Author Name: K.E. Belledonne
Book Name: Daniel &
Erik’s Super Fab Ultimate Wedding Checklist
Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28764238-daniel-erik-s-super-fab-ultimate-wedding-checklist
Publisher: Interlude Press
Cover Artist: C.B. Messer
Release
Date: June 23, 2016
Blurb:
When Daniel gets caught up in the demands of a
cheeky wedding planning app, his fiancé Erik grows frustrated with his
preoccupation with adhering to heterosexual traditions. Will Daniel’s
groomzilla ways give them the wedding of their dreams, or ultimately lead to
their relationship’s demise?
Pages or Words: 53,000 words, 188 pages
Categories: Contemporary, Gay Fiction,
Humor, M/M Romance, Romance, Rom Com
Excerpt:
“I think Aurora is disappointed in me.”
“What?” Erik rubbed at his eye.
It wasn’t even early morning, judging by the weak light coming through the
blinds from the streetlights. “Who?”
“Aurora. The wedding planning
app.” Daniel lay on his back, wide awake and staring up at the ceiling.
“The wedding planning app is not
a sentient being. It has no feelings or opinions.”
“I feel like she's judging me.
I’m sorry if I woke you up.”
“Oh my god, go to sleep.”
“I can't. I'm never going to
sleep ever again.” Daniel tugged the blanket higher up his chest, folding his
arms over it and exhaling heavily.
“You're being dramatic.”
“I've got too many things buzzing
in my head. There's too many things I'm going to forget to do.”
“I thought that's why you had
that damn app, so you don't have to remember anything; it's all right there
saved on your tablet.”
“Yes, but I have to remember to put everything in it.″ Daniel rolled over. ″She doesn't just know everything—”
“A: She is not a she. It is an it. B: What are we doing tomorrow?”
“Oh my god, what is the point of
sharing the app calendar if you're never going to look at it?” Daniel wailed.
“I look at it. It's just crammed
so full of everything that I have no idea what's going on when.”
Daniel blew out his breath.
”Look, I know you don’t like the calendar. We’ve been over that, but I don’t
know how else to keep track of all of these appointments and deadlines.”
“I told you, we could color-code
them, or something,” Erik rolled to his side and punched at his pillow.
“Aurora doesn’t give you that
option.”
“Well, it should.”
“I agree, but there’s nothing I
can do about that.” Daniel bunched his pillow up under his head. “Tomorrow, we
have four appointments to meet with caterers: two in the morning, two in the
afternoon.”
“Why so many in one day?”
“It's the only day we both have
available this week, and I am not going to make any decisions about the food at
our reception without you there to discuss it.”
“Seriously, you could just make a
choice, and I'll live with it.” Erik rolled over.
“I don't want you to just 'live
with it,' Erik.″ Daniel
tried to keep his voice neutral, but failed. ″This is our wedding. I don't want you to just 'live with it.’”
“Why are you getting so worked up
about it?”
“We only get one chance at this.
Everything needs to be perfect.”
“You're going to drive us both
crazy, you know that, right?” Erik tugged the blankets back up over his
shoulder.
“Well, then, we'll both be
crazy.” Daniel squinted up at the ceiling. He was so tired of making these
decisions. Why were there so many options? Why were there so many decisions?
The planning was getting on Erik's nerves; he
was getting on Erik's nerves. Erik was getting on his nerves. They were both
just a pile of irritated nerves because the to-do list didn’t seem to be
getting any smaller.
Daniel’s phone chimed with
another notification from Aurora.
New Private Message from: MommyMargie.
His mother probably had another ludicrous
suggestion for the reception, or a passive-aggressive reminder of the hymn that
she and his father had had played at their
wedding, that their grandparents had had played at their wedding and that she expected to hear at his wedding. Or maybe his parents had decided to paint the living
room green. Who knew?
