Welcome Guest Author Jennifer Estep/Contest

I have the extreme pleasure of having one of my favorite authors here at dawn's Reading Nook~Jennifer estep. I fell in love with her urban fantasy Elemental series and can not get enough of it. We are celebrating her newest book in this thrilling series, Tangled Threads.

CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT: To be entered to win a copy of Tangled Threads, comment or ask Jennifer a question today. All entries will be thrown in a hat and one winner will be drawn on Saturday May 14th at noon est (USA). Canada and USA only.

So let’s get this party started. Please tell us about yourself. What got you interested in being an author?

A: Hi, Dawn! Thanks for having me on the blog. I appreciate that. ;-)

My name is Jennifer Estep, and I write the Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series for Pocket and the Mythos Academy young adult urban fantasy series for Kensington.

I’ve always loved reading ever since I was a kid. One day, I had the thought that I think a lot of authors do after reading a book that maybe isn’t so good – Why, I could write something better than that. So one summer during college, I wrote a really bad epic fantasy book. But I’d been bitten by the writing bug, so I wrote another book and then another one … and I’ve been writing ever since.

Can you tell me a bit about your upcoming release, Tangled Threads (Elemental Assassin Book 4)? What inspired it and what can readers’ expect to happen to Gin next?

A: Sure. I write the Ele­men­tal Assas­sin urban fan­tasy series for Pocket Books. The books focus on Gin Blanco, an assas­sin code­named the Spi­der who can con­trol the ele­ments of Ice and Stone. When she’s not busy killing peo­ple and right­ing wrongs, Gin runs a bar­be­cue restau­rant called the Pork Pit in the fic­tional South­ern metrop­o­lis of Ash­land. The city is also home to giants, dwarves, vam­pires, and ele­men­tals – Air, Fire, Ice, and Stone.

Books in the series are Spider’s Bite, Web of Lies, and Venom. Tangled Threads, the fourth book, was released on April 26.

In Tangled Threads, Gin finds out that her nemesis, Mab Monroe, has hired an assassin named Elektra LaFleur to come to Ashland to track down and kill the Spider, aka Gin. Along the way, Gin also searches for a kidnapped girl and struggles with whether or not to tell her younger sister Bria that she’s really the Spider.

Basically, though, I thought it would be fun to write an assassin vs. assassin book, so that’s what I did.

How do you keep track of the world building for each series?

A: Mostly, it’s all in my head, but if I need a refresher course, I just go back and re-read my books. I’ve thought about creating a world/character bible for both of my series, but I think I’d spend as much time writing that as I would a new book! So I just go back and review the books if I need to check on something.

How much of yourself, if any, do you put into your characters?

A: I think there’s a little bit of me in my main heroines, Gin and Gwen (from my Mythos Academy series). We like some of the same things (reading, cooking, etc.), but Gin and Gwen are definitely far stronger and braver than I could ever be.

Is there a genre you haven’t done that you would like to explore in the future?

A: There are a lot of genres I’d like to explore. I’d love to write a contemporary romance, a western, a heist book, a spy thriller … I have so many ideas. Now, I just need to find time to work on them. LOL.

If you could throw a party with any five people (living or dead) who would you pick and why?

A: Hmm. That’s a toughie. There are so many people that I’d like to meet and whose work that I admire. But I’ll go with Ian Fleming, Clint Eastwood, Daniel Craig, Jimmy Buffett, and J.K. Rowling. Writers, actors, a musician. I think it would make for an interesting party.

You have two adult series (Elemental Assassin & Bigtime) and have a young adult series (Mythos Acedamy) coming later this year. Do you prefer writing series books over stand alone titles or did it just happen that way?

A: I like writing (and reading) series books – creating a world and magic system and then letting my characters play and explore in that world over the course of several books. I also like writing series books because of how your characters can grow and change. I love seeing my characters come into their own and finally beat the bad guys that have been threatening them for so long.

What are at least five things you have on your bucket list and have you done any of them?

A: I would say five things on my bucket list are: getting a book published; hitting all the best-sellers lists; visiting Alaska/Hawaii; traveling to Europe; and doing something crazy, like sky-diving.

