Very special interview with a very special author: Poppet

I'm so excited today as I have the most awesome author with me!! Poppet is the author of numerous vampire novels, (and some pretty scary ones too!). But she has just launched TWO YA novels! YAY! I have them on my Kindle and I can't wait to read them (I'm saving them for when my virtual tour is finished and my mind is calm as I want to relish them!).

Hey Poppet! Can you tell us a little about your latest book.

My newest books came out a few weeks apart as I wrote them the wrong way around. I started writing Indigo Vamporium, was midway when the second book wouldn't give me peace, so I wrote that (Scarlet Vamporium) and then went back to complete Indigo Vamporium. I released Scarlet earlier than Indigo on fan request. So to me these two books feel like 'my latest book' as a unit.
Indigo Vamporium takes my adult series and characters and examines the vampyre family as teenagers. Seithe was the first book in the vampyre series, so I set Indigo Vamporium in the same city to give it continuity as the book revolves around Seithe coming to terms with his abilities and trying to perfect his own abilities. He has a lot of responsibility on his young shoulders and doesn't get on well with his guardian; his father's brother Venix.
In IV he has to dive for hidden halos, has a close call with a ghost ship out on the high seas, is sent into the Vamporium alone to battle the scourge of the underworld, and falls for a local human girl, Tasmin. Ellindt, his twin sister, is on a mission to engage human love and redemption and does what most girls her age do, this has her uncle banishing her to Scotland to stay with her aunt for punishment, severing the close bond Ellindt and Seithe have had since birth. It all falls apart for Seithe and it gets ten times worse when the karma collector kidnaps his human girlfriend.
Book 2, Scarlet Vamporium, follows 17 year old Ellindt as a foreigner in Glencoe, where she meets a wonderful varsity crush. Luckily for her Douglas believes in monsters and beasties because Scotland is rich in tales of the Fey, (the Seelie and Unseelie courts), loch monsters, and has a unicorn as their national animal. It's a match made in heaven, until her family interferes.

What inspired you to write it?My fans, they have families, teens, and I wanted them to be able to talk about the same characters together :) I asked them first if I did it, would they be interested - the answer was a resounding yes.

Is it part of a series?
Yes

If your latest book was made into a movie, who would you like to play the main characters?
That's a really hard one. I have no clue (to be honest). I don't allow myself to dream that big. I pay it no attention and feed it no energy. I can say this, I've always thought it would be nice IF one of my books made it to the big screen, that it would give an unknown the lucky break they needed (so whoever they are we haven't heard of them just yet).

What made you want to become an author?
I like telling stories. It's something I did even as a child (to my friends). It fell away when life and responsibility impressed that this is not a career but a dream reserved for the select few. I started writing part time in 1996, it became a routine, I followed the rules, I went to agents, editors, did my bit, got published in many publications to gain writing credibility, but it was only when I was paralyzed that I thought it might be the answer to a new career because it was something I could do from home - s.l.o.w.l.y

Name one of your all-time favourite book covers? 
My own or someone else's? My favorite cover you'll not know. Author Berni Palmer had it as the cover to her book on Authonomy (a website run by Harper Collins), which is where I met her. Her vampire novel caught my eye and I loved it and fell in love with the genre all over again. She is a professional book cover designer and the cover for Fledgling just oozed Gothic appeal. Unfortunately her publisher didn't let her use that cover :(
Of my own, Quislings is my favorite cover.

Name one book that made you think 'wow'? Why did it have such an effect on you?
Charles de Lint's Spiritwalk. I love his work, he marries mythology, legend, and fantasy together seamlessly in a modern urban world. It kept me up reading, and I read the series in reverse, only then finding out it was book 2. He fires my imagination, my heart, my hopes, my belief there is more to this planet than meets the eye. (I've read those books over and over and over again)

Who, or what, inspires you?
Bees, butterflies, waves, ants... they never give up, they're so industrious, and they'll find a way around any problem.

Where is your favourite place to write?
My desk.

What is your favourite movie that was based on a book?
The Matrix - it was based on a book, but the author had to force them to acknowledge that in court (she won) as it was a submission and not in print at that time. I have other favorite movies but I don't know if they were based on books: Constantine and Strange Days being two of them.

Who are your favourite authors and why?
Charles de Lint - the reason above. I also like books that can make me sweat bullets, that ice my blood, and make me nervous over every noise and shadow, authors of such novels are hard to find.

If you could have a dinner party with any authors from any time in history, who would you choose and why?
I'd like to speak to the apostles over their random ravings in the world's most popular best seller. I'd have them to dinner, and they'd all have to be happy without wine or meat at my table :D

Tell us a random fact about yourself.
That's a hard one (where to begin even answering that?) I bake really well. I invent my own recipes and hope to one day release my own collection.

Tell us something interesting about the area where you live.
It has thunderstorms daily throughout summer, which makes writing on a computer (not a laptop) hell. I swear at the weather regularly when I'm in mid writing flow and I have to switch everything off and unplug because the lightning and the deluge and canon blasts are on top of me.

My links:
Twitter: @AuthorPoppet
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Poppet/197111090356326
http://authorpoppet.wordpress.com
http://authorpoppet.weebly.com

Thank you, Poppet for such a wonderful interview! It's lovely to get to know you just that little but better! :)