Book Tour: Interview with author Artemis Hunt and The Body Snatcher Wears Lipstick’s Abby Watson

GraveTells (Ash): First of all, I have to say, I definitely enjoyed reading The Body Snatcher Wears Lipstick. It was surprisingly hilarious! Do you have a background in improv or comedy, by any chance? Or do you just tend to be the funniest person your circle of friends knows?
Artemis Hunt: Thank you! I have been writing humorous articles for newspapers and magazines for 20 years. I can’t do improv comedy to save my life!

GT: Abby gets her body snatching ability because she is descended from a mythological group of body snatchers, who have been around in secret for centuries. Do you have any plans to write another book featuring someone else who shares Abby’s ancestral heritage?
AH: I have an entire book mapped out already 🙂 It’s called THE SIX PEOPLE WHO WISHED ME DEAD. It’s about a murdered girl who hops into the bodies of people who have hated her when she was alive, and tries to solve which of them killed her. Yes, it’s a mystery 🙂

GT: Of all the characters in The Body Snatcher Wears Lipstick, which one would you say you are the most like?
AH: I don’t think I’m like any of them! I’m not Abby, because I would never allow myself to have no confidence and be in a rut in the first place. I’m not selfish like Jenny, or a Queen Bee like Julie. But I know people like that!

GT: Can you remember when you were first inspired to write The Body Snatcher Wears Lipstick? Was there a specific moment or incident which acted as the catalyst behind your decision to create this story?
AH: It was a superpower I always longed to have. Since I was a kid.

GT: If you were able to suddenly have Abby’s body snatching ability, would you want it, despite the potential chaos that might ensue?
AH:Yes, I do! I’m going to fix world hunger!

GT: Annie Watson, Abby’s mother, is probably my favorite character in this story. Did you base her on anyone in particular?
AH: Yes 🙂 I have a friend, a mother, who’s very fuddy duddy 🙂

GT: Now Abby, let’s turn to you…obviously, becoming a body snatcher, realizing you even had the ability, was pretty shocking, initially. If you could do it all over again, would you still choose to remain in your coworker, Frank Patel’s body? Or do you think if you had a second chance, you’d stay in your own body this time around?
Abby: If I had to do it all over again, I would stay in Frank’s body a little longer, go home and fix his domineering mother for him! And yes, meet his arranged marriage fiancee.

GT: I know you, at one point, snatched the President’s body, right during one of his televised announcements (good job reading the teleprompter, by the way). Is there anyone else whose body you snatched, another famous person, perhaps, that you never told us about?
Abby: I hinted at Paris Hilton, ha ha. But no, I’m saving the famous ones for another book 🙂

GT: Which is more fun, snatching the body of a man or woman? What about young versus old?
Abby: I think it’s more fun snatching someone completely opposite to what you are in real life. So yes, I would like trying to be an older man…..like the President, for example 🙂

GT: How were you even able to snatch the body of that kitten anyway? Are you able to eat tuna these days without cringing? I know you didn’t enjoy being a cat, at all, but would you ever be tempted to snatch the body of a larger animal, such as a dog, or maybe an elephant?
Abby: No, no, I hated it! But it was an experience. At least it wasn’t the body of a chicken 🙂

GT: Did Jenny ever figure out the truth of what happened at her high school reunion? Do the two of you talk anymore these days?
Abby: No, she doesn’t know! And she never talked to me again. It’s bittersweet, sniff.

GT: Since becoming a body snatcher and realizing you had that ability, have you done any research to see if any other family members might also have that ability? Do you think your future children, should you have any, will be able to body snatch like you?
Abby: Gosh, it never occurred to me to do that because I thought it was all due to that infected monkey. But yeah….I really should do some research!

GT: Thank you both so very much for your time today, ladies! 🙂

Abby Watson’s life is an airtight box of a dead-end job, a skinflint boss, and a best ‘frenemy’ who thinks Abby has the fashion sense of a tubeworm. When a lab experiment at work blows up in Abby’s face, she develops the ability to jump into other people’s bodies. Suddenly it’s goodbye frump, hellooooo . . . anyBODY gorgeous.

Abby’s leaping into the bodies of heiresses, her best ‘frenemy’, anyone who has ever been mean to her in high school, her scrooge boss, and even the President of the United States (!).

When a chance encounter with the Ferrari of her childhood idol — stunning movie A-lister, Jake Carradoc — leaves one of her beautiful bodies in the hospital, Abby feigns amnesia . . . then a spot in Jake’s home as his indefinite ‘houseguest’.

But Abby’s real body is dying in her soul’s absence. What must she do to get and keep Jake, the only man she’s ever loved with all of somebody else’s heart?