Blog Tour: Deceiving the Witch Next Door - Interview with Melissa Bourbon Ramirez and Giveaway!

Hi, my beloved readers! First, I want to tell you that I'm very excited to have here today the amazing Melissa Bourbon, also known by fans of Entangled Publishing like me :D as Misa Ramirez. She was so kind to answer a few questions for our blog. I tried to be as professional as I could, for such an important person, and I hope my fangirling attitude didn't show(too much) in the interview.

BM: Welcome, Misa! Tell us a little bit about yourself, and how did you become an e-writer.

MB: Hi! Thanks for having me here! Good question.  I didn’t set out to publish e-only, or e-first, books, but when the opportunity arose, I couldn’t resist.  I had my romantic suspense series, Deadly Legends, and jumped at the opportunity to have it published.  When I got the chance to write Storie’s tale in Deceiving the Witch Next Door, I was thrilled.  Magical realism in a contemporary world is right up my alley.  E is a very fun and quick format and I think I’ll continue to enjoy writing e-only/e-first books.

BM:  Wow! That's very nice! You make everything sound so easy! You've created a wonderful world in Deceiving the Witch Next Door. Can you tell us more about it and what inspired you?

MB: Sure! The whole concept for the Storiebook Café, the bookstore/café in the book, was inspired by a store of the same name in a little Texas town called Glen Rose. Glen Rose is a cute little town, and the owner of the store, also named Storie, just sparked this idea. I asked her if I could base a book off of her store and name, she said, “Of course!”, and I went to town writing! Basically, Storie is a down-on-her-luck witch who’s not very good or experienced at what she does (for a variety of reasons). She and her friend, Harper, set up a bookshop/café in Bloomington, and she runs into Reid Malone, a man she once had a, um, run-in with years ago. They don’t see eye to eye on things and sparks fly. It’s a lot of fun!

BM: I think I told you last week in a tweet that I liked Storie very much. She's a sweetheart and I can't stop thinking about Melanie Hamilton from Gone With the Wind when I read about her. What do you think about that?

MB:  Oh, wow, what a great comparison!  Thank you for that. J  I love Storie.  She’s a good girl who’s struggling with who she is, and I think there’s nothing more basic that that.  I like characters who are strong and independent, even when they struggle, and I think Storie is all of this.

BM: If you could have lunch with one of your characters, which one of them would you choose?

MB: Hmm, from Deceiving the Witch Next Door, I do think I’d choose Storie, although Reid is a close second.  Storie is the person I’d be friends with, though, so that’s the natural choice.

BM:  How would Reid feel if he found out he was part of the Deceiving the Witch Next Door story?

MB: I’m sure Reid would be utterly thrilled at how the tale between him and Storie unfolds, the fun he gets to have with her, and ultimately, what a good guy he is.

BM: Do you have any behind-the-scenes facts to share (any particular scenes that you enjoy writing more than others, something fun that happened while writing etc)?

MB:  I find the sex scene very fun, although difficult, to write!  My mom is my biggest fan and when she first bought Sacrifice of Passion, I was horrified that she’d be reading the sex scenes.  She laughed and said she knew she’d be shocked that I knew the things I wrote about!  I’m 46 with 5 kids, so I got a good chuckle out of that. Still, I always think, holy smokes, my parents might read this!

BM: What’s your ideal setting when you’re writing?

MB: I love writing in my office when the kids are at school.  They started again this week and I’m so grateful we had summer together, but love being back to routine!

BM: Would you like to leave a message to our readers?

MB:  A big thank you to passionate book bloggers like you, and book blog readers who are willing to give new-to-them authors a try. It’s because of you all that we can keep writing, so thank you!

We thank you, Misa, for being so wonderful and easy to talk to! We hope you'll visit us some other time too!

 About the author:

Melissa Bourbon, who sometimes answers to her Latina-by-marriage name Misa Ramirez, gave up teaching middle and high school kids in Northern California to write full-time amidst horses and Longhorns in North Texas.  She fantasizes about spending summers writing in quaint, cozy locales, has a love/hate relationship with yoga and chocolate, is devoted to her family, and can’t believe she’s lucky enough to be living the life of her dreams.

She is the marketing director at Entangled Publishing, is the author of the Lola Cruz Mystery series with St. Martin’s Minotaur and Entangled Publishing, A Magical Dressmaking Mystery series with NAL, and is the co-author of The Tricked-out Toolbox and two romantic suspense titles.

Visit Melissa at her website | Twitter Page | Facebook Home | Goodreads | and Books on the House, a website bringing books and readers together!

 

About Deceiving the Witch Next Door

Storie Bell has a little secret—she’s a witch. But magic hasn’t exactly kept her life from being a complete mess—her love life is non-existent and the town thinks she’s a total nutter. Plus there’s her neighbor Reid Malone who runs hot one minute and cold the next. 

Reid Malone can’t wait to escape Bloomington, Texas. Unfortunately, he’s stuck where he is unless he helps his father hide a very illegal secret. The only key to Reid’s freedom lies with the eccentric Storie…and he’ll do whatever it takes to get the information he needs from her. 

But Reid’s holding something back. Something big. And if he’s not careful, he’ll find out exactly what happens when you try to deceive a witch…

Also by Melissa Bourbon Ramirez:

Bare Naked Lola

Going undercover is second nature for Private Investigator Lola Cruz, but she’s out of her league when the case of a murdered Royals Courtside Dancer leads her to a local nudist resort. Parading around the sidelines of Sacramento’s professional basketball scene in a barely-there cheerleading outfit is one thing—but parading around in nothing but smile? If she has any chance of hiding this from her traditional family and on-again/off-again boyfriend Jack, she’s going to have a lot more than her duct tape bra and killer dance moves to keep under wraps….

 

Sacrifice of Passion

Texas rancher, Vic Vargas, finds himself facing more than his stubbornly silent son when the chupacabra, a supposedly mythical blood‐sucking beast, starts killing his livestock—and stalking Delaney West, the town’s newly returned veterinary assistant, the sensual woman who ran from the altar and broke his heart twelve years earlier.

Reluctantly, he seeks her help to get to the bottom of the disturbing animal mutilations, only to have her break through to his sullen son...and rekindle the love he’d thought was lost forever. But her refusal to share a terrible secret sends her running straight into the lair of the chupacabra, plunging her back into her worst nightmare, and forcing them both to confront the wrongs of the past—in order to stay alive for the future they desperately want.

 

 GIVEAWAY!

 If you want to win an e-copy of Deceiving the Witch Next Door, fill in the raffle below. Last day to enter is September 15. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway