BLOG TOUR: Wolf Born by Ann Gimpel INTERVIEW

Wolf Born

Underground Heat

Book 2

By Ann Gimpel

Publisher: Liquid Silver Books

ISBN:  978-1-62210-030-9

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Length: 50,000 words

In a futuristic world where shifters keep their friends close and their enemies closer, passion flares hot and sweet.

Blurb:

In a futuristic California that’s almost out of resources, Max leads a double life. A Russian wolf-shifter, he heads up the State of California as its governor—and the shifter underground. He took on the governorship to help his people. Threatened with genocide, many shifters have gone into hiding. Some blame Max and the underground for their plight, rather than the governmental edict that’s meant death for so many.

Audrey works for Max. Unlike most humans with low levels of shifter blood who bless their lucky stars they avoided the purge, she wants to be a shifter. If she could find a way to finesse it, she’d quit her job in a heartbeat and go to work helping the shifter underground. The only sticking point is Max. She’s been half in love with him forever.

Against a dog-eat-dog political backdrop where no one knows who their allies are, Max and Audrey spar with one another. Max fears she’s part of the group trying to kill him. Audrey has no idea about Max’s double identity and worries she won’t be able to walk away from their fiery attraction to help the underground.

After a second attempt on his life, Max faces critical choices. Should he follow his head or his heart?

First, thanks so much for hosting me and for your interest in Wolf Born! It’s a pleasure to be here today.

Can you please share with us a little about yourself?
I’m a psychologist and also a mountaineer. Those were my first loves. I still remember sitting with the University of Washington catalog describing majors (keep in mind, this was well before “creative” majors came into being) open on my lap. It was the eve of my junior year and I had to declare a major. I just kept coming back to psychology. Despite dire predictions from my parents that I’d be destitute, I’ve never regretted my choice. I feel the same way about the mountains. Ever since my first overnight backpacking trip at summer camp when I was just a kid, I’ve always loved the remoteness and being “out there” having to rely on my own resources.

Have you always wanted to be an author?
It would be lovely to say “yes,” but the truth is just the opposite. I’ve always written something, but usually it was reports, grant proposals, and client case notes. That changed at the tail end of 2008 when I came back from a trip to the mountains with a story running around in my head. That had happened before, but this time I did something about it. I sat down at the keyboard and gave my muse free rein. I’m glad I followed my instincts because I love my “second” career.

Can you share with us your typical writing day.  Is there anything you have to have while writing?
I don’t have a typical writing day. When I’m working on something new, I aim for 3000-3500 words/day which is one chapter. That chapter can happen at 6 a.m. or 6 p.m. depending on how the rest of my day has gone. I write full time now, so I have a lot of latitude in terms of how I structure my day. The only thing I need while I’m writing is silence. I can’t write if someone is talking to me, or if there’s noise playing in the background.

What would you say is the most challenging or rewarding part of writing?
Aw, the very best part are the emails and messages I get from fans telling me how much they loved something I’ve written. The most challenging part is marketing since nothing else I’ve done in my life quite prepared me for the “fish bowl” aspect of social media.

How did you come with the idea for this story?

This is the second book in the Underground Heat Series. One day I was at the gym and there was a show on about sex surrogates. I started thinking about writing a book with a surrogate as a heroine and that was the beginning of Roman’s Gold, the first book in this series. Once I had a character, I started hunting for a setting and settled on a futuristic Berkeley where the government has their claws into way too much. Wolf Born was a natural progression from Roman’s Gold. One of the primary male characters, although obviously not the hero, in Roman’s Gold is the leading man in Wolf Born. I love Max; he’s a Russian wolf shifter. He’s both the Governor of California and the head of the shifter underground. He definitely deserved his own story.

Can you share with us your current work in progress?

I just finished Mated!, the second book in the Wolf Clan Shifter series. Alice’s Alpha was the first. Mated! is a continuation of my 1936, semi-historical, paranormal shifter ménage story.

I have a full length urban fantasy, To Love a Highland Dragon, releasing from Taliesin Publishing on 9/5. Here’s the blurb.

A modern day psychiatrist and a dragon shifter stranded in time can’t escape their destiny, no matter how unlikely it seems.

