Books-n-Kisses is so excited to have Zoe Winters back on the blog.
BnK: I am so excited to share you and your newest release Dark Mercy with my followers. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to sit down and talk with me.
Zoe: Thanks for having me!
Bnk: Are you ready?
Zoe: No, I need fifteen more minutes. Just kidding. Having this kind of convo via text is bringing out the weird in me.
BnK: Have you always wanted to be an author?
Zoe: I’m not sure if “always”, but I know I was pretty serious about it by junior high school. I was writing novels in 8th grade. I shudder to think how bad those were!
BnK: What would you say is your most interesting writing quirk?
Zoe: I’ll have to think about that one. I’m pretty sure I’m nothing “but” quirks since it seems that I think very differently than a lot of people about a wide range of topics, sometimes.
BnK: I am very excited about Dark Mercy. Your newest release in the Preternaturals Series. Can you tell us a little about this story?
Zoe: Dark Mercy just released. It’s a novella that is the beginning of a story for a new Pretverse couple. Angeline starts out a vampire and Hadrian is the priest she wants to turn. Her sire (Linus. Fans of the series might recognize him a the Villain from Claimed.) was so abusive to her that she’s distrustful of other vampires and wants one she made herself. I must warn that this story is not an HEA but it’s also not the end of their story. Their HEA will happen in their full-length book which will be book 5.
Hadrian does make a cameo in the third book of the series, The Catalyst, though. Dark Mercy is what I call “supplementary” material to the series, in that it doesn’t have to be read in order with the rest of the series, not that the information learned is less important to the overall story. Important things happen both for Hadrian and Angeline, and the larger series. One major character from Save My Soul, who gets her own book in book 4, has a few of her secrets at least partially revealed in Dark Mercy.
Dark Mercy is also a little more angsty than a lot of my Zoe stuff. It’s just the nature of this story. Mated is also a bit angsty. But the snark is coming back big in The Catalyst.
BnK: How did you come up the idea for the Preternaturals Series?
Zoe: Well, Save My Soul was written first, and it actually became book 2 in the series. (Incidentally you can start either with Blood Lust [book 1] or Save My Soul [book 2] and not be lost.)
It involves an incubus trapped in a house by a 50-yr-old curse. I wrote it largely because I didn’t want to start out with “vampires” because I was told that “vampires” were over and nobody would buy it (what a lie. Vampires are SO not over.) Anyway, I was driving by this house in the historic district of my town and most of the plot for Save My Soul arrived that way. I was looking at this house I always loved, and that became Luc and Anna’s house and these ideas just sort of popped in my head. It was pretty creepy, actually. Sometimes I think Luc really does live in that house, LOL.
Then a year or two after that, an ebook publisher was running a contest for addition into a werecat novella anthology. So I came up with the story for Kept for that. But I didn’t make it by the deadline, so in the end, I released Kept on my own as an ebook.
Then I wanted a couple of other novellas to round it out so I could do a print release/collection, so Claimed and Mated came along to make Blood Lust.
By the time I got to writing Mated, I really really wanted it to turn into a big series because I had this whole idea for this world and all this politics and struggle between these different factions and how each book would be its own romance but there would be this larger meta plot connecting the series. I was also really intrigued by the idea that everybody is the hero of his own story, so sometimes a hero in one book will be a villain in another and vice versa because I want to show what everybody is fighting for and what their intentions are without demonizing any one faction or leader.
I figured out a way to tie Mated in to Save My Soul by introducing Save My Soul’s villain in Mated. By the time we get to book 3, it’s going to be really clear how this all intersects. My biggest fear is that people won’t hang out with me until they start seeing the bigger picture, because it is really cool and I think those who can hang with me, will be really glad they did.
BnK: What is up next for the Preternaturals Series?
Zoe: Right now I’m working on The Catalyst, which is book 3 in the official order. Though, technically one can read them out of order, it just depends on if you need to have meta plot in order. Some people like to read series of this nature out of order so it comes together like a jigsaw puzzle. Either way works. My suggestion would be to start out with the story that sounds most interesting to you, then if you feel you want it all in order, start from the beginning.
But meh, I totally sidetracked there. The Catalyst is about Z and Fiona. Z is a panther therian (were-panther, but NEVER call him were. He will eat your face) who has gotten saddled with a stray wolf pup, and Fiona is an agoraphobic witch who has the ability to understand the language of animals. So he sort of has to kidnap her and take her back to his cave because he needs her help with the pup. Z really is such a caveman, but he’s sweet. He just has no concept of social boundaries.
The Catalyst is a bit of an ensemble book because not only are we dealing with Z and Fiona’s relationship and HEA, but, Jane and Cole’s story (from Mated) will go from an HFN (happy for now) to an HEA. Some readers may not have realized, but therians (shapeshifters) can live hundreds of years. Cole is a werewolf. Jane is a human. So with their divergent lifespans, that’s not exactly an HEA. But The Catalyst will solve that issue. (And yes, this was part of the plan to begin with.)
