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Interview with Tori L. Ridgewood, author of Wind and Shadow

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The witch, the cop, and the vampire…

Rayvin Woods is a natural witch – she can do magick, including spells and some telekinesis, but typically keeps it under wraps to try to avoid unwanted attention. Accused of attempted murder when she was just a teenager, she had tried to start her life over again in the big city and failed miserably. Forced to come back and begin again, she finds herself in even more uncomfortable situations with her former crush, police officer Grant Michaels – especially after a vampire escapes his prison under their home town, Talbot.

Grant Michaels has never gotten over his crush on Rayvin Woods. But his loyalties are divided, because everyone knows she had tried to kill his best friend when they were all in school together. His job is to keep the citizens of Talbot safe, but when he looks at her, he can’t stop thinking of other possibilities.

Malcolm de Sade is a centuries-old creature of darkness. He’s cunning, malevolent, and hungry for more than just blood – he wants a new place in the world that has always forced him to lurk in the shadows. Trapped in an abandoned mine shaft for a year after battling for the main object of his desire (another witch, named Charlotte Fanning, in the novella “Mist and Midnight” [Midnight Thirsts]), he’s ready to feed, to seek revenge, and to take his due…

Mist and Midnight? We thought this was the start of a series, not the middle.
The prequel novella, “Mist and Midnight” is in Midnight Thirsts – the characters of Charlotte Fanning (who is responsible for Malcolm de Sade’s imprisonment) and Pike Mahonen (also helpful for entombing the vampire in his cell, and Charlotte’s love interest) return in Wind and Shadow, and have an increasingly important presence in Books 2 and 3 of the trilogy.

Is there any other background reading that we might want to do?
The world I have created in The Talbot Trilogy is also reflected in my short story, “A Living Specimen”, in the anthology Midnight Thirsts II. In this introduction to the Society for Hunters and Investigators of the Paranormal, readers get to know a typical vampire hunter who volunteers her time in ridding the world of the blood-thirsty undead, and a mistake she doesn’t know she’s made until it’s too late.

What genre is this book?
Paranormal romance. It’s about love lost and found again, redemption, and the passion that comes along with it. Heat level is 3/5. It also has its fair share of horror elements.

What kind of readers will it appeal to?
Adults, mainly women, but fans of the vampire and paranormal genre.

It doesn’t sound as if Rayvin Woods is in either of those prequels. Introduce her to us.
Rayvin Woods is in her late 20s. She has long, curling red hair that reaches nearly to her waist (longer when wet). Having lost her mother to cancer at a young age, and never known her father, Rayvin’s had to learn early to take care of herself. When circumstances caused her to leave her foster home immediately after graduating high school, she hitch-hiked to Toronto and took a variety of jobs, couch-surfing as she worked her way into photography jobs at big box stores. Her most recent relationship failed when her boyfriend turned into a stalker. Now nearly broke and homeless, she’s been offered a small rental house and a job by her foster-sister in Talbot, Ontario. Going back means swallowing what little pride she has left, and facing the ire of the community, which still feels she is a dangerous person, but she doesn’t know what else to do.

How does Grant Michaels figure in the story?
Grant Michaels is a Corporal in the Ontario Provincial Police. He’s never lived anywhere else but Talbot in Northeastern Ontario, except for his brief time in college and at the Police Academy in Orillia. He can’t imagine living anywhere else. A regular runner, good-looking, tall, he’s had his pick of women but none of his relationships has lasted long. He’s spent most of his twenties helping his best friend, Jason Lucas, paralyzed after an accident involving Rayvin Woods – an event that few in Talbot really believe was accidental. An upstanding member of the community, and an exacting professional, Grant enjoys kicking back after a long day (or night shift) on his back deck with a beer (or a soft drink, if Jason is around), working with his hands, and fishing.

And the vampire, Malcolm de Sade?
Malcolm de Sade has spent the better part of two hundred years on his own. He’s observed the changes in human society by watching through windows, picking books out of trash heaps, stealing technology and hoping it would work, but never had a house of his own. Always relegated to the sewers and underground dens alongside other vagrants, ever wary of vampire hunters who continue to seek him out, about two years prior to the events of this book, he’d seen a woman who had changed his perspective. Charlotte Fanning, a natural witch, a rarity in the world…suddenly, he had a purpose again, in making her his bride and mother to his children. He’d never known of a vampire to breed (successfully) with a human, but he believes that mating with a witch would create an incredibly powerful hybrid species, and end his sentence of living on the edges of the world.

Tell us a bit about yourself.
When I was in my early teens, I used to tell stories to myself, aloud, while walking to and from school, delivering newspapers, or even while swimming. I must have looked a bit like a nut, strolling along and muttering to myself, but I just had so many ideas that I couldn’t get them all down as they were coming…

I write under a pseudonym because that allows me more freedom of imagination, in a sense. I’ve been married since 1997, I’m a mother of two children (born in 2001 and 2004), and I’ve been a full-time high school teacher since 2001. Like so many of my peers, I’ve been an avid reader since I was a small child and dreamed of having my own stories published since I was old enough to write them myself.

I’m also a survivor of severe depression. Hasn’t been terribly bad in about a year, but I’ve been learning how to cope with my mental illness.

Do you have a website where we can keep up with your work?
I do! I have a blog, on which I ruminate on life, and more recently / increasingly, review books, host giveaways and contests, and promote my peers.

How can we follow you on Twitter and/or Facebook?
Twitter: @torilridgewood

Facebook: I finally have an author page!
https://www.facebook.com/ToriLRidgewood.

Where can we buy your book?
Currently, it’s available through the publisher as pdf, html, or in print (on demand):

http://www.melange-books.com/authors/torilridgewood/windandshadow.html

What’s next?
I am in the revision stage for Book 2: Blood and Fire, which I wrote as part of National Novel Writing Month in 2011 and 2012, and planning Book 3: Crystal and Wand.

Once the trilogy is complete, I’m planning on expanding a short sexy ghost story I wrote in 2011, called “Telltale Signs” into a longer collection of connected stories that take place in a fictional town known as Dark Lake. The setting of “Telltale Signs” is a museum that really exists in my community of Kirkland Lake. The book is tentatively called, The Dark Lake Chronicles.

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Enjoyed this interview? Then check out our interview with Vanessa Wester, author of the Evolution trilogy.

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7 Comments

  1. Thanks again for having me!

  2. Also — Wind and Shadow is now available for Kindle! http://www.amazon.com/Wind-Shadow-Talbot-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00DYCH64Y/ref=cm_rdp_product

    Cheers,
    Tori

  3. I LOVE Tori’s stories. I’ve read Mist and Midnight and Wind and Shadow. Can’t wait for the rest.

  4. bn100

    Very nice interview

  5. Pingback: Top 10 Books: Week ending July 26, 2013 | Indie Author Land

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