Welcome to Joey W. Hill's author day

Welcome Ms. Hill to Love Romances and More, thank you for joining us.

It’s always a pleasure to be here at Love Romances and More. Thanks for inviting me.

Did you always want to become a writer?

Yes and no. It’s probably been the most consistent thing I’ve wanted to be. I had a long interlude where I was an active part of the animal welfare/rights community, and I’m never too far away from that desire to return, but the compulsion to be an author came back time and again, drawing me to that career path. Of course, I’d love to be the person who accomplishes world peace or a cure for cancer…or a vigilante who punishes people who throw cigarette butts on the ground or leave grocery carts in the middle of the parking lot. However, since I’m not diplomatic, scientific or intimidating, I feel writing is a more realistic goal. I did have an extremely brief desire to be a teacher (anyone who knows how children terrify me will laugh—hugely—at that revelation). I have a degree in non-profit business management which I utilized toward animal welfare/rights organizations for about ten years. After that it carried me through administrative “day jobs”, which paid the bills until the transition to fulltime writing. And of course it will help if I have to return to a “day job”, which is always very likely in this rollercoaster business!

What is the most, and the least interesting fact about writing?

Since I’m somewhat of a freak of nature, the minutiae of the writing craft is fascinating to me. So, warning, don’t read this if you’re operating heavy equipment. The most fascinating thing is “the zone” – where you stop thinking about what you’re writing, and it just flows. You’ve tapped into a creative consciousness, and you’re a conduit, a fly on the wall for those characters and their setting. The least interesting fact about writing…that’s a tough one, because when you’re struggling to be successful, everything about it has to interest you. I can’t think of one thing that isn’t interesting about writing. That said, the business of promotion is the bane of most authors’ existence – many of us don’t want to be interested in that at all – we just want to write our books, interact with the readers wonderful enough to email us with their feedback, and leave it at that, but alas, in order to get those wonderful reader emails, the readers have to know we exist. Someone must come up with mass telepathic promotion – it will really save us all a lot of headaches. Of course, telepathic promotion might also cause our heads to explode – can you imagine if telemarketers got their mitts on it?

How did you celebrate your first release? What was it like to see your book in a bookstore? Do you have a special ritual for celebrating a book release?

I have a quiet moment of joy and then I plunge into the next book, because I keep moving the bar. If I get one book published, the bar moves to getting the next book published. If I am multi-published, the bar becomes making bestseller lists, diversifying between publishers, winning one of those oh-so-subjective but prestigious awards, and always, always, always, writing a better book than the last one (thereby making it impossible for me to go back and read the previous book, because I see all the places I could have made it stronger and obsess about that). And truth, I’m a bit superstitious. I don’t tend to do anything very special for myself to mark releases, because I’m afraid that will curse reviews and reader feedback. I don’t start breathing easily until that feedback starts flowing in and it’s positive.

Of course, I do have a small ritual when I start obsessing too much or have a set back. I keep all my reader feedback, good or bad, and sometimes I go to that database to remind myself of the most important reason to write – to give a reader a great story which moves them emotionally, taking them to a worthwhile place in their minds for several hours.

How did your family react to fact that you also write romance novels? Have your family read your books?


My mother, mother-in-law, and my cousin’s wife are the only ones who have owned up to reading them (and it took my mom a while!). However, this doesn’t bother me too much, because I think it’s difficult to read a book written by a family member. They can’t see past the author to the story, so it kind of ruins the “immersion” quality most of us seek from our reading experience. My mom went to the last RT conference I attended, which was wonderful, because she was able to meet and see the great readers and authors who are part of this business. It put to rest some worries she had, coming from a different, more conservative background (yes, before she met many of you, she thought my reader base was a legion of sexually deviant potential stalkers - LOL). Seriously, she is the person who taught me to love reading which, as you note in your next question, is one of the main components to being a successful author, and for that (as well as so many other things) I am forever indebted to her.

Most authors are also avid readers. Is this the case with you? If so, who are some of your favorites? Have any influenced your writing?

Absolutely, though I read far less now than I did once, because I can’t doff the “editing” hat long enough to get into a story. And once I read a good author, I feel like I have to go on to a book by a different author, to evolve in my own craft, rather than indulge in the guilty pleasure of reading more of him/her. In short, reading is an important part of my work, so though I still love discovering a great story, it doesn’t have the ease of a relaxed pleasure it once did. I’m trying to get back to it on vacations, etc, and recommendations of my readers have really helped with that. I just finished Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop and can’t wait to plunge into the next of the series during my upcoming vacation. Nora Roberts’ style and approach were a tremendous influence, as were Kathleen Woodiwiss, Diana Gabaldon, Stephen Donaldson, Stephen King, Jodi Picoult – heck, every time I read a great author, they influence my writing. My all-time favorite book, however, continues to be Once in a Blue Moon by Penelope Williamson.

