Denise:  During the day you're a registered nurse tending to your patients, but at night, after family obligations are met, where will we find you? Can you just put the day's events behind you and slip away into your latest creative environment?

Shannon: Sometimes I can do this, though it's more often on the weekends than during the week. I honestly don't have enough time to complete the writing I want. I'm hoping as my children get a little older, I'll be able to accomplish more.

Denise: A number of your books focus on the paranormal. Let's start with Ivona Knight, Vampyress. Ivona appears to have an eternal mission to erase her enemy's descendants off the face of the earth. Was becoming one of them the only way to defeat them? Tell us about her quest.

Shannon: When she's very young, she's sent to live at Vlad Dracula's castle. Over time, she sees the horror this man is capable of and begins to realize that there is a wickedness residing in his soul. When his immortality takes away the people she loves, she vows revenge, knowing that the only way to "beat" the thing driving Vlad, is to take it into herself  where she can contain it. Once she becomes a creature of the night, the first vampyress, she sets her focus on obliterating all of the Dracula line, to make sure The Evil can't use any other human beings to do the malicious things Vlad did.

Denise: Immortal Desires is another Vampire Romance. Available in ebook and paperback it was published by DLSIJ Press. Who is Elizabeth Debonaie and who is watching her?

Shannon: Elizabeth is a typical young woman trying to survive a world full of vulgarity without becoming part of it. She works as a tavern maid in the evenings and takes care of her ailing father during the day. On her way home from work in the early morning hours, she's accosted by a couple of patrons from the bar, two drunken sailors intent upon getting a service she wasn't offering. But they aren't the only ones who notice the comely young woman that night. Adrien also sees her, and wants her for his own. Suddenly plagued by mortal emotions he thought long dead, he realizes this girl could be his soul mate, his eternal bride. But first he has to save her from the two rogues who are trying to load her on their small dinghy in the Seine harbor.

Denise: In your novel More Than Prophecy legend stated that a woman "will come from Earth to bear a child who will end the warring between the Ramekah and Andreas clans, warring that has plagued the hold folk of Zandar for hundreds of years." I'm not going to ask what forces were responsible for bringing Cheyenne, the young Native American woman, to another world. I am interested in knowing how she deals with her extraordinary experience and how Lord Darian Andreas, ruler of the Andreas Clan, helps her assimilate into his world and his life.

Shannon: At first, she's reluctant to believe Zandar even exists. She thinks someone is playing a trick on her. But she soon realizes that the man before her isn't pretending to speak in a strange dialog, nor is he dressed in odd attire to merely confuse her. He is who he claims to be and this hostile world around her truly exists. While accepting that she's been whisked away to another planet -- one in which there seems to be no return from -- is hard enough to come to terms with, then she learns she must play the part in some ancient prophecy -- one that goes against every ethical grain in her heart. Cheyenne is an educated woman. She's independent and strong-willed, a modern-day girl used to taking care of herself and telling people what she thinks. She doesn't like being told what to do, how to dress, or when to speak. And she doesn't like not being in control of her destiny. While she struggles to adjust to the differences of Zandar, where men rule and women are thought of as little more than baby makers and bed partners, Darian struggles to adjust to her. At first, her quick wit and sharp tongue are annoying. But as he comes to respect her for more than her beauty, those are the qualities that truly draw his love as well. She is different than any other women he's ever laid eyes on, her heart is pure and her behaviors unselfish. He knows she is deserving of more than what the prophecy proclaims -- a champion mate who will sire her child -- she's deserving of love, and he's determined to be the one who not only fulfills the characteristics outlined in the ancient divination, but the one who also wins her heart.

Denise: In your Paranormal Erotica Novella, Stairway to Heaven, Rhea, a biologist for a pharmaceutical company is sent to the Amazon Forest in search of a cure for cancer. What does she find instead? Why has he chosen her?

Shannon: Rhea has had a life full of empty relationships. Her heart longs for true love. Valos has been the guardian of the Stairway to Heaven for many years, a duty, while pleasurable at times, is also exhausting. He yearns to live among the mortals as a man and to experience a life beyond the one in which he resides. The only way for him to do so is to find a mate willing to be his doorway into the realm of mortality. Valos can offer Rhea the deepest desire of her heart -- a man to love her -- and fulfill his longing as well. But can Rhea, a scientist who's built her beliefs on a world determined by logic, scientific explanations, and reasonable deductions, step outside her technical sanity long enough to accept that beings as Valos do exist, and the agreement he proposes is one she can accept?

