Release Party! Kat Cantrell’s MINDLINK
Release party! Woot! Woot!
I’m sooooo excited to be the one to kick off this release party for Kat today! It’s a terrific book, and super awesome writing. What more could you want? So yay to Kat, and major congrats! OK…now to the interview…
KIM: Oh my goodness, I LOVE this book! (And I’m not much of a sci-fi fan, thus the OMG part.) But I have to say, it’s not quite like your first two books—which are Harlequin Desires—huh? Want to tell us a bit about Mindlink before we get into the “difficult” questions?
KAT: 
Mindlink *is* totally different than my Desire titles. Officially, Mindlink is a story about ten scientists who are chosen to represent Earth in the first universal summit between humans and aliens. Just to spice it up, the heroine is a down-on-her-luck actress who masquerades as a scientist in an attempt to revitalize her career. The invitation is a trick and when the aliens find out she’s not a real scientist, off to jail she goes, where she meets an intriguing alien (the hero) in the next cell. And that’s when the fun begins—he’s an alien. And the enemy. And bossy. She’s human. And the enemy. And instantly fascinating. Then there’s the part where everyone’s trying to kill them as they attempt to escape. And the part where they accidentally link brain implants and can read each other’s thoughts. Then it’s not so easy to hide how attracted they are to each other. Sparks fly. Which isn’t so different from my Desire titles, actually.
KIM: I loved the premise before I even got into the book! It just sounded so fun. What made you want to write sci-fi? And what is your first love, contemporary or sci-fi? Or something else?
KAT: Honestly, I can’t recall a time I didn’t want to write both. I’ve been reading contemporary and science fiction romance since I was in middle school. I also read historical, but I never thought I had the voice for it, plus I’m not good at thinking up historical plots. Contemp and SF I can’t shut off! And I like each for the ability to explore human emotion in such different contexts.
KIM: One of the first things that stuck out to me was how much world building you had to do for this. As a contemporary author myself, that’s not something I do a lot of, so I was very impressed! And you totally had me right in the middle of your world! I would venture to guess, though, the majority of the population has not seen an alien planet, nor had first hand contact with the “people” living on one. So let’s talk about that a little. How did this world come to you?
KAT: Thank you so much for recognizing that! Coming up with the alien planet WAS a huge chunk of the writing process. I’ll tell you a secret—I have seventy-five pages of notes for this book. :) Don’t tell. People think I’m crazy when I admit that. As to how it came to me, it was a process, but I knew one thing for sure, which I can’t tell you because it’s a huge spoiler. The entire societal and governing structure is based on that one element and I did a lot of research into what that looks like, as well as a lot of brainstorming on how that element might evolve over time. Oh, and once upon a time in real life I had to build an entire department of sixty people from scratch, including job descriptions and hiring. I learned how to examine each moving part and became an expert at organizational charts. I’m afraid I created one for the entire alien society, even down to details like where sanitation workers fit. Did I mention how people think I’m crazy? LOL
KIM: Oh my goodness, I LOVE this!!! I would *so* have 75 pages of notes, too! And totally would have an org chart. That’s seriously brilliant. Uh yes, people think I’m crazy too 
Ok, enough mooning over your process. Let’s get to the next questions. Did you have to let the people of Kir Barsha live in your head a long time before putting it down on paper or did you pretty much just start dumping it out?
KAT: Well, it took a good month or so to get those seventy-five pages of notes and I had the idea for the story long before that. So I’d say a little of both, because I certainly didn’t have ALL the details worked out when I sat down to face that first blank page.
KIM: OK, let’s move on to your hero and heroine. Tell us a little about how they get to know each other. I found their “connection” very fun!
KAT: That’s my favorite part of the story! As previously mentioned, Ashley and Sam meet in jail, where they’ve both been sent to await recycling (which is a death sentence and on the alien world, nothing goes to waste, so they recycle organic material. Efficient, I know!). The aliens have a device they implant in everyone which reads their mind. There’s an interface between implants that allows them to link and Ashley and Sam do this by accident while they’re trying to escape. Ashley is not so happy to have an alien reading her thoughts, as you can imagine. But Sam’s colorblind and through the implant, he sees Ashley’s memories in color and it’s totally amazing. Mindlink is loosely based on The Wizard of Oz plot-wise and as an extra twist, Ashley is Sam’s own personal Oz. His journey to understanding the Technicolor human world in Ashley’s mind parallels their journey to escape. The absolute best part is that I didn’t have the device as a part of the original plot—it was my husband’s idea. I asked him how in the world my aliens would communicate with humans when they don’t speak the same language and he said they should have a Rosetta Bone that evolved in their brain that translates. Of course the original Rosetta Stone is a translator for hieroglyphics—which is a pictorial language—so my aliens’ device communicates via images (a picture is worth a thousand words!). Now imagine your device is linked to someone else’s. And you find that person extremely attractive. Let’s just say for Ashley and Sam, it’s a million times more provocative than a mirror on the ceiling…
KIM: I cannot imagine my innermost thoughts about someone else being broadcast via pictures! I did enjoying watching/reading it happen, though
Here’s a fun question. Sam is all new to this attraction stuff. And as such, he has never…uh…you know. That’s a different approach to take! Why did you decide to go that route? (Which I love, by the way!)
KAT: I read a blog post about a historical romance starring yet another world-weary rake and virgin miss. The author of the blog post said something along the lines of, “I’d like to read a book about a world-weary heroine and a virgin hero.” So I wrote one. That’s why I love science fiction, because I get to make up the rules on my alien planet and they don’t have sex. They create babies in test tubes. It was fascinating to me to write a hero who has no experience with the things Sam sees in Ashley’s mind and desperately wants to explore them. Ashley, on the other hand, has a lot of experience but is seriously icked out by the idea of cross-species “mating”. You’ll have to read the book to find out how they resolve that. It’s hot.
KIM: Alright, one last question. I want to know…When they first meet, Ashley decides the alien in the next cell reminds her of an actor friend who plays an alien in a movie, so she starts calling him “Sam”. Who’s the actor?
KAT: Sam Worthington. You may recall he was in Avatar, but honestly, his role in Terminator Salvation inspired the hero in Mindlink far more. I loved how the movie played with the idea of a man struggling to understand what was beneath his own skin. My Sam goes through similar struggles as he begins to feel human emotion via Ashley’s implant. I almost included thanks to Sam Worthington in the acknowledgements, but it felt weird.
KIM: How funny. That would have been totally cool, but yeah, maybe a bit weird Thanks for joining us and telling us about Mindlink today, Kat. I wish you many, many sales, and I’ll be telling all my sci-fi reading friends about it (and maybe some non sci-fi reading friends, too!)
Thanks for celebrating with me today! I’ll give away a digital copy of Mindlink (your choice of format) to anyone who comments with the answer to this question: Which aspect of Mindlink has you the most intrigued to read it?
Determined to revitalize her imploding career, blacklisted movie star Ashley V takes on her biggest role yet: posing as one of ten scientists invited by aliens to a universal summit. But when the aliens seize, strip and implant the entire delegation to extract their knowledge, she is quickly found out and sent to a cell to await recycling.
The alien research director designated ZXQ-One devised a plan to let the humans volunteer their best and brightest in a gamble to solve his people’s energy crisis. But he fails to find anything useful and winds up imprisoned alongside the fiery human woman who refuses to give up, and who insists on calling him Sam.
After an accidental link between their implants lets them share their thoughts, they find themselves drawn to each other. Sam will have to trust in her human compassion and forgiveness for his role in her capture, and Ashley will have to trust him with her deepest secrets if they are to have any chance at survival…
Buy: Kindle | Nook | Carina | Kobo and Audio: Audible
Bio: Kat read her first Harlequin novel in third grade and has been scribbling in notebooks since she learned to spell. What else would she write but romance? She majored in Literature, officially with the intent to teach, but somehow ended up buried in middle management at Corporate America, Inc.
Kat became a stay-at-home mom and devoted nap time to writing. After many thousands of words, her dream of publication finally came true. When she’s not writing about characters on the journey to happily ever after, she can be found at a soccer game, watching Friends or dancing with her kids to Duran Duran and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Kat, her husband and their two boys live in North Texas. She’s a proud member of Romance Writers of America®. Kat was the 2011 Harlequin So You Think You Can Write winner and a 2012 RWA® Golden Heart® finalist for best unpublished series contemporary manuscript. She’s represented by Jill Marsal of Marsal Lyon Agency.
