HERO Interview from The Boyfriend Deal by Charity West @Writer_Charity @Evernightteen @bloggerbees

Please welcome an Interview with the HERO of The Boyfriend Deal

 

Did you have a hard time convincing your author to write any particular scenes for you?

There’s a scene in a hospital where we butted heads a bit, but in the end she saw things my way. I can’t say much more about it without giving away a huge piece of the story.

Do you infiltrate your writer’s dreams?

Definitely! It’s how I first snagged her attention, and then I began whispering in her ear until she had no choice but start writing.

What do you like to do when you are not being actively read somewhere?

Football has been a huge part of my life all through high school. When I’m not on the field for a game, I’m either at practice or tossing the ball around with the guys. Or rather, that’s what I did before Hadley. Now I spend as much time with her as I can, but football will always be an important part of my life.

Do you like the way the book ended?

Yes! I ended up getting to fulfill all of my dreams. Even I can admit that I can be something of a jerk, but Charity West didn’t hold it against me and made sure I had a happily-ever-after.

Would you be interested in a sequel, if your writer was so inclined?

Oh! Now that’s an excellent idea! I just may have to nag her about it until we make it happen. <grin>

What is your greatest fear?

Before Hadley, my greatest fear was blowing out my knee and never being able to play the greatest game ever again. But now that she’s part of my life, my greatest fear is waking up one morning and finding out she’s gone. I consider myself lucky that she’s fallen in love with me, but now the trick is holding onto her.

What do you wear when you go to sleep?

Well, if it’s summer, I wear boxers and nothing else. I’m hot natured so the less material covering me the better. In the winter, I wear a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt.

Did you have a pet as a child?  What happened to it?  How did you feel about that?

My parents bought me a dog when I was little, and he recently passed away. I was devastated, and my parents offered to buy another one, but I knew with college on the horizon it wouldn’t be fair to the dog.

What do you think is your strongest attribute?

I never give up. Once I set my sights on something, I go after it until I’ve made it happen. It doesn’t matter if it’s something as simple as winning a football game—which really isn’t that simple—or something as difficult as winning the girl of my dreams.

What do you find most appealing in men/women?

I like a smart, sassy woman who knows what she wants and goes after it. I like determination in my love interest, and above all, honesty. 

What do you find most unappealing in men/women?

Jealousy! There is no greater turn off than a woman who’s always jealous. If she doesn’t hold herself in high enough esteem to know that she’s got my attention, then it just isn’t going to work between us. I can admit that women tend to flock toward me, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to act on it. I don’t need some jealous shrew monitoring my phone and Facebook and trying to chase off anyone in a skirt.

What turns you on?

I won’t lie. The first thing that draws me to a woman is what she’s wearing, but that won’t hold my attention. If her eyes don’t draw me in, then the moment is over almost before it began. A woman’s eyes can tell you a lot, and watching them darken with desire sets me on fire.

Do you believe in ghosts/evil spirits/mysticism? Would you spend the night in a remote haunted house?

I guess with all the shows and posts online about hauntings I have to believe that ghosts and evil spirits are real. Have I ever experienced it? No. But I don’t have to experience something firsthand to believe in it. Honestly, I’m not too broken up over never meeting a ghost. It would probably freak me out to experience a haunted house.

Are you a morning person or a night owl?

Definitely a night owl. I have a tendency to not even start my homework until it’s almost midnight. Of course, Hadley is slowly breaking me of that habit. There’s something energizing about the night. 

What do you admire about your parents?

My dad is hardworking and is probably the most honest person I know. If I can grow up to be half the man he is, I’ll count myself blessed. He’s always considerate of my mother and includes her on any big decisions. And mom is amazing in her own way. She’s always there for me, and even when I was pushing the limits, she didn’t give up on me.

Thanks again for visiting with us today !!!!

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THE BOYFRIEND DEAL

by Charity West

Contemporary YA

Evernight Teen Publishing, 97 pages

When Hadley’s ex-boyfriend becomes something of a stalker, she decides it’s time to take drastic measures – and kisses the first boy who walks past her locker. But she isn’t prepared for the kiss, not at all, or what happens afterward.

