Maya Reynolds Tell All
September 24, 2007 | Interviews
ST: Good Morning! This week we have the mother of all bad girls with us, Maya Reynolds. Welcome, Maya, and thank you for visiting with us this week.
MR: Thanks, Sloane. I’m so glad you invited me. I love your site and your books. It’s a good day whenever you have a new release.
ST: I agree! Tell us about yourself.
MR: Well, I was born in New York City and grew up in Florida. I have a Masters in Social Work and spent years working on the Dallas County mobile crisis team (a terrific job for a writer looking for story lines). I live in a small town in Texas and work at a university in Dallas. I love to garden and work through my stories while pulling weeds or fertilizing my roses.
ST: Your debut novel, BAD GIRL, has just been released. Let’s show everyone your gorgeous cover.
ST: It was an exciting, hot read. I loved the book. Please tell our readers about it.
MR: BAD GIRL is about a woman named Sandy Davis. Sandy didn’t start out intending to spy on her neighbors in the high-rise across the street. It began innocently. But then, she couldn’t bring herself to stop. Night after night, she hid in the shadows of her balcony and peeped through each different window, watching people going about their lives, never realizing they were being observed.
It was just a game. No one had to know. Then one night came a phone call…
“You’ve been a bad girl.”
He calls himself Justice. He has a pastime too. Watching Sandy watch others. He has the pictures to prove it. Now it’s his turn to play–by making Sandy pay the price in exchange for holding on to her naughty little secret.
As the sensual dance between two strangers begins, so does Sandy’s fear that she’s moving closer to the edge of extreme desire–and inescapable danger.
ST: How did you come up with the story line?
MR: I was taking a writing class online and wanted to find an unusual story where the heat level would scorch the pages. I happened to see Rear Window on television, and it started me wondering what would happen if it was a woman spying on her neighbors–and what would happen if she got caught.
ST: And where and can we buy BAD GIRL?
MR: It’s on sale now. You can find it at bookstores like Barnes & Noble, or Borders, and at the online booksellers like Amazon.com or Powells.com.
ST: You have an agent. Was it difficult to connect with one you really wanted to represent you?
MR: I’ve heard it said that it’s harder to find an agent than it is to find a publisher. I don’t know about that.
I began writing BAD GIRL in February, 2005. I entered the first chapter in the “Just Erotic Romance Reviews” contest that summer. Raelene Gorlinsky of Ellora’s Cave picked it as second place winner and asked me to submit the full manuscript. The only problem was that I hadn’t finished the novel at that point. It took me several months to finish the story. In the meantime, I continued to query agents.
Having won that second place prize certainly helped me attract the attention of the agents I wrote. I had multiple requests to see the manuscript. Then, one of my critique partners met Jacky Sach of BookEnds at a conference and mentioned BAD GIRL to her. Jacky asked to see the manuscript. I called her, and we clicked almost immediately so the decision to go with her agency was an easy one.
ST: Your experience is a rarity. I’m happy for you, Maya. Hopefully we’ll see you tomorrow?
MR: I wouldn’t miss it.
ST: Until then…
Happy Writing!
Sloane
