Tara welcome to the blog. Can you please share with us a little about yourself
I’m a long-time non-fiction writer who sat up in bed one day about five years ago and thought,
I should write a novel. My first romance novel was published in January of 2011 and that was 25 books ago! People often ask me how I got interested in writing MM romance. It’s a hard question to answer. As a young girl, I had two very dear friends who I later discovered were gay. I remember how hard life was for both of them and I hated that they had to hide all the time. Shortly before I wrote my first novel, I ordered a book by a favorite author, Jet Mykles, and discovered to my surprise that the book was MM. I loved it! I adored the lack of gender roles and the peek into the emotional life of these complex men. I had started working on a MF, older woman/younger man romance, and I added another man to the story! Just that fast, I was a MM author. Giving happy ever afters to heroes like my two childhood friends, is a constant pleasure. While writing books is a fulltime job for me, I also continue my day job – because I own it! I own a small advertising agency with a partner and enjoy the variety that my two fulltime jobs provide.
Have you always wanted to be an author?
I guess I never thought about it much. Writing was just something I could always do. I wrote my first book at five. But when I started making my living as a non-fiction writer, the idea of becoming an author also seemed like too much work! Then I found romance novels and never looked back. Now I’m proud to be an author.
What is your most interesting writing quirk?
I can’t write with music playing. I listen to other authors talk about their play lists and I’m amazed. But I think I’m such a right-brain writer that music is more distracting than words.
Can you please tell us about your latest book(s)?
My new book is called Canning the Center and it’s the second book in my series, The Long Pass Chronicles. It’s the story of an unlikely love affair between an NFL football star and a drag queen. Because my football player is hiding his sexual orientation, he can’t be seen romantically with another man. So my drag queen offers to date him dressed as a woman. That’s when they get in a LOT of trouble!
How did you come up with the idea for this story?
When I wrote Outing the Quarterback, book 1 in the Long Pass Chronicles, I wanted a best friend for my hero, Will Ashford. Since Will is a quarterback, it was logical that his best friend might be the center for the football team. Centers are big men, so Jamal Jones, the gentle giant was born. Jamal and his family are integrally involved in that first book and people loved his character. My agent and publisher immediately asked if I was writing a book about Jamal. I love hatching plots based on characters that are wildly different. When I’m thinking up a story, I first create an idea for my main character. In this case, I already knew I had a big, smart, laid-back guy who loved football and was very good at it. I knew he was going into the NFL which is not a gay friendly environment, so I thought about Jamal being signed by a team with an ultra-conservative owner. Then I wanted to put him in the most wildly difficult and unlikely scenario I could find. Voila! I had him fall in love with a drag queen. But when I came up with that plot idea, I had no concept of how complex and layered that drag queen would be! LOL.
Can you share with us your current work(s) in progress?
Since writing Canning the Center, I’ve completed two more books – Winter’s Wolf (releasing in March) which is the third book in my Tales of the Harker Pack paranormal series, and Knight of Ocean Avenue (coming out in May) which is the first book in a new contemporary series called Love in Laguna. I’m currently writing the second book in the Love in Laguna series. It’s called Knave of Broken Hearts. It tells the story of a tough construction worker who finds himself attracted to a beautiful Asian cardiologist who reminds him of a character from his favorite comic book as a kid.
Who is the one author that you would love to meet someday and why?
If I could go back in time, I would love to have met Oscar Wilde. Today, I’m so fortunate to have met many, many of my favorite authors and a number of them have become friends – Z A Maxfield, Lynn Lorenz, Jet Mykles, Eli Easton, Jordan Hawk, and others.
What is the best piece of advice you would give to someone that wants to get into writing?
It’s not original, but the answer is WRITE! Write, write, write. The more you do, the better you’ll get and the fact of finishing a book is a huge milestone psychologically. Yes, study and learn, but above all, write.
Can you share with us something off your bucket list?
I’ve been all over the world in my travels, but somehow I’ve missed Ireland. I’d like to go there. I was also determined to move out of our very big house we lived in and downsize – which we just accomplished! Yahoo! I’d like the privilege of writing more novels with happy endings and having people enjoy reading them!
What is in your To Read Pile that you are dying to start or upcoming release you can’t wait for?
I’m always salivating over new releases from Eli Easton, Jordan Hawk, ZAM Maxfield, and others.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Every time someone sends me an email or posts on Amazon, Facebook or Goodreads that they like one of my books, I’m thrilled. After a pretty complete career in marketing, the fact that I could have wound up as an author that people enjoy reading is a gift. Every reader amazes and delights me. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
*****
Let’s take a look at Canning the Center
Canning The Center
(Long Pass Chronicles, #2)
By Tara Lain
Blurb:
Six foot seven inch, 300 pound Jamal Jones loves football, so when he finds out the ultra-conservative owner of his new pro football team fired their current center because he’s gay, bisexual Jamal decides to stay in the closet and hang with the females. Then, at a small drag show, he comes face-to-face with his sexual fantasy in the form of Trixie LaRue, a drag queen so exquisitely convincing she scrambles Jamal’s hormones — and his resolve to nurse his straight side.
