Anna Lowe has a Charmed in Vegas book, Gambling on Her Dragon, coming out next week, so I sat down with her and asked her to tell us more about her story. ;)
What's your wild Vegas story?
Ha! My own real-life Vegas story
is ridiculously tame. I drove to Vegas from the Arizona ranch I was working on
(the inspiration for my Twin Moon series, in fact) and spent the night at a friend's
house nearby. Unlike Trey Dixon, the wolf shifter hero of my story, I'm not
much of a gambler or card player, so I risked exactly one nickel in a slot
machine to be able to say I've played Vegas, and that was it! Otherwise, I had
a great time wandering the sights – like the Luxor's fake Nile and the pirate
battle at Treasure Island. I was sad to see the magnificent white tigers on
display at the Mirage, though. The people in Vegas are all part of the
“sights,” and many funny observations I made snuck into my Charmed in Vegas
story, GAMBLING ON HER DRAGON.
What inspired your story?
At the time you asked me to write a Vegas-based PNR story, I had two series
going. One is a PNR series called The Wolves of Twin Moon Ranch and the other
is my Serendipity Adventure Romance series. While both include a lot of action,
the Serendipity stories really are high-octane adventure romances. I've been
dying to write a cross between those two series for a while, and this was my
chance! The result is GAMBLING ON HER DRAGON, in which the characters go from
high-diving off a hotel balcony to a gargoyle chase to being trapped by an
enemy wolf pack and finally, being thrown into a fighting pit run by vampires.
But don't worry – there are just enough breathers mixed in to let Trey and Kaya
get up close and personal, too!
What did you enjoy most about
writing this book?
GAMBLING ON HER DRAGON was one of
those stories that just flowed from start to finish. I got totally swept up in
the zany world of gambling shifters in the same way that Trey Dixon and dragon
shifter Kaya Proulx get swept into trouble. One of my favorite scenes is the
one in which Trey and Kaya confront each other in the scorching Nevada desert
outside the city not long after their one-night stand (or what they thought
would be a quick one-night stand). She's just stolen the $90,000 he won at
poker, and he's taken her 1962 Jaguar roadster in revenge. It's a prickly
situation, especially since poor Kaya has just shifted out of dragon form and
is badly in need of clothes which she left behind at the hotel. Trey gives her
clothing back piece by piece. “Undies?” He grinned, swinging
them on a finger. She snatched them and yanked them on as he
rooted around in a backpack. “I think I have a bra in here
somewhere…”
Gambling on Her Dragon is live next week, but you can pre-order it now if you want to read it the second it's out.
99 cents!
