Today I am very excited to have super author Larissa Ione as my interview victim. Larissa has an absolutely amazing new release on store shelves. PASSION UNLEASHED released yesterday, and, all I can say is WOW!  Larissa has got a definite hit on her hands when it comes to her Demonica series. If you haven’t read these books yet, you really, really should!

Welcome, Larissa!

1.    Please tell us a bit about yourself and the genre (or genres) that you write.

Well, I’m Larissa Ione, and I have written contemporary romance for Red Sage and Samhain, and am currently chin-deep writing dark paranormal romances for Grand Central Publishing. I also write erotic sci-fi/paranormal/action-adventure romance for Bantam Dell under the pen name Sydney Croft, with partner Stephanie Tyler.

2.    Describe your current (or upcoming) release in 15 words or less.

Vampires, demons, Egypt, the end of the world, lots of sex, and a badass hero.

3.   Okay, now use as many words as you’d like to describe your story.

Oh, whew!  Okay, Passion Unleashed is…well, let me just paste the blurb:

Both a demon and a vampire, Wraith has waited a hundred years to escape his miserable existence and make the change that will allow him to seduce anyone and anything, and then impregnate it without a care in the world. He has standards, though, and no humans need apply. So when he finds himself needing to seduce a human female named Serena in order to save his life, the horrors of his past come back to haunt him. Thanks to a divine charm, Serena is immortal, but only if she remains a virgin. Can she resist the ultimate temptation, the touch of a tortured, dark-souled demon who is sex personified?

4.    Which character do you like better from PASSION UNLEASHED—the hero or the heroine?  Why?

The heroine, because she gets to sleep with Wraith! *g*

5.    What is the most challenging part of being a writer?

Finding time for a life.  For some reason, writing seems to take over, and when you have deadlines and revisions and promo all happening at the same time, real life gets get shoved aside.  And it’s bad when people around you don’t understand why you can’t take time off, since you pretty much make your own schedule (which I do, but I have prime writing times when my brain works best or when the family is gone and I have some peace.)

6.    In a fight, who would win…Dracula or the wolf-man?  What? This question seems odd? Please, folks are dying to know this answer.

Tough one, but I’m going to go with Dracula because he’s my favorite.  Plus, I’m assuming that they are fighting over me, and I’d rather be the prize for the super-sexy Dracula…

7.    What’s your favorite scary movie?  Come on, spill.  No explanations—just name it.  Let everyone else guess why.

Poltergeist.

8.    Tell me the one thing you wish you’d known about being a writer, um, before you became  a writer.

It might have been nice to know how much time it would take to get published.  This is definitely a career where you invest years of practice before you finally make a sale.  But isn’t that the way it is with many jobs that require skill?  You spend years in college or in training before you see success.  And it’s totally worth it!

9.    What is your writing schedule like?

I pretty much write every day from 8 AM to 3 PM, and then after dinner I’ll sit down and try to get a little more work in.  When my husband is gone (he’s Coast Guard so is often out on patrols,) I write a lot more than that.

10.    Tell me anything you’d like to tell me. 🙂

I just want to tell you that I love your books! 🙂  I can’t wait to dig into Immortal Danger.  And congrats again on your sale to Grand Central Publishing!  It’s great to have you as a Forever sister!

Aw, thank you, Larissa!  You know I absolutely adore your books!! They keep me up late at night because I can’t stop reading them! And I’m very happy to be your Forever sister!

If you want to snatch up Larissa’s new book, you can find it at your local bookstore or, hey, just click here to get it delivered from Amazon.

Wraith is such a great, very, very bad boy hero.  For the nice folks reading this blog, what do you think of the heroes who walk on the dark side?

Today is the official release day for IMMORTAL DANGER.

So if you want to read about my ex-cop turned vampire, you can find Maya’s book at your local bookstore or, if you prefer online shopping, Amazon can ship it to you (so can Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, Borders, Powell’s,…)

I’m going to celebrate today. Release days don’t come that often, so I’ll have fun with this one.

I’m also scheduled to hop around the web today. To help with my celebration, I’m guest blogging at a few spots…

Romance Vagabonds–Topic: Normal Paranormal Characters (Come on by for a chance at at prize!)

Lori Devoti’s blog–Topic:  Full Moon of Werewolves. Head over for a sneak peek at an excerpt from IMMORTAL DANGER that has never been posted anywhere else on the web.  Cause, yep, there’s a wolf in this story.

Jess Granger’s Butterfly Blog:  Jess posted an interview–hey, my turn to be interviewed! Fun! 🙂

Candy Ready’s–I’ll be at Candy’s all week chatting about books and sharing excerpts–and two commenters will win autographed books.

Hope you have a wonderful day!!

Thank you so much to everyone who entered my IMMORTAL DANGER Contest. I was so thrilled by the participation in this contest–thank you!

Now, I’m sure everyone wants me to get to the big announcement, so here we go!

The winners are:

6th place (your choice of a Cynthia Eden autographed book):  Sena

5th place (your choice of a Cynthia Eden autographed book):  bettyc

4th place (your choice of a Cynthia Eden autographed book):  azteclady

3rd place ($25 Amazon.com gift certificate):  Sami McGee

2nd place ($50 Amazon.com gift certificate): Lucy

1st place ($100 Amazon.com gift certificate):  Gayle O

I will email the winners with full prize details within the next few moments.

Congratulations to all the winners! And, again, thank you to everyone who entered my contest. I received some great vampire photos, too! I’ll have to post some for you all to see soon.  🙂

If you didn’t win and you’d still like a chance for a prize, no worries! I have some more book giveaway going on this week as I celebrate the release of IMMORTAL DANGER. (The release is tomorrow. Tomorrow!)

First up on my giveaways…I’m having a Godiva Week over at Candy Ready’s. She’s interviewed me, she’ll post book excerpts, and, at the end of the week, two commenters at her blog will win autographed books.  So if you have a chance, stop by!

Have a great day!

My guest post on death and vampires is up over at The Romance Reader’s Connection. If you get a chance this weekend, head on over! You could win an autographed book!

(Quick note: I’m going to keep this contest bumped to the top. For new posts, just scroll down. Thanks!)

In just over a month (the actual release date is 3/31/09) IMMORTAL DANGER will be on the shelves of a bookstore near you–or shipping from a very friendly online retailer. So, to liven things up before my release, I thought it would be the perfect time for an IMMORTAL DANGER Contest.

There are two ways to enter this contest. Way number one: Share the lovely image above. Just click the “Share” button, copy the entire code, and paste it on your blog, website, or MySpace page. Then, tell me in the comments section exactly where you’ve posted. By following these steps, you’ll help me to spread the word about my book–and you’ll receive an entry in my contest.  (Actually, every time you post the image, it will count as one entry, so if you post on your MySpace page and on, say a personal web page–hey, that’s two entries!)

Now, I realize that not everyone has a web page or a blog.  Thus, we get to the second way to enter my contest.  Since the heroine of IMMORTAL DANGER is a vampire, you can enter the contest by snapping a picture of yourself in your best vampy pose. (Note: Nothing x-rated please! My eyes!)  Email the pic to me at info@cynthiaeden.com with the subject line of “Immortal Danger Contest” and yes, that image counts as an entry in the contest.

Quick note: By emailing me your picture, you give me permission to post said image on my site.  If you’d like me to link back to your blog or web page when I post, I’ll be happy to do that.  Just include the info in your email.

For your vamp pic, feel free to use fake fangs, fake blood (please, fake! Not real!), and your imagination. I wanted to do something fun for this contest, and posting images of vampires–well, that’s fun for me.  🙂

Now that you know how to enter my little contest, you may be wondering…what are the prizes?  Well, here they are:

1st Place:  $100 Amazon.com gift certificate
2nd Place:  $50 Amazon.com gift certificate
3rd Place:  $25 Amazon.com gift certificate
4th-6th Place: Your choice of any autographed Cynthia Eden book. (And you know what?  This choice–it does include the option of receiving an ARC of Niol’s story,  MIDNIGHT’S MASTER.)

The contest officially begins on February 26, 2009, and will end at midnight March 29, 2009.  On March 30th, I’ll announce the winners here on my blog.

Questions? Feel free to post ’em in the comments section and I’ll answer as soon as I can.

Good luck!!