1–What is the title of your latest release?
THE LAST FRIEND YOU’LL EVER HAVE
2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
If you could kill people just by touching them, you’d use that power for good, right? Mostly good, anyway?
3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
Answer: Write what you know! The book opens in St. Louis, near where I grew up, and then spends part of the time in Denver, where I had friends live for a while. Even the gas station where Highway 70 just…ends in Utah is modeled on a real place I’ve been (and yes, it’s really weird when a major highway you’ve been on for a thousand miles comes to a T!). Might have thrown my town into the mix, just because I could, but won’t say which one!
4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?
That’s a really tough thing to answer because, for the most part, my heroine is too deadly to just casually ‘hang out with.’ She will kill you, even if she’s not trying to! But by the end…I mean, she does really like ice cream and her dogs. I think we could be friends. Or at least friendly acquaintances! That’s probably safest, all things considered.
5–What are three words that describe your hero?
Brooding, snarling, surprisingly thoughtful. Whoops, that was four words! But they all apply. Ace is like an onion. Or a parfait! He has layers is what I’m saying and sometimes those layers are onion-y and stinky and sometimes they’re sweet and fruity and the thing about Ace is, you literally never know if you’re gonna get the onion or the parfait.
6–What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I learned I’m really weird. No, wait, I already knew that! I had to consult with my friend Tasha Harrison about a few of the more occult-ish aspects of the book and I learned that I really, really shouldn’t mess with things I don’t understand (not quite a direct quote, but close). Any time I talk about ghosts, I think I make Tasha break out into a cold sweat!
7–Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I mostly edit as I go along but that, sadly, doesn’t save me from still having to do massive revisions. It mostly just means that when I have to tear a book apart, the grammar of the sections I’m cutting is super on-point.
8–What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Unlike Suzie in the book, I do not dream of ice cream! Chocolate is my drug of choice – although there is a strong argument to be made for a really well-aged triple creme brie. In a perfect world, you eat the brie, then you have the chocolate after!
…and now I know what I want for dinner tonight…
9–Describe your writing space/office!
My office is also our parlor, so it’s the entry room to our house. I painted the walls a lovely turquoise and any flat surface is covered in dog beds and blankets. My desk looks out over the front porch because I AM the neighborhood watch (and I don’t like people sneaking up on my front door without me knowing they’re coming). This is why I tend to be the one who chases after loose dogs in the neighborhood—because I see them run by! My desk is an old oak desk with a glass top over it and a bunch of vacation photos under the glass so it’s like a little mental vacation when I need a brain break and I’ve planted flower planters and beds out the windows I can see out of so that in spring and summer I can see daffodils, roses and petunias (although at this exact moment there are countless squirrels burying untold numbers of acorns in all of them and the petunias are looking a little…bedraggled.)
10–Who is an author you admire?
Now THAT is a long list! Karen Booth for making ‘Seasoned Romance’ a thing! Farrah Rochon for writing the Disney book of her heart—after taking the contemporary romance world by storm! Joelle Charbonneau for offering me good writing advice, even when I don’t take it! TJ Klune for writing some of the funniest YA I’ve ever read! But I also admire those authors who are still out there working on their first book or still struggling to get their first agent or first sale—because it’s easy to admire an author that wrote a book that became a best-seller but every single one of those people started out once as a newbie that wrote their way to a place of success and knowledge and name-recognition. We all have to start somewhere so to all of those out there who are still working hard to put words on the page, figure out the constantly changing landscape of publishing and keep trying even when the answer is “No,” I admire you!
11–Is there a book that changed your life?
Like, weekly? But if you want to go old-school, I’ve never recovered from Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphin. I was a HUGE fan of the “kid stranded alone” genre of books back in the day (Hachet! My Side of the Mountain!) But Island of the Blue Dolphins was first and not too long ago, I reread it to my Kid’s class, and it still held up. I think now, as an adult, there’s a discussion to be made about whether or not Mr. O’Dell was the right author to tell that story about an Indigenous girl stranded on an island and surviving for years by herself, but as an introverted kid who often felt alone, it gave me a sense of knowing that even if I really WAS all by myself, I’d still be okay. And when I read that story out loud to that class, I asked critical thinking questions (not to brag but teachers really enjoyed when I’d come in to read every week) and I think…I think there was one student in particular in that class who needed to hear that story when she did, just like I had. A good book at the right moment can change lives (which is why we should all push back against book bans, FYI! Let kids read!)
12–Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)
My friend Megan Frampton (who is a delightful author of historical novels, you should read them! And not just the one I named, Tall, Duke and Handsome, although that one is very good!) also works at Scribd and they’ve been doing a lot of Audio first releases. She contacted me to see if I had anything I had the rights to that I’d be willing to sell Scribd the audio and ebook rights to and The Last Friend had gone around and gotten a lot of really positive comments paired with rejections such as “I loved the writing and the story but…how would we market it?” So I sent her that and the novella The Christmas Pony, which had been out in ebook for a while, and she loved them both!! So The Last Friend You’ll Ever Have was a Scribd Exclusive for three months before being released as an ebook-wide this week and The Christmas Pony was just released through Scribd as a brand-new audiobook, just in time for the holiday season! So it wasn’t really a call, just a series of emails with me going, Hey, what about THIS? And Megan replied, I LOVED IT. I should’ve made her call me, ha!
