SERIES: The Paranormal DownUnder - Maree Anderson

In Australia, 2012 is the National Year of Reading. What better way to celebrate this than by finding a new-to-you author or revisiting a favorite one?

This series of blog posts, entitled The Paranormal DownUnder, aims to do just that!

Any of my regular readers know I'm passionate about introducing 'local' talent (aka authors from Australia & New Zealand). This time around I'm keen to feature those who write in this genre.

So, be prepared for a swag of authors & some blatant promotion of their books as they share their thoughts on the paranormal genre and why they find it so compelling.

Please welcome this week's guest...

Maree Anderson is an award-winning author who writes paranormal romance, sci-fi, fantasy, and young adult books. She's a Kiwi, a New Zealander, and she's addicted to chocolate -- the darker the better. Not to mention coffee, and the occasional glass of excellent NZ wine. She's not quite so addicted to her local gym -- she'd much rather do an hour's karate class and go Ceroc dancing than pound the treadmill.

She shares her home with a neurotic cat who likes to bring in the neighbour's dog's bones, and a depressed goldfish who likes to scare her by lying at the bottom of the fish-tank and playing dead.

To date Maree has published three novellas, six novels, and one young adult novel. She's currently working on the sequel to her multi-award-winning YA featuring a teenage cyborg heroine, Freaks of Greenfield High.

For reviews and excerpts of Maree's books, please visit the BOOKS page of
her website.

What compels you to write in the paranormal genre?
My imagination and thought processes are naturally skewed toward paranormal/fantasy. I've tried re-ee-ally hard to write a "straight" story but somehow it never turns out the way I intended.

My attempt at a Regency romance, for example, turned into an alternate-world historical fantasy (with a virgin hero raised in a fanatically religious world where chastity is prized, who woke up one morning to find himself exuding pheromones that made him irresistible to women).

And my contemporary category story about a lawyer and a secretary, turned into a story about an architect and an interior designer who was unaware she was a part-time cat shifter. Go figure. So I guess for me, the lure of the impossible is too great and it's easier to embrace my warped, twisty-turny imagination and just run with it.

Is there something you'd like to write but have yet to attempt?
Ummm.... the aforementioned straight contemporary story with no paranormal or fantasy aspect whatsoever? Seriously, one day I would like to write a really gritty urban fantasy series a la Lilith Saintcrow, Devon Monk, or Karen Marie Moning.

Who are auto-buys for you in this genre? What makes their books so appealing to you?
Nalini Singh, Lilith Saintcrow, Rachel Caine, Sarah Rees Brennan, Holly Black, Ilona Andrews.... the list goes on and on and on!

I think for me the main appeal is the skill with which my favourite authors maintain an ongoing series so it's always fresh and exciting, even if the "world" and the characters are already established. With Nalini's Psy-Changeling books, for example, I love the way my favourite characters from previous books are interwoven into subsequent books in the series so I can catch up with how they're doing, and that there's an ongoing thread throughout the books hinging around the identity of the Ghost.

Lilith Saintcrow's Dante Valentine and Jill Kismet series focussed one heroine throughout the entire series, which meant I could follow the heroine's growth, the way she changed, her relationships with the other characters, over the course of 5 or 6 books before the series ended.

Bottom line? I love reading series! Each time a new book in a series I'm collecting comes out, I will invariably hold off reading the latest book, and re-read the entire series before indulging in my latest purchase. Bliss!

Some of Maree's books:

  
For more information about Maree & her other books, go to her website.