Welcome to fellow Entangled Publishing author Jenna Bennett! Jenna is amazingly prolific and I have several of her books on my TBR.
Leave a comment for Jenna (with your email) and you'll be entered for a chance to win a copy of her brand new release from the Covet line at Entangled, TALL, DARK, AND DIVINE!
Six questions for NYT bestselling author Jenna Bennett
1) Tall, Dark, and Divine helped launch Entangled
Publishing’s new Covet line. Can you tell us a little about the book?
With pleasure!
Tall, Dark and Divine is about Eros, the Greek god of love, who’s on the
rebound after the love of his life for the past three thousand years, Psyche,
left him for a Viking warrior with more brawn than brains. Like any jilted
husband, Eros drinks too much and neglects work. Of course, when Eros neglects
work, the earth suffers, so the girls in the office—the Greek and Cretan minor
and demi-goddesses who help him run his matchmaking agency—decide that the boss
needs to get out of the house. They take him to Dionysus’s bar—yes, that Dionysus—where he runs into Annie
Landon.
Annie is tired
of looking for Mr. Right and is on the prowl for Mr. Tonight instead, and she
decides that Eros fits the bills. But picking up the Greek god of love for a
one night stand is easier said than done, especially when he’s determined never
to get involved with another mortal. So Eros does his best to fix Annie up with
Harry Mitchell from the accounting firm down the street instead, while Harry
does his best to impress Britomartis, Cretan goddess of hunting, and while
Brita has her eye on Dion, and Dion likes Ariadne, and Ariadne... well, you get
the picture.
2) Tall, Dark, and Divine revolves around Greek gods. So
fun! What was your inspiration?
I blame Gena
Showalter for this one. I was reading about the Lords of the Underworld—Greek
mythology-based paranormal series, quite a bit darker than anything I write—and
thinking that it would be fun to write something like that, but light and
funny. That’s where the original idea came from, for Eros and his modern-day
New York City-based matchmaking agency. I guess even before that, it probably
came from a long-held love of mythology in all forms.
3) You write in several genres—mystery, contemporary, and
paranormal—and maybe even some I don’t know about! Do you have a favorite?
Let’s see
now... you don’t know about the science fiction, or if you do, you didn’t
mention it. Of course, there are those ideas for historicals floating around in
the backbrain, too...
No, I don’t
have a favorite. It depends on my mood. I can’t stick with anything for too
long, in reading or in writing, or I want something else instead, which is why
I try everything in turn. I’ve been writing nothing but romance for the past
six or eight months, so I’m getting in the mood to write another mystery soon.
I can feel the ideas starting to percolate. When you’re a mystery writer, you
can only go so long before you feel the need to kill someone, you know.
4) You’re a super prolific author. What keeps you going
when the well runs dry? (Though I’m guessing that doesn’t happen often for you,
considering all your releases!)
LOL! There’s no
such thing as a dry well. If I never have another original idea for as long as
I live, I can spend the rest of my life writing the ones I’ve already had. Not
that I’m worried; I have new ideas all the time.
I do need
downtime, though. And I need to change things up. Too much of one thing and I
hit some sort of wall and can’t keep going. The science fiction series is about
as dark as I ever get in my writing, and after six months of writing nothing
else, in late April, I couldn’t do it anymore. So I stopped writing halfway
through the second book and started working on other things instead. That’s
where the light paranormal romantic comedy and the contemporary romance came
from: a change of pace from the darker subject matter of the science fiction.
5) Just for fun: Tall, Dark, and Divine includes a
matchmaking agency called Made in Heaven. If you could design your own dream
date, what would he be like? Any celebrity inspirations?
No real
celebrity inspirations, I think. I’ve always had more literary crushes than
movie or TV ones. Vicariously speaking, I tend to go for the bad boys. Tall,
dark, dangerous. The kind of guy who—in real life—I’d last five minutes with,
before I’d fall into temptation and smack him for his chauvinistic, bossy
tendencies. In real life, I tend to be attracted to charm—not the smarmy kind—a
sense of humor, kindness, an even temper... all the boring things that make a
guy nice to be around.
6) Please tell us what’s next for you and where we can
find you on the web.
Sure. Well, the
6th DIY mystery, Wall to Wall Dead, will be released September 4th.
The 5th hit the extended New York Times list last year, so I’m
keeping my fingers crossed we can do it again.
In October, my
first contemporary romance will see the light of day. Friends With Benefits is
a Cinderella type story about a pregnant waitress who marries her nice but
boring next door neighbor for his health insurance—friends with benefits,
see?—and who ends up falling in love with him.
And then in
November, it’s the first science fiction romance’s turn. Fortune’s Hero is
about Quinn Conlan, the captain of a smuggling ship called the Good Fortune,
and his efforts to get his crew out of prison, his ship out of impound, and
everyone out of orbit.
On the
homefront, I’m doing a lot of promo for all the books that are being released,
I’m in the editing phase of both Fortune’s Hero and Friends With Benefits, and
I’m getting back into finishing Fortune’s Honor, the second SFR. After that
we’ll see what’s next on the docket.
You can find
more information about all the books and releases on my website, www.jennabennett.com,
and I do yap on Twitter quite a bit when something exciting is going on. I have
two twitter handles, and I do suffer from the occasional bout of split
personality—i.e., I’ll tweet from the wrong one—so it’s probable safer to
follow both @JennieBentley and @Bennett_Jenna. Other than that, I blog on The
Naked Hero on the 21st of every month.
Thanks so much for visiting, Jenna! Now it's YOUR turn...comment for a chance to win!
Thanks so much for having me!
About the author
Jennie Bentley is the author of the New York Times bestselling Do-It-Yourself Home Renovation mysteries from Berkley Prime Crime, while Jenna Bennett writes the Cutthroat Business mysteries for her own gratification. Jenna is also the author of the upcoming Soldiers of Fortune series of futuristic romances from Entangled Publishing. The first book in the series, Fortune's Hero, will debut in November 2012. In addition to futuristic romance, Jenna also has the first books in a contemporary romantic suspense series and a paranormal series coming from Entangled Publishing in fall 2012.
