Chris T. Kat, author of Battle Stations, is here today on Love Bytes for their blog tour of their new book.
Welcome to the blog, Chris!
Author Name: Chris T. Kat
Book Name: Battle Stations
Series: Alliances #2 (should be read in order)
Release Date: October 12, 2015
Pages or Words: 200 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Cover Artist: Anne Cain
Blurb:
The fight to eradicate the Tash’Ba breeding stations continues, with spunky Commander Berit Turner and his Nadisc mate, Tom, in the thick of things. Sometimes it seems as though they’ll never locate and destroy them all. And there’s always the fear that the Tash’Ba have something else, something worse—if that’s even possible—lurking ahead.
As if things aren’t bad enough, Berit’s less than stellar past is threatening to bite him in the ass, and they’ve received alarming new information. The Tash’Ba Queen needs to use Earth as a place to hatch the egg of her successor. And if what she says is true, the new Queen will be even more voracious and cruel than her predecessor.
Berit, along with his team—Tom, Carson, Niyara, and Fleur—must do everything in their power to stop her. If they fail, Earth will be lost forever.
Categories: M/M Romance, Science Fiction
Today I’m very lucky to be interviewing Chris T. Kat author of Battle Stations (Alliances, Book 2). Hi Chris, thank you for agreeing to this interview.
What is the nicest thing anyone has ever said about your writing?
Hmm, that question stumped me for a bit, I admit. I found an answer, though. J The nicest thing anyone has ever said about my writing is probably that I have the ability to bring out the emotions in my character, so readers really feel with and for them.
Are you a full-time or part-time writer? How does that impact your writing?
I’m only a part-time writer—a very part-time writer at the moment. For a long time I wrote every weekend (though only in the mornings) and whenever I had free time. Now… well, I can’t remember the last weekend I used for writing. The last time I wrote was in August during our vacation but before that there were months without writing. With writing I mean working solo on a novella or novel. I’m still writing a book with Julie Lynn Hayes, and I’m updating my flash fiction story At Full Speed regularly on my blog.
There’s so much going on in real life that the time for writing seems to have dwindled down to nothing lately. Well, and there’s the fact I also like to do other things than writing. 😉
What interested you about the theme of this book?
I’ve always wanted to write a science fiction book, and I’ve also wanted to write a book that has dinosaurs (or in this case war beasts that are a blend of dinosaurs and the Tash’Ba’s war beasts). It was great fun to come up with all these different creatures, the action scenes, and last but not least, to explore the relationship between Berit and Tom.
What is the most difficult part of writing for you?
This will sound odd, but the hardest part about writing is finding time to write. I can only write on the weekends, so my time is very limited. The weekends are also for our family, to play with the kids, or make trips, or spend time in our garden. Sometimes I don’t write for weeks—especially in the summer months—because there’s so much other stuff I like to do.
When I have time to write, the hardest thing is to stop on Sunday and then re-start the next Saturday. I always have to find my way back into the story and the flow of things. Once I’m back into everything, I have to stop again already!
Though lately it was impossible for me to find time for writing at all…
Name your four most important food groups.
Hmm, now that’s difficult. Since I got diagnosed with diabetes, my eating habits have changed, so my most important food groups include vegetables, meat (even though I’m not really a meat-lover) and eggs, bread, and most importantly—cake! Yes, I know that cake isn’t a food group, but I love it, so there. 😉
Veering to the left, I allowed myself a quick glance over my shoulder. Not that I saw any chance of the elgoth having lost interest in me, because those fucking beasts never lost interest once they’d set their sights on prey, but sometimes a new prey might attract them more, which I’d have welcomed right then.
My lungs burned and my leg muscles smarted like hell from running like a rabbit through thick brushes and overgrown ferns. I even zigzagged around. Too bad I couldn’t find a rabbit’s hole to hide in.
I had no idea where Tom, Carson, and the rest of the team were, either.
We’d been separated before—it happened when gigantic Tash’Ba war beasts decided we looked good enough to eat—but I’ve never liked it. No, scratch that. Every time it happened, it put the fear of God in me. A gust of warm breath, mingled with some spittle, sprayed my neck. I squeaked and swerved to the right, vaulting over a stunted tree trunk. Seconds later, wood splinters sped past my head, and I lost my footing on the vibrating ground.
I sprawled facedown in the mud, panic sending bolts of confusing messages through my body. Maybe… maybe if I kept completely still, the elgoth wouldn’t touch me? The first time I’d made the acquaintance of one of these towering forty-foot-tall creatures, Tom had instructed me not to move, because they wouldn’t be able to locate us.
It had worked on Ligador and a couple of other breeding stations, but last time a team member tried this approach, the elgoth had roared and ripped him apart. All Tash’Ba war beasts seemed to be altering their tactics, making them even more unpredictable than before.
The mud around me sloshed, almost causing me to inhale some of it. I suppressed the urge to cough and kept my mouth shut as tight as I’d ever done, even though a whimper threatened to spill over my lips any second.
Another gust of foul breath struck my neck. My hair stood on end, my muscles locked in some kind of rigid stupor. That was it. I’d end my life as a morsel for an elgoth.
A blast echoed from the south, and the beast’s breath vanished from my neck. Gunfire followed the blast, and voices filtered through my terrified haze. They’d run right into the elgoth if I didn’t warn them. But… if I moved, or raised my voice, the elgoth would bite my head off. Literally.
Buy the book:
Chris T. Kat lives in the middle of Europe, where she shares a house with her husband of many years and their two children. She stumbled upon the M/M genre by luck and was swiftly drawn into it. She divides her time between work, her family—which includes chasing after escaping horses and lugging around huge instruments such as a harp—and writing. She enjoys a variety of genres, such as mystery/suspense, paranormal, and romance. If there’s any spare time, she happily reads for hours, listens to audiobooks or does cross stitch.
Where to find Chris T. Kat:
Tour Dates & Stops:
13-Oct Bayou Book Junkie, Carly’s Book Reviews, Wicked Faerie’s Tales and Reviews, Joyfully Jay
14-