Your characters come to life in your books. Do you feel each of your characters live with you as you write? Do their lives sometimes take over a part of your life? Can you name an example? Do you have living role models for your characters?

Thank you for that wonderful compliment! Yes, they do tend to live with me. They invade my mind, so that no matter what I’m doing, they’re acting out scenes in my head, distracting me with dialogue that I have to jot down right that minute because I suffer from CRS (can’t remember sh#t). If I lose the thought, it bugs me terribly that I can’t remember that really good scene or quote idea they threw at me. Characters don’t tend to repeat themselves, annoying creatures that they are. I’ve been at parties or meetings where I guiltily fish my tiny notebook out of my purse and scribble furiously. I’ve had to reach out of a shower, dripping wet, or jot notes while driving… I’m surprised I wasn’t stopped for a breath test, but if I was stopped by someone like Jake Chance in Chance of A Lifetime, I would happily submit to walking a straight line. Actually, I’d probably collapse on the asphalt and pretend to stop breathing for the chance of mouth-to-mouth. Anyhow, I digress - my characters come straight from my head. While a brief glimpse of someone or something might inspire their birth or physical features, they are very much like children – they start as a composite of DNA (different things from different sources) that evolve into their own unique being as the story is written.

Where do you get the inspirations for your books?

I think this is the single most often-asked question an author faces and, Murphy’s Law, the one I don’t think any of us truly know how to answer. I think the ones who have answered it are lying – they really don’t have a clue. Laughter. Seriously, it’s like describing the symptoms of a disease, and not the cause. I can tell you that sitting outside a spa salon inspired me to think about a vampire queen coming to get a manicure late one night, not realizing she was about to meet the man who would become her next human servant, a man more suited to the setting of a medieval tourney field than a manicurist’s chair, but it was only the setting that kicked off the idea. It’s almost like the setting opened the door, and something else provided what was in that room. Whatever it is, I’m grateful that it keeps coming to me, and I hope I’ll always do those story ideas and characters justice.

Do you find it difficult at times to write love scenes?

It’s my very favorite thing. In fact, if an action or some kind of “Point A to Point B” dialogue transition scene bores me too much, I’ll jump ahead and write another love scene and then come back to it, riding on the inspiration to enliven the transition scene. That’s why I don’t really understand people who feel that writing romance is “trivial” or something you write until you come up with a “meaningful” story. Everything life is about can be found in a love story, and to me the physical expression of that love is a delightful, never-ending well that just enhances the depth of emotion between the two characters.

What is your favorite book from the books that you have written so far? Who are your favorite hero and heroine, and why?

My favorite characters are almost always the ones I’m currently writing, so right now that would be Mason and Jess from Beloved Vampire (release August 09). I wasn’t expecting there to be such a complex triangle between his love for Jessica in the current day, and the love he still held for Farida, who died 300 years before, and the way the two women meshed to bring him happiness at last. Of course, I admit that the books I’ve written this year have really engaged my emotions. A Witch’s Beauty, with the young, idealistic angel David and the dark, cynical seawitch Mina, was a fantastic book to immerse myself in, as the next in the series after A Mermaid’s Kiss (Jonah is the hero for that one – oh my, fanning myself). And then there was the pseudo-lighter tone of A Vampire’s Claim, with my Australian vampire Lady Daniela and her laconic bushman, Devlin. That was one of my more action-oriented books – every time I turned around, Danny was getting ambushed in the desert, or starting a sword fight, and poor Dev was really kept hopping to keep her out of trouble.

But in terms of nostalgia, Marguerite and Tyler, and their story (Ice Queen / Mirror of My Soul), remains my favorite. Something about the depth of their relationship has continued to hold onto me, even now.

Which book was the hardest to write and which the easiest?