13–What’s your favorite genre to read?
I am all over the place! In the middle of TJ Klune’s Extraordinaries Series, waiting on Alecia Dow’s next book like it’s air. I just finished a mind-blowing space opera series, Ancilliary Justice by Anne Ledecki! Next up on the TBR is Fevered Star, a Mayan Folk retelling by Rebecca Roanhorse! I’m DYING for the next Oliva Dade book in the Spoiler Alert series, which is just the fluffiest, funniest body-positive romance (seriously, it’s like a giant hug). I listen to a lot of audiobooks because it’s the only way I can get through chores these days (like who likes to clean sinks? Not me!) And when my brain needs a break, I go back to dukes. Megan Frampton, Tessa Dare, Cat Sebastian, K.J. Charles…Those are my comfort reads
14–What’s your favorite movie?
I will always watch The Fifth Element when it comes on. Other formative movies are The Princess Bride and Willow (Who’s excited for that new reboot series? THIS GIRL!). In related news, yes, I’m not exactly a spring chicken anymore. It’s harder to have recent favorites because as a professional author, I’m utterly unbearable to watch movies with because it’s very, VERY (damn) hard to surprise me. So I really enjoyed Knives Out because it was so well done. (Although – true story! – we saw it in the theater with our estate lawyer a few rows back and then the next week went in to sign our wills and we got to compare notes on how the movie misrepresented both publishing and estate planning! He had NOTES. I was dying!)
15–What is your favorite season?
Ooh, tough call between fall (NOW!) and spring. I hate extreme heat and cold, and I also am not a huge fan of bugs, so that rules out summer and winter. But fall and spring? Colorful trees or blooming plants? With minimal bugs and sweating? I do enjoy cardigans and large mugs of tea. I’d have to give spring the slight edge because coming out of the darkness of winter with daffodils is a very hopeful time for me.
16–How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Ummm…that requires remembering it’s my birthday? We usually celebrate it on a vacation which can be up to a month before or after the actual date. However, having said that, for my 46th birthday, we were in Paris and we went to a cabaret and the French drag queen MC, Mme Icee Drag-on, wished me a happy birthday and told me I looked pretty and honestly, highly recommend!
17–What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Most of my TV viewing is my time with my kid, so it means that it’s my most tuned-in to pop culture! I watch a lot more anime than I ever thought I would at this age, ha! We’re waiting on the dub of several shows – Demon Slayer, Attack on Titan, Black Clover and Bleach are all good shows. What We Do in the Shadows is another one we watch regularly and, like every child of retired teachers and every former teacher out there, I simply adore Abbott Elementary.
18–What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
I live in a small-enough town that our cuisine choices are limited to, like, 5 Mexican restaurants and one Chinese restaurant. That’s a slight exaggeration but only slightly. So when we go to a big city, we eat things we can’t get here! Good Thai is really good, tho.
19–What do you do when you have free time?
Read! Garden! Crochet! I used to knit but arthritis is a thing, and a crochet hook is easier for me to hold – and it was what I learned first back before I was even in kindergarten! – so I’ve gone back to that. Sometimes I’ll attempt other art things – watercolor or marker art – but I get frustrated when I can’t make it perfect, so it’s better for me to do yarn art things, which are more forgiving (even if I rarely sew in that last yarn string…)
20–What can readers expect from you next?
Well, THE CHRISTMAS PONY just came out in Audio, so that’s exciting! Otherwise, I have a few things I’m working on but nothing definite yet!
THE LAST FRIEND YOU’LL EVER HAVE by Sarah M. Anderson
Suzie Cain has more problems than she can count—the least of which is the fact that, if she touches a person, that person’s going to die within the week.
That, at least, she can work with. If people want to give her money to hang out with terrible people, well – it isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time, but it’s a living.
She has bigger problems. For starters, she doesn’t know who she is. Oh, she knows she’s Suzie, orphan and foster kid. She knows she’s dangerous. But why? Where did she come from? Her only clue is an old photo of a very angry woman with some sort of…shadow hovering behind her and a strange poem – or is it a curse? – written on the back.
And now she’s picked up a new problem, a biker named Ace who seems to be tracking her across state lines. He’s operating under the assumption that Suzie is a mercenary for hire, just like he is—and he doesn’t like the competition. But when she’s got the chance, she doesn’t touch him and she doesn’t know why.
If Suzie can break her curse, she can change her luck.
But life is never that simple. Because of course not.
CW: Sexual assault, curses, morally gray heroines, ice cream in egregious quantities.
Romance Paranormal | Fantasy Urban [Self Published, On Sale: October 10, 2022, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9798357458520 / eISBN: 9798357458520]
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About Sarah M. Anderson
Sarah M. Anderson is an award-winning author who writes contemporary snarky and sensual romances featuring cowboys and bull riders as well as billionaires with and without babies. She won RT Reviewer’s Choice 2012 Desire of the Year for A Man of Privilege. The Nanny Plan was a 2016 RITA winner for Contemporary Romance: Short. Seduction on His Terms was the Booksellers’ Best Award winner for Short Contemporary 2020.
Sarah spends her days having conversations with imaginary cowboys and billionaires. Find out more on her website.
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