A warm welcome to author Lauren Gallagher joining us today here at Love Bytes!
welcome Lauren 🙂

Welcome to the Riptide Publishing/Lauren Gallagher blog tour for Stuck Landing, the latest installment in the Bluewater Bay series!

Every comment on this blog tour enters you in a drawing for a choice of two eBooks off my backlist (excluding Stuck Landing but including titles written as L.A. Witt, Ann Gallagher, or Lori A. Witt) and a $10 Riptide Publishing store credit. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on December 19. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Don’t forget your email or contact info so Riptide can reach you if you win!

What’s in a name? Facepalm potential, that’s what.

Earlier this year, there came a time when I was to begin writing Stuck Landing. I already knew Anna Maxwell’s name, and I knew Natalya’s first name since she’d shown up in previous books. But Natalya didn’t have a last name. And that didn’t change for quite a while. I’ve been known to write substitute a character’s name with [name] or [surname] for pages before I finally settle on one.

Sooner or later, though, the brackets have to go and the poor girl needs a name. So, I started browsing lists of Russian surnames, since I knew Natalya was a Russian immigrant. This was hardly an imposition—I love the sound of the Russian language, which is why I studied it in college, and knew I’d eventually find just the right one.

It took a while, but I found it. And it was perfect.

I finalized her name, wrote the blurb for the book, and sent it over to Riptide. As always, the blurb bounced around between a few people, all of us making adjustments until it was finally up to snuff. Then it went on the website.

I didn’t think anything of it after that until I got a tweet that gave me pause.

The tweet came from @DubDeeArr, and said the following:

@GallagherWitt Please tell me Natalya Izmaylova is pronounced how I think it is. Can’t wait to read!

I had to reread her tweet several times because I didn’t understand.

And then it dawned on me.

Thanks to my brief but thorough education in the Russian language, I “heard” the name in my head, but I didn’t hear the way an American might pronounce it.

In other words, after carefully choosing a perfect Russian name, it took one tweet from a reader to make me realize that—way to go, Lauren—I’d given my love interest a Bond girl name.

Oops.

About Lauren Gallagher

Lauren Gallagher is an abnormal romance writer who has recently been exiled from the glittering utopia of Omaha, Nebraska, to an undisclosed location in South America. Along with her husband, a harem of concubines, and a phosphorescent porcupine, she remains, as always, in hiding from the Polynesian Mafia. For the moment, she seems to have eluded her nemesis, M/M romance author L.A. Witt, but figures L.A. will eventually become bored with the wilds of Spain and come looking for her. And when that time comes, Lauren will be ready. Assuming L.A. doesn’t have her hands full keeping track of Lori A. Witt and Ann Gallagher, which she probably will.

Website: www.gallagherwitt.com

E-mail: gallagherwitt@gmail.com

Twitter: @GallagherWitt

About Stuck Landing

For months, acclaimed Wolf’s Landing director/producer Anna Maxwell has been nursing a crush on Natalya Izmaylova, a former Russian gymnast and current Wolf’s Landing stunt coordinator. When Anna witnesses Natalya’s very public breakup with her boyfriend, she can’t resist inviting her over for drinks to commiserate about love and all that nonsense. Commiseration doesn’t last long, and soon Anna’s in bed with the hottest woman she’s ever touched, living out fantasies she didn’t even know she had.

Despite the amazing sex, Anna wants to proceed with caution. They’re both newly single. They’re colleagues. And there’s the not-so-small matter of Anna’s biphobia.

Natalya won’t commit to someone who clings to ridiculous stereotypes, but they can’t avoid each other at work, and there’s no ignoring their chemistry. Anna’s defenses are slowly eroding, and Natalya is willing to give her another chance. But Natalya only has so much patience, and even scorching-hot sex won’t keep her coming back forever. If Anna doesn’t come to her senses soon and let go of her prejudices—not to mention her insecurities—she’s going to lose the woman of her dreams.

Buy Links:

Riptide Publishing

Amazon