#AASAV Spotlight on Dakota Cassidy

Help me give a HUGE welcome to the FABULOUS, tiara wearing, dirty mouth QUEEN of smart ass......Dakota Cassidy.


Thanks for agreeing to stop by The Book Nympho today to answer a few questions.

Thanks for having me!

I must say after your acceptance speech at the Bookie Awards this year at AADNOLA where you told Jeaniene Frost, Hey, girl I beat ya. I’ve been stalking following you every since. You were a hoot on the panels I got to see. And I can’t wait to see more of you at AADSAV in 2013.

Aw, thanks! And I’ve had a good giggle over how people have interpreted my acceptance speech. I can’t tell you how many readers stopped me and mentioned it, but it had nothing to do with stalking. Here’s what I actually said: First, I asked where Jeanine was, then when located I asked her to raise her hand, and then because I’m just a nutty smart ass, I said, “Guurrrrlll, I smoked you!” All in total fun, and thankfully, Jeanine is lovely. She took my snark like a champ.

And your “dad in a bag” story at the dark humor panel was so wrong it was right. LOL

My poor father, may the good Lord rest his soul—he’s still taking the hits in the afterlife from his smart ass kid. LOLLOL! His ashes, to this day, remain in that bag my mom plunked down on my desk, all safe and cozy in her room. He was a good man, and a good daddy. 

You talked a little bit at AADNOLA about how your mom read the book and asked if one of the characters in You Dropped a Blonde on Me (Ex Trophy Wives series) was based on her. Did you pull from personal experiences while writing the book/series?

I definitely did. While I was divorcing, I lived in my mother’s retirement village with my two sons. Max, the heroine in the book, is definitely a lot like I was at the time, in that my entire life changed at that point. As to my mom, I used bits of her here and there, but she’s not who I based Max’s mom on. Max’s mom is a compilation of many of the adorable seniors I met in the village.

Bobbie-Sue Cosmetics, sounds like a real company one would find in the South, and is a little like a cult. Where did the idea come from?

Call me crazy, but it came from sharing a convention hotel with the lovely ladies of Mary-Kay. So yeah, I’m a little guilty there. I found their sense of community and camaraderie adorable, and scary, and adorable. I was fascinated with their brightly colored outfits that signified the level they’d reached in the company and all the tiaras they got to wear for some awards event they were attending. Loved meeting them—hope they don’t hate me for parodying them. It’s always in love.

You’ve written about a lot of different paranormal critters in your Accidentals series, from werewovles, demons and genies. What’s next? Is any paranormal race safe?

I’m not sure what’s next. As it stands right now, my editor has a couple of proposals involving Aphrodite, a dragon, and another werewolf. I love the Accidentals—they’ve given me so many opportunities—I hope I get to write more.

Which do you have more fun writing; your Paranormal series or “normal” series?

I love both—I love the challenge of keeping things in the real world, and I love the challenge of creating a new paranormal world. I also love that I’ve been able to do both.

You also write a little erotic. What’s that like? I mean do you watch porn to help with the smexy scenes or do you swing from the ceiling fan in real life?

All of the above and then some. LOL! Actually, that’s where my roots are. I began writing in erotic romance back in the day when digital was still getting its footing. Loved it then, love it now.

What can we expect from you in 2013? New releases, your own reality show (cuz I would so watch that). Will you be sponsoring a booze and makeup party at AAD? Any other appearances beside AADSAV in 2013?

Can you even believe I don’t have my own reality show? That Hollywood hasn’t come knocking at my door of crazy still astounds me. LOL! Okay, so seriously, I’ll be Rom-Con in June of 2013, AAD in August 2013. So far, that’s it—but who knows what other events I might infiltrate… er, attend. 

As to new releases, as of now, it’s looking like back-to-back releases for my new spicy contemporaries at HQ/Mira in the spring of 2014. I’ll spend almost all of 2013 writing those-it’s going to be a crazy year!

The Accidental Genie

by Dakota Cassidy

Releases December 4th

Chapter One

“Thank you for calling OOPS. We’re here to serve all your paranormal crisis needs. This is Wanda . . . er, Sloan Flaherty—werewolf at large. How can I help you?” His voice was bored and robotic as he read the greeting he’d been told to repeat if he had to answer the phones. To amuse himself, Sloan leaned back in his chair and threw his feet up on Nina’s desk with a sly grin.