Tyler Robbins, the captain of the football team, is every girl’s dream guy. He has something of a reputation though for using girls and tossing them aside, not that it stops them from flocking his way. All of that changes the moment Hadley’s lips touch his.

When Tyler proposes that Hadley pretends to date him as a way to save them both – him from his mother and her from her ex-boyfriend – Hadley is reluctant to give it a try. In the end, she agrees, but she’s nowhere near prepared for the journey she’s about to embark on.

Buy Links:    Amazon    ARe    Evernight Teen

Excerpt: 

Seeing Hunter head my way, a determined, slightly psycho look in his eyes, made me panic. I did the only thing I could think to do. I grabbed the first boy I saw and kissed him like my life depended on it, but as my body pressed against my unsuspecting target and my lips crashed against his, three things became very apparent to me. One, the boy knew how to kiss; his lips were divine and the hands going around my waist weren’t so bad either. Two, I was slightly in over my head, as he pressed me back against my locker. And three … well, I was still reeling from one and two. Three would have to wait for later.

“If you wanted me to kiss you, Red, all you had to do was say so.”

My eyes popped open and I stared in open-mouthed shock at the boy who had just made me melt with his kiss. Tyler Robbins. The one boy I should avoid like the plague. The only boy who had the power to completely devastate me, rip out my heart and stomp on it, and do so without any true effort on his part. I’d had a major crush on him since pre-kindergarten. Perhaps crush was too tame a word. When you’ve obsessed over a boy since the age of four, it escalated things beyond crush level.

He winked at me and moved along down the hall, as if the earth hadn’t just moved, as if lightning hadn’t just struck, as if … well, you get the point. He was everything I’d ever wanted, and the one thing I’d never have. Tyler flitted from one girl to another. He didn’t have a flavor of the month; he had a flavor of the day. Or maybe it was a flavor of the hour. Except for Alicia Thompson. She was his on again off again girlfriend for the last two years, and she was a total witch. The last time they’d broken up, she’d egged the car of his next conquest.

It took me a moment to realize Hunter was standing beside me, looking both livid and hurt all at the same time, but really, the entire thing was his fault. If he hadn’t cheated on me, then turned stalker, my lips never would have touched Tyler’s. Then again, maybe I should be thanking him. Now I could cross off a major item on my wish list. I’d been dreaming of kissing Tyler Robbins since the first time I saw him, on my very first day of school. Of course, that was before he started crushing on the snotty girl in our class, then I just wanted to pelt him in the face with a mud pie at recess.

“Why are you doing this, Hadley? Tyler Robbins? Don’t you know he’s going to use you and toss you aside like yesterday’s garbage?”

“Yeah, because there’s no one around here who hasn’t already done that, right? In case you missed it, Hunter, we broke up. You have no say in who I do or do not kiss. If I want to make out with him in the janitor’s closet, that’s my business and not yours. And stop stalking me! I’m not taking you back. Not now, not ever.”

I snatched the books out of my locker, slammed it shut, and took off down the hall. I could feel his gaze boring into my back, and I wasn’t not going to lie, it seriously creeped me out. But what could I possibly do about Hunter? My own family thought I should give him another chance; every girl in school was praying I wouldn’t, and no matter what I said to the boy, he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

What I needed was a boyfriend. Someone who wouldn’t be intimidated by Hunter, who would stand up to him and tell him to back off and leave me the heck alone. What I needed was a jock, but no self-respecting jock was going to be seen with a band geek like me. And I wasn’t even in the marching band, the semi-cool band geeks because they kept the audience revved up during football games. I played the flute, but I wasn’t coordinated enough to walk and play at the same time. Not without landing on my face at any rate.

I sat through first period in kind of a daze, not really hearing anything the teacher said. I managed to write down my assignment and shuffled toward the door when the bell rang. It seemed I wasn’t the only one in a daze and ready to leave Mr. Bertram’s math class because everyone bottlenecked at the doorway. As I was squeezing my way through, someone grabbed my arm and I found myself plastered against Tyler for the second time that morning.

Startled, I looked up at him, wondering why his hands were on my waist, and more importantly, why was he looking at me like that? You know, in that you’re the only girl in the world kind of way. Not even Hunter had ever looked at me like that. He didn’t say anything, not at first. He just stood there smiling down at me. I took a moment to admire his perfectly gelled hair and—sniff—his heavenly scent. I had no idea what type of cologne he wore, but if I could wrap myself in that scent—preferably by way of his arms being around me—then I would die happy.

