My friend and fellow Dreamspinner Press author, Kim Fielding, recently blogged about writing bad boys. Which got me to thinking about some of the men in my stories and, in particular, Lord Cameron Sherrington. Cam is one of the main characters in my upcoming Dreamspinner Press release, Dissonance. Readers were first introduced to Cam in another Blue Notes Series book, Aria. Suffice it to say, Cam wasn’t on his best behavior in that book. In spite of that, the majority of readers who weighed in on Cam wanted me to give him his own story, which surprised me.

The term “bad boy” can describe so many different types of characters, from outright villains, to old-fashioned rakes in swashbuckling movies, and everything in between. Sure, I’ve written villains (Seria from the Mermen of Ea series, anyone?). I don’t mind writing villains, but I don’t love writing them. For me, the pull of the bad boy character is more in the gray area between villains and rakes. These are troubled men who, for one reason or another, do shitty things or treat people poorly. The liars. The cheats. Those are the characters I love to write.

Why do I like to write bad boys? Because they’re complicated, complex characters. They appear to be one thing on the outside, but on the inside they may be completely the opposite. They are who they are because for many different reasons. Finding the reason, the motivation for why they behave the way they do is half the fun. The other half of the fun? Redeeming them.

So back to Dissonance and Cam. In Aria, Cam broke opera singer Aiden Lind’s heart by cheating on him. Over and over. And yet, throughout it all, Cam truly loved Aiden. He mourned the loss of Aiden, even though he himself caused Aiden to leave him. And although at the end of Aria, Cam does something that is truly the right thing, his redemption was far from complete in that story. However he suffered for his mistakes, he hadn’t suffered enough to truly change his life.

Enter Dissonance, and a series of unfortunate events conspire to bring Cam to his knees. Some of these things are external, but the profoundest revelation of all is something in Cam’s past that he buried deep within himself. Like a snowball rolling down a mountain, gaining speed and growing larger as it barrels toward the valley below, Cam’s past reasserts itself with a vengeance and Cam is left on the brink. A perfect place for a bad boy to find himself, at least for a writer. That’s when we play God. We force the bad boy down the path of our choosing. In Cam’s case, one day he’s living in his high-rise apartment in New York City, and the next, he’s sleeping in the subway. A perfect place for some soul searching.

Enter trumpet player Galen Rusk, who plays in the 42nd Street Station for tips. Cam assumes a great deal about Galen, most of which he gets completely wrong. Galen becomes Cam’s guide and, eventually, Cam’s rock, helping Cam survive the past and the present. Galen helps Cam become the man he’s meant to be (or maybe the man beneath the bad boy exterior?).

At the beginning of Dissonance, I thought Cam had potential as a human being. By the end of the story, I had fallen in love with him. I wanted to see him find happiness. Maybe Aria readers saw the same potential as I did. Either way, that’s the best part of the bad boy character: getting past the exterior bullshit and coming to understand and develop the bad boy’s true potential.

Dissonance will be published on August 8th! Although it’s part of the Blue Notes Series, it can be read independently, as a standalone story. I’ll leave you all with a short excerpt from the book and a link to a contest I’m running that will end on release day. You could win a cool Blue Notes Series swag bag filled with paperback books of the first 5 novels in the series (or ebook copies if you live outside the US).  Here’s the link to the Rafflecopter giveaway: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share-code/Y2YwYmE5NDkzMTY4MjgyZWNiMzcwNjVhODk2ZTBjOjQ=/

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Blurb: British lord Cameron Sherrington has hit rock bottom. The love of his life, opera sensation Aiden Lind, is marrying another man, and Cam knows it’s his own fault for pushing Aiden away. Then someone tries to set him up and take away his family business. Facing arrest by US authorities on charges of money laundering and with no money to return to London, Cam decides to run. But with no money and no place to stay, it’s not exactly the Hollywood thriller he’d imagined.

When Cam hears Galen Rusk play in a lonely subway station, he’s intrigued. But his assumptions about Galen are all wrong, and their unusual relationship isn’t exactly what Cam bargained for. Add to that the nightmares that dog him nightly, and Cam’s world is shaken to its core. Cam figures he had it coming to him, that it’s all penance due on a life lived without honesty. He just never figured he might not be able to survive it.

You can preorder Dissonance here: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=5291

Or you can buy Blue Notes Series books on Dreamspinner Press, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and AllRomanceEbooks

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Excerpt from Dissonance:

Cam climbed the stairs of the Spring Street station. The wind had picked up, causing one of his curls to tumble onto his forehead. He sighed as he pushed the hair from his eyes and cursed his mother for her genes. They were too much alike, and not just in appearance. They were both wanderers. Always seeking excitement. Prone to infidelity. But whereas she seemed to revel in her freedom, he’d always sought partners. Not that he’d had any success in keeping them.

He thought of the trumpet player in the subway station. For a moment he’d felt something. He played well. Surprisingly well, really. Had it been more than that? Something beyond the music?

Of course it was more than that. He was attractive. Cam laughed and shook his head to himself. What did it matter? There were plenty of men in New York, and the last thing he needed was a downtrodden fuck.

Author Bio:  In her last incarnation, Shira was a professional opera singer, performing roles in such operas as “Tosca,” “i Pagliacci,” and “La Traviata,” among others. She’s given up TV for evenings spent with her laptop, and she never goes anywhere without a pile of unread M/M romance on her Kindle.

Shira is married with two children and two insane dogs, and when she’s not writing she is usually in a courtroom trying to make the world safer for children. When she’s not working, she can be found aboard a 36’ catamaran at the Carolina coast with her favorite sexy captain at the wheel.