The Steam Room

The Steam Room is proud to present the talented Lex Valentine!

TSR: Tell us about Unbreak Me.

Lex: This is a book about a woman who has lost everything. She’s an assassin who doesn’t care if she dies which makes her very dangerous indeed. She’s lost everything that mattered to her, her lover, her father, her career, her looks, her very life. She can’t even be herself because everyone thinks she’s dead. When she discovers her lover is alive the life she’s lived for six years is turned on its ear. He’s determined to uncover the truth about what happened to them and why. He’s determined to give her back her life and show her she’s loved even though she’s covered in scars from being tortured.

This story is about the power of love. How it blinds you to the truth sometimes. How it makes you see with your heart and not your eyes once the blinders are removed. How things like careers and enemies mean nothing when you’re faced with losing the one person in the world who means everything to you. And how you would do anything no matter how illegal or risky for the chance to regain that love.

The characters are imperfect. A scarred heroine. A hero with revenge in his heart. A best friend willing to tell the hero he’s an ass and who’s willing to break the law to help his friends. A father who doesn’t try hard enough to save his only child. A woman who pretends to be someone else in order to survive and who takes a job killing others because that’s her greatest skill. Villains who think nothing of messing with the lives of others, or killing and betraying, to accomplish their goals.

To me, Unbreak Me is a very deep, intense story of personal loss and betrayal and how the hero and heroine recover from it and rebuild their lives. It’s not an easy read in my opinion. There’s nothing fun about this story. The emotions are raw and barely contained throughout. I want to make the reader sob for Tait’s circumstances while admiring her for her skill at self-preservation. I want the reader to be emotionally wrung out at the end.

TSR: How does Unbreak Me fit into this multi-author series?

Lex: The Spellbound Treasure series revolves around an auction house that sells magical items or items that have been imbued with magic or cursed. It’s run by an angel and a demon. Those characters belong to Mary Winter but we can all use them in our stories as long as it pertains to the buying/selling of an item from Spellbound Treasure. Each book revolves around an item from there.

Unbreak Me is the story of lovers who were parted by a conspiracy against them. Six years after their separation, they are reunited when they each try to buy a heartstone that contains parts of their souls. They each discover that the other is alive and from there the machinations that parted them start to be uncovered. My corner of the ST world is my own and doesn’t overlap with any of the other stories, but I do have two more stories planned, one of which I hope to entice a friend to co-author. 

TSR: What draws you to writing paranormal fiction?

Lex: I love creating my own worlds really. When I first started reading the genre, back before I was published I loved the worlds the authors created. I wanted to do it so badly. When I found the online serial story, I jumped at the chance to be part of it because it was a paranormal story. Every time I add a layer to my world, my editor gets excited and I  do, too. The creation is so satisfying!

TSR: You’re quite a talented graphic artist.  How did you get into that kind of design?

Lex: Thank you! I was doing graphics work long before I was published. I’ve been dabbling in graphics for years ever since I first got on the web in 1994 and wanted to build a website.  My father was a traditional artist; pen and ink, watercolors. I can sketch a little but it’s really my computer skills that led me to Photoshop which I love. My daughter is the real artist in the family now that my dad’s gone. She’s a student at the Art Institute. All my skills came from my need to create graphics for websites I was building. I just kept learning more and more things.

TSR: You pack quite a lot of story into a short amount of pages.  How and why did you develop such a compact storytelling style?

Lex: I think it came from spending a few years writing in an online serial story.  You basically only post scenes. And you’re constantly leaving readers hanging. You have to hone your skills to make your work hook the reader in the first paragraph and then keep them on edge as you move your storyline forward with your post. You learn to jettison the unimportant stuff, otherwise the readers just skip it.

TSR: If you had your own island, what would we find on it?

Lex: A mega yacht moored at the dock. Lots of water toys for my husband. A really comfortable house that neither I nor he has to clean and that has no stairs. All my babies (cats.) An office for me with a really cushy chair, a screaming desktop computer, a killer stereo.  An amazing entertainment system with a 65” HD TV and this stereo that my husband has been dying for. And unending supply of Ben and Jerry’s ice creams, beef jerky, Jolly Ranchers, dark chocolate, hot wings, fried pickles, southern BBQ, blood oranges, blueberry waffles…all our favorite foods in other words. Leather furniture. A sleep number bed. Lots of pillows. A gourmet kitchen in case I want to cook. A treadmill cause I need to exercise but need to do it in air-conditioned places. A huge library with the books of all my friends and fave authors. I don’t read paper books anymore but I love to look at books filling a bookcase. A Jacuzzi tub. A room filled with guitars.  A stable with retired race horses. An infinity pool. A huge custom made indoor/outdoor cattery for the babies so they can go outside and run and play without being loose on the island and subject to getting hurt or lost. All the electronic gadgets I so want. A Brabus Rocket. Although, I imagine there wouldn’t really be anywhere to drive it fast on an island. 

TSR: What’s next for you?

Lex: I’m about to finish the next in the Tales ofthe Darkworld series, Breathe Me In. After that, I start a new novella for a new multi-author series at Ellora’s Cave and a series I’ve had planned to do for MLR Press. I’ll be going to the Romantic Times convention in April and signing both ebooks and print books. So if people are interested in my work they should stop by and see me. Get an autograph, a little dragon tote bag of author goodies, and a magnet or two.  And they’ll be able to check out my RomanceTrading cards! They’re something new that authors will be doing this year. Trading cards with characters on them. I’m doing the characters from the Tales of the Darkworld. I may not have all the cards with me at RT, but I’ll definitely have a couple.

Buy Link: http://pinkpetalbooks.com/Unbreak-Me-Lex-Valentine.html

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Website Link: http://lexvalentine.com

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