The Strawberry Shifters Series
Get a behind-the-scenes
all-access pass to The Strawberry Shifters Series by Marilyn Barr!
SYNOPSIS:
Welcome to Strawberry, KY where a mysterious parasite has unlocked the inner animal from its host's DNA.
For centuries the community has lived as a haven for paranormal misfits, recreating the Bergan brand to fund their isolated existence. The pharmaceutical world is wondering what the secret is to small town Bergan Pharma's overnight success, but would they believe that it is the vampires who run the night lab?
The community of paranormal creatures works in harmony until the Fae decide to put a Sluagh prison on the edge of town.
Now vampires and shifters must work together to exterminate the soul-sucking Sluagh and take back their territory.
What is the sub-genre and trope? Did your characters lead you to this genre or was that decided before the story began?
The subgenre is paranormal romance because I love the idea of someone monstrous deserving to be loved for who they are. Everyone has beauty and redeeming qualities which appeal to their soulmate(s). I love to explore this connection using the extremes of paranormal creatures to create parallels to those who exist in the real world.
Are you more character or plot driven?
I am definitely character-driven as a writer. My first step in the pre-writing process is to get to know the characters and make old-fashioned colleges for each one. I use scissors, construction paper, magazines (and internet images), and glue like I’m back in the 1990s.
With many main and secondary characters, how do you keep
them separated in your mind? Do you have a story/vision board above your
workspace?
On my wall, I have a large map of Strawberry where I put these character mini-posters. As the characters appear in earlier books, I add their traits to their place on the map. By the time I get to writing their book, I have a great start on pre-writing. I add the book cover to the map after publication too.
For example, Tyler the hippo shifter runs the grocery store. He appears in Books 3-6 but his book isn’t until Book 7: Cotton Batting. Making his college was easy because I had met him through my other characters. The giant softy with a raunchy sense of humor is the perfect foil for his mate who you get the chance to meet in June 2022’s release of Book 3: Go Scorch Yourself. Which of the new female residents to Strawberry’s is his? My lips are sealed.
I know from previous interviews that characters take on a
life of their own. Were any of the characters in this series determined to take
their own direction instead of where you initially wanted them to go?
I had a different love interest planned for Lucien, the hero of Book 3: Go Scorch Yourself. However, Betty exploded into the series at the end of Book 2: Round of Applause and refused to be pushed aside. The tension between Betty and Lucien jumped off the page. I couldn’t’ deny two characters who were perfect for one another.
Are any of the male POVs based on anyone you know?
All of them.
Usually, I model the characters as a grown-up version of the disabled kids in my son’s therapy classes. I wish to increase the visibility of disabilities in romance novels by giving them a book where they get to be the hero.
However, the male main character of my debut novel, Grant from Bear with Me, is modeled after my husband. Both men are Pharma execs with workaholic attitudes and ultra-responsible streaks. The baby blues and shaggy brown hair don’t hurt the eyes, but their commanding presence and authoritative voice make them positively swoon-worthy.
Are any of the female POVs based on anyone you know?
For female main characters, I blend people in my life. The exception to this is Alison who the whole series revolves around. Alison is my #ownvoices character. We both have sensory processing disorder, giant KY gardens, and workaholic husbands in pharma.
Most of my main characters are grown-up versions of kids who have therapy with my autistic son. I want to give disabled people representation in hot romance books. You can be disabled and sexy at the same time.
Was there any one character/scene
that was harder to write about than the other?
I just submitted Book 4 to my editor which was a terribly difficult book to write.
It is the story behind the villains in Book 3. Ryan and Orchid are not evil but motivated to destroy what I’ve built in the first three books. It was hard to see my beloved characters through their eyes and as obstacles to Ryan and Orchid’s happiness.
Book 4: Rotten Apple turns my favorite heroes into villains and the characters I love to hate into friends. They also travel to the Fae realm and give the explanation behind the Sluagh monsters and how they get on our planet. It is a necessary book to show the readers not everything is black and white—even man-eating monsters being bad guys.
What is your favorite book in the series?
I love each book in this series for different reasons. I call the Strawberry Shifters the series I write to feed my soul. While I have a few other series, Strawberry is where I write books to heal myself as well as the global collective.
My writer’s tagline is “where inclusion is sexy” because I truly believe in love for all. I write about outcasts, disabled people, and monstrous individuals because I want them to find love and be heroes in their own way.
Book 1: Bear with Me shows the world through my eyes as someone with a sensory processing disorder.
Book 2:Round of Applause is about including alternative family structures and sexual orientations in rural America with the added theme of not using magic “to fix yourself” because you are perfect as you are.
Book 3: Go Scorch Yourself explores social anxiety and having the inner power to take up space in this world.
The spin-off Smoother Than Spumoni is about being yourself even if you are not considered one of the “fun people” and finding someone to share your grumpy joy.
Book 4: Rotten Apple is about the hard choices we have to make and letting go of our expectations to enjoy those around us.
I know that we aren’t supposed to have “favorites” as far
as our children, but seriously, who’s your favorite character and why?
Sorry female main characters….Grant is my favorite.
I took my spouse and played puppeteer. When I was writing Bear with Me, we had just moved to Kentucky. I had only seen the state on television and didn’t know anyone in a three-hour radius. My husband’s job was going so well that he was given the opportunity to launch his invention in the EU and Japan. This meant he was overseas more often than home and I was alone.
Through Grant, I worked through my anger at being left behind with no support system. Grant’s apology in the second to the last chapter was difficult to write because it was the apology I wanted from my spouse (which I received years later).
Series question - Who is your favorite couple and why did
you decide on their dynamics?
My favorite couple is actually two-thirds of my throuple.
I love the acts of service between James and Nate. Their friendship revealed itself as more than friends halfway through their book, Round of Applause. I wrote six different endings to that book because even though I knew they belonged together, I wasn’t sure if my readers would be as accepting of it as I.
I live in an extremely conservative, religious (Catholic) region of the USA where throuples are taboo. In the end, I decided their connection couldn’t be denied, and the subtle way they express it before they let their feelings known is too precious to hide.
How do you get inside these characters' heads to find
their perfect HEA?
I see the HEA in my head while I’m creating the characters. When I sit down to outline the book, I have the HEA and a few pivotal scenes mapped. The outline is connecting the dots. That being said, my outline changes as I write but those initial dots do not.
What scene in this book/series sticks out the most for
you? Why?
There is a scene in each book which I just love. Alison hitting Grant with the hockey stick because she thinks he’s a burglar always makes me laugh. I did the same thing to my spouse after he took an earlier flight from Italy to surprise me. Surprise!
In Smoother Than Spumoni, I love their first-date conversation. It is the reason “Conversation” by Catfish and the Bottlemen is their couple’s song. Susie and Frank Jr. are a perfect match – both grumps. While I love the trope of a ray of sunshine teaching a grump how to have fun, my husband hates it.
While I was writing Smoother Than Spumoni, he posed the question of why a grump has to change. Why can’t a grump be paired with another grump, and they live grumpily ever after? Turns out Susie and Frank Jr are living grumpily ever after.
Series - Were any of the books harder to write than
others?
See Rotten Apple answer to the difficult characters question above.
This question is if you write in MULTIPLE POVs not just
the hero and heroine - I love the multiple POVs in a book. It’s not just the
hero and heroine, but we get inside the heads of multiple characters throughout
this series. I feel that it gives the story further depth. Do you think you
will write another book or series following this multiple POV outline?
I love multiple POV books too. I fell in love with the concept while writing Round of Applause where the reader gets all three POVs of the throuple.
In book 6: Solid Foundation, we learn the history of Strawberry through the goodbyes of a dying character. As each of our favorite Strawberry characters visits them, we get a memory told from that character’s POV. The book has eight total points of view separated by well-labeled chapters.
