Terrific Tuesday with Cindy Spencer Pape:)

Today my guest is a good friend of mine, though I've never met her (yet!) I fell in love with her paranormal romances (Djinni and the Geek is still one of my favorites among all of her titles), and she never fails to deliver a satisfying story:)

Welcome! Please introduce yourself and tell us about your latest release.

Hello everyone! I’m Cindy Spencer Pape, I live in southern Michigan, and my newest book isMidsummer Dreams, Book 4 in my Holidays Hearts series from Ellora’s Cave.

Have you ever had an idea for a story which scared you after you began writing it?

Scared? No. Bored? Yes. I have lots of unfinished stories that I just couldn’t get off the ground.

Have you incorporated actual events from your own life into your books?

Not usually big, whole events, but little snippets of things. A funny line one of my kids said or something I saw as I drove down the highway. Little bits of reality, but not whole chunks.

How much research do you do? Do you research first and then write, or do you write first, then research as needed?

Research as needed, and it depends entirely on the story. ForPhotographs & Phantoms, I spent hours researching Victorian photography. For a contemporary book, there might be very little—a search on Google maps for the right area and that’s it. It all depends.

Is there any message you want readers to take from reading your work?

That it’s okay to take a break from real life and enjoy a little happy-ever-after in the pages of a book. My books are meant to make you smile. Nothing more, nothing less.

Are you a plotter or a pantser? And have you ever had a story take on a life of its own?

I’m somewhere in between. I usually HAVE a rough outline. I don’t necessarily stick with it. Halfway through some idea pops up and I run with it—or it runs with me. They do all seem to have a life of their own.

How long did it take for you to be published?

About 7 years.

If you could go back and tell yourself anything when you first began your writing career, what would you say?

Be more proactive. I sat on several manuscripts when if I’d sent them out just one more time years earlier, I could have gotten started that much sooner.

Laptop or pen and ink? What are your ‘must-haves’ when writing?

Laptop is preferred, but I can write anywhere, anytime.

Who are your favorite authors? Who would you say influenced you the most?

Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels is the author who taught me about voice and first introduced me to strong, smart heroines. I love Jayne Ann Krentz for her productivity, great storylines and multiple genres. Elizabeth Lowell for her complexity and again, not being afraid to have her characters be smart.

What would your readers be surprised to learn about you?

I have no idea. I’m pretty straightforward. Actually when people meet me in real life, they’re sometimes surprised to find out just how short I really am.

For Fun:

What is your Prom story?

I didn’t have a boyfriend, so I went with a good friend. He was a junior but was moving, so it was his only chance to go to prom at our high school. We had a wonderful time, and the memory is never tainted with a break-up down the road. It was at the Renaissance Center in Detroit, and my brother had rented us a limo. I felt like a princess.

Favorite Mother’s Day memory?

I used to love the little hand-made things the kids made in grade school. I still keep a couple in my office.

If you have children, does the end of school signal loss of writing time for you?

My children are in college now, so not so much. They’re pretty independent.

Thank you for being here today! Please tell us where we can find your books.

My publishers are Carina Press, Ellora’s Cave, Total-E-Bound, and Resplendence Publishing. You can find all about my books, some erotic, some not, some paranormal, others contemporary or historical, at my website and other links below.

Website: http://www.cindyspencerpape.com

Blog: http://cindyspencerpape.blogspot.com/

Newsletter group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cspapenewsgroup/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/CindySPape

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cindy-Spencer-Pape-Books/102207923194253

Thanks so much, Molly for having me here today!

Blurb:

Matt Warren has always been the man of Summer’s dreams. He was her childhood imaginary playmate, her teen crush, and the wildly sexy fantasy lover of her adulthood. She’s always known he wasn’t real, but after experiencing his imaginative, passionate touch, no real man has ever measured up. However, alone on a beach shortly before her birthday, Summer discovers that the Holiday family magic hasn’t left her behind. Matt is real, standing on her beach, and there to make Summer his, in every way possible.

