Sunday, July 31, 2016

Hero Character Interview: Zak Grant from IN HER OWN TIME by Christine Potter @Chrispygal @evernightteen #giveaway #romance #Timetravel




Today we had the pleasure of interviewing Zak Grant, 
Bean Donohue’s artist-gonna-be boyfriend.  He’s 16.



How did you first meet your writer?  


I met her first in Time Runs Away With Her, the first book in my girlfriend Bean’s time travel series.  It happened around the same time I first noticed Bean in the hall at school.  That head of red hair Bean has—it’s like a flame. I love drawing it. Bizarre that was what got me stuck in a book!


Did you ever think that your life would end up being in a book?


Well, I’m going to be an artist, so I think it’s pretty cool I’m getting written about.  Maybe it’ll help me get gigs later on.  My mom doesn’t have bucks, so I need to look good to colleges and get a scholarship to art school.  Don’t want to get drafted and end up in Vietnam!



What are your favorite scenes in your book: the action, the dialog or the romance?


I like being alone with my woman, for sure!  The action all happens to her in this book—although I’d sure liked to have seen some of that American Revolution stuff.  It freaked her out, though.  She doesn’t like talking about it. 


Do you infiltrate your writer’s dreams?


It would be bizarre if I didn’t!  I mean, I’m very high quality stuff! Check it out!


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


I hang out with Bean and hope she doesn’t disappear into the past.  And I do life drawing classes.  There are actual naked ladies in those things, but Bean doesn’t get jealous.  She shouldn’t, anyway.  She’s much more gorgeous than the models.


Do you like the way the book ended?


Well, I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but the ending’s really cool—and also sad.  And there’s that thing with Bean’s mom…yeah, it’s a good ending.


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


You know, I think I need to think about whether the sequel would get me into art school.  Seriously, there’s a draft on, and like I said, I’m not going to ‘Nam, no way.


What is your least favorite characteristic your writer has attributed to you?


First of all, I don’t throw that much water around when I wash dishes.  I think it’s right on and fair to the women folks that I wash dishes.  And I don’t say “bizarre” anywhere near as much as my writers says. It’s bizarre how much she says I say “bizarre!”


What is your greatest fear?


I’m afraid of ending up in Vietnam!  I’m for peace, even though I wish Bean would tell me more about 1779.  And I’m afraid that one of those times Bean disappears into the past that she’ll get stuck there. 


What do you think your greatest weakness is?


I used to worry that I was kind of a wuss.  You know, ‘cause I like peace and I was the first guy in my class with long hair.   You know what’s bizarre?  Now I don’t think that’s a weakness anymore.


What’s your favorite thing to do on a rainy Sunday?


I like to put on the Dead and spread!  That sounds gross—maybe I better put it in other words.  I enjoy visiting with my charming and talented woman while listening to the music of Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead.  There.  That sounds better.


What word makes you the happiest?


Love.  Love is what’s going to save us.


What is your least favorite word?


War.  I hate war.  I really do.


What turns you on?


Everything, I guess.  Bean.  Drawing.  Music.  The world.  Bean the most, I guess.


What would you not like to do?


I don’t want to be normal.  I want to be who I am.  I want to live a long life and be 80 and still be an artist.  I don’t want to have a job in a tall gray building in New York City.


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


Of course!  My girlfriend disappears into the past and comes back and tells me about it.  I think that everything that ever happened is still happening, and time is just there to keep us from bumping into each other.  Once you believe that, there’s no such thing as a haunted house.


How do you react when people sing “Happy Birthday” to you in a restaurant?


People sing “Happy Birthday” in restaurants?  That’s bizarre!


What do you admire about your parents?


I admire my mom for hanging tough when Dad realized he was gay and they broke up.  She doesn’t have a lot of money, but she’s done a great job raising me and my little brother.  And I admire my Dad for having the guts to do what he did.  It’s bizarre—everything really does come back to love in the end, doesn’t it?  

I sure believe it does come back to Love myself :)  Zak, thanks again for visiting with us today !!!!  We'd love for you to come back and visit again if you get that sequel !

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In Her Own Time
The Bean Books, #2

by Christine Potter

Romance/Time Travel/Suspense
63K, Evernight Teen Publishing

Summer 1970: Bean Donohue’s sixteen, she’s finally got a good band together, and she’s crazy in love with her artist boyfriend Zak. 

She’s also about to get the coolest summer job ever, and her impossible mom’s conveniently out of town.  

So why does she keep ending up in 1953…or 1779?  And who's that guy with the black ponytail and the Kent State t-shirt?  
He knows way too much about her.  Should Zak be worried—or should Bean?

