A very warm welcome to author Con Riley.
Con is visiting us to talk about her new release True Brit. She wrote a fabulous guestpost for our blog 🙂

Also Con brought along a special giveaway for our Love Bytes readers

Welcome Con! 🙂

 

Title: True Brit

Author : Con Riley

Publisher: Figment Ink Ltd

Cover Artist: Natasha Snow

Blurb:

Winning the United Kingdom’s favorite singing contest is a challenge for half-Afghani Pasha Trueman. He doesn’t have the best voice, but success would be life-changing. His strategy is simple—he’ll make the British public love him.

 

Ex-soldier Ed Britten has a different agenda. Winning means he’ll keep a promise made after a deadly Afghan ambush. His voice is his weapon, but he leaves his heart unguarded.

 

Ed and Pasha’s discovery that the contest isn’t a fair fight calls for creative tactics. Staging a fake love story could bring victory, only there’s more at stake than the prestigious first prize. If winning means surrendering each other, they could both end up losing.

True Brit Buy Links

Amazon

Smashword

ARe

 

Someone recently told me that new authors should be handed a list of DOs and DON’Ts when they sign their first book contract. TRUE BRIT is my sixth published novel so I like to think I have some insight to offer!

 

• DON’T assume that everyone will love your book is a good place to start. The right readers will find you if you write from the heart.
• DON’T be a dick is a natural progression of that first DON’T. It’s a pretty good life rule. J
• DON’T think for a moment that you are all alone is another truism. There’s a community of support online for every writing newbie.

 

I’m generally a positive person so I like to think of all the DOs that come once you are an established author as well.

 

• DO try new styles of writing. It’s a chance to push your boundaries, which is never a bad thing.
• DO respond to readers who reach out. Books are about sharing pleasure, and it’s a great way to build real friendships.
• DO engage in social media (but apply the DON’T be a dick rule first. J)

 

I’ve made some wonderful friends through online interaction. Twitter is my favorite place to engage, but lately Facebook is where I chat with my friends. I had fun exploring friendship and the power of social media relationships in my novel TRUE BRIT.

 

In this excerpt, Pasha Trueman explains how social media might help him and his opponent, Ed Britten, stay in the UK’s favorite singing contest:

 

“Tell me you understand what this means.”

The number of times the photo had been shared had doubled in only minutes.

“Every single one of those shares links us to possible voters. And this is only on one social media platform. If a fraction of fans share the photo in other places as well…. It’s—” Pasha struggled to think of clearer ways to describe the potential they had if they worked the fake relationship angle just right. “—it’s….”

“Exponential?”

Pasha nodded. The numbers increased again and again, as did the hashtags the fans attached to the photo. Some abbreviated their names and merged them together. “It’s not cheating,” he insisted. “We won’t be doing any different than the boy band every time they flirt with Anya. It’s giving the fans what they want, that’s all.”

He nudged Ed with his shoulder. “Is love ever a bad thing, even if it’s only in their imaginations?”

 

Reaching out to fans of the show was a survival strategy for Pasha and Ed. My own contact with readers via social media is one of the best parts about being an author!

 

Take meeting my friend Simon for example.

 

We bonded over stories that we both loved on a book-centric social media platform. Sharing recommendations on Goodreads turned into occasional Facebook conversations. I’m not certain when the author/reader wall between us came down, or if it ever existed, but I do know that I’m grateful.

 

You see, without a friendship forged by social media I would never have seen this photo taken by Simon:

 

Isn’t it gorgeous?

 

Simon’s photo taken in Cornwall, in the Southwest of England, helped me write chapters of TRUE BRIT that readers absolutely adore. It’s the kind of view that could easily inspire true love:

 

If the studio cameras had been here, they wouldn’t have focused on the way Pasha paid attention to everything Ed’s mum said, bending so he could smell sheltered late blooms she cupped in the bowl of her palms.

Ed saw the careful curve of Pasha’s hands around hers, and the way his lashes lay so dark against his cheek when she urged him to smell them. He was gentle with her and compliant, drawing in a deeper breath at her request that made him sneeze three times in quick succession.

No way would they show him apologizing for the petals he’d scattered or being so quietly content to gather them from the pathway for her.

No way.

Conflict was what management wanted. Conflict until they both left.

 

Pasha and Ed use social media friendships to counter that conflict. In fact, friendship is a theme that runs right the way through TRUE BRIT.

 

I’m lucky to have made some real friendships too while I’ve spent time online, as Simon’s permission to share his photo with you suggests.

 

I hope the same holds true for you too.  🙂

 

Con Riley

 

Check out Carissa’s Review on True Brit: HERE

 

Con Riley lives on the wild and rugged Devonshire coast, with her head in the clouds, and her feet in the Atlantic Ocean.

Injury curtailed her enjoyment of outdoor pursuits, so writing fiction now fills her free time. Love, loss, and redemption shape her romance stories, and her characters are flawed in ways that makes them live and breathe.

When not people watching, or wrangling her own boy band of teen sons, she spends time staring at the sea from her kitchen window. If you see her, don’t disturb her—she’s probably thinking up new plots.

LINKS:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/con.riley.1

Facebook Page: http://www.amazon.com/Con-Riley/e/B00F8GT35O/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1420117810&sr=8-1

Twitter: https://twitter.com/con_riley

 

 

Con graciously offers an exclusive giveaway to our readers of one copy of True Brit and a backlist copy . Leave a comment to enter !

Good luck!