Blurb:

In a cave deep beneath Inverness, a dragon shifter stirs and wakens. The cave is the same and his hoard intact, yet Lachlan senses something amiss. Taking his human form, he ventures above ground with ancient memories flooding him. But nothing is the same. His castle has been replaced by ungainly row houses. Men aren’t wearing plaids and women scarcely wear anything at all.

In Inverness for a year on a psychiatry fellowship, Dr. Maggie Hibbins watches an oddly dressed man pick his way out of a heather and gorse thicket. Even though it runs counter to her better judgment, she teases him about his strange attire. He looks so lost—and so unbelievably handsome —she takes him to a pub for a meal, to a barbershop, and then home. Along the way the hard-to-accept truth sinks in: he has to be a refugee from another era.

Never a risk-taker, Maggie’s carefully constructed life is about to change forever. Swept up in an ancient prophecy that links her to Lachlan and his dragon, she must push the edges of the impossible to save both the present and her heart.

Who are some of your favorite authors?
Erk. The list is long. In the romance genre, I like Gabaldon, Carey, Moning, Roberts/Robb.

Do you feel that any of your favorite authors have inspired your writing style?
To some extent, but when I pleasure read, I’m not hunting for tips on character and plot development.

Open Wolf Born to a random page and please reads us a few lines.

 “How would madam like it cooked?” the waiter inquired, arching a brow. He poured a jot of wine into a glass and handed it to Max.

“Rare.”

“Salad and rice or potatoes?”

“Salad and potatoes, please.”

“I’ll have the same,” Max cut in and took a sip of what was a very good wine. Rich and oaky, it had an enticing bouquet. “The wine is perfect,” he told the waiter, who immediately poured some into a glass for Audrey and added more to Max’s.

“This is really quite wonderful,” Audrey said once the waiter left. “Everything. Not just the wine. I can’t remember the last time I ate out at anything but one of those diners where I flash my wrist computer at the glass cases, and it debits credits from my account.”

“Enjoy it.” Max smiled. “You deserve to be pampered after what happened. I can still barely believe…” His voice trailed off. He needed to be careful not to say too much. “Um, what’s in those documents that’s so important?”

She leaned toward him. Her scent was even more intoxicating than the wine. He caught himself inhaling deeply and pulled away, aware of a pressure against his trousers where he was suddenly hard.

Audrey wriggled in her seat. She bit her lower lip and blew out a tense breath. Finally, she lowered her voice and murmured, “I probably shouldn’t do this, but I need to be honest with you. It’s all in my employment records anyway, but since I was here long before you were governor, well, you may not have looked at them… Cripes! Im blathering like an idiot.”

“Whatever it is, just go ahead and tell me.” Max felt oddly protective toward her, though he didn’t understand quite why. Worse, the moment his cock had gotten hard, his wolf had begun a steady patter of lewd side remarks that made Max want to throttle him.

“There’s no easy way to do this,” she went on, her knuckles so white against the wineglass, Max hoped it wouldn’t shatter from the pressure. “If you decide I can’t work for you afterward, well…” she set down the stemware and spread her hands in front of her. “Not much I can do about it. I have shifter blood. Roughly 35 percent. Some of my relatives have been killed in this purge, so I’m not the most ardent supporter of the governmental edicts to round up shifters and imprison them.”

What is in your To Read Pile that you are dying to start or upcoming release you can’t wait for?

Erk! I am so far behind it’s not even funny. I read every JD Robb as soon as I can get my hands on it. And I’m awaiting Gabaldon’s newest, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood. I’m nearly done with New York to Dallas from JD Robb and it’s mesmerizing.

Have you ever used anyone from your real life encounters in any of your books?

Of course, but not in any way that they’d be recognizable. Actually, my psychology background and training has been invaluable creating believable characters.

What was the most surprising thing you learned about yourself while you were writing?

Maybe that I can actually create a career out of it. At the front end, I didn’t think it was possible. This is an uber-competitive field.

“How would madam like it cooked?” the waiter inquired, arching a brow. He poured a jot of wine into a glass and handed it to Max.

“Rare.”