Last year, I would have said Mistress of Redemption was the hardest to write, because I was redeeming a truly “bad guy” from the previous books. But now I will say, without hesitation, my current “hardest” were the angel/mermaid books. These were complex stories, not only in plot and relationship, but the issues the characters were resolving. When you have a situation like Jonah (A Mermaid’s Kiss) – an angel who is second only to Michael in terms of commanding the Goddess’s armies – who has lost his faith, and Anna, who has such optimism despite the fact she has a death sentence hanging over her head – you really have to listen to their hearts. If the author doesn’t listen closely enough, instead of telling their story, she’ll basically tell the readers a morality tale, and I so wanted to tell THEIR story. The same with David and Mina – there is a level of sacrifice and redemption in that book (A Witch’s Beauty) that was truly heartrending. We see news stories where someone sacrifices their life for another, like pushing someone else out of the way of a train, and that’s truly a noble sacrifice. But the ones that really grab my attention are the premeditated, quiet sacrifices that take away pieces of the heart, with nothing asked but the hope of love in return. They happen every day, and we can miss them, if we aren’t looking closely for them.

So in short, making those books truly wonderful pieces of fiction was difficult, but entirely worthwhile. I’ll let the readers tell me if I was successful. Now, easiest book – that’s easy (laughter). Currently, that would be Danny and Dev’s story (A Vampire’s Claim), because they were such laid back, fun characters. You know me - they of course have a darker side - but compared to the level of darkness in some of my other books, they’re sunshine and light (Danny’s vampirism notwithstanding). They were also far more “physical” in their conflicts, and with both characters having a dry sense of humor, it made the book a joy to write.

Now, back to the nostalgia thing – past books that were easiest – Natural Law and Chance of a Lifetime were both DREAMS to write. Like melted butter sliding off a no-stick pan, no kidding. An author lives for that type. But the hardest were Virtual Reality (which came after Natural Law, so I had the “OMG I’ll never write a book this good again” feeling), and Mistress of Redemption, where I had to figure out how to redeem a truly bad hero.

If you could change places with one character from your books, who would it be and why?

Oh, goodness, considering how much torment I put my characters through, they’d probably consider that divine justice (lol). Okay, if I could come in, say AFTER all their trauma, I’d switch places with just about every heroine I’ve got. I mean, have you READ these men? Mac, Tyler, Justin, Jacob, Jonah, Devlin, David…the list goes on and on. But in terms of my admiration for my heroines, I think I still would go with Marguerite or Anna. Marguerite, because she was such an incredibly strong woman despite her vulnerabilities, and Anna because she was such a pure spirit – and a mermaid, and I’d love to be a mermaid. Since she got Jonah in the end, this gorgeous, powerful angel…what’s the down side? I didn’t even consider changing places with my heroes, so I guess I have a truly female soul (grin).

If you could travel through time to visit a special time period or famous person, what or who would it be and why?

I’d like to be in America, with the Cherokee or Sioux tribes before the land was discovered by the Europeans. Or ancient Greece, during its intellectual height. It would be interesting to be part of societies that achieved a balance, at least temporarily, between their environment and the human penchant for self-destruction. As far as visiting a famous person, I think that would be Jesus. There’s been so much written about his motives and teachings, I’d like to meet him, have a chance to talk and listen to him directly.

Do you listen to music while you are writing and if so what music is it?

Definitely, and it’s very eclectic. If I’m in a gritty, emotional scene, it might be Staind, Daughtry, Goo Goo Dolls, etc. Action might be soundtracks – Braveheart, The Postman, Kull the Conqueror. For the softer periods, an array of female vocalist ballads, including Celtic Women, Faith Hill, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Trisha Yearwood, Mandy Moore or male – Josh Groban, Collin Raye, Garth Brooks, etc. For A Mermaid’s Kiss, I listened almost exclusively to Celtic Women for some parts, but then I compiled a lot of “Angel” songs – Sarah McLachlan’s Angel, The Wilkinsons’ Fly, Rascal Flatts’ Bless the Broken Road, Kansas’s Dust in the Wind, Jane Siberry/KD Lang’s Calling All Angels, etc. Then again, for the recent Beloved Vampire I had Montgomery Gentry’s Hillbilly Shoes for a fight scene and Quiet Riot’s Bang Your Head for a sexually charged scene in a BDSM club.

If you could choose of your books for a movie, which one would it be and who would you as the cast?

I’d love to see any of them as a movie, but Rough Canvas would be the easiest to cast. Hugh Jackman as Marcus and Colin Farrell as Thomas. I tend to associate actors with certain roles, so when I think of them in these parts, I think of the type of character Colin played in SWAT, and Hugh Jackman as a cross between his role in Kate and Leopold and Van Helsing (and a touch of Wolverine’s dark violence). Of course, my readers may have entirely different visions of these two characters, and I fully encourage you to do your own casting! The book belongs to you as much as to me.

Are you working on anything right now, and can you tell us a teaser about these projects?

