Tuesday, December 16, 2014

#AFTH2014--Interview w/ Cara McKenna

Happy Tuesday yall! Today we've got Cara McKenna joining us. OMG yall. She writes the most panty melting heroes. A little rough and tumble, dirty talking guys you'd run into in every day life and would just make you stop in your tracks and go "dayum!". Check out our chat and leave her some comment love! ~Anna

W
aves madly* Mornin' Cara! Merry almost Christmas!! Welcome to the herd! How goes things over in your neck of the woods?
Merry near-Christmas! This is my first holiday season in the Pacific Northwest, after thirty-odd years in New England, so it’s sure to be both different and exciting. While I’ll miss seeing my folks this winter, one thing I’m looking forward to is not having to scrape an inch of ice off the car or shovel multiple feet of snow in the wee, dark hours.
Whoa yeah that would be a huge change! Being in NC it's hit or miss if we have snow or not. I'm thinking nope this year. We...shall see :) Alright down to some readery business. lol So, I'm totally curious what you'd say. For those who haven't picked up your new series—the Desert Dogs—say you only had 10 seconds to talk these guys and their gals up…what would you tell people that would have them adding these guys to their Christmas wishlist ASAP?
Well, the short pitch I’d been using for the Desert Dogs books is “Vigilante cowboy-bikers in the New Wild West.” That about sums them up, I’d say. Basically hard-drinking, foul language, dirty sex, death threats… You know, that sort of thing.
So...all the good stuff. lol Works for me! Can you tell us 3 fun/sexy/quirky/etc behind the scenes facts about the Desert Dogs series?
1. Casey was originally called Jesse, but halfway through drafting Lay It Down, I realized it just wasn’t the right name.
2. If you looked dead-center at the beer bottles lined up above the bar at Benji’s, you’d spot the urn holding Raina’s dad’s ashes.
3. Any time John Dancer appears, you can be sure that he is not wearing underwear.
Oh and speaking of behind-the-scenes, Penguin has contracted a novella all about Raina and Miah’s erstwhile, doomed romance, called Drive It Deep. So if you’re dying to know what their baggage is all about, you can read every dirty detail next June :-)
Bwaha now John and his commando self is gonna be all I can think about. ::snort:: So. Raina and Duncan—what would be their perfect Christmas day/night with each other?
Yay, Give It All! I loved writing that book. Can’t wait for it to get into readers’ hands in February. So, Duncan would probably attempt to lure Raina out of town, to the nearest city with an upscale restaurant, where he’d order them two-hundred-dollar wine and present her with an expensive piece of jewelry. But before any of that could happen, she’d tell him her patrons still want to drink on Christmas, and remind him that neither of them likes wine and that she doesn’t wear jewelry. So they’d likely wind up on opposites sides of the bar as usual, eye-fucking each other until it’s time to head upstairs after last call and have dirty sex.
Hot damn! Well I can't wait to meet these two. Raina...totally my kinda chick! I'm a total quote-whore. Out of all your guys what's your favorite quote that just made you swoon hard or had you gigglesnorting or sighing in girly bliss?
Aside from, “Shut the fuck up, Case”? (A quote that I hope, by the end of the series, every single character except Casey himself will manage to utter.) I think my favorite would have to be a Duncan line…and this one probably sums him up best:

“Sex is one of a very few things in this world that I prefer dirty, Ms. Harper.”
Your guys *fans self* lordy but they make a girl want to do some dirty things! Flynn, Vince & Kelly (and whew by the sounds of it Duncan). Gah, yeah I'd go real naughty for them. lol Of all your men which one totally leaves you panting? And why?
Well, I try to write them each to be bangable in his own unique way, so in my eyes they’re all hot. But I’ve had a conversation with author friends before where we try to figure out if we’d actually want to date any of our heroes, and there are only a couple I could imagine as boyfriend material for me, personally! I’d probably go with one of the two Patricks—either the lumberjack-of-few-words from Ruin Me, or the endearingly incompetent electrician from Takedown (the latter was published under my Meg Maguire name.) But I’d also be tempted by Didier from the Curio books. I do love a crazy man with an accent, and he’s a real fixer-upper in some ways. But also worth paying for sex.
*flails* I know none of these men yet! I feel so deprived of their naughty. *makes note to fix this soon* So...not that you mention it...I've totally been living under a fan-girl rock. *hangs head in reader girl shame* I had no idea you were also Meg Maguire until just recently. I totally did the jaw drop bit. lol And was so excited for more books to read! Yay! What's the big difference between your two pen names?
I know, I’m so sneaky. Well, it used to be that Meg wrote romance and Cara wrote erotica, but that’s all gotten really blurry since the Desert Dogs books started (those are contemporary, steamy romance with a taste of suspense—dirty but not quite erotica.) I think my voice is fundamentally the same in all my books (though some stories are darker or lighter or quieter or more bonkers than others) except perhaps the ones I write for Harlequin Blaze, as that line has some conventions that require me to reel back my language and wonkiness and the kinkiness of the sex. But I’m proud to say that in my last story for them, I finally succeeded in getting a “fuck” through to production!
Woots! Bringing the naughty. Love it! I saw you have a Christmas antho—Wild Holiday Nights—out as Meg. I am such a Christmas romance junkie! Any fabulous juicy details you can share about Daniel & Carrie's story? Looks like they'll be a feisty pair :)
Yes, that’s the story with a “fuck” in it! Daniel was an intresting hero to work with—he rivals Rob from Unbound in being the most shut-down and closed-up man I’ve written, and he’s even grumpier than Rob. He’s actually kind of a jerk, on the surface. Since it’s a novella-length story, it was a challenge to get him believeably cracked open and his lovable parts exposed inside such a short word count, but I think I succeeded!
Oooo that sounds interesting. I can't wait to check it out! Alright how's about a couple quickies...

