Interview with Molly Harper
*How do you come up with your crazy awesome titles?
There is a multistep titling process in which –
I turn in a manuscript with a title, my patient agent says, “Oh, honey, no.” We come up with an alternative and submit it to my lovely editor. She says, “Eh, it’s not quite there yet.” So we all brainstorm a list of alternatives, which none of us are quite happy with. Then, at the last minute, I suggest a desperate, top-of-my-head title, which is the one everybody likes best. It’s my process.
*How many books are planned for the series? Is this the last one? Any hints for what's next if so?
HOW TO RUN WITH A NAKED WEREWOLF is the third in the series. I am not sure if there will be more, but I am always willing to expand their wolves’ universe!
*If your books were to be made into a movie, who would be your top picks for the cast?
This is an excellent question as I “fantasy cast” my books before I start writing. It helps me visualize and it’s a handy reference for the art department when they’re designing covers.
Cooper – Steven Strait
Mo – Anne Hathaway
Maggie – Mila Kunis
Nick – Charlie Hunnam
Caleb – Luke Evans
Anna – Kristen Bell
*Could you tell us a little about the ups and downs you have experienced in publishing?
I’ve had more ups than I deserve, just walking into a bookstore and seeing my titles on the shelves is huge for me. And my downs are usually of my own making – pushing too hard to get a manuscript done, and ignoring basic human needs like sleep and food. The people working at my local grocery store know that if they see me shuffling around in a zombie-like fashion, wearing pajama pants and a blazer, I’m usually pretty close to finishing a book.
*What are some of your favorite books in the paranormal genre?
The Jane True Series by Nicole Peeler, The In the Garden Trilogy by Nora Roberts, and anything by Gena Showalter.
*If you could tell readers one thing about yourself or your books, what would that be?
Reading my books is just like hearing me speak. (Though in a more organized, less blithering fashion.) My writing voice is very conversational and my characters tend to sound a lot like me. So if you sit down with one of my books and a latte, we’ve just had a coffee together.
*What is the craziest or at least most interesting thing you have ever done?
So I have a major shark phobia. I actually get a little nervous in swimming pools if I can’t see the bottom. When my family visited the Dominican Republic a few years ago, we had the chance to go to an ocean wildlife education center. One of the activities was swimming with nurse sharks in this penned area out in the middle of the ocean. Now, nurse sharks are basically the vegetarian weenies of the deep. Even though they get pretty big, they stay on the bottom and will swim away if you get too close. My rational brain knew this. But when I snorkeled into the pen, my prehistoric hind brain was screaming, “SHAAAAAAARK! SHAAAAAAARK! SHAAAAAARK!” It took me a good ten minutes before I relaxed enough to swim around. But eventually, I was paddling around, feeling like a real badass. And then, I looked up and saw that one of the sharks was swimming at eye level with me. I screamed so loud through my snorkel that my sister heard me from eight feet away.
My family still teases me about it. But still, I swam with sharks. It counts.
*Finish this statement: "You'll like the Naked Werewolf series if...
You like snarky, quirky heroines and gruff Alpha male heroes, who find themselves in bizarre situations. And they’re usually NAKED, as the title would imply.
Thanks Molly!
Author Info:
When Molly was considerably older, she headed for Western Kentucky University, where she majored in print journalism. After graduation, she landed a job with The Paducah Sun and married her high school sweetheart, David, a local police officer. After six years at the newspaper, Molly took a more family-friendly secretarial position at a local church office.
Her husband worked nights and Molly was alone with their small child in the “The Apartment of Lost Souls.” A big fan of vampire movies and TV shows, she decided to write a vampire romance novel. Molly created Jane Jameson, a bit of an accidental loser. Jane is single, almost 30, and a librarian working in Half-Moon Hollow, Ky. She has become a permanent fixture on her Mama’s prayer list. And despite the fact that she’s pretty good at her job, she just got canned so her boss could replace her with someone who occasionally starts workplace fires. Jane drowns her sorrows at the local faux nostalgia-themed sports bar. On her way home, she’s mistaken for a deer and shot by a drunk hunter. And then she wakes up as a vampire. The three-book Jane Jameson series–which includes Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs,Nice Girls Don’t Date Dead Men and Nice Girls Don’t Live Forever—was released in 2009. A fourth and final installment, Nice Girls Don’t Bite Their Neighbors, was released in 2012.
Molly continues stories in the Jane Jameson universe through her Half-Moon Hollow series,Driving Mr. Dead, The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires, Undead Sublet, and A Witch’s Handbook of Kisses and Curses. Undead Sublet is a short story in The Undead in My Bed anthology. A Witch’s Handbook of Kisses and Curses will be released in June 2013. A special free audio holiday novella, I’m Dreaming of an Undead Christmas, was released in December 2013.
Molly will update her popular Naked Werewolf romance series in 2013. How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf, was released in February 2011, quickly followed by The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf. A third installment, How to Run With a Naked Werewolf, will be released in December 2013. Her first-ever “haunted house story,” Better Homes and Hauntings, will be released in June 2014.
Molly will launch her first-ever contemporary romance series with My Bluegrass Baby in December 2012. Rhythm and Bluegrass was released in October 2013.
Molly’s books are published by Pocket Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. They are available in print, as e-books and audio books at major book stores and on Amazon. Molly is a native of Kentucky. She lives in Paducah with her husband and children.
Find Molly Online:
Down, Boy
Anna Moder has just witnessed a shooting, seen her car pulverized, and rescued a wounded stranger only to discover he's really a werewolf. And by her recent standards, things are actually looking up. Lycanthropes don't faze Anna. Doctoring a wolf pack outside Grundy, Alaska, is the closest thing to home life she's known in years. But hitching a ride to Anchorage with long-absent pack member Caleb Graham that's a risk. Part of her itches to whack his nose with a newspaper. The rest is trying unsuccessfully to keep her own paws off every delicious inch of him.
The problem is, Caleb employs his lupine tracking abilities as a notquite-legal bounty hunter, and Anna is suspicious of both him and his profession. On the run from her past, with old problems closing in, she'd like to stay far, far away from anybody with connections to the law. Caleb, however, seems determined to keep her close. Are his intentions noble, or is he working a more predatory angle?
Anna's been dreaming of returning to a semi-normal life, but now she's experiencing a strange new urge . . . to join Caleb in running with the wolves.
