This week I’m participating in a special Fall Conclave Promotional Festival, in which authors of PNR and Fantasy, like myself, work together to publicize each other’s work on numerous platforms and in a variety of ways.
Today, I’m featuring the first of three interviews this week with fellow authors, and leading us off today is author J.L. Hendricks!
First, tell me a little about your book/ books and why you wanted to write it/ them
I have two series right now, and two more in the works. But for the first one, The Eclipse Series, I was helping an author and while beta reading for him he asked me if I ever thought about writing, which I had a lot! But never thought it was something I could do. He talked me into trying it and My Eclipse Series was born.
The Eclipse Series is about a battle that takes place on Earth, in the LA area, between Vampires and Fae Warriors. In my world, the Fae and Vamps are from a planet in another dimension. They are fighting back home over who will control the planet, and they bring their war here to Earth. The Vampires, or rippers as they are called back home, come to Earth to kidnap humans to use as fodder for their war. But due to our sun, the rippers become vampires here and they also need the humans for food. A young woman gets in the way and ends up killing a vampire, which shouldn’t have happened, so she is taken to Fae headquarters and not allowed to leave. When she was fighting the rippers she was injured and that injury is actually killing her. In order to save her, the Fae have to perform something that hasn’t been done in almost 200 years and is no longer allowed. This woman, is saved and she ends being the girl of an ancient prophecy is who is supposed to save her people from the threat of the rippers. There are a lot of fight sequences and some travels that help our reluctant hero and her two saviors to get closer. Which ends up becoming a love triangle issue. I would call this more of an urban fantasy/paranormal adventure romance. I like to mash up genre’s, makes it more interesting.
My other series will release its first book on Sept 22! That book is called Worlds Away and is a Sci-Fi Alien Abduction Romance, but it would be PG-13 if made into a movie. I understand that most of the genre is pretty spicy, but I thought it would be fun to write a book in that world and make it mostly clean so everyone can read it. This is the story of a homeless young woman who is abducted by a smoking hot alien commander who believes our heroin, Paris, is his fated mate. Commander Venay also abducts about 200 other humans to bring back as either slaves, or mates. While this is a romance and will have an HEA, there is also some action and adventure along the way. Another alien species wants the humans for themselves so they attack Commander Venay’s ship and force it to crash land on an alien planet. This gives Paris and the other humans a chance to get away, but not is all that is seems. These new aliens may be even more dangerous than the ones who abducted the humans to begin with. What will Paris and the rest of the human population do?
Do you recall how your interest in writing originated or did you always just know?
I have always enjoyed writing stories. But writing reports and papers for school or work? Not so much. I did start writing a book when I was in 8th grade and ended up throwing it away. It was garbage! And I always thought after that it wouldn’t be something that I could do, even if I wanted to do it. Until I met Michael Anderle who invited me to his 20BooksTo50K group. Back then it was just six of us, but it grew really quickly and now we have almost 800 people in our group! Everyone is so helpful and I couldn’t be where I am today without their help and guidance!
Are the experiences of your characters based in part on someone you know, or on events in your own life?
My characters are based on my imagination. They are people or aliens I would love to either meet or be someday. I don’t think that any of them are based on people I know. But I have used my friends’ names for characters I have killed off! In books 3-5 in my Eclipse series, I borrowed names of friends and family to use for “red shirts”, characters that have a small role but get killed off. A few names in book 5 came from a FB party I did where I asked for names of people to kill off, and I have a list of names now to kill! It was a lot of fun and everyone wanted to die glorious and painful deaths. Which is pretty easy when you are fighting vampires.
Out of all the characters you’ve created, who is your favorite to write? Is this character a main character or one of the side characters?
Out of all of my characters, I would have to say that B’Lana is my favorite to write, but Paris is a very close second and she might overtake B’Lana when she gets her second book. B’Lana has really grown as a person and she has had two extremely good looking and tough men want her. She also gets to do some pretty wild and crazy things, like visiting another planet in another dimension, and fighting off vampires. Paris however, has an extremely handsome and tough alien commander who will do anything to have her. And once they are mated he will never stray from her or want another woman. Alien mating is such that once that bond is performed, there is nothing that can break it short of death. He also has a bit of a romantic side and knows how to ballroom dance. Ok, that last item is probably something off of my list of a perfect man, but it fits for Venay quite nicely.
What are you working on now?
Worlds Away is the first book in a new trilogy I am writing. If it goes over well with the readers, then there will be the possibility of another book or two. Most likely I will start another series in that genre.
The Eclipse series is planned as a very long running series. Currently there are 5 books, but I have also just finished a new book for a spin off series in that universe. The new trilogy will be Origins of the Eclipse with books 1 titled, The Eclipse of Time. I also have a few other spin offs for that universe that will open up doors to new worlds in different dimensions. One of those is a shifter world.
How do you choose when/ which characters die in your books?
In the Eclipse Series I have killed off quite a few characters, but in Worlds Away, I have not killed off many, yet. The strange part is that I like to kill characters, but Worlds Away mostly wrote itself and the book didn’t want a lot of death and gore, however there is some of that in this new trilogy. Paris does have to kill the second alien species, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise with that one! In the Eclipse Series, we are battling vampires, so you have to kill off a lot of characters. Most are true “red shirts” who are there only for that one book and to be someone to kill off. But there are a few who have grabbed our hearts and must die. In book 5 I kill off an awesome character. One of the reviewers said she loved how it happened and it was appropriate, so I am very pleased with that scene. I did however, cry when I wrote it and again when I re-wrote it. I really like that character, but she was always intended as a “red shirt” so she had to go eventually.
If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your book?
If I had this to do all over again, I would combine books 1 & 2 to make it a full length book. Books 1-4 are novellas, so making them into two full length novels would be better, I think.
Did you learn anything from writing your books and what was it?
One of the biggest things I have learned so far is that you have to just do it. We all have things we dream about doing but for some reason don’t. Stop that thinking and just do it! It is better to have tried and failed, then to have never tried at all.
Are there any books you think some of us should read, just because?
There are two series that I am just in love with right now, A Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas, and The Snow Queen books by KM Shea. Both of those authors can write some seriously awesome action scenes and then throw in romance to make it all work so well. I do love them both so much!
Author Bio for J.L. Hendricks:
J.L. Hendricks is a new independent author. The Interdimensional Saga series is her first one and she is very excited to share Book 1, Eclipse of the Warrior.
Her latest series which comes out later this month is a PG-13 version of the hot Alien Sci-Fi Romance genre! She thought it might be fun to write in that world while still keeping it mostly clean for everyone to read. Let her know what you think!
She is very proud to have served in the US Army before she went to college. Earlier this year she decided to finally write, and finish a book, because of a few friends who encouraged her to do so. She hopes her stories entertain you and can bring a laugh on occasion.
Actually, it was her roommate’s cat who talked her into staying at home to be her minion all day long! Pyper truly believes that J.L. is here to serve her alone.
Come and chat with J.L. on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/JLHendricksAuthor/
And check out her Amazon author page at: https://www.amazon.com/J.L.-Hendricks/e/B01DYIKP22/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1473372591&sr=1-2-ent
But don’t forget her website and blog at: http://jlhendricksauthor.com/
And you can get Worlds Away on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Away-Sci-fi-Romance-Abduction-ebook/dp/B01KSMIOPM/
GABRIELLA MESSINA WRITES 