Snuggling Under Snowdrifts, Book 2
Monster Romance
Date Published: 8/8/2023
I found the most elusive spot to hide from my parent’s cult but in claiming my cave, I accidentally allowed a snow monster to claim me…
Dr. Sydney Decker
Six months ago, Dr. Vera Thompson disappeared into the wilderness to settle with a mysterious “survivalist colony” without a known location. She may have bought their lies, but I was born into an isolated group of religious fanatics and can’t believe Vera would fall into the same trap. Her weak “find my phone app” signal is the lifeline between us, and I won’t stop searching the frigid tundra for her. My best friend helped me escape but now, it’s my turn to save her.
Sergei
Loneliness threatens my sanity with each rejection at the annual mating chase. Females fear my hot temper and need for control, instead of appreciating that I am the biggest and fiercest male chuchunya. I had lost hope I would discover my dushevnayasvyaz or soulmate, but then she found us. This season I find myself breaking the ancient rules and deliberately damaging the rituals I hold dear…at her request. I meant what I said when I promised to rearrange the world to make my dushevnayasvyaz happy, but when will I be pushed too far?
Caught between the regimented conditioning of the clan and the willful spirit of his dushevnayasvyaz, Sergei must choose the order which keeps him stable or his chance at fated love. Will they escape punishment for their deeds or face shunning in a desolate place where community means survival? Will Sydney recognize he’s betraying his kin to win her heart or ignore their bond in fear of losing her independence?
Interview with Marilyn Barr
How many books have you written and which is your favorite?
If you count the books currently on preorder, I have written nineteen books between my catalog with the Wild Rose Press and my indie career. However, I wouldn’t be an author without a drawer of wildly embarrassing manuscripts from my past. There is a stack of Anne Rice fan fiction novels I wrote in high school, strange science fiction stories I wrote to ease writer’s block, and middle school attempts at writing screenplays that are blackmail fuel.
If you’re planning a sequel, can you share a tiny bit about your plans for it?
In the first two books of the Snuggling Under Snowdrifts series, Dr. Adam Ruther appears out of nowhere to save the day. How does he know the chuchunya exist, let alone when they are in danger? His story, Cherishing My Chuchunya will be released in January of 2024 and answers these questions. When he was fatally wounded and left for dead on the Canadian tundra, Patricika the Chuchunya nursed him to health. Their off-and-on relationship plays out behind the action of the first two books and throws the future of the clan into chaos. How can a chuchunya female pledge undying devotion to a human male?
Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?
The stories in the Snuggling Under Snowdrifts series build on one another. Dr. Vera Thompson is rescued by Artyom but her best friend helps her reunite with him in Book 1: Cuddling My Chuchunya. Dr. Sydney Decker pledges to find Vera after she disappears on the Canadian tundra. When she is discovered by the clan leader, she finds herself fake-mated to Sergei in Book 2: Spooning My Chuchunya. Their rocky relationship would fall to pieces if it weren’t for Patricika and Dr. Adam Ruther, whose book is next. They hide their secret from the clan leader with the help of Serik, whose book will be the fourth in the series.
How did you come up with the title for your book?
I wanted to write a series as fluffy as the heroes, one that would lift the reader’s spirits between life’s challenges. My spouse is a third-generation Russian immigrant and loves the legend of the chuchunya (or arctic tundra dwelling yeti), so I was inspired to write about this monster. I started to daydream about a winter book series with a clan of chuchunya and their human soulmates. What would they do beneath the permafrost? To stay warm, their hours would be spent cuddling, spooning, and cherishing one another.
How long did it take you to write this book?
The Chuchunya books write themselves in my head. I loosely outlined the eight-book series during one of my son’s soccer games. Book 1: Cuddling My Chuchunya took less than four weeks to write because I was already in love with Vera and Artyom’s adventurous spirits. Book 2: Spooning My Chuchunya took seven weeks because I had to adjust to Sydney’s pragmatic way of thinking. I tend to be more whimsical but with Sydney’s past, she wouldn’t fall for just any snow monster. Sergei had to be exceptional…and he is.
What does the title mean?
