Simply Interviewed A Cinderella Christmas Carol by Hope Tarr!!

Today we welcome
Entangled Author
Hope Tarr!!

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A Cinderella Christmas Carol (Suddenly Cinderella)
by
Hope Tarr

A Suddenly Cinderella Novella

Flirt, an Entangled Publishing Imprint

There’s nothing On Top managing editor Cynthia “Starr” Starling hates more than Christmas. With an important deadline looming, plus her dreaded Christmas Day birthday, Starr just wants the holiday to end. But when she wakes up Christmas Eve night to the ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Future—all in the form of the super-hot Matt Landry, the new art director—she knows she’s in for a long night.

Matt is the one person on Starr’s team she can’t boss around and the only one she doesn’t need to. He’s also her employee and totally off limits, even if he does seem interested. Though he’s seven years younger and all kinds of forbidden fruit, he’s the form the Powers That Be decided she’d be receptive to.

Because they have a message for her: learn the true meaning of Christmas spirit or risk being alone for the rest of her life.

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Grab your copy of A CINDERELLA CHRISTMAS here... Amazon

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Is there an author that makes you go all "fangirl?"

Between being a published author, having friends who are published authors, and booking published talent for Lady Jane’s Salon™, the monthly romance reading series I co-founded here in New York City, I’ve more or less gotten over any gushing. That said, when I first joined the Romance Writers of America in 1997, I met Mary Jo Putney at a chapter retreat. It was an early morning workshop—and Mary Jo is not a morning person. She spilled her purse and I helped pick up the scatterings. I remember handing her a lipstick—and forgetting my name.

If you could co-write with another author who would it be and why?

I can’t imagine co-authoring with anyone, not because I think I couldn’t learn from the experience—I surely could—but because the actual act of writing is so deeply, intrinsically personal for me. It would be like inviting a stranger into the shower—weird.

The world is under attack and you are forced to run for your life. You only have room for one book in your survival kit, what book do you take?

Jane Eyre. Along with being an excellent romance, and quite feminist for its time, it’s a powerful reminder to stay true to oneself.

Who are your favorite literary characters? (Yours or someone else's)

Of mine, I adore Jack Campbell, my vegetarian, hangman Scotsman from MY LORD JACK. I first write the Georgian-set historical for Berkley/Jove and it’s now available as a digital re-release from Carina Press.

If your friends were asked to describe you in one word what would it be?

Loyal—at least I hope so.

Where do you do your best work?

At the beach—any beach.

Do you find it harder to write a full-length novel or novellas?

Novellas—I think writing short requires more discipline.

When did you fall in love...with writing?

Elementary school, fourth grade, when I wrote my first short story for “Language Arts” class. My teacher, Mrs. Cohill, told me I’d be a published writer some day. I’d used the word “lad,” which I guess was pretty precocious for a fourth grader. It seems like a long time ago, then again it was. :)

Are you a plotter or fly by the seat of your pants writer?

I’m a hybrid, a bit of both. I start with a detailed (about 20 page) synopsis. Once I start writing, though, the characters, their dialogue, drives the story, often in directions I never foresaw.

What is your favorite thing to do outside of writing?

Hmm, well in the spirit of keeping this post PG-13, I’d have to say running, hiking, and/or walking—anything that takes me out-of-doors and keeps me in motion is a good thing.

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Favorite color Red—but it has to be the “right” red which for me means a deep jewel shade, ruby, with enough blue in it to cool the intensity.

Favorite food Sushi.

Boots or heels How about boots with heels?

eReader or Print Print right now but that is about to change. A Kindle Fire is in my post-holiday future.

Social Media: Love it or Hate it? Both. Twitter and Facebook, Linkedin and Pinterest are great fun as well as wonderful tools for sharing information. I love that I can go on Facebook and not only share content but maintain regular contact with people I’ve met not only in the U.S. but also abroad. When used properly, social networks are a godsend for promotion as well. To have the capability to reach that many people with one measly mouse click, it’s…extraordinary

So that’s the love part. What I hate, truly despise, is the…rapacious rudeness that social networking seems to facilitate, even propagate. Far too often personal, face-to-face relationships are diminished by an over-reliance on social networks. I sat down with a writer “friend,” not a colleague but a friend, a few months ago to catch up. “How’s it all going, Hope?” she asked, pulling out her phone to immediately fire off a Tweet and then scan her email. “Uh huh, uh huh, cool, that’s great…” she went on by rote, clearly not noticing that I’d stopped speaking in deference to her texting thumbs. Obviously live Tweeting a conference, a workshop, the Lady Jane’s Salon™ I mentioned earlier isn’t just okay—it’s encouraged. It’s what we do. But when we stare at our phone PDA’s at the expense of actual eye contact, when we can’t manage to go an hour or even ten minutes without trolling Twitter or updating our Facebook statuses, that’s a problem. At this point, we probably all could benefit from a refresher course in manners, call it Manners 101.

Beer, Liquor or Wine I co-developed a beer app, Beer Gardens NYC, with my boyfriend a few years ago, and as part of our…research, I tasted a lot of great beers. These days, though, it’s mostly wine for me and the occasional cocktail or single-malt scotch; the latter would be Laphroaig, which I take neat with perhaps a drop or two of room temperature water (never ice!) to open up the peat flavor.

Favorite place to get it on besides the bedroom Hmm, well I’ll say where I don’t ever want to get it on—a public bathroom. The Mile High Club sounds sexy—until you think of what an actual airplane bathroom looks and smells like. Enough said…

Favorite TV Show Once Upon a Time – then again I am writing a fairytale themed series, the Suddenly Cinderella Series for Entangled Publishing. Also, Blue Bloods—I’ve adored Tom Selleck since his Magnum P.I. days and I like that the family sits down to Sunday dinner together every week. The Good Wife – middle-aged women that are depicted as sexy and savvy, elegant and vibrant are far too few on TV. Last but not least, Scandal—I have a girl crush on Kerry Washington. She’s stunning, absolutely luminous, and she plays “fixer” Olivia Pope perfectly, plus it takes place in Washington, DC where I went to grad school and where two of my Suddenly Cinderella books are largely set. The plot twists make every week a surprise, as well as reveal another subtext layer where no one really wears a purely hat, even the good guy are shades of gray.

Favorite Book series (besides your own) I loved Mary Jo Putney’s “Fallen Angels” Regency-set series. It’s still on my keeper shelf along with a Victorian-set series Patricia Gaffeney did before she started writing women’s fiction.

Pj’s or Lingerie Neither—I sleep in the nude.

Vampires vs. Shifters It used to be vampires but lately not so much. Being one-hundred percent human presents challenges aplenty. We all have crap to overcome. In the hands of a skillful writer, just being mortal is enough.

Favorite Genre My first love will always be historical romance though I’m loving writing contemporary these days. That said, I have a Regency-set trilogy, my Forbidden Series, coming out with Samhain in 2014, so stay tuned. :)

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About the Author

Hope Tarr is the award-winning author of twenty historical and contemporary romances including OPERATION CINDERELLA, the launch to her new Suddenly Cinderella Series of contemporary fairytale-themed romances and A CINDERELLA CHRISTMAS CAROL, the in-series novella available for 99 cents. Hope is also a co-founder and current principal of Lady Jane’s Salon™, New York City’s first and so far only monthly romance fiction reading series now with satellites in four other U.S. cities.

Connect with Hope here...

Website / Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads

Thank you for joining us Hope!!

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