And our Sue's Clues Mystery Author is:

Our Mystery Author this round is Naomi Bellis. I think you will all find from her interview that she is a very interesting lady and be intrigued to read her books.

When you are done, visit Naomi at her website.

http://www.naomibellis.com/

1. You live in Victoria, Bristish Columbia. Have you always lived there
or did you live elsewhere during your childhood..

I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta. It's prairie country and the neighborhood I grew up in was brand new when we moved there, so it was still pretty unsettled for the first few years. I remember seeing the aurora borealis in winter, real cowboys, and snow up to the roof top. All that's still there, but not so easy to spot (except the snow). It's very built up now and a fabulous city with lots of cultural events. I went back to visit my family last year and had a wonderful time, though there wasn't much I recognized!

I moved to Victoria when I started university. I loved it so much, I've stayed here since. I'm a block from the ocean, where I can look out and see the Olympic Mountains and Port Angeles across the water—and there's very little snow, which suits me fine.

2. Can you tell us about your family?

I was an only child. My parents were both wonderful, artistic unconventional people who surrounded themselves with books and music. My mom lives in Victoria. Sadly, my father passed away some years ago, but I can still feel his presence when I come across a really interesting tidbit of historical research.

3. You play harps and recorders in Celtic music ensembles. I can only wish I had that talent. Are you self taught on these instruments? Also, what type of harp do you play?

Not many people realize there are many different kinds of harps! I'm impressed!

I have three harps—a neo-Celtic harp made by Dusty Strings, a small wire-strung harp, and a medieval bray harp. There are a lot of technical differences between these and the type of harps you see in an orchestra. This isn't a harp blog, so I'll just say the main advantage to folk harps is that I can put all my harps in the back of the car. Concert pedal harps are less simple to move around.

I will share this tidbit for historical buffs: The bray harp is an antique design from the 15th/16th century. The voice of these instruments is very soft. The bray pins amplify the sound by buzzing against the strings, rather like an Indian sitar. The sound is exotic and loud enough that the instrument can be heard over the noise made by dancers.

As to my musical training—I learned the harp from my mother, but I've also taken a lot of lessons from various sources. We're lucky to have a very good recorder teacher in Victoria, and I've studied and performed with her.

4. You were also an arts critic for quite a few years. What kind of events did you critique? Does it feel odd to be on the other side of the review, so to speak, now that you are publishing novels?

It is strange to be the interviewee, but I think it makes me more comfortable. I know more about the process and what an interviewer will find helpful, so preparation is easier.

Recently, I went through all my articles and logged them. Apparently, I critiqued a lot of opera. I also did drama, chamber music, book reviews, and ballet. My favorite was the juggling festival—those folks were fun.

One time I did a piece on the local RWA chapter's upcoming conference. I met some romance writers through that series of interviews, and that's how I got involved in writing romance!

5. The three books you have published so far are historical paranormal romance and set in the later part of the 18th century. It's a combination not often found but a refreshing change, in my opinion. Can you tell us a bit about the books? What prompted you to write this type of book? What kinds of characters will we meet? What is the paranormal element—vampires, ghosts, magic?

I'd love to tell you about my books. What I set out to write was the kind of swashbuckling action-adventure romance I have always adored, like the Scarlet Pimpernel, The Three Musketeers and so on. I wanted humor, longing, atmosphere and hair-raising scrapes. At the same time, I wanted a dash of magic.

My books brush up against the French Revolution and the start of the Napoleonic Wars, and they are well before the Regency proper. The activity in the books revolves around a spymaster, Sir Alaric Fitzwilliam, who is trying to keep the English throne safe from attack, both magical and mundane. My heroes are his spies, and they all have complicated pasts they need to overcome. Some of them have magical abilities of their own, some do not. The heroines are everything from a debutante to a highway robber. None of them are wallflowers!

Although there is magic in the books, the emphasis is always on the humanity of the characters and the choices they make. The magical element increases with each book—some details are just hinted at in STEP INTO DARKNESS. I wanted the experience to get richer and more complex every time the reader visited my universe, a bit like finding a great new restaurant every time you come to a favorite vacation spot.

There are no vampires or werewolves on stage, but the ghosts, demons and sorcerers have the spooky factor nicely covered.

6. Will these books be part of an extended series or is this going to be a trilogy ending with "THEFT OF SHADOWS"?

I hesitate to call this a trilogy because, despite recurring characters, the books are all stand-alone stories. They can be read in any order. As for more books in the series, I am hoping to return to it after a detour on the contemporary side. I still have more characters to get settled.

7. What types of books do you expect to write in the future? Do you plan on staying with historicals and/or paranormals? Do you see yourself venturing into contemporary writing at some point?

I am currently working on a contemporary paranormal complete with vampires and werewolves. I'm having a great time with it! (I don't have title info yet, but it should be out in early 2009)

8. Lastly, I visited your website and read the Articles section you have posted. I enjoyed each and thought they were very interesting. I wanted to ask you about the Ghosts of Victoria in particular. Am I correct in assuming that the experiences in the article were stories of other people's encounters? Assuming that is the case, do you believe in ghosts and have you ever had an encounter of your own? Are ghost sightings a common occurence in Victoria?

The Ghosts of Victoria article is based on experiences that have happened to me, my family, or my friends, so I do believe in paranormal phenomena. I've seen "ghosts" and encountered cold spots and been touched by people who weren't visible.

Oddly, I've been startled but not exactly scared. What exactly causes those phenomena is beyond my scope of knowledge, but I never felt any sense of malice. I just give a respectful hello and move on and so far that's worked just fine. I guess I'm just not that interesting!

Victoria is an old city with a colorful past, so it is reputed to be one of the most haunted places in North America. It was a gateway to the Yukon gold rush, so you can imagine there were plenty of shenanigans going on during its early days.