Buy Links:    Evernight Teen    Amazon    ARe


14+ due to sexuality and adult situations
 Excerpt:
Bean found herself alone, just outside the house. The air was sharp. Tall trees that had just been in full summer leaf were suddenly bare, and smaller than they’d been seconds before. Bean tried to peer back in through the kitchen window, but the lights were off, and she couldn't see anything. She stood in her side yard, sometime in the past. It was happening again…
And It was enough of a shock that she didn’t even know how she felt. She’d been glowing from the night before with Zak, happy to have had Sam pound on her door with music and laughter. Bean stuck her hands in the pockets of her thin blue cotton robe, and looked up. The sky looked like early afternoon: pale sunlight behind a thin, high layer of clouds. In front of her house, underneath the living room windows stood three overgrown barberry bushes. Bean had never seen them before. The ground was hard and cold, and she was barefoot.
Alrighty, thenDamn it. Lately, Bean had been perfectly fine with life in 1970. What year is this supposed to be? She had no idea.
Zak said love is always why this happens, she thought. But then she felt the happiness beginning to leak out of her. If Zak were right, why had she slipped backwards just now? She had a whole June weekend to spend with him, feeling nothing but love…and now, this.
It made no sense. All she could do was watch, deal, and try to keep warm.
It really was pretty chilly. She tried jogging in place to warm up, which helped a bit. Her toes were soon numb, though.  After a few minutes, a black car with big, round bumpers pulled into the driveway and clattered to a halt. There was the rasp of an emergency brake being set.  And Beans father—very young, and too thin for his thick, grey winter coat—got out of the drivers side. Bean put a hand over her mouth, and watched as he ran urgently around to the passengers door. He yanked it open.
“Can you make it?” Bean’s dad called into the car.
“Of course I can make it,” said her mothers voice. A high-heeled shoe and a nylon stocking-covered leg emerged. Then came the rest of Bean’s mom, wearing a brown tweed overcoat and a floppy green beret. She walked a bit unsteadily, clutching a bundle of white blankets wrapped around a baby, which began to wail.
“Sh-sh. Sh-sh-sh,” said Julia as she wobbled up the walk. She stopped when she got to the front door.
“You wouldn’t happen to have remembered the house keys, would you, Tom?” she called. Tom patted down three pockets in his coat before something jingled. He rushed a key into the lock. Then he looked back at the car. Both its front doors now stood wide open, and he sprinted back down the walk toward them. Bean sucked in her breath hard, taking it all in. Was that her days-old self,crying, inside the house? Sixteen-year-old Bean felt a little weepy, too.  It’s 1953, then, she thought. Just after my actual birthday. Wow…
The wind blew and she shivered.
 And then there was a hand on her arm. 




Book 1 in The Bean Books series
is now available:
Time Runs Away With Her



About the Author:
Christine Potter lives in a small town not far from the setting of Time Runs Away With Her, near the mighty Hudson River, in a very old (1740) house with two ghosts.  According to a local ghost investigator, they are harmless, “just very old spirits who don’t want to leave.”  She doesn’t want them to.

Christine’s house contains two pipe organs (her husband is a choir director/organist), two spoiled tom cats, and too many books.  She’s also a poet, and the author of two collections of verse, Zero Degrees at First Light, and Sheltering in Place. Christine taught English and Creative Writing for years in the Clarkstown Schools.  She DJ’s free form rock and roll weekly on Area24radio.com, and plays guitar, dulcimer, and tower chimes.


Twitter: @chrispygal

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Giveaway:


$10 Evernight Teen GC and an ebook copy
Please leave your answer to thee questions in the comments :)


1. Suppose you were my main character, Bean.  What time period would you like to be swept back into--and why?

2. These books believe in ghosts.  Do you?  Ever seen one?


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Happy #NewRelease to Paige Warren with Star Spangled Cowboy @evernightpub /@AuthorPaigeW #Erotic


star spangled cowboy

paige warren

Erotic Western Romance
Evernight Publishing
Heat Level: 3 Word Count: 20,610
ISBN: 978-1-77233-936-9


Combat-wounded vet, Tyson Braxton, feels like half a man since losing his leg in Afghanistan.  After returning to the family ranch, he wonders what any woman would see in him now. His scars and self-doubt run deep, and while feeling desperate, he hires a prostitute to ease his sexual tension.

