Check out Raine O'Tierney's newest release and enter to win a $25 Amazon Gift Card at the end of the post.
Most Beautiful Words
Cover
Artist: Brooke Albrecht
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Twelve-year-old Autumn's world is shattered when her beloved
Great-Pop, Tommy Johnson, suffers a stroke that leaves him comatose. With
everyone around her resigning themselves to the inevitable, Autumn is the only
one not willing to give up. She and Great-Pop have more secret stories to share
with each other, after all. More stories about Roy McMillan—the great love of
Tommy's life whom he lost fifty years ago.
Autumn struggles to keep Great-Pop on this side of death's
door. But how can she compete with the beautiful and mysterious Valley—a place
of surreal magic where the sun never fully sets? Especially when there's
someone familiar in the Valley who will do everything he can to keep Great-Pop
from returning to her.
Excerpt:
But Rook had no interest in waiting for permission. He’d
come forward, snaking his arms around Toren’s sheet-covered waist and pulling
him hard against his body. “It’s just a kiss,” Rook breathed before he put his
lips against Toren’s. Should he protest? Had
he protested? Toren couldn’t remember. In that moment there was nothing but
Rook’s firm lips, gently teasing his own apart. Toren kissed back, tasting the
other man, sucking at his bottom lip. Rook’s mouth was intoxicating, and quite
suddenly, Toren forgot why he’d ever resisted. He liked kissing Rook. But after only an appetizer’s worth of his
mouth, Rook pulled away. The sensation of their mouths pressed together
lingered, and Toren was dumb with the moment. Lost on it. Uncertain what they’d
even been talking about.
“Do you remember me now?” Rook asked.
“Mmn,” Toren agreed, warmth lingering on his lips. “Rook.”
Silence was his reply. The arms around his waist fell away,
leaving him feeling cold.
Toren slowly opened his eyes to find he was standing alone,
clutching his sheet, as Rook walked away from him toward the staircase.
Talking with Raine...
Have you always wanted to be an author?
Since the third grade! I was
going to either be an author or a ‘math person.’ (Yep, true story.)
What is your most interesting writing quirk?
Well…I seem to have a knack for
breaking the ‘M’ key on my keyboard. I don’t know how it happens? My last
laptop (which, incidentally, had other problems like, y’know, the cord catching
on fire) lost it’s ‘M’ key. Now my new laptop? ‘M’ is going, too. I have to
smack it to get it to type. So you hear typetypetypeTHWACKtypetype.
Can you please tell us about your latest book(s)?
Most Beautiful Words is a story told in three parts. There’s Tommy
Johnson who loved and lost his childhood sweetheart fifty years ago. There’s
Tommy’s great-granddaughter, the only one who knows the stories of Tommy and
Roy. And there’s the Sunset Valley—a sort of in-between place where the sun
never sets and someone mysterious and familiar waits for Tommy.
How did you come with the idea for this story?
It started as a little story I
told my husband as we were cleaning the kitchen one day. Couldn’t have been
more than a few sentences at most, but we both got a little choked up at the
end. Never had a snippet of idea bring tears to my eyes. When NaNoWriMo 2012
rolled around and I was trying to figure out what to write, hubs reminded me of
that snippet. The story poured out of me in 13 days and took a year to revise.
Who is the one author that you would love to meet someday and why?
I’m a librarian, so, of course
authors are rockstars to me and generally I love to hear any author speak about
their style or their motivations. Unfortunately, the author I most would have liked to have met—Sylvia
Cassedy—an award-winning children’s author in the eighties, passed away from
cancer. She had a way of crafting emotion in her books that is unlike anyone
else I’ve ever read.
What is the best piece of advice you would give to someone that wants
to get into writing?
Be teachable. Every single day.
Learn from what you read, learn from the advice of others, learn, learn, learn
from edits. That doesn’t mean you have to accept
all edits, but be open to them. If you are teachable, you grow
exponentially as a writer in some regards and strengthen your own beliefs in
others.
What is in your To Read Pile that you are dying to start or upcoming
release you can’t wait for?
Cate Ashwood has a book that will
be coming out in 2015 called Thirty
Things. I was lucky enough to read this in beta and I cannot wait to read
it all polished up and on my Kindle.
Do you have a favorite quote from your book(s)?
Right now, because I’m finishing
up edits to my Christmas novel Bowl Full
of Cherries that comes out from Dreamspinner Press in December, I’ve got
this one in my head: “It’s a goddamn Christmas miracle.”
If zombies attacked what kind of supplies would you want?
Daryl Dixon with a side of Michonne.
If you write a series do you reread your previous books before you
begin the new one?
Definitely. It helps me get back
into the ‘voice’ of the character.
Tour Dates/Stops:
October
10: Angel
Martinez, My
Fiction Nook, Up All Night, Read All Day
October
13: Amanda
C. Stone, Decadent
Delights
October
14: Jade Crystal, Nephylim
October
15: LeAnn’s
Book Reviews, Velvet
Panic
October
16: Full
Moon Dreaming, Dawn’s Reading Nook
October
17: Wake Up Your Wild Side, Scattered Thoughts & Rogue
Words
October
20:
Parker Williams
October
21:
Cate Ashwood, Love Bytes, Book Reviews, Rants, and
Raves
October
22:
Regular Guys, Hot
Romance, Emotion in Motion
October
23:
EE Montgomery, MM Good Book Reviews
October
24:
Iyana Jenna, Prism Book Alliance
About the Author
Called "Queen of the Sweetness" (well, two or
three people said it anyway!) Raine O'Tierney loves writing sweet stories about
first loves, first times, fidelity, forever-endings and...friskiness?
Raine O'Tierney lives outside of Kansas City with her
husband, fellow Dreamspinner Press author, Siôn O'Tierney. When she's not
writing, she's either asleep, or fighting the good fight for intellectual
freedom at her library day job. Raine believes the best thing we can do in life
is be kind to one another, and she enjoys encouraging fellow writers. Writing
for 20+ years (with the last 10 spent on M/M) Raine changes sub-genres to suit
her mood and believes all good stories end sweetly. Contact her if you're
interested in talking about point-and-click adventure games or about which
dachshunds are the best kinds of dachshunds!
Author
Contact:
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