Good afternoon! I’m delighted to have NYT and USA Today best-selling author Lexi Post here with me today. The characters in her books heat up the pages, and the plot draws you in from the beginning.

Lexi Post is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of sensuous romance inspired by the classics. She spent years in higher education taking and teaching courses about the literature she loved while reading her favorite romance authors. It wasn’t long before she decided to marry her two first loves. From hot paranormals to sizzling cowboys to hunks from out of this world, Lexi provides a steamy read with a “whole lotta story.”

Lexi is living her own happily ever after with her husband and her cat in Florida. She makes ice cream every weekend, loves bright colors, and you will never see her without a hat.

You can find Lexi at lexipostbooks.com and sign up for her monthly newsletter at http://eepurl.com/D3MqT

Greetings, Lexi! Thanks for joining me today.
Thank you for having me, Jennifer. It’s great to chat with a fellow writer.
Back to Masque: You write, as you describe on your wonderful website, “romance inspired by the classics.” My husband and I are reading Masque, which is a romance based on the Edgar Allan Poe story, Masque of the Red Death. Lexi, would you like to add to that?
I’d be happy to. I use the word “inspired” because I don’t re-tell the classic story, I am inspired by it. So with Masque I was inspired by Poe’s Red Death character, the abbey and its 7 colored rooms and the fact that everyone died. I took Red Death and made him a well-meaning hero who had wanted to open the mind of his friend the Prince, but then everything went wrong. His guilt drives him and makes him willing to do anything to help the ghosts cross over.
With my most recent release, Eden Discovered (The Eden Series Book #3), I chose an Emily Dickinson poem. Actually, the whole series is inspired by Dickinson’s poems, and she was the first High Poetess of Eden, or at least in my stories she was 😉 I chose Dickinson’s poem “The Goal” as my inspiration and it applies to the heroine, whose goal was to find love, the hero who loved a woman he couldn’t have, another hero who wanted to hold onto the past, and a hero who was ready for a new relationship. I know, a lot of goals, but with three men and one woman involved, there tends to be a lot going on both inside and outside the bedroom 😉
And that’s how I am inspired by the classics. I read the story, poem, novel, whatever, and my mind goes off, taking a few elements from the original to spin a whole new tale. While the original tends to end badly, I guarantee a happy ending to my stories. I joke that classic literature drove me to read and write romance, so I could enjoy a happy ending 😉
Here’s the back cover blurb for Masque:
Rena Mills plans to turn an abandoned abbey into a haunted bed-and-breakfast to prove she can be successful without her ex-fiancé. What she finds inside is Synn MacAllistair, the distinguished, self-proclaimed Ghost Keeper. Her dreams soon fill with sexual cravings for him. But are they dreams?

Synn, born in 1828, is determined to free the souls of the resident spirits, blaming himself for bringing the Red Death that killed them. When Rena steps into the old Pleasure Palace, he’s sure he can take her through the after-midnight Pleasure Rooms and stoke her passion to complete the Masque so the souls can cross over. Her innocent fire makes him crave more, but it’s far too late for him.

As Rena begins her erotic journey, her heart becomes more involved with every sensual caress until she discovers by completing the Masque she would lose her ghosts. Synn’s betrayal wars with her compassion for her ghostly friends. Torn, she must make a choice between her financial security and freeing seventy-three trapped souls. Either way, she could lose her Synn.

We have something in common: we both love to dance. Tell me about your love of dance. Favorite music to dance to? What kinds of dance do you enjoy?
I’ve been dancing since I was six years old. I took ballet for nineteen years, and of course, added tap and jazz to the mix. After finishing up my classes in grad school, I continued to be on the lookout for other types of dance from Ballroom to Scottish Country Dance to Hip Hop. I took every class I could, just for fun. Now I’m currently into line dancing. It’s great exercise, so lately I’ve been listening to Alan Jackson, Trace Atkins, Laura Bell Bundy, etc. But I love all kinds of music from Classical to Rock and Roll as long as I can dance to it.

Let’s play a game called “the Moment When…
Where were you and what were you doing the moment when …you decided to write steamy romance?
I had already decided to try my hand at steamy but wasn’t sure how to make my books unique from all the rest out there. I was sitting in my secretary’s office chatting when I told her my idea of possibly using classic literature as my inspiration. They say “write what you know” and I know the classics :-} She thought it was a great idea, but I was seriously concerned about Nathaniel Hawthorne rolling over in his grave. I mean, seriously, because I had so much respect for the classic authors, having come from a background of studying them. By the time I got home from work though, my mind was set on it and Passion’s Poison was written inspired by Hawthorne’s story “Rappaccini’s Daughter.”

