The Tithe by Elle Hill #interview #giveaway #paranormal romance

Happy Tuesday!!!

Only a few more days until the Friday night scary-fest! Woo Hoo! I can't wait! I just love Halloween!!

In the mean time, I've got a interview and a new romance for you guys to take a peek at. It's something a little different that I think you might just enjoy. 

Check it out!

Goddess Fish Promotions is organizing a Virtual Book Tour for THE TITHE by Elle Hill, a Sci-Fi Paranormal Romance available now from Soul Mate Publishing.

****GIVEAWAY ALERT****
Elle will be awarding a $50 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

*******

Thanks for welcoming me to your blog, Nancy. I admit I’ve never written erotic romance, but I have enjoyed reading it.

What is your biggest inspiration?

Anything that moves me inspires me. I can just as easily find inspiration in a pop song or in a discussion with my romantic partner as I can reading a really good book. Most recently, the main character of Dean Koontz’s novel, Innocence, inspired the story arch of the novel I’m currently writing.

Where did you get the inspiration to write The Tithe?

If I tell you, you have to promise not to judge me, although I see from your blog you’re also a fan. I got the idea from, ahem, Katy Perry’s “E.T.” song. Yeah, seriously. Listening to it for the first time, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to write a book that blurs the line between angel and demon, scary and sublime?”  

10 Things we don’t know about you.

1. I hate mornings.
2. I used to co-run an animal rescue. It’s how I ended up with way-too-many animals.
3. I got engaged in July.
4. I was born and raised near Boise, Idaho.
5. My favorite color is red.
6. I have a Ph.D. in sociology.
7. I am certifiably arachnophobic.
8. My oldest sister and I went to college together, took the same classes, and graduated with the same degree on the same day. She was summa cum laude, though, and I was merely cum laude.
9. I hate with a fierce passion talking on the phone.
10. I’m lactose intolerant. Rest assured, though, that doesn’t stand between my true love, ice cream, and me.

5 Things you love about being an Author and 5 Things you hate.

LOVE

1. I get to do what I love best!
2. Writing stimulates my greatest impulses: to express myself, to evoke critical thinking and feelings in my readers, and to combine words in new and creative ways.
3. I suck at painting and photography, but for some reason, words and grammar make sense to me.
4. Call me shallow, but there’s something kind of neat about saying, “Yes, I researched that for my third novel…”
5. I get to play god in my own, made-up worlds.

HATE

1. The pay sucks.
2. Once people learn I write, I am forever their proofreader and literary agent.
3. The literary market is flooded with books during a time when fewer Americans are reading.
4. Can’t… stop… proofreading others’ letters, emails, tweets, and posts. Forgive me.
5. Did I mention the pay?

5 Thing you didn't know about being an Author but now do.

1. The importance of book covers.

2. That being talented isn’t enough to ensure you sell a lot of books.

3. The joy of holding one’s published book.

4. After submitting to an editor, it may well take more than a year before the book is published.

5. How essential it is to have other people read the novel and provide feedback before it’s published.

What research went into The Tithe?

The Tithe almost exclusively features characters with varying physical, emotional, and cognitive abilities, so the bulk of my research involved investigating the causes, effects, and experiences of various dis/abilities. My main character, Joshua Barstow, has a condition known as Charcot Marie ToothSyndrome. I extensively researched this condition, made a page-long cheat sheet, and hung it by my desk throughout the year I wrote this novel. Also, my two main characters live with chronic pain. I researched chronic pain, read forums about how to cope with it, and used my own experiences to round everything out.

Why did you pick paranormal romance genre?

I went into paranormal romance with eyes happily open. Science fiction, fantasy, horror, and romance are the genres I read, and my ideas for new books plop quite naturally into their waiting arms. That said, this is my first science fiction romance novel.

What's in a name?

I’d decided on the name of this book before I’d even ironed out the plot. All I knew was that people with disabilities were going to be sacrificed in order to maintain a utopia. I had Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” in mind when coming up with The Tithe.

The hardest part about writing is…

Picking up the next day. I have a scheme that sometimes works, sometimes not. I try (this is the hard part) to stop during an exciting part of the scene. Then, when I come back the next day, I can jump right in to the excitement. Good advice that’s sometimes quite hard to follow. 

A day with Elle Hill behind the scenes.

