A story addict since an early exposure to Dr. Seuss, award-winning author of over 30 novels and novellas, Michelle Levigne has been creating her own stories, heroes and adventures since junior high. She ventures into many sub-genres of science fiction, paranormal, romance and fantasy, including Greek mythology, Narnia spin-offs and her futuristic universe, the Commonwealth.
Michelle writes something for everyone! After all, since she likes to read all over the board, why not WRITE all over the board?
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NEVER MOON A WEREWOLF by Michelle Levigne
Sequel to LIAR, LIAR, HEARTS ON FIRE
While Lauren and Ray fall in love, Tiger guards Lauren's lookalike cousin, Lori - and enjoys it. She's easy to look at, and Tiger grows to like and admire the clever woman inside the too-pretty packaging. To convalesce, he takes Lori to Fredonia, the strange, isolated mansion Lauren inherited from her uncle Zeppo, a place filled with secret passages and wacky treasure hunts straight out of a Marx Brother's movie. But the two-couple vacation becomes a party of seven when Chief Michael Anguilano arrives with Deborah Riley, his romantic interest, and her grandfather, Vince, who needs a place to hunt werewolves without bothering the neighbors.
Then Pete, Lauren and Lori's deranged cousin, escapes prison. Now, since it's only a matter of time until Pete comes for revenge, Fredonia prepares for war. Fortunately, Vince has built lots of werewolf traps...
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WIN - Today EVERYONE WINS - Leave Michelle a question today at her Cyber Launch Party (along with your email, so we can get your mailing address) and you'll be sent a party favor package that includes a sampler CD and a Christmas magnet! Be sure to leave your email so Michelle can get you out your party favor!
And since this is the fifth book in Michelle's Five Sisters Series, FIVE readers who leave their email will be also be sent a baby werewolf!!
And be sure to check out Michelle's Christmas Contest going on over at her website!
Hey Michelle - Merry Christmas lady and super congrats on the great new release!!!
ReplyDeleteNow, I learned something today - I did not know this was part of a series, much less, the last book of a series. I didn't know the books were connected at all, excerpt that they were all romantic comedy suspense.
Tell us all about your Five Sisters Series and how and what books connect and if they should be read in any order.
I love your comedies and this one sounds like a hoot - love the title!
Tell us a bit about the book and how you came up with these crazy characters.
Also I wanted to thank you for the giveaway and for always offering up everyone some goodies - that's such a great way to reach readers - thanks so much, I know we appreciate it!
Enjoy your party and I hope NEVER MOON A WEREWOLF is your biggest seller yet!
AArrgghhh!
ReplyDeleteI just spent 15 minutes writing a big answer, telling about the previous 4 books in the series ... and AOL decided it was going to restart my browser. THANKS so much you stupid #%#%#%#%# system!
[For the record, this has happened TWICE now -- I've been trying to answer DeNita's questions since quarter of 2!!!]
[Another note: The browser just told me I have too many characters. I'm going to cut into smaller pieces. Hope it works THIS time!!!]
*sigh*
OKAY, let's start again.
The thread that ties together the series that I call 5 Sisters is this:
During WWII, 5 sisters, daughters of an official high in Mussolini's government, were smuggled into the US under false identities. The only person who knew were all 5 sisters went, and their identities, was their father ... who never managed to escape and reunite them.
Now, their children and grandchildren are trying to find each other.
PICTURE THIS features Ray, Jen and Blade, trying to steal back a stolen painting before the thief discovers it's a forgery and ruins the reputation of the Senator who owned it.
Ray sees himself as the family patriarch, and Jen is the 1st cousin he has found -- but being the overbearing know-it-all, he doesn't tell her. Jen and Blade fall for each other while they're pretending to have an affair, to distract their targets -- because Jen and Ray are pretending to be married, and Blade has taken the identity of a forger coming to the island party, where most of the crazy chases, boat wrecks and other adventures take place.
Answer Part II:
ReplyDeleteBook #2, HOW TO BURY A MILLIONAIRE features Jen's supposed cousin, Tyler, who is a self-made millionaire. His pet computer geek is in danger, and Tyler takes him to the island where PICTURE takes place to hide him. While there, he falls for Wynne, a high school computer teacher who stays at the B&B next door, and who is also laying low because a kiddie porn kingpin she helped catch is out for revenge. Strange things happen on the island -- someone is out to get Wynne or Tyler or the computer geek, or all three. Plus there are the overlapping events of PICTURE taking place around the same time.
Book #3, JUST PEACHY features Magda Torrene, a vampy mystery writer who readers met during the island party in PICTURE. (Getting confused yet?) Her real name is Maggie Tortelli, a PI and writer, who is having some troubles with a rabid fan who believes she really IS Stacy Peach, the vampy PI she writes about. Then someone kills her boss's lecherous lookalike brother and tries to frame her for it. Her boss calls in another PI friend, Rick Sloane, to help protect Maggie. Before it's over, Ray and company show up, and Rick and Maggie are stranded on a Lake Erie island in a vicious snowstorm. Maggie is also a cousin, and you meet a friend of hers, Tiger Ramirez, who happens to be another cousin.
