Book-A-Week Challenge Interview with author Ashlyn Chase

Today's interview is with Ashlyn Chase, author of this week's Book-A-Week Challenge "Heaving Bosoms"

Categories: Romantic Comedy, Romantic Suspense
Book Length: 250 pages
Book Type: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Cerridwen Press
ISBN: 9781419956751
In Stock: YES
Price: $10.99

Where to purchase: http://www.jasminejade.com/p-3862-heaving-bosoms.aspx

I'd like to thank Ashlyn for giving us an opportunity to read "Heaving Bosoms" as part of the Book-A-Week Challenge and for the interview you are about to read. Please leave a comment or question and let Ashlyn reply back. On withe the interview. . .

What motivated you to write this book?

This is my first paperback, but I had several e-published books before this. I suppose the question could be ‘What motivates me to write?’

I can’t not write. Pardon the double negative. Many writers have said the same thing more eloquently, but I write dialog the way I speak. Straight to the point, no mucking around—grammar be damned.

Are the experiences in the novel based on someone you know, or events in your life?

The kernel of the idea came from the mishap of a friend. She was enjoying a county fair, just walking along and chatting with the woman beside her when suddenly she stepped in a hole, lost her footing and twisted her ankle. Another friend of ours commented that if she wasn’t so top-heavy, she may have stayed upright. Along came a couple of hunky EMT’s who carted her off to the hospital much to her chagrin.

At about the same time, a funny lawyer friend of mine challenged me to write something about tattooed butts. Believe it or not, I found a way to combine these two elements and make a novel!

Do you have a specific writing style?

I used to write by the seat of my pants. Then I began that way and about 3 chapters in, I knew where I wanted to go but needed a road map to get there. Thus I became a “pantser-plotter”. Now I’m more comfortable having a rough idea about what might happen from the get go. I’d call that plotting, but my characters inevitably change and add things along the way. I have the best of intentions and plot using a story board so I can jot down a possible scene on a sticky note, move it to another section of the book, or throw it away depending on what my characters want to do and when.

If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?

That’s a toughie. The writer who first captured my heart in the romance genre and opened up the whole wonderful field to me was Diana Gabeldon with her Outlander series.
Since then, I’ve read, met, studied with and critiqued with so many wonderful authors it would be hard to pick out one, so I’ll just go ahead and name a few of them. Sylvie Kurtz, Jessica Andersen, Annette Blair, Mary Janice Davidson, Delilah Devlin and many others.

What are your current projects?

I’m presently working on Book Two of a three book series called Strange Neighbors. It’s a light urban fantasy about an apartment building in Boston full of paranormal misfits. Book One is called Hot Prospect and will be released in the Spring of 2010. It features the landlord, a professional baseball player, who just bought the building and remodeled the penthouse for himself.

Little does he know what goes on beneath his topmost unit until he gets involved with the nurse who lives on the first floor. She may be the only ‘normal’ in the building, but all the other residents love her and trust her with their secrets one by one.

Thanks to the snarky ghost haunting the building, the readers know who’s who and what’s up from the very beginning.

What makes your stories unique?


My wacky ideas, quick pace, occasional snark, and a happy, but not sappy ending.


How do you come up with your story ideas and your characters?


I blame everything on Thalia, the ancient Greek muse of comedy.


When do you find you are the most creative or write the most?


In the morning when my brain is fresh and jazzed up on at least two cups of coffee.


How to you get inspired to write your romantic scenes?


This is a great question, because I don’t always “have it in me” when I come to a place crying out for a love scene. Sometimes I have to mark the place and go back to it later, meanwhile pushing on with the story. Some may not realize this, but a long, hot love scene is one of the hardest things to write. Well, that and comedy. I gave myself a double whammy! Sometimes, I’m not the brightest star in the sky.