Matt has always known that he has a gift as a dreamwalker, and that Summer was out there and would someday be his, if he didn’t get himself killed first. Now that his career as an Air Force pilot is over, he’s moved to Charleston to find Summer and teach her that their shared erotic dreams are even better in real life, and that their love can last a lifetime.

Excerpt:

Summer Holiday tossed and turned in the middle of a dream that had visited on and off her whole life. She knew she was dreaming, but she didn’t want it to end.

The sand was warm beneath her feet and the surf lapped softly against the shore. No one else was around, just the two of them. The handsome, golden-haired man gazed at her with his midnight-blue eyes. He reached for her and she walked into his arms. He was mostly naked, a pair of cut-off jeans his only covering. She had on a sundress, with a bikini underneath. This part of the dream was the same, had been since she could remember. As she’d gotten older though, it had grown more and more explicit. Now, sometimes the dream carried through until they’d both come, and Summer wanted that tonight. It had been a long week, and she needed some sort of release.

“Summer.” He murmured her name into her hair as he hugged her close. That had been added to the dream sometime in her teen years. They’d shared names and told each other about their lives. Her subconscious had built quite a character for her dream man. He was three years older than she, had parents who were divorced, a married sister, and since Summer’s college years, he’d been in the military. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too, Matt.” Matthew Harrison Warren, that’s what she’d named him. Major Matt Warren. Her childhood dream friend who’d grown into her adult dream lover. “It’s been a long time.”

“I was in the hospital for a while,” he told her as he kissed her earlobe, the line of her neck. “I didn’t dream while they had me pumped full of drugs.”

This was her dream, not his. Still, she wasn’t going to waste it asking questions. She wanted him inside her—now. The minute she’d seen him coming down the beach in her dream, she’d grown wet and ready for him. It had been months since her last dream of Matt and years since she’d had a real lover. None of the guys she’d dated had ever measured up to the man of her dreams.

Summer was impatient. She tugged open the buttons of his fly and pushed his jeans down around his ankles. There was a new, angry-red scar on his hip, stitch marks clear through the center of it.

“I have an artificial hip joint now,” he said. “Like an old man. I’m not in the Air Force anymore of course. I’m working on what to do next.”

When had her dreams decided she needed a lover who wasn’t a fighter pilot? No matter since he only existed in her head. Maybe this was her subconscious reminding her she wasn’t getting any younger. “You’ll find something. You’re a qualified engineer, right?” Before he’d gone off to the Air Force, she’d dreamed he was an aeronautical engineering student.

“That I am, sugar. I’ll find a job, don’t you worry about it.”

She leaned over and kissed the scar. Her cheek rubbed against his thick cock, already fully erect. Of course she wouldn’t worry—or shouldn’t. He was simply a dream. But the scar looked so inflamed and painful, her heart lurched. “Does it hurt too much?”

“Too much to make love to you? Never.” He pulled her sundress over her head and tugged open the ties of her bikini. The sun warmed her nipples but they stayed as hard as if she stood in a snow bank. One by one, Matt dropped kisses on the dark pink buds. “Every time I see you, you’re even more beautiful than I remember.”

“I’m almost thirty-three,” she reminded him, feeling positively ancient. “Just another few weeks until my birthday. My youngest brother just got married, and my oldest has a two-month-old little girl. My younger sister’s been married for a year, and now they’re talking about having a baby. That leaves just me and Sam as the singles in the family.” Summer was the middle of the five Holiday siblings while Sam was second oldest.

“All the men in Charleston are idiots.” Matt dropped to his knees in the sand, though there was miraculously a blanket underneath them. “I’m coming, Summer. Will you wait for me? I promise I’m on my way.” He pulled

one of her nipples into the wet heat of his mouth and sucked.

Summer speared her hands through his thick, blond hair, longer now than the buzz cut she’d grown used to. “I’ve waited for you my whole life, Matt. Why would I stop now?”