And Ray makes himself even more loathed by his high-handed methods, running the family -- or so he thinks.
Book #4, LIAR, LIAR, HEARTS ON FIRE is Ray's story.
Cousin Tiger asks for the team's help. He's a professional bodyguard, and his buddy, Lauren, has been shot protecting his dizzy lookalike cousin, Lori -- shot by their lecherous cousin, who says Lori is "his woman."
(There are way too many cousins in these stories!)
Lauren has taken Lori's identity, so Ray and company think they have the helpless Lori, while Tiger is bodyguarding unconscious, wounded Lauren -- when actually Lori is the injured one. (Confused yet?)
Lori has to win a treasure hunt in her eccentric Uncle Zeppo's mansion, called Fredonia -- where all the clues come from Marx Brothers movies. Ray happens to be an expert in all things Marx Brothers -- or at least he is, until what the cousins have longed for for years comes true: he is dropped on his head and has temporary amnesia. He doesn't remember who he is, but he knows he isn't married to pregnant "Gloria," (Jen's false identity for their missions) and the girl for him is Lori, who doesn't seem to be what she says.
By the time Ray gets his memory back, he and Lauren have things straight between them and they're keeping secrets from Jen and Blade, who are keeping secrets from them, too.
THIS book, #5, NEVER MOON A WEREWOLF, starts with Cousin Tiger guarding Lori. When he realizes a switch was pulled on him, he isn't too upset -- he finds out Lori isn't the ditz she pretended to be for the sake of self-defense.
Meanwhile, Ray's long-time nemesis, Chief Anguilano, has been on a hunt of his own for information about some sisters smuggled into the US during WWII, and his source of information is a crazy old man named Vince, whose current delusion is fighting werewolves. When the dust settles down from LIAR, Lauren owns the mansion, and she brings Lori down to recover from her gunshot wound, along with Tiger and Ray to keep them company. Chief Anguilano finagles an invitation for him to bring Vince down to hunt werewolves in peace and quiet -- along with Vince's granddaughter Deborah, who happens to be the Chief's love interest.
When lecherous cousin Pete escapes custody, everyone is sure he's coming after Lori and Lauren for revenge, so the house party prepares for invasion. When the dust settles, some questions are answered, and new cousins identified, and a lot of happily ever after for several couples.
Because hey, this is a romance, right?
Congrats on the new release Michelle.
ReplyDeleteOf all the characters in this series,if you could,which one would you like to spend the day with and what would you do?
Happy Holidays!
Elaine
elaing8(at)netscape(dot)net
Hi Michelle :)
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas to you and yours!
Congrats on the release of Never Moon A Werewolf, the excerpt ROCKS 8D. I LOVE your 5 Sisters series, any chance of any more sisters/cousins besides the 5 sisters having a book?
Mindy :)
Birdsooong@aol.com
Hmmm, which character would I want to spend the day with?
ReplyDeleteI probably have the most in common with Maggie, the writer. [G]
If we spent the day together, we'd probably be on our computers the whole time -- or brainstorming our next books.
Of the men ... well, Blade is based on Duncan MacLeod, from Highlander. Kinda ... But he "belongs" to Jen, so what fun would it be? And he's about to be a daddy, so he'd be really distracted -- or sleep-deprived after the baby came. No fun at all. What would we talk about, anyway? Unless maybe Jen was there, and we spent the day plotting to get revenge on Ray!
Ray, by the way, is based on the character Stingray, from the TV show of the same name -- a Stephen Cannell production, back in the mid-late 80s. Anybody remember that one?
I actually wrote a fanzine story for a Stingray magazine that is the basis for how Ray and Jen met -- the kidnapped baby to be rescued. Then when I wanted to write a humorous romantic suspense, I used that foundation.
But now that I think of it, I actually wrote the "waking up from getting dropped on his head" scene from LIAR, LIAR first, when I was first trying to write a story using those characters. But as I created the back story for all of them, I realized I had to write the story of Jen and Blade getting together, first.
So while I might have started writing LIAR, LIAR first, the first book in the series that I actually finished was PICTURE.
Does that make sense?
As for more 5 Sisters books ... I do have about a paragraph of an idea. I think the title is "Fugitive Princess," or something like that. The gang is protecting someone, or looking for a runaway, or they're on the trail of another cousin and she's on the run and ... It's a jumble. If I ever write it, it will be a looooong time from now.
Maybe I should have a contest for an idea or storyline for the next book in the series!
Congratulations on the new release. I was wondering, of all the characters, which one are you going to miss the most? Are any of the characters like you or totally different?
ReplyDeleteHave a wonderful holiday.
lindahl at rogers dot com
Congratulations!!
ReplyDeleteMichelle I just wondered, do you ever find yourself laughing out loud when you are writing? Taking delight in what your characters are up to?
marypres(AT)gmail(DOT)com
I can say with all honesty, NONE of my characters are like me.
