Zoe Forward and Dawn of a Dark Knight on Erotic Notions

Please welcome - Zoe Forwardand her latest -- Dawn of a Dark Knight

Major apologies to Zoe - this first paragraph refused - REFUSED! - to behave. At first it was just one long sentence and then it shifted to triple space.  I couldn't fix it. Tell my readers about yourself.  Where were you born? Where do you live now? Hobbies?
Thank you for inviting me to visit! I’m a veterinarian by day and a writer at night. In the middle I’m a mom.  My special love of archaeology, especially anything Egyptian, shines through in the Scimitar Magi series.  A deep part of me wishes I had pursued a career that would have me at a dig site in a hot, sandy country, but I’m a small animal veterinarian, caring for everything from chinchillas to dogs...and even one hermit crab in there.
What inspired you to write? Several years ago I realized I wanted to write fiction as well as read. I had just finished reading a dreadfully written short romance, and at the height of my frustration determined I must release the characters bumping around in my brain that screamed to be free. Releasing them onto paper was an exhilarating experience.
Why paranormal romance? I grew up heavily influenced by Indiana Jones, James Bond, Star Trek, and Star Wars.  For books I started with Ann Rice and then got sucked into the paranormal romance world (and never looked back).  So, writing paranormals was a no brainer.  For Dawn of a Dark Knight everything came together at the right creative moment — my love of Egyptian mythology, my long-time passion for archaeology, my ideas about a new type of paranormal hero and more. It all just gelled.  Oh wow - add Harry Potter to that list and you've mentioned every movie I love!
  Your romance Dawn of a Dark Knight is Book 1 in The Scimitar Magi Series—can you tell us a little more about the series in general? For the Scimitar Magi series I created a new hero.  As a passionate reader of paranormal romance I’ve read my fair share of vampires, weres, fae, shape shifters and demons. And loved them all. But I wanted something new. In Dawn of a Dark Knight the Scimitar Magi are ten pseudo-immortals that live within our world, but struggle to remain incognito. The guys are not exactly thrilled to discover they vowed their eternal soul eons ago to serve the Egyptian gods, and now must execute daemons for the rest of their life.  With no past-life memory, they’ve got no clue how to wield the powers gifted to them by the gods.  Man to super warrior in five minutes with no instruction manual.  So it takes a long time for each Scimitar to work it out. At first losing control at random is the norm, and irritates the bejesus out of the more experienced guys. Incidents happen like blowing up a gas station, which is misinterpreted by the government as a terrorist act.  And then there are the women. The Scimitars each get matched to one woman for all-time, and she is also reincarnated.  But when…and if this woman shows up is entirely up to the gods, who love to muck things up for their entertainment.
Can you share a bit more about Dawn of a Dark Knight with us? I just love both main characters in Dawn of a Dark Knight.  The heroine, Kira…who wouldn’t want to be her? She’s an adrenaline junkie good at handling weapons with a cousin that drags her on black market art deals.  And she’s got a magical ability to heal by touch, which propels her towards a mind-blowing relationship with the world’s hottest, yet tormented hero.
And then there’s the raw, tormented Ashor. He struggles to obey the rules laid down by the gods he works for, but stresses when he can’t.  He desperately desires the woman destined to be the sacred healer for the Scimitar magi (Kira), but the gods’ rules dictate he cannot be involved with her. On top of this he keeps blacking out and going on hunts to take out the guys that do most of the daemon summoning, the Hashishins.  Killing these guys, even though they are clearly hostiles, violates the no-killing-humans-unless-attacked rule.

Plotter or a pantster?  Why does this work best for you? I have a rough idea of plot points when I begin, but allow the story to play itself out as I write.  For me, the characters dictate much of the action.  I’ve tried fighting with characters to get to the plot to move in the direction I desire, but sometimes the characters don’t agree.  And, generally, they win.
Have any of your characters ever been based on people you knew from real life? I’ve never based a character on an immediate family member.  But I have borrowed traits from acquaintances for some of the characters I developed.  When I’ve done so, it is done with love for these are characters that make me smile.

Having just got through a bit of writer's block myself, have you ever hit a writer's wall?  How did you deal with it? If I ever find myself mentally doing mud-spit wheels spins, I move on to a different project until the idea surfaces as to where a stalled story is headed. I’ve usually got about four projects in the works at once. So far, it’s always worked out.


Where do you write? Office, kitchen table, computer, laptop?  Where would the perfect location be for you? How I wish I had the luxury of time to schedule my writing or have a favorite location. Between being a full-time veterinarian, a mom and a writer, I’m thrilled to steal a few minutes in a busy day to pen some pages. Most plotting and brainstorming happens on my work commute or walking the dog. Bottom line is that I make it happen. The perfect location for me is somewhere quiet with an outlet in case my laptop needs charging.
Short question time. Chocolate ice cream or chocolate gelato? Ice cream Baseball or hockey? Neither- basketball Hot red finger nail polish or bare nails? Bare nails Spaghetti or steak? spaghetti Laying on a beach or skiing down a mountain? beach White roses or red roses? red Last one – tell us 1 thing about you that's fun. I seem to be a magnet for running my car over nails and getting flat tires. :-)
Thank you for inviting me to visit.  I always love to hear from readers. Drop by my website to send me an email.
Website: http://www.zoeforward.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorzoe.fo... Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/... Buy links:  Wild Rose Press: http://www.thewildrosepress.com/index... NOOK: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dawn-... Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Dark-Knigh...