Favorite holiday inspired Man Candy?
Holiday inspired… All I can picture now if half-naked dudes in Santa hats, and I have to tell you, I find nothing about Santa Claus or Christmas in general erotic. Christmas is full of warm feelings for me, but none of them live in my pants. Though my favorite Christmas movie is Die Hard, so I vote for Alan Rickman.
::snort:: And now I have some very disturbing Santa's in my head. *flails* Weirdest thing you've ever gotten (or given) for Christmas?
I don’t have a clever answer for this, so I’ll steal one from my childhood friend Brooke, whose dad once gave her a box wrapped in an entire roll’s worth of duct tape, and inside was…an empty duct tape spool.
Elf on a Shelf—totally brilliant or that creeper must die?
I have no idea what this is, hang on… Okay, I just Google Images’d it, and I vote creepy. But given no context, I think maybe the elf is a misunderstood victim in all this. *Cara he's a total creeper! Total CREEPER!*
I'm completely obsessed with…?
Most recently, Forensic Files. I watched all forty of the episodes they have on Netflix in about five days. I told myself it would come in handy as research, somehow. I’m good at justifying crap like that. Oh and I’m also obsessed with my new slow cooker. Like a virgin who’s discovered sex at thirty-five, the flood-gate is open and I cannot be stopped.
Bwahaha that is the most fabulous comparison ever. Favorite Christmas leftover?
My family doesn’t have a traditional meal on Christmas—we’ve done the full-on Thanksgiving-style turkey banquet one year, and Chinese takeout the next. But my Aunt Jane’s frosted sugar cookies are a staple I always look forward to, based on my grandma’s recipe and shipped every year from Rochester, New York.
Oh yums! That's so sweet they get shipped to you. With Christmas and New Years right around the corner do yall have any fun and exciting plans?
I’m excited for my first West Coast holiday season! My Thanksgivings and Christmases before now have all been just me, my parents, usually my brother, and recently my husband. This year Thanksgiving (still a week away as I write this) will be at my step-brother-and-sister-in-law’s place, with loads of grandparents and kids and cousins and nieces and nephews—everyone! I’m used to intimate, low-key holidays (accompanied typically by the sounds of a Patriots game), but I’m up for a massive scene! And crazy-good food, as my stepmom-in-law can COOK, yo. Not sure what Christmas and New Years will look like yet, though my husband and I do have our first-ever Christmas tree up already! (It’s a potted fir, about fifteen inches high, but it’s got lights on it, so job done.)
::snort:: Now that's how you do a Christmas tree. LOL Thanks so much for dropping in, Cara! Hope y’all have a fab Christmas and a great New Years!
Thanks very much! Happy Holidays, everyone!
Alright kittens! Yalls turn! Yall have any questions for Cara (or Meg)? Or just want to leave some authorly love? Hit the comments!

Bar owner Raina Harper can’t say for sure what Duncan Welch is to her. With her small Nevada town under siege by a ruthless casino development and still reeling from a spate of murders, she knows that trusting the public face of the corporate invaders is risky to say the least. Though, damn, it’s one fine-looking face.…

Duncan may be a mercenary when it comes to getting the job done, but he’s no villain. In fact, the calculating fixer soon finds himself in the bad guys’ crosshairs, framed and facing professional ruin. To clear his name, he’ll need help from Raina and her roughneck motorcycle club, the Desert Dogs. Gaining their trust won’t be easy, and the molten sexual tension between Raina and Duncan only makes things more complicated—especially since Miah Church, Raina’s friend and ex-lover, would sooner strangle Duncan than shake his hand.

One thing’s certain, though: If they don’t deal with their incendiary attraction soon, the whole damn town might go up in flames.…

Amazon | Amazon (Book 1) | All Romance | BAM | Book Depository | Goodreads

Wild Holiday Nights-- Amazon | Goodreads

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Cara McKenna writes smart erotica—sexy stories with depth. A little dark, a little funny, always emotional. She also writes red-hot romance under the name Meg Maguire. Her wonderful publishers are Harlequin Blaze, Penguin / InterMix, Samhain, and Signet Eclipse. She loves writing sexy, character-driven stories about strong-willed men and women who keep each other on their toes, and bring one another to their knees.

Before becoming a purveyor of red-hot romance and smart erotica, Cara was a record store bitch, a lousy barista, a decent designer, and an over-enthusiastic penguin handler.

Cara now writes full-time and lives in the Pacific Northwest with her bearded husband. When she's not trapped in her own head she can usually be found in the kitchen, the coffee shop, or jogging around the nearest duck-filled pond.

Find Cara Online
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Soooos! We have a huge grand prize drawing going on during AFTH2014!
Just leave Cara a question or comment then jump over to THIS page to enter the Giveaway Widget!



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