Well, I’ve been babbling about them throughout, but I would certainly love to talk more about them (chuckle). I have four releases over the next four months: A Mermaid’s Kiss (Nov), the Unlaced anthology (Dec), A Witch’s Beauty (Jan 2009) and A Vampire’s Claim (Mar 2009). Beloved Vampire will be out in August 2009. The Unlaced anthology is of course with wonderful fellow authors Jaci Burton, Jasmine Haynes and Denise Rossetti.

There are descriptive blurbs and free excerpts for each of them on my website, along with another look at the absolutely FABULOUS cover art each one of them have (A Witch’s Beauty is my personal favorite), but I’m giving you an excerpt from A Mermaid’s Kiss in my Love Romances blog post, because I just can’t resist (and Danny said I could!). If you want exclusive excerpts going forward, be sure and go to my site and sign up for my monthly guestbook. Each issue has a contest for free books and other cool gifts as well.

If you like mermaids, angels and vampires, you’ll get plenty of each of them in these books. And for those who’ve loved my contemporary work, my contribution to the Unlaced anthology is Controlled Response, which is the story of two high-powered business executives, Lucas Adler and Cassandra Moira, who take merger negotiations to a heretofore unknown erotic level. And yes, for those who remember Board Resolution (from the Behind the Mask anthology), Lucas was one of my secondary characters in that book, so Controlled Response brings back all the “boys” (Matt, Peter, Jon and Ben) to help him win Cassandra over. She’s a goner (grin).


Thank you for letting me visit!



You know, coordinating a blog post about my new book, A Mermaid’s Kiss, proved trickier than I expected. I wanted to get the characters to do it with me, but have you ever tried to get an angel and a mermaid to coordinate schedules with you? For one thing, they have no idea what a day planner or a BlackBerry is (though Anna kindly had Jonah fly off and bring me a basket full of ripe, juicy blackberries from some remote end of the earth, thinking I was wanting more fruit in my diet). Plus, though I’m a Pisces, my water sign is more the “beach side” type, not miles out in the ocean, and I do not fly, period. So it’s rather easy for them to evade me.

I can’t really blame them. We spent a long time together during the crafting of A Mermaid’s Kiss, and they deserve some privacy, twining together in water or sky, enjoying their mutual passion. So I’m here by myself today, and will endeavor to answer any questions about A Mermaid’s Kiss or anything else, long as it’s not politics (is anyone else ready – albeit also dreading - the first week of November being past?).

Here’s what the book’s about: As the Prime Legion Commander for the Goddess, Jonah has been battling the Dark Ones for centuries. He has led countless angels into battle, and has seen too many of them slaughtered. Now, his noble spirit has begun to tire with the weight of endless war—which allows a Dark One to strike a blow that severs his wing and knocks him into the sea. Anna is a Daughter of Arianne, a direct descendant of the mermaid whose poignant legend and lore is much darker and more complex than the human-made fairytale. Anna’s longing for love compels her to risk her life to protect and hide the fallen Jonah, but if she repeats her ancestor’s mistakes, she might lose her heart and her dreams to save Jonah’s soul.

Writing this book gave me the opportunity to revisit the dark Little Mermaid fairy tale, as well as learn more about the legend, lore and sacred texts concerning angels. In so many ways, angels are our humanizing conduit to a greater Power - Psalms 91:11-12 “For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up.” As a result, I wondered what would happen to an angel who lost his faith, and the type of being who could help him find it again. Hence, Jonah and Anna. There’s a free excerpt on my site that’s more romantic, but Danny told me I could give you a look at the story here and I thought I’d choose a part of it that has somewhat of a different tone.






So here’s the excerpt –
Background: due to some unfortunate circumstances, Jonah is currently bespelled to be human by day, angel only by night, as he and Anna travel together (and of course she’s a shapeshifter, so in this scene, she’s in her human form)…

