Get Lost With Sabrina Garie!

Hi, folks! Please help me welcome Sabrina Garie to the blog! I'm friends with her sister and through our writing we've gotten to know each other, too. She's a great lady and an awesome writer! So let's get busy...

WHO IS SABRINA?

Sabrina Garie is on a journey to create the most kick-ass heroine romance fiction has ever known and the hero who can take her. A believer that big, audacious goals spice up life, she relies on coffee, red wine and laughter to make those goals (and her characters) come alive. When not at the computer, she wrangles vegetables and extra helpings of homework into her fashion-loving progeny, kowtows to a fat cat and reads, a lot. Since it is more fun to travel in packs, come along for the ride.

THE STORY BLURB

 

Annie’s always been different. An empathic Amazon, she hides her emotional anomaly beneath her legendary fighting skills. To avoid passing on her genetic disorder, she’s always avoided the Thirteen Nights Ritual—the annual breeding rite among the warrior races of the Greek Pantheon. Only months away from 30, she is now duty-bound to participate. When she meets Tai, a half-human warrior who revs her up beyond legal limits and nurtures the gentleness she’s had to keep secret, thirteen nights of pleasure don’t seem nearly enough.
 
As a half human, Tai has survived by being faster, more lethal, and a whole lot smarter than his brethren. While the male warriors accept him for his achievements, the Amazons have never given him a second look. Until he meets Annie, whose smile is warm and real and whose body shudders with desire—for him. Determined to have her, he hacks into the Thirteen Nights database and rearranges the pairings to make Annie his breeding partner. Together, their strength and tenderness combust into pure love.
 
But Tai’s actions are forbidden under Amazon law, subject to a death. To stay together and alive, they must take on the Greek Pantheon and win.

 

WANT TO READ THE EXCERPT? HERE'S THE LINK

 http://www.ellorascave.com/thirteen-nights.html      

 

 

Find Sabrina on the Web

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Twitter: @sabrinagarie

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And now, Sabrina in her own words...

ALEXA: How often do you get lost in a story?

SABRINA: Whenever I possibly can. Being a single parent with a full-time job and my writing, finding time to actually read can be a challenge. So I’ve learned to take 10 minute lose-myself breaks. Even if I can zone into a story for five-ten minutes a day, I will do so. It is most likely to happen either before I go to bed or on the metro on the way home. Thank goodness for the kindle app on my phone.

 

ALEXA:  What’s the first book you remember reading? 

SABRINA:  The first book that really made an impression and remains one of my favorite books is Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. I really related to the geeky high school heroine Meg Murray. She was awkward, smart, doggedly loyal to her family and socially isolated, like I felt in my youth. She was the kind of friend I had always hoped to have and gave me hope that life would end up happy, even if the journey was hard.

 

ALEXA:  What is your biggest vice?

SABRINA: Ice cream, hands down. I love the stuff. I’ve been known to eat it in pint-sized portions.

 

ALEXA:   I can totally understand that. Do you write while listening to music? If so what kind?

SABRINA:  I write in silence. I don’t think that’s all that common, but I find music can be distracting. I like the quiet, it helps me stay focused, and allows space for ideas to come.

 

ALEXA: Do you read reviews of your books? If so, do you pay any attention to them, or let them influence your writing?

SABRINA:  Yes, I read them. I want to see how people feel about my stories and how they interpret them. Their opinions and insights help me think about my writing and think through my writing. I still write to meet my own expectations, but the writer is only one teller of a story. Readers also co-create the narrative. I write what I write but each person reads it through their own lens. It’s exciting to see how they add to its possible interpretation.

 

ALEXA: What will always make you smile, even on a bad day?

SABRINA:  My daughter’s laugh. That never fails to cheer me up.

 

ALEXA: There's just something awesome about children's laughter that affects all of us, I think. What’s the best present you ever received?

