Thursday, August 23, 2007

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Thirty-seven moves in thirty years have taught Alexis Fleming to make friends where she can and what better way than through the voices in her mind. Alexis’ world is peopled with interesting characters and exciting possibilities that come to life in each and every book she writes. Her first love has always been romance, whether on this world or the next. Hot, sizzling relationships with a dash of comedy and a few trials and tribulations thrown in to test her characters.

When she isn’t tied to her computer creating sizzling stories, Alexis runs a motel situated on the edge of a National Marine Park in Australia.

You can visit with Alexis at   www.alexisfleming.net


INTERVIEW:

First, let me say a big thanks to Rachelle for having me here.

Why did you become a writer? Was it a dream of yours since you were younger or did the desire to write happen later in your life?
My mother couldn’t shut me up so told me to write it down instead of bending her ear when she was busy. *grin* Not quite like that, but near enough. I’ve always written, either short stories or poetry, but I didn’t seriously get into novel writing until 1997. I was recovering from spinal surgery and was totally bored, driving everyone in the house crazy. I did write children’s stories when my kids were little, but then got busy raising said children, until I was flat on my back after this surgery. My daughter found a competition advertised in a national magazine and encouraged me to enter. I still have that manuscript. It’s woeful, but it was the start of me thinking about writing again. It was another couple of years before I really got into it and then I couldn’t stop.

What do you love about being an author? Is there anything you dislike?
Hmm, I guess I love getting lost in the story, spending time with my characters. And I absolutely love it when the characters take over and run with the story, even if it wasn’t what I’d originally plotted. And hey, going to work in my ‘jammies is pretty good, too.
What I dislike? Having to put my writing aside and go do something else.

How do you balance your personal and writing time?
This is the most difficult aspect for me. I run a 34 room motel which is pretty much a 24/7 job as we live on the premises. So at the moment, my writing has to fit around that. What that means is, I sit up late at night typing and get up early in the morning to steal some time before I start work.

How do you write? Do your characters come to you first or the plot or the world of the story?
Usually I get an idea in my head and I just tuck it away and let it cook. Somewhere along the line, I suddenly find I have a whole plot, along with the characters, running around in there and it’s starting to get crowded. Then it’s time to sit and write it down. Although I have been knows to sit bolt upright in bed in the middle of the night because I’ve dreamed a fantastic title for a story, along with the whole plot. Scares my hubby silly at times.

What genre(s) do you write? Why do you write the stories that you write?
I write erotic contemporary, paranormal, and fantasy/futuristic stories. Most of my stories tend to have a little twist of comedy somewhere in them, along with a dash of intrigue. I have this quirky brain that tends to see humor where maybe others don’t. And I never have been able to close the bedroom door. What can I say? I like sex!

Do you tend to base your characters on real people or are they totally from your imagination?
I don’t think I base my characters on any one person. I think most writers are people watchers and I tend to focus in on character trails, rather than the actual person. So each of my characters might be an amalgamation of a dozed different people that I meet.

Out of all the characters that you've written, who is your favorite and why?
I’m not certain I have any one favorite character. With each new story I write, I tend to totally submerge myself in the characters, so for the time I’m writing that story, those character resonate with me. Then it’s time to say goodbye to them and move on to the next story, the next set of characters. Although I have to say I loved writing the mother in Stud Finders Incorporated. She was a hoot.

What would you want readers to take away from your books?
Enjoyment! If I haven’t touched the reader, if they can’t walk away at the end of the story with a sense of enjoyment, then I haven’t done my job.

Do you have any advice for beginning writers in regards to writing a book?
Read, read, read! Get to know the genre you want to write in. Join a writing group if possible and mix with like-minded people. Did I happen to mention reading? Lol Then sit down at the computer and start writing.

What are you reading right now?
I’ve just started Coyote Dreams by C.E. Murphy, a Luna release. This is Book Three in The Walker Papers series. I’d read the first two and thoroughly enjoyed them so was thrilled to pieces when my daughter sent me book three.

