Foot Notes, "The Last Word" (Book Reviews by Pandora Esperanza): Interview with Author LeTeisha Newton, A Romance Addicts Best Friend

Between my Nook and the Kindle App on my phone I keep my romance addiction fed on a regular basis. One of the best features of e-readers and book apps is that they will make suggestions for you based on the books that you have purchased/read. After finishing up a read a few years ago, the book Theirs To Claim by LeTeisha Newton was suggested. I thought to myself, "Ok, why not, what could it hurt." After that, I had to do my utmost best to read everything that she had written to that point.

Now here I am with the great pleasure of bringing you an exclusive interview with romance author LeTeisha Newton. One of the few authors that I can say is worth burning the midnight oil over. Shifters, Greek gods, espionage, or just good'ol sexy fine hunk of man sweeps woman off her feet or in some cases it's the lady that sweeps that man off his feet *wink*.

Thank you Le'Teisha for hanging out for a bit with me on Foot Notes, (The Last Word) Book Reviews By Pandora Esperanza.

PE - How did you decide that you wanted to focus your writing in the IR/Shifter/Paranormal romance area?

LN - To be honest, I’m not just an IR romance writer. I’m just a romance author. Fantasy and Paranormal romance were my first loves after reading books by Anne Rice and Christine Feehan. I loved vampires and werewolves. I loved the idea of forever with them being the forgone conclusion; you just had to survive long enough in their world to make it there. There wasn’t a question of if your man was right for you. You knew he was perfect for you. You just had to get over yourself and the situation. I loved that, and wanted to write that. IR came in later, because I tend to write the relationships I’m normally in. I wrote what I knew, and then realized it was a hot genre. A little bit of a shock, I assure you.

PE-From what I can tell you have 30 books to your credit. Where do you get the inspiration for your characters and their stories?

LN - You know, that’s the hardest question for me to ever answer. I have to blame it on my characters, my muse, and music most of the time. I can’t seem to let the writing go. I dream things, or go to bed with ideas in my head. Sometimes I see something while on a walk and can’t let it go until I tie it in with a character. The world around me is full of stories. I’m one of those people that can put headphones on with some music and see a whole movie to that song.—I danced for quite some time, classically trained first, and then a freestyle artist later. Music makes me see the world different. It’s in the notes, in the melody, in the hook. I’ve written quite a few stories because of music.

PE - What is your favorite part of the writing process?

LN - Writing it. I’m more of a panster, and just sit down and let my characters go and I follow them on the ride. I have started plotting things out more now, because I like to have a tight rein on my overall story timeline, but not so much that I feel bound. I just love seeing the characters come alive on my pages and see that word count amp up. Good times.

PE - How do you feel when you finish the last book of a series?

LN- I feel relief and sad at the same time. I’ve had a lot of fun writing my series, and I really know the characters, and I miss not writing their antics anymore. Readers also start asking me about writing more in a series, and that gets hard because I just don’t want to throw stuff in.

PE-I’ll just put it right out there, your books are superbly written, but man are they steamy! Talk to us about how you decide what kinds of love scenes to write and how far they’re going to go?

LN - Yeah, that’s the rub right there. *smile* I think love is hot and steamy, slow and easy, dark and delicious. When the one we love touches us, we explode. They bring out in us things that we wouldn’t think to do otherwise, we go to length that we never thought possible. That is love and sex. That’s making love when you are in lust as much as you are in love. That’s how I write my books. Can I tone it down? Sure, I’ve done so before, but usually I don’t.

PE - Which of all your characters is your favorite and what book are they from?

LN - Ah, the favorite. That would be my baby JACK. His book is the last book of the Corporate Hitman series, and he was my “guy”. I got him, loved him, wanted him to step off the pages and be mine. I thought of a character that had a horrible event twist him from the right track to the dark side, and then I turned him into a monster. And then I gave that monster a chance to find love. Not to be a good guy again. Not to make him all rainbows and butterflies. I wanted him to have to be the monster in order to save the woman he loves. So, his book, with his other two delicious friends—GLITCH and SCRATCH—completed that series.

PE -Talk to me about Immortal Need – Watchers Book One. When can we look forward to the next book in the series! I am in love with these characters!

LN - You know, I’ve decided to take that book to another level just recently and been thinking about Alexander. I know most people want to know about Valerie and Lei, especially after the ending of Book One, but the trilogy was planned for those two to go through so much more before they found their happy ending. I’m currently reworking the plot for the last two novels and hope to have them out next year. Fingers crossed, that’s exactly what happens. The same for my Strand novel, Murder by Ritual. The re-work process—when you are switching publishers or making changes can be hard—but I’m getting it done. Thank you for asking about my babies though, they have a special place in my heart.

PE - If you could see one of your books made into a film, which one would you choose?

LN - That would have to be Immortal Need or Murder byRitual. Both were placed in real-life locations. In IN, that was all about Michigan, my father’s home area. In Murder by Ritual it was based off a little known town in southern Texas called Port Lavaca, and its neighboring area of Victoria. I’d love for that to be seen on the big screen, and those characters are larger than life. Considering how much I am in LOVE with Tom Hiddleston…I’m saying he could be my Loki any day, and he pushes Immortal Need to the top of the list!

