Virtual Book Tour Event: The Beginning of Us by Sarah Brooks

‘The Beginning Of Us’ is a lesbian romance story. A 21-year old college student falls in love with one of her professors’, you could say it was love at first sight for Tara.

 

The Beginning of Us is available from Riptide Publishing for $3.99

Rating:
 

The Beginning Of Us - the review

The book begins with Tara sitting alone in her room writing a ‘letter’ to Eliza who has disappeared. It is Christmas break but Tara hasn’t gone home, she wants, needs to know what has happened to Eliza; she didn’t turn up for the final exam and hasn’t contacted Tara to let her know why.

I love the way Sarah Brooks has laid out the story. Tara is writing this letter to her absent love and in it she is explaining how she feels about Eliza & her disappearance but she also moves back in time telling us how they met, how they fell in love & everything they did along the way. A very gripping story, in fact I read it in two days because once I started reading it I couldn’t put it down. 

I, just like Tara, wanted to know what had happened to Eliza, why she disappeared without a word & will she ever return?

Review by Amy 

From the author:
 

Hello!  This is Sarah Brooks, author of The Beginning of Us.  Thank you for joining me on my blog tour this week!

Every comment you make on this blog tour enters you in a DRAWING for a $25 Amazon gift card!  Entries close at midnight, Eastern Time, on February 2nd, and the winner will be announced on February 3rd.  Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. 

Planet-of-the-Book:  I haven’t seen an epistolary novel in the form of an email before, although it’s an obvious evolution.  How much have you drawn on the form, or veered away from it and why did you make the choices?

SARAH:  I’ve always loved the epistolary form, particularly because I love handwritten letters and the different grace and tenor of that kind of communication.  I actually set out to write this story as a series of letters between the two women, but in today’s world of technology, that didn’t seem realistic. . . and I wanted to build a faster pace than the days that elapse between mailed letters allows.  Thus:  typed letters, emails, and texts.  

The major way I’ve probably veered from the classic epistolary form is that Tara is not sending these letters.  She’s addressing Eliza, but she doesn’t believe she’ll see her or talk to her again.  The letters are actually more of a journal Tara is keeping.  Also, I don’t allow the reader to see much of Eliza’s perspective, as most of the book is what Tara is typing.  The reader wonders where Eliza has gone, but also what she is thinking and feeling as Tara addresses her in her writing – that’s the tension of the story.  

I decided to make the book epistolary because it’s how the story came to me.  I created Tara and then dropped her into this situation, and this is how she reacted. The letters are addressed to Eliza, but she’s really talking to herself, trying to understand everything that has happened since she met Eliza.

PLANET-OF-THE-BOOK:  The professor/student relationship is often the subject of fantasies – how important was it to you to create the sense of reality even though the subjectivity comes from the student?

SARAH:  I’m always interested in the places and ways love finds us – often in inconvenient situations, with inconvenient people.  That’s part of the allure of the professor/student relationship.  It’s an immediate obstacle, something forbidden.  I think we also love the tension between the wise mentor and the naïve student, and we love to watch those roles get flipped.  In The Beginning of Us, Eliza is eight years older, confident, accomplished academically – but she panics when she begins to discover she’s a lesbian.  It’s Tara, the student, who embraces her new-found identity.  

It was important for me to ground the story in reality, even though it’s told from the perspective of 21-year-old Tara, who can’t quite understand the danger to Eliza’s professional reputation or the jolt to Eliza’s sense of self.  I wanted the reader to both hear Tara’s story and read between the lines to find Eliza’s fear.  When I researched college policies on relationships between students and professors, I found unanimous language like “highly discouraged” and “considered inappropriate”.   

It’s not illegal for two consenting adults to be in a relationship . . . but it’s problematic when one of those adults is in a vastly different position of power.  That’s why Eliza attempts to solve the problem by suggesting they put off their relationship until Tara is no longer a student in Eliza’s class.  

Although Tara tells this story, the reader begins to sympathize with Eliza’s reactions and choices.  Is love worth the risk?  That’s the question of the book.

Go to http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/the-beginning-of-us to read Tara and Eliza’s story.

About The Beginning of Us (Excerpt):

Eliza, where are you? I'm listening, watching, waiting for you. I need you. How dare you run away? Where’s the courage, the fearlessness I fell in love with?
I don’t know what else to do but write. It’s dark in my dorm room, and the wind rattles the panes of my window, and I’m supposed to be driving to my parents’ right now for winter break, but I can’t feel my arms or my legs, and my chest aches because I don’t know where you’ve gone. Or why. 

