brought to you by OBS staffer Deanne

Jill Myles is the author of Succubus Diaries there are currently 2 books Succubi Prefer Gentlemen and Succubi Prefer Like it Hot in the series with the third My Fair Succubi being released in December 2010.

1. Could you tell us where the idea of The Succubus Diaries came from?

Jill: I was sitting at lunch with my sister and we were chatting about some of the paranormals we’d read lately. I’d had an idea to do something with angels, but it wasn’t gelling for me. My sister (who is a huge fan of vampire romances as well) suggested something along the lines of making them “blood starved” and I joked back that I needed them to be ‘sex starved’ and then the idea for Jackie sort of plopped whole into my head. I was fascinated by the idea of forcing this normal, frumpy woman into being an immortal that had to have sex to survive, and how she would cope with it.

2. I love how you have made the succubus bitten by a vampire, then sleeping with an angel, where did you come up with that idea?

Jill: I had the idea for angels that I was batting around, but it wasn’t coming together. Then when Jackie came on the scene, I knew that she was a go-between for both parties (and a neutral character) and so I had to think of why they would be connected, and how they could bring her into existence. I tied it back to their curses and it seemed to be a natural fit. 🙂

3. Your books have some very steamy sex scenes. Do you find them easy or difficult to write ? ( personally love the church action)

Jill : Haha! Small confession – when I first wrote the church scene, I was convinced that I would get hate mail from people for writing something so blasphemous. But everyone loves that scene! Go figure.

Writing the sex scenes are usually pretty easy for me, I think. Because Jackie’s nature is now to be extremely sexual (even when she doesn’t want to be), it’s easy for her to jump into the mood. I think the character has to ‘be there’ mentally, though. I wrote another book that won’t be coming out until late 2011 that starts a new unconnected series, and it was harder for me to make that character jump into bed with her hero. The characters don’t really ‘talk’ to me as much as I force them to do what I want, but at the same time, I have a gut feeling for what is natural for the character and what is not, and I can definitely tell when I’m forcing sex into the plot just for the sake of having sex. So I try to avoid that.

4. Jackie, is a little different, she considers herself plain, but she is smart and funny and she has somewhat of a narrow view about sex. Now she has to deal with the fact that she is a succubus with two masters. How important was it for Jackie to have these characteristics that are quite different from her new found situation?

Jill : It was really important for me. It’s funny because Jackie is not all that hideous at the start of the books – she’s very average and has a meaty figure, but not what I’d call ‘fat’. But because we’re in her head, she thinks of herself as unpleasant and unattractive. She just didn’t take care of herself and didn’t see a need to. That mind set sort of plays out even further – she never dated a lot because she never really took care of her appearance, and so the end result is this character that was awkward in her own skin and has an almost virginal, spinster-like perception of how relationships should be. She was, more or less, an old maid in mind if not in body.

So what was the worst thing I could do to her? Turn her into a succubus, of course. I wanted to see her go through all those “Oh Crap!” moments on camera, so that’s why the books never veer from her point of view. It’s very much Jackie’s story more than anyone else’s. It’s almost like a Cinderella story on crack…if Cinderella didn’t want to be ridiculously hot.

We see Jackie becoming more used to using her powers and her appearance through the series, though she won’t become totally jaded like Remy. It’s not in her mental outlook, and I think that’s part of what I like about her. Despite all the strange stuff happening in her life, she more or less views herself as a normal woman trying to have a normal life.

5. We know that Jackie has two men that seem to care for and she cares for them, but does she choose just one of them?

Jill: I can’t give this away! But I will say that someone is chosen in Book 3, and while everything is not wrapped up in a bow, and there will be consequences. There always are!

6. What is your favorite scene in each book? (Gentlemen Prefer Succubi and Succubi Like it Hot) and why?

Jill : GPS, I really enjoyed writing when Jackie first met Zane in the club – he was so gloriously offensive to her. And For SLiH, my favorite scene was Jackie’s ‘dinner date’ with Noah in New Orleans. It was a bit of much-needed downtime for them together, and sometimes I think my characters need more downtime than I give them. Oh well!

7. Can you give us any hints on what is coming in My Fair Succubi? (release in Dec.28/10)

Jill :Yes! Joachim is back and Remy is possessed once more, so Jackie will need to figure out how to save her friend once and for all. In the meantime, things are heating up with both Noah and Zane, and Jackie discovers why she was really turned…and the complications it has on her relationships with both men. Oh, and Jackie gets a task from the angelic host.

8. How many books are there going to be in The Succubus Diaries? and what can we expect from them?

Jill : Book 3 finishes off a few story lines but leaves the door open for more. I think, right now, that I’d like for there to be four books for Jackie’s tale. I like a series that wraps things up without dragging it on endlessly and I hate it when the characters are never happy. I do want my characters to end up in a happy place!

But at the same time…I really do love the characters. I just finished re-reading MY FAIR SUCCUBI when I was doing the clean-up galleys, and fell in love with the world all over again. So even if I end the series in 4 books, I’d like to come back to the world – or characters – provided I can find a plot that I want to continue that doesn’t make it feel like I’m just stretching for the sake of stretching. I have ideas for spin-off books but it depends on how well the series does, really! If no one buys book 3, I can’t really go back to my publisher and present a seven-book spinoff.

Mind you, this can all change in the blink of an eye. I might finish writing book 4 and decide that I’ve got too much plot, and I need a book 5 to properly tell things…or I could come up with a brilliant twist and need another book to tell things. But my goal is to make sure that the story never feels stretched or like the characters never move forward, because I hate that.

(That was a terribly schizophrenic answer, wasn’t it? Sigh.)

9. I know you have another series coming out next year, a paranormal dating agency series , what can you tell us about that? It sounds fascinating!

Jill : The stakes always feel really high in Jackie’s books, so I wanted to try something a bit slower paced, where the focus IS the relationship more than relationship + adventure. The new book is sorta kinda called HEAT but I think marketing is going to change that. It’s about shifters living in North Texas and started around the concept of werewolves and packs. Witches have covens, right? Werewolves have packs, and vampires seem to all hang out together. But what about the ones that are born loners? What do they do? Well, being someone that works in accounting…I had them form a business Alliance.

It sounds lame but it works for them, and through the Alliance, all those were-foxes and were-bears (and even the occasional Naga) are protected by the rules of the Alliance. The Paranormal Alliance is led by a were-cougar named Beau. And Beau’s circumstances lead him to asking out Bathsheba Ward on a date. Bathsheba is kind of a quiet, industrious type – she’s the office manager of a paranormal dating agency and has no interest in dating someone that occasionally has a tail. But Beau is very hard to say no to! And when she starts dating him, she gets drawn into the world of shifter politics and it starts to threaten her life (as well as her heart).

10 What is the last book you have read? and what did you like about it?

Jill : I just read an ARC of A BRUSH OF DARKNESS by Allison Pang (January 25, 2011). Loved it! It was creative and totally funny, and the heroine has a pet unicorn that has the mentality of a horny fratboy. I really love urban fantasy where the worldbuilding is in-depth and quirky, and this definitely fit the bill. It kind of reminded me a little of Kresley Cole, if she ever decided to write urban fantasy – the entire book just has this really wickedly fun vibe to it.

11. What (if any) are your rituals during your writing process?

I used to be able to write through anything, but now I find that I have to have utter silence, and that includes internet. I’m easily distracted, which is just sad. Other than that, I like to using timing programs like Write or Die or Mac Freedom because I love a good challenge…even when I’m just challenging myself.

Thank you so much Jill for taking the time to answer our questions!

Photo Courtesy of Andrea Pender Photography