Interview with Rosanna Leo, Erotic Author

 Congratulations to Parker Kincade! 

Parker won the eBook "Sweet Hell" by Rosanna Leo.

Tonya and Brenda are very excited to introduce Rosanna Leo to the readers. *Handing out hand fans to everyone* Trust us you'll need this. It's hot as Hades here this week because Rosanna's new release Sweet Hell is mostly set in...Hell. Maybe Dionysus and Josie will join us, too, sometime this week. 

We have wine chilling and plenty of glasses to go around. So find a not so hot spot and get as comfy as you can while we chat with Rosanna. By the way, Rosanna is featuring a giveaway; details below.

Naughty Reader’s: Hi Rosanna! We're so glad to meet you. Tell us a bit about yourself  that our readers might not know.

Rosanna:  Hmm…that readers won’t know? Well, some of my readers already know I have an unhealthy obsession with Nutella, so I won’t mention that. I am a nail-biting, coffee-drinking, writing-obsessed mother of two boys. My husband shakes his head at all my pretend boyfriends (i.e. heroes from books). Oh, and I’m best when I’m sitting down. I’m so uncoordinated…I could never excel at sports, but I’ll beat your pants at Trivial Pursuit!

Naughty Reader’s: Hey, Nutella is delicious! Love it on plain bagels. What made you want to become a writer?

Rosanna: All the people in my head, constantly nattering at me, demanding their stories be told. I didn’t realize at first that writing could be my outlet. I thought I just had an active imagination. When I began to imagine all these grand love stories with gorgeous heroes, I began to think romance was for me!

Naughty Reader’s: Please share a bit about your new release Sweet Hell without giving away any spoilers.

Rosanna:  My hero in Sweet Hell is Dionysus, Greek god of wine and theater. He’s seen and done it all…especially women! But lately, his life is starting to feel like one long string of meaningless sexual escapades. Even worse, he is suddenly aroused by the idea of marriage. To top it all off, Josie Marino, the mouthy, disheveled, and eternally annoying woman who serves him coffee at the local bakery, sets him on fire.

Josie, a Toronto baker of Italian heritage, is not looking for love or lust. Especially not with Dionysus Iros, the most aggravating, demanding customer she'd ever had to serve. With his rippling muscles and sexy, knowing eyes, he's obviously trouble with a capital T. Unfortunately, he's also the star of her every X-rated dream. Josie determines she will not fall for his considerable physical charms, come hell or high water.

But Dionysus turns strangely protective when a sinister character arrives at Josie’s bakery, and they can no longer deny their unwanted feelings for one another. They are forced to embark on a bizarre, sexually-charged journey to hell itself, which threatens to either change them for the better, or destroy them.

Naughty Reader’s: Oh, he sure looks sexy on the cover! *Tonya and Brenda wonder what his eyes look like* Do you write under a pen name?

Rosanna:  I do! Rosanna Leo is my pen name, although Rosanna is my actual first name. Leo is my sign…roar!

Naughty Reader’s: What types of hero or heroine do you like best?

Rosanna:  As far as heroines, I prefer the nerdy, awkward ones. It’s pretty much what I write and what I relate to as well. I love the women who have never quite figured it all out, because neither have I. As far as heroes…well, they can be perfect, can’t they? Like everyone else, I like a sexy Alpha, but he has to have flaws too. And I love it when the collision of these two characters involves lots of laughs and lots of hot sex!

Naughty Reader’s: Tell us about a typical day in your life as a writer.

Rosanna:  Drop kids off at school, fill my mug with coffee and sit down. During the school year, I try to take advantage of the time the kids are busy. If I can write a good few hours in one sitting, I’m delirious. There’s no time in my schedule for writer’s block either. I force my Muse to come!

Naughty Reader’s: Do your books have a common theme or are they all different?

Rosanna: I write a lot about self-sacrifice for love and redemption. My heroes see something in my heroines that they’ve never encountered before, and are willing to give up everything for the women they love.

Naughty Reader’s: How long does it take you to write and then edit a story?

Rosanna: Each book is different. I wrote/edited For the Love of God and Sweet Hell in a matter of a few short months. Up In Flames and The Selkie both took a lot longer for some reason. I use an outline, but am also somewhat of a pantster, so sometimes the story changes unexpectedly. I try not to sweat it when it takes a little longer. It all works in the end.

Naughty Reader’s: Do you have to be alone to write?

Rosanna: I prefer it. My kids are sometimes flitting around, but I prefer to write when they’re at school or are occupied.  Just easier to think that way.

Naughty Reader’s: How do you go about naming characters?

Rosanna: Great question! I’ve kept a list of names I love for years! Seriously…I’ve had it since I was about 12 years old! I’m slowly working my way through that list. I do look at my characters’ traits however, in determining their names, and try to ensure the hero’s name sounds good with the heroine’s. Don’t want to throw an Ann and an Andy together! That might work for kids’ lit, but not romance!

Naughty Reader’s: Is it easier to write about the characters if you find pictures of them before you write or do you write then find character pictures?

Rosanna: I have always written my characters first.  I know a lot of authors find pics first, but I’ve never done that. I suppose no picture will ever quite add up to the image in my head.

Naughty Reader’s: How do you pick locations for your stories?