Nina Blackman-Statleon, one of his sister-in-law Marty’s best friends, would gnaw his foot clear off if she caught him—which only made him smile wider. He loved to razz Nina, badass vampire and all round easily irritated female.

He waited for the person on the other end of the line to speak while he took great pleasure in peeling Nina’s sticky pads apart and making the shape of a Christmas tree on her desktop out of the assorted pink, green, and blue squares.

A female voice, rich with hesitance and a thread of what Sloan clearly pinpointed with his razor-sharp wolfie skills as fear, said, “Um, hello?”

Sloan fought a yawn. How he’d been talked into answering the OOPS phones while Marty and her friends went off shopping left him scratching his head. Those women could talk a man out of his penile implant given an hour and a couple of Nina’s imposing threats.

“Yeah. Hi. This is Sloan.” He cleared his throat, Marty’s warning still ringing in his ears. If someone calls and they sound alone and afraid, remember to make a withdrawal from your sensitivity account, Sloan Flaherty, she’d threatened followed by Nina, who’d said, You fuck this up, and I’ll eat your arm clear off.

He straightened in his chair, injecting warmth into his voice. “How can I help you?” he purred, then cringed. Okay. That sounded just a little too 1-900-Sex-MeUp.

But the caller didn’t notice. The return answer was tinny and filled with static. “Is this for real?”

“This Out in the Open Paranormal Support?” “Oh, it’s for real.” Sloan fought a snort. Maybe a little crazy but totally real. His brother, Keegan, hadn’t loved the idea of his wife, Marty, and her friends starting up a help line for those in need of support after a paranormal accident.

Each woman at OOPS, a vampire, werewolf, werevamp, and demon respectively, was the product of an accidental paranormal incident. That was how Keegan met Marty in the first place. While in werewolf form, he’d accidentally bitten her when she was walk- ing her poodle, Muffin, fell in love, and eventually married her.

Then a cluster of coincidences happened, leaving Marty’s friends bitten and turned into shapeshifters, too. This had led the four women to believe there had to be others like them. Others who’d been turned, not necessarily with malicious intent but rather in a bizarre turn of events. Keegan didn’t think the stats on that were very high, and frankly, he’d agreed with his big brother at the time.

Nor had his brother believed any paranormal accident victim would actually call to ask for help from the operation the women had so carefully set up. But not even his brother, alpha male of their pack with a bossy streak a mile wide, could push Marty around when she set her mind to something.

So the four women, women Sloan was exposed to on an ongoing basis because his brother was married to one of them, had set up a cheap basement office on the off chance there’d be walk-ins. They also had a 1-800 number and website for global support.

Marty was a force when she wanted something, and she never did anything halfway, Keegan had explained with as much manly as he could muster for being so whipped. What Keegan avoided copping to was the fact that he was totally besotted with his accidentally turned wife, and he couldn’t say no to her blue eyes and the pretty pout of her lips. There was no force to it at all, just mad love on both their parts. Mad love that made them both behave like complete idiots.

Sloan wasn’t a fan of complete idiot—or a commitment like marriage or anything that tied him to anyone for longer than the time it took to scope out a mutually satisfying, yet completely no- strings-attached arrangement. At least, that used to be the case. For the past year, he’d been rethinking his life plan.

The crackling static on the other end of the line grew louder, recapturing his attention. “Can you explain what exactly it is that you do? I mean, I googled the words paranormal and help, which was just a wildly random lucky guess in terms of my predicament, and a total shot in the dark in my panic. You guys were second only to the show Paranormal State. Did I miss something somewhere? OOPS came up as a help line for people who’ve had paranormal accidents. I can’t seem to make the connection between being haunted and the word accident. How does something like that happen by accident? Either a ghost wants to haunt you or it doesn’t. There’s so much room for interpretation here…”

Dakota Cassidy lives for a good laugh in life and in her writing. In fact, she almost loves a good giggle as much as she loves hair products and that's saying something.

Her goals in life are simple, (like really simple): banish the color yellow forever, create world peace via hot rollers and Aqua Net; and finally, nab every tiara in the land by competing in the Miss USA, Miss Universe, and Miss World pageants, then sweeping them in a stunning trifecta of much duct tape and Vaseline usage, all in just under one week. Oh, and write really fun books!

Dakota lives in Texas with her two sons, her mother, more cats and dogs than the local animal shelter and has a husband who puts the heroes in her books to shame.

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