Polly Iyer's Blog - Posts Tagged "polly-iyer"
Character Blog - Diana Racine
Good friend Jim Jackson, or as he’s known in the literary world, James M. Jackson, invited me to participate in a character blog. Since I had a new release featuring my character, Diana Racine, I thought why not? You can find Jim’s books, Bad Policy and Cabin Fever, at your favorite bookstore or online venue. His blog describing his character, financial investigator Seamus McCree, is at this location:
http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/20...
Financial crimes investigator Seamus McCree returns in this thrilling sequel to Bad Policy. With his house in Cincinnati in ruins, Seamus retreats to the family cabin for some well-earned rest and relaxation. But his plans for a quiet, contemplative winter in the wilds of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are thrown out the window when he discovers a naked woman on his porch during a blizzard. The mystery woman is suffering from hypothermia, frostbite, high fevers, amnesia—and rope burns on her wrists and ankles.
I never intended to write a series when I wrote Mind Games, but I got an idea for book two, and Goddess of the Moon was born. It all fit so perfectly. Diana, a character in mythology, was Goddess of the Hunt and Goddess of the Moon.
Then readers asked for book three, and I panicked. Could I write a third?
Backlash was released September 30, 2014. People have already asked me about a fourth. To that I say, maybe.
What makes the series a natural is Diana herself. Here’s why:
Diana gained celebrity when she was six-years old after she found the body of a missing child. From that point until she was twelve, her father pushed her to find missing persons both for the police and for individuals searching for their missing kin, most of whom are dead.
The pressure on the young psychic took its toll, and to save her sanity, she claimed she lost her gift. Unwilling to lose his meal ticket, Diana’s father created a psychic act that traveled the world. How does a psychic who’s supposedly not psychic anymore star in a psychic act?
Easy. Daddy hired computer experts to hack into audience participants’ credit cards and any other trough of information to aid Diana pull off her ruse. Besides what her hackers unearthed, she somehow managed to find something in everyone’s psychic reading that no one else could have known.
So, is our heroine is a fraud, a charlatan, and a quack, or is she the real thing?
That’s what New Orleans police lieutenant Ernie Lucier had to decide in the first book, Mind Games, when she told him she saw the body of a dead woman in a vision when a masked man touches her at a Mardi Gras ball.
Diana is described by many as trouble looking for a place to happen. She’s fearless, reckless, and smart, but the one thing that sets her apart and makes it difficult for her to do anything clandestinely is she’s famous. People recognize her wherever she goes.
Here are some Diana facts:
She’s 5’2”, has a mass of black curls, wears only black and white with a touch of red to match her lipstick, and she might do an occasional private reading for an exorbitant fee. She won’t, however, perform in front of crowds, although in book three, she’s snookered into doing just that.
Diana is a fun character to write because I never know what she’s going to do. She learns more about the bad guys from touching them, and that’s why she’s always a target. They’re afraid of her. Ernie Lucier is totally smitten, and though a quiet, thoughtful man, he’s had to adjust to her celebrity. They make a great team.
My choice to pass along the character blog is Aaron Paul Lazar and his character Sky Lissoneau: the “Bad Boy” from Tall Pines Mysteries.
When Sky returns to the States after being MIA for eighteen years, his first love, Marcella, is stunned and deeply conflicted. Sky suffered badly in the war, forced to abandon his platoon when his best friend’s life was in danger. Captured and held as a prisoner of war for years, all he could think of was Marcella, his darling Marcella. It was the thought of Marcella’s soft kisses that kept him going. Her infectious laugh helped him survive the cruelest torture. And when he returns with a gang of vicious hi-powered crooks chasing him, she saves his life. Somehow, he just knew she’d be there, still waiting. But he didn't know she'd be married to Quinn "Black Eagle" Hollister.
Here's the link to Aaron's blog: http://murderby4.blogspot.com/2014/10...
http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/20...
Financial crimes investigator Seamus McCree returns in this thrilling sequel to Bad Policy. With his house in Cincinnati in ruins, Seamus retreats to the family cabin for some well-earned rest and relaxation. But his plans for a quiet, contemplative winter in the wilds of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are thrown out the window when he discovers a naked woman on his porch during a blizzard. The mystery woman is suffering from hypothermia, frostbite, high fevers, amnesia—and rope burns on her wrists and ankles.
