Hello, and welcome to the very first episode of Holly’s Quirky Questions. This week, we have Anne Barwell and Marie Sinclair as our special guests. I’ll share an awesome review from Scars of the Soul and a giveaway opportunity, so be sure to read to the bottom!
Author Bio
Anne Barwell lives in Wellington, New Zealand. She shares her home with kitty siblings Byron and Marigold who are convinced her office chair is theirs.
Anne works in a library, is an avid reader and watcher of a wide range of genres, and is constantly on the look-out for more hours in her day. She likes to write in series and even so called one shots seem to breed more plot bunnies. Her writing is like her reading – across a range of genres, although her favourites are paranormal, fantasy, SF, and historical. Music often plays a part in her stories and/or her characters are musicians.
She also hosts and reviews for other authors, and writes monthly blog posts for Love Bytes. She is the co-founder of the New Zealand Rainbow Romance writers, and a member of RWNZ. Her books have received honourable mentions five times, reached the finals four times—one of which was for best gay book—and been a runner up in the Rainbow Awards.
*** Anne’s Quirky Questions ***
Holly: Would you visit the future or the past, and why?
Anne: I’d love to visit the past and meet family I never had the chance to spend time with. Also, I’d love to see the places I’ve written about, although I wouldn’t want to stay long given the time period.
Holly: What other artistic pursuits (if any) do you indulge in apart from writing?
Anne: I play violin in a community orchestra, and piano.
Holly: What are some day jobs that you have had/have? Do they impact your writing, share an example.
Anne: I was a music teacher for ten years, and now work in a library. A few of Joel’s teaching experiences in Prelude to Love were drawn from real life, and I’ve played all of the music from the concert in that book.
Holly: How did you come up with the idea for this book?
Anne: I wanted to read an MM historical action/adventure and couldn’t find any so I wrote one. The book soon turned into a 3 book series.
Now there are a lot more historicals out there to read, which makes me happy.
Holly: What was the hardest part of writing this book?
Anne: I was paranoid about getting the research right with its mix of geographic and historical. Somethings were easier to research than others. Finding out things like how German telephones were fixed to the wall proved a challenge, but luckily one of my beta readers was German and she was able to draw on local knowledge.
Holly: Let’s talk to your characters for a minute – what’s it like to work for such a demanding writer?
Anne: We had an argument at one point during the first book. I (Kit) wanted a scene to go one way, she had the less than brilliant idea of going another. Of course, I wasn’t going to let anything happen to my beloved Michel. After a few… discussions, and me refusing to cooperate until my demands were met, I won.
It’s the showdown in the park with a particularly nasty Gestapo officer if you’re curious.
Holly: Do you ever base your characters on real people? Do you tell them?
Anne: Occasionally if someone annoys me, I’ll put them in a book and kill them. That doesn’t always work out though as they usually end up redeeming themselves in the end!
On the flip side, a friend never saw her name in a romance book, so I named a character after her, and then gifted her a signed copy of the book of the beginning of “her” adventures. She’ll turn up in a few other books set in that world too.
Series Blurb:
My WWII Echoes Rising series is on sale this month. All three books are available through KU, and in paperback.
#friendstolovers #enemiestolovers #spies #mmromance #action #drama #WWII #hurtcomfort #foundfamily #diversecharacters
Doktor Kristopher Lehrer is a scientist working on a top secret project in Germany. When his illusions are shattered and he discovers what the Nazis plan to do with his work, it isn’t long before he is on the run with both the Gestapo and the Allies after the plans he carries.
Follow Kristopher and Michel (the undercover Resistance agent sent to watch him), and the Allied team as they attempt to stay one step ahead of their enemies and reach safety.
Excerpt from Shadowboxing, book 1
This was his chance to put things right, to make sure the project did not go further. He hurriedly shoved the file back into the case and then froze. What exactly was he going to do? Only one complete copy existed as far as he knew, but he wasn’t certain if the Nazis were aware he was capable of replicating the information. He would have to destroy the file, then disappear.
That wasn’t going to be easy. The Nazis had spies everywhere, and he did not know anyone who would help him. He wouldn’t ask Clara, nor would he consider death as an option. He couldn’t do that to her, not after she’d spent so much of her energy taking care of him.
