I'm welcoming author Keri Stevens today, talking about her book Stone Kissed

Today I'm especially pleased to have Keri Stevens here on my blog, telling about her terrific new release Stone Kissed. I've asked her a few interesting questions, to learn how she arrived at such a great idea for her book.

What inspired you to give Delia, your witch, the fascinating supernatural behavior of talking to statues?

In 2008 I was in Manhattan for a week-long folkloric dance seminar. We danced six-to-eight hours per day, and even though she was in her late 60s, Morocco worked our tails off. At the end of the day, I’d walk back to my hotel, doing what every tourist is warned not to do: Looking up and around and soaking in the sights. I noticed all of the carved faces over the buildings and in my exhausted, dehydrated altered state, I began imagining what the statues would say about the last few hundred years. Entire conversations (none of which actually made it into Stone Kissed) riffed through my loopy brain. But the core idea stuck.  

Are you a big art lover, or were you required to research classic sculptures or the job of a stone conservator? 
  

I am a lover of funerary art. I’m fascinated by the way we memorialize others (or, if we have enough power and money, memorialize ourselves.) But yes—research took me on all sorts of tax-deductible trips to graveyards and museums. I’m always of a split-mind when it comes to research. When I’m writing I feel like I need to back out and go do more of it. When I’m researching I feel like I should be home, on my butt, drafting or editing.  

If you could meet one character from any literary work for dinner, who would it be and how would the evening go?

 I’d have dinner with Claire Fraser from Gabaldon’s Outlander series. I’d pour all sorts of alcohol into her, and then I’d get the REAL truth about Jamie.  I strongly suspect I’d find out he ain’t all that.

 

(Note to Marsha—you may have to moderate comments. I expect outrage and vitriol now.)

Bio:
KERI STEVENS was raised in southern Missouri and has lived in Germany, Arizona, North Carolina and Kentucky. Along the way she acquired degrees in writing and German, a romance hero of her very own, three sons, two miracle cats and a mutt who licks her when she speaks German.
 
Her husband gave Keri her first romance novel to read, which unleashed a passion. Several years and a couple thousand novels later, Keri took up her laptop and began writing her own books.
 
By day, she is a mild-mannered yoga and Oriental dance instructor. By night she creates mayhem and magic in small-town paranormal romance novels like her award-winning debut, Stone Kissed, from Carina Press.

Find Keri online at:

Main site and blog: http://keristevens.com

My Friends Yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KeriStevensFriends/join

Twitter http://twitter.com/keristevens (@KeriStevens)

Facebook: http://facebook.com/KeriStevensAuthor

Goodreads: http://goodreads.com/Keri_Stevens

eHarlequin community: http://community.eharlequin.com/blogs/keri-stevens

Amazon: http://j.mp/KeriStevensAMZ

EXCERPT LINK

STONE KISSED ISBN: 978-14268-9101-4

Blurb:

When Delia Forrest talks to statues, they talk back. She is, after all, the last of the Steward witches.

After an arsonist torches her ancestral home with her estranged father still inside, Delia is forced to sell the estate to pay his medical bills. Her childhood crush, Grant Wolverton, makes a handsome offer for Steward House, vowing to return it to its former glory. Delia agrees, as long as he’ll allow her to oversee the restoration.

Working so closely with Grant, Delia finds it difficult to hide her unique talent—especially when their growing passion fuels her abilities.

But someone else lusts after both her man and the raw power contained in the Steward land. Soon, Delia finds herself fighting not just for Grant’s love, but for both their lives…