Guest interview: Vivi Andrews

Please help me in welcoming Vivi Andrews, our special guest for today!

Vivi Andrews was born and raised in Alaska, and she still lives in the Last Frontier when she isn't bouncing around the globe. After graduating from Northwestern University, Vivi tested out a variety of careers—from the movie industry to accounting—but kept coming back to her first two loves, writing and travel. She lived in nine cities—on two continents and one tropical island—while pursuing her dream of writing romance professionally.

In 2009, Vivi won the Golden Heart Award, presented by the Romance Writers of America, and her debut novella, "The Ghost Shrink, the Accidental Gigolo & the Poltergeist Accountant," hit the digital shelves. Within two years, she wrote and released eight paranormal romances, including the popular Serengeti Shifter series and critically-lauded Karmic Consultants books.

Vivi is currently hard at work on her next happily-ever-after.

Welcome Vivi! Please tell us about No Angel. And do you have a review you could share with us?

No Angel is an unconventional Christmas story. When Sasha's boyfriend is sucked into Hell on Christmas Eve, an angel in cowboy boots appears in her apartment and tells her she has until dawn to fight her way into Hell and back out again if she wants to save her boyfriend - who, as it turns out, isn't as unfamiliar with Hell as he's been letting on.

Here's what Kelly at Reading the Paranormal Reviews had to say: "I loved, loved, loved the role reversal of the straight laced, half-demon guy vs the tough, can-shoot-a-gun-straighter-than-most, reluctant Champion of Good girl. Sure, Jay was hiding his demon side and trying to be the perfect boyfriend, but I just loved that Sasha saw him as a desk-jockey who wouldn't be able to fight his way out of a paper bag. AND SHE LIKED HIM DESPITE THAT. There was something fabulous about her and her attitude that I totally dug."

Wow that's an awesome review! Please tell us about your favorite character in the book.

The heroine Sasha is a badass Hollywood stunt woman. She's wise-cracking, gun-toting, and I couldn't lover her more if I tried. As the daughter of a celebrity family, she has massive trust issues about people using her for her parents' fame and she's built a wall of defensiveness and sarcasm around herself, but with a little Christmas magic - and a trip to Hell - she finally figures out how to bust a door into that wall.

I love tough heroines! What element of this story was the hardest for you?

I think one crucial part of my process is a kind of selective memory loss. I always forget the most challenging parts when I have the shiny finished product looking back at me. My editor did have to crack the whip and get me to add more world building in edits - since I always seem to skimp on the details that are so clear in my head and somehow miss the transition to the page, but that wasn't a painful fix. At least, according to my faulty memory it wasn't.

Please tell us about one of your other books.

My recent print release The Ghost Exterminator is another book with a wise-cracking tough-girl heroine. Jo Banks was born with the ability to shove pesky ghosts into the white light. Even though she might secretly long for normalcy, she's embraced her unusual gifts and made a career for herself as a premiere Ghost Exterminator. Her latest client, studly and stuck up Wyatt Haines, isn't sure he believes in ghosts or anything else Jo says, but when her extermination goes awry and throws two prankster ghosts into Wyatt's body to haunt him, he's going to have to learn to trust her and embrace the unexpected if he's going to get his body back under his sole control.

And you should have seen me dancing around my living room when Romantic Times reviews called The Ghost Exterminator "laugh-out loud funny" and gave it four and a half stars.

I can see why you'd dance! That's fantastic! :) What inspires you?

It seems like anything and everything inspires me. I have a hundred stories bouncing around in my head trying to get out. I don't know if I'll have time in this lifetime to write them all, but I'm sure going to try. :)

What was the most important thing you learned just before you made your first sale?

I think what I really needed to learn was not to sell myself short. Not to limit myself by telling myself I can't do things. I never used to think I could write paranormal because I didn't have the same passion for worldbuilding and creating world bibles that I'd heard my favorite paranormal authors swear by. I thought I'd never be able to write a novella because my stories always spun out with subplots on top of their subplots and I thought I couldn't write short.

But when I challenged myself to test my limits, I sold my first story - a paranormal novella. Stretch your boundaries as a writer and it can change everything.

That is truly fantastic and helpful advice! What do you wish you’d known before becoming published?

I wish I'd known to take a moment and enjoy the phase I was in, when it was all about the stories, before promo and deadlines and other businessy writing demands entered the equation. I miss the focus I was able to give to each story, without having to step away to do edits on another or promote a third.

It does get very hectic sometimes. What’s next for you?

I'm excited about my next shapeshifter release which completes my Serengeti Shifter series. Serengeti Sunrise releases this May from Samhain and features two very strong-willed lion-shifters, neither of whom are very good at compromising. Neither Zoe nor Tyler want the obligation of a relationship, but what starts as a no strings affair is quickly tangled beyond recognition in this steamy novella.

Congratulations on your upcoming release! Sounds fabulous! Would you like to ask readers a question?

I'd love to! In No Angel, my heroine is facing the pressures of the holidays combined with introducing her significant other to her parents for the first time. I'd love to hear if your readers have any stories about bringing a boy of girlfriend home for the first time or a particular tale of holiday mayhem. And I'd like to give a copy of No Angel to one randomly selected commenter, since it is the season of giving. :)

Thanks so much, Vivi! That's very generous of you! And thank you for being our guest today!

For more about Vivi's books or the life of a nomadic romance author, please visit her blog, Ramblings from the Road, at http://viviandrews.blogspot.com or stop by her website at www.viviandrews.com.