Interview and Giveaway with Lila Munro, Author of Contemporary Romance Assumed Calling

January 20, 2013 at 11:59 PM (♣ Musings)

Like the beat of a primal drum whispering the rhythm of an ancient dance, the lifestyle calls…

At the seasoned age of fifty-six, Allen Bourke has resigned himself to the fact he’ll probably never find someone to top he can also love. While he’s had wives and lovers, none of them endured and he’s come to the conclusion the clock’s ticking and age is working against him. Then a very intriguing Nicki Cartwright pings on his radar at what Allen determines will be his last house party. He can’t help but notice while he and his friends are getting older, the players emerging on the scene are forever getting younger. Nicki’s no exception. Determined to resist the vibes humming between them, he only agrees to service her after his old friend, Kyle Montgomery, convinces him it’s entirely feasible. Then it’s brought to Allen’s attention who Nicki really is. Knowing their pasts are forever intertwined, as hard as he tries to ignore his heart, he finds himself yielding to the tides of fate.

Born to senatorial royalty, Nicki Cartwright has spent her entire life trying to shield her mother from her father’s wrath while drifting further and further into a world where panic is normal and anxiety is always on the edge of her reality. Tired of burning the candle at both ends and forever trying to live up to the picture of All-American perfection her father James Cartwright touts as his ace in the hole during election cycles, Nicki finds herself on the path of self-discovery in search of relief from the stressors continually swamping her mind. What she doesn’t expect is to find who she thought she was is truly just a shadow of the person she really is. And what scares her most is the fact Allen, the only person she thought she could trust, has been holding a secret since before she was born which could destroy her entire family.

EXCERPT:

When the urge to kiss Nicki had become unbearable, Allen had showed her where she could take a shower, provided her a pair of his old lounge pants and a t-shirt he knew would be three sizes too big, and slipped downstairs to get her a cup of hot chocolate. She seemed like the type of woman who would drink black coffee so stiff you could stand a spoon in it in public, sip tea while with other proper ladies, and needed a good cup of chocolate when in distress and in  complete privacy, perhaps with a healthy dose of something stronger than toilet cleaner splashed in it.

As he steamed some whole cream on the stove, he mentally ran through his list of reliable young Doms who were either looking for an available sub or were willing to train and service one until she could find a good match. One thing he knew for certain, he was too old to play this dangerous game with her feelings and he had to find someone else to help her through the initial fog of figuring out if she was cut out for this lifestyle or not. If he was being honest, and right now all he wanted to do was lie to himself, he already knew she was cut out for it and nothing would please him more than to be the service Dom she needed, but he wasn’t in the market for any more disasters and to take her on would be setting them both up for one of catastrophic proportions.

Realmantic Moments:   http://realmanticmoments.blogspot.com/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/LilaMunroAuthor#!/

Goodreads:  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4200524.Lila_Munro

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LilaMunro

You can also contact her via email at lilasromance at gmail.com and you can find all her works at:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Lila-Munro/e/B0055KK140/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

Are: http://www.allromanceebooks.com/storeSearch.html?searchBy=author&qString=lila+munro&searchBy=author&qString=lila+munro

Nook:   http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/lila-munro?keyword=lila+munro&store=allproducts

Bookstrand: http://www.bookstrand.com/lila-munro

IT’S INTERVIEW TIME!

Can you tell us about where you grew up and what your childhood was like?

I grew up in a very tiny town in southern central Missouri about two hours westerly of St. Louis. Laquey didn’t even have a post office until I was a senior in high school. In fact, that high school didn’t even exist until 1977. That was the year the first class graduated there. Up until that point high school students were bussed to two different neighboring schools. When the high school was finally added on that little country school housed all grades and I graduated with a total of 52. We were one of the larger classes. It was sort of like attending Cheers R-5…everyone knew your name. J That also meant everyone knew your business and everyone’s parents knew everyone else’s parents, which made for poor conditions to get into any sort of fun trouble. Not only was high school a tight affair, my family was a close-knit unit. We spent every holiday together, usually at my grandmother’s where there was standing room only and enough food to feed the soldiers at the near-by Army base. (I grew up at the threshold of Fort Leonard Wood—no wonder I married a military man, right?) Laquey’s not grown much at all since I left…Oh, one bit of trivia. Any X-Factor fans in the crowd? Yeah, I went to school with Vino Alan…he was in my sister’s graduating class. I recall kissing him once during a game of truth or dare in the back of a bus one night coming home from an away basketball game. J Small world, huh?