Trevor Landry, aka Trixie LaRue, hides more than his genitals. A mathematician so brilliant he can’t be measured, Trevor disguises his astronomical IQ and his quirk for women’s clothes behind his act as a gay activist undergrad at Southern California University.
To Trevor, Jamal is the answer to a dream — a man who can love and accept both his personas. When he discovers Jamal’s future is threatened if he’s seen with a guy, Trevor becomes Trixie to let Jamal pass as straight. But Trevor risks his position every time he puts on a dress. Is there a closet big enough to hold a football pro and a drag queen?
Available for purchase at
Excerpt
Trevor stuck out a
hand. “My name’s Trevor. Pleased to meet you.”
Jamal reached out to
take the offered handshake and—whoops! In one gentle pull on Trevor’s arm that
clearly required no effort on Jamal’s part, Trevor was up against that huge
chest. “I’m Jamal. I don’t mean to be presumptuous. Just tell me to stop. But
if I don’t kiss you again soon, I’m a dead man.”
Trevor smiled up
into those dark brown eyes. “I would never want to be accused of murder.”
Such full, full
lips. They moved slowly down, down to Trevor’s. The first touch sent a flash
like lightning through every nerve, and he shivered.
Jamal pulled back.
“Cold?”
“Quite the
contrary.” He wrapped his arms tightly around the bunny’s neck.
Invitation
delivered. Jamal’s mouth closed over Trevor’s. Those lips were just as soft as
they looked, but not as silky as the tongue that slipped into his mouth. Oh my,
a girl could get drunk on this sweetness. Trevor opened and received, allowing
exploration—and sharing it. His poor abused cock, which had spent a couple of
hours locked between his asscheeks, wanted to stretch in a whole new direction.
Sweet God, he hadn’t throbbed like this in ages. One leg crawled up Jamal’s ass
all by itself—and it was a long way up. Too far to get his bulge anywhere near
its rightful companion. His eyes popped open. “Well, damn. Not much chance of
sexing you up unless we’re lying down.”
Jamal chuckled. “Oh
no, sweet thing, there are advantages to all these muscles.”
He picked Trevor up
under the butt. Yes! Contact.
Trevor looked into
those melted chocolate eyes. “I am estimating your equipment fully matches in
size the other proportions of your body?” He wrapped his legs around Jamal’s
surprisingly narrow waist.
Instead of getting
all peacocky like he had the right to, Jamal kind of blushed. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“Surely you jest.”
He grinned, but he
was breathing hard. “So you don’t mind big all over?”
“Not one little
bit.”
Jamal rode Trev up
and down against his cock. Oh God, that felt so good. Trevor never had decent
sex because he had this reputation to uphold, and Trixie never had sex at all.
Jesus, that added up to one crappy sex life. But the bunny was like a world in
the middle. With Jamal, for the first time, he got to be both Trevor and Trixie
and that was whole and perfect and hot! “You might want to stop unless you
would enjoy watching me wash these jeans.”
“Better yet, how
about I take you out and we get to know each other before I quit football and
take up fucking you full time?”
Who could laugh at a
time like this? But he still did. He hugged that big, muscular frame tight and
rubbed his cock against Jamal’s huge bulge until they were both gasping. “No.
No, I think you better write the resignation letter.”
“Deal. But I could
take us out for root beer floats first.”
Trevor stopped. “I
love root beer.”
Jamal held him
still, their cocks still squashed in bliss. “You’re kidding. No one likes root
beer but me.”
“I do. It’s my
favorite.”
“There’s this
diner—”
“Okay, fuck sex. I
need a root beer float and a hamburger.”
About the Author
Tara Lain writes the Beautiful Boys of Romance in LGBT erotic romance novels that star her unique, charismatic heroes. Her first novel was published in January of 2011 and she’s now somewhere around book 23. Her bestselling novels have garnered awards for Best Series, Best Contemporary Romance, Best Ménage, Best LGBT Romance, Best Gay Characters, and Tara has been named Best Writer of the Year in the LRC Awards. In her other job, Tara owns an advertising and public relations firm. She often does workshops on both author promotion and writing craft. She lives with her soulmate husband and her soulmate dog in Laguna Beach, California, a pretty seaside town where she sets a lot of her books. Passionate about diversity, justice, and new experiences, Tara says on her tombstone it will say “Yes”!
You can find Tara at
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