Author Interview with Karenna Colcroft

Title: Alpha Receptor
Series: Real Werewolves True Mates 1
Author: Karenna Colcroft
Genre: Werewolf/Shifters, Fantasy Romance
Publisher: Vegan Wolf Productions
Release Date: July 14, 2022
Format: Kindle
Pages: 263

When Lara Jameson’s employer transferred her from Orlando, Florida, to Boston, Massachusetts, moving wasn’t as simple as just finding an apartment. As a werewolf, Lara also had to transfer to a new pack. And when she met Chal Torres, the Alpha of City Pack in Boston, she knew she had found not only a new pack but her mate.

Chal Torres has resisted love since a dominance fight shortly after he was changed resulted in the death of the woman he believed he loved. Now, as Alpha of the largest pack in the United States, he allows no one close to him out of fear they might be used against him. But when Chal meets Lara and recognizes her as his mate, his resistance is no match for the call of the mate bond and of his heart.

As Chal and Lara begin to build their relationship, Chal lets down his guard. But an attack on Lara during the pack’s hunt night and the reveal of a plot within the pack to take down Chal as Alpha lead Chal to begin putting up those walls again. Will he let Lara in, or will his fear end their relationship before it truly starts?

Interview by Sherry Perkins

Karenna Colcroft shares the Indigo Universe with us and explains how werewolves most certainly can be vegan! She also explains why writing is personally fulfilling, how fantasy romance and erotic romance can be challenging, and what about self-publishing is rewarding. Truthfully, she had me at vegan werewolves.

1. Wow! You’re a former teacher. What grades did you teach? Did teaching prepare you for a writing career, if so, how?

I taught a lot of things during the years I was a teacher. I had a dual major in special education and elementary education (grades K-8) in university. Over the years, I taught or substitute taught special education in all grade levels, kindergarten through 12, as well as some mainstream classrooms in those grade levels. I also worked as a teacher’s aide in high school special education for a couple of years. I stopped teaching when I moved to Massachusetts and discovered I would have to go back to school for a Master’s degree if I wanted to transfer my credentials; I had neither time, money, nor inclination to do that. I started writing (though not getting published) long before I became a teacher, so I wouldn’t say teaching prepared me for a writing career other than helping hone my ability to be flexible and manage time.

2. You’ve been writing since 2006 — fantasy romance and erotic romance. Do you find one genre to be more challenging to write? Or is romance just romance with a little more intimate detail depending on the novel? Is one easier to promote than the other?

Most of my fantasy/paranormal romance is erotic romance. Erotic romance, to me, is any romance, regardless of subgenre, that includes frequent explicit sex scenes, and that applies to almost everything I wrote under this name between 2006-2016. I do find writing sex scenes difficult because of past trauma in my life; my comfort with even being able to talk about sex with my partners, let alone write X-rated scenes, varies, so sometimes I’m able to write those scenes in an hour or two and other times it takes a few days. I find erotic romance a little harder to promote than romances with lower heat levels only because some venues and websites have content restrictions that don’t permit promotion of books that include explicit scenes.

3. The Indigo Veil. That sounds fascinating. If you would, tell us the basics about your Indigo series and its mythos.

Indigo Veil isn’t so much a series. When I decided I wanted to re-release some of my previously published books, I realized that most of the paranormals and a few of the contemporaries share a universe. I wanted to come up with a name for that universe so I could be more effective and intentional with branding and descriptions than I was when the books were published previously, and I just kind of played around with names and words until I came up with “Indigo Veil.” At this point, I’ve started downplaying the Indigo Veil branding because I’m focusing more on only the werewolf books (which is the majority of my paranormal romances), but I still might release the other books at some point. Basically, Indigo Veil is the “real world,” mostly focused in Boston Massachusetts since that’s my geographical area, with a few extra pieces that probably don’t really exist, like werewolves, vampires, and sorcerers.

