Lorelei James (Interview & Giveaway)

Crystal - Hi Lorelei and welcome to Reading Between the Wines! I am beyond excited to have you visiting today for your release of Cowboy Casanova! Can you please start off by telling readers a little something about yourself?

LJ—I’m happy to be here, alas, I’m not drinking wine while I’m writing this – but I am drinking a porn star – which is made with X-rated and Sprite – it is sooo delicious. Oh, about me. Right. I live in western South Dakota. Wife, mom of three girls, I write fulltime, in two different genres—which means I rarely leave my house J

Crystal - Share with us three facts about yourself, interesting or boring, that readers would be surprised to know about you.

LJ—1) Ooh, here’s a fact few know about me. In 1985 when Dodge was going to debut the Dodge Dakota pickup in South Dakota, I auditioned for a national ad campaign. I was selected as the female model and did the photo shoot, but the photographer…accidentally exposed ALL the film and they opted to reshoot in Kansas or someplace because they had to get the super secret demo truck back to the factory. 2) Me and karoke? DON’ T mix at all. I got…a little overly enthusiastic about my singing abilities one night after 10 shots of watermelon pucker – and thought I could sing “Redneck Woman” – ugh. 3) My favorite color is black. My children insist it is not a color, I however, think it’s the perfect color.

Crystal - I think a lot of us would agree that black is def. a color, LoL, and one of my favorites too! J

Crystal - For readers who aren’t familiar *gasp* with your Rough Rider series, can you please give us a brief introduction to it?

LJ – I call the Rough Riders series my western saga. It details the lives and loves of one Wyoming ranching family. The books are erotic, so I leave no sexual position untried J I have fun with the series, and I’m lucky that my publishing house allows me to write whatever my little heart desires. They don’t tell me a subject matter is too controversial or want me to write the same book over and over, so I don’t have to put a ménage in every book. It seems readers want alpha cowboys, so that’s always the same J

Crystal - What can we expect from your latest release, Cowboy Casanova, and Ben McKay?

LJ) Well, Bennett is a Dom at the Rawhide Club on the weekends, something his family is not aware of. He keeps the two sides of himself – mild mannered rancher and Dom separate, and he doesn’t believe he’ll ever find a woman who can accept both those sides. He’s the quiet middle child, the peacemaker, so it was a challenge to balance that part of him with the domineering part.

Crystal - How did the title ‘Cowboy Casanova’ come about? Because right now I’m belting out Carrie Underwood and my cat is running for cover! LoL

LJ) You and I can NEVER sing karoke together L I did get inspired by the song title. Not the song subject mind you, but I find inspiration in many song titles – so yeah, I’m trolling the western stations. My dream is to some day write a short story entitled --Honkytonk Badonkadonk. My goals are simple J

Crystal - LMAO, If you ever get that story started you have got to let me know! If we turned on your music player, what song would we hear right now?

LJ) Dierks Bentley in my hard drive and Audioslave in my car. But I can’t listen to music when I’m writing.

Crystal - Both awesome! Okay, what sets this series apart from your Blacktop Cowboys series?

LJ) Blacktop Cowboys are focused on a group of friends from the same hometown in Wyoming, and the books are set on the road, and in the town of Muddy Gap. The Blacktop Cowboys series is with a different publisher, so the books are published as trade paper books and digital at the same time, whereas the Rough Riders books are digital books only for the first 11 months.

Crystal - Your books are smoking hot with some pretty inventive and deliciously kinky scenes; where do the ideas for these wild scenes stem from, hmmm?

LJ) I honestly don’t know. They’re very spontaneous for the most part and sometimes my best laid plans – ha ha – don’t always work out the way I want so I have to scrap it and start over. Some books have lots of sex, some have less sex, it really is dependent on the characters and many times I don’t know them or what makes them all hot and bothered until I start writing their story. No, I don’t write from personal experience. Because if I could be getting it on with hot cowboys all the damn time…I’d be too exhausted to write about it!

Crystal - So far there are 12 Rough Rider novels and 4 more set to be released in 2012 and 2013; how many novels in this series total can readers expect to get their hands on?

LJ) There will be a total of 16 novels in the series. I feel all series have an end point. And I have other things I’d like to write so I have no intention of doing a second generation of McKays, focused on the kids of the previous couples.

Crystal - And now for the fun questions; If you could go on a date with one of your McKay cowboys, who would it be and what would you do?

LJ) I would go on a date with Bennett to the Rawhide Club. Or I’d go to a rodeo with Chase to see if he’d let me pull…his rope. Or I’d watch Carter work on a piece of art, hopefully something with clay so he’d have his shirt off. Or I’d go dancing with Brandt because the man knows how to move.

Crystal - *sigh* So many yummy cowboys to choose from! Since Christmas is coming up and I know that your cowboys and cowgirls know how to have a good time, what would a Rough Riders Christmas be like?

LJ) Complete and total chaos. Keely makes it her mission to find the most annoying toys possible for her nephews and nieces. Just think if they had to go to each married character’s house for a night…it would be way more than the twelve nights of Christmas! I will say now that most of them are paired off with families of their own, they concentrate on giving their kiddos the best Christmas possible and then they drag the little ones over to Grandpa and Grandma’s house.

Crystal - What’s next for you?

LJ) I just finished ONE NIGHT RODEO which is Blacktop Cowboys book 4 and turned it in to my editor. I’m working on the 3rd book DARK MERCY in the Mercy Gunderson series (under my other name Lori Armstrong) and then I’ll be hard at work on KISSIN’ TELL J and then Blacktop Cowboys book 5…


Thanks so much to Lorelei for stopping by today! To find out more about LJ and all her fabulous books visit her website or connect with her on FaceBook or Twitter!

~*GIVEAWAY*~

LJ is also graciously giving away one digital copy of her latest Rough Riders release, Cowboy Casanova (Not available in print yet) and one print copy of her latest Blacktop Cowboys release, Wrangled and Tangled. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and then fill out the rafflecopter below with your name and email address. Additional entries are available but not required.

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