Someone had to get the information about this device out to the rest of the world. He had helped to create it. He would make sure the project was only ever used for the benefit of all mankind, but where the hell was he supposed to find the people he needed to ensure that happened? How could he trust anyone now, let alone convince them to trust him?
Click.
Kristopher turned. The office door was opening. In one fluid movement he gripped the briefcase firmly beneath one arm and bent to retrieve a piece of broken glass, holding the jagged edge in front of him in a feeble attempt to defend himself.
The newcomer took in the situation at a glance, one eyebrow raised in an unspoken question. His eyes flickered onto what had once been Kluge, then back to Kristopher, and finally came to rest on his precious cargo, the briefcase containing the culmination of a dream now better described as a never-ending nightmare.
Kristopher debated for all of a second the chances of his success if he tackled the man head-on, then decided against it. Apart from the extra height, Schmitz’s uniform probably disguised a well-developed physique. He also had the advantage of military training and the gun he held. Kristopher’s opponent possessed some degree of intelligence. That much was obvious by the inquiring look on his face and the way his eyes seemed to penetrate Kristopher’s, searching for an answer. For an instant, Kristopher was sure he glimpsed a depth to those eyes, and the man behind them. He edged back a step, taking comfort in the solidity of the desk digging into the small of his back, the sensation grounding him while he attempted to place the pieces of the puzzle together.
How much had Schmitz seen? His expression did not reveal anything.
If Kristopher surrendered now, everything would be over, and the Nazis would win. He wouldn’t give up, no matter what the odds. He gripped the glass fragment tightly, ignoring the sharp pain as the rough edges scratched against his palm, the red liquid seeping into his shirt cuff already stained with the blood he’d earlier unsuccessfully attempted to stanch. He took a step closer, trying to look menacing, fully aware that on a scale of one to ten he wasn’t achieving even a one.
They stood staring at each other, or rather Kristopher stood staring. Schmitz leaned back casually against the door without shifting his gaze. After a few moments with Kristopher’s ragged breathing the only audible sound in the room, the Obergefreiter pulled himself to attention and took a step forward. He lowered his gun and placed it in its holster before holding out his hand for Kristopher’s makeshift weapon.
“Herr Dr Lehrer,” he said softly, the tone of his voice low, an expression of disbelief fleeting over his features. “You’re one of the most brilliant minds in this institution, and yet this is the extent of your plan?”
Anne’s Social Links
Author Bio
Marie Sinclair is a queer (agender/pan) writer living in San Francisco. Her pronouns are she/they. Her focus is on contemporary romance, usually on the steamy side. While HEAs are guaranteed, it will always take some work for the couples to get there, and it might not look the way they expected at the beginning. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Marie believes in rooting her stories in the real world of queer culture and showing how love can survive even in challenging times. Her first book, A Kind of Forever, was nominated for two Goodreads Readers’ Choice awards, and her third, Forever After, is a 2023 Lambda Literary Award finalist in Gay Romance.
*** MARIE’S QUIRKY QUESTIONS ***
Holly: If you were stuck on a desert island all alone with only three things, what would they be?
Marie: I’m going to change this a bit to what are three things that are absolutely essential for me to travel with because my mind instantly goes to the practical side of being stranded on a desert island and wants an emergency signal, a knife, and a source of clean water. So, essential things for me when I’m traveling are: my computer (because I’m never not working), decaf tea bags (caffeine gives me migraines, and it’s almost impossible to find decaf black tea in restaurants), and a Jamie Fraser Funko Pop figure and an Edgar Allen Poe figure (which I use as my selfie stand-ins).
Holly: Do you have any morning rituals? What are they?
Marie: First thing when I wake up, I look at my sales numbers, then I play Wordle, Worldle (a geography game), and Chrono. After I get my tea and breakfast, I play the daily challenges on Mahjong. And then I start work.
Holly: When did you first call yourself a writer?
Marie: I honestly don’t remember ever not calling myself a writer. I narrated my toys through their stories when I was little and wrote my first short story when I was 6. I think where I started thinking about it seriously was when I was thirteen and wrote my first novel. It took me about three years to revise it, and by the time I was sixteen, I knew I was going to be going to be studying creative writing in college.
Holly: Do you play music while you write — and, if so, what’s your favorite?
