Addison Fox Has Warriors In The Stars...

interview with Suzanne

**sensing a little deja vu? I had a bit of a brain fart yesterday and managed to post this a day early! Ack...too much wine and too little sleep over the weekend! But yes Addison is visiting us today!!**

I met Addison Fox years before she sold her first book, Warrior Ascended. There was something special about this woman with her contagious smile and always positive attitude. So when she sold her first book to Signet, along with the whole Sons of the Zodiac series, I was thrilled. Now, I'm even more thrilled to welcome my good friend back to tell us about the second book in her series!

Suz: Welcome back to the Lair, Addison! And thank you for writing the very sexy, WARRIOR AVANGED! For those who haven’t had a chance to pick up the first book in your Sons Of The Zodiac series from Signet, can you give them a brief overview of the series premise?

Addison: Thanks so much for having me back in the Lair! I love visiting with the Banditas!!

Millennia ago, the goddess of justice, Themis, created a race of fierce warriors, each imbued with a special power of the zodiac and charged with protecting humanity from the evils of the world.

Suz: We met the hero of this book, Kane Montague, in the first book, Warrior Ascended. What is his sign and how does that first encounter play into Warrior Avenged?

Addison: Kane is my Scorpio warrior and for those of you who read WARRIOR ASCENDED, you know that Kane was burned in book one by a fellow secret agent at MI-6. The fact that said agent is the delectable female spy, Ilsa…AND the fact that she burned him at a *most* indelicate moment is the set up for WARRIOR AVENGED. Kane’s out for revenge – even as he can’t wait to get his hands on her again!

Suz: Mmmmmmm, love me my Scorpios. (By the way, we Scorpios are very sexy…hehehe). Uhm. So, yeah Ilsa was an interesting name for your heroine to use, but it isn’t her first cover name, is it?

Addison: Ilsa actually has three names (Adrasteia, Nemesis and Ilsa) and each ties to her backstory and what’s brought her to the point in time where the book starts. I love this heroine – she’s the most flawed, challenged heroine I’ve ever written and I had so much fun writing her and wringing as much emotion out of her as I could.

Suz: Kane isn’t just any warrior, he’s a warrior with a major problem. What is it and how does it affect his abilities?

Addison: Three centuries ago, Kane went up against a very dark sorcerer who found a way to turn Kane’s scorpion against him. The scorpion’s venom lives in his system and rises each year when the Antares star is at its zenith in late May. Antares is the brightest star in the Scorpius constellation and it was one of those fun little elements I found as I did research for the story.

Suz: How do you see the Zodiac Warrior’s war with Enyo progressing throughout the series?

Addison: I’m actually having a ton of fun with that part. Although the warriors and Enyo are all very clear characters in my mind, how their battle is going to play out is still a work in progress for me. Certainly, I expect the stakes to continue to rise and the battles to get more fierce, but exactly what form that is going to take is part of the fun for me!

Suz:  Have you met the hero who will step forward for the next book in this series?

Addison: Not only have I met him, but my readers have met him too! The hero of WARRIOR BETRAYED, which is the third book in the series out next May, is my Taurus warrior, Quinn Tanner. As Kane’s story finishes up, Quinn’s got some baggage he needs to overcome. His stubborn Taurus personality has put some distance between he and his brothers and he’s going to spend much of WARRIOR BETRAYED looking to atone for that.

Suz: And do you have any news for us in regards to the future of Addison Fox? (Girl, you know you want to tell everyone!)

Addison: Thank you for letting me share my news!!!! (Of course I want to tell!!!)

I am so excited to continue writing the Sons of the Zodiac series for NAL/Signet Eclipse. I’m also very excited to announce that I will be writing a contemporary trilogy for them set in Alaska. Here’s a quick blurb on the first book:

THE BACHELOR GAME, set in a small Alaska town whose three matriarchs, in a not-so-secret ploy to get their grandsons happily married off, host an annual contest that teams the town’s rugged bachelors with women from the Lower 48.

I’m working on that right now and it’s due out late 2011.

Thank you so much for having me today. I am so looking forward to visiting with everyone in the Lair!!!

Suz: Addison will be giving away a signed copy of WARRIOR ASCENDED to one lucky commenter.

Arming the Zodiac with Addison Fox!

interview with Suz

Bandits, Bandit Buddies and all our readers, y'all are in for a treat. Today you will get a look at a brand-spanking-new paranormal series and the author, who is not only a dear friend of mine, but a very creative writer! Welcome, Addison Fox. Pull up a lounge chair and we'll have the cabana boys bring some wine.

