ALL THINGS ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

SPOTLIGHT AUTHOR:  

J E S S     A N A S T A S I

Before we get started talking about your books, tell us a little about yourself.  Where are you from?  What is your occupation outside of writing? 

I live in regional Victoria, Australia. Outside of writing I'm a mommy to a couple of toddlers and sometimes I help my dad in a shop he owns. Other than that, I like to think of writing as my almost-full time job.

Would you describe yourself as an introvert or an extrovert?

This is a hard one! In social situations, I tend to be a bit shy. But, when it comes to my writing and books, I tend to be really out-going and happy to talk to people. So I guess I'm a bit of both, depending on the situation.   

How many books have you written and how many of those are published? 

Omigod. You do not want me to count the number of unpublished manuscripts I have. It would be in excess of 15. Most of them are incomplete.

In terms of published projects I have:

1)      Sanctuary – paranormal sci-fi romance

2)      Dead Reality – romantic suspense

3)      Severance – paranormal sci-fi romance, second to Sanctuary

4)      WIP romantic suspense, untitled

5)      Atrophy – unpublished sci-fi romance I'm currently shopping around to agents

6)      Kiss Me Undercover – romantic suspense, my Psi series, I couldn't get published, but plan to revisit one day.

Prior to becoming a published author, how many rejections did you receive?  How did you handle the rejections? 

In total truth, well over 100 rejections. I'd been trying for years, with many different projects. I always strove to never take them personally, tried to treat it as business-like as I could, after all, it was my chosen career and rejection is a huge part of that! However, they did get me down sometimes, and sometimes made me frustrated. And with each one, I became more determined to succeed.

Out of all the books you’ve written and the characters you’ve created, which is your favorite character and why?

It used to be Branford, a hero from a historical romance I'd written. But, I've longed since moved on from historicals, and currently my favorite character is Rian. He's the captain of the Imojenna in Atrophy. And while he's not the hero of Atrophy, I do hope to write his book one day – he's a very complex, tortured character. I know he's going to be a challenge to work with.

What's up next for you and your writing?

At the moment I'm working on another romantic suspense, which I don't have a title for yet (I really should do something about that!) and I'm hoping to get if finished and submitted to my publisher in the next 1 to 2 months. After that, I'll be writing the third book to my Sanctuary series. All while I continue querying agents for Atrophy.

Anything else you'd like to share with my blog readers?

I'm sure you've all heard of the devastating floods in Australia. I'm on a team from Romance Writers Australia who have organized a book appeal. Please consider donating, we all know how important books are! Details can be found: http://romanceaustralia.wordpress.com/rwa-flooded-communities-book-appeal/

For those of you worried about the cost of postage from the US (or other places) to Australia, someone came up with the genius suggestion that people could buy the books on somewhere like The Book Depository http://www.bookdepository.com/ which offers free postage, and just put the appeal's address as the delivery address. Any donation, no matter how small, will help someone. Thanks!

Please enjoy a blurb from my book, Dead Reality:

FBI Special Agent Ella Waverly is wrapping up one last assignment before heading off on her first holiday in five years. But thoughts of flip-flops and cocktails are the last thing on her mind when she meets the new team leader, Special Agent Bryce Lain, and finds out her long-planned-for holiday is being scuttled for an undercover assignment. Agent Lain is gorgeous, the kind of gorgeous that guarantees he's an arrogant jerk. The news that he'll be her partner in the dangerous mission is almost enough to make her head explode. Before the day is out, Ella finds herself at Little Palm Island Resort in Florida, masquerading as a contestant on the latest reality TV show—Lord Bachelor. The bachelor in question, a disgraced British peer, is suspected of raping and murdering several women back in London. Though Ella knows it safer where her heart's concerned to deny it, the longer she's stuck with Bryce, the more she sees there could be a man worth loving beneath the impossibly good-looking exterior. As humidity frizzes her hair beyond the help of any type of de-frizzing, smoothing, glossing product, Ella tries to wrangle working against nineteen husband-hungry bimbos, one suspected serial killer, and one seriously hot agent who's trying everything he can to get under her skin.

Buy link: http://www.nobleromance.com/BrowseListing.aspx?author=130

Where can we read more about you and your writing?

Blog: http://jessanastasi.blogspot.com 

Website: www.jessanastasi.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Jess-Anastasi/129441077081452

Twitter: @JessAnastasi

 Thank you for stopping by today Jess.  It has been a pleasure getting to know

you and your books a little better.