Shine Not Burn
Publication date: June 30th 2013
Genre: NA Romance
Synopsis:
IT HAPPENED IN VEGAS. I can’t be held responsible. Things that happen there are supposed to stay there, right? Right? Yeeeah. Not so much. … Andie’s just days away from tying the knot, but there’s just ooooone little glitch. Apparently, she’s already married. Or someone with her name is married to a guy out in Oregon of all places, and the courthouse won’t issue her a marriage license until it’s all cleared up. Tripping her way through cow pies and country songs to meet up with a man who gets around places on horseback is her very last idea of how to have a good time, but if she’s going to get married, make partner at the firm, and have two point five kids before she’s thirty-five, she needs to get to the bottom of this snafu and fix it quick … before her fiance finds out and everything she’s been working toward goes up in flames.
The two main characters are Andie Marks and Gavin “Mack” MacKenzie. When the story begins Andie’s in her first job after law school, living in West Palm Beach, Florida. She’s a very goal-oriented person, following a Lifeplan that she wrote when she was a lost and confused teenager detailing how she was going to live her life. She’s got everything all figured out, her entire life scripted so she can get everything she wants out of her career and future husband. The problem is, life isn’t that predictable or controllable. Everything kind of falls apart when she goes to Las Vegas with her two best friends and she meets Mack.
Mack is a cowboy living on a ranch in Baker City, Oregon. He’s the cool, quiet type, with the typical cowboy look: jeans, belt buckle, boots, cowboy hat, plus all the best parts: broad shoulders, lots of muscle, and eyes as blue as the sky. He’s lived and worked on his family’s ranch his whole life, as comfortable on a horse as he is on his own two feet. He goes to Las Vegas for his brother’s bachelor party and his conservative, quiet lifestyle kind of falls apart when he and meets Andie at a blackjack table.
1. You started out writing in YA. What brought you over to New Adult?
I’ve been a reader of new adult titles even before they were called ‘new adult’. And I love the age group it covers. 18-30 years old is such a great time in life, isn’t it? I mean, it’s when you sow your wild oats, learn about yourself in the context of the whole world and not just your family and friends; it’s where you figure out who you’re going to be. The adult-formative years I guess you could call it. And the sex part is awesome too, I won’t lie. You can only get so sexy with a YA book, so as a writer, I have to hold back. In NA, I don’t have to do that. It can be passionate, raw, sometimes awkward and full of bad decisions, but it can be REAL. I guess that’s what I love about NA most … it’s raw and real.
2. What’s your favorite part of being a writer?
My readers. Hands down, it’s the readers. I get emails and messages every day from devoted fans, and I can’t express how much that means to me. There are readers out there who’ve set up book blogs just because they were so excited about my books, people who make it a point to promote my books on their Facebook pages and Twitter just because they want to share the reader-love, and whole families who are reading my series and discussing them at dinner. It just blows my mind that people would be so generous and so involved in my made-up worlds. Recently I had a fan dress as one of my characters at a comic con event. I also occasionally get a very heart-warming message about how my writing has changed someone’s life – caused them to finally start reading or to go to college. To me, that’s the sign of a life well-lived – that I’ve somehow inspired another person to reach for something they want in life that they thought they didn’t have a chance at having before.
The kind where bad boys are tamed by courageous girls. It’s really that simple for me. 🙂
A sexy guy. Seriously, he just needs to be sexy as hell, and that doesn’t mean sexy can’t come in different packages. For example, in the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the MC, Ian, is very understated and shy, but man, he rocked my world. He reminds me a lot of my husband, actually. On the other hand you have your angsty fighters … guys who you’d never let into your world in real life but who are safe to fall for in books. Travis from Beautiful Disaster comes to mind. Boy, did he cause a lot of fuss in the reader world! Chemistry comes in all kinds of packages, which is awesome, but the chemistry has to be there or the book falls flat for me.
Thanks for including me on your blog!
No problem, So happy to be able to post this for you 🙂