Aged to Perfection Anthology
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Release Date: Feb 15, 2022
A Magical Paranormal Women’s Fiction Romance Collection
Featuring 19 all new tales spotlighting women forty and over having the time of their midlife.
Those aren’t gray hairs, they’re strands of glitter letting the world know you’re fabulous. So adjust your crown and join us as we celebrate women who are fabulous, over forty, and aged to perfection in this magical paranormal women’s fiction romance collection. Includes stories from some of today’s top PWF authors, NY Times and USA TODAY bestsellers, as well as new emerging voices in the genre.
Aged to Perfection 19 Author Anthology – Featured Author: Charise M. Studesville
Meet Charise M. Studesville
Charise wrote her first story on a chalkboard at 5 years old. Since then, she’s expanded to writing books, films, and tv shows, mostly on paper. She’s also the proud mom of four.
Book in the Aged to Perfection Anthology
Charise M. Studesville—The Perks of Being A Hoodoo Rose
In a small Midwestern town, one sister takes over the family hoodoo business and must break a centuries-old hex that threatens to prevent the women in their family from finding lasting love.
Q & A with the Author
What’s a misconception about midlife that you’d like to clear up?
We are not obsolete or past our prime. We are the precise opposite of that, smarter, wiser, focused, practiced, resolute, innovative, seasoned. The idea that beauty and desirability are traits that belong solely to women under 40 is the most preposterous and damaging offshoot of Madison Avenue modern advertising tropes there has ever been. I look around at my friends who are over 40, and I am awestruck at the everything-ness that they encompass. One friend just turned 70 this year, and she is the most vibrant, brilliant, beautiful human I know…still writing, editing, dating, and falling in love. We didn’t grow up knowing that was a possibility. But now we are creating a new paradigm for ourselves, and the women who will come along after us. Also, sex after 40 is way hotter and more fun than anyone ever told us. We know ourselves, our likes and dislikes, our bodies. It’s honestly the best kept secret of midlife.
What was your favorite part of writing Paranormal Women’s Fiction?
The relationship between the sisters. While the main story revolves around two sisters in their forties, there are three generations of sisters in this story. While I was writing it, I was missing my own sister. She lives in Louisville, KY, while I live in Los Angeles. My heart has ached all through the pandemic that I couldn’t just hug her. Writing this story brought the spirit of our being reunited back to my mind and heart. We have had to work at our relationship. But no matter the bumps in the road, we are one another’s fiercest allies and protectors. And there is no one who can make us laugh like we do with each other. Our kids always know when we are talking, because we sound like we are 16-years-old, giggling as we tell our secrets. Writing this story brought all of that into play for me.
Tell us a bit about your story.
The story is ultimately about family, the sacred bond that sisters can have with one another, and the ancestral traditions and ties that bind us to each other. But it is also about the possibility that romantic love is out there for each of us, simply waiting for the right time to make its arrival into our lives.
Tell us about your experience writing a book for the Aged to Perfection Antho.
In writing my portion of the anthology, I immersed myself into the tradition of Hoodoo. I was taken back to my grandmother’s final wish for me to read Psalm 91 at her funeral. It is about being protected from all who may come to try and strike you down, but who will fail in doing so. We had traditions in our family, from my grandmother’s side, that were not named Hoodoo when they moved up to the Midwest, but were deeply entrenched in it from our roots in the south. That was an incredibly moving experience to reconnect with my own family roots and traditions and then expand them for this story, and this collection. I also was feeling really free in writing the romance portions of the story. That’s the part where I feel we get to explore that side of our life experience in a way our grandmothers really didn’t.
Tell us about one of your upcoming titles.
The Hoodoo Roses will be returning for a full-length book. Additionally, I have the first ever mixed-media memoir of my romp through 1980s New York City as a teen, that is a mixture of a Midwestern coming-of-age story that spins into a journey through the zeitgeist of the time as I befriended pop culture icons along the way. And lastly, as an outgrowth of my teaching meditation and a 20-year personal gratitude practice, I have a Personal Gratitude Journal to help others jumpstart their own practice.
Why was this story important for you to tell?
I strongly believe that we as a culture are the stories we share. And there are way too many holes in the fabric of that culture, missing pieces of our collective stories. This is a way to add in the flavor of a family who looks like my own, and comes from where I come from. It felt like I was taking a tiny step to undo the erasure that has happened when whole groups of people are left out of the narrative.
Do you have a writing routine?
Yes. Meditate. Workout. Journal. Surf the web. Social media. Research. Write Story. Repeat.
If you could live the life of one single character in your story, who would it be and why?
I’d probably choose Poloma. Her life as a sex expert who lives in Malibu sounds pretty damn good to me…without the cheating husband part.
Do you have a personal connection with any of the characters in your story? Does one resonate with you more than the others?
Poloma and Cree have the feel of my sister and I. There humor and love for one another, no matter what, is spot on with our real life love for one another. If I ever needed to get rid of a body, I’d definitely call my sister. I think that’s the mark of a really solid sister-best friendship.
What is something you hope the readers take away from your story?
The universality of family, love, and resilience. And maybe the idea that even when people look different than us, maybe have different backgrounds, beliefs, ancestry, that our love for one another is the key to our hearts and souls. Also, I hope they take away a sense of exploring the fun and deliciousness of romance after 40. That’s the fun part no one tells us is waiting on the other side.
How long have you been writing?
Since I was 5-years-old and wrote my first story, “The Evel Wich Bich.” It was inspired by my mother, and I don’t think she was very amused. I was a Journalism major in college, and after dropping out of law school (love the law, hate the linear thought required to practice it), I got my Masters in Writing. My first published story was in an anthology of Midwestern women writers, called Jane’s Stories. That was in 1994.
What words of advice would you give to new writers who are just starting in the genre of Paranormal Women’s Fiction?
Do your homework! Whatever realm of paranormal elements you choose need to be authentic and believable. And then, just have fun with it.
Do you have other books out or planned that are related to your anthology story? If so, which ones?
Yes. I have the next adventure of Poloma and Cree in Hoodoo Roses & Thorns. I am also working on a steamy MFM story of a woman torn between the two loves of her life, who both happen to be dead.
Aged to Perfection is for sale at all vendors for only 99c USD. Preorder the Antho HERE
Includes 19 brand new never before released stories from:
Mandy M. Roth–Running with the Devil
Michelle M. Pillow–Merely Mortal
Robyn Peterman–My Big Fat Hairy Wedding
Kristen Painter–Code Name: Mockingbird
Yasmine Galenorn–Weaver’s Web
Milly Taiden–Surviving Midlife
Renee George–The Age of Inno-Scents
Jenna Rivers–Spell of a Time
Reggi Dupree–Midlife Collision
Shéa MacLeod–Day of the Were-Jackal
Christine Gael–The Bargain
Charise M. Studesville–The Perks of Being A Hoodoo Rose
Christine Zane Thomas–A Touch of Twilight
Macy Dixon–Midlife Shelf Life
Stephanie Berchiolly–Train Bound to Forty
Nicole Rosas–Eternal
Bobby Leigh–S now Hill: Hexed On A Feeling
Jade Greenberg–Magic Takes Manhattan
Aaron M. Cabrera–The Invention of Magic
