Tuesday 18 November 2014

Maggie Tideswell: I love the paranormal romance genre!

I'm taking part in a blog swap with author Maggie Tideswell today. She's here and I'm there. I hope she finds the chocolate cake I left out for her!

Take it away, Maggie, tell me, why do you love the paranormal romance genre??


Maggie Tideswell, author of
Paranormal Romance

Let’s face it, love really is all around us. Even when you read a murder mystery or a horror novel, there are romantic elements in it, because people fall in love. Even in the most unexpected or dangerous situations, people find each other. It is human nature.

What fascinates me about romance is firstly what characteristics attract people to each other enough to fall in love and secondly, what traits keep them in love for a lifetime when one in three relationships fail. This is a throw-back from studying psychology at university.

People want to be scared. Fright gets the primitive fight or flight response going. And that is where the paranormal comes in. When I say paranormal, I don’t mean zombies and vampires. Creatures with tentacles and many teeth also don’t interest me. Those are not scary and only have entertainment value as far as I am concerned. Don’t get me wrong, I am not putting authors of those genres down, all I’m saying is that those elements are not what I write about. I am interested in what isn’t visible to the eye, things that go bump in the night, ‘nothing is as it seems’, and witches getting up to mischief or doing genuine work to help. And ghosts, of course.

We all have those creepy little experiences of something moving just at the edge of vision and when you look, there is nothing there. Or the sound we hear for which there are no logical explanations. And who of us haven’t know what was going to happen next or what somebody was going to say before it actually happened? This is what is termed deja-vu.

People are not always what they seem. It is a known fact that people represent themselves in the best light and what they show to the world is only the tip of the iceberg of their personality. I like to say people wear ‘masks’ to hide their true selves from others, for reasons of their own.

But my biggest interest is ghosts and why some people seem to get stuck on the earthbound plane after death. I even joined a paranormal investigation group, but I am yet to come face to face with a ghost I could have a conversation with. I have been told I look too hard and that was why I am unlikely to see a ghost, but I do experience them. On one occasion I had fallen asleep on the couch and I startled awake with the distinct feeling that somebody was leaning over me. There was nobody there, but the room had been freezing. It was the middle of summer.

Romance in combination with the paranormal is what I write. Instead of placing my characters in mortal danger of burning buildings, an erratic gunman or in the path of a tidal wave, I scare them with what they cannot see.




I have two paranormal romance novels in print, both published by All Things That Matter Press, a small press in Maine, USA.

My debut novel, Dark Moon came out in 2011. Chance meetings can have far-reaching effects. Loved ones may not be who they seem. The line between comprehension and confusion is thin, particularly when one’s thoughts are being manipulated by another.

My second published novel, Moragh, Holly’s Ghost (2013) is, well, a ghost story. A marriage of convenience, helpful fey friends, a custody battle that cannot be won and a haunting - could love blossom?

Still to come is Roxanne’s Ghost, Poppet Nicole, which is the sequel to Moragh, Holly’s Ghost, and a story set on one of the Portuguese islands off the coast of Africa called Bazaruto, titled Adorable Crook.

As I was born in South Africa and still live here, I like to set my stories in South Africa, in and around Cape Town to be specific. South Africa is a country of breathtaking natural beauty, diverse population and many unexplored ghosts.

Find Maggie on her blog Wonderful Words, on Amazon and on Twitter.



25 comments:

  1. Hi Annalisa .. good to meet Maggie. Maggie you've obviously dedicated yourself to your craft .. I'm not sure I'd be happy with the feeling of someone standing over me, and awakening to a freezing room in summer ... I expect your books make good paranormal romantic reads ...

    I see you're South African .. I never got to Mozambique when I lived there ... stories set in beautiful SA would draw me in .. even with a paranormal background! Cheers to you both - Hilary

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    1. Thank you, Hilary. Wevhave our share of ghosts and strange things in South Africa. I just love all things unexplained.
      Blessings

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    2. Thanks for visiting my post on Maggie's blog, Hilary.

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  2. Hi Annalisa and Maggie! paranormal romance is a genre that I don't have a lot of exposure to, but I am intrigued. I hope you have a terrific Tuesday :)

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    1. Paranormal romance is fun, and it could be scary or a bit of both. Thanks for your response.

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    2. And a wonderful Wednesday to you, Keith :-)

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  3. I love paranormal romance and I'm from South Africa too.

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    1. Thanks great, Murees. I love meeting South Africans on the net.

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    2. Hi Murees, thanks for visiting :-)

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  4. Thanks for the blog swap, Annalisa.

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  5. nice post and well thought out description of paranormal romance. The South African setting makes these books unique. Very cool

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    1. It sounds like a very exotic place to set stories :-)

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  6. You're right, a great story has all of those elements. We are weird creatures seeking out a scare. I'm the biggest chicken, but I will watch horror movies from behind a blanket.

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    1. I'm a chicken too, Elizabeth, but I DON'T watch horror!

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  7. Sounds like interesting stories! And you're right about romance; a book with very little romance or no love story at all doesn't interest me. I've never fully understood the appeal of vampires either; I think they're kind of creepy.

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    1. Sometimes a story works without romance, but as love really is all around, it's hard to escape it - even if it's only a small element.

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  8. I'm not a fan of paranormal, but I like this post because some of the points speak to writers of all genre.

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    1. I agree. People wearing masks can relate to every genre, and most characters!

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  9. That's an intriguing genre. I was going to make some joke about having sex with a ghost. However, you would see right through that one.

    Nice to meet you, human Maggie and happy writing. Hi human, Annalisa. Sorry it took so long to get here.

    Pawsitive wishes,

    Penny :)

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    1. Penny, you crack me up! Thanks for popping by - I know how busy you've been recently, I've seen Gary's photos of you 'testing out' his new bed ;-)

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  10. I'm a huge fan of the paranormal myself. Monsters can be scary, but I agree it's those things that you glimpse out of the corner of your eyes that are really frightening.

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    1. I love writing about those things, but hate reading about them - my imagination always makes it so much worse when I'm reading other people's words!

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  11. I'm not real big on being scared, but suspense and mystery never hurt a story either. I have had a few of those creepy experiences and they sort of stick with me, making me wonder what lurks in the unknown and things we simply cannot see.

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    1. Ooh, I'd love to know more about your creepy experiences, M.J :-)

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