Guest Author: Ashlyn Chase

Today, I would love to welcome Sourcebooks Casablanca author, Ashlyn Chase, who is celebrating the release of her new novel, Strange Neighbors.

He’s looking for peace, quiet, and a little romance…
There’s never a dull moment when hunky all-star pitcher and shapeshifter Jason Falco invests in an old Boston brownstone apartment building full of supernatural creatures. But when Merry MacKenzie moves into the ground floor apartment, the playboy pitcher decides he might just be done playing the field…

A girl just wants to have fun…
Sexy Jason seems like the perfect fling, but newly independent nurse Merry’s not sure she’s ready to trust him with her heart…especially when the tabloids start trumpeting his playboy lifestyle.

Then pandemonium breaks loose and Merry and Jason will never get it together without a little help from the vampire who lives in the basement and the werewolf from upstairs…

Make sure you stick around to the end. We’ll be giving away two copies of Strange Neighbors to two lucky individuals.
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A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Series…

I’m sure you’ve all heard “Never say never…” Yeah, I’d heard it too, but that didn’t stop me from saying I’d never write a single title and I’d certainly never write a series of them!

I was a short writer, a quick storyteller who liked the length and pace of novellas. Get in there, tell a fast paced story without all the fluff and boring details, then get out. That was my style.

I kept hearing from editors, readers, friends—in short, everyone—that I really ought to think of a series idea. Everyone (except me, apparently) loved a series. I avoided them like housework (Hey, the plague isn’t hard to dodge anymore). So I was happily e-publishing with the largest e-publisher in the world, making good money, and churning out novella after novella.

Suddenly the bottom dropped out. I blamed e-pirates, the economy, and a glut of new competition. But whatever the reason, my checks went from Ahhh…to Eek! So, what do career focused authors do in a case like that? From where I sat (on high, looking down at the big picture,) I had two choices. Push myself past my comfort level and write stuff that didn’t appeal to me but sold like hotcakes, or push myself past my comfort level and write a freakin’ series. Face it, if I had do all that work, I’d want a traditional publisher who liked my content, my voice, and was willing to pay a decent wage for it. In other words, an advance. E-publishers don’t usually give advances, just royalties, so no sales equals no paycheck!

I brainstormed a few series ideas, which was hard since my brain wasn’t wired that way. I began by trying to think in multiples that I could use with my hot, paranormal, romantic comedy style. Naughty New England? Hmm…six states. Six stories. Too regional. How would the Midwestern reader identify with lobster fishermen and maple syrup makers?

Back to the drawing board. This went on and on until I started thinking in terms of what’s universal—what we have everywhere…um, people. Quirky people. Yeah, and people need places to live. Not everyone can afford a house, but many of us started out in apartments. And what else do we have everywhere? Cities, towns, vampires. Huh? There I go again…pardon my imagination, but we do have mythology everywhere. Today’s mythology includes vampires, werewolves, and other shapeshifters, plus any number of alien creatures. I thought I’d stick with the better known beings and branch out.

So book one has a vampire, a werewolf, a ghost and a couple of other shapeshifters. Our hero has a wonderful unique paranormal identity, but I won’t ruin it for you if you’d like to discover it while reading the story—sort of like the heroine did. But you can laugh at what she does because it isn’t happening to you!

In the subsequent books, I introduce some new characters, and they’re pretty unique too. It was great fun populating this cool, remodeled apartment building and making every character function exactly as they needed to in order to provide you with maximum entertainment. I really hope you’ll enjoy my Strange Neighbors. I certainly did!

About the Author
A multi-published, award-winning author, Ashlyn Chase specializes in characters who reinvent themselves, having reinvented herself numerous times. Among her many day jobs, she has worked as a psychiatric nurse, run blood drives for the Red Cross, and now uses her degree in behavioral sciences to avoid writing exhaustive character sketches. She lives with her true-life hero husband in beautiful New Hampshire. For more information, please visit http://ashlynchase.com/.

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Thank you Ashlyn for stopping by!

Contest Time! Ashlyn has graciously offered to give away two copies of Strange Neighbors to two lucky winners. All you have to do is answer the question: What kind of neighbors do you find strange?  What do you think of Ashlyn’s Strange Neighbors? Sorry guys, contest is only open to US/Canadian residents.

As always, there’s more ways of getting your name in the hat (remember, these aren’t mandatory to enter, just extra entries):

  • +1 for each place you post about today’s contest on your blog, social network, or anywhere you can. Digg it, stumble it, twit it, share it with the world. Wherever you share it, make sure you add a link to it along with your answer.
  • +1 to any review you comment on, however, comments must be meaningful. Just give me the title of the review and I’ll be able to figure it out from there.
  • +1 If you are a follower of Literary Escapism on Facebook and/or Twitter
  • +10 Purchase any of Ashlyn’s, or any, novel through LE’s Amazon store or the Book Depository sometime during this contest and send a copy of the receipt VIA email for your purchase to: jackie AT literaryescapism DOT com. Each purchase is worth ten entries.

There is one thing I am adding to my contests now…the winner must post a review of the novel someplace. Whether it is on their own blog, Amazon, GoodReads, LibraryThing or wherever, it doesn’t matter. Just help get the word out.

The contest will stay open until June 29th, at which time I’ll determine the winner with help from the Research Randomizer and the List Randomizer.

I have not been contacting winners, so you will need to check back to see if you’ve won.

