BURNED Q & A - Karen Marie Moning

Q. Was the release date for BURNED really moved?

A. Yes.  The release date for BURNED has been moved to April 2014.

Q. Why?

A. I won’t put a book out until I’m satisfied I’ve written it the best way possible.  I’m currently exploring two different ways of continuing the series. Previously I told you there would be three books (ICED, BURNED and FLAYED) in the Dani series followed by two Mac & Barrons books. I may be combining the next four books (BURNED, FLAYED and the untitled M&B books) into two.

Q.  Is Dani older in BURNED?

A1.  Crimeny, is it really all about sex?

Q.  Yes. Now answer my question.

A2.  Although Dani is 14 at the beginning of BURNED, she does mature by the end of the book.  Someone asked if she would be 17. I said possibly.

Q.  Will we get anyone else’s POV in BURNED? 

A.  Yes.  Among others, Mac is back!  Which means JZB is, too (but don’t expect his POV, LOL.) To those of you who insisted Mac and Barrons would never have let Dublin get iced because they’re natural born heroes, therefore they should have been on stage and on page…. what did Barrons say? “The world can wait. I can’t.”  But seriously, there are reasons you didn’t see them in ICED. There are reasons you will see them in BURNED. 

Q. Is Ryodan Dani’s dad?

A. No.  No.  No.

Q. Is Dani’s father relevant?

A. No.

Q.  Do you write about pedophiles?

A. No.  I write about life. I write with verisimilitude. I write about men who look at a 14-year old superhero woman-child (who is also an assassin—where is the moral outrage over that? Priorities, the UK would say, get some) and can see the women she will become one day.  I write about men who will do anything to keep her alive long enough to become it—even knowing they may never be the one lucky enough to get her.  I write about men who know that being gentle and making pleasant requests of a young woman who is stronger, faster, smarter and has more balls than pretty much everyone on the planet would be as effective as trying to chisel a sculpture from stone using feathers. Ryodan never lusts over Dani.  Dancer never lusts over Dani.  Christian has a few very realistic death-by-sex Fae moments but there is no question he is drawn to her “light’and her ‘innocence’ not the skull and crossbone panties he glimpses when she is freezing to death that ‘charms’ him.  Not turns him on. Charms him.  Do they have hard dicks?  The 9 and death-by-sex Fae always have hard dicks. The wind blows.They breathe. It’s that simple.  I was 13 when I first noticed a man looking at me like he wanted to have sex with me. How old were you? Although I didn’t act on it for a long time after that, I remember to this day being thrilled by it. Exhilarated. I was becoming a woman. Dani is an odd duck: raised by TV she has seen everything the world has to offer but experienced very little of it. She gets the actions, not the emotions. Yet.

Part of what may have been difficult for any readers who felt disturbed by the way I wrote the characters in ICED is this:  I have always given my reader a way in to the men, a heroine through which the reader could connect on a sexual and romantic level to the Alpha males I write.  ICED is the first book I’ve written that does not do that. I gave you no mature eyes through which to experience romance (of which there is none yet.)  There is no woman in ICED through which you can comfortably lust after my Alphas. Yet. Stay with me.  Keep the faith. This made it difficult for some readers who tried to view the Alphas through Dani’s vantage and felt an ‘ick’ factor.  Well, stop it!  You weren’t supposed to do that anyway, LOL.

Q.  What’s up with Jo? I can’t stand her.  She doesn’t deserve Ryodan.  And Ryodan shouldn’t be sleeping with her if he wants to one day be with Dani!

A. Can I please not be nailed to stand-alone romance novel clichés from the 90’s?  (Which I love to read by the way.) Really, is Ryodan the kind of…whatever he is….that would in any way be governed by them?  And Jo—who among you wouldn’t walk up those stairs if you got his nod?  She’s completely frank about knowing that she’s never going to keep him. She’s making a memory.

Transformation is what I find fascinating and emotionally stirring about life.  It’s what we become, how we become it, what happens when we think we’ve got nothing left inside us then stumble across some inner beast we didn’t even know was crouching in there that can rise to any occasion. No, Jo isn’t in Ryodan’s league and maybe Ryodan is currently being a jackass.  Those are starting points. Just like Darkfever was a starting point.  I haven’t forgotten that many people demanded I stop writing that new “horrible” series immediately, because they hated Mac and thought JZB was old and unattractive.

I’m glad I didn’t listen.  I hope you are, too.

Q.  What is the hardest part about writing?

A.  Stopping at the end of the day.  Making myself sleep.

Q. Will we learn more about the 9?

A. Yes but probably never as much as you think you’d like.

Q. Will everything eventually be answered?

A. God, I hope so. Life confuses the crap out of me.  :)


                  Q&A re-posted from KMM Facebook Page