WELCOME GUEST BLOGGER: Maya Banks

The Guilty Indulgence Bloggers met Maya Banks at the 2010 Reader Appreciation Weekend in West Virginia last month. The event was great and she was interesting to talk with so after reading her newest release, The Darkest Hour, we asked her a bunch of questions and her answers are below. We hope you enjoy getting to know her as much as we did!

This series is a change from your other book themes. What made you decide to write a romantic suspense?
I actually conceived of Ethan and Rachel’s story and the idea of the series several years ago when I was still unpublished. At the time I had plans to submit it to Silhouette’s Intimate Moments line (before it became Silhouette Romantic Suspense) but at the time I was writing historicals and trying to become published with historicals and then that fell through and I took some time off to re-invent myself. I then became published in contemporary erotic romance but Ethan and Rachel stayed with me and I kept going back to the story and I knew that I one day wanted to at least TRY to get it published. It was a matter of waiting for the right time. Luckily for me, my editor at Berkley read and loved the proposal and wanted to buy the series, so now 7 years after I began writing their story, it’s FINALLY being told :) There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing a long time dream finally come true :)

Which Kelly brother is your favorite? Will there be a book about each of them?
That’s really hard to answer because they are all intriguing to me. I have a real soft spot for Donovan and while I won’t be doing his story next, I can’t wait to write about him! Yes, eventually I plan to do stories for all the brothers but they won’t be in consecutive order ;)

Did you do a lot of research for The Darkest Hour?
Research for this series was fun. I set it in a place I’m intimately familiar with. I used to live in Tennessee in the exact area where the Kellys live and I spent MANY a day on Kentucky Lake. I love “going” to places and it was fun researching some of the locations that they traveled, pulling out maps, finding out little details etc.

Your vague in the book about why Rachel is frightened of Sam. Can you explain?
I wasn’t purposely vague. I hint at the beginning that Rachel herself is unsure of why he frightened her and she thinks that perhaps it’s because he was the one who first burst into her hut and she thought she was going to die. The main reason was simply because she didn’t remember him and he is the oldest and “ringleader” or sorts, he had a more forceful personality that Donovan, who she was also way around. Ethan and Garrett were the only two she had vague memories of so she clung to those two more out of necessity as she attempted to regain her bearings in a large, boisterous family.

Close-knit families are a common theme in many of your books. Can you talk about the importance of your own family in your life?
I love writing about the sense of family and the security involved when you have a tightly knit, loving and very loyal family. I’m very close to my own immediate family. I have three children and my husband and I pretty much revolve around our unit. We do everything together and until recently when I began traveling more for my writing, we never did anything separately.

Have you ever written a character that resembled yourself somehow?
Definitely no. It’s fun to take one character trait and I mean a very small quirk and incorporate it into some of my heroines or even heroes. Like in Into the Mist, the heroine loves orange M&Ms and she picks them out. My heroine in an upcoming book, Sweet Possession loves cupcakes :) I take little quirks like that and will usually give one to a character per book just as a little secret laugh for me.

What is your personal indulgence?
Books. Definitely books. I know that sounds cliché, but from the time I was very young, books have always been my comfort item. My family didn’t even own a television until I was 16 so my childhood was spent reading voraciously. To this day I still don’t prefer to watch TV and I generally don’t have a clue what the popular shows are. My daughter loves medical mystery shows like Mystery Diagnosis. She also loves Pet Detectives and the animal rescue shoes so I’ll watch with her sometime. Books are the one thing I spend money on both for myself and my family without any guilt :)

CONTEST ALERT!!!


If you would like to own one of Maya Bank's books, leave a comment. We will draw names at random for a chance to win one of her books. Minimum three (3) winners. Entries will be accepted through 8:00am EST Friday, October 8th. Must be a follower so we can contact you if you win.