010


Hi, Skye Savoy! It’s great that you could be with us today! Before we start the interview, you asked me to let the readers know that you will be donating a portion of the proceeds from the sales of "Finding Her Perfect Master" to the BP oil spill, is that right?
That's correct, CJ. Pensacola is my hometown and I live in MS and included scenes from both places in the novel.
I think that's wonderful, Skye! Just even more incentive to buy your awesome new novel.


Ok, so tell us, first of all, the name of your newest novel and what it’s about.

My paranormal romance novel, Finding Her Perfect Master, is a story about the misadventures of a half-jinn named Cala, who needs a few wishes granted herself. If she doesn’t find a new master before the Queen of the Jinn finds her, she'll be auctioned off on eBay... again. Cursed by the Queen for supposedly flirting with the King, Cala’s auctioned off to the highest bidder on eBay. Her luck fails again when her master trades her in. She’s thrust into the world of humans with her dwindling magical abilities which often misfire. Cala begins a desperate search for a new master to regain her powers and avoid being turned into a ball of fire by the Queen. Her new job as an Entertainment editor and mystery e-dater for a newspaper’s online dating site brings in plenty of candidates, gives her a taste of independence and reunites her with the victim of her one-time one-night-stand, Lee. Lee forgives Cala for an incident with a leaky pepper spray can during their first meeting. Their relationship skyrockets until Cala finds herself struggling to keep her career and potential new master when someone tries to sabotage her column and expose her identity to Lee, who happens to have a secret identity himself.


If you could sum up your writing in one sentence, what would you say?

My writing is like cooking with just the right amounts humor, sex, turmoil and triumph to (hopefully) propel both the hero and heroin into the heart of the readers.


Describe your favorite scene from your novel.

There’s a scene in the first chapter where Cala falls down the stairs and into Lee’s crotch. It leads to a very passionate one-night-stand (so she thinks) that doesn’t end well. Because she’s never done that type of thing in all her 310-years, she throws an old can of pepper spray into her purse where she’s stashed some condoms. The pepper spray leaked onto the condoms and you guess the rest…


Do you have a favorite quote from Finding Her Perfect Master?

It’s a little more than a quote.
Cala is venting to her best friend, Ro about the full-blooded genie who stole her boyfriend/master away from her…

Now I was really starting to fume. “I don’t understand how some women can get away with everything! They take men away from decent women; women who have given them all they could possibly give. And, she ends up with the home, car and life that we should have had!”
“Especially since we spent all that time, energy and money trying to train him to be just what we wanted! And, when that poor sucker is drained drier than an outhouse corn husk, she moves onto another fool,” Ro stabbed her fork ferociously into her second dessert. “Just like that!”


When did you decide that you were going to become a writer? Was it a landmark decision, or a more gradual one?

As an angst-filled child, I wrote poetry and won a few contests. In high school, I wrote a story about a klutzy Driver’s Ed student named Louise, who terrorized students by driving in the school corridors. Now, my career in marketing/PR allows me to write copy, magazines, etc. But, it wasn’t until I was pregnant with my daughter that I became consumed with an unquenchable desire to complete a novel.

Who influences you the most in your writing?

Whether it’s the strong women I come in contact with daily or the authors I read (Katie MacAlister, Janet Evanovich, Charlaine Harrison, Sherrilyn Kenyon), strong women influence my writing.

In the course of researching for your writing, have you come across any fun or interesting facts that you’d like to share with us today?

I’m fleshing out the ending of my second paranormal romance about Fallen Angels. One article I read said that some of the angels bred with humans and they created a super race called Nephilim. It also stated that God flooded the earth to destroy that race.


Have you ever had writer’s block? How did you cope?

Writer’s block for me is caused by my job. It’s hard to carve out time to write much less balance taking care of a family. I usually have to fight carve out time to write.

Ironically, I’ve had plenty of time lately because I had elbow surgery and the MD stretched the radial nerve which left me unable to use my dominant hand. The only thing that’s kept me sane is being able to type with my left hand. It’s very slow but at least my new book is almost finished.


What’s your favorite thing to do when not writing?

Aside from reading, I enjoy acting for a dinner theatre murder mystery acting troupe.


Name something that you’d do alone but never in front of other people?



If you could be a movie star for one day, who would you be?

I’ve always loved Claudette Colbert. Right now, I absolutely love Catherine Heigl. I see a trend of strong comedic actresses here.



Finally, finish this sentence. People would be surprised to know that…

I used to be a majorette… in elementary school.


CJ: I want to thank you again, for coming out to be on the blog today. Before you go, please be sure to give us a taste of your novel, and a link or two so we can all go buy it!

This was a lot of fun! Thanks so much for allowing me to be on your blog! The excerpt is below. My website is: http://www.skyesavoy.com/.


Buy my book on FICTIONWISE or AMAZON!

EXCERPT:

“Glowing Green or Brilliant Blue?” I’d never used a condom before. But tonight, in this little trendy bar, I was determined to find someone who could put on one hell of a laser light show for me.