I get up, give one of my cats his insulin, sit down in front of the computer, and get to work. I answer student emails, read and research for my classes, and prepare class discussions. I leave the house to teach, come back, talk baby talk to my cats and dog, plunk back in front of the computer, open my writing file, and let my fingers do the thinking for a couple of hours. My fiancé comes home, we eat dinner, I medicate the cats and dog, and I may either bond with my family or go back to writing.

It’s a small but ridiculously happy life.

Ideal writing space.

I bought my first house a few months ago, and for the first time in my life, I have an office. I’m tickled fuchsia! I packed the room with my desk, a bookcase, my work materials, and various cat toys (in a vain attempt to get the cats not to lie on my keyboard while I type). Take that, add coffee, and I, per Virginia Woolf, now have a room of my own.

Where do ideas come from?

Shi-Shi, the fat muse of inspired writing, of course!

Thanks again for letting me share my ideas. Have a gorgeous autumn.

My pleasure Elle.

Now let's move onto the good stuff.

THE TITHE

by  Elle Hill

Every seven years, the towns sacrifice their sick and disabled. No one has ever survived the angels’ harvest. Until now.

“Every seven years, seven persons from each of the ten towns must go into the desert, where they will enter into the realm of Elovah, their God.”

No one knows exactly what happens to these seventy Tithes, but everyone knows who: the “unworkables,” those with differing physical and mental capacities. Joshua Barstow, raised for twenty years among her town’s holy women, is one of these seventy Tithes. She is joined by the effervescent Lynna, the scholarly Avery, and the amoral Blue, a man who has spent most of his life in total solitude.

Each night, an angel swoops down to take one of their numbers. Each night, that is, except the first, when the angel touches Josh… and leaves her. What is so special about Josh? She doesn’t feel special; she feels like a woman trying to survive while finally learning the meanings of friendship, community, and love.

How funny that she had to be sacrificed to find reasons to live.

EXCERPT
Josh shook her head. “It sounds so sad.”

“It wasn’t. You can’t have sadness unless you know happiness. I knew neither.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

Finally, in a voice mere decibels from a whisper, Josh asked, “What about now?” Shameless, she knew, but maybe voicing the question would exorcise it.

“Why are you asking a question you already know the answer to?” he asked in his inflectionless voice.

“I don’t,” she insisted.

“Everything changed when you touched me,” he said.

After a confused moment, and with many darting glances, she asked in a low tone, “In bed?”

“In the hallway. You touched me, and my life cleaved into a before and a now. Before, I existed, and it was fine. I was content. And then, you. Everything cracked open, and I felt as if I’d just reminded my senses to function. Now, everything feels so raw. Sometimes just the passing of time abrades my skin. Being with you is exquisite and real. And painful.”

Very carefully, Josh put her hands on her knees and leaned forward. She stared at the wall opposite them, against which Taro no longer pressed himself. In she breathed, and out. In and out.

Josh straightened her posture and rubbed her calf with her other foot. “What can I do to make it hurt less?” she asked him.

Blue’s lips thinned into a smile. “I don’t want it to hurt less. Every second that scrapes my skin is another one I spend with you.”

BUY LINKS

Amazon US~  http://www.amazon.com/Tithe-Elle-Hill-ebook/dp/B00MVCPJFG

AUTHOR BIO 

Born in Idaho during the height of disco, Elle Hill now chicken-pecks at the keyboard while rocking out to Donna Summer and KC and the Sunshine Band. She worked in Idaho for several years as a secretary and journalist before moving to California and selling her soul to academia. After receiving her PhD in Sociology, Elle Hill became a not-so-mild-mannered college instructor by night and a community activist during the remainder of her waking hours. Always a journalist and writer at heart, one of her favorite pastimes includes publishing commentary on the political and social state of the world; some of her thoughts are posted on her blog at ellehillauthor.blogspot.com.

Elle welcomes visitors to her website at www.ellehill.com. She also urges everyone to become a superhero and adopt their next non-human companion from a local animal shelter.

Where can you find Elle???

Website ~ http://www.ellehill.com

Blog ~ http://ellehillauthor.blogspot.com/

Twitter ~ https://twitter.com/ElleHillAuthor

Facebook ~ https://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-Elle-Hill/155409064486649?ref=hl

FOLLOW THE TOUR!!!

The more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here: 

http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.ca/2014/09/vbt-tithe-by-elle-hill.html?zx=6300378ec3e500e

ENTER HERE!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway     

Thanks for stopping by Elle and the best of luck with THE TITHE.

Cheers,

Nancy