Interview: Lori Austin, 'Beauty and the Bounty Hunter'

Authors with pseudonyms might seem as though they have split personalities. Lori Austin, aka Lori Handeland, who writes Westerns, paranormals, historicals, urban fantasies and who knows what else, seems to have multiple personalities. Beauty and the Bounty Hunter, under her Lori Austin handle, came out earlier this month. She joins us now to talk about her love of Westerns, history and breaking the rules.

Joyce: Welcome to HEA, Lori!

Lori: Thanks so much for inviting me!

Joyce: Are you mixing fairy tales and Westerns with Beauty and the Bounty Hunter? What precipitated that idea?

Lori: The idea actually came when my editor and I were brainstorming titles for the first book. The books aren't so much retold fairy tales as loosely based plays on words. For instance, in Beauty and the Bounty Hunter, the heroine is the bounty hunter and the hero is quite the beauty. The beastly qualities are present in their back stories and in their own views of themselves.

For the second book, An Outlaw in Wonderland, the heroine is the outlaw, Wonderland is a hideout and the book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, plays an interesting role. Loosely based, but still a lot of fun.

Joyce: Why do you think Westerns are so gosh-darn popular these days?

Lori: I hope they are! I've always loved Westerns. For me they are the quintessential American genre. I've never understood why, or how, they fell out of favor. What's not to love about a tough hero, an equally strong heroine, boots, horses, bad guys and shootouts?

Joyce: Beauty and the Bounty Hunter features its share of wacky characters. Would you like to share something about a couple here?

Lori: The heroine, Cat O'Banyon, has become a legendary bounty hunter, because she always gets her man. She became so good at what she does by learning from a master of lies, con man Alexi Romanov.

Alexi has secrets of his own that he won't share. He is not at all what he seems. But when he hears that a bounty has been placed on Cat's head, he immediately goes to find her. He's able to do so with the help of his henchman, Mikhail. Mikhail can find anything and anyone. An injury during the war altered his memories of his life before it. He became a different man -- one who was never in the war, one who was never captured and incarcerated in Castle Thunder prison.

In Beauty and the Bounty Hunter, everyone is adept at lies; they all have secrets, and everything comes back to haunt them in the end.

Joyce: I heard you live in Southern Wisconsin. (I grew up in Northern Illinois! We're practically neighbors.) What would you miss most about Wisconsin if you were to move out of the state? (I live in Virginia now, and I miss cheese curds and Leinenkugel's and hearing people talk about bubblers.)

Lori: LOL! You have it down, Joyce. When I went to college in Iowa, I discovered that no one called a water fountain a bubbler. They called soda "pop" and quarter barrels were "pony kegs." Live and learn, hey?

Youngest son goes to college in Eau Claire, where all the taps are Leinenkugel's. I love that!

If I moved out of Wisconsin, I'd miss Packer mania. By the time Saturday rolls around, every grocery store is filled with green and gold bakery -- green and gold bread, green and gold sprinkles on the cupcakes and the doughnuts, green and gold frosting on every cake. And don't forget the green and gold chips! I had someone ask me recently where we bought our Cheeseheads. When I said the grocery store, she didn't believe me.

People affix Packer flags to their cars. For a nominal fee we can have Packer license plates. We have bumper stickers that say: "Seventy percent of the earth is covered by water. The rest is covered by Charles Woodson." We discount double-check people on the street. How could you not miss all that? Go Pack!!

Joyce: Now I'm feeling homesick. You've written paranormal romance, urban fantasy, historical fantasy and, obviously, historical Westerns. Do you have a favorite subgenre?

Lori: I do love Westerns -- always have, always will. But, as you can tell by my bibliography, I tend to skip around. I think doing so has kept my work fresh and enabled me to keep writing for a number of years. Which means that my favorite genre is usually the one I'm writing at the moment.

Joyce: Do you ever run into trouble following the "rules" (such as being historically accurate) in historical Westerns when you can pretty much make your own rules in the other subgenres you write in?

Lori: One of the things I love about historicals is the history, so it's been great to research the old West again.

For my paranormals, I enjoyed making up the rules of the supernatural world. However, my books contained a lot of Native American mysticism, which involved as much, if not more, research than I'm doing now. I did a trilogy of books set in New Orleans, which involved a lot of study, along with several trips to New Orleans and a session with a voodoo priestess. That was fun!

While I follow the rules of research in all of my books, I love breaking any rule that I can in other areas. Like creating a female bounty hunter for Beauty and the Bounty Hunter or using the first person (point of view) in a paranormal romance, as I did with Blue Moon and the majority of the Nightcreature Novels.

Joyce: Please tell us more about Beauty and the Bounty Hunter and what readers can expect to see from you next.

Lori: In Beauty and the Bounty Hunter, Cat O'Banyon will stop at nothing to find the man who murdered her husband. When he places a bounty on her head, she knows she must get him before he gets her. She teams up with con artist Alexi Romanov, who taught her every trick she knows. Alexi is a master of deceit, of disguise and of desire. He's difficult to trust and even more difficult to resist. The two of them team up to find this man once and for all. Along the way they do a few dodges, get shot, meet some Cherokee and run head first into Alexi's past. It's one adventure after another -- fast-paced, fun and sexy.

Up next is An Outlaw in Wonderland (June) which tells the story of Dr. Ethan Walsh, who we meet briefly in Beauty and the Bounty Hunter. This book begins during the Civil War and tells us more about everyone's past. It's a story of spies and Pinkertons and outlaws.

Right now I'm working on the third book, as yet untitled. The hero is the brother of Annabeth, the heroine from An Outlaw in Wonderland. Everyone said the Indians killed him, but Luke Phelan doesn't die easily. This book will be released in January 2014.

Joyce: Thanks, Lori!

To find out more about Lori and her books, you can visit her websites, LoriAustin.net and LoriHandeland.com. You can also connect with her on The Goddess Blogs, Facebook and Twitter (@Lori_austin).