Lost on the Road to Love with Kay Harris!
Give a warm welcome to the talented and prolific Kay Harris, author of Lost on the Road to Love, released yesterday, March 14, 2018!
Pull up a chair, grab a drink of your choice from the cooler, a Chocolate Chip or Peanut Butter cookie from the plate, and let’s find out a little about how you were Lost on the Road to Love. Thanks for being here Kay, I see you brought guests.
Yes, Henry Rushton and Chelsea Morrison from Lost on the Road to Love.
Wonderful, the more the merrier, I always say. Why don’t you tell us about writing Lost on the Road to Love? Was it fun or difficult? Do your characters always act as you expect? Are you a plotter, or fly (write) by the seat of your pants?
Writing Chelsea and Henry’s story was like getting to give all your favorite clothes and toys to your little sister and brother. Chelsea became important to me when I was writing “Don’t Let Him Go.” Like Jack, I came to see her as this adorable little sister with a fierce will. I wanted all the best for her.
Henry first came into my life in the Love on Tour series when he was just a baby. Henry is the son of the couple in the very first book I ever wrote. He and his parents hold a very special place in my heart. So getting to write about them again was a special treat for me.
I am a pantser, not a plotter. When I wrote this story Chelsea and Henry grabbed me by the nose and dragged me along for the ride. This may be the most character-driven story I’ve ever written. I wasn’t sure where it was headed until we got there. It was a very enjoyable journey!
Oh, I know exactly what you mean, I too am a pantser and my characters control the story. Okay, who wants to go first?
The gorgeous hunk setting next to me cleared his throat.
I guess I will, since I need to leave in a few minutes for an appointment.
Gee don’t sound so enthused. I don’t bite you know, well maybe just a little in fun. LOL
Tells us about the real you— What event in your past has left the most indelible impression on you?
My father is a rock star – like an actual rock star. I grew up loved and privileged. I’m not complaining about any of that. My dad was stable, didn’t have a drug problem, didn’t sleep around. He’s as normal as they get – except for the whole rock star thing. Anyway, when I was growing up girls flocked to me, not because they like me for me, but because I was the son of a rock star. It made me a little…leery of women.
What do you most value?
I value honesty above all things. I try to live a life true to myself and I try to always tell the truth to others. I want the same thing in return.
What is the type of woman you want to spend the rest of your life with?
This is going to sound so awful…so awful…but…someone like my mom. I don’t mean that in the ‘I want her to take care of me’ way. I mean that my mother is honest, genuine and never fails to be truly always herself. I want a woman like that.
What do you consider most important in life?
Family comes first for me. Then my career – not this stupid show I am doing just for some cash, my career as a writer. I want to make it. And I want to make it on my own, which is why I use a pen name. We’ll see how that goes…
What is your biggest secret?
Right now my biggest secret is that I have it bad for my best friend.
Thank you Henry. I see you looking at your watch, gotta go, huh? Thanks so much for being here. Chelsea you’re up next. Who are you really?
Geez…don’t start off easy or anything! I am a filmmaker, a sister, daughter, friend. I am a geek, and proud of it. I am a person who stands up what I believe in. And I am a hopeless romantic, though I hide that down deep.
Who were the biggest role models in your life?
My brother, Jack, who will go to great lengths to do what is right and my sister-in-law, Candace, who is one fierce woman.
What kind of man do you want to spend the rest of your life with?
I don’t know. I feel like that’s not really in the cards for me. I like men. I like to be with them. I am especially good at being friends with them. But I have a hard time picturing a forever situation. If I did find that guy he would be a lot like my best friend Henry. Oops. I probably shouldn’t have admitted to that.
What kind of man would you never choose?
An arrogant chauvinist, like my boss. Yuck.
What is most important to you in life?
My family for sure. I have great parents, two awesome brothers and one incredible sister-in-law. I am super lucky. After that, it’s my career. I live to make movies!
What is your biggest fear?
That my best friend is going to figure out I’m madly in love with him and take off.
I glanced toward the door Henry left through, and back to Chelsea and wink. Your secrets safe with me.
Kay, tell us a little about Lost on the Road to Love.
Take two best friends, add some benefits, and it may take a map to find their way to love.
On the road for eight months as part of the crew for a travel show, Chelsea Morrison expects to work hard, endure long nights, and enjoy some wicked adventures. But she doesn’t expect to fall head over heels for the show’s star.
Henry Rush, son of a legendary rock star, is leery of women. He learned early they only want him for the fame that rightly belongs to his father. But when an intense friendship with Chelsea leads to so much more, he has to confront the one thing he’s avoided all his life.
Can these two friends navigate their way to a happy ending?
How about a peek between the pages of Lost on the Road to Love?
“Let’s get out of here,” I suggested, scooting out of my side of the booth.
“Good idea.” Henry threw a few bills on the table, got up quickly and, to my great surprise, grabbed my hand and pulled me to the door.
