Molly Harper – Author of Nice Girls and Naked Werewolf Series

We’re talking today with Molly Harper, the author of the outrageous Jane Jameson/Nice Girl Series, the Naked Werewolf Series, and her new upcoming contemporary story, My Bluegrass Baby.

Thank you for talking with us today about your various series. I have been absolutely loving your Jane Jameson/Nice Girls series. I have been listening in the car on my way to work and have been laughing so much I believe several people have reported a crazy woman on the bridge.

Sorry about that. Apparently, I ruin public transportation for a lot of people.

Have you always known you wanted to be a writer?

There was a brief period when I wanted to be a mad scientist. My mom loves telling people this. Not just a scientist, but a MAD scientist. But yes, writing and making up stories was my first love. Both of my parents are big readers, so I couldn’t have grown up in a more supportive environment for it. My dad, in particular, writes absolutely lovely letters, so it’s clear where I get the mechanics. Mom is the source of all things funny. I didn’t think I could make it as an author, so I decided to become a newspaper reporter. I’m the first writer in the family, so it was one of those situations where my parents didn’t really know HOW I was going to go about making a career for myself, but they rolled up their sleeves and helped me find the resources to make it happen. (Looking into journalism schools, touring campuses, helping me find an apartment when I lived in other cities while interning.)

I have been talking up your Nice Girls series to whoever I see. Can you tell everyone who hasn’t heard me already a little about Jane Jameson and her friends in Half Moon Hollow?

Jane Jameson is the every-girl’s vampire. She’s an absolutely normal person who happens to have fangs and is dropped in this bizarre world of the undead, werewolves and ghosts. All the while, she is trying to continue living in the small Kentucky town where she grew up. She’s always in trouble of some kind, but thanks to the friends she’s made, she manages to get through with humor and very little grace.

I just finished Nice Girls Don’t Bite their Neighbors and I have to know, is that the last time we’ll be seeing Jane, Gabriel and the gang? (If so, I am going to sneak off into the corner and weep quietly to myself.)

No, if you look up my list of titles, you’ll find DRIVING MR. DEAD, THE UNDEAD IN MY BED, THE CARE AND FEEDING OF STRAY VAMPIRES, and THE WITCH’S GUIDE TO KISSES AND CURSES. These are all spin-offs to the NICE GIRLS series and Jane and Company make frequent appearances. They’re particularly active in THE WITCH’S GUIDE, which will be released in May 2013.

I have just downloaded the audiobooks for your Naked Werewolf series. Where the Nice Girl series focuses on Jane, these appear to feature different people/werewolves in each story. Is that correct?

Yes, the characters live in a fictional town in Alaska populated by a large werewolf pack. The first book focuses on Mo, a woman who moves from Mississippi to Alaska to get away from her intrusive hippie parents, and sort of stumbles into werewolf Cooper Graham and his pack drama. The second book follows Cooper’s sister, Maggie, as she assumes control of the pack and defends its secrets from a paranormal investigator, Nick Thatcher. And the third book, which should be coming out next year, follows a Graham cousin and the pack’s doctor.

You have a new series which releases today (December 18th) which is a contemporary series and the first book is called My Bluegrass Baby. Besides the lack of paranormal creatures, what can you tell us about this new series?

I am my agent, Stephany’s, first client from Kentucky. She’s oddly fascinated by my state’s quirks and she frequently sends me links to news stories like, “Kentucky man eats own beard on a dare” with the subject line, CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS? She told me I had to find a way to fit all this weirdness into a book, so I came up with a series about people working in a Kentucky tourism promotions office. The first, MY BLUEGRASS BABY, is about Sadie, who expects to be promoted to the office’s director position, only to find that outsider Josh has been hired instead. To settle her objections, Sadie’s boss suggests a competition to determine who gets the position. Pranks, semi-nudity and encounters of angry marsupials ensue.

In 2013, you have a new book coming out featuring witches. Is A Witches Handbook of Kisses and Curses the first of a new series or is it a stand alone book?

See above.

Can you tell us a little about your heroine, Nola McGavick?

Nola is an Irish witch with a close connection to Jane, Dick and the gang. She comes to the Hollow searching for four magical artifacts hidden within Jane’s shop before a rival magical family beats her to it. Complication One: Her grandfather was Mr. Wainwright and the artifacts are lost somewhere in what is now Jane Jameson’s book shop. Complication Two: her new neighbor, Jed Trudeau, who keeps turning up half naked at the strangest times, a distraction Nola doesn’t need. And teaming up with a real-life Adonis is as dangerous as it sounds, especially when he’s got the face of an angel and the abs of a washboard—can Nola complete her mission before falling completely under his spell?

Thank you so much for talking with us today about your series. I am looking forward to seeing more and more from you in the future.

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We have a special treat–a reprint of Molly’s Jane Jameson/Nice Girls short story, Nice Girls Don’t Sign a Lease without a Wedding Ring. This Jane Jameson story was released between Books 3 and Books 4.

See our reviews of Molly Harper’s series:

Nice Girl’s Don’t Have Fangs.

How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf

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My mother remembers an 8-year-old me setting up my “writing office” in our living room by putting her old manual typewriter on the couch next to a toy phone. And I (very slowly) pecked out the story of my third-grade class taking a trip around the world and losing a kid in each city.

I had a dark sense of humor, even then.

In high school, when other girls my age were writing poems about dying unicorns and bleeding roses, I was writing essays about having political arguments with my dad at the dinner table. (Whoever made the other person laugh at their own political party won the argument.) I knew I wanted to write when I grew up, but I also knew there was very little chance I could make a living writing books, so I went for the next best thing – newspaper writing.

I majored in print journalism at Western Kentucky University and used my shiny new degree to get a job at my hometown newspaper. I married my high school sweetheart, David, a local police officer.

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