Though she’d shrugged off the concern at the time, Anna had wondered why Jonah hadn’t contacted other angels to come to his aid right off. It had also surprised her that the seawitch’s vision pointed them to a human shaman, rather than back toward the heavens. Now two angels had come to their immediate physical aid against the Dark One attack, but both believed whatever ailed Jonah was not within their power to fix.
Of a sudden, she felt very alone. She’d been going forward only on feelings… Goddess help her, nothing but optimism. It had never occurred to her what larger things might be at stake.
The unfortunate thing is we need Jonah now…
He just needs time…Let’s hope Fate will provide it.
Lucifer and David’s warnings made it clear that an angel of Jonah’s power wasn’t supposed to be traipsing the countryside aimlessly. Lucifer had called Jonah a petulant child.
But Anna wasn’t in the habit of letting others do her thinking, even if it was a creature as old and terrifying as the Lord of the Underworld. She studied the man crouched by the stream. Jonah’s face was tilted up toward the touch of the wind, his eyes closed. With features as perfectly sculpted as the Lady could make them, it was no wonder the wind kissed his face, caressed him. But there was no easing to his brow, no sense it brought him any comfort.
She had the disturbing realization that he had looked more at peace fighting a losing battle against the Dark Ones amid the forest of tree limbs.
He bowed his head now, an arm bending along the side his skull, one fist clenched on the back of his neck.
When she stepped forward, he made a noise of warning.
“I’m a stranger to myself, Anna. Lost. Don’t come near me.”
The sound of his voice, so determined and yet so broken at once, wrenched her heart. What could she possibly know that could ease the heart of an angel like Jonah? Nothing. But then, neither Lucifer nor David knew the answer, any more than she did.
She bent, started picking flowers. There was a variety of small white ones all through their little glade. Taking her time, thanking the plants for their sacrifice, she collected the petals, working her way closer. She could sense his attention drifting over her, while the rest of his thoughts dwelled in much darker realms.
When she was next to him, she hesitated, then opened her hand over the crown of his head. The petals floated down, landing on his clenched fist, in his hair, tumbling down his shoulders and back. Despite his warning, she followed their descent with her own fingers, stroking his blood-stiffened hair. There were crimson and brown streaks down his back, oblong patches of clean skin where his wings had been. She bent, placed her lips against his body there.
She’d always simply been who she was, a shapeshifter with no real place, no requirement to be anything except what she herself demanded. She’d not had anything to define her but herself. She could even reinvent herself if she wished. In contrast, she sensed Jonah struggling with the very core of who he was, and that battle was happening in such markedly fetid waters she wondered how he could see his sure path anymore. How anyone could.
She knelt, stroking his hair, still following the curve of his ear. “My lord?”
It was little more than a whisper, but his head snapped up as if she’d shouted. His eyes were unfocused, wild. The blood on his face made him look like a primitive savage. “What can I do to help you?” she asked.
Jonah stared at her. He could make no sense of his thoughts, but there was a part of him that knew she shouldn’t be this close to him. His blood was charged from the battle, his body pulsing with the latent rage from it. He was angry at Luc for disrupting the numb mind-set he’d been in before it all happened. And David…
Ah, Goddess. He wanted to split out of his skin, leave everything he was behind, and knew he couldn’t do it. The memories would follow him, haunt him still.
To escape those ghosts, he reached out and curled a hand in Anna’s hair, winding it over his knuckles, watching the overlap of the thick, lustrous curls. The Goddess could create such a marvelous thing. Anna’s shining mane of hair, her fragile face, those violet eyes and soft breasts… So perfect and female, it fueled the fire within him, the unreasoning anger.
He was filthy. He stank of Dark One, and he knew he had no business touching her, but her arms were winding around his neck…
“Goddess help you,” he said.
He took her flat onto the ground, his hand on her throat, holding her still, staring down at her. You could snap it with barely a thought.
But she had no fear, not of him. She was quivering, yes, but she lay docile under his hold, trusting he would not harm her.
Will she be your concern, when she’s dead?
With a near sob of despair for the conflict of his thoughts, he yanked the skirt of the dress out of his way and shoved into her with the precision and violence with which he’d skewered a Dark One.
And Goddess help him, some part of him was delighting in his brutality, even as another voice raged at him to stop.
There was nothing more despicable than a man who hurt a woman, for no other reason than the demons within himself. But those demons were hard upon him right now and Anna was willing to give him shelter in that storm, as well as be the rocks he dashed himself against.
“My lord, let me—”
“No.” He snarled it. “Lie there. Take me. That’s all.”
“Stop.”
She said it softly, so softly that it shouldn’t have registered at all. But it was like the slight whisper of an unexpected gentle breeze during the fury of his storm. Jonah paused, panting, his hands gripping her wrists with bruising force, his body pressed down hard on her as if he was pounding on his tormented soul. As if he’d somehow given it to her and it was staring at him out of those violet eyes. Only not with the accusation he expected, but something harder to face.

So what do you think? The exciting thing is the second book in the series, which focuses on the angel David and the seawitch Mina, will be released two months later, in January! So, if you have any questions about this series, or any of my other work, fire away. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed the excerpt. :> It’s been great to spend time here, as always.

Reviews of Ms. Hill's other books

Chance of a Lifetime

Mark of the Vampire Queen

Mistress of Redemption

Natural Law

Unlaced