I know I shouldn't have fallen in love with my professor. But you inspired me when you stood in front of the class, telling us to find our authentic selves. And I did—with you. How could I know that you would be so afraid of this, of us? That you'd be so terrified of . . . yourself? Wherever you are, Eliza, hear me—and come back to me.
Love (yes, I'll write that word, Professor), Your Tara

About the Author:
Sarah Brooks was born and raised on a farm in Iowa, traveled through Europe and Central America, and lived in Alaska for a decade before she moved to Colorado to live near her family.  When she's not writing late at night, she raises her beautiful, sassy six-year-old daughter Mitike; teaches middle schoolers how to love writing and reading; and hikes in the mountains.
Sarah holds English and religion majors from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa; an MAT from the University of Alaska Southeast; and (nearly -- in one more semester) an MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University in Boulder.

Published mostly as an essayist (in Sinister Wisdom, Room, The English Journal, and Iris Brown, among other places), Sarah writes the lesbian fiction she wishes she could read.
 

Virtual Book Tour: Post your comments and questions below and Sarah Brooks will respond on Monday 27th January at 8.00pm.

 

The Vision Painter - Falling Colours & Casting Shadows by RJ Samuel

Falling Colours and Casting Shadows by RJ Samuel
Rating

Get your copy: £3.08 (E book all versions & print and Casting Shadows)

These two books are part of a series about Kiran the only vision painter in Ireland, a concept, I found so fascinating I looked it up on Google, before realising these books are written within the magic realism and crime genres. I would say that the lesbian aspects are incidental, by that I mean unlike much lesbian fiction where the whole book centres around two woman meeting, falling in love and graphic descriptions of them having lots of sex. In these books two lesbians meet, fall in love and build a life together in the midst of the main plotlines of vision painting and murder. I don't want to say too much more about the story lines so as to not give anything away and spoil your enjoyment of these books.

R. J. Samuel is a captivating writer, her stories are intriguing and I couldn't put the books down in my urgency to see what happened next. She creates wonderful worlds that are easy to picture and imagine because of the way she brings them to life. She captures life in Ireland extremely well and I imagine does the same with India although I've never been there. Her characters are well developed and believable, I really felt like I was with them as they faced their life challenges. For example, she writes well about a proud Indian man's struggle around having a lesbian daughter and his internal and external expression of that struggle.

Once I started reading each book I couldn't put them down but they are also quite different from each other. The first one is faster paced, there is a race against time and a criminal force which makes the book exciting as you wait to find out what happens. The second book is gentler and slower paced but equally gripping as you share Kiran's journey to understand the traditions behind vision painting and its influence on the people she loves today.

In summary I would definitely recommend these books, they are well written, engaging and absorbing. I look forward to reading what she writes next. 

The interview

We caught up with author RJ Samuel who gave some insight behind the series. "Like many people, I had encountered The Secret, and other books like it, and I sat down one night and wrote out what I thought I wanted in my life and I ended up focusing on and going for what I wrote. 

"I got everything on the piece of paper, but things went spectacularly wrong. I used to joke that The Secret ruined my life, but I also knew that was only true because I had focused on what I thought should be in my life, on what other people wanted for my life, or for their lives. I had forgotten to mention what would make me happy, to even consider my own dreams, because at the time I did not figure out what those dreams were. 

"As I got my life back together, I joined a writing class, wrote short stories and did writing exercises, and then published Heart Stopper (a medical thriller). I began to freak out slightly over the appearance in my life of things that I wrote about and when I had to do an exercise in writing magical realism, I had a few ideas floating around in my head - of wishing for things, writing about things that then happened, and being careful to focus on happiness.   

"I didn’t want to write about a writer so as one of my hobbies is painting, I sat down to write a short story about a vision painter, amalgamating those ideas into the concept of a painter who could paint people’s visions for their lives and how things could go wrong if people did not ask for the things that might make them happy.  The story flowed out in one go, it felt right, and it was very well received. When I decided to turn it into a novel, I kept the concept and the beginning and some of the end of the short story, but then I started asking ‘What if’ questions and from there I worked out the story that became ‘Falling Colours’."

Samuel discusses process "My writing process has panned out differently for each of the four novels so far. I started Heart Stopper with enthusiasm and was more than halfway through when I got stuck, bogged down in detail. I was lucky enough to find a book on structured writing (Story Engineering – Larry Brooks) that appealed to my logical side and I developed a way of working on a novel that suits my rational as well as my creative sides after I found that it worked very well for me on Heart Stopper. 

"I used the same process for Falling Colours and Casting Shadows, but the two books progressed at very different paces and with different levels of energy. My first three novels were each written within 6 months, but the fourth is taking a lot longer. 

"My process involves - taking an idea through stages of ‘what-if’ questions until it becomes a premise, working out the structure of the story and developing the characters, researching any areas in which I don’t have experience, writing out the planned scenes (adjusting for necessary changes based on my character/plot development), editing (I do a lot of editing as I write – I wish I didn’t, but my left brain won’t stop interfering), getting feedback from beta readers, and incorporating useful feedback. 