There is also a lot of Cain in this book, which sets up book 4, LifeCycle… which is Cain and Tam’s book. And I feel like anybody not already a fan of my stuff is glazing over back there in the cheap seats. Sorry! Read, so you know what we’re talking about! 😉
BnK: So, recently you came out of the closet about your pen name. Would you like to share a little about your other name?
Zoe: Kitty Thomas is for a mature audience. That’s all I’ll say. It’s darker. It’s more literary than Zoe. And it’s really just not for the faint of heart. In a lot of ways *I* don’t think the kitty stuff is dark, but clearly mainstream readers feel differently, so I warn and disclaim. Zoe has always been kink subtext. I mean, every relationship in the Preternaturals series definitely has a strong power exchange going on. There may not be any whips and chains or other props but these heroes pretty much “own” these heroines…
Kept involves this werecat in her heat cycle basically at the mercy of a dark sorcerer. Claimed involves a vampire claiming a human female (and a claim gives him power over her, like… forever.), Mated involves a werewolf who takes a human as payment for a gambling debt and basically keeps her against her will in his compound. Sure, he doesn’t do anything bad to her and he needs to protect her because he senses she’s meant to be his mate, but it still is what it is.
In Save My Soul, the incubus demon breed mates by taking a human female who must give him her soul which ties them together forever in a way in which he is the dominant party.
In Dark Mercy there is definitely some power games going on there, but I don’t want to give that away because it’s a spoiler.
In The Catalyst, Z kidnaps Fiona and drags her back to his cave.
I mean, it’s a pretty blatant pattern. I like what I like. Zoe is subtext, Kitty is text. And Kitty definitely is not for everybody. Kitty is me unfiltered. Zoe is a little safer. I ended up coming out of the closet because it was too difficult to keep them separate/secret, mainly because a lot of Zoe fans were Kitty fans. I had all these twitter followers who were following both of my names and didn’t know they were both me. I guess, then, that a lot of people picked up on the subtext in the Zoe work, LOL.
I also felt like it was going to come out eventually and the most important thing to me was that people know I wasn’t “ashamed” of writing Kitty. I’m incredibly proud of the Kitty work.
I’ve always felt in general that the romance genre had a lot of D/s (Dominant/submissive) subtext. I mean sometimes you have a beta male and some readers are into that, but the vast majority of romance is a dominant alpha male who behaves in a dominant (not abusive) fashion toward the heroine. So make of that what you will. I know subtext when I smell it.
BnK: Zoe and Kitty are very different. How did you get into two very different genres?
Zoe: I had this book I *needed* to write. (Comfort Food) At the time I had no grand plan to start a new brand but I needed to write this book and I knew it wouldn’t fit in the Zoe world. I didn’t expect people to fall in love with it and to go on about it like it was the second coming. But it really connected with a lot of people.
It was just a book. Yes, it meant a lot to me. I opened a vein for that book. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever written, and up until that point, the most naked thing. But I’m really proud of it. (Not that it’s perfect, no book is perfect, but yeah. Comfort Food will always be Comfort Food.)
I tend to flip back and forth between the names. For awhile I’d gotten burnt out on the Pretverse and everything was kitty kitty kitty. And now, after having released 5 Kitty releases in a row (some novels, some novellas), I’m totally Kittied out, so my focus is shifting back to Zoe for the next 4 or 5 releases. And I’m really excited about the pretverse right now!
I probably won’t go back to kitty until after I release book 5 (Hadrian and Angeline’s book.) I mean, I tease people with Dark Mercy so it would be crappy for me to go back into the kitty zone before I wrap that up.
BnK: Zoe, Thank you again for taking the time to sit down and talk with me. I look forward to The Catalyst. Is there anything else you would like to add?
Zoe: Thanks! I’d also like to add that full-length books in the series—Blood Lust and Save My Soul—are also in audiobook and available at Audible/Amazon and itunes, for those who listen to audiobooks. Chet Williamson is my narrator and he is AMAZING. He makes all my books sound like fifty times more awesome than they actually are.
BnK: Where can my followers find you?
Zoe: my blog: http://zoewinters.wordpress.com , facebook (though I have no idea what the link is for that. Facebook has those ridiculously long links, though there is a facebook app on my blog for those who want to “like” me.), and Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/zoewinters
Bnk: Again Z, Thank you.
Zoe: Thanks!
Awesome interview! I am definitely interested in this series now. It sounds amazing! Thank you!
Hi Tina, thanks! Holy crap… was I on speed for this interview? Hahaha I am like the ramble queen here. Just reading my own words back to me is making me tired. LOL