If you could be anyone or anything that you wanted, who or what would you be?
Nora Roberts? Lol No, actually, I wouldn’t change who or what I am right now. It took me a long while, and writing certainly helped, but I’m finally happy with me. Does that mean I can’t grow or change? Not at all, life is always constant change, but I think I’ve finally grown enough to enjoy the journey.



ABOUT THE BOOK:

BLURB:

Do mermaids have orgasms? Who knows, but she’d better find out quick before she exchanges her girly bits for fishy slits.

A mermaid who can’t swim? What could be worse?

When Samie McIntyre finds out she’s about to turn into a mermaid, a legacy of her selkie father and mermaid mother, she realizes she has one major problem. Well, er, maybe two… First, she can’t swim. And second, she has aqua-phobia. What good is a mermaid who’s afraid of the water? As far as she can see, there’s only one thing to do. Talk the sexy Jonah Billings into teaching her to swim.

And if she can convince him to indulge in a bit of horizontal wrestling before she becomes a pickled sardine, so much the better.


EXCERPT:
(Warning: Excerpt contains adult material)

“What the hell do you thi…”

Jonah’s thought processes shut down, the words drying up as he stared at the apparition in front of him. Eyes blinking furiously, he stumbled backwards and bumped into the door behind him, smacking his head on the timber surface. His feet went out from under him and he ended up on his ass on the tiled floor.

He closed his eyes a moment, sure he was in the grip of a particularly erotic dream. His cock certainly thought so. As if it had a mind of its own, it reared up, stiffening to attention and pointing its head in the direction it wanted to go. What the fuck, it did have a mind of its own, especially where this woman was concerned.

“Hello, Jonah.”

His eyes snapped open and he focused on her, trying to ease the constriction in his jeans. She’d draped her arms over the edge of the bathtub and rested her chin on her hands. At least now he wasn’t distracted by the sight of her slender body covered in nothing but an itty-bitty piece of butt floss and a gold chain about her waist.

Yeah, right! He had a photographic memory and it had already processed the image of Samie dressed in a black thong and floundering about in a tub of water. And talking of water…

“Turn the flippin’ tap off, woman. You’re drowning my apartment below.”

“Oh crap, I’m so sorry.” She unlinked her arms and started to rise up in the bathtub.

Jonah panicked. “No, don’t… Stay there. I’ll turn it off.”

Jesus, he was acting like a raw teenager, freaking out at his first glimpse of a naked woman. He was a grown man for crying out loud, with his fair share of affairs behind him. The sight of a nearly naked Samie shouldn’t have thrown him into this type of tailspin. It wasn’t like he wasn’t used to seeing her running around in the briefest of swimwear.

He tried to scramble to his feet, but he couldn’t get any purchase on the wet tiles. By the time he managed to get to his knees, his jeans were soaked through to his shorts, the fabric moulding the biggest boner he’d had in a long time.

Water filled the bathtub to the brim, flowing over the top and covering the floor. Samie’s floundering around sloshed even more over the edge. On hands and knees, Jonah crawled to the tub and turned off the tap. Grabbing the towels hanging on the rail beside him, he tossed them onto the floor to sop up some of the moisture. Then he turned his attention to Samie.

Oh-ohhh, wrong move. Jonah groaned. Wedged up against the side of the bathtub, and with Samie kneeling on the porcelain surface, his eyes were level with a gorgeous set of boobs. For such a slim girl—woman!—she sure had big breasts. Rosy nipples, large areoles, deeply tanned…except for a perfect white triangle where her swimsuit normally covered.

He had a sudden hankering to lean across and take one of those pert nipples into his mouth, see how much of the darker surrounding area he could cover at the same time.

Sudden? Like hell. This was something he’d fantasized about for the last eight months, ever since he’d moved into the block of apartments owned by Samie’s mum, and now her. Problem was, she’d never handed out the right signals to make him assume she might be interested in something more than landlady/tenant. And she isn’t now, you randy fool, so get with the game.