So far, I’ve only done one of them – getting published – but I’m really grateful that’s the one that I’ve accomplished. Maybe someday, I’ll get around to the others. Here’s hoping, anyway. ;-)

Is there one series/author you feel is a must read for readers to explore (can be e book authors or print NY house authors)?

A: There are so many great books out there that I couldn’t pick just one or just one series. Some of my favorite authors are Robin McKinley, Donald Westlake, David Eddings, Robert Parker, Lisa Kleypas … I think one of the joys of reading is discovering an author whose books you absolutely love. So I would just encourage folks to read as much and in as many genres as possible.

Do you listen to music when writing? Do you feel like some stories write themselves a soundtrack with specific music? If so, what book and what kind of music influenced it?

A: I do not listen to music when I write. I like dead freaking silence, as I call it, when I write – it just helps me concentrate better. LOL.

But I love listening to music when I’m not writing. My tastes are pretty eccentric, though. I like everyone from Jimmy Buffett to The Killers to The Pretenders, and I love oldies.

What is coming up for you in 2011?

A: Tangled Threads, the fourth book in my Elemental Assassin series, was published on April 26, while Spider’s Revenge, the fifth book, will be released in Octo­ber.

I also have a young adult urban fantasy series called the Mythos Academy series coming out this year. The books focus on Gwen Frost, a 17-year-old Gypsy girl who has the gift of psy­chom­e­try, or the abil­ity to know an object’s his­tory just by touch­ing it. After a seri­ous freak-out with her magic, Gwen is shipped off to Mythos Acad­emy, a school for the descen­dants of ancient war­riors like Spar­tans, Valkyries, Ama­zons, and more.

The first book, Touch of Frost, will be out in August, while the sec­ond book, Kiss of Frost, will hit shelves in Decem­ber. First Frost, a prequel e-short story to the series, will be out in July. Visit www.jenniferestep.com for excerpts and more.

Are any of your characters just like you or have personality quirks/traits of you or someone you know?

A: Well, I try not to base characters on people I know. That being said, I love to cook and read just like Gin does in the Elemental Assassin books. Also, my grandma hates wearing socks, just like Jo-Jo Deveraux does in the Elemental Assassin books.

Where can readers find you on the web? (Please list all your links plus your publisher link(s) as well)

A: Folks can find me at the following sites:

Website: http://www.jenniferestep.com

Facebook fan page: http://artist.to/jenniferestepfanpage/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Jennifer_Estep

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/580315.Jennifer_Estep

Now for a sneak peek into Tangled Threads
Available at Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and other fine retailers

Buy HERE

I’d rather face a dozen lethal assas­sins any night than deal with some­thing as tricky, con­vo­luted, and frag­ile as my feel­ings. But here I am. Gin Blanco, the semi-retired assas­sin known as the Spi­der. Hov­er­ing out­side sexy busi­ness­man Owen Grayson’s front door like a ner­vous teenage girl. One thing I like about Owen: he doesn’t shy away from my past—or my present. And right now I have a bull’s-eye on my fore­head. Cold-blooded Fire ele­men­tal Mab Mon­roe has hired one of the smartest assas­sins in the busi­ness to trap me. Elek­tra LaFleur is skilled and effi­cient, with deadly elec­tri­cal ele­men­tal magic as potent as my own Ice and Stone pow­ers. Which means there’s a fifty-fifty chance one of us won’t sur­vive this bat­tle. I intend to kill LaFleur—or die trying—because Mab wants the assas­sin to take out my baby sis­ter, Detec­tive Bria Coolidge, too. The only prob­lem is, Bria has no idea I’m her long-lost sib­ling … or that I’m the mur­derer she’s been chas­ing through Ash­land for weeks. And what Bria doesn’t know just might get us both dead …

Excerpt:

CHAPTER ONE

“Are you going to kill this guy? Or are we just going to sit here all night?”

“Patience, Finn,” I mur­mured. “We’ve only been in the car an hour.”

“Longest hour of my life,” he muttered.

