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Come on and join author Melissa Bradley as she sets off on her latest adventure...
WARNING
If you are not 18, please exit stage left. While there is normally nothing naughty here, I do write and review erotica so there are links to spicy stuff and the occasional heated excerpt.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Author Laura Tolomei
Yay!! It's Thursday and I am just over the moon. Author Laura Tolomei is here today, rockin' the Imaginarium. This amazing author was born in Rome, Italy and grew up in Nigeria, the US and India. She returned to Rome to complete her studies and started a working career. In 2008 she published her first short story in eXtasy’s Anthology Atlantis Allure and has been writing and publishing since then in both Italian and English. Still a fairly new author, she has already published three full length novels and several short stories at eXtasy, with more yet to come as you can see on her website www.lallagatta.com.
What was the inspiration behind your latest release?
Actually, my latest novel, The Festival, is Book 3 of a serial, the Virtus Saga, which is an ambitious project comprised of several more planned releases, so inspiration was not a one-time affair, rather grew out of the plot itself or mostly, from the characters themselves as their story unfolded. So there wasn’t a real inspiration behind any of this, rather the characters played inside my head for quite some time before I set them down on paper. Mostly, I kept seeing this handsome dark prince with long hair flying wild as he rode on his black horse, utterly lost in a land he should’ve known but oddly didn’t—a storm about to hit him just to make the situation more tragic—until he sees candlelight shimmering in a window. When he gets to it, he realizes he’s not lost at all, in fact he’s very close to home, but with the storm’s fast approach, he decides to stop there for the night if they’ll offer him hospitality. But the woman standing on the thresholds feels awfully familiar, though he hasn’t the slightest idea who she is or why she should feel like someone he’s intimate with. Thus begins Virtus and from there on, readers will get more surprises than they’ve bargained for LOL
When did you know that you wanted to be a writer?
I’ve been writing since high school when the school’s journal published my short story “Nostalgia” back in 1983. But I didn’t know I actually wanted to be a writer until much later because I wrote stuff on and off, life taking me in some pretty unexpected directions. Yet, at the dawn of the new century, well almost, did I decide to get seriously involved with it and my first published work with eXtasy Books, Trespassing All Hallows Eve, was released at the end of 2008.
What do you love most about being a writer?
The unique opportunity to create my own stories and characters. After years of reading about other people’s tales, I was getting tired of having to submit to their decisions about how the plot would twist and turn or how the characters would behave. Being a writer allows me the greatest freedom for I can move things in the direction I see as best and no one can object!
What genre haven’t you tried, yet, that you would love to explore?
A genre I’m afraid to try seriously is science fiction. So far, I’ve just dabbled with it because I think it requires greater scientific and technical knowledge than I possess.
If we looked on your bookshelf right now, what are some of the titles we would find?
You’d find lots of different titles, mostly of different genres like history, political science and fiction, lots of fiction, all of which I still have to read. Yeah, like all book lovers, I’m a compulsive buyer, but sadly I have little time to devote to it, so they often remain in my bookshelf unread for ages.
Music or silence when you write?
Music definitely eggs me on! I love it, live it, hear it, feel it every day and I couldn’t work without it. It helps me concentrate and focus my mind like nothing else, but it’s such a part of my life I can’t see it as a “writing technique”. Still, it keeps my imagination going! So whether it’s jazz, rock, pop, funk, country, fusion, instrumental, electronic, house, lounge, easy listening, new age, Brazilian, techno, ethnic, dance, rap, rave, anything goes for me except for heavy metal, hard rock, folk and bluegrass, but for a complete listing of my favorite artists, check out MySpace page
If you could take one of your characters out on the town, who would it be and what would you do?
It would be Leon Sterling, the main character from my recently released Tasting Leon’s Mark. For one thing, he’s loaded with money, so he’d make the night very interesting simply because he can afford the best and most exclusive places. Then we share, and not by any chance LOL, a musical taste for he’s into much the same genres I am and like me, loves to listen and drive. Oh, of course, I’d take his Maserati out on the town, too! How else would it be fun? But mostly, he’s probably the most passionate of lovers I’ve created so far and to be honest, I couldn’t wait to try him first-hand!
Favorite naughty dessert and decadent drink.
I’m not much into desserts, prefer the saltier stuff better. If I had to name one, it’d be cheesecake with strawberries, the fresh ones not the topping, which is too sweet for me. As for drinks, well, that’s a whole different thing! What I mostly love to drink is wine, white or red according to the season and to what I’m eating, or even as an aperitif, Prosecco is excellent with peanuts and chips, while after dinner, I like long drinks such as Negroni, Cuba Libre or Vodka Lemon.
Be sure to pick your copy of The Festival: Virtus Saga Book 3 here.
To get to know even more about Laura and her fantastic work, you can visit her here at lallagatta.com
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Thank you so much for being here today, Laura. You have a wonderful, original style and the Virtus series sounds wicked cool. I definitely must have these.
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