4. How did you come to write about werewolves? What’s the most captivating thing about the werewolves or pack life for you? Hints about Lara and Chal, and any obstacles they might soon be facing?

Back in 2010, I belonged to a Yahoo group of authors. Another author, whose name escapes me at the moment (she wasn’t part of the group) had just released a book in which the male lead was a werewolf who had at one time been a vegan. Or a vegan who had at one time been a werewolf…It was 12 years ago, so I can’t quite remember the details anymore. Either way, one of my fellow group members missed the part that the male lead was not both a werewolf and a vegan at the same time, and in the group asked the question “How can a werewolf be vegan?” I didn’t have a lot to do that day and I had some thoughts on the matter, so I sat down and wrote a 1000-or-so word scene answering the question. That scene eventually grew into Salad on the Side, book 1 of my male/male series Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat.

Readers liked that book, and I was asked to make a series out of it; because my publisher also had a heterosexual romance imprint, I started trying to write a companion series with focus on heterosexual couples, though at the time only 2 books were published before I gave it up due to low sales. Those are now books 2 and 3 in the series Real Werewolves True Mates, which is the companion series I originally envisioned. Alpha Receptor was not one of the previously-published books, and is the first new romance I’d written since 2015. Lara and Chal do face obstacles in book 2 of both series (Veggie Burgers to Go, Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat 2, will release on Sept. 8; and Beta Test, Real Werewolves True Mates 2, will release Nov. 10), but I can’t tell you what they are because spoilers. I will say that Lara and Chal are not the focus couple in any of the other books; while Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat follows the same couple throughout, in Real Werewolves True Mates, each book has a different focus couple.

5. You’ve re-released previously published work. Could you explain what that means and what is involved? Any other advice or thoughts about what you’ve learned along your path as a writer?

For me what it means is that I stopped writing romance in 2015 because of severe burnout with writing and publishing, and other issues that weren’t related to writing. Over the following few years, some of my publishers closed (some already had) and reverted rights to me; I pulled my books from the remaining publishers over time until by 2020, they were all off the market.

Until 2021, if I even considered writing any fiction, I had panic attacks, and I avoided reading any of my previously-published books. Which was hard for me, because writing had been part of my identity since I was five years old. But it was what I had to do for my mental health and well-being. In summer 2021, though, I started rereading Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat and realized that the books are actually good and the series arc is exciting, though I may be biased on that. Over the years I’d bandied about the possibility of self-publishing some of my previously published stuff but had always rejected the idea; in 2021, it felt like the right time to gear up for doing it. And as I mentioned above, as a result of that decision I wrote Alpha Receptor, my first romance since 2015.

Self-publishing for me involves time, patience, and some money; while there are some things I can DIY, there are others, like formatting, that I find it best to pay other people for. And to keep myself in a place of enjoying the process, I’ve also had to form the mindset that while I want to earn money from these, I’m primarily re-releasing them for myself, and any earnings are a bonus. I’ve learned to prioritize my physical and mental health and well-being over writing lots and lots of stuff (which was part of the problem before; I tried to write too much too fast) and over getting tons of sales (which was the other part of the problem; my books didn’t sell as well as hoped in the past, and I felt like I was letting my publishers down, which is why I went the self-publishing route this time).

EXCERPT FROM “ALPHA RECEPTOR”:

The light was far too bright. Lara threw her arm over her face to block the glare. No
luck.

With an irritated grunt, she rolled onto her side and blinked. Sun streamed through the
sheer curtain over the window behind the bed’s headboard. A bed she didn’t recognize. An
unfamiliar room.

Awkwardly, she tried to sit up. The splitting pain in her head discouraged her.

We hunted.

She remembered. The previous night was full moon. She’d joined her pack at the hunt
house. She’d shifted to wolf and hunted, shifted back to human, and now she was paying
the price. As she did every month.

The sight of the old-fashioned light fixture above her head oriented her. She must be in
one of the hunt house’s bedrooms. She didn’t remember climbing the stairs. Didn’t
remember much of anything beyond Tobias, in human form, leading her away from the
large cluster of wolves and humans in various stages of shifting and sitting beside her,
quietly speaking words she hadn’t fully comprehended.

