A warm welcome to our new featured aurhor on our GRL blog tour K-Lee Klein

Welcome K-Lee 🙂

Greetings and welcome to October, month of changing leaves, scary costumes, pumpkins, and of course, GRL. I want to thank Love Bytes and the peeps at GRL for setting this up. What better way to get to know authors both familiar and new-to-you, than clicking along a tour to introduce everyone?

 

I guess you could call me a GRL old-timer. I was at the first one in New Orleans as a reader on the cusp of being published and journeyed by myself from Western Canada. I hadn’t met anyone in person before, readers or authors, and I was scared to death of everyone and everything. Eventually, I discovered my fears were unfounded, mostly, but as is still the case today, I had still had some major nerves to calm.

 

This year’s GRL finds me with already pent-up anxiety, as well, but not for the same reasons. After New Orleans—still my favorite location so far—I went to Albuquerque and Atlanta. But last year even though I was ready and excited about Chicago, I had to cancel at the last minute.

 

As it happened, I ended up in a physical rehabilitation facility for seven weeks and I was discharged exactly one week before GRL. I’d been on crutches for two years at that point because of a tear in my patellar tendon, and low and behold, I tore the meniscus in my other leg last August. To say it was a disappointment is an understatement. As a lot of other authors I know, I’m a bit of a lone wolf and my real life is spent in an abundance of isolation and hibernation. Being on crutches didn’t help the situation either. But being unable to walk at all was far worse, especially when the possibility of GRL kept getting slimmer and slimmer.

 

Now I’m using a walker that I can’t say I like all that much, but the good side is it gets me around and I can actually carry a few things while I’m doing it. 😉 Besides my mobility issues and self-consciousness because of it, I suppose one of the reasons I’m nervous revolves around last year being the first time I’d decided I was brave enough to the costume event. This year I’ve being collecting the parts again and I have high hopes, or at least hopes, I’ll be brave enough to get suited-up, so to speak. Of course, I think my costume fit in better last year, though I can’t remember why that is, and at this point it’s redundant.

 

I realize this hasn’t been the most exciting post, but let me just say, despite my anxiety and costume woes, I’m looking forward to seeing everyone I already know and have yet to met. I’m a hugger, but I also tend to hang in the corners until I’m either noticed or summon enough strength to talk to people. I swear it’s not because I’m unfriendly—far from it I hope.

 

Before I go I’d like to offer one piece of advice or wisdom or what have you for anyone new to GRL or the whole conference thing. I want to encourage y’all to not be worried that you may not be as outgoing as you’d like or as everyone else seems. There are extroverts and introverts and even extroverted introverts, but none of that really matters if you just let yourself be found by the people you fit in with.

 

It’s okay to feel like you’re being carried around with the crowds for a while because eventually you’ll find your own feet and your way. I go through this at every single con I go to, sometimes more than once, and I still remind myself that no one cares what I’m wearing, where I’m from, whether I’m a reader or author, or if my insides don’t quite match my outsides. If I say it enough to myself, I recognize it for the truth it is—mostly—and if it doesn’t apply to certain situations or certain people, then I don’t need to be in that place or space anyhow.

 

After a few cons under my belt, I can honestly say they’re only as good as I let them be. I have to make my own positive experiences even if I’m going with the flow in the beginning. Take a chance. Hug a nervous-looking Canadian lady with a walker and maybe mention her costume isn’t as lame as she thinks it might be. And just let yourself have a good time whether that’s in the quiet of the wallflower zone or the thick of the partying crowds.

 

I realize I’ve said nothing book-pertinent—ie OMG I haven’t promo’ed myself—in this post so I’ll make this last paragraph short and quick. This year I’ve published in the way of 300,000 words in the form of two novels, Manny’s Heart and Stone Magic 2: Moonstone, and three novellas – Always the Perfect Moment (Perfect Moments 2), Love Between Peace & War, and my latest, the book in the Unbreak My Heart universe, Unwanted Hearts.

