What inspired the premise for your story?
First of all, thank you so very much for spotlighting EERIE on the Fang-tastic website! The premise for EERIE came from my childhood fear of the dark and the stories I used to tell myself at bedtime about creatures that lived in the shadows—creatures that could be good or bad.
Why is the setting to your story so important?
EERIE is set in both Pittsburgh and Alaska. Pittsburgh is a hugely important setting—one, because I know it so well, having grown up there, and two, because Pittsburgh is home to some of the most genuine, hard-working, heart-of-gold people I’ve ever met. And I’ve lived all over the US. Alaska, which is where I live now, is truly the Last Frontier. There’s so much mystery and unexplored areas in Alaska, it very well could be home to a ParaScience University with wild Yetis and untamed poltergeists.
Did you always wanted to be a writer? If not what did you want to be?
This is a great question, because it wasn’t that I always wanted to be a writer. It’s that I always was. I started writing a journal I’d made from school tablet paper I’d stapled together when I was in second grade. I started writing short stories when I was in fifth grade, and I was always throughout my career in the military writing…something. My first book-length work was a memoir. My second was EERIE, which is the first to see the light of publication. Growing up, I always thought I’d be a doctor or a chemist. I ended up being a chemical engineer.
How long did it take to get your first book published?
From the day I started writing EERIE to the day it will be released: 1 year, 9 months, 17 days.
From the day I first pitched EERIE to an agent to the day I signed with a publisher: 10 months, 18 days
Now that you have a feel for the publishing world, would you do anything different if you had to do it all over again?
I learned so much from my journey to publication that I can’t really think of any one thing I’d do differently. Actually, there was that time at my first writer’s conference, when an agent caught me talking to myself in the elevator…
What was the first book you ever published?
EERIE is my debut novel. I’ve got a memoir, which my agent is shopping now, and a YA thriller, which I’m editing for submission.
Eerie
C.M. McCoy
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Omnific
Date of Publication: 15 Dec 2015
ISBN: 1623422337
ASIN: B0176M19RM
Number of pages: 450
Word Count: 117k
Cover Artist: Omnific with art by Robin Lynne Schwind
Book Description:
Being a ParaScience freshman is a nightmare come true
Hailey’s dreams have always been, well...vivid. As in monsters from her nightmares follow her into her waking life vivid. When her big sister goes missing, eighteen-year-old Hailey finds the only thing keeping her safe from a murderous 3,000-year old beast is an equally terrifying creature who’s fallen “madly” in love with her.
Competing to win her affection, the Dream Creature, Asher, lures her to the one place that offers safety—a ParaScience university in Alaska he calls home. There, she studies the science of the supernatural and must learn to live with a roommate from Hell, survive a tunneling earworm, extract a carnivorous splinter, evade the campus poltergeists, and hope the only creature who can save her from an evil immortal doesn’t decide to kill her himself.
Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/YPx4FELVxH4
EERIE
excerpt
Several buildings dotted the campus, some log, some stone, and one that
looked like a giant igloo. Each bore an ornately carved wooden signpost with
large, bubonic-looking knots.
“Eureka Hall is here on the north-east corner.” Fin opened the outer door
for her and showed her inside.
“I’m on the third floor,” she told him.
“I know.”
Up the stairs they went, and Fin explained Eureka’s layout.
“So, this is the only co-ed dorm on campus.” The stairway opened onto a
large landing that split the building in two. “To the right are the boys’ rooms
and to the left are all the girls’ rooms. The girls have their own showers,
which are conveniently located almost directly across from your room, next to
the laundry closet. In front of us is the Spruce Room, which is a community
study hall slash TV room slash kitchenette.”
He opened the door to the Spruce Room and turned on the lights.
“Nice,” she said, taking in the giant TV, five fluffy couches, desks, and
tables.
“This,” he said pointing to a large presidential-looking suite adjacent
to the Spruce Room, “is where your Resident Assistant lives.”
“Okay,” Hailey said with a nod.
“If you have any problems—you get locked out of your room, you have an
issue with your roommate, you need more Yeti spray—any problems, Hailey, you come and knock on this door, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And I’ll answer.”
“O—what?”
Fin smiled.
“You’re my RA?” Hailey said brightly.
“Yup.”
Yes! He’d be right down the hall and could help her get her bearings and
explain these in-betweens and answer
her questions, and oh crap! What about Tomas and these ghost traps? She had to
disable them.
“I need to go to the library,” she blurted.
“Of course you do.” Fin threw a confused hand in the air.
“I need a German dictionary and a book that explains these ghost traps,”
she continued very seriously. She did not
want Tomas getting stuck. “The campus map shows the library, but it doesn’t
give the hours and—”
“Stop. The library is closed. Besides, you need to unpack all your stuff,”
he said holding up her tiny bag.
She took it and frowned.
“Go check out your room, make sure your key works, meet your roommate,
take a shower, et cetera, et cetera. I’ll swing by later with a German
dictionary.”
He unlocked the door to his giant room.
“And don’t worry about ghosts,” he said over his shoulder. “You’re not
gonna get any ghosts in your room.”
Hailey wrinkled her brow.
“Oh?”
“They’re afraid of your roommate,” he said quickly through the crack in
his door, shutting it before Hailey even had a chance to gasp.
About the Author:
C.M. McCoy is an Irish dancer and former military officer living in the Great White North. Though B.S.'d in chemical engineering and German, she's far happier writing stories involving Alaska and a body bag (with an awkward kiss in the mix.) While working 911 dispatch for Alaska State Troopers, she learned to speak in 10-codes, which she still does...but only to annoy her family. In the writerly world, she's the PR Manager at Inklings Literary Agency. Her debut novel, EERIE, is a paranormal adventure with romance and released 15 Dec 2015 through Omnific Publishing/Simon and Schuster.
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1 comment:
Thank you so much for the wonderful post! :-)
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