SABRINA: Of course, everything my daughter gives is the best. But I have a great story here, especially for a romance audience, which I have to share. When I was in college, I went to Mexico with my grandmother over winter break.  When I returned home from the airport, there was a huge wrapped box on our driveway.  My boyfriend had wrapped himself up as my holiday present because he thought we should spend the holidays together.

 

ALEXA:   What drew you to write in the genre(s) you do?

SABRINA: I love to make stuff up, so genres like fantasy, paranormal and science fiction (I am hoping to publish a sci fi romance next year) that allow me free reign in world-building are the places for me. I have written one contemporary. While that was fun, it was missing something for me in the creativity space.

 

ALEXA:   Which already filmed movie represents your writing style?

SABRINA:  Any kids film, because they tend to be shorter and more precisely packaged. So if you prefer shorter books but with complete stories, I’m your author.

ALEXA: What's up next for you?

SABRINA: Life Reignited (Book 2: Divine Temptation) 

We return to the world of the Pantheons with Phoebe, another Amazon warrior, and Sander, a human. They are Tai’s parents, who meet again for the first time in thirty years, for a second chance at love. This is still very much a work in progress but expected publication date is September 2014.

Thanks for visiting with use today, Sabrina! Folks, Sabrina will give away one ecopy of a book from her back list to one commenter, so share your thoughts!

 

Get Lost With Sabrina Garie!

Folks, please help me welcome a new friend (okay, not quite new anymore, but still), Sabrina Garie! You're going to love her and her work!

Sabrina Garie is on a journey to create the most kick-ass heroine romance fiction has ever known and the hero who can take her. A believer that big, audacious goals spice up life, she relies on coffee, red wine and laughter to make those goals (and her characters) come alive. When not at the computer, she wrangles vegetables and extra helpings of homework into her fashion-loving progeny, kowtows to a fat cat and reads, a lot. Since it is more fun to travel in packs, come along for the ride.

THE STORY BLURB

Always read the fine print when swearing an eternal oath to gods and guardians…

Beholden by the sacred vows of her coven, fire witch Calista Reid agrees to temporarily mate with shifter Cullen McMahan to fulfill a mission assigned by the guardians. When tall, dark and damaged arrives on her doorstep, generating enough heat to scorch a fire witch, Calista finds herself drawn to his battle-hardened body and broken soul. His pain speaks to her own deep-rooted isolation and the intensity of his hunger slakes her passion like no other.

Cullen, scarred by a past that left him an indentured soldier to the guardians, resents yet another hump-on-command assignment…until he encounters the compassionate, fearless, incendiary redhead who detonates his body and reawakens the emotions sacrifice and loss had suppressed. But Cullen harbors a terrible secret—one that reaches back into Calista’s troubled childhood and threatens the foundation of their growing bond.

Find Me on the Web

Contact

Website

Facebook

Twitter: @SabrinaGarie

Blogs: sabrinagarie.com; darkertemptations.wordpress.com

UP NEXT: Next Move (Coming Soon from Ellora’s Cave)

Sometimes the greatest obstacles to love are the walls that guard your own heart…

Chamber of Commerce CEO and single mother Jocelyn Wade plays to win—in the boardroom, at local politics and for her daughter.   With an overloaded life and a heart scarred shut, she does not do relationships, ever. Until Jared Wyatt, the hot out-of-town fling she can’t seem to forget, swaggers into her life with a different agenda—making Jocelyn his own.

Surviving a shattered marriage, Jared had sworn off women until a night of unparalleled passion with Jocelyn reawakens needs he thought long gone. When a new job as high school athletic director lands him in Jocelyn’s town, where sports and business rule, he must stay one move ahead of her in the game to win her body and heart.

After rancorous local politics upends their game board, they both must learn to trust again or lose a second chance at love.

AND NOW FOR THE Q & A...

ALEXA: What’s the first book you remember reading? 