We were moving fast as we approached the reporter and photographer. It wasn’t until we were squeezing past them in the doorway that the reporter spoke. “Hey, aren’t you—”
Henry ignored him and moved his large body so the photographer didn’t stand a chance of getting a good shot. Then, still holding onto my hand, he ushered me through the door and out onto the sidewalk. We moved swiftly away from the café, not looking back until we were almost a block away.
“Well done,” I said, slowly easing my hand out of Henry’s grasp.
Henry held on, giving my fingers a gentle squeeze. “I learned young how to evade the press.”
“I bet.”
“Where do you want to go?”
I looked at the buildings of Manhattan in the gray hours of early evening. The temperature was starting to drop, but it was still over seventy degrees, and for once, I was quite comfortable in my tank top and light cardigan. I had no qualms about making a long journey. “There,” I said, pointing at the Empire State Building.
Buy Links:
AMAZON, B&N, AMAZON CA, AMAZON UK, AMAZON AU, and THE WILD ROSE PRESS.
About the Author:
Kay Harris has had a diverse career with jobs ranging from college professor to park ranger. Now she adds author to her repertoire. Kay writes romance novels that contain a little bit of sweet, a dash of sexy, a touch of heartbreak, and a whole lot of fun!
Kay grew up in the Midwest and has since lived all over the western United States including Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California. She loves to hike, is obsessed with museums, and enjoys taking her extremely tall and very handsome husband on adventures.
You can find her at:
WEBSITE: http://www.kayharrisauthor.com
BLOG: https://www.kayharrisauthor.com/blog/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/KayHarrisAuthor
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorKayHarris/
GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15060640.Kay_Harris
BOOKBUB: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/kay-harris
It was wonderful having you with us today. Please feel free to stop by anytime. Good Luck with Lost on the Road to Love!
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Posted in Authors' Secrets Blog and tagged Contemporary, I Want Morrise, Lost on the Road to Love, Romance, Romantic Comedy by Tena Stetler with 20 comments.
New Release by C.B. Clark – Broken Trust
Welcome to C.B. Clark’s Release Tour for Broken Trust!
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Posted in Authors' Secrets Blog and tagged Broken Trust, CB Clark, romantic suspense by Tena Stetler with 2 comments.
Catch of the Day by Author Petie McCarty
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Posted in Authors' Secrets Blog and tagged Catch of the Day, Contemporary Romance, Petie McCarty by Tena Stetler with 2 comments.
Interview with Laura Bickle Author of Witch Creek
Give a warm welcome to Laura BIckle, author of Witch Creek, second book in The Wildlands Series just released on February 27, 2018! Following Nine of Stars comes the next chapter in Laura Bickle’s critically acclaimed Wildlands series.
Pull up a chair, grab a drink of your choice from the cooler, a Chocolate Chip or Peanut Butter cookie from the plate, and let’s find out a little about Laura Bickle and Witch Creek.
Lets start with what inspired this particular story?
I’ve always been very curious about alchemy, about how the ideas of magic and science got mashed up in our history before taking divergent paths. Researching alchemy has been one of my hobbies, and I finally got the chance to work what I learned into the Wildlands series.
I created Petra Dee, the protagonist of the series, to reflect some of the uncertainty of alchemy. She’s a scientist, a geologist working in the back country of Yellowstone. But she’s also the daughter of an alchemist, and has to come to terms with magic that’s unraveling the edges of her world.
This magic takes various forms – an undead cowboy she’s fallen in love with, drug-dealing alchemists, the alchemical Tree of Life. In WITCH CREEK, she faces off against a sinister mermaid. Muirenn was once a witch, cursed to take the shape of a flesh-devouring mermaid. She’s been imprisoned underground for more than a hundred and fifty years. But now she’s on the loose, and it’s up to Petra and her coyote sidekick, Sig, to stop her.
What secret do you use to blast through writer’s block?
For me, there’s no cure for writer’s block except doing it. I’ve been experimenting with various carrots, like promising myself some relaxing time in the garden for completed scenes. But I haven’t really come up with a solution other than sitting down and writing. I tend to get into a trap of perfectionism, and giving myself permission to write something imperfect (to edit later!) helps a lot.
Who is your favorite character of all of the books you’ve written and Why?
I’ve written a lot of characters who I adore, but my most recent favorite is Sig, Petra’s coyote sidekick in the Wildlands series. Petra first encountered Sig digging up a magic compass in the field outside her trailer, and he’s stuck around ever since. At first, she thought he was hanging around solely for lunch meat. But Sig is has remained her loyal ally. He may or may not be The Coyote with a capital C, working his own agenda that runs parallel to hers. I find him to be charming, impish, and a lot of fun to write about.
If writing is your first passion, what is your second?
