Author Name: j. leigh bailey
Book Name: Reckless Hope
Part of a series? If yes, can this book
be read as a standalone? Yes, can be read as a standalone
If a series, what is the series title?
Letting Go
If series, what number is this book?
Book2
Publisher: Carina Press
Cover Artist:
Release
Date: August 24, 2015
Blurb:
What's life without a little risk?
Until he meets Micah Burke, and everything changes.
Micah's got too much going on for a relationship. Even if he could trust Sebastian, a distraction—a sexy, reckless distraction with a death wish—would only derail his carefully scheduled life. If it were just Micah, maybe that would be fine, but his mother and sister depend on him, and he can't let them down. Or at least that's what he tells himself.
A hot moment leads to a hot night leads to a connection neither of them are ready for. And when a crisis hits Micah's family hard, Sebastian will have to shed his bad-boy image and decide whether he can be the man Micah needs—and Micah needs to decide whether he'll let him.
Book two of Letting Go
Pages or Words: 67,000
Categories: M/M Romance, New Adult, Romance
Excerpt:
“I thought I knew what kind of person you were.”
“Yeah, you made that pretty clear.”
Micah cringed, but kept going. “You take for granted
everything I work my ass off to achieve. It’s easy for you. And now I know
there’s more to you than that. I don’t understand your choices, or the need for
an adrenaline rush you seem to have.” He held up a hand to keep Sebastian from
saying anything. He scooted up, resting his back against the handlebars.
“I
don’t have to understand. It’s part of who you are.”
“Somehow I don’t think this discussion is heading in
a direction I’m going to like.” Sebastian drew his knees to his chest and
wrapped his arms around them.
“The thing is, you’re a bad influence on me.”
“I don’t—”
“You don’t even have to do anything. Take tonight,
for instance.”
“Tonight?”
“I have a midterm tomorrow. I should be studying. Or
even sleeping. Instead I’m here. I never have trouble doing what I’m supposed
to do. Setting aside my ‘want tos’ to do my ‘have tos.’ Except around you.”
“I’m not trying to make your life harder. I’m just
trying to be part of it.”
“That’s what I don’t get. You could have almost
anyone. You could find someone a hell of a lot less complicated than me.”
“You may not believe it, but I don’t mind complications.”
Sales Links:
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Q & A with author J.Leigh Bailey
Today I’m very lucky to be interviewing j.
leigh bailey, author of Reckless Hope.
Hi, j. leigh, thank you for agreeing to this
interview. Tell us a little about yourself, your background, and your current
book.
Thank you so much for having me! I’m an
office drone by day in the Chicagoland area, and by night I’m the author of New
Adult and Young Adult LGBTQ romance. RECKLESS HOPE is the second book in my
Letting Go series, and is an opposites attract story centered around two
characters who have to overcome the stresses and disappointments of their past
to build a happy relationship together. And, while doing this, they have to
figure out who they are and, ultimately, what they want for their future.
Wicked Faerie's - What’s the easiest thing
about writing?
J.Leigh Bailey - The typing. That sounds like a bad joke, but when I look at
it, there’s not a lot easy about writing. Every aspect of it requires effort
and work, and is, in all likelihood, a struggle. I have to drag the words out
when I try and translate the images in my head into words on the screen.
Figuring out the plot and getting from one major plot point the next can be a
trial. Figuring out who your character is, and trying to make him work in the
plot you’ve already set up, gets to be tough, too. It’s like playing a sport.
If you ask a football player what the easiest part of football is, I’d imagine
they’d have to wrack their brain. No matter how gifted a player is, or how much
experience, every day of practice, every game, is a workout. We don’t write
because it’s easy. We write because we have something we want to say or a story
we want to share. In the end, writing can be a pain in the ass, but it’s
absolutely worth every headache and frustration. There’s satisfaction in
finishing a project you’ve been working on for months. Finally figuring out the
solution to the plot tangle you’ve created is exhilarating. Just like on the
football field. You don’t mind the practice and the bruises when a play comes
together or your team scores a touchdown.
