Interview & giveaway with Tes Hilaire

Books-n-Kisses is pleased to welcome Tes Hilaire to the blog to chat about her upxoming release of “DELIVER ME FROM TEMPTATION”

Tes, can you please share with us a little about yourself

Of course! First I want to say thanks for having me here today at Books-n-Kisses as I kick-off the preliminary round for the Deliver Me from Temptation book tour. As you can imagine, I’m very excited about its upcoming release and just love to share all the goodies and behind the scenes info with you readers. As for me, I personally don’t find myself quite so interesting. I’m your bona fide soccer mom who spends way too much time carting kids around and volunteering for school activities.  All I can say is it’s a good thing I have a healthy imagination or I think I might just have gone crazy by now navigating the kidlet culture!

Have you always wanted to be an author?

Yes and no… I’ve always written short stories and poems and there is not a time I don’t remember having my nose in a book (my parents had a no books at the table rule), but I also had very practically parents who repeatedly encouraged having a “fallback” career. Still, I will never forget the time in middle school when we had an author come in and speak.  I listened to him and was so inspired I went home and started writing a middle grade novel about a cat who decided to go on a walk-about from his two-legged family. Needless to say, his adventure didn’t go so well—probably because I stopped less than half-way through—and after realizing that writing was actually work, and that career success was even more difficult (this from that inspiring author’s own mouth), I decided my parents might have a good idea with that fallback career advice!

Can you share with us your typical writing day.  Is there anything you have to have while writing?

My day stars with typical mom things: get the kids ready, make lunches, see them to the bus; but after I normally settle in for a good few hours of writing.  It’s a tossup to see if I actually get those hours as there is usually some bit of business that needs to be taken care of, but if I do make it through, I normally take a break for some email, social media, and a get the creative-juices flowing shower (trust me, showers work wonders when you’re stuck) then either take off on mom errands or, if I’m really lucky, get right back to the grind and write some more.

Most challenging or rewarding part of writing?

The most challenging is when I just can’t see the scene. I know something has to happen to get my hero/heroine from A to B but there is something about the setting or the interaction or even the plot seems off.  Conversely this is also the most rewarding part about writing. When that scene finally does fall into place and you read it over and go “Yes! That’s it!” it gives me some much energy and inspiration to keep on going and finish their story.

Can you please tell us about your latest book(s)?

I thought you’d never ask! 😉  Deliver Me from Temptation is the second book in the Paladin Warriors novels. It is stand alone, but I personally recommend you read book one first as it ties in some various plot threads started there. Not to mention that Logan, the hero, played a pretty prominent part in Deliver Me from Darkness and I don’t know about you readers, but I can never get enough of my heroes 😉  Anyway, this is Logan’s story. He’s the last full-blooded Paladin and has pretty much determined that he’s never going to find his mate.  First there is so much to do he doesn’t have much time to look and second there aren’t that many eligible Paladin women out there. Needless to say it’s a bit of a shocker when he falls hard for a very stubborn and very human cop, especially when she ends up embroiled in the type of mess that is better off left to a Paladin to take care off.

How did you come with the idea for this story?

This story just sort of unfolded naturally after Deliver Me from Darkness. Because this is part of a series, there are always interesting subplots and thread lines that are being developed within each novel. In book one there was a secondary character that met with a pretty final end. The problem was, when his body turned up (between books one and two) our hero from book one, Roland, was the last person to be seen with him.  Logan, being his best friend, and fixer of many messes naturally stepped in to help, and also stumbled upon his future mate in the process!

Can you share with us your current work in progress?

Oh!  I’d love too J  I am currently working on book three for the series. Deliver Me from Death will come out sometime next fall and will bring back two characters that I’ve had many upon many requests from readers to see again.  I’m just finishing my first round of edits now but I can tell you that having both Gabriella and Valin on the pages together has been often trying, sometimes explosive, and overall downright fun.

Who are some of your favorite authors?

When I’m looking for dark and intense, Karen Marie Moning, Suzanne Brockman, Patricia Briggs, Ilona Andrews, Karen Chance are top of my list!

Do you feel that any of your favorite authors have inspired your writing style? 

Yes!  Those dark and intense authors I mentioned?  Well if you read their books you’ll find them filled with lots of emotion and grit.  For me, writing with that sort of intensity can be hard because I’m always second guessing myself, wondering if this is how the characters would really act or if it’s coming across correctly. In hindsight I realized that in some scenes I just wasn’t meeting the emotional bar I was looking for, so, the one thing I’ve learned from these authors is Don’t Hold Back!  I can always fine tune things later, but it’s really, really difficult to go back and insert intensity into a key scene if it was not there originally.

Open your book to a random page and tell us what’s happening.

Hmmm… okay, page 127 of Deliver Me from Temptation.  This is where our heroine is seriously questioning her sanity. There has been more than one recent event that she knows occurred that she can’t remember the details of and now there is evidence that someone is going around doing a pretty good imitation of a vampire and chowing on her victims necks…

 …Sighing, she leaned against the hood of her Chevy. She scrubbed a shaky hand over her face, blinking through her blurry vision at the street before her. On top of the aches and pains from her encounter last night, on top of the perpetual exhaustion, the damn headache had returned. She knew why, of course, and it had little to do with her momentary slip into fantasy land. It was because she was here, staring at the same street she must have driven back home on the other night, and couldn’t remember a fucking thing. If this kept up she was going to have to get a damn MRI to find out what the hell was wrong with her fucking mind. Had she actually witnessed something and couldn’t remember? Was the key to their victim’s killer locked up in her foggy brain?

“I’m a mess,” she grumbled.

“Yeah, you are.”

She jumped, spun…

What is in your To Read Pile that you are dying to start or upcoming release you can’t wait for?

Well, a lot of my favorite authors have recently come out with some great things. Gunmetal magic by Ilona Andrews, Iced by Moning, Suzanne Brockmann has another one out to I’m told… The problem is time though! I’m currently in deadline crunch so I’ve been waiting very, very patiently to order my copies as I know I won’t be able to help myself if they are in the house!

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Yes! I wanted to let the readers know that I’m offering up one signed copy of book one Deliver Me from Darkness to one commenter that leaves me a suggestion for the sexiest thing a man could say to his woman! Oh la la 😉

Learn more about Tes here:

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