Buy the book:
Interlude Press: http://store.interludepress.com/collections/daniel-erik-s-super-fab-ultimate-wedding-checklist-by-ke-belledonne
Amazon: http://amzn.to/28NiV4D
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/daniel-eriks-super-fab-ultimate-wedding-checklist-ke-belledonne/1123762097?ean=9781941530825
All Romance eBooks: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/storeSearch.html?referrer=55feb862851f8
Indiebound: http://www.indiebound.org/book/978-1-941530-82-5?aff=interludepress
Today I’m very lucky to be
interviewing K.E. Belledonne, author of Daniel & Erik’s Super Fab Ultimate
Wedding Checklist. Hi Kat, thank you for agreeing to this interview.
1) How do
you develop your plots and characters?
My
plots always come to me in a flash – I get the idea for one single plot-twist,
or a single moment in a scene, and then I weave the story around that.
As
for characters, for me it all starts with their name. I start out with what
different names would might signify, socio-economically or culturally or
chronologically, and then it starts building out from there. I have a bunch of
baby name books, and reference material about the most common names in any
given country in any given time period. Once they have a name, they start to
get a personality. The reader is going to infer a lot of information from the
name without ever being told any other descriptors – even if the reader doesn’t
think they’re drawing anything from them, they’ll know that “John Smith”
(bland, possibly boring, blank slate) or “Aloysius Beauregard McKiernan
O’Reilly” (flamboyant, yet charming) or “Horace Clarington Whittlesley”(old
money, quite possibly a snob)
2) Who
doesn’t love a good hero? Tell us about your protagonist. Was there a real life
inspiration behind them?
My protagonist is Daniel Whitcomb, a
young artist. At the start of the book, he thinks he’s got most of his life
mostly figured out, or at least he thinks he’s got a very good idea how is life
is going to go – and then he meets Erik and gets thrown for a loop. He soon
realizes even though he’s always thought he knew exactly who he is, he hasn’t
really accepted himself.
There wasn’t really a real life
inspiration behind him – I drew on my own experiences, and the experiences of
people I know. And some of him, I just entirely made up!
3) What
real-life inspirations do you use when world building?
I
love to travel, and I’ve done a lot of it. I often use places I’ve been as a
starting off point for world building, and then veer off as the story requires.
The
story takes place in Tallenburg, a fictional New England college town, which
was very heavily influence by Toronto (where I was visiting when I wrote a
large chunk of the book.) The area where Daniel’s store, Co-Op, is located is
very much like Queen St West in Toronto. For the rest of Tallenburg, I pulled
details from all the little different college towns I’ve visited in New
England.
Erik’s
university is in Stockholm – which I was visiting when I actually started
writing the book.
4) Did
you learn anything from this book and what was it?
This
book, I learned the value of cut and paste. I knew I wanted it to have a
particular framework, with parts of it being told in flashbacks, but that the
flashbacks had to be in chronological order, interspersed with the present day
timeline. I drove myself crazy trying to write it like that, because I’d forget
what details had been revealed and what hadn’t. I just had to stop writing that
way. I wrote it linearly, from the day they met until the end of the book, and
then chopped it and spliced it back together in the framework it needed to be
in.
5) It’s
your last meal on earth. What do you choose?
The classy answer is truffle ravioli
in an herb and shallot white wine sauce.
The less-classy answer is tacos.
(Not a Mexican taco. These are called tacos.) When I lived in France,
there was a strange specialty of my area – a large tortilla, filled with kebab,
and french fries and a special cheese sauce. It looked awful, but oh wow, it
was so very very tasty.
Meet the author:
K. E. Belledonne is a writer, editor and
translator. A native New Englander, Kat spends her spare time listening to
Glenn Miller records, reading history books and cheering on her beloved Red
Sox. Her first novel, Right Here Waiting, was published by Interlude Press in 2015.
Where to find the author:
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/kebelledonne
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KEBelledonne
Pinterest: https://fr.pinterest.com/kebelledonne/
Blog: www.kebelledonne.com
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Prize: Grand Prize: $25 Interlude Press gift card, 5 first prizes of an e-copy
of Daniel & Erik’s Super Fab Ultimate Wedding Checklist
Hi there!
ReplyDeleteThanks for having me here today!
I'll check back in throughout the day to see if any readers have any other comments or questions!
You're welcome!!
DeleteCongratulations on your new release K.E.! Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDelete