Catching Up With Dianna Love-Interview and Giveaway
The Reading Cafe is thrilled to welcome back Dianna Love. Last week, Dianna released her 3rd book in her Slye Temp series, Honeymoon to Die For. On July 30th, Dianna and Sherrilyn Kenyon will release the 4th book in their Belador series, Rise of the Gryphon. She is here to discuss both books, as well as what else we may have to look forward to in 2013/2014
Before we start the interview, let’s refresh your memory about Dianna.
Dianna Love was born in Sarasota, Florida and grew up in the Tampa Bay area. She fell out of the womb a portrait artist and soon realized she was right brain/left brain, because she loved mathematics and business as much as creating art. Leaning on her artistic background, she started hand painting signs and then moved on to scaling billboards, where she was the rare female artist who would go a hundred feet in the air to paint someone’s portrait 20’ tall. While going from that to building Olympic projects for companies like Coca-Cola, she was a voracious reader of everything from thrillers, romance, sci-fi and fantasy to memoirs and biographies. But fiction was always her first love in reading. She started entertaining herself during fifteen-hour days by making up stories. After spending many years traveling across country to create unusual marketing projects for Fortune 500 company, she’s now released her energetic muse on creating high-octane romantic thriller stories and urban fantasy.
Her first book won the prestigious RITA® Award (as Dianna Love Snell) and she now has a new Slye Temp romantic thriller series in 2013 – LAST CHANCE TO RUN (available), NOWHERE SAFE(available), HONEYMOON TO DIE FOR (June/2013) and KISS THE ENEMY (fall). Dianna also co-writes the Belador urban fantasy series with #1 NYT best seller Sherrilyn Kenyon. RISE OF THE GRYPHON is the next Belador release (July/2013).
When not speaking at national and international events throughout the year, Dianna lives in the metro Atlanta area with her motorcycle-instructor husband and a tank full of unruly saltwater fish named after celebrities.
Now let’s talk to Dianna.
TRC: Hi Dianna. Thank you for taking the time to visit us again at The Reading Cafe, and to give us an update on your two new releases, as well as what else you may have upcoming in 2013 or early 2014.
Dianna: Thank you for having me again. I love to visit The Reading Café (I always think what a great blog name that is).
TRC: This month, you have just released your third book in your Romance suspense series, Slye Temp. Can you please tell us the premise of this series, for those who may not have read it?
Dianna: The idea for this series came to me when I was first writing Last Chance To Run (LCTR), which is why LCTR is the prequel novel. The Slye Temp series is about an independent black ops team led by Sabrina Slye, one very deadly woman you wouldn’t want to cross. After a mission in the UK went bad two years back, she and her team dropped out of sight to heal their wounds. When they resurfaced, Sabrina opened Slye Temp, an elite corporate security agency. At least, that’s what the public sees at street level. Below ground is where covert missions to protect national security are planned in the war room. Every story is a stand-alone romantic thriller about one of the agents finding love in the most unexpected—and inconvenient--place, but there is also an over-arcing plot going on in the background that progresses with each book. These are high-action stories with powerful romance at the center of each one.
TRC: Can you give a brief description of your new novel in the Slye Temp series, Honeymoon to Die For?
NOTE: If you haven’t read Nowhere Safe – skip this because it’s going to give away a spoiler.
Dianna: Ryder Van Dyke was introduced as a new Slye Temp agent in Nowhere Safe. During that story, he did a favor for someone in his family, which ended with him being arrested for murder. At the opening of Honeymoon To Die For, he’s being held for trial, but he’s being held in a prison due to the nature of the charge and his Special Forces skills.
When something unexpected happens in the prison yard, the FBI sees the chance to coerce Ryder into gaining evidence they need to go after a man they believe is a traitor – Ryder’s father. The deal requires Ryder and Special Agent Bianca Brady to team up, and it turns out nothing like either one expects.
TRC: Rise of the Gryphon is your next book in the Belador series, which is expected to be released on July 30th. Can you give us a brief description of this book?
Dianna: Rise of the Gryphon is a major turning point in the arc of the Belador series. Evalle Kincaid meets her greatest challenge personally and on the battlefield. In this book, Evalle decides she’s ready to take her relationship with Storm to the next step, but things are never easy for her and this is no different.
At the same time, she has to turn her back on her beloved Beladors to save them.
TRC: Justifiable is the first book in your Riley Walker series. Would you please give us a brief description of this series? Are you and Wes Sarginson planning on a new book soon?
Dianna: This series started as an idea that Wes had back when we first met. He’d filmed a special on me for television, and we hit it off. He kept calling to discuss this book idea and I would always explain how to develop the characters and plot, but he wanted me to co-write it with him. I was hesitant only because I had so much on my plate at the time, but I finally gave in (Wes is very persuasive!).
