By night, Jen­nifer Estep is an author, prowl­ing the streets of her imag­i­na­tion in search of her next fan­tasy idea.

Jen­nifer writes the Ele­men­tal Assas­sin urban fan­tasy series. The books focus on Gin Blanco, an assas­sin code­named the Spi­der who can con­trol the ele­ments of Ice and Stone. When she’s not busy killing peo­ple and right­ing wrongs, Gin runs a bar­be­cue restau­rant called the Pork Pit in the fic­tional south­ern metrop­o­lis of Ash­land. The city is also home to giants, dwarves, vam­pires, and ele­men­tals – Air, Fire, Ice, and Stone.

The first book in the series, Spider’s Bite, was released in Feb­ru­ary 2010 by Pocket Books. Web of Lies, the sec­ond book in the series, came out in June 2010. Venom, the third book, will hit shelves in Octo­ber 2010. Tan­gled Threads, the fourth book in the series, will be pub­lished in May 2011, while the fifth book (unti­tled at this point) will be released in Octo­ber 2011.

Jen­nifer is also the author of the Big­time para­nor­mal romance series for Berkley. The Big­time books fea­ture sexy super­heroes, evil ubervil­lains, and smart, sassy gals look­ing for love. Titles in the series are Karma Girl (2007), Hot Mama (2007), and Jinx (2008).

By day, Jen­nifer is an award-winning fea­tures page designer for a daily news­pa­per with a wide range of media and jour­nal­ism expe­ri­ence. She’s also a cer­ti­fi­able fan­girl and an author­ity on fan­tasy lit­er­a­ture and cul­ture. Jen­nifer is a mem­ber of Romance Writ­ers of Amer­ica, Sci­ence Fic­tion and Fan­tasy Writ­ers of Amer­ica, and other writ­ing groups.

Jennifer’s books have been fea­tured in Cos­mopoli­tan, Enter­tain­ment Weekly, South­ern Liv­ing, and a vari­ety of other publications.

More about Jennifer

I’m a South­ern gal through and through. Sassy, sar­cas­tic, and just a tad crazy.

I spent my for­ma­tive years doing the usual kid things – play­ing, hang­ing out with my friends, and mak­ing up wild sto­ries in my head.

It’s the last one that’s got­ten me into trouble.

I don’t remem­ber the first book I read. Or the sec­ond. Or even the third. But some­where along the way, I fell in love with books and read­ing. Fairy tales, fan­tasies, adven­ture sto­ries, mys­ter­ies, romances, west­erns. As a kid, I read every book that I could get my hands on.

My mom, bless her, encour­aged this obses­sion by tak­ing me to the library every week. It’s one of my favorite child­hood mem­o­ries. Most folks think peni­cillin, indoor plumb­ing, and the Inter­net are the world’s best inven­tions. Not me. The great­est thing ever cre­ated was a library. Indoor plumb­ing is a close sec­ond, though.

The more I read, the more I thought about writ­ing my own sto­ries. I penned a few poems and short sto­ries over the years, mainly for class assign­ments. Some­where along the way, I real­ized that I wanted to write books for a living.

In col­lege, I majored in Eng­lish because of my love of books. But what can you do with an Eng­lish degree? I didn’t know. One semes­ter, I got a job with the col­lege news­pa­per and dis­cov­ered you could write sto­ries and make a respectable liv­ing. Since that light-bulb moment, I’ve earned a bachelor’s degree in Eng­lish and jour­nal­ism, and a master’s degree in pro­fes­sional com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Cur­rently, I’m an award-winning fea­tures page designer for a daily newspaper.

Now, after many, many years of toil and trou­ble, I’ve achieved my dream of being a bona fide, pub­lished, fic­tion author. I plan to keep on keep­ing on – writ­ing, dream­ing, mak­ing up wild sto­ries in my head.

And get­ting myself into trouble.

Fre­quently asked ques­tions about my books and more

Ques­tion: Where do your ideas come from?

Answer: Every­where. Movies, books, tele­vi­sion shows, news sto­ries, real life, my own over­ac­tive imag­i­na­tion. When­ever I read a book or watch a movie, I always put myself in a character’s place. What would I do? How would I react to these cir­cum­stances? How could I be the hero or the villain?

I also have a ten­dency to invent new char­ac­ters to add to my favorite books, movies, and tele­vi­sion shows. I always thought Luke Sky­walker needed a love inter­est in the Star Wars movies – some­one with a south­ern accent. I’ve imag­ined myself as Syd­ney Bristow’s Alias side­kick, Buffy Summer’s neme­sis, a mem­ber of The A-Team, and a thou­sand other characters.

My ideas grow from the world around me. I’ll hear, see, or read about some­thing, and think what if … It’s one of the most pow­er­ful, inspir­ing thoughts you can have.

Ques­tion: What inspires you?

Answer: Every­thing. The smell of someone’s per­fume. The way a man walks. The glint of sun on a woman’s hair. A person’s laugh. A smile from a stranger. A snip­pet of con­ver­sa­tion. The world is full of beau­ti­ful and ugly things. They all inspire me.