About Jackie 3282 Articles
I am a 30-something SAHM with two adorable boys and a supportive husband who is very tolerant of my reading addiction. I love to read and easily go through about a dozen books a month – well I did before I had kids. Now, not so much. After my first son was born, I began to take my hobby of reviewing a little more serious and started Literary Escapism to help with my sanity. I love to discuss the fabulous novels I’ve read and meeting all the wonderful people in the book blogging community has been amazing.

20 Comments

  1. This sounds like an interesting book. I don’t think I’ve ever had a supernatural creature as a neighbor but I have had some strange neighbors in the past. Fortunately I have fairly normal ones now.

    I’m a follower on Facebook

  2. Okay, Ash. You hooked me. I have this on my To Buy list but as soon as I post this my fingers will be walking to ym favorite online store and ordering my copy. This sounds just like my kind of book. (Maybe that makes me strange, too! LOL!) But I loved everything else I’ve read by you so I now I’ll love this one.

  3. Bravo Ash! Great interview and I’m glad you made the jump safely to series writing, ’cause I’m loving Strange Neighbors. Wanted to tell you continue on, can’t wait for the next book!

  4. Hi Ash! I’ve finally started Strange Neighbors and I’m loving it!! I”m so happy your happy about the switch in genre and into a series. I love series books when the charcaters from the first book carry on into the second book and so on and so on. I love your writing style and your voice is terrfic! I was wondering if You’ll still be doing some Hot Ec books too? Or have you switched for good? I’d still love to read the EC stuff too. I just think they have the best erotic books that aren’t over the top.
    Good Luyck with the book! But I know you won’t need it. I hope the book sells like Hot cakes for ya!

    Hugs, Christine

    + 1 http://twitter.com/Romantic73/status/16783314723

    +1 http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?id=100000641625482&v=wall&story_fbid=138220172855108&ref=mf

    +1 http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/chirth7/review/43291362/

    +1 http://bulletins.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=bulletin.read&authorID=533391661&messageID=6672478031&hash

    +1 I followingyou on Facebookl I think, I have yet to be sure that it is you and I just asked to be your friend. And I couldn’t find your on Twitter.

  5. I remember being a sounding board as you were figuring this stuff out. There wasn’t any bounceback from me – you were (obviously now!) dead on.

  6. Okay. I couldn;t stand it. I am so impatient. I juist got the book online from The Sony Store and plan to read it tonight. (If I last that long.) And Ash, thanks so very much for the good words about Do You Trust Me. Yup, a real mutual admiration society.

  7. LOL. Thanks everyone for your comments!

    I hope you enjoy it, Desiree. I’m so glad to hear you like it Maisha!
    Christine, technology is not to be trusted. It’s not you, don’t worry. LOL.

    Thanks to Dalton for letting me run my ideas past you. I’ve done it many times because I know you’ll always steer me right.

    Ash

  8. This sounds really interesting. Another one for my wishlist! I think the strangest neighbors I had were in my college dorm (not going to say how many years ago, ahem). The strangest sounds always came from that room…

  9. Hey Carrie,

    That must have been me! LOL. The campus security was once called because of noises coming from my room. (It couldn’t have had anything to do with the man in my closet! Of course not!)

    And yes, Christine, I’ll still write for EC–or anyone who wants to publish my stuff!

    Ash

  10. This sounds too cute, and just what I need at the moment. Amazon has the Kindle version priced to sell at 4.79, so I hit the “buy now”! I have a long day tomorrow, and afterwards, this will be perfect to settle down to.

  11. oh this sounds great! i can’t wait to read it!

    the strangest neighbor i had (actually, my fiance had, but i was there all the time anyway) was a mentally disturbed guy that lived beneath us and would scream very colorful language at 2 and 3 in the morning – so loud it was like he was in our apartment – and we had to call the cops numerous times….he finally got evicted.

    +1 I am follower of Literary Escapism on Facebook

    k_sunshine1977 at yahoo dot com

  12. Not really strange neighbors, but even though we live in a nice quiet neighborhood in the hills, we had the misfortune of living a couple of doors down from a drug dealer’s house (something we didn’t know when we bought ours). Thanks to this, petty crime on our little street was quite a bit higher than you would expect. He finally sold the house a few years after we moved in and all the neighbors breathed a sigh of relief.

    The book sounds great. It’s already on my wishlist.

  13. I think the weirdest neighbors are the kind you never see—or the kind you see way too much of (the latter is from very recent experience!) I think Ashlyn’s neighbors sound very fun and adventurous!

    I’m a follower on Facebook.

    meredithfl at gmail dot com

  14. What a great idea for a story! I’ve done the apartment thing and you start giving nicknames to the neighbors you never see, but hear. We had the elephant family that lived above us and there is always the creepy guy who lives alone . I prefer my home and if you don’t want to mingle with the neighbors you just shut the blinds.

    +2 points for me!

  15. This book sounds awsome and I read alot of vamp and werewolf stuff. If I moved into a building like this though I might have to think twice on staying. But it sounds great!
    My worst kind of neighbor would be like the one we really had…………their kid would throw eggs and hit our house. Then it gets messy, because then the police have to come and blah blah blah you all know the rest. But the plus side to all of that, the kid stopped doing it :)

  16. Really like title of Ashlyn’s novel! Strange neighbors sound like elephants when they blow their noses!

    +1 Google follower!

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