Denise: Your Short Contemporary Erotica isn't serving up a Chinatown Buffet. That's one x-rated cover that Trace Edward Zaber created. Mei Ling Zhao has just been named corporate executive of the Chinese American Development Corporation. It's been a difficult transition for her and so she decides to treat herself to some Chinese takeout. What arrives with the food that is more tempting?

Shannon: How about a suntanned, toned Texan garbed in tight-fitting jeans, cowboy boots, and a black Stetson? Who'd have thought Mei Ling's delivery boy would be none other than her biggest corporate rival, Travis Marshal of Marshal Enterprises, from her former city of employment, Dallas, Texas? Travis was in Chinatown, Chicago on business, nothing more, and he'd volunteered to deliver Ms. Ling's dinner in the hopes of smooth-talking her into giving him the bid to build a hotel chain in the development project. What he hadn't expected was for the woman he'd only previously dealt with by phone calls, letters, and subordinate stand-ins to be hotter than the Moo Goo Gai pan in his delivery bag. Both business gurus are in for a pleasant surprise.

Denise: You're never quite sure what you'll inherit when your grandmother passes on. What does Catrina discover in a secret vault buried beneath the braided carpet in her Nana's room? What does her little discovery bring forth?

Shannon: Seems Nana was into a little more than herbal remedies and soothing tinctures. What was Catrina's grandmother doing with a secret vault filled with a myriad of spell books, amulets and vials of God-only-knew-what hidden beneath that old braided rug? Certainly the last thing Catrina expects (as if the morbid stash isn't enough) is that her grandmother had in her possession, a little black book capable of summoning demons ready to fulfill more than just some simple carpentry about her house. And when she inadvertently brushes her fingers across the dialing pad, calling forth Malthus, the Earth of Hell, Catrina finds out just how willing those devilish incubi are to take of her carnal needs as well.

Denise: Greenwood Manor isn't your average Bed & Breakfast. What's so unusual about the staff and the owner of the manor?

Shannon: Well, to put it bluntly, they're all dead. Laura Flannery just wants a break from her monotonous life, chauvinistic boss and nosey neighbor. When a postcard arrives announcing the opening of a quaint bed-n-breakfast in New Orleans, she thinks it will be the perfect place to get away. What she doesn't expect, is that the picturesque home on the cover has actually been in a state of ruin for years, the butler and housemaid are ghosts, and the owner, Barnabas Flannery, is actually her husband from a time past, who's been anxiously awaiting her return so that they may once again be united as husband and wife and spend eternity in Heaven, along with their little girl. It doesn't take long for the primordial emotions she once felt for Barnabas to return, full-force. But is Laura ready to die to be with a man who risked his soul to save hers?

Denise: Where do you get all your great ideas?

Shannon: I tend to daydream a lot. Sometimes I'll see something that sparks my imagination. Other times, I have to come up with a storyline to fit a particular project. The Amber Paxes are an example of this. Amber Quill Press has a line of anthologies called Paxes. Each one centers on a common theme. For the Heartsongs Volume 2 pax, each story had to have a popular song title. Hence my story Stairway To Heaven. The Bon Appetit collection had to center around food being used in a way never intended. I believe Chinatown Buffet fits in there quite nicely.

Denise: What promotional tips can you offer other authors?

Shannon: You have to really get out there and promote your own work. Publishers can and will only do so much. Unless you're Anne Rice or Stephen King, you can pretty much forget the common idea that just because you've written something, you're going to be rich and famous. For some people, it's luck or knowing someone on the inside. For most of us, it's simple perseverance. While I'm not rich, and I'd hardly call myself famous, the knowledge that there's even just a handful of readers out there that know my name and the books I write is enough to make it all worth while. When you show up at author chats and get positive comments from various readers who've read your work, it's the greatest feeling in the world.

--Denise Fleischer, gottawritenetwork.com
December 3, 2005
copyright Denise Fleischer and GWN