 

You can check those and more out on my website or at my perspective publishers, MLR Press and Amber Quill. And speaking of Amber, they’re having a 35% off site-wide sale through Saturday, October 3. That’s a pretty good deal. OR if you’re interested in pre-ordering a print book for GRL or just for me to sign and send, I’m offering that on my website right now. I’ll have some books at the con, but I’m just trying to get a better number of how many I need to bring from Canada. Here’s how to order

 

Thanks for stopping by, and if you’re so inclined to giveaways, comment on this post and your name will be entered into a draw to win an ebook from my backlist. See you at GRL. Peace out.

 

Amber Quill Press – 35% off through October 3

Question from Wendy Rathbone

If your muse appeared to you as a real person (any kind of being), what would he/she/it look like?

That’s a fabulous question. My muse doesn’t really have a name. I guess it depends on which voice he’s using in my head at the time (and yes, he is a man) – bossy Southern cowboy, bossy Canadian witch, bossy Romanian volf (no, that’s not a typo as my Family of Misfits can attest). A lot of times he’s just lovingly referred to as bossy bitch. BUT I know exactly what he looks like because his likeness is tattooed on my leg.

He has big wings that are a mix of black and white, and long hair that switches colour periodically depending on his mood. If he’s trying to be angelic and pull something over on me, he’s platinum blond, a dark mood gives him jet black hair, but generally, his hair is waves of dark and light.

He’s not naked but close, wearing only a loincloth that highlights his buff chest and strong thighs. Yes, I guess you could say he’s straight off the cover of a romance novel, but I prefer him in his kneeling, hand’s over his head position as he appears in my tattoo, though he’s rarely that cooperative.

HIS favorite position to annoy me is perched on the edge of the tub or toilet seat, his wings folded around him, bright blue eyes full of mischief, and a crooked smile on his face.

“I see it’s tub-time. Ready to write, darlin’?”

 

My question for the fabulous R.J. Scott is if you could morph into any of your characters for a day, which one would it be? 🙂

 

Unwanted Hearts – book 4 in the Unbreak my Heart series

Brett Taylor has no complaints about his life. He has his man, his health, and a positive outlook on the future. He does have one problem, though. He doesn’t have a clear plan for what he should do with the ranch he inherited from his former lover.

When an unexpected and heart-tugging situation is dropped in his lap, he discovers there are more futures to be considered than just his own. With disclosures, both good and bad, from both his mom and his long-time ranch foreman, and unbridled support from JT, he makes a decision that will change not only his life, but other innocent lives in desperate need of Brett’s and JT’s special brand of love.

Amber Quill

Amazon

Stone Magic 1: Moonstone

Ky’s fought his way to the boxing championship for the third time, but now the fight of his life isn’t against an opponent in the ring. He’s battling a darkness within himself that he can’t ignore and can’t control. If he fails, everything he’s spent his life working for will be gone, and he can’t see a path to victory. Only a hunch sends him looking for help in the most unusual places.

Blue’s a quiet guy, living for his family and the art of his tattoos. He’s created his shop, Blue’s Dungeon, to be a place for the celebration of art on skin—simple, friendly, and mostly uncomplicated—and Blue likes it that way.

But when Ky shows up in Blue’s tattoo parlor, desperately searching for a lifeline, it’s the beginning of something magical for both men…

Amber Quill

Amazon

K-lee Klein has lived in one part of Western Canada or another for her entire life. She’s a doting mother of three now-grown kids, and has had characters and plots running around her head for as long as she can remember. In an attempt to avoid major writer’s block, she keeps the image of muse on her leg so he can’t run off too far, unfortunately it doesn’t work all the time. K-lee’s days consist of planning her next tattoo design for her growing collection, having a lot of baths since her muse loves the water, and fighting off an abundance of fabulous gay men, large and small who continually bounce off the walls of her skull, competing for their turns to tell their stories.

Among her favorite sub-genres to read and write are rock stars, cowboys, shifters, friends-to-lovers, and opposites-attract relationships. But to be honest, she’s open to almost anything if it involves messing around in the heads of her characters. She’s also big on series—because she has a hard time letting her characters go—and is usually working on a handful of stories in various stages of completion all at the same time.

Places to find K-lee.

Website – kleeklein.com

Blog – http://chaosinthemoonlight.blogspot.ca

Twitter – https://twitter.com/Klee_Klein

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/kleemoon

Facebook author/reader group https://www.facebook.com/groups/812548795471921/