Dacey Morgan has lived a life of horror since the age of seventeen when her pimp lured her into a life of prostitution and depravity. She wants out, but the last girl who tried to run ended up dead in a ditch. So, Dacey tries to do what she’s told—but she has one guilty pleasure, her two nights a week she gets to see Tyson.

Dacey longs for the day she’s free to love the man she’s falling for, but she knows that freedom will come at a cost.



Buy Links:   Evernight Publishing    Amazon    Bookstrand    ARe



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Excerpt:
Tyson slowly kneeled and took her hand in his, his touch gentle. “I know that we only have a business arrangement, Dacey, and I have no claim on you. That being said, despite the fact I use your services, I don’t like your job. I don’t like the thought of other men’s hands on you, or that you have to sleep with random strangers just to pay your bills. I once offered to help take care of you if you would just give up that lifestyle. Why won’t you let me?”
“I’m not a problem for you to solve, Tyson. My life may not be perfect, but it’s mine. My trailer isn’t much, but at least I own it. And my job may not be as glamorous as it looked on Pretty Woman, but I’m careful.”
His hand tightened on hers. “I don’t like it, but I know I can’t force you to quit. One day, you’ll decide you’re ready for a respectable life, a home, and a family. What are you going to do when that happens?”
She already wanted those things, desperately, but how was she supposed to get away from Carlos? She wasn’t as popular as the other girls, but she still brought him a steady income, and he wasn’t going to let her go anytime soon. He owned her, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. If she went to the police to turn him in, they’d just arrest her as well for prostitution. And she couldn’t let Tyson go after Carlos, not with his disability. He might act all big and tough, but she knew he was still recovering.
“No one’s going to want a washed-up whore, so I guess I never have to worry about that. Besides, I don’t think I can have children. Back when I first started working, Carlos took a few months to get my birth control lined up, and he didn’t always make the customers use a condom. I think I’d have gotten pregnant if it were a possibility.”
She’d gotten frequently tested during that period of her life, and she still went every month. Of course, she also made sure her customers used condoms and refused to service the ones who wouldn’t. It had been the cause of many fights between Carlos and her, but knowing she wasn’t doubling her chances of an STD was worth the beatings.
“You can’t save me, Ty,” she said softly. “I appreciate that you want to, really I do, but it’s too late for me. I’ve been working this job since I was seventeen. I’ve seen things and done things that I’m not proud of, but I’ve done whatever was necessary for me to survive. You think someone’s going to want a woman who’s been a whore for five years? Someone who never graduated high school? What’s my marketable skill, that I can make you come in less than a minute?”
He smiled a little at that. “I’m not sure I would consider that skill. I like it when things are dragged out for a while. The anticipation and incredible sensation of feeling you wrapped around my cock are even better than coming.”
“You get my point, though.”
Tyson caressed her cheek and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. “I will do whatever it takes to protect you, Dacey. Anything. If it hadn’t been for you, I probably would have blown my head off months ago. Knowing I’d get to see you twice a week has been the only thing keeping me going, and yeah, I know I pay for your time, but I also know that you enjoy being with me.”
She leaned into his touch. Just thinking about him ending his life was enough to make her cry, and for once she was thankful for her job. If she hadn’t been a prostitute, they never would have met. He’d gotten Carlos’s number from a friend and she’d just been lucky to be the girl her pimp sent out that night. Ty had made her life so much better, even if she didn’t get to spend much time with him. They’d laughed and talked, and just genuinely enjoyed one another’s company. He’d been so cute that first night, unsure of himself to the point of refusing to take off his pants. It had taken her weeks to get him to undress in front of her, and when he had, she’d taken the time to kiss all of his scars, including what remained of his left leg.
“You’ve made me whole again,” he said. “You never cared that I only have one leg now, or that I’ve had more holes in me than a pin cushion. My scars don’t disgust you, and I was finally able to see myself through your eyes and come to grips with the body I have now versus the one I had before the explosion.”


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About Paige Warren:
Paige Warren spends her days weaving tales about alpha male cowboys and the women who love them. There's nothing hotter than a man in tight Wranglers and a pair of well-worn boots. You have to admit, there's something sexy about a man who knows how to use a rope!
A cat lover, she has more than one furbaby running around, keeping her company in the wee hours of the morning as she tries to find just the right way to say "His skin gleamed, the early morning rays caressing his sun bronzed flesh, as he studied her from beneath the brim of his Stetson." Or, you know, something similar.
When Paige isn't dolling out tons of affection on the furbabies, or slurping down a pot of coffee (Yes! A whole pot!) so she can get in her daily word count, she enjoys reading and watching movies - romances, usually.

Author Links: