Interviews with Spot: Meet Minerva Shaw

Hello, folks. Spot here, the gargoyle companion of author Cindy Spencer Pape. From time to time, I like to take a more active role, so today I’m interviewing the main characters of Cindy’s newest book, Ashes & Alchemy. I’ve got Minnie on this blog, and you can find Seb’s answers over at NaughtyAuthor Chicks. Don’t forget you can enter the contest below from either of these locations. Cindy’s also talking about something else, over at the Carina Press blog today.  So here we go!

Spot: Nice to meet you, Minnie. First of all, what’s your full name and how old are you?

Minnie: Minerva Shepherd Shaw. Must you really ask a lady her age? Oh well, it’s not any secret, I suppose. Four-and-thirty.

Spot: And what do you do for a living?

Minnie: I’m a seamstress. And very good at it, if I do say so myself.

Spot: You live in London, right? What part? Oh, and when, if you don’t mind me asking.

Minnie (Looks down at her hands in her lap.) It’s 1860. And I live in rather an awful part of town. It isn’t easy for a widow on her own with a young child.

Spot: I imagine not but you look like you’ve got the grit to survive. Can you tell me how it feels to live in an age of both steam powered technology and magick?

Minnie: I never really believed in magick. Of course every Londoner knows about vampyres and other monsters, but they never seem quite real, do they? Then I met Sebastian, and his family and friends and had to change my views. As for technology, it mostly doesn’t matter to the poor. I do like having automated sewing engines, though.

Spot: Before you met Seb at the beginning of Ashes & Alchemy, had you ever been in love before?

Minnie: I call myself a widow, and I’m a mother so, I suppose I should say yes. But to be honest, all isn’t as it seems in my life. I really never knew love before I met Sebastian.

Spot: What would you say is the single most important thing in your life?

Minnie: My daughter, of course. Ivy means everything to me. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her.

Spot: Good for you. Now tell me how you met Inspector Brown.

Minnie: (smiling softly) He saved me—saved us. I was trying to find a doctor for Ivy and knocked on Sebastian’s door instead.

Spot: Ah. And your first impression of him?

Minnie: (grins) Big. Bossy. Strong. And so very, very brave. Once I realized he was quiet, not rude, I found him most attractive.

Spot: So now that you know him better, what is his most distinguishing characteristic?

Minnie: Well, he’d say it’s his sense of when a person is lying. Really, it’s his strength of character—and his physique is nothing to sneeze at. (She giggles here.)

Spot: What about you? What makes you unique?

Minnie: I’m just an ordinary working woman, but I like to think my sense of humor and kindness make the world a little brighter place.

Spot: I wouldn’t argue with that. Now that you and Seb are together, how do you think things are going to work out?

Minnie: (beaming) Perfection. (Then she chuckles.) Oh, we’ll fight of course. And we’re both stubborn. Coming together a little later, we’re both rather set in our ways. Love doesn’t mean the roof won’t leak, and I will worry about his work. But to have him come home to me, to share a life with him and Ivy and any other children we might have? A warm hearth and food on the table? That’s all we really need.

Spot: (Cough. No, that’s not a tear in my eye. Gargoyles don’t cry, damn it!) So, if you could say one thing to Mrs. Pape, the writer of your tale, what would it be?

Minnie: I’d have loved to have found Seb earlier in life—and to have spared him some of the pain he suffered before we found each other.

Spot: Well, there you have it. Fresh talk from a lovely lady. Now here’s a little more about Seb and Minnie’s story, Ashes & Alchemy.

Ashes & Alchemy

Carina Press, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and All Romance e-Books.

London, 1860

Police inspector Sebastian Brown served Queen and country in India before returning to England to investigate supernatural crimes alongside the Order of the Round Table. If his wifeless, childless life feels a little empty sometimes, that's not too great a price to pay in the name of duty.

Minerva Shaw is desperately seeking a doctor when she mistakenly lands on Sebastian's doorstep. Her daughter Ivy has fallen gravely ill with a mysterious illness—the same illness, it seems, that's responsible for taking the lives of many of Ivy's classmates.

Seb sniffs a case, and taking in Minnie and Ivy seems the only way to protect them while he solves it. But as mother and daughter work their way into his heart and Seb uses every magickal and technological resource he can muster to uncover the source of the deadly plague, it's he who will need protecting—from emotions he'd thought buried long ago.

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Cindy Spencer Pape firmly believes in happily-ever-after and brings that to her writing. Award-winning
author of 18 novels and more than 30 shorter works, Cindy lives in southeast Michigan with her husband, two sons and a houseful of pets. When not hard at work writing she can be found dressing up for steampunk parties and Renaissance fairs, or with her nose buried in a book.

Website: http://www.cindyspencerpape.com

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Twitter: http://twitter.com/CindySPape

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