“Salad and rice or potatoes?”

“Salad and potatoes, please.”

“I’ll have the same,” Max cut in and took a sip of what was a very good wine. Rich and oaky, it had an enticing bouquet. “The wine is perfect,” he told the waiter, who immediately poured some into a glass for Audrey and added more to Max’s.

“This is really quite wonderful,” Audrey said once the waiter left. “Everything. Not just the wine. I can’t remember the last time I ate out at anything but one of those diners where I flash my wrist computer at the glass cases, and it debits credits from my account.”

“Enjoy it.” Max smiled. “You deserve to be pampered after what happened. I can still barely believe…” His voice trailed off. He needed to be careful not to say too much. “Um, what’s in those documents that’s so important?”

She leaned toward him. Her scent was even more intoxicating than the wine. He caught himself inhaling deeply and pulled away, aware of a pressure against his trousers where he was suddenly hard.

Audrey wriggled in her seat. She bit her lower lip and blew out a tense breath. Finally, she lowered her voice and murmured, “I probably shouldn’t do this, but I need to be honest with you. It’s all in my employment records anyway, but since I was here long before you were governor, well, you may not have looked at them… Cripes! I’m blathering like an idiot.”

“Whatever it is, just go ahead and tell me.” Max felt oddly protective toward her, though he didn’t understand quite why. Worse, the moment his cock had gotten hard, his wolf had begun a steady patter of lewd side remarks that made Max want to throttle him.

“There’s no easy way to do this,” she went on, her knuckles so white against the wineglass, Max hoped it wouldn’t shatter from the pressure. “If you decide I can’t work for you afterward, well…” she set down the stemware and spread her hands in front of her. “Not much I can do about it. I have shifter blood. Roughly 35 percent. Some of my relatives have been killed in this purge, so I’m not the most ardent supporter of the governmental edicts to round up shifters and imprison them.”

She sucked in a ragged breath and raised her gaze so she looked right at him. A combination of defiance and pleading etched fine lines around her eyes.

“Miss Westen. Audrey. I’m not going to fire you. It’s all right. Thank you, for trusting me.” Deep inside, Max felt the wolf push him to say more, to tell her about the serum. To offer it up, for God’s sake. He resisted. “You told me that for a reason. I assume it’s related to the documents. Could you walk me through what’s in them?”

She nodded. “Sure. It’s intel about something called the shifter underground.” Her eyes flashed. “Frankly, now that I know about them, I’m on their side, but don’t worry, I wouldn’t ever say that publicly.”

Max listened as she relayed the story he’d lived for the past couple of days. Everything was there, including the serum that pushed cops with a low percentage of shifter blood into full-blown shifters. Before the series of intravenous infusions that law enforcement had forced on their elite tracker task forces, a person needed 50 percent shifter blood to morph into their bond animal. After the infusions, 10 percent was sufficient. Max had gotten unutterably excited by the prospect of thousands of new shifters to swell their ranks and perhaps turn the tide of the war in their favor.

Another set of nationwide reports detailed those same cops betraying their oaths and going rogue. Predictions about anarchy ran wild. By the time Audrey was finished, Max was ecstatic, but he couldn’t let it show. Everything he’d assumed would happen was playing itself out like a well-oiled machine. He couldn’t wait to let the underground know.

“Well?” Audrey raised her gaze from the stack of papers and gathered them together.

“Interesting material. I understand why it was classified top secret.” Max tried for a neutral expression. Just because she’d confided in him was no reason to let his guard down.

The door to their private dining room opened. The waiter pushed a cart laden with wonderful smelling dishes. Max’s mouth watered. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and it was pushing nine at night. For the moment, his sexual hunger receded, and he tucked into a succulent, barely cooked piece of meat.

“Where do they get this?” she asked, cutting into her steak and chewing slowly. “None of the shops where I exchange my ration coupons ever have anything but ground or processed meat products.”

“There’s a black market,” he replied around a mouthful of salad.

Her brows drew together. “So it’s real,” she muttered. “I never paid much attention.” Her mouth curved into a smile. She set down her fork and knife. “It’s so good, I feel like I should save what’s left and take it home. I’ve already eaten far more than I usually do.”

