Fran Lee took me up on this interview and answered a few "Challenging" questions about her newest book, a standalone story in the Cougar Challenge series.Katalina: Fran, your newest book “Nothing but Sex” is damn sexy, but it also features a fated relationship that was years in the making. Tell us about your heroine Lee Blackhorse and hero Mike Running Elk.
F: Lee was married to a hot NA ex-movie star for ten years. Everyone warned her he was a jerk. When she realized they were right, it was quite a slap upside the head for a woman who already had a self-image problem. But you know what they say about seeing yourself through the eyes of another? When Lee looks in the mirror, she sees a forty-two year old woman with cellulite and crow’s feet.
However, her thirty year old Saturday assistant sees something else. Mike has had the hots for her since he was eighteen. Before she divorced the jerk. And even though Lee thinks Mike is sexy and hot, she feels like her attraction to the younger guy is not normal. So she ignores it like it doesn’t exist.
Mike has been hot for the older woman since he asked her if he could do chores for her to make money after his dad died. And after she divorced Howard Blackhorse, he has wanted desperately to make a move…except that she acts like he’s a kid, and not a man.
The two of them have known each other for twelve years, and have been secretly attracted for just as long. All that is needed is a catalyst. When Lee finds the Tempt the Cougar blog online, and realizes that men (like her ex) can chase women who are a lot younger than they are, and the world accepts it as “normal”, so why should she feel like her attraction to Mike is any different? And Mike is just waiting for her to realize he’s no kid…and that he’s old enough to ring her bells…royally.
Katalina: How much of Lee Blackhorse is running wild in your veins?
F: How much of any of my heroines is running wild in my veins? LOL! Every doggoned bit!
Katalina: Would you take the “Cougar Challenge”? If so what would tempt you to say yes?
F: Not only would I take it, I would revel in it. Um…but first I have to find a man who doesn’t run like the devil is after him when I look his way. *sigh* It’s easy to be a cougar when every man on earth is younger than you are. ;)
Katalina: When you write these steamy tales do you wear tight jeans over your shapely ass the way “Lee Blackhorse” does?
F: No…I like to be comfy when I write. It’s PJs or loose sweats for me.
Katalina: What is your first erotic memory? When did you first recognize the call of Eros?
F: Um…you mean as an adult? Because I was a pretty precocious child.
Katalina: What single thing puts you in the mood?
F: Being awake. LOL! You did ask!
Katalina: If you had to choose one object as a totem of your sexuality what would it be?
F: Ooooo…what a baaaaad question for a person like me. You mean besides my bright purple gel ten speed double rabbit? Um…I would have to say my dream catcher. Because I have some pretty graphic and sexy dreams, and I like to keep them close at all times.
Katalina: What is the most sensuous scene you’ve ever seen in a movie?
F: Hmmm. That’s a real toughie, because there are so very few movies that have really delicious, sensuous scenes. Of course, I can make them far more sensuous as I think about them later, and embellish them with my own brand of “sexy”.
I will go with a very innocent love scene, in Avatar, where Jake is talking to Neytiri after his initiation ceremony. They are under the tendrils of the life tree and she is telling him he can now choose a woman. When he tells her he has made his choice, and they lean in and touch noses so deliciously? There is a sensuous overtone to their innocent caresses. To her people, touch is the exquisite sensory investigation of things. The scent of his warm skin…the heady scent of her sweet arousal. Their breaths mingling as they wait for that first slow, tentative touch of trembling lips. As they embrace, and he tugs her hungrily up into his arms, they sink to their knees and she leans down to kiss him. Of course, the image of them pressed together, he slightly lower than she, wearing nothing but loincloths, gives the erotic author in me free rein to imagine his lean, hot length sliding sensuously into her as she gives a small cry of delight and clutches his head to her breast, while she rides out the delirious need they feel for each other (without a soul in the viewing audience privy to the joy of their joining).
Of course, that is just an innocent love scene. There is not room here to go into the hot ones.
Katalina: Would you include another women in a ménage scene or do you like to make your heroines the center of attention?
F: I was never one to share. I prefer to write my heroine with two hot men there to make her doubly happy.
Katalina: Have you ever had a girl crush?
F: Of course I have had girl crushes. People are often deeply attracted to others, not just when they are opposite sexes. I have never followed through on those crushes. I find that having wonderful female friends is much more rewarding than having a valuable friendship changed by sexual involvement.
Katalina: I’ve noticed you often write independent female characters that start off at a disadvantage, consciously decide to pursue what they want and progressively gain strength as they connect with their sexuality by the end of the story they’re soaring. If you could be one of your heroines who would you choose and why?
F: See question 2 above. LOL! I am my characters. But with the artistic freedom of a writer, I can do things in books that I wouldn’t dare do in real life. :P
Katalina: Are there any genres, themes or sub-genres you plan to explore?
F: Oh, certainly! I love paranormal, but you have to realize that for a novel to be paranormal, it does not have to be overtly so. It can contain paranormal elements, like my book, Out of Her Dreams, where both heroine and hero have had dreams about each other long before they meet. Their dreams come to hot, sizzling fruition when they finally get together.
I just finished and submitted another book with heavy paranormal elements, tentatively titled Woman on Fire. My heroine has remained single and oblivious to most men because her ideal man is one no one can possibly compare to. She believes him to be a figment of her imagination…a hallucination that happened during a near-death experience when she was a teenager. But he returns often in her very graphic and sexy adult dreams, and she finds it impossible to become interested in other men.
The hero also had a dream. His was part of a sweat lodge ceremony, during which his spirit took flight and carried him across time and space to find a part of himself that was lost.
The instant, intense antagonism/attraction that they feel when they meet is far more than sexual.
I also want to delve into vampires. Love hot, sexy vamps.
Katalina: Lucky girl, you’re going to RomantiCon in October! How are you preparing? What’s your battle plan?
F: I am going primarily to meet in person all the wonderful authors and publishers and reviewers I know only online. I have paid up front from the plane and the fees, I’ve found myself a roomie to share the expense of the lodgings, and I am purchasing the promo items I plan to take with me to give away during the meet and greet.
I love the idea of meeting readers, talking with them, and getting the skinny on what they want most from their romance reads. If I just happen to meet any of the hot cover models on my books, I might just try out a few of my Cougar techniques on them. (I’m sure someone there will be kind enough to hold them down for me so they can’t escape.) :P
Katalina: I loved reading "Nothing But Sex" This is a great read!
F: I'm thrilled you liked it! Thanks so much for the interview, Kat! You are a love!
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