Suz: Congratulations on your first book, WARRIOR ASCENDED, hitting the bookstore shelves! We love a call story at the Bandit Lair, so please tell us how this first sale happened?

Addison: I love telling this story - thank you for letting me share it!!!

The call came on November 20, 2008. I was at work and I got an email from my agent, asking, "Are you going to be around tonight?" NAL had the overall series proposal and a proposal on the first book. I'd already made one round of revisions on the proposal and they'd agreed to look at it again and now we were just waiting to hear.

I immediately called my sister (hey - if my productivity was shot for the day, hers could be, too!) and we spent quite a bit of time on the phone and in email trying to figure out the outcome. Fortunately it didn't take all day and my agent called me around 2 to let me know NAL wanted to buy it. I had to slip out of a meeting to take the call and hide behind a wall of cubicles. So here I am, trying to take notes and not scream and jump up and down.

I then started calling and emailing everyone I knew!

Suz: I love the premise for the Sons Of The Zodiac series. Can you fill our readers in on it and how you came up with the idea?

Addison: I wish I could explain the moment of connection, but I was sitting there on the couch watching TV, not even thinking about plotting and this idea of the zodiac and warriors popped into my head.

Truly - it was this rare, "gift moment" that I have no idea where it came from. That said, never one to look a "gift moment" in the mouth - I immediately jumped online and started googling the zodiac. I quickly found the connection between modern-day Western astrology and Greek mythology and I was off to the races.

What's been the most fun part of the series is the richness available from a world-building perspective. The zodiac is unique and balanced so there are a multitude of traits to pull on from a character perspective. And then the Greek mythology component adds this really neat layer of world building that's incredibly fun to draw from.

Suz: These guys are all alpha males to the nth degree, just my favorite kind. Brody is the Leo Warrior. With 13 warriors to write about what made you decide to start with him?


Addison: Brody was the other gift in the series. He was the image in my mind as I put the zodiac/warrior connection together. Although he isn't a shape shifter, the idea of the Lion was immediately sexy and appealing and brings to mind a very powerful, very alpha male.

Suz: Your heroine, Ava Harrison, starts out as a shy work-oriented woman, trying to hide any femininity behind drab clothes. How does she first meet Brody? And how does she react to his invasion of her life?

Addison: Ava's got a lot of baggage. Her father - a world famous archaeologist who discovered the famed Summoning Stones of Egypt - was murdered in front of her when she was young. The murder was always believed random, but it shook the very foundation of her life.

She had a dream to follow in his footsteps, but from a more academic perspective as her fear of leaving the safe world she's built around her has always kept her from field work. So instead, she's put her love of archaeology into a career as a curator at the American Museum of Natural History.

Brody is an overwhelming force in her life, but one she's deeply attracted to. He also arrives at an incredibly important moment - she's bringing her father's work to a major exhibit at the museum. Although Brody's presence in the museum is explained under the guise of museum security, she senses immediately he's more than he seems.

His presence also coincides with something else. Ava's never told anyone, but she has horrible visions when she gets anywhere near the Stones. Although she's suspicious of Brody's sudden arrival, she quickly realizes she needs an ally as the power of the stones - and the visions they cause only her - grows stronger.

Suz: Can you explain what the summoning stones are?

Addison: The Summoning Stones are a very powerful piece of magic from the reign of Thutmose the III in ancient Egypt. Five, equally shaped stones, about the size of a woman's hand, that were placed in museums around the world after their discovery. Ava's exhibit is the first time they will be all brought back together.

Each stone possesses a different quality - life, death, love, sexuality, infinity. When put together, they have the power to grant the one who can harness them - a "Chosen One" in every age - power over everything.

While I don't want to give anything away, betcha can't guess who is the "Chosen One" of this age?.

Suz: What's next for the Sons Of The Zodiac?

Addison: Ooooh - my Scorpio's up next - Kane Montague. I love all my warriors, but Kane's got a special place in my heart. When we meet him in WARRIOR ASCENDED, he's just been duped (in a very sexy way) by a secret agent, going by the name of Ilsa.

WARRIOR AVENGED begins six months later, when Kane finally runs down the sexy operative he's not been able to get out of his head. Of course, both of them have some fairly large secrets and it's going to take a whole lot of together time to make them realize they work far better together than alone.