“I can ask the waiter to box it up for you.”

“That would be wonderful. Thank you.” She glanced at him shyly through long, dusky lashes. “You’ve taken the worst day of my life and turned it into something special.”

He wanted to move to her side of the table and gather her into his arms. Not only was Audrey one of the most stunning women he’d ever seen, she was level-headed and seemingly oblivious to how gorgeous she was. Max put himself on a tight leash. He had bigger problems to attend to than his non-existent love life. At least so far, Audrey hadn’t asked about O’Hare’s accusations in the elevator. Christ! Maybe she thought he was tossing the shifter epithet at her.

Max nodded to himself. It made sense. Likely, that was why she’d fessed up about her shifter blood.

“Penny for your thoughts, boss?” She focused her alluring hazel gaze on him. In the low light, her eyes held a violet cast.

“Nothing. Are you about ready to head home?”

She nodded. “I suppose we should. Tomorrow morning will come around early.”

He laughed. “Right you are, Miss Westen. It always does. It’s all right with me if you take a few hours off—”

She waved him to silence. “Nothing happening at home. The neighborhood’s gone to hell. I can’t even go out for a walk anymore. All I do is sit barricaded behind a bunch of deadbolts.”

Part of him wanted to bring her home with him, to his uptown mansion where she’d have gated grounds to roam. He cleared his throat before something untoward slipped out. “Let me find the waiter.” He realized he was still hard and pulled his jacket around to shield the evidence as best he could.

As if the waiter had been waiting right outside and could read his mind, the door opened before Max had gotten up. “Would sir and madam like anything else? A touch of dessert perhaps?”

“You can box up the rest of the lady’s meal,” Max said. “You wouldn’t happen to have that delectable chocolate mousse?”

The waiter’s mouth formed an apologetic moue. “Not tonight, sir. We have lemon cheesecake, a cheese and fruit plate with brandy, or ice cream.”

“Does any of that sound good?” Max glanced at Audrey. Her eyes were wide with delight.

“Oooooh, it all sounds wonderful. I can’t even remember the last time I had real ice cream. That frozen crap they sell nowadays doesn’t even have any dairy products in it.”

“Could you bring us a sampler plate with a little of everything?” Max asked.

“Of course. Coming right up.” The waiter snatched their plates and left.

“Not that I wouldn’t love something sweet,” she said a bit wistfully, “but I thought we’d decided it was late and—”

Max kicked himself. They had decided that—sort of. He was enjoying himself, and he didn’t want the evening to end, but that wasn’t the sort of thing he could—or should—say to his secretary. He shrugged. “You seem to finally be relaxing. After what happened at the office, you deserve a little R and R. You really can come in an hour or two later tomorrow.”

Her gaze softened. “Thank you.”

Ann Gimpel is a mountaineer at heart. Recently retired from a long career as a psychologist, she remembers many hours at her desk where her body may have been stuck inside four walls, but her soul was planning yet one more trip to the backcountry. Around the turn of the last century (that would be 2000, not 1900!), she managed to finagle moving to the Eastern Sierra, a mecca for those in love with the mountains. It was during long backcountry treks that Ann’s writing evolved. Unlike some who see the backcountry as an excuse to drag friends and relatives along, Ann prefers her solitude. Stories always ran around in her head on those journeys, sometimes as a hedge against abject terror when challenging conditions made her fear for her life, sometimes for company. Eventually, she returned from a trip and sat down at the computer. Three months later, a five hundred page novel emerged. Oh, it wasn’t very good, but it was a beginning. And, she learned a lot between writing that novel and its sequel.

Around that time, a friend of hers suggested she try her hand at short stories. It didn’t take long before that first story found its way into print and they’ve been accepted pretty regularly since then. One of Ann’s passions has always been ecology, so her tales often have a green twist.

In addition to writing, Ann enjoys wilderness photography. She lugs pounds of camera equipment in her backpack to distant locales every year. A standing joke is that over ten percent of her pack weight is camera gear which means someone else has to carry the food! That someone is her husband. They’ve shared a life together for a very long time. Children, grandchildren and three wolf hybrids round out their family.