In the Author Spotlight & Contest

Angelica Hart & Zi

CONTEST: Anyone who leaves a comment along with their email address will be entered into a drawing to WIN an e-book.

Want to join the Angelica Hart and Zi mailing list? Write us at angeliahartandzi@yahoo.com and we will send you a gift and add you to any future mailings.

Hold on to your hats or hang onto your seats, and enjoy Angelica and Zi. They are very very entertaining and make the wheels of your mind turn with intrigue not only in their work, but in this interview about who they are and why the do what they do. :-D

AL: Hi Angelica and Zi. Thanks for being in the “Author Spotlight” this week.

A to Z: We are so tickled to be here, and appreciate this opportunity to share with you and your readers. Hey readers, what's percolatin'?

Angelica: I love what you've done with your blog. It is awesome. The sparkles amidst the haunted are fabulous. I feel right at home.

AL: Thank you so much, Angelica. :-D

Zi: Angelica adores dour bling! She being oxy-moronic. A jumbo shrimp cocktail of mixed metaphors.

Angelica: So does Emmy. (Holds up a toy Bichon to show off its new rhinestone collar, while Mo, the sleeping yellow lab opens one eye, yawns, and petards)

Zi: In three lines, we have word-pictured the intriguing dichotomy of Angelica and Zi. Two different minds attempting to create as one. Painful yet pleasant.

AL: So, tell us what’s happening with both of you.

Angelica: I'm into a new health regime, limiting myself to only three cookies a day and one chocolate bar. Along, of course, with healthy fruits and veggies...bananas and corn. Ok...ok...I do know better but wouldn't that be grand if we could diet that way.

Zi: The CD Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Night Castle leeches at my sensibilities, pulling pristine thoughts of a sandy beach littered with love. Am I there? Of course, building sandcastles and inviting mistress and male to dance on its granite floor.

AL: Tag team writers, please share with us your upcoming release in February?

A to Z: Have you ever wanted to be truly submerged in fantasy, taken beyond the realm of reality, and way past the looking glass? If so, SNAKE DANCE does just that. Something evil and sinister pulsates beneath rare and chaste. Something beautiful breathes where murk and dankness reside.

This story combines exotic scenes of an extraordinary, primitive, and distant planet. It's inhabitants have humanistic characteristics, of which some have noble souls and open hearts while others are heinous and dark. All of which reflects this culture of subjection and freedom seekers. The love and sex is raw and primal. This is a story not all dare read, however, we do dare you!

AL: What are you currently working on?

A to Z: We are presently marketing our books, freshening our website, writing a number of recurring columns, blogging, putting the finishing touches on an irreverent fairy tale series and lamestorming for our next serious romantic project.

AL: How did you two meet and become the writing duo you are today?

Zi: At an art show where Angelica had been exhibiting. I liked her work and asked about using her illustrations in one of my books.

Angelcia: I read one of his manuscripts and unbeknownst to Zi, I sent it off to my agent. Zi was under contract within a few weeks. Afterward, we discussed doing a project together. Each of us bringing twenty ideas to the table. We couldn't come to terms on a single one. And then Zi wrote something enchanting and beautiful, of an angel who had no wings and a young man determined to help her, of a mage with six fingers, and a world that existed under the earth, and I fell in love with the story. I wanted to be part of that fantasy.

Zi: Once we began to write together we realized our work together was better than anything we produced apart. That's when we knew it was a fait accompli, we became writing partners and no longer create anything separately except Sunday French Toast!

AL: Do you have times when one of you wants to go one way and the other someplace completely different? If so, how do you work out those differences?

A to Z: Great question! The answer is every day! Every hour sometimes! Every other minute even! However, we always agree to agree, which sounds strange, but isn't. Individuality is the genesis of creative direction, therefore we already are aware that we must take the time to homogenize our ideas. The agreeing to agree means that if we don't agree, the idea doesn't flourish, never sees the page, and the page, the story is what matters. We fight for the story, for it to be the best it can be, that the reader's enjoyment is more important than our egos. So, we bicker and fight and, Angelica pouts...a lot...oft tells Mo to sic Zi... Mo yawns. It can sometimes be quite difficult, hard even. However, it's the hard, the fighting for the story, that ends up making the story special. The story always wills out.

AL: Which of your hero/heroine best resembles you and why?