"The rational process has been the same for all the books, but the emotional process has been vastly different. For example, Falling Colours flowed out easily, and even though it dealt with some darker issues, I had fun writing it. In contrast, Casting Shadows was more emotionally draining and while it still has humour, (I try to express the lighter side as much as possible), it delved further into dark issues, some of which I could not find a way to lighten. 

"I’m finding it difficult to finish the fourth novel. It has been, again, structurally fine, but emotionally harrowing. I know I have to conquer the emotional side of writing to be able to continue writing professionally and the challenge for me is to do this while remaining true to what I want to express in my stories. I read a lot about writing, in books and online articles, written by professional writers who have successfully managed this, and I hope to learn how to overcome this latest challenge."

By Claire

Virtual Book Tour Event: Static by LA Witt

Welcome to the Riptide Publishing/L. A. Witt blog tour for the transgender science fiction novel, Static! 

Every comment on this blog tour enters you in a drawing for a choice of two eBooks off my backlist (excluding Static) and a $10 Riptide Publishing store credit. Entries close at midnight, Eastern Time, on January 26^th, and winners will be announced on January 27^th.   

Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries.

Rating: 

After two years together, Alex has been dreading the inevitable moment when Damon learns the truth: that Alex is a shifter, part of a small percentage of the population able to switch genders at will. Thanks to a forced implant, though, Alex is suddenly static—unable to shift—and male. Overnight, he’s out to a world that neither understands nor tolerates shifters . . . and to his heterosexual boyfriend.

Damon is stunned to discover his girlfriend is a shifter, and scared to death of the dangers the implant poses to Alex’s health. He refuses to abandon Alex, but what about their relationship? Damon is straight, and with the implant both costly and dangerous to remove, Alex is stuck as a man.

Stripped of half his identity and facing serious physical and social ramifications, Alex needs Damon more than ever, but he doesn’t see how they can get through this.

Especially if he’s static forever.

Static is available January 20^st from Riptide Publishing. 

We asked author LA Witt a few questions to find out the story behind Static

The world of sci-fi doesn’t meet the path of a trans theme often – what inspired this genre cross?   

I was playing with the idea of writing about shapeshifters, since that’s been a popular subgenre for a while, but I didn’t want to do the same thing everyone else had been doing. It occurred to me that it would be cool if people could shift into other people, like doppelgangers, and then I thought, “What if they could shift genders?” That got me thinking about how someone might think and feel in a body that could shift back and forth, and the story immediately went from a paranormal/urban fantasy idea to something entirely different from what I’d originally had in mind.  

 Why did you want to explore the theme of bi-genderism?  

My good friend M. Jules Aedin, another M/M author, had been giving me an education on gender identity over the past year during our frequent conversations via IM. Prior to that, I knew next to nothing. I knew transgender people existed, but had never heard of genderqueer, genderfluid, third gender, or anything else on the gender spectrum, and didn’t understand any of it. After everything I’d learned through our conversations, I think I needed a way to process all of it – to really understand it – and as a writer, it was only natural I’d turn to writing. While I didn’t set out to do it consciously, and didn’t realize it until after the fact, I firmly believe Static was my mind’s way of really making sense of and understanding everything Jules had taught me.

There are a lot of overlapping issues within the sci-fi scenario is situations that occur for trans people – what research did you do for both the science and the biology?   

I read a lot about the transitioning process, trying to understand both the physical and psychological stages, effects, etc.  I focused primarily on the psychological effects, though, since most of the biological issues in the book were unique to shifters.

L.A. Witt is an abnormal M/M romance writer currently living in the glamorous and ultra-futuristic metropolis of Omaha, Nebraska, with her husband, two cats, and a disembodied penguin brain that communicates with her telepathically. In addition to writing smut and disturbing the locals, L.A. is said to be working with the US government to perfect a genetic modification that will allow humans to survive indefinitely on Corn Pops and beef jerky. This is all a cover, though, as her primary leisure activity is hunting down her arch nemesis, erotica author Lauren Gallagher, who is also said to be lurking somewhere in Omaha.

L. A.’s backlist is available on her website, and updates (as well as random thoughts and the odd snarky comment) can be found on her blog or on Twitter (@GallagherWitt). 

Post your comments and questions below and LA Witt will respond on Friday 24th at 6.30pm.

Two virtual book tour events coming soon!

Planet London is working with Riptide Publishing to bring to special lesbian author events at the end of January.

Virtual Book Tours are a new creative way to connect authors with their readers and book lovers alike when geography might otherwise be a boundary.

Static by LA Witt will be hosted on the Planet of the Books Blog on Friday 24 January. Alongside a review and interview, there is the opportunity to pose questions to the author. Details of how to get hold of your won copy of the book will also be published.

The Beginning of Us by Sarah Brooks is a lesbian romance story. There will be a live question and answer session on the evening of the 27th January here on the Planet of the Books Blog.

Both books are available as e-books on a cross platform.

If you would like to submit a question, please email mail@planet-london.com