Ques­tion: How long does it take you to write a book? How do you do it?

Answer: Writ­ing a book is a long, com­pli­cated process. I start with an idea, then think about the char­ac­ters, set­ting, etc. Once I have my story and char­ac­ters in mind, I write a rough draft, usu­ally about 50,000 to 70,000 words. This takes about a month.

Then, I let the book sit for a few weeks, before going back to it and see­ing if the over­all story will work and what revi­sions need to be done. I do this a cou­ple of times, adding to the story every time, until the book is around 100,000 words and as per­fect as I can make it. Over­all, this can take any­where from a few months to a year, depend­ing on how busy I am with other projects. But I’m work­ing on some­thing all the time.

Ques­tion: What are the Ele­men­tal Assas­sin books about?

Answer: The Ele­men­tal Assas­sin books are set in the fic­tional south­ern metrop­o­lis of Ash­land, where Ten­nessee, Vir­ginia, and North Car­olina meet in the heart of the Appalachian Moun­tains. The books focus on Gin Blanco, an assas­sin code­named the Spi­der who runs a bar­be­cue restau­rant called the Pork Pit in her spare time. Gin is also an ele­men­tal or per­son who can con­trol one of the four ele­ments – Air, Fire, Ice, and Stone. Gin has the rare gift of being able to con­trol two ele­ments, Ice and Stone in her case. Besides ele­men­tals like Gin, Ash­land is also home to giants, dwarves, and vampires.

The first book in the series, Spider’s Bite, was released in Feb­ru­ary 2010 by Pocket Books. Web of Lies, the sec­ond book in the series, came out in June 2010. Venom, the third book, will hit shelves in Octo­ber 2010. Tan­gled Threads, the fourth book in the series, will be pub­lished in May 2011, while the fifth book (unti­tled at this point) will be released in Octo­ber 2011.

Ques­tion: Why write about an assas­sin? That doesn’t seem like a very sym­pa­thetic character.

Answer: Ever since I started read­ing epic fan­tasy books in high school, I’ve been intru­iged by assas­sin char­ac­ters and the moral ques­tions they raise. Do some peo­ple deserve to die? Does killing some­one for money auto­mat­i­cally make you a bad per­son? Does an assas­sin ever feel guilty about killing? These are some ideas I wanted to explore, so I cre­ated my own assas­sin Gin Blanco, with her own moti­va­tions, quirks, pow­ers, and problems.

Assas­sins might not be the most sym­pa­thetic char­ac­ters or the eas­i­est to iden­tify with, but I think they are some of the most fas­ci­nat­ing. Plus, I wanted to write a really smart, strong, tough female char­ac­ter, which I think that I’ve done with Gin Blanco.

Ques­tion: What are the Big­time books about?

Answer: The Big­time books are set in Big­time, New York – a fic­tional city full of super­heroes, ubervil­lains, and other larger-than-life char­ac­ters. The sto­ries are basi­cally fun, female-centered comic books with­out the art (think the 1970s Won­der Woman tele­vi­sion show with Lynda Carter). Each Big­time book focuses on a dif­fer­ent hero­ine – what makes her unique, what she wants out of life, and how she goes about get­ting it – includ­ing the guy of her dreams. Titles in the series are Karma Girl (2007), Hot Mama (2007), and Jinx (2008).

Ques­tion: What’s the dif­fer­ence between urban fan­tasy and para­nor­mal romance? They sound the same to me.

Answer: In many respects, they are the same. Both take place in fan­tasy worlds and fea­ture larger-than-life char­ac­ters with amaz­ing magic and pow­ers. How­ever, there are some major differences.

In urban fan­tasy, the focus is on one main char­ac­ter, and the story is often told in the first per­son point of view. Read­ers fol­low this one char­ac­ter through her var­i­ous tri­als and tribu­la­tions. Also, many urban fan­tasies have sev­eral poten­tial love inter­ests for the hero/heroine. The love inter­est may change sev­eral times through­out the course of a series before finally being decided. The love story is usu­ally a sec­ondary part of the plot. Exam­ples of urban fan­tasy include my Ele­men­tal Assas­sin series, the Dres­den Files by Jim Butcher, and the Hollows/Rachel Mor­gan series by Kim Harrison.

In a para­nor­mal romance, each book in a series usu­ally focuses on a dif­fer­ent cou­ple. The main plot revolves around this cou­ple achiev­ing their hap­pily ever after, and the cou­ple com­mits to each other by the end of the book. Exam­ples of para­nor­mal romance include my Big­time series, the Dark-Hunters series by Sher­ri­lyn Kenyon, and the Black Dag­ger Broth­er­hood series by J.R. Ward.

Ques­tion: Are your books just for women? Or peo­ple who like fan­tasy or comic books?

Answer: Absolutely not. My books are fun, sexy fan­tasies full of dan­ger, drama, and romance – all the ele­ments of any great story. They can be enjoyed by every­one, whether you read comics, fan­tasy, romance, or some­thing else. That’s the won­der­ful thing about books – there are so many books with so many dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters that you’re bound to find a cou­ple you love. Happy reading!