The voice of my 4800-year-old Grandma Johara blasted through the alcohol-induced fog in my head. “Cala! Nice jinn just don’t do things like that!”

Somehow, her reprimand didn’t hold as much weight anymore, since Grandpa burned out, literally. Jinn are creatures born of fire, who live among humans for about 6,000 years, and then blow out like a candle. Grandma was in the middle of chewing him out for leaving scorch marks on her favorite flying carpet when he just went “poof”. Grandma took her time, using her magic to clean her precious rug, before she decided to let anyone know.

Recently, that same 4’5” dynamo practically knocked her best friend into the path of oncoming traffic, so she could straddle the gear-shift of a truck. Its owner happened to be a cute guy who picked them up the last time her ‘72 LTD left her stranded on the Interstate. Grandma could have teleported herself anywhere. She just loved the idea of being rescued by a younger man.

I dug around in my purse for some change and thought, “Well, Grandma Johara never found Grandpa in a restaurant, fishing an olive
from the cleavage of a brunette Playboy Bunny-jinn! She would have turned him into a boil on somebody’s ass.”

The ugly confrontation resulted in the loss of my favorite stilettos. It gave me greater satisfaction to pound the hell out of the fender of Scott’s shiny black Mercedes instead of simply wishing it to happen. Besides, thanks to his “trading up on the genie chain” as he put it, my magical abilities were about to be stripped once the Queen found out I was without a master.

Jealousy was a trademark of the Queen of the Jinn. She cursed me to be powerless without a master, all because she caught her husband trying to corner me at one of her quarterly galas that we were all expected to attend. It was just my luck that the smelly, lecherous king singled me out that night. Not only did the queen curse me, but she auctioned me off to the highest bidder on eBay®!
It was quite the news sensation when Scott “won” me. To disguise myself, I changed my raven hair to strawberry blonde. I couldn’t bear to part with my green eyes. I disguised Scott, too; he went from brown hair and brown eyes to black hair, blue eyes and muscles—quite an improvement.

Unless jinn just wanted to spend their lives in the Jinn Kingdom, most of us craved adventure and crossed over the parallel dimension to blend in with the humans. We did our best to hide our identities—most of all, our powers. Often, as in my case, we were discovered and our lives became hell!

Because of The Arabian Nights storybook fallacy and the sitcom “I Dream of Jeannie”, humans thought we could grant three wishes or
blink ourselves silly—producing whatever their little hearts desired! Instead, the King and Queen of the Jinn had strict regulations on how we could use our powers. Specially appointed jinn monitored each subject’s use of power and reported inappropriate usage to their Royal Highnesses.

Little did Scott know that he was getting a cursed half-genie off eBay®. Being a half-jinn meant my powers were more limited than full blooded jinn. Sure, I could materialize a yacht or a sports car. Inevitably, they would vanish after a few months, leaving Scott stranded in the middle of the road or sea unless I was with him and could zap us to safety. Still, he was nice to me for the next five years—even when he found out that I couldn’t exactly give him everything he wanted.

Three weeks of mourning the loss of the only human I’d ever loved came to an abrupt halt today, when said human called to tell me I owed him for half of last month’s rent and the deductible on his car insurance for the repairs. I was finally pushed over into the “anger” stage of the grieving process. He had me use my powers to make him the head of a pharmaceutical company, for crying out loud! Lucky for me, my best friend Ro had a friend who was looking for a specialty item sales rep, or I would have had no money at all. Since I had already moved into Ro’s ex-mother-in-law’s apartment over the garage, I felt pretty secure telling him to go to hell and take the genie-slut with him!

On previous attempts at meeting guys at home improvement or grocery stores, and even a few calls from sons of my grandmother’s jinn friends, my heart just hadn’t been in it. Even though this was just another night out trolling the bars with Ro, Scott’s call sent me careening past the “bargaining” and “depression” stages and into the “acceptance” stage of the grieving process. From what I’d seen at the bar so far, I was sure I’d probably have to accept a bargain, and that I would be revisiting the “depression” stage in the near future.
The bathroom door rattled, and someone yelled, “Hurry up in there!”

I glared at the condom machine a second longer before saying, “Hell! I’m going to buy one of these in every color of the rainbow, and find that pot of gold!” I just hoped I could figure out how to use them as I jammed the money into the condom machine.

4 comments:

  1. Wonderful interview ladies! Great excerpt too, Skye. I love stories about genies/djinns. I grew up watching I Dream of Jeannie. :) How cool that you act! Do you find it different creating characters for your acting as opposed to your writing?
    Congrats on your release! Wishing you tons of sales.

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  2. Great interview! Your book sounds fantastic, Skye. I loved the quote too.

    Finding Her Perfect Master sounds like the best combination of giggles and sighs. :)

    Best of luck to you!

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  3. Thanks again for coming by my place, Skye! It was a pleasure to have you here today! I wish you the best of luck on the sales of your novel!

    xo;

    CJ

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  4. Great post. I too watched a lot of Jeannie and loved the stories of Arabian Nights. Looks like another gets added to my TBR list.
    Loved the excerpt.

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