This series is about a television news anchor who was at the top of his game (like Wes) when something very bad happened to destroy his reputation (not like Wes). Riley moves to Philadelphia and takes a job with the lowest-ranked station in the city. He gets a chance at a big story there, but it turns into his worst nightmare when he realizes there are parallels to the incident that cost him everything. But he can’t turn his back on the story because a child is in jeopardy and a killer is targeting innocent adults. Book two is in the plotting stage and we hope to have it out next year.
Link to our Justifiable review:
TRC: You also write a new series, The Red Moon series, as Micah Caida. What can you tell us about this series, and why you decided to use a pen name?
Dianna: Mary Buckham and I are collaborating on this series. We debated about using our names since we’ve been published for a while, but decided we wanted to keep the young adult series separate from our adult books.
Time Trap is book one of the four-book Red Moon series, all of which will be out by the end of 2014. This series is like nothing else out there, but the books target fans of The Hunger Games and Harry Potter. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy about Rayen, a seventeen-year-old girl who wakes up in a strange land (on Earth) and is being chased by a sentient beast. She has no idea who she is or why everything seems unfamiliar, at first. She forms an unlikely alliance with a computer-savvy street punk and a gifted, oddball girl to save their world – and the future – which is how Rayen meets an unusual seventeen-year-old boy who is as deadly as he is attractive.
TRC: What are you currently working on now? Also, would you like to share with us what you may have upcoming in 2013 or early 2014.
Dianna: Right now, I’m working on the next Slye Temp novel – Kiss The Enemy– that will be out this fall (2013). The next YA book will be Time Return (Book two in the Micah Caida Red Moon series) that Mary and I plan to have out this winter. In 2014, I’ll release two more Slye Temp books and the last two in the Red Moon Series, plus (we hope) the next Riley Walker and possibly a New Adult novel I have in mind.
TRC: Would you like to add anything else?
Dianna: I would love to remind readers that they can get free, signed cover cards in the www.KeeperKase.com program. The glossy cards are 4 x 6, and will fit in any photo album or brag book. I’m giving away the Keeper Cards, and the list of other authors offering cards is constantly growing. This is a program I created just for readers and am thrilled to see the response. If they read e-books, now they can collect the autographed cards to put on their Keeper Shelves the way we all used to keep autographed books, but all readers are welcome to get the cards, whether they read e-books or print books.
TRC: Thank you, Dianna for giving us an update on what we can look forward to in 2013/2014, and we wish you the best with both new releases.
Dianna: Thanks so much Barb. It’s always a pleasure to visit with you here and catch up with what’s been happening. I’ll be around to chat today if anyone has questions or comments.
If you want to know more about Dianna, you can visit her at the following links:
Website:
Twitter:
Facebook:
Goodreads:
Dianna has graciously offered two lucky members of The Reading Cafe a signed copy of her lastest release, Honeymoon To Die For.
1. You must be a member at The Reading Cafe. If you are not a member, please register using the Log-In at the top of the page, or by using one of our social log-ins.
2. If you are using a social log-in e.g. Twitter, please leave your email address along with your comment.
3. Giveaway open to US Only
4. Contests runs from July 10 to July 13, 2013
Rise Of The Gryphon
Belador Series
Sherrilyn Kenyon & Dianna Love
Release Date: July 30, 2013
Links to order:
Amazon / Barnes & Noble / The Book Depository
If dying is the cost of protecting those you love… bring it.
An Alterant who fights trolls, demons, and other deadly creatures, Evalle is an outcast among the Beladors. But now she can change all that – and finally get answers about her origins. In her attempt to take down the Belador traitor and bring home a captured friend, she infiltrates the dangerous Medb coven where she discovers exactly what an Alterant really is…and the news is not good for the Beladors.
Meanwhile, Evalle’s best friends Tzader and Quinn face unthinkable choices, as relationships with the women they love grow twisted. Evalle’s relationship with the Skinwalker Storm takes a major step and becomes complicated when the witchdoctor he’s been hunting begins to stalk her. With death breathing down her neck, Evalle is forced to embrace her destiny . . . but at what price?
Honeymoon To Die For
Slye Temp Series
Dianna Love
Release Date: June 27,2013
Links to order:
Amazon / Barnes & Noble
She’s convinced he’s guilty. He knows he’s not.
Can they survive long enough to prove who’s right?
Former Slye agent RYDER VAN DYKE is facing conviction for a murder he didn’t commit. When his last hope for freedom disintegrates, the FBI offers a deal – a commuted sentence if Ryder helps them nail a deadly criminal … his father.
FBI analyst BIANCA BRADY wants justice for the death of her best friend. Now all she needs is proof that the Van Dyke patriarch is guilty of funding terrorist operations. She’s willing to do whatever it takes to make Van Dyke criminals pay, or so she thinks. But there’s a catch.
The only way to get an FBI agent inside the family compound and Van Dyke Enterprises is as Ryder’s legal wife. Ryder has his own plan – to prove his innocence or use his Special Forces skills to disappear. But deadly secrets, an international security threat and a killer with a vendetta force Ryder to make the ultimate choice – give up his freedom or risk the life of the woman who’s stolen his heart.