I never intended to write a series when I wrote Mind Games, but I got an idea for book two, and Goddess of the Moon was born. It all fit so perfectly. Diana, a character in mythology, was Goddess of the Hunt and Goddess of the Moon.
Then readers asked for book three, and I panicked. Could I write a third?
Backlash was released September 30, 2014. People have already asked me about a fourth. To that I say, maybe.What makes the series a natural is Diana herself. Here’s why:
Diana gained celebrity when she was six-years old after she found the body of a missing child. From that point until she was twelve, her father pushed her to find missing persons both for the police and for individuals searching for their missing kin, most of whom are dead.
The pressure on the young psychic took its toll, and to save her sanity, she claimed she lost her gift. Unwilling to lose his meal ticket, Diana’s father created a psychic act that traveled the world. How does a psychic who’s supposedly not psychic anymore star in a psychic act?
Easy. Daddy hired computer experts to hack into audience participants’ credit cards and any other trough of information to aid Diana pull off her ruse. Besides what her hackers unearthed, she somehow managed to find something in everyone’s psychic reading that no one else could have known.
So, is our heroine is a fraud, a charlatan, and a quack, or is she the real thing?
That’s what New Orleans police lieutenant Ernie Lucier had to decide in the first book, Mind Games, when she told him she saw the body of a dead woman in a vision when a masked man touches her at a Mardi Gras ball.
Diana is described by many as trouble looking for a place to happen. She’s fearless, reckless, and smart, but the one thing that sets her apart and makes it difficult for her to do anything clandestinely is she’s famous. People recognize her wherever she goes.
Here are some Diana facts:
She’s 5’2”, has a mass of black curls, wears only black and white with a touch of red to match her lipstick, and she might do an occasional private reading for an exorbitant fee. She won’t, however, perform in front of crowds, although in book three, she’s snookered into doing just that.
Diana is a fun character to write because I never know what she’s going to do. She learns more about the bad guys from touching them, and that’s why she’s always a target. They’re afraid of her. Ernie Lucier is totally smitten, and though a quiet, thoughtful man, he’s had to adjust to her celebrity. They make a great team.
My choice to pass along the character blog is Aaron Paul Lazar and his character Sky Lissoneau: the “Bad Boy” from Tall Pines Mysteries.
When Sky returns to the States after being MIA for eighteen years, his first love, Marcella, is stunned and deeply conflicted. Sky suffered badly in the war, forced to abandon his platoon when his best friend’s life was in danger. Captured and held as a prisoner of war for years, all he could think of was Marcella, his darling Marcella. It was the thought of Marcella’s soft kisses that kept him going. Her infectious laugh helped him survive the cruelest torture. And when he returns with a gang of vicious hi-powered crooks chasing him, she saves his life. Somehow, he just knew she’d be there, still waiting. But he didn't know she'd be married to Quinn "Black Eagle" Hollister.
Here's the link to Aaron's blog: http://murderby4.blogspot.com/2014/10...
Polly Iyer Interviews Polly Iyer on Genres
Q. What genre do you write?
A. I write cross-genre fiction.
Q. What’s that?
A. That’s the genre that agents and editors tell you they can’t place on the bookshelf when they reject you. Bookstores can’t find a place for your book either.
Q. So, do you write either mystery, suspense, or thrillers?
A. Yes, all three, sometimes in one book, but there’s also romance.
Q. Then it’s romantic suspense?
A. Not really.
Q. Why not?
A. Because I don’t follow the romantic-suspense formula. Sometimes the romances in my books don’t have a HEA, Happy Ever After. Romance Writers of America classifies Romantic Suspense this way: The love story is the main focus of the novel, a suspense/mystery/thriller plot is blended with the love story, and the resolution of the romance is emotionally satisfying and optimistic. Though my books have a romance, crime is the focus of the story. RWA has tempered their former explanation of a definite HEA to an ending that is emotionally satisfying and optimistic. That leaves some room for H/h (Hero/heroine—notice the female H is in small letters. I take umbrage.) to maybe get together, maybe not, but probably. My book Hooked has that kind of ending.
I leave it up to the reader to decide. I have one more book with the same kind of ending.
Q. So, Hooked is a romance with a satisfying and optimistic ending?
A. I thought so, but some reviewers did not find the ending at all satisfying. They wanted to know what happened after the last page. Oh, and there’s humor in this one too.
