Interview & Giveaway with Lee Nichols, author of Deception and Betrayal

We are so excited to have author Lee Nichols on MM's today! We are huge fans of her series and highly recommend picking them up. You can read our reviews for them here and here.

Your ghosts are both friendly, helpful and menacing. Are there specific legends/lore that you used for creating your world of friendly, helpful and oh so dark ghosts?

No legends or lore, I really just thought of them more as people. The house ghosts I based on characters in historical novels. Nicholas, the little chimney sweep was definitely influenced by my love of Dickens, Celeste by my adoration of Regency romances and the heroine's lady's maids, and Anatole the chef was completely made up. Neos I just tried to make as scary as I could possibly stand to write him--he definitely embodies a lot of my personal fears.

Emma creates a family for herself when hers literally disappears. And you chose characters who help her out so well: a guardian, caretakers and a her friends. The friends -- Coby, Sara and Harry are especially well crafted. What was your inspiration for their very different personalities?

Bennett is not always a perfect love interest. He's not always there for Emma and he takes a very long time to even admit he cares for her. So I wanted Coby to be more available, more loyal, and more obvious about his affection for her. But love is such a mystifying experience. We don't always want the guy that on paper might be a better match for us.

Sara was the kind of girl I pictured going to an exclusive private school in Massachusetts. But I try to twist all my cliches and in this case made her beautiful and wealthy, but also extremely kind and selfless. She deeply cares about all her friends.

And Harry is just the kind of guy I always hung out with in high school, really smart and funny. I loved writing him

Just wanted to say how very much we love the Emma and Bennett pairing. If Emma could tell us one thing before we read the third book, what would it be?

Emma believes in happy endings.

In BETRAYAL, Bennett creates a playlist for Emma on her iPhone, if he could play her one song off of it, which song would he choose?

I think he'd play her Mirrorball by Elbow.

Have you ever had a ghost experience?

Not really. I do think places and things can be haunted with the spirits of the dead, but I can't say that I've ever seen a ghost.

What are you working on now?

Surrender, the third Haunting Emma book comes out in December. In the meantime, I'm polishing up all my best ideas and trying to decide what to invest myself in next.

Thank you so much Lee for being with us today!

Thank you so much! These were really fun questions. Thanks for having me!

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Be sure to visit Lee's site here to find out more about her books, where to buy her books and to find out what she's working on next.

Thank you Lee, we have an awesome giveaway today! We have a copy of Deception and Betrayal we're giving away to 1 lucky follower!