Author bio:

Charity West is a young adult romance author who has always had her head in the clouds. She had her first crush when she was four, and it lasted for six years. Then she quickly fell head over heels for another boy, until she had to move away and leave him behind. Jumping from one boy to another, she finally found a keeper when she was twenty, and she’s been married to him ever since.

By the time Charity was twelve, she was sneaking her mother’s Harlequin romances and reading them in secret when she was supposed to be asleep. Teased throughout middle school and high school for the bodice ripper covers on the books she openly read in class, she knew that one day she wanted to write her own happily-ever-afters.

Social media links:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/Writer_Charity

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/CharityWestAuthor

Amazon Author Page - http://www.amazon.com/Charity-West/e/B01BTUV3AA/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Giveaway:  $10 Evernight Teen Gift Card

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Guest Post with KH Mezek and her new release KEY OF MYSTERY ! @karenalainehunt #giveaway @bloggerbees @evernightteen #YA #Paranormal

Inspired by Adventure

Karen Hunt aka KH Mezek

Not long ago, I returned from a month in Costa Rica, staying at a friend’s house with an incredible view of Lake Arenal and the volcano in the distance. I was there on a mission: to work on Book of Angels, the second book in my Night Angels Chronicles. I flew from Los Angeles to El Salvador to San Jose, in Costa Rica, and from there I had to take a tiny Cessna plane through the clouds and a thunder storm to Liberia. I was the only passenger and I maintained a calm façade while underneath I was screaming, No!!!! Please get me there safely, please! And into the thunder clouds the pilot would happily fly. I was ready to kiss the ground when I arrived.

 

I have always been an adventurer at heart and a romantic. I remember the first time I saw Romancing the Stone and thought, oh, why can’t that happen to me! I wish I was mousey Joan Wilder, who writes romance fiction and dreams of her wild adventurer, sweeping her off her feet, and then, pow, it happens and she turns into a sexy beauty as a result.

And now, there I was in the jungles of Costa Rica, beneath a live volcano, writing just like Joan!

 I didn’t meet the man of my dreams, sigh, but I had plenty of inspiration to write about him, or rather, the fulfillment of Sera’s dreams: Peter, the otherworldly Night Angel with whom she falls in love. Of course, love is complicated, and Sera can’t be sure whether Peter returns her love or whether he is just pretending, in order to gain control of the key.

In Costa Rica, I was staying way up a hill, on a dirt road, with no form of transportation except my feet. All I did was write and dream. Ok, I drank beer, too, on humid afternoons with the sweat on my brow, the beer ice cold, and I would step outside and pick a couple of mandarins off the tree and squeeze the juice into the beer. I can still taste it and feel the breeze from the fan on my skin. On the occasions I ventured down the hill to the little restaurant, I had to pass the dogs that lived in the houses along the way. They were mean little creatures and they would bark and snap in an annoying fashion. Then, there were the wild dogs that would show up sometimes, not rabid, but vicious. I armed myself with a long staff and I had to literally fight them off. That was when I most felt like a character in my book — like I was on a quest, holding that staff and fighting my way down to my goal.  I also had to fight my way back up again but usually I could find some nice person to give me a ride.

I zip-lined, an experience that was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time—the best kind of adventure, where there is the potential for disaster but it all turns out ok in the end.

Besides Costa Rica, I have had the good fortune to write in some places with incredible views. But I would say the view I had in Costa Rica, of Lake Arenal below and the volcano in the distance, was one of the best.

Sometimes I would watch in fascination as a mist slowly enveloped the lake and crept up the mountain, as if it wanted to smother me. This was inspiring, because Key of Mysteryhas scary moments involving mist. Every afternoon the sky released a downpour of rain, complete with thunder and lightning. Another exhilarating experience, I never tired of it. Once, I got caught in a downpour in the middle of the jungle and I ended up soaking wet. I didn’t care. It was wonderful.

Where was my hero? Only in my imagination. But it was still fun to fantasize about him.

Maybe at my next destination, riding horses across the steppes of Mongolia, sailing down the Nile to Karnak, or visiting a temple in Tibet, a shadow will appear against the sky, a man in a hat, and it will be him. Maybe.