He’d brought her through her shift. And despite a degree of pain and disorientation, it
wasn’t as bad as all the other shifts she’d gone through. Whatever Tobias had done, it
benefited her. Maybe he was the one who’d brought her to this room.

No. Not Tobias. Someone else.

She made another effort to sit up and this time was successful, though the room spun
before settling. The continued discomfort in her head was more tolerable. Her nausea gave
way to hunger pangs. She might actually be able to function on a post-hunt day for once.
She should get up. Shower. Find her clothes. She’d left them near the back door of the
house, where the wolves left their clothing during the hunt. If she was lucky, whoever had
brought her to this room also brought her clothes.

A light tap sounded on the door. “Lara?” Her Alpha.

They’d planned a discussion for this morning. She wasn’t ready for it, but she couldn’t
ignore him. “I’m awake,” she replied, pulling the sheet up to cover her breasts. Although
he’d seen her nude on hunt nights, irrationally, the prospect of revealing her body to him
this morning left her feeling far too vulnerable.

The door opened and Chal walked in wearing the same clothes he’d worn prior to the
hunt. His black hair was braided down his back, and despite the casual clothing, he
possessed an air of power. He sat on the edge of the bed. “Do you feel all right?”
“Fair.” She tried to assess herself. Her consciousness was not entirely connected to her
body. Or, rather, it was more connected to the wolf body than the human. “What time is it?”

“Nearly noon. We deemed it best to let you sleep.”

How was it that late? She never slept this long, even the morning after a hunt. And
Sharon, her packmate, wouldn’t be thrilled with Lara and Chal taking up space in her house.

“Sharon’s gone to work,” Chal said. “She doesn’t object to pack staying later after a
hunt. Everyone else already left.”

“We should go too.” She didn’t move.

“In a bit,” he said. “We were going to have a discussion. We can wait until I bring you home if you’d rather.”

“No. Let’s not wait.” She wanted to hear what he had to say. He’d promised to explain
why he refused to acknowledge the bond between them.

Her mate. Her mate sat beside her, and despite the pain and brain fog left over from her
shift, her body responded to his presence with flame and hunger. She shivered.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

“No.” She met his gaze. For the first time, it didn’t feel awkward or wrong. No breach of
protocol. Alone together, he wasn’t her Alpha. He was her mate. “I’m starving.”

“I expect so. I thought it best not to offer you anything until I found out whether you
could handle food. There are eggs, bacon, and coffee downstairs. I’ll bring you some.”

“I can get it.” Again she stopped herself from pushing back the sheet. But she had to get
up. Mate or not, it wasn’t proper for an Alpha to serve a lower wolf.

He rested his hand on her shoulder, and the touch held the fire already coursing
through her body. “I’ll bring it, Lara,” he said. “Let me tend to you today.”

He spoke so gently tears filled her eyes, to her annoyance. Her emotions were always
all over the place following a hunt. She blinked and tried to sound casual when she said,
“Thank you.”

ABOUT KARENNA COLCROFT:

Karenna Colcroft lives just north of Boston, Massachusetts, and has been in love with the city since childhood, though she has yet to encounter any werewolves, vampires, or other paranormal beings in her travels. At least none that she knows of. Though since in her non-writing life, under another name, she offers services as a channel and energy healing practitioner, it could be said that she herself is a paranormal being. The jury’s still out on that.

Karenna is a polyamorous, nonbinary human who splits time between the home she shares with her husband and the one she shares with her committed partner. She also has two adult children and a bonus son, three grandchildren, and two and a half cats. (Half in terms of time the cat lives with her, not in terms of the cat itself…)

CONTACT KARENNA COLCROFT AT:

Arthor Website: https://karennacolcroft.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KarennaColcroft

Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Karenna-Colcroft/e/B0031HAOUK/