All About Lucienne Diver and FANGTABULOUS

BY MINDI SCOTT

Lucienne Diver’s Vamped series has received some rave reviews over the years, and I want to share with you a quick sample of those:

For Fangtabulous: “Another amusing romp in the series, this installment also sees its hardy heroine beginning to mature, adding further dimension to her character. Reminiscent of Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse and Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, Gina never fails to deliver the goods.” —Kirkus Reviews

For the Vamped series: “Readers who appreciate Diver’s light, dry humor will welcome back feisty Gina and her hunky boyfriend, Bobby… a welcome lighthearted departure from gloomy vampire romance.” —Booklist

“Diver successfully creates a vampire teen who is active and assertive and has no time for angst. Gina has a biting, sarcastic voice that makes the Vamped books quick and entertaining reads.”—VOYA

I haven’t yet had the chance to check out this series, but the promise of dry humor and a sarcastic narrator definitely make these sound like something I’d enjoy! Happily for me, Lucienne Diver recently answered some questions about herself and her latest title, Fangatublous. There’s more information about the book and the author after the questions. 🙂

At age eight, what did you want to be when you grew up? And at age eighteen? And while you’re at it, what about at age twenty-eight?

Lucienne Diver: At eight I wanted to be a cryptozoologist and discover definitive proof of the Loch Ness Monster and other cryptids. At eighteen I wanted to be a writer and an anthropologist. I have degrees in both. At twenty-eight—you mean just yesterday?—I still want to be a writer, but I want to be better and more successful at it than I was at twenty-seven.

Which Breakfast-Club-style label would have best fit your teenage self?

LD: I’d have fit every geeky classification you could come up with: brain, geek, dweeb…. I was in honors and AP classes; I played Dungeons & Dragons; I was never any good at sports. I sang in the chorus but developed a psychosomatic illness every time I had to sing solo in front of people, so while I did theatre I quickly gave up on going out for the musicals. Hmm, maybe that makes me a bit of the basket case as well. Oh, yeah, this question is good for my rep. 😉

Without giving away too much from your newest book, which character or scene from it are you the most pleased to have created, and why?

LD: I won’t say who or why because I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but there are some scenes where one of the characters goes a little crazy. Those scenes were a lot of fun to write, and I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out. Why those scenes in particular? I think because I doubted my ability to do them justice, so I feel that I stretched myself as a writer and it’s one less thing to fear in the future.

Which are your favorite movies to watch again and again?

LD: I’m lucky I have time to watch things once. Very rarely do I get to watch anything again and again, but lately if I do it’s not a movie, but select episodes of Sherlock, the BBC’s wonderful Holmes & Watson series.

And, now, the most important question of all: Beatles or Elvis? Please support your answer. 😉

LD: The Beatles! For one, I like their music better. For another, I read a People Magazine article years ago when I was stuck under the dryer at a hair salon about Elvis and his courtship and marriage with Priscilla Presley. It was enough to turn me off of him for life. (Although I have to admit that his song “In the Ghetto” makes me cry every time I hear it.)

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About the book:

Gina Covello and her band of federal fugitives are on the run after taking down a secret (and sinister) government facility. Strapped without cash or credit cards—a fate worse than death for Gina—the rebels must find a place to lay low. They roll into Salem, Massachusetts, the most haunted town in America and the only place they have friends flying under the radar. But within a day, Gina and her gang are embroiled in a murder mystery of the supernatural kind.

Someone—or something—is strangling young women, and it’s rumored to be the ghost of Sheriff Corwin, late of the Salem Witch trials. Is it the ghostly Sheriff or is someone on this side of the veil using the famous story as a cover up? Gina is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery, and she needs to do it before a paranormal reporter on the scene exposes them for what they are…fanged federal fugitives.

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About the author:

Lucienne Diver writes the humorous, suspenseful Vamped series of young adult vampire novels for Flux Books, including Vamped, Revamped, Fangtastic and the most recent, Fangtabulous. Her short stories have been included in the Strip-Mauled and Fangs for the Mammaries anthologies edited by Esther Friesner (Baen Books), and her essay on abuse is included in the anthology Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories (HarperTeen). She also writes the Latter-Day Olympians urban fantasy series for Samhain (Bad Blood, Crazy in the Blood and the forthcoming Rise of the Blood).