Suz: Ooooooooo Scropio...uh, just happens to be my favorite birth sign!! And Kane is yummo, ladies!! I love your heroes and love the feature interview you do with Brody on your website at http://www.addisonfox.com/index.php/leo/
*whispering to the Bandits and friends...I'm waiting to see what she posts about Kane*

Addison: So I've got a question for everyone. I absolutely love reading about astrology and I'm a total horoscope junkie. Do you all believe the stars influence our personalities or that there are traits that we hold that come from the sign we're born under?

Suz: Addison is giving away a signed copy of WARRIOR ASCENDED to one lucky commenter.


P.S. And as always, if you click on the book, you can go to Amazon.com to order your own copy. And don't forget, clicking on the Bandit books will do the same...and check out Bandit websites and my online story blog by clicking our pics!

MAKE ME LAUGH

by suzanne

No, I'm not asking for your best Internet forward joke...although I have a great one best told in a bar with an Irish accent. What I want, what I'm craving is a funny book to read. A light-hearted fare or one where there are brilliant moments of comic relief.


The first Susan Elizabeth Phillips (SEP) book I ever read was NOBODY'S BABY, BUT MINE. Now, this wasn't a slap-stick funny book. But when she removes all the marshmallows from the cereal box to make it more healthy for him and he says, "I've married a cereal killer!", I cracked up! When she insists on driving up the North Carolina mountain in a storm to have her baby, yep, got me laughing out loud! And it also had me back at the bookstore the next day buying everyone of SEP's back list.





My friend, Jo Davis,(author of TRIAL BY FIRE, UNDER FIRE and HIDDEN FIRE), who reads mostly suspense, claims AIN'T SHE SWEET was the funniest book she can remember reading. One of her favorite parts? When the dog in the front seat beside the heroine farts at her. The heroine thinks, "yep, even the dog hates me.





Another author who mixes great characters, good story telling, some suspense and comic relief is Julie Garwood. In SAVING GRACE , two clans are trying to live on the same land under the same laird, only they refuse to merge into one clan. Many funny episodes occur as the heroine uses quiet defiance and even tosses shattered crockery to get her point across. I chuckle my way through that book every time I read it. (28 at a last reading.)



Another dear friend, Sandy Blair, (author of A MAN IN A KILT, A ROUGE IN A KILT, A THIEF IN A KILT and A HIGHLANDER FOR CHRISTMAS) says the funniest book she can remember was Garwood's THE GIFT. What makes it so funny? Sandy says it's knowing what's coming next from the heroine's POV and the hero's exasperated reaction to what he perceives as illogical. Garwood sprinkles these gems throughout all her books. One of the reasons she's one of our favorite feel-good authors.





Addison Fox, (author of WARRIOR ASCENDED: The Sons of the Zodiac, coming in March 2010), couldn't pinpoint a specific book by Nora Roberts, but says one of her favorite reasons to read Nora's books is her ability to have witty dialogue that relieves some of the suspense and have her readers chuckling in different places throughout her books.






One of the funniest books I've ever read was Linda Howard's TO DIE FOR. This book works in so many ways. First it is in first person, (not my usual cup of tea), and because we're mostly in the heroine's head we understand why she does the things she does, even if she admits they're stupid. We also get to see the hero's frustrations at her actions, he's banging his head on his desk. This is also a different kind of suspense for Ms. Howard, totally at odds with her usual dark fare. When I was reading it, Rocky-the-wonder-dog was parked on the bed beside me. I laughed so hard the bed shook and he gave me that irritated male dog look (very reminiscent of irritated male human look). I had to stop reading long enough to stop laughing in order to read some more!




Jane Graves, a romantic comedy author, (HOT WHEELS AND HIGH HEELS, TALL TALES AND WEDDING VEILS), points to any book by Jennifer Crusie. Jane says, "I always feel a special sense of delight at her word choice, her sentence structure, and especially her dialogue. Her books are just flat-out fun to read, sentence after sentence, page after page. They're not funny in a laugh-out-loud way, at least not to me. They're just...fun. She's one of the few authors out there who can entertain me with almost every sentence she writes." My daughter, Alison, agrees whole heartily.

In fact, the idea for this blog originally titled, "where have all the funny books gone?", came from my daughter. She was going through a pregnancy, was home on maternity leave a few weeks early and was looking for books to read. She asked me, "Mom, I'm tired of reading serious, dark books. I want to laugh. I need a funny book, do you know of any?"

So, I need some help.

Who would you like to read? What writer makes you laugh? Who do you read when you want a good chuckle or to relieve some of the stress in your own life?