SABRINA: Encyclopedia Brown, a children’s book series about a boy detective who figured out mysteries. They were written in a way so that readers could play a long and figure it out. Each volume had several stories to dig in to. Looking for clues got me so drawn into the story, I felt like I was part of the book. I also got a real kick out of figuring out the mystery. That book taught me several things—that books are friends, that I was smart, and figuring stuff out was fun. It tricked me into loving reading and learning. I have such fond memories of those books that I still buy it for kids as a gift.

ALEXA: What’s your favorite fairy tale?

SABRINA: Beauty and the Beast.  It teaches us so many good things; 1) That the true nature of love lies in the realm of the heart and soul; 2) The limitations of seeing the world predominantly through the eye; 3) The power of redemption and forgiveness; 4) A need for reflection–how sometimes we have to step outside a situation to see it clearly, as Beauty did when she has to leave the Beast; and 5) The power of unconditional love and loyalty. 

ALEXA:  What's your favorite movie of all time?

SABRINA: One of best films about love ever made—Casablanca. 

The world hangs in a balance. World War II is in full blaze.

Through Rick and Ilsa, we see and feel the sacrifices that people, flawed and beaten up, are willing to make for love.  Casablanca is love at its most unselfish and most painful.  It makes us see that sometimes the price of love is the ability to say good bye, to let go for a greater good. Sad, yes, but it is the difference between unconditional and selfish love.

ALEXA:  Who's your favorite villain?

SABRINA: Hands down, Hans Gruber, played to perfection by Alan Rickman, in the film Die Hard.  When he glides off the elevator in a custom-tailored, Savile Row suit, followed by a horde of to-die-for bad boys masquerading as terrorists to execute the ultimate burglary, Hans had me at: “I could talk about men’s fashion and industrialization all day but I’m afraid work must intrude.” The British accent upped him on the hot scale, and had him serving up dialogue in a way that made me swoon.

Witty, sophisticated, brilliant, and ruthless penchant for killing innocent people, he wrangled his pack as a true leader, stayed firm to his goals, perverse as they might be, and maintained a veneer of politeness when dealing with the hostages (even though he did ultimately plan on killing them all). Not a hair or etiquette out of place. But what really made Hans accessible was Alan Rickman’s performance—he kept Hans human. And that is why he nailed the character.

ALEXA: Be honest, when reading...do you put yourself in the heroine’s role?

SABRINA: When I’m reading, never. My tendency is create a new character whole cloth and insert myself in the narrative. That way I can observe and push the story the around, but still keep the protagonists intact. However, when I write, I always put myself in the heroine’s shoes. That’s how I figure out who she is—by spending time in her head and heart. The truth is I add a little piece of myself into each female lead I write.

ALEXA: What’s the first thing you do when you finish writing a book?

SABRINA: Cry, yes really. I think it stems from both a sense of completion—the emotions related to that just spill over—and a sense of loss because I am putting something that has been an important part of my daily life away and I will never deal with it again in the same way.

ALEXA:  What dreams have been realized as a result of your writing?

SABRINA: The dream of writing—of actually finishing something and having others read it, hopefully like it. So many times over the past couple of decades I’ve tried to write. I have drawers full of half written plays, detailed story ideas with folders of research to support it, children’s books jazzed up with clip art and stapled together so I could read them to my daughter, and years of receipts from all the writing classes I’ve taken.  In the last two years, for the first time, I’ve set goals, built a routine, and now I’ve got one published, a second one accepted, and several in progress.

ALEXA:  Tea or Coffee? And how do you take it?

SABRINA:  Coffee, white. I can’t seem to get by without it.  I tried to give it up, several times, but…

ALEXA:  Which era would you least like to have lived in, fashion-wise and why? Most?

SABRINA: Most—the 1960s and later. If I had my druthers, I would live my life in blue jeans. Least, everything before women could wear jeans.

ALEXA: Will you have a drawing from those leaving a comment?
SABRINA: Yes, Prize: Ecopy of the book.

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