I arched an eye­brow and looked over at Finnegan Lane, my part­ner in crime for the night. Most nights, actu­ally. Just after ten o’clock a few days before Christ­mas, and we sat in the dark­ened front of Finn’s black Cadil­lac Escalade. An hour ago, Finn had parked the car in a secluded, out-of-the-way alley that over­looked the docks that fronted the Aneirin River. We’d been sit­ting here, and Finn had been grous­ing, ever since.
Finn shifted in his seat, and my gray eyes flicked over him. The wool fab­ric of his thick coat out­lined his broad shoul­ders, although a black watchman’s cap cov­ered his walnut-colored hair. His eyes were a bright green even in the semi-darkness, and the shad­ows did lit­tle to hide the square hand­some­ness of his face.
Most women would have been glad to have been in such close quar­ters with Finnegan Lane. With his easy smile and nat­ural charm, Finn would have already had the major­ity of them in the back­seat, pants off, legs up, steam cov­er­ing the win­dows as the car rocked back and forth.

Good thing I wasn’t most women.

“Come on, Gin,” Finn whined again. “Go stick a cou­ple of your knives in that guy and leave your rune for Mab to find so we can get out of here.”

I stared out the car win­dow. Across the street, bathed in the golden glow of a street­light, the guy in ques­tion con­tin­ued to unload wooden crates from the small tug­boat that he’d pulled up to the dock forty-five min­utes ago. Even from this dis­tance, I could hear the warped, weath­ered boards creak under his weight as the river rushed on by beneath them.

The man was a dwarf—short, squat, stocky, sturdy—and dressed in black clothes prac­ti­cally iden­ti­cal to the ones that Finn and I were wear­ing. Jeans, boots, sweater, jacket. The sort of anony­mous clothes you wore to go skulk­ing about late at night, espe­cially in this rough South­town neigh­bor­hood, and most espe­cially when you didn’t want any­one else to see what you were up to.

Or were plan­ning on killing some­one, like I was tonight. Most nights, actually.

I rubbed my thumb over the hilt of the sil­ver­stone knife that I held in my lap. The metal glinted dully in the dark­ness of the car, and the weight of the weapon felt cold and com­fort­ing the way that it always did to me. The knife rested lightly on the spi­der rune scar embed­ded in my palm.

It would be easy enough to give in to Finn’s whin­ing. To slip out of the car, cross the street, creep up behind the dwarf, cut his throat, and shove his body off the dock and into the cold river below. I prob­a­bly wouldn’t even get that much blood on my clothes, if I got the angles just right.

Because that’s what assas­sins did. That’s what I did. Me. Gin Blanco. The assas­sin known as the Spi­der, one of the best around.
But I didn’t get out of the car and get on with things like Finn wanted me to. Instead, I sighed. “He hardly seems worth the trou­ble. He’s a flunkie, just like all the oth­ers that I’ve killed these past two weeks. Mab will hire some­one else to take his place before they even dredge his body out of the river.”
“Hey, you were the one who decided to declare war on Mab Mon­roe,” Finn pointed out. “Cor­rect me if I’m wrong, but I believe that you were rather eager to kill your way up to the top of the food chain until you got to her. You said it would be fun.”

“That was six hits ago. Now, I’d just like to kill Mab and give every­one in Ash­land an early Christ­mas present, myself included.” My turn to grouse.

But Finn was right. Two weeks ago, a series of events had led me to offi­cially declare war on Mab, and now, I was deal­ing with the fallout—and the tedious bore­dom of it all.

Mab Mon­roe was the Fire ele­men­tal who ran the south­ern metrop­o­lis of Ash­land like it was her own per­sonal king­dom. To most folks, Mab was a paragon of virtue, a Fire ele­men­tal who used her magic, busi­ness con­nec­tions, and money to fund worth­while char­ity projects through­out the city. But those of us who strolled through the shady side of life knew Mab for what she really was—the head of a mob­like empire that included every­thing from gam­bling and drugs to pros­ti­tu­tion and kid­nap­pings. Mur­der, extor­tion, tor­ture, black­mail, beat­ings. Mab ordered all that and more, prac­ti­cally on a daily basis. But the Fire ele­men­tal was so wealthy, so pow­er­ful, so strong in her magic that no one dared to stand up to her.

Until me.