Or maybe not. Sometimes be best part of being in a relationship is imagining it.  Follow the path where it leads....in my case, I always take the one that leads to adventure. 

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Key of Mystery

by  KH Mezek

Evernight Teen Publishing, 77K

Paranormal/Vampires/Suspense/Multicultural

“Be careful who you love, it just might kill you.”

When Sera’s father is killed in a horrific accident, all he leaves behind is a mysterious key. Sera places the key on a chain around her neck and vows to avenge her father. Strange characters arrive in town including the otherworldly Night Angels, who claim to be sent for her protection.

Sera falls hard for one of them—exotic, arrogant Peter. But what if his promise of love is only a ruse to gain access to the key? As Sera’s connection to the key grows, so do her supernatural powers. Guided by clues left by her father, Sera searches for the hidden chamber beneath the city, hoping to save what lies within before the sinister mayor and his deadly followers drown humanity in a bloodbath.

Buy Links:    Evernight Teen    Amazon    All Romance eBooks

14+ due to adult situations

Excerpt:

Before my dad’s death and the move to Cliffside, I had known only lies. I hadn’t seen the truth about myself, my family, or my friends. But here on the ground, covered in blood and dirt, and most likely dying, I knew I didn’t want to go back there. I wanted to stay with the truth. The truth hurt like hell, but it was better than being numbed by ignorance.

“No.” I think I said it out loud, but it sounded more like a gurgle. I tried harder. “Never give you the key.” I gasped. “Never.”

He hissed in anger. “Then I will turn you into undead.”

“No.”

I knew he was bluffing. If he turned me into one of them, he would never get the key. I had to willingly give it to him, with a rational mind, and those undead were anything but rational.

Gore howled like he had on the plateau, and the nail raked across my face, penetrating deep into my skin. He reached down and licked the blood with his long snake tongue, a poison so painful seeping into my flesh that I almost passed out again.  

When he spoke next, his tone was venomous, each syllable biting as if they were his teeth. “Clever girl, I will do something better. I will turn your brother into undead. Think on that.”

I made a feeble sound of terror, struggling to get up and unable to move.

He laughed. “You will give it to me now. Or else your brother will end up like this.” He grabbed one of the undead and pulled the grotesque, dead-eyed face down next to mine. Then, he tossed it away like a stick.

This was the end, then. Gore had won. I had to at least try to save my brother, even if Gore's promises were lies. With unbearable effort, I reached up and tried to undo the chain. I couldn’t. I tried to pull it up over my head but somehow, it became tangled in my torn clothes. I was too weak and the problem of removing the key from around my neck overwhelmingly impossible.

“Come, little bitch, quickly.” Gore’s fingers dangled in front of my face, as if itching to undo the chain for me. But he was powerless to do so.

A growing uneasiness rippled through the undead standing in a circle behind him. Low moans rose from cavernous mouths. Any second now, surely Gore would unleash the hoard upon my brother to devour him. Why, oh why, couldn’t I undo the chain?

I grabbed the key and pulled with all my remaining strength, whispering, “I want this. I want to give him the key. I do.” 

About the Author:

Karen Hunt is the author and/or illustrator of nineteen children’s books and the co-founder of InsideOUT Writers, a creative writing program for incarcerated youth in Los Angeles, and the founder of the MY WORLD PROJECT, connecting youth who live in remote, violent and poverty stricken areas around the world through art and writing. She is a 2^nd degree black belt in Tang Soo Do, a first degree brown belt in Eskrima, and a boxing and kick-boxing trainer. As a child, she and her family escaped out of Egypt right before the 6 Day War, lived in a 17^th century castle in Switzerland and smuggled Bibles into communist countries, to name a few of her adventures. As an adult, she continued her adventures, living between London and a village in Yugoslavia. She writes her YA works under the name KH Mezek. Key of Mystery, book I in the YA Urban Fantasy series, NIGHT ANGELS CHRONICLES, was published February 5, 2016 with Evernight Teen. 

Blogs: http://khmezek.com/

https://khmezek.wordpress.com/

https://twitter.com/karenalainehunt

NIGHT ANGELS Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/nightangelschronicles/

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