The Next Big Thing- Featuring R. Ann Siracusa
WHAT I'M WORKING ON NOW
R. Ann Siracusa
What is your working title of your book? - All For A Blast of Hot AirWhere did the idea come from for the book? On my trip to southern Africa, someone I met told me she had taken a hot air balloon safari somewhere in Africa. I really enjoy hot air ballooning, and I thought the idea of a safari sounded exciting. I decided to use that as a setting for the last book in my romantic suspense series featuring a tour guide and a spy.What genre does your book fall under? Humorous romantic suspense with an emphasis on suspense.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? The hero is patterned after Ewan McGregor (but taller and darker). 
I don't have a clue which actress could play the heroine. I envision her as looking like a curly-haired Michelle Pfiffer when she was in her twenties. 
My favorite secondary character is a Mandarin baboon named Manny Balz-ac. 
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? A tour director and a spy take a prenuptial honeymoon in Africa that turns into averting a terrorist plot against the US.Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? The first four books in the series are e-pubbed by Breathless Press. I expect this will be, also.How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? Yikes! This is an embarrassing question. A long time. I'd been working on it for about eight months, and was half-way through, when my prior publisher (who had published the first four books) went out of business. I was so bummed I couldn't concentrate, and didn't work on anything. My time went into looking for a new publisher. Then I was busy putting out the first four books again. I still have two chapters to write to finish this work in progress. I'm guessing it will be a good two years total to completion.What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. At least, that's what one reviewer said. I was so stoked by that.Who or what inspired you to write this book? As I said, this is the fifth book in the series. The hero and heroine hadn't concluded their romantic journey, so I had to write the last book to bring them to their HEA.The first book was never intended to be a series. It was a story idea I'd had kicking around in my head for years that finally found the right setting and characters. In addition, it was an experiment writing humor and writing in first person. But I loved the voice. End of the experiment…I thought. But, what do I know?A year and another (unrelated) completed manuscript later, I was scheduled to take a trip to Italy with 13 members of my extended Italian family. Well, knowing the way Italians make group decisions, this was a disaster in the making. I figured I might as well get material for a book out of the adventure. So, for a family group of Italians touring Italy, I already had my tour guide, Harriet Ruby, from the experimental novel All For A Dead Man's Leg. And if she was going to conduct a tour of Italy with this family, I needed her man, Will Talbot, chasing a spy-story.Before the trip, I did a rough outline of the novel and wrote a couple of chapters. Everything went about the way I expected, and the trip (which included four teenagers) provided many useable incidents that appear in the second book, All For A Fist Full Of Ashes. Of all the books I've written, this was the most fun to write.What else about your book might pique the reader's interest? - Readers who like a fun fast read, good suspense, and experiencing other cultures and locations in the world, will enjoy the entire Tour Director Extraordinaire series. My objective is to make the reader feel as if they'd been there and enjoyed the adventure.1. All For A Dead Man's Leg - Spain and Morocco 
2. All For A Fist Full of Ashes – Italy 
3. Destruction Of The Great Wall – China 
4. All For Spilled Blood - St. Petersburg, Russia (due for release in February, 2013) 
5. All For A Blast of Hot Air - Botswana, AfricaThanks to Georgie Reinstein for tagging me. Now I'm tagging some great romance writers to share their Next Big Thing!Toni Noel – http://www.toninoelauthor.com/Shirley WilderMary GalushaThanks for dropping by.AUTHOR R. ANN SIRACUSAhttp://www.rannsiracusa.com/blogTRAVEL FOR FOREIGN LANDS FOR ROMANCE AND INTRIGUE with a novel by Author R. Ann SiracusaFacebook Twitter Google Website/Blog Breathless Press Buy Link
