Adrian Phoenix: A Rush of Wings

Details:

Title:  A Rush of Wings (Amazon | B&N) 
Author:  Adrian Phoenix (Author Website)
Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Pocket
ISBN-10: 1416541446

The Interview:

1. First off, congratulations on the big novel sale! Give us the elevator pitch. What’s your book about?

Thanks so much! A RUSH OF WINGS is a riveting, fast-paced story of betrayal, shattered beliefs and blackest secrets as Special Agent Heather Wallace trails a serial-killing sexual sadist to New Orleans. An unexpected twist leads her to Dante, gorgeous, talented and vampire, and the killer’s next target. Heather tumbles into a deadly moonlit world of vampires, fallen angels and hidden experiments in sociopathology. Caught in a web of deception stretching to the Bureau and beyond, Heather runs a desperate race – against time, against other agents, even against her own deepening feelings – to keep Dante alive, but she can’t save him from his own stolen past or his destiny.

2. Most new novelists have an interesting story to tell about their journey to publication. What’s yours? Did you use an agent? Make sure to tell us about the day you found out you’d sold a book.

I’m not sure my story is all that interesting. I landed an agent first, Matt Bialer with Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. He was looking for a vampire novel, I’d just written one. I didn’t realize he’d accepted me as a client until I received a message from him saying he’d sent the novel out to eight houses. LOL. He sold the manuscript to Pocket in a two-book deal on June 21, 2006, the summer solstice and two days after I’d been in a car accident. I was on my way into work when I found out about the sale. Lots of pogoing and squealing and I forgot (briefly) all about my car accident owies.

3. Do you have another book in the pipeline? What are you working on now?

Yes, I’m currently finishing up the revisions my editor requested on book 2, a sequel to A RUSH OF WINGS – titled IN THE BLOOD (though that could change). Then I’ll be submitting proposals for books 3 and 4. I also hope to complete my dark fantasy novel about John Keats.

4. What’s your writing process like? Morning writer, night writer, or something in between?

I write every night after work and on weekends. I figure it’s like working two jobs, with the hopes that one day, my writing will be the only job. Plus, I’m working on plot details and rewriting passages in my head at my day job (shhh). But I think if left to my own devices, I would be an afternoon-evening writer.

5. There seems to be an unusually high percentage of writers who own cats. Here at the The First Book, we’re doing a study to find out if there’s a direct relationship between writing success and cat ownership. Do you own a cat? If so, tell us about him or her. If not, tell us what you have against cats.

Yup. I have 3 cats – Amiga, Diabla, and Ember. Amiga and Diabla are sisters, feral rescues that I took in as kittens – little Manx kittens. Diabla keeps me company in my office and I’m quite sure she believes I couldn’t get anything done without her magnificent orange presence. She could be right. She uses toys (her sister’s usually) to mark things as hers – bookmarks as it were. All baskets, food dishes, the couch. I’ve even found a felt mouse “marker” floating in the water dish. Amiga is calico, quieter, and a fashion maven in a previous life. She ransacks my bureau drawers, switching clothes from one drawer to another, while other items of clothing wind up in a heap on the carpet, rejected, I imagine with disdain. One pair of pajamas vanished entirely, never to be seen again.

Ember, at 14, tolerates the girls (he and Diabla exchange token hisses and slaps) and prefers to sleep.