Heh. I think I’d have to say that one of my passions is working with animals. I have a pretty dense garden in our backyard, and every so often, a feral cat will find his way in. I will work with the cat until he’s ready to come indoors, get him medical care, and he’ll eventually decide to be tame. It takes a long time, sometimes years. But I am most proud of the cats that have come to trust me as much as they do.
I have one that I’m working with now. He’s very terrified at the moment, but has turned out to be quite the gourmand. He likes milk, tuna, salmon, but his favorite thing is hiding behind a bookshelf. Someday, though, he’ll be curled up at the foot of my bed, dozing in the sunshine. It always happens. It just takes time, patience, love…and a whole lot of tuna.
Petra Dee has battled supernatural horrors and experienced astonishing wonders.
But there’s no magic on earth that can defeat her recent cancer diagnosis, or
help find her missing husband, Gabriel. Still, she would bet all her remaining
days that the answer to his disappearance lies in the dark subterranean world
beneath the Rutherford Ranch on the outskirts of Temperance, Wyoming.
the sheriff and heir to the ranch, Owen Rutherford. Owen is determined to
harness the power of the Tree of Life—and he needs Gabe to reveal its magic.
Secretly, the sheriff has also made a pact to free a creature of the underground,
a flesh-devouring mermaid. Muirenn has vowed to exact vengeance on Gabe, who
helped imprison her, but first . . . she’s hungry. Once freed, she will swim
into Yellowstone—to feed.
Petra must descend into the underworld to rescue Gabe before it’s too late . .
. for both of them.
Peering through the cattails, she saw a man with a fishing pole, standing on an outcropping. He seemed alone, caught in a bit of reverie, gazing at his line skipping along the surface of the water.
She dipped below the surface of the water, toward the shiver of the fishing line. With green-spotted fingers, she lifted the struggling fish from the hook. The line jerked away.
The man swore.
Muirenn lifted her head above the water.
“Holy shit.” The man stumbled backward. “I didn’t realize you were swimming there . . . I . . .”
His expression changed from embarrassment to curiosity as he looked at her. The pupils of his eyes dilated. “Who . . . are you?”
Muirenn gripped the fish close to her chest, giving a small smile.
The fisherman crouched on the rock, setting his pole beside him. “Wow. You’re uh . . . green? Is that real?”
Muirenn cocked her head and slipped forward a bit in the water. The edge of her tail skimmed above the surface.
“Is that like . . . one of those tails that the girls have at that park in Florida? For a movie or something?” His suntanned brow wrinkled. “No. That’s real,” he decided. “You, um . . . want the fish? You can have it.”
She was within arm’s length of him. She released the squirming fish into the water.
“You wanted to let it go? Look, I . . .”
The man talked too much. She swam closer, tentatively.
The fisherman looked at her, at her dappled skin and the dark rust hair spreading into the water. She wouldn’t ordinarily have been so bold. The weight off her tail was going to her head. She let him take in the black of her eyes, the gills on her throat. He gazed in wonder, and his fingers twitched to a small square piece of plastic on top of his tackle box.
“Can I take your picture? What . . . are you?”
A smile played across her lips, and she spoke to him in a silvery voice. “I’m the Mermaid.”
“Wow. I . . . wow. I’m, uh, Norm. Do I, like, make a wish or something?”
“You can, if you want. I’ll listen.”
She reached up with delicate fingers to touch him. Her fingers brushed the pockets of his fishing vest, playing with wonder over the bits and baubles there meant to lure the attention of fish. The man forgot about his camera and stared, transfixed.
Muirenn reached up for his collar . . .
. . . and dragged him down into the water.
He splashed and flailed. She brought him down—down to the bottom of the creek. It wasn’t so far, but it was far enough for a land dweller. He couldn’t fight her for long. He thrashed until his lungs grew heavy with creek water. He convulsed as the lack of oxygen reached his heart and filtered up to his brain. And then he stopped.
Muirenn grinned, showing row upon row of shark-like teeth. She ripped off his arm and began to chew. It had been so long since she’d had anything but the errant fish that wandered into her realm . . . this was a meal worth waiting for.
The creek ran red.
Red as the idle red-and-white bobber drifting on the surface of the water.
You can find Witch Creek at the following online retailers.
Ohio, reading entirely too many comic books out loud to her favorite Wonder
Woman doll. After graduating with an MA in Sociology – Criminology from Ohio
State University and an MLIS in Library Science from the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she patrolled the stacks at the public library and worked
with data systems in criminal justice. She now dreams up stories about the
monsters under the stairs, also writing contemporary fantasy novels under the
name Alayna Williams.
ALA’s Amelia Bloomer Project 2013 reading list and the State Library of Ohio’s
Choose to Read Ohio reading list for 2015-2016.
It was wonderful having you with us today. Please feel free to stop by anytime. Good Luck with Witch Creek!
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Posted in Authors' Secrets Blog and tagged Dark Fantasy, Laura Bickle, Yellowstone by Tena Stetler with 2 comments.