When did you realize you wanted to become a writer?

When I was old enough to realize what words were and books were the most delightful things in the world. My favorite book was “The Little Red Hen” and I think I was probably in the second grade when Santa brought my first toy typewriter so I could peck out my musings. J

When you’re working on a book, how much time per day is devoted to it?

That depends really. I set deadline goals for myself, completely self-imposed as my editors and press are very good about accommodating me that way. From the days I set for myself for each project I devise a daily word count goal. Sometimes it takes a couple of hours to reach that goal and others I may be at it all day long. Normally I set aside time in the afternoon and I’m at it at least four hours even if half that time is spent editing what I just wrote. I’m an edit as you go girl.

Being married to a Marine, have you traveled much?

Oh gosh, yes. We spent three years in Okinawa, Japan—my husband is currently serving there for a year alone. I’ve lived in Missouri, Virginia, and three different places in North Carolina. And that just covers residency. We’ve travelled quite a lot visiting family and friends all over the eastern half of the US and have dotted the west a bit passing through via layovers. We plan on spending some time in the next few years visiting friends we have in that half of the US. There have been times we’ve paid taxes in three states as a result of our residencies overlapping. That part’s a bit of a pain.

What do you like to do in your free time?

Shop for more shoes and Vera Bradley goodies, visit the beaches, read, play scrabble, embroidery, and play with my four legged friends. And believe it or not, I devote quite a bit of my free time to research. I’ve developed a long list of contacts and am constantly contacting them to ask more questions. Just recently I had my husband develop a new contact in Okinawa as I had a ton of questions about prostitution there. It’s “legal”. And yes, it has something to do with a future work, but I’m not yet ready to share just yet. J Oh, I also managed to wrangle a physical therapist through stopping a man and talking to him in Wal-Mart one day. Again, yes, a story, but it’s not quite ready to be rolled out yet. J

What type of music do you listen to?

All kinds! My music tastes are as varied as my reading choices. And my music for the day usually is dictated by what I’m writing. Of course, when I’m writing the BDSM themes, my choices are much harder—alternative, acid, right now I’m building a play list of 80’s metal for Kyle Montgomery’s story. I also write softer themes, something my BDSM fans may not be aware of (it seems I have two very distinct fan bases), and when I’m writing those softer characters many of them lean toward country. I’ve also got an extensive collection of jazz, classical, and Gregorian chants.

What is your favorite type of film?

I rarely watch TV, but I love the movies. I love to sit in the theater with a big bucket of popcorn. As far as favorites—shoot me not, but I positively love the classics, particularly B&W. I love Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, Bogey…I saw Casablanca on this year for their 75^th anniversary celebration. Wonderful! What an experience. I also saw Gone with the Wind a few years back like that. Yes, TCM junkie. J

What are your upcoming projects?

With Assumed Calling being the last installment of the Identity series, I think the fans of this series will be very happy to know there is a spin-off series in the works for 2013. I’d been contemplating it for a good long while and wanted to have a series just about Steele Image from book two, True Identity, but that evolved into something much larger. I don’t want to give away too much, but readers will find quite a surprise near the end of Assumed Calling where lots of characters make reappearances in preparation for the spin-off and they will get to see a few characters from the Force Recon books I wrote with a few other fantastic writers. Those will all converge and produce the Steele Image books. The first in that series is due out June 17, Love Vindicated. It’s Kyle’s story and I’m loving writing it. He has a very emotional journey. I’m also finishing up the Slower Lower books this year and there will be two more Private Collection stories.

Thanks so much for hosting me today! I’ve enjoyed my time here very much.

Lila will be awarding a Godiva Chocolates gift basket worth at least $35 to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour, and a Godiva Chocolates gift basket to a randomly drawn host. (US ONLY). Leave a comment to be entered and do not post your email address.