Tell us about the moment when… you got your first contract.
You never forget your first 😉 I was living on St. Croix, a Caribbean island in the Atlantic time zone, and it was early morning when the email came in with the offer for Masque. My husband was already at the Coast Guard station and he had told me they were doing an offshore inspection, which meant calling him was out of the question. So I called my long time critique partner. The only problem was, in my excitement I forgot about the four hour time zone difference between us. Luckily, she gets up early to write before going to work, but her husband doesn’t. She thought something terrible had happened, but once I explained, she understood and celebrated quietly with me 😉

The moment when you hit the NYT Bestseller List.
That was just amazing! And so much fun. Actually, I wasn’t expecting it because I had heard rumors that the New York Times wasn’t including boxed sets on its lists anymore. The news actually came from Kathryn Falk of Romantic Times who gave us the heads-up because as an industry professional, she gets the inside scoop early. I hit the list in a boxed set with 11 other romance authors, so it was one big online party! We were celebrating together virtually, sharing copies of the list and planning how to celebrate at home. It was awesome! And then we got to do it again with the next boxed set!

How do you celebrate your milestones?

With ice cream, what else? Then again, I celebrate Sundays with ice cream too :-} Oh, and I dance. Not just the happy dance, but put on the music and really dance. I have to because I need to release all that excited, happy energy!

Let’s say you have to write a steamy scene. If the writer part of your brain says, “not tonight, I have a headache,” how do you turn your mood around to write those hot scenes we all love?

I don’t. A forced steamy scene just doesn’t work. I will go back and read about 10 pages leading up to the scene and if my brain still isn’t willing, then I don’t write the scene and work on other things. There’s plenty to do between advertising, reader relations, research, etc. My steamy scenes take me 3 times longer to write than my other scenes, so it’s important they come out right. Of course, my hubby is always willing to get me in the mood in the name of “research” 😉

Yes, they’re handy for that! Do you ever listen to music to inspire and move you?

No. I need complete silence. I relate to music only through dance. That may be hard for most people to understand, but unless I’m dancing, I won’t listen to it. I don’t even turn on the radio in my truck when I’m driving. I come up with solutions to story problems when I’m driving.

What’s your favorite thing about being an author?

I like everything about being an author: the joy of the first draft, the challenge of revisions, the final read-through, the marketing, the social media, etc. But my favorite part is chatting with readers in person or online. It’s so fun to meet readers and find out what they like, where they are from, and what their lives are like.

What’s your latest news?

My latest book just released yesterday! It’s Eden Discovered which I mentioned earlier and it’s the 3rd book in the Eden series (Crusie into Eden and Unexpected Eden). I just love returning to this world, which is the planet Eden and is inhabited by naked hunks with special abilities depending on which Kindred they are born into. Every Earth woman who is “chosen” must become the beloved of at least two men. In this book, Jaelene has three men interested, which is a surprise to her. She tends to ask a lot of questions and has a real soft spot for animals, which leads her into trouble on Eden.

Here’s the blurb:
Animal lover Jaelene Upton doesn’t expect to lose sight of her sister when she follows her through a bizarre travel portal, but that’s exactly what happens when she’s distracted by a cute baby porcupine. Lost, she asks for directions, only to be nearly assaulted by one naked man before being saved by another. Her best guess is she’s landed among a native tribe in the middle of a jungle…but odd reflections and energy sources have her questioning even that assumption.
Theron misses his home in Loraleaf and the brothers of his heart, Konala and Rekah. His new home, a lonely cave, is his escape from seeing the woman he loves happily bonded to Loraleaf’s leaders. When he saves Jaelene from lawbreakers, he finds himself drawn to her intoxicating curiosity and despite his best efforts, he falls for her. But no matter what his heart wants, he can’t offer her anything but safety and a reunion with her sister. Unless…
If Theron can interest Konala in Jaelene as well, then he would only have two more obstacles to conquer, Rekah and Jaelene herself. But Rekah, hurt by Theron’s betrayal, wants nothing to do with Jaelene, and when she discovers Theron’s past love, she refuses to be his consolation price. As the battle with the lawbreakers grows near, Theron realizes this time, he may well lose more than his heart.
Buy links here: http://www.lexipostbooks.com/eden-discovered/

To celebrate my release of Eden Discovered, I’m giving away a Venetian mask of a black cat with gold. Since Masque I’ve always given away these beautiful masks made in Italy and since Theron’s tigran, Talia plays an important role in Eden Discovered, this mask seemed fitting 😉 Be sure to enter the Rafflecopter for a chance to win!

Thanks so much for joining me today, Lexi.

Thank you for having me! We’ll have to do lunch again sometime and this time we can talk about you! 😉

It was a great conversation, and I always get so inspired after I talk to you. Congrats on your new release!

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