In another series, I have a book where the series couple has POV chapters as well as a new romance introduced in the book. This four-POV book is called Walk the Night and will be released on May 12th, 2022.
How long did it take you to write this book/series?
Each book takes four to six weeks to draft. I have written all sixteen books in less than four years.
Publishing them is another story. My publisher can only publish two to four books per year, per author. I’m working on a solution to the publishing hang-up, so the manuscripts aren’t collecting dust on my desktop.
How did you come up with the title for your book and series?
Each Strawberry Shifters title is a pun on my favorite character’s needs.
Grant, in Bear with Me, needs Alison to wait while he matures into the role of husband and father.
Aurora, in Round of Applause, has hand amputation surgery as well as falls in love with two men. She needs an extra set of hands or a round of applause.
Lucien needs to stand up to a bully while managing his social anxiety and a speech impediment. He finds his inner power to tell the bully to Go Scorch Yourself.
My villains of Book 4 must realize they are Rotten Apple(s).
If you met these characters in real life would you get along?
Since Alison is an own voices character, I can test these relationships in the books. Where she fits, I know I would fit.
Series question – Did you know in advance that you were
going to write this as a series or did one of the characters in book one demand
their own story?
When I was dreaming of becoming a writer, I knew I wanted to create a utopian rural town where my autistic son and I would be accepted, despite our sensory differences.
As I created Strawberry, I drew the map on wall-sized paper. The stories took shape as I filled the homes and businesses with paranormal people. In a few days, I had a sixteen-book series revolving around a homeschool mom with SPD and her autistic son.
While no town can be a utopia (especially with Sluagh monsters flying around), Strawberry had the element of inclusion I have been searching our world to find.
If your book/series were made into a movie, which actors
do you see as playing your characters?
Alison – Rose Leslie
Grant – Mark Wahlberg
Frank Jr – Mario Ermito
Susie - Saoirse Ronan
Betty – Lily Collins
Lucien – Justin Baldoni
Plus a whole town!
Can you give us a hint as to what we can expect next? Whether
a new book and series or a sequel to an existing series? Can you share a small
tease?
Here’s an exclusive scene from Book 3: Go Scorch Yourself, releasing on June 13th, 2022. Lucien, our anxious vampire hero, has followed bad girl Betty outside from the town’s Christmas party…
“Look if you came out here to lord over me. Don’t waste your breath. I’m at my lowest…so…leave me alone.”
“I followed you because I am afraid Sluagh are going to attack. They are attracted to sadness. Your mournful call is bringing the cavalcade to our doorstep.”
“Oh well, heaven forbid I ruin your party,” she puffs between billowing breathes. She claws at her back as if she truly wishes to open the dress. She spins again and I am faced with the back of the dress. It hasn’t a zipper or row of buttons to loosen it.
I take a deep breath and stand behind her. “Tell me not to rip it,” I say with such trepidation that it comes out as a whisper. The wisps of hair on the back of her neck dance to my voice as the waves travel along her flesh. I tuck my fingers into the neckline of her dress, careful to only allow the backs of my fingers to touch her. Her skin is on fire and so silky I fear my callused fingertips will snag it.
“Release me,” she sobs.
A strength buried inside me surges forward and my claws extend from my nailbeds. I dip the black tips into the collar of her dress and yank. The material gives way, revealing smooth creamy skin to her waist. I have a heartbeat to catch my breath before she whirls around and slaps me.
Marilyn Barr currently resides in the wilds of Kentucky with her husband, son, and rescue cats. She has a diverse background containing experiences as a child prodigy turned medical school reject, published microbiologist, special education/inclusion science teacher, homeschool mother of a savant, certified spiritual & energy healer, and advocate for the autistic community. This puts her in the position to bring tales containing heroes who are regular people with different ability levels and body types, in a light where they are powerful, lovable, and appreciated.
When engaging with the real world, she is collecting characters, empty coffee cups, and unused homeschool curricula. 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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