The best answer comes from Sergei and Sydney themselves. Here’s an exclusive excerpt from Spooning My Chuchunya, narrated by Sergei:
I’m half-sitting when she grabs my hand. “I’ll tell you, but I need you behind me. If I see the pity in your eyes, I’ll cry and never get the whole story out. Just hold on to me while I tell the story—like it happened to someone else and I’m reading what happened secondhand. For some reason, my brain doesn’t relive the events from my teen years when I’m in your arms.”
“My duty is to provide you comfort,” I whisper as I resume the spooning position we held as we slept. “I’m a lucky male you require my embrace.”
“We shall see how lucky you are,” she mumbles. I hate how small her voice sounds and how she smells of fear, not arousal. One minute she’s laughing, and the next she’s about to burst into tears. This vulnerable version of her is frightening.
“Sergei, I love being close to you, but no matter how close we are, I can’t be what you want. It’s not you—it’s me. I told you I was shunned…from my parent’s clan. Well, my two issues go together.”
“I offered to return you—”
“That’s the problem,” she says with a sob. “If I go back, I’ll be—mated for no better term—to a horrible man I don’t love. I ran ten years ago…”
What did you learn when writing the book?
When I wrote a list of what I would miss most if I lived beneath the permafrost, coffee topped the list. I wanted Sydney and Sergei to bond over her caffeine withdrawal and his solution, but coffee beans are tropical plants. There is no way he could forage for them in the Arctic Circle. I went down the rabbit hole of wildcrafting on the boreal shield and in the boreal forest.
While in Kentucky, we associate Sarsaparilla with root beer floats and summer festivals, it is a hot tea drink in northern Canada. Combined with goat’s milk and powdered mushrooms, found in the northern part of the boreal shield, the drink tastes like a mocha latte. I loved mixing herbs and mushroom powders to get the drink just right. While the caffeine content is less than one-tenth of coffee, Sergei could roast the roots to give his drink a kick. A detoxing Sydney—or any decaffeinated damsel—would swoon over a warm cup when the temperatures are consistently below freezing.
What surprised you the most?
The friendship between Patricika and Sydney came at me from left field. They are tough women who have endured the grooming to be child brides but decided to break free—in their own ways. Sydney left her isolated commune and with the help of government agencies, went to college to disappear among the students. Patricika played along until she found her chosen partner and then threw the rules away. When I put them together at the final battle, it was to placate Sergei and Adam. Instead, there is a touching moment where the difference between being fearless and being brave is discussed by two women who fight for their right to love who they wish.
Have you ever killed off a character your readers loved?
Not in the Snuggling Under Snowdrifts series because I promise a high-steam, low-angst read… However, in my Strawberry Shifters series, the vampires have a rare form of anemia and die young. Ryan the Vampire King is a reader favorite, admired for his snark. In his book, Rotten Apple, he is given two months to live. His stem cell treatments are no longer effective in keeping his disease in remission. He betrays his friends and family in exchange for immortality from the Fae Realm’s healers and things don’t go as planned…
What do you do to get inside your character’s heads?
I love dressing up as my characters as I write. From caking on goth makeup to become Betty from Go Scorch Yourself to poofing my hair with hot rollers to become Vera in Cuddling My Chuchunya, I find more authentic mannerisms by stepping into their persona. By wearing large fairy wings, I experienced difficulties a fairy, like Orchid in Rotten Apple, would have in our world—such as entering and exiting a vehicle, sitting on a toilet, and wearing a jacket. I loved making a tree trunk potato gun like the one Patricika uses in Spooning My Chuchunya. My costume collection grows with each title and my latest addition is a female yeti suit to be Patricika the Chuchunya.
About the Author
Marilyn Barr lives in the wilds of Kentucky with her husband, son, and rescue cats. She has nine books with The Wild Rose Press in multiple romance subgenres from sweet, new adult romance to erotic, fantasy romance. She loves to place monstrous characters with hearts of gold in historical romances and her historical, paranormal romances have won the Crowned Heart Award, 2nd place in National Excellence in Story Telling (NEST) Contest, Imadjinn Award for Best Paranormal Romance, and Grand Finalist for the InD’Tale Magazine’s RONE Award. When engaging in the real world, you can find her with the Kentuckiana Romance Writers, volunteering with her son’s Special Olympics teams, or dancing around her kitchen. She is a sucker (haha) for cheesy horror movies, Italian food, punk music, black cats, bad puns, and all things witchy.
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1 comments:
Just my kind of read!
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