Rosanna: Well, I’m from Toronto, Canada and I’ve set many of my tales there. Toronto is a wonderful location: full of interesting shops and restaurants, it has multicultural neighborhoods and lots of interesting folks walking the streets. However, in my paranormal novels, we do sometimes wander into location such as Mount Olympus and Hades! 

Naughty Reader’s: What are you working on now and what should readers be looking forward to from you in the future?

Rosanna: I am working on another Greek god story, this one about the sexy Apollo! And my publisher Liquid Silver Books recently contracted another paranormal romance called The Selkie! It’s about mythological seal shape shifters from the Orkney Islands in Scotland…who are reputed to have devastating lovemaking abilities! Look for it soon!

Naughty Reader’s: ummm (big)O...verwhelming lovemaking. Sounds wicked. Where can readers find out more about you and your books?

Rosanna: Thank you Tonya and Brenda for the chat and the wine. My site links are below and I would love to do a giveaway of Sweet Hell: one PDF copy to one lucky commenter.

 Blog 

Facebook  

Twitter: @LeoRosanna 

Liquid Silver Books

Amazon Author Page

Goodreads

EXCERPT:

There were usually two men Josie Marino had contact with at the ungodly hour of five in the morning. Not good contact. Certainly not sweaty, chest-heaving, “take me, take me” contact. And definitely not contact with Petter, the Norwegian male model who lived next door.

Nah. That would have been too perfect, wouldn’t it?

Instead, most mornings, Josie had to settle for haggling with her two least favorite men on the planet. Nelson Tate, the deliveryman from her most important supplier. And Dionysus Iros. Worst. Customer. Ever.

Because of the business, she just had to put up with Nelson. He’d been delivering dry goods to her family bakery for years. Had known her parents, schmoozed with her brothers, and basically enjoyed making life hell for her. Not that he was a vicious sort. He was just far too handsy for her liking.

In the case of Dionysus, he was just an early bird and a womanizer. And couldn’t function without the coffee she brewed first thing in the morning. Invariably, he was already waiting for her when she got to the bakery each day.

Oh, joy of joys.

Not that he was a horrible person either. He just intimidated her with his unearthly good looks. Men like him, not that most men came close to looking like him, rattled her. They were best kept at a distance.

Dionysus was so bloody perfect; Josie wanted to shake him to see if she could muss his seemingly unmussable hair. Most days, though, she just contented herself with a lot of grumbling in his presence. He unnerved her, with his sexy brown eyes and long, dark waves of hair any woman would die for. To say nothing of his body… No, it was best not to say anything about that smoking body at all. She couldn’t help hating him, just a little. No man should look so divine at dawn, when she felt about as put together as a cavewoman.

To makes things worse, the man acted as if he were a Greek god. His parents, in a tragic case of bad judgment, had even named him after one. It was no wonder he was so obnoxious.

On this morning, too, he was waiting at the door when she got there. Looking as if he’d just tumbled off the cover of GQ, and the birds weren’t even up yet. At least today he didn’t have a sleepy bimbo on his arm, like he often did.

“Mr. Iros,” Josie drawled, yawning, as she unlatched the bakery door. “You’re losing your touch. I haven’t seen you with a woman in, what, forty-eight hours?” She pushed ahead of him into the bakery, catching the scent of wine on him.

God, how much did the man drink? She was sure he dabbed a little bit of the stuff behind his ears, and splashed it on his face instead of aftershave.

On any other man, the strange cologne would have been a red flag. An indication he drank more than coffee in the morning. But on this man, it just smelled delicious. As if the scent were his pheromone, oozing out of every pore, inviting her to mate with him. In very dirty ways.

He chuckled, low and deep, and sauntered in after her as if he owned the place. Within seconds, he was seated at his usual spot at Josie’s counter. “Just be a good girl and fetch my coffee.” He lowered his shades and peered at her through sensuous dark eyes that should have been bloodshot at that time of the morning, but weren’t. “And don’t forget. Make it a tall, half-skinny, half-one percent, extra hot, two shots decaf, two shots regular latte with whip. And exactly…”

“I know, I know,” she interrupted. “One hundred fifty degrees. Has it ever been anything less, Your Highness?” She pasted on her sweetest of smiles and turned to prepare the elixir of the gods. She heard him huff as he flipped open the day’s newspaper.

“No need to call me that, Josie. ‘My Lord’ or ‘He From Whom All Good Things Come’ will do just fine.”

She reached for the one percent milk, and contemplated tossing in some heavy, artery-clogging cream just to soften up some of his sculpted muscles. A man with that kind of body had to be on some sort of special diet. With that brawny physique he must spend hours a day at the gym and ingest copious amounts of protein powders.

She snuck a peek at the bulges rippling under his sleeves, turning her head sharply when he grinned.

It was one thing to look like God’s gift to women. It was another thing to act like it.

About Rosanna

Hi everyone!

I am a married mom of two wonderful boys who has been obsessed with romance literature ever since I read Jane Eyre in grade six.  Since then, I have been a sucker for a roguish smile, a knowing eye and an alpha male!

I grew up in Toronto, Canada and still live nearby.  I write every chance I get, and my head is filled with stories of Greek gods, vampires, and ethereally beautiful creatures.  I tried getting to Narnia through my bedroom closet when I was a kid, but that didn't work, so I started writing novels.

I am absolutely thrilled that Liquid Silver Books has picked up my first four novels, and look forward to submitting many more.  You can reach my fabulous publisher at www.liquidsilverbooks.com

Join me on this romantic adventure!