Q. So it’s a Romantic Comedy?
A. Oh, no. There’s humor but there are a few murders, so it really isn’t funny. Just humorous in parts.
Q. So how do you characterize your work?
A. Broadly? Suspense with a hint of romance.
Q. And humor.
A. Sometimes. My last book, Backlash, is very serious. Even though the two main characters are a couple, there’s no hot romance in this one. But there are romantic elements.
Q. Sigh. I’m thoroughly confused. Maybe you should create a new genre to satisfy everyone.
A. Oh, that’s impossible. A writer will never satisfy everyone. I’ve had readers think I tell the best stories ever and others who think I should learn how to write. Agents, on the other hand, are only satisfied if the book meets the current genre in vogue, and writers better be fast because that changes as often as women change shoes. Agents can’t pitch a novel and call it Crime Fiction with Romance and Humor, now, can they? Editors of large publishing houses already have the books filtered first by agents, so they don’t see all of what’s out there, but they want to be on the cutting edge as well. Publishers want to be able to pitch the book to the bookstores, and bookstores have to know where to put the book in the store. What it comes down to is some writers have to put up with an unimaginative bunch in order to get published.
Think back to J.K. Rowling, who had a hell of a time getting any publisher to read Harry Potter. Then, when it became a huge success, agents, editors, and publishers all wanted wizard books. Then it changed again to vampires, and that changed to--you get the picture. Exhausting, isn’t it?
Q. How do you do it then?
A. I self-publish.
Q. What does that mean?
A. I can do anything I damn well please and hope readers find me and like what I write.
A. I write cross-genre fiction.
Q. What’s that?
A. That’s the genre that agents and editors tell you they can’t place on the bookshelf when they reject you. Bookstores can’t find a place for your book either.
Q. So, do you write either mystery, suspense, or thrillers?
A. Yes, all three, sometimes in one book, but there’s also romance.
Q. Then it’s romantic suspense?
A. Not really.
Q. Why not?
A. Because I don’t follow the romantic-suspense formula. Sometimes the romances in my books don’t have a HEA, Happy Ever After. Romance Writers of America classifies Romantic Suspense this way: The love story is the main focus of the novel, a suspense/mystery/thriller plot is blended with the love story, and the resolution of the romance is emotionally satisfying and optimistic. Though my books have a romance, crime is the focus of the story. RWA has tempered their former explanation of a definite HEA to an ending that is emotionally satisfying and optimistic. That leaves some room for H/h (Hero/heroine—notice the female H is in small letters. I take umbrage.) to maybe get together, maybe not, but probably. My book Hooked has that kind of ending.
I leave it up to the reader to decide. I have one more book with the same kind of ending.
Q. So, Hooked is a romance with a satisfying and optimistic ending?
A. I thought so, but some reviewers did not find the ending at all satisfying. They wanted to know what happened after the last page. Oh, and there’s humor in this one too.
Q. So it’s a Romantic Comedy?
A. Oh, no. There’s humor but there are a few murders, so it really isn’t funny. Just humorous in parts.
Q. So how do you characterize your work?
A. Broadly? Suspense with a hint of romance.
Q. And humor.
A. Sometimes. My last book, Backlash, is very serious. Even though the two main characters are a couple, there’s no hot romance in this one. But there are romantic elements.
Q. Sigh. I’m thoroughly confused. Maybe you should create a new genre to satisfy everyone.
A. Oh, that’s impossible. A writer will never satisfy everyone. I’ve had readers think I tell the best stories ever and others who think I should learn how to write. Agents, on the other hand, are only satisfied if the book meets the current genre in vogue, and writers better be fast because that changes as often as women change shoes. Agents can’t pitch a novel and call it Crime Fiction with Romance and Humor, now, can they? Editors of large publishing houses already have the books filtered first by agents, so they don’t see all of what’s out there, but they want to be on the cutting edge as well. Publishers want to be able to pitch the book to the bookstores, and bookstores have to know where to put the book in the store. What it comes down to is some writers have to put up with an unimaginative bunch in order to get published.
Think back to J.K. Rowling, who had a hell of a time getting any publisher to read Harry Potter. Then, when it became a huge success, agents, editors, and publishers all wanted wizard books. Then it changed again to vampires, and that changed to--you get the picture. Exhausting, isn’t it?
Q. How do you do it then?
A. I self-publish.
Q. What does that mean?
A. I can do anything I damn well please and hope readers find me and like what I write.