ReplyDeleteI write people who are the way I want to be -- at least, by the end of the book. Winners, survivors, the ones who figure out how to fix the problem.
And with a chance at happily ever after, of course. [G]
I think of all the 5 Sisters characters, I will probably miss Jen, because she is actually based on another character that I created, and experimented with in various fanzines I wrote for.
Rhea Jones was my main character in the novella that won 1st Place in the Writers of the Future contest back in 1990. The story was called "Relay," and I was playing with a character who first appeared in my imagination riding a motorcycle and rescuing a kidnapped little girl. That became the core of the story.
Then I started creating a kind of network of "talented" people around Rhea Jones, and she was traveling the country, looking for them, for safety in numbers.
Not unlike the whole Mutant Agenda stuff you see in Marvel Comics, but none of my characters wear costumes. [G]
I played with Rhea Jones in various fanzines -- Starman, Stingray, and the Phoenix -- and figure out more about her.
I actually have an entire series called Wildvine County, that I hope to take out of storage and polish up (they need MAJOR revisions) and offer them to a publisher someday. And Rhea Jones has maybe 6 of the books in the series.
So in some ways, Jen Holt from the 5 Sisters series isn't really "gone," because she lives on in Rhea Jones.
Michelle, Congrats!!!!!I love the tiltes and characters in your books. Which one did you have a harder time writing about?
ReplyDeleteklmc_37@yahoo.com
Hey Michelle Congrats on your new book it sounds like a great read Im adding it to my must buy list right now.Happy Holidays to you and yours.
ReplyDeleteWanda
flanagan@mebtel.net
I Just love that title. I wonder what happens. I must read the book. Do you get to pick your won titles.
ReplyDeletedebby236 at gmail dot com
Honestly, I can't say now what was the hardest book to write.
ReplyDeletePICTURE was revised so many times, mostly because I was trying to market it to different publishers with different requirements -- such as word limits!
MILLIONAIRE was a drastic revision of a book I tried to write as a comedy -- and the first couple of drafts were totally wretched, even before I made changes to fit into the 5 Sisters storyline.
JUST PEACHY ... well, I had Maggie do a couple of too-stupid-to-live stunts that no trained PI would do. Fortunately, I have an incredible editor at Amber Quill, and she lets me know when my characters are stupid and the story is going wrong.
Each book has something in it that was difficult. I have a hard time deciding which one was the most difficlt.
As for the titles -- yes, my publishers always (so far, anyway) let me keep my original titles. There has been occasion where I took a book from one publishing house to another, and I made revisions, and the publisher suggested changing the title, which I did. But other than that, I have never had a publisher say they didn't like the title and wanted me to change it.
Hi! Congrats on your release! It sounds great! I have to say, im so intrigued! I especially love mansions that have hidden passages. There so fun to read about, i love finding where they lead. Have you ever explored any hidden passages? Oh, happy holidays! ;D
ReplyDeleteshadowluvs2read(at)gmail(dot)com
Nope, sorry to say, I can't remember any rooms with secret passages. Although there were these really old houses we explored when I was a kid, and it seemed like there were multiple staircases and I got lost a lot.
ReplyDeleteThen there's Stan Hywet Hall, the Sieberling Mansion in Akron, Ohio. I love going there for tours, the Nooks and Crannies Tours. If you're ever in Akron, definitely go to Stan Hywet and take a tour. You'll love the place.
The real launching point for the mansion was my brother's fascination with the Marx Brothers and some of his favorites among themovies. I wanted to write a book with all sorts of Marx Brothers movie references. It just seemed to "fit" to have quotes and trivia as clues -- and what could be more appropriate than a really crazy mansion where things aren't quite what they appear and it turns into a funhouse?
I would love to find the real Fredonia someday and just play. Maybe if I sell a couple movie scripts, I'll have enough money to build my own Fredonia -- especially the library on the top floor, with a 360-degree view of the surrounding countryside and a couple hidden staircases.
Okay, it's getting late -- my solar batteries are wearing out.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to sign off, but I'm going to come back in the morning, get the email addresses, and then contact everybody for their postal addresses and decide who the 5 "new parents" of the baby werewolves are. I think I'll roll dice .......
Anyway, if you're coming to visit after I sign off, PLEASE leave a question or comment, and get your name/email in the competition. And I'll try to answer your questions, so DO ask!
Thanks for coming today, everybody! It was fun.
And remember to check my web site to learn how you can get a free Christmas-type story PDF on Christmas Eve.
G'night!
I would love to have a CD and Christmas magnet. I haven't been to your site in some time due to computer crashing. But I am back.
ReplyDeleteIf you ever need a reviewer, I review every book I win or get on several sites.
If I win the werewolf, I will give it to one of my daughters. I am not fond of that type of romance. But my daughters are.
jrs362 at hotmail dot com
I see you loved Dr. Suess. So did I - first books I checked out of public Library