Starting today, I will be instituting a new feature to appear on Wednesdays: Awesome Romance Authors. This is a chance for you to meet some really inspiring romance authors and learn what makes them tick as well as discover some great romance novels to read.

It seems only fair that I kick off the whole shabang by sharing a bit about myself. So here we go…drumroll…

Awesome Romance Authors Introduces: Zara West

You have a long history of writing award-winning nonfiction, what made you decide to write a romantic suspense novel?

 Romantic suspense is my favorite sub-genre of romance.  I like how the mystery and suspense elements add conflict to and deepen the love story. At the same time, I wanted to do something a little different. Most romantic suspense features heroes and heroines in the military or in law enforcement or in special ops. I choose to look at the seamier side of life and explore what happens when ordinary people come within the cross-hairs of underworld criminals who don’t care who they hurt to get what they want.

What was the greatest challenge in writing a novel?

 I discovered that fiction writing is very different from non-fiction. You need a whole other toolbox. Non-fiction writing is about sharing information. Fiction is about stirring the reader’s emotions. I had to learn how to change the informative writing style I used successfully in my non-fictional work to an intensely intimate approach that puts you right inside the character’s head so you hear, see, smell, taste, touch, and feel what the character is experiencing.

Your novel Beneath the Skin is set in Williamsburg Brooklyn. What made you choose that setting?

Beside the fact that I am a native New Yorker, Williamsburg, Brooklyn is home to a thriving art culture. Street art can be found around every corner. Artist studios and galleries abound. But with spectacular views of Manhattan, it also has all the ambiance of life in an urban center. Sparkling new condos rise along the East River alongside abandoned rusting factories. Quiet residential streets lead to thriving commercial areas when the food from all nations can be found. And there are at least ten tattoo studios in the neighborhood.  It seemed just the place that fine artists, street artists, and tattoo artists would congregate.

Art plays a major role in the story. What inspired you to mix graffiti artists, tattoo artists and fine art?

As a professional artist in a craft field—weaving, I have always been annoyed at the distinction made between various art forms. All art is creative. What makes an image on a piece of canvas worth more than one on the side of a building or one tattooed on to someone’s skin?

In Beneath the Skin, I introduce some of this dichotomy. In the next books in the series I dig deeper into each of the art forms. The heroine in Close to the Skin, second in the series, is a tattoo artist who aspires for the recognition and fame her brother has earned as a fine artist. She hopes to achieve this by designing the tattoos for a new TV series.

Where did you get the idea for the paintings, the hero Aristides Stavros, creates?

I had a very close friend, Reiner Strub of Freiburg, Germany, who passed away last year. We met in Greece where he had a summer art studio with a view of the sea. He painted the most magnificent landscapes of the rolling hills and inlets of the Argolis coast. But they were not just simple landscapes. If you looked carefully, the hills were actually nudes.

Will there be a sequel to Beneath the Skin?

Beneath the Skin is one in a series of four romantic suspense novels in The Skin Quartet. The second book, Close to the Skin, which is Bella and Vernon’s story comes next. Within the Skin, Toro and Pharaoh’s story is the about a female graffiti artist who has pretended to be a boy to survive on the streets, but must now decided to show her feminine side. And the last book, Solo and Neto’s story, Under the Skin, is about the theft of a fine art collection.

Zara West is the author of a brand-new romance novel: Beneath the Skin

The story…

Ex-Olympic wrestler and reclusive billionaire artist Aristides Stavros has one mission—to rescue his sister, a popular Williamsburg, Brooklyn tattoo artist from the old enemy who has kidnapped her. But at every turn he is confronted by anthropologist Melissa Dermot. Is she just an innocent girl in over her head or is she working for the international crime boss holding his sister? Only one thing is certain, when Ari holds the beautiful Asian-American in his arms questions of guilt and innocence fade against an undeniable fiery attraction. But can their wild passionate love survive the tangled web of long hidden secrets, intentional deceit, and murderous revenge that lie just beneath the surface?

Beneath the Skin is now available in paperback  and e-book

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