Good morning, Maya. Thank you for coming to speak to us this morning about your many, many novels and especially your latest release which is Book #1 of the Tangled Hearts Trilogy, Theirs to Keep.
I must say that every time I walk into a bookstore or order an eBook there always seems to be a new Maya Banks story on display.
I guess my first question to you would be, do you ever sleep?
LOL that’s a good question and the answer is not much! I work a LOT of hours, especially when I’m close to a deadline. It’s definitely not a 9-5 job for me. I write all hours of the day!
Have you always had a passion for writing?
Absolutely, although I never imagined having a career as an author. I wasn’t one of those people who said I want to be an author when I grow up simply because that seemed an unobtainable goal! But I wrote from a very early age and did so for my own enjoyment. It wasn’t until I was in my late twenties that I decided to actually make a career out of it.
You also seem to have a passion for the outdoors.
Oh definitely. My husband and I both share a love of hunting and fishing and our favorite vacation places are in the mountains or in some rural far flung place away from crowds and people 🙂
I saw on your Facebook page a very interesting fact. Your original story in this Tangled Hearts trilogy was Always Mine, which will be Book #2 of the series, and you had originally written as a stand alone story, but you knew it wasn’t coming together the way you wanted. Once you finally realized that the whole story would need to be told in a trilogy, you were able to complete the stories.
Yes this was a story that I REALLY struggled with when it was simply one book. I just couldn’t make it work! And when I finally had the epiphany that it needed to be more than one book then the story just came together beautifully!
With all your many, many book, you make storytelling look easy. Does it happen to you from time to time that you start out with what you feel is a good character or storyline and it just doesn’t come out the way you originally planned? I have heard authors say that sometimes a character fights them and they can’t get their story out.
Oh definitely. I’ve started a story thinking that it would go one way only to discover within the course of the story that it turns out completely different. Thankfully my editor trusts me and accepts the “changes” I sometimes make to a story and its plot.
I love reading your writing because you bring out such passion in your characters, and I don’t just mean sexually. There is always an intensity to your characters. One of my favorites of your series is the KGI series. In PJ’s story, Shades of Gray, I as a reader felt as pained and as helpless as the KGI team that they had to listen to her being attacked when their mission goes bad. But I do want to know why in Books #4 and Book #5 you added an element of the supernatural in what was basically military series? Now, that’s not a complaint. I felt the intensity of Nathan and Shea’s connection in Whispers in the Dark when Shea used her psychic abilities to protected Nathan from the torture and gave him support during his imprisonment. I was as anxious as Nathan for their first meeting.
I knew from the very beginning of the KGI series that I would have that psychic element in Whispers in the Dark and Echoes at Dawn. I discussed it very early on with my editor to make sure she was on board because these were stories that were very solid in my head and I HAD to write them. Thankfully she was on board and I got to write those two stories. I can’t imagine those two stories WITHOUT that psychic element.
Looking at all your series, who is your favorite characters to write? The highlanders, the cowboys or the billionaires?
That’s a hard question because what I love most about writing about all those different characters and storylines is the ability never to have to write the same thing two times in a row. It keeps it fresh and interesting for me so I love them ALL because of the variety it gives me as an author. I would be bored silly if all I had to write was one genre and one type of story.
Thank you so much for stopping by to speak to us about your new Tangled Hearts series and your other great stories. We’ll be looking out for the remaining Tangled Hearts books as well as your 2014 Surrender series. (Really, do you ever sleep?)
Haha, nope! I don’t sleep a LOT anyway. And I hope you’ll enjoy all my upcoming releases! I work very hard to keep my readers supplied in yummy Maya Banks books 🙂
Escaping into the pages of a book is something she’s loved to do since she was a child. Now she crafts her own worlds and characters and enjoys spending as much time with them as possible. A southern girl born and bred, she loves life below the Mason Dixon, and more importantly, loves bringing southern characters and settings to life in her stories.
She lives in southeast Texas with her husband, three children and assortment of pets. When she’s not writing, she loves to hunt and fish, bum on the beach, play poker and travel.
Maya’s Website Maya Banks
Facebook page: Author Maya Banks
Twitter: Maya_Banks
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