Marie: God, no! I listen to brown noise as a sound blocker because any music that has an emotional tone to it throws me off. I’m incredibly sound sensitive and have misophonia coupled with hyperacusis, which means not only do I react to certain sounds, I can also hear them at distances other people can’t. So brown noise and noise-cancelling headphones it is.
Holly: Tell me something from your bucket list.
Marie: I want to see Petra. I don’t remember when I first heard about or saw pictures of Petra, but I’ve wanted to see it for as long as I can remember.
Holly: What secondary character would you like to explore more? Tell me about them.
Marie: The funny thing about this book (and something mentioned by a few reviewers) is that there aren’t a lot of secondary characters in Love Comes in Threes. I wanted this to be a one-off book, so I concentrated almost exclusively on Elliott, Leo, and Luc. The dogs, Beowulf and Jericho, are definitely secondary characters. They have a lot of personality. I love dogs, have had dogs all my life, and had a great time including these two in the story. The only other character who had a significant role is Elliott’s boss, Becks, and Becks was the star of Chef’s Kiss, a novella I wrote for an Advent Calendar giveaway.
Holly: Who has been your favorite character to write and why?
Marie: I didn’t really have a favorite character in Love Comes in Threes because all three were necessary for the story to work and brought such beautiful energy to the story. I think the balance you see in their relationship speaks to the way they balanced each other in the writing. Luc can be effusive and flighty, but he was grounded by Elliott and Leo. Elliott could be stuffy, but he’s balanced by Luc’s joie de vivre and Leo’s ability to take things in stride. And Leo could be overbearing and controlling, except for Luc’s ability to puncture his ego and Elliott’s lively intellect and curiosity.
Holly: What was the weirdest thing you had to Google for your story?
Marie: It wasn’t weird, but for Love Comes in Three, I had to look up a lot about paraplegia and wheelchairs for Leo’s character. I watched videos of people in wheelchairs and started following several disability advocates on IG. I also had to do research on what is and isn’t possible sexually for men with paralysis, as well as how different spinal cord injuries affect a person’s mobility. I learned a lot about the different types of wheelchairs and their construction, especially off-road wheelchairs that are made for trails or the beach.
Holly: How long have you been writing?
Marie: The short answer is, “All my life.” The much longer answer is that I did go to college for creative writing, and then tried to be a very serious literary novelist for several decades. I got an MFA in fiction in 2010, and continued to work on the novel that had been my thesis project until 2019. That novel came very, very close to getting a top-level agent in 2017, and then got me into a prestigious year-long novel revision workshop in 2018. I’d been reading M/M romance for a couple of years and loving it, and got the opportunity to write an erotic fanfiction scene for a San Francisco reading series. That scene expanded into a novel that I was having a great deal of fun with, so much so that, after the revision workshop ended, I decided to put the serious literary novel aside and finish the M/M romance. That book became my first release, A Kind of Forever, the first book in my Finding Forever series, and the rest, as they say, is history, and now I’m seven books into writing M/M romance exclusively.
Holly: Are you a full-time or part-time writer? How does that affect your writing?
Marie: That’s kind of a difficult question for me to answer. I’ve always been a writer and always earned my income from my writing, but I haven’t always been writing fiction. I’ve been a freelance writer (most of my articles were for business magazines, and I always got assigned the financial and banking articles, which is hysterical because I’m so not a numbers person), run a corporate ghostwriting agency with a friend, taught creative writing, and have been a developmental editor for nearly ten years. All of this was so I had the freedom to pursue my fiction. So…full time, I guess? And I love it. There isn’t anything else I’ve ever wanted to do.
Holly: Are you a plotter or a pantster?
Marie: Definitely a pantser. I usually have a bit of an outline in that I know who my characters are when the book starts and where I want them to end up, but how they get there is something that evolves as I write. I love moments of serendipity when something or someone walks onto the page, and I know it’s important even if I don’t know how or why, and then, a hundred or a hundred and fifty pages later, it reveals itself to have been absolutely essential to the story. I’ve learned to trust that intuition implicitly.
Holly: How many books are you usually working on at the same time? How many unfinished WIPs do you have?
Marie: I’m usually only actively working on one book at a time, which doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about the others. At the moment, I’ve got my current series, Blue Skies, mapped out (I know who my main characters are and what they’re working on). I’m actively writing the first book in the series and hoping to get it out at the beginning of the summer, and the second in late fall, the third in late January. I’ve found that the pattern that works for me is to finish a book, write a short story or novella, then get to work on the next book in a series, and write a standalone after a series finishes. But I’ve got a stand-alone that’s really pushing at me, so I may have to write it before finishing off the Blue Skies gang. I’m also doing a holiday promo story for the end of 2023, and a shared world book that will release in 2024, so those are also on my mind as well, and know what my next two series are going to be. I have folders set up on my computer for all of those projects, and when something occurs to me or I run across an inspiration image, I’ll put it in the folder. I tend to think of my writing process as composting because I tend to get my ideas long before I actually work on them, so I’m turning ideas over and over in my head before starting the story.
Blurb:
A single phone call changes the perfectly-balanced V-relationship husbands Elliott and Luc, and Luc’s Dom/boyfriend, Leo, have maintained for several years. If they’re brave enough to take the chance, they could build something even stronger for all of them together.
Elliott thrives on routine: teaching college literature, caring for his dogs, and unconditionally loving his husband, Luc. Whether that means building a recording studio for Luc’s burgeoning career as a pet care influencer or supporting Luc’s love for his Dom, Elliott is there for him no matter what.
Luc is the luckiest man in the world. His pet care YouTube channel is poised to launch into a real career, Elliott gives him the solid foundation he needs, and Leo provides the domination and structure he craves. Wherever the winds of fame take him, he’s secure in the knowledge that both his husband and his lover will be his wings.
Leo knows no one would look at his wheelchair and think “Dom,” but frankly, he doesn’t care. He survived the accident that paralyzed him, as well as the health crisis that almost killed him, and his reward is Luc, kneeling at his feet in complete devotion and perfect submission.
These three men have balanced work, home, love, and play in an open V-relationship for several years…until a single phone call rocks their world. Once the shock wears off, the new dynamic between them could destroy everything or build something stronger if they’re brave enough to take the chance.
Notes: Love Comes in Threes is an emotional, somewhat angsty MMM romance featuring a consensual V-relationship (i.e., no cheating), and an HEA for all three men. It contains a Dom on wheels, Really Big Floofy Dogs, and mouthwatering Greek pastries, as well as light kink and a D/s relationship.
Marie’s Socials Here
Scars of the Soul is LIVE!
5.0 out of 5 stars I love this series, I love this world, and I especially love the characters
As the intro suggests I’m very fond of this book, along with the characters. As soon as I was finished reading Shadows Of The Soul I knew I had to read Jackson’s story. His character and personality really captured my attention in the first book so I’m really glad he got his own book. I never expected him to be such a grumpy kitty though, meow!
Neo’s character really surprised me, I haven’t read too many books that has a psychic as a main character, and this one was done so well! The visions he got were really descriptive, yet vague at the same time to keep making Neo guess at what the killer would do next. I thought the visions he had really brought a great perspective into his character, and what he goes through from day to day. I’m really glad he was able to not only catch the killer that’s been plauging his thoughts, but he also found his people. His family.
The plot in this book was fantastic, just like it was in the last one. The mystery kept you guessing, made you think, and ponder on who it could be. You were trying to solve the mystery alongside the characters, that was so well done. The characters in this one were really well written, although, now I really hope that Kane gets his own book at some point. Cause now his character interests me.
And Holly! How could you? The last chapter before the epilogue made me tear up, why did you do this??
Overall a really fantastic read, I hope there is more to come that takes place in this world with these characters. And while you can read this as a standalone I highly recommend reading Shadows Of The Soul first for maximum enjoyment.
*I received an early copy of this book and this is my honest review.*
Attention bookworms! It’s time for a giveaway that’s sure to make your heart skip a beat. 50 MM authors have come together to give away some amazing prizes, including a Kindle Fire loaded with 10 incredible ebooks and 4 Kindle accessories with 10 ebooks each. That’s right, 5 lucky winners will be chosen to receive these fantastic prizes! Whether you’re a fan of romance, sci-fi, mystery, or any other genre, you’re sure to find something you’ll love in this giveaway. To enter, simply follow the instructions on the giveaway post and stay tuned for the winner announcement. Good luck!
Well, team, we certainly crammed a lot into this edition, next week I’ll be back with Jax Stuart and Merry Farmer’s Quirky Questions. I hope to see you there 🙂
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