Interview with Linda Nightingale

Thank you for joining me in the shadows. Pay no attention to that odd silhouette over there. Weird things live here.  Where do you hail from?  Originally, I’m a southern belle, from South Carolina, but now I live in the Lone Star State, and I like Texas, but I must admit I harbor a secret wish to go back East of the Mississippi.
Tell me about your latest book.  Sinners’ Opera is a paranormal romance that has been called a Tour de Force, and I’m certain the reviewer mean the hero, Morgan D’Arcy, an English lord, a concert pianist and…a vampire.  What makes it stand out from the crowd?  My vampires are a viral mutation of DNA.  The heroine is a geneticist struggling to unravel the genetic clue left by her childhood friend, an angel called Gabriel.
Do you have anything new in the works and can you tell us a bit about it?  Yes, another paranormal romance, Cardinal Desires, will be released in November by Double Dragon Publishing.   Here’s a blurb:
How can Katy McCaully resist Sterling Fox?  At fifteen, she fell in love with a man in a painting, and he looks exactly like that Novgorodian knight.  Even though he’s got the keys to her chemistry set, she mustn’t succumb to his charms.  She’s a forensic psychiatrist working with Scotland Yard.  He’s a high-profile journalist who invades the underworld for a story or broadcasts live at the scene of the world’s worst tragedies.  Police and media do not mix.  They are both trying to capture the same animalistic killer whom newspapers have dubbed The Vampire Slayer.  Modern London doesn’t know that the Slayer has also killed four vampires.  Katy doesn’t know that Sterling is a vampire until too late—after she’s fallen in love with him. 
What advice would you give to writers just starting out?  The same advice that I was, and am, given…persevere. 
How did you deal with rejection letters? I go into a 3 day funk.   Then I should Next!  And start looking for another publisher/agent.  Any tips for unpublished writers?  Don’t go into a 3 day funk, immediately shout Next! and look for the next lucky publisher/agent who’ll get to see your fabulous manuscript. 
What tools of the trade are must-haves for you?  Pellegrino sparkling water, a computer and the internet, not necessarily in that order.  I’d like to add music and a candle.
What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done to research a story?  I can’t tell.  I’ve sworn an oath of secrecy.
What do you like to read?  I get so very little time to read, but when I do, I enjoy dark fantasy, paranormal and paranormal romance.  I enjoy the otherworldly.
Who is your favorite author and why?  Oscar Wilde.  I love his humor and wit.
Now for the fun questions.  Let’s strip away the veil of invisibility. Do you have a day job alongside writing and will you tell us about it?  I’m a legal assistant for a global cancer hospital, and I’m very proud to be part of the institution’s mission.
If you weren’t a writer, what career might you have chosen?  Ballet.  Seriously, I can’t walk without falling over my own feet!  In truth, I’d like to have been a ship navigator, but I get lost with a GPS.  Then there would have been a master equestrian.  I got close but ran out of patience and time.
Who is your favorite superhero (or heroine)? Can be from a comic book, movie, novel, cartoon, video game or anywhere else heroes reign.  I don’t really have a favorite superhero.  My dad was my superhero.
Your favorite book hero?  I suppose I’d have to say Lestat (if I can’t use Morgan).
You finally have an evening free to spend any way you want. Money is no object. Where do you go?  I’d fly to Paris and enjoy the food and wine.  What would you do?  Visit the street side cafes.  Or, perhaps, I’d fly to Portugal, enjoy the ocean then horse shop.
You’ve been gifted (or cursed) with the ability to shift into another form by a witch. What kind of shifter are you? A beautiful palomino Lusitano horse.  Why?  If I had the money, that’s the treasure I’d buy for me.  Of course, he would look funny standing on the walled patio of my condo!
Thanks so much for being my guest today! Anything else you’d like to share with my readers?  Don’t forget to give us links to your website etc.
 Author Bio:  Born in South Carolina, Linda has lived in England, Canada, Miami, Atlanta and Houston.  She
’s seen a lot of this country from the windshield of a truck pulling a horse trailer, having bred, trained and showed Andalusian horses for thirteen years.
With Cardinal Desires, a vampire paranormal to be released in 2013 by Double Dragon Publishing, Linda won the Georgia Romance Writers Magnolia Award.  She works in the legal field and has two wonderful sons.  She loves Andalusian and Lusitano horses, her snappy black convertible and her parlor grand piano—and writing, of course.  Visit her at http://www.lindanightingale.com for a free vampire story starring her favorite hero Morgan D’Arcy.

Blurb:  Morgan D’Arcy is a classical pianist, an English lord and a vampire.  He has everything except what he desires most—Isabeau.  When she was a child, he appeared to her as the Angel Gabriel, influencing her life and career choice, preparing her to become Lady D’Arcy.  Many forces oppose Morgan’s daring plan—not the least of which is Vampyre law.  A vampire must not sire a child on a mortal.

Isabeau Gervase is a brilliant geneticist engaged to a prominent attorney. Though she no longer believes in angels, she sees a ticket to a Nobel Prize in the genetic puzzle presented by her long-absent childhood friend. She intends to unravel Gabriel’ssecrets, using the DNA contained in a lock of his hair and identify the non-human species she named the Angel Genome.

Morgan is ready to come back into Isabeau’s life, but this time as a man—and a vampire—not an angel.  Will he outsmart his enemies, protect his beloved and escape death himself?  For the first time in eternity, the clock is ticking.