JLB - Assuming I could get over the sheer intimidation factor, I’d
love to write with Elizabeth Lowell. There are two things she does well that
I’d like to learn how to do. First, she makes the setting an integral part of
the story. You can’t plop the characters out of the location they’re in and
into a different location without completely changing the story. Whether is
modern day northern Mexico or the wild west after the Civil War, the geography
practically becomes a character. The second skill she has that I envy is her
gift with rapid-paced, edgy dialogue. I can tell a Lowell book without being
told simply by the way the characters speak to each other. I can’t even put
into words what she does with dialogue to adequately describe it, but it’s a
talent I really wish I had.
WF - Tell us about your cover
and how it came about.
JLB - I LOVE the cover for Reckless
Hope. It captures the feel of the book and the characters in a way that
shouldn’t be possible given it’s a cropped image of two faces. But there’s a
hope and joy that the characters worked so hard to achieve. And all the credit
goes to the art department at Carina Press. This is my favorite of the covers,
but I love the way the covers create a branded style, and capture the feeling
of the series as a whole and the books individually.
WF - Is this book part of a
series? Do you have ideas that could make it into a series? If it is a series,
tell us a little about it.
JLB - Reckless Hope is the second in the Letting Go series. The
first book, which came out in April, is Nobody’s Hero, and the third book,
which comes out next March, is Fight to Forgive. There are no overlapping
characters or locations for these books, but they share a theme—letting go of
the past to secure a better/happier future. In Nobody’s Hero, Brad has a
traumatic past—his ex-boyfriend was severely bashed by Brad’s brother, and Brad
was then sent to a military school in the hopes it would “straighten” him out.
At the start of the book, he’s graduated and runs as far as he can from his
homophobic family for college. But his past has a stranglehold on his present
and until he learns to let go of the guilt he’s harboring, he can’t move
forward. Which he eventually does with the help of Danny Ortega and Danny’s
amazing family who shows him what love and family means.
In Fight to Forgive, Aaron and Freddie were best friends
growing up, but that turned to love in their teens. When a misunderstanding
breaks them up, they become each others’ first heart break. Fight to Forgive
brings them together after years of no contact and they have to let go of the
past and forgive each other in order to build a better future.
WF - Word association. Tell
us the first thing that comes to mind when you read these words.
JLB - Ooh, this is fun. Let’s see…
Ketchup --> Mustard (and the fact that McDonald’s
brand is red and yellow, the colors of ketchup and mustard
Flakes -->I got a list of words for this one almost simultaneously… Snow, Frosted,
Dandruff. Not sure what that says about
me.
Elastic --> Waistband
Timer -->Baking
Google --> my
family’s silly name for it: “the Google Machine.” It was one of those things
someone said and it stuck.
About the
author:
j. leigh bailey
is an office drone by day and the author of New Adult and Young Adult LGBT
Romance by night. She can usually be found with her nose in a book or pressed
up against her computer monitor. A book-a-day reading habit sometimes gets in
the way of... well, everything...but some habits aren't worth breaking. She's
been reading romance novels since she was ten years old. The last twenty years
or so have not changed her voracious appetite for stories of romance,
relationships and achieving that vitally important Happy Ever After. She's a
firm believer that everyone, no matter their gender, age, sexual orientation or
paranormal affiliation deserves a happy ending.
She wrote her
first story at seven, which was, unbeknownst to her at the time, a charming
piece of fan-fiction in which Superman battled (and defeated, of course) the
nefarious X Luther. She was quite put out to be told, years later, that the
character's name was actually Lex. Her second masterpiece should have been a best-seller,
but the action-packed tale of rescuing her little brother from an alligator
attack in the marshes of Florida collected dust for years under the bed instead
of gaining critical acclaim.
Now she writes
New Adult and Young Adult LGBT Romance novels about boys traversing the crazy
world of love, relationships and acceptance.
Where to find the author:
Tour Dates & Stops:
24-Aug
25-Aug
26-Aug
27-Aug
28-Aug
31-Aug
1-Sep
2-Sep
3-Sep
4-Sep
Rafflecopter
Prize: An eBook copy of Nobody’s Hero (Letting Go book 1)
and an eBook copy of Reckless Hope
Thank you so much for having me. The last couple of weeks have been so exciting with this release, and I'm thrilled that you shared the fun with me. :)
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