Angelcia: Jessy, a three year-old in a book called THE GARROTE FACTOR. She is tenacious, playful, fun-loving and, although it never made it from profile to book, she loves chocolate and apples with peanut butter. It's like I spit her out. Oh wait, I sorta did.

Zi: The crystal whip in a book titled STAG NATION: A VEXED HEART, the first piece we wrote. A stunningly beautiful weapon that if wielded correctly was precise and deadly, dipped in the honey of the summer marigold to sweeten my edge.

AL: Do you remember the first guilty pleasure you purchased with your first check?

Angelcia: Nothing guilty about it...white out and typing paper. Yup, started writing back in the stone age when e-mail meant an empty mailbox, and a mailbox was this thing out by the curb in the shape of a box. Oh, yeah, we still have one of those but it's just for bills and Christmas cards.

Zi: A special edition encased model of my car. 1:18 ratio. Placed it on the shelf and dust it monthly.

AL: If you could go anywhere in the world and in any time…where would you go? What would you do? And why that time-period?

Angelcia: Alaska sings a siren's song to me, kind of like that song Baku Ha’i from the movie South Pacific, expect Bloody Mary doesn't sing it. As for time-period, I am not a pioneer lady. I adore modern comforts, and I fear what the future might bring to the beauty of that grand land, so right now would work. What would I do? Breathe sharp, cold, clean air. Go gaga over the glaciers. Figure out if I can walk in snow shoes. And, if possible, (Hey wait, it's my fantasy...it IS possible) a dog sled ride. Oh, and a train ride...and...and.... Must stop here before I start to hyperventilate. (Whines to Zi: We have to sell a lot more books. I want to go to Alaska!)

Zi: Would have been fascinating to have been a fly, no, a roach in the room when Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio wooed and cooed. This man must have been a romantic, and I would have loved to have known his soul, his passion, the quality of his character, and why he loved her forever. Then I would have eaten their left-over cheesecake crumbs.

AL: Angelica, what three words best describe Zi?

Angelcia: Noble...fun...brilliant...

AL: Zi, what three words best describe Angelica?

Zi: Effervescent...ditzy (lower case d because she is mildly so) and brilliant (eclectically brilliant if allowed four)

AL: Please share a favorite quote(s) with us.

Angelica: "Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality." Jules de Gaultier

Zi: "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." Mae West

AL: Thanks so much for sharing with joining us this week, Angelica and Zi.

A to Z: This has been awesome. Your questions were wonderful and it was great fun responding to them. Again, thank you for having us. You are a gem!

AL: If you’d like to find out more about Angelica and Zi please visit:

www.angelicahartandzi.com
www.angelicahartandziblogs.com

FEATURED TITLE: SNACK DANCE

Blurb:
 
In the vast ebony chasm of space, on the planet Starling wRen, a winged chickalas with the rare ability to fly defies a submissive heritage, braving the dark legends of the Asp to be with VeIper, enemy to the Kin, the protectors of her Nestling.
 
Meanwhile, VeIper seeks to free his species from ethnic cleansing as well as win the awe of the beautiful and defiant wRen. Mong, a slayer, has already claimed wRen and vows to destroy those of VeIper's kind. Each seek their vision with rapacious intensity but with Mong's impervious power, the subjugation of wRen and the death of VeIper might be pre-destined.
 
Excerpt:
 
Clenched as one, floating.
 
Her wings unfurled slightly and his arms caught about them, instinctively stroking the area between moving downward to the Rise of Comehither, feeling her incredible responsiveness. Her fingers curled about the base of skull, pulling his head closer to her breasts as she caressed awake the remnant of a cobra hood. They together, he bending and pressing her backward and then swirling her up and around, he then lifting his head to find her lips, to press past that sensuous pink tenderness to the opening beneath.
 
Every stimulating action demanded a stronger reaction, and the two simultaneously became giver and recipient. Their mouths twisted against each other, and then parted, held deliberately apart but barely, torturous breaths scraping against each other, tongues flittering and then slipping away, her pointy tip, caressing the vulnerable nip between the slit. His fingers moved over smooth warming flesh, pausing to stroke feathers as they each nipped at each other with tender kisses over eyelids and temples, scale-line and feather-roots.
 
He growled.
 
She shivered.

REMEMBER: Anyone who leaves a comment along with their email address will be entered into a drawing to WIN an e-book.
 
Want to join the Angelica Hart and Zi mailing list? Write us at angeliahartandzi@yahoo.com and we will send you a gift and add you to any future mailings.