Oh, she was friendly enough, but he wanted more than friendly. If anything, she treated him like a big brother. Shit, he didn’t want to be anyone’s big brother and certainly not Samie’s. If the state of his cock right now was any indication, he’d never be able to think of her as a sibling.

“What the heck do you think you’re doing?” he snapped in an effort to keep his mind off her body. “You trying to drown me? If you want to get rid of me, just say so and I’ll vacate. And take those stupid goggles off. It’s like talking to a goldfish with bug eyes.”

She whipped her hand up and tried to snatch the swim goggles off her head, grimacing when the strap snagged in her hair. “Damn, I’m caught. Give me a hand here, will you?”

No, no, no!

He didn’t want to do it, but he had no valid reason for refusing. Didn’t she realise that would put him within mouth…er, hand distance of her naked boobs?

With a tortured sigh, he shuffled closer and reached for the tangled goggles. As he sifted his hand through her lush red-gold waves, she rested her head against his chest. Heat hit him, forking through his body and lodging in the already hard appendage pushing at the front of his jeans. Hell, much more and he’d explode…or bust the zip of his pants at the very least.

After a few clumsy tugs and a lot of under-the-breath swearing, he managed to get the goggles free and dropped them into the water. Dividing her hair into two bunches, he dragged it forward over her shoulders. Her hair was so long it covered her breasts totally. He was finally able to breathe without struggling for oxygen.

“There. Now you look like a mermaid. One of those ones who sit on the rocks and lure the sailors to their deaths.” He grinned at her, only to have her start, twisting her body to look at him with what he could have sworn was shock. Her bright blue eyes opened wide. Her face paled beneath her tan and her hands shook as she covered her breasts, hair and all.

Water sloshed over the side of the bath at her movement, cascading down his front. Ah shit, at this rate, I’ll have had my bath before she’s finished.

He sighed. “Wanna tell me what you were doing?”

“I was trying to teach myself to swim, or at least how to float.”

“You what?” He started to laugh, cutting it off when he realised she was serious. “You can’t swim? But I see you on the beach all the time.”

“Yeah, but you never see me in the water, do you?” She shrugged and the hair parted over one nipple.

Jonah found his gaze sliding back to her chest. He gulped and stared fixedly at her face again. “I thought you were just like all the other beach bunnies, strutting around showing off your body in those cutesy bikinis you favour. Hell, most of the girls on the beach wear swimmers that would disintegrate if they so much as got them wet.”

She punched him on the arm. “I am not a beach bunny. I’m a hard-working business woman and I wear those cutesy bikinis as you call them to advertise my wares.”

He wiggled his eyebrows. “Well, they sure do that.” His gaze slid south and so did all the blood in his body. He tried to ignore the twitching of his cock. The bloody thing was talking again, telling him where it wanted to go. Sheeze.


REVIEWS:

4 Blue Ribbons: “…hilariously funny story, SINK OR SWIM by Alexis Fleming…The passion is hot enough to set off alarms…There is never a dull moment in this sexy story and I found myself anxiously waiting for Samie to transform into a mermaid. There are many surprises in store. Hilarity and passion combine to make SINK OR SWIM a memorable story that is leaves you smiling.”
-- Anita at Romance Junkies

4 Cups: “Samantha and Jonah have more in common than they could ever imagine. Ms. Fleming shows the struggles they deal with and the heat they have between them very well. I was impressed with how far she went and it had me reaching for some ice water…Sink or Swim is one sizzling hot story!”
-- Krista at Coffee Time Romance


Sink or Swim by Alexis Fleming
ISBN-13: 978-1-906328-01-6
Genre: Paranormal/Shapeshifters
Release Date: 2nd July 2007
Publisher: Total-e-bound e-Books
£2.49 from www.total-e-bound.com


Purchase Sink or Swim by Alexis Fleming HERE!!!