PE - If you had to choose a leading man from a paranormal/shifter romance who would you choose? i.e. Vampire, Wolf, Big Cat, Dragon, Angel?

LN - Oh man, that is a very hard one. Why do you keep doing this to me LOL. Hmmmm. I'm absolutely in love with Dragons and Wolves. There is just something about them. But you give me a dirty Angel. One with blood tipped wings and kick ass tattoos. One that has his halo tattooed around his neck and he's pretty darn human. In short? Give me Michael, from Legion (Paul Bettany), and I'll need someone to clean up the puddle that used to be me. That's dichotomy at its finest, and that's life. Dark and light. Heaven and Hell. Pleasure and pain. Yep, I think I need to go write me a guy like that right now...

PE - Who is your favorite author?

LN - Hmmm. Man that’s a hard questions. It’s better to ask the genre than what author. For Fantasy, that’s Jacqueline Carey, hands down. Kushiel’s Dart anyone??? For Romance, pure romance, that has to be Diana Palmer. She introduced me to the world, and Fit for a King is still a book I can re-read over and over again. For Paranormal? Now you’re just breaking my heart. I have four go-to, insta-buy ladies: Gena Showalter, Laurell K. Hamilton, Lora Leigh, and L. A. Banks. I think I went into a coma when she passed.

PE - What book is on your night stand right now?

LN - Lol, my nightstand is covered in books so we’ll just go with the top few: King of Me, by Mimi Jean Pamfiloff, because that trilogy deserved a re-read, The Queen of all that Dies, by Laure Thalassa, because my Fantasy side had to get a serious fix, and Bound by a Dragon, by Linda K.Hopkins.

PE - If you weren’t a writer what profession would you have chosen?

LN - I’d be a dancer. I’d have stayed with my first love and continued with college in that field instead of what I eventually chose. I would have gone to New York and pursued that opportunity I had with a dance company there and never looked back. Life happened, and I ended up going into the military for my country, because that’s what I felt was right, and injured my knee. Goodbye to professional dancing and hello to my first published book. But things happen for a reason, and I still can do a mean kick-ball-change when I need to.

PE- Tell us something about yourself that fans don’t know, but would love to.

LN- I am a geek. Seriously. I love to look at cosplay costumes, watch a ridiculous amount of anime, and happen to speak a fair amount of Japanese. Yatai! You come into my home and I’ll make you some serious sticky rice and braised pork while watching Ip Man and arguing why he was such an amazing historical figure, and then asking if you’d like to wear a yukata after we finish eating and open the wine. I’m all about Hall H at Comic-Con and will keep up with what’s going on with GeekTyrant, and, yes, I have it bookmarked. That’s me, every day, all day, and I absolutely love it.

PE- Where do you think the direction of romance is going to go next?

LN - I see the romance genre staying pretty consistent, but I have noticed more and more that some topics that seemed to be taboo, i.e. Step-brother-mother-father, BDSM, Monster, and other forms of outlining romance becoming more mainstream. I'm still a stickler for my PNR most days, or my contemporary.

PE - What can we expect to see from you next?

LN - I have a new book, Sin's Pleasure that will be coming from Evernight Publishing very soon. It's the first novel in my Happily Never Happened (HNH for short) series, where I take the princesses of fairy tales and re-write their stories. This isn't about showing you how Cinderella found Prince Charming! This is about Cinder becoming Sin, after dumping an abusive, cheating ass of Prince Charming, because her Fairy Godmother messed up big time. This is about finding love the second time around. That’s real life. Some people get the happily ever after the first time they try, and that's amazing. I'm envious of them. I found DH after going through several frogs, and losing myself through the process. I had to find, and love, myself before I was even ready for him I'm still broken some days, but he loves me enough to help fix me, and in turn fix himself. That's what I wanted to write. Stories that everyday women could read and relate to. Sin isn't looking for Prince Charming, Mr. Perfect. She's looking for absolutely no one while she's running her strip joint on Fantasy Ave with the other women of fairy tale land, Elsia. So when one man, and then two, show up to show her what love really means, it's a fight of epic proportions to win her love.

PE - Are you scheduled to make any appearances in the near future?

LN - I have no scheduled appearances at the moment. I'm in deep writing mode through the Holidays. Perhaps early next year I'll be moving around a bit more, but I took a hiatus from writing recently and so I'm getting back in full swing.

PE - There are so many people that enjoy you r books. What do you have to say to them?

LN - Thank you!!!!!! It's humbling to have people love your work the way that I do. These are my babies, and writing is a very solitary event. To have people love it so much is an honor that I still can't get over sometimes. I'm the author that's still cries when I get fan mail. (Totally true!) We all need a hick skin to work in this business because of the bad that can come, the shade thrown your way, but you can't always prepare for the good. First time I had someone ask for me to sign one of my books for them I was floored. I had to walk off and go cry in a corner after she left.

I need to thank LeTeisha again for hanging out and sharing with us for a while. I'm excited about Sin's Pleasures the first book in the Happily Never Happened Series, AND a book 2 in the Immortal Need series. (Please indulge me for a moment while I do my personal *Happy Dance*)

If you're an author and interested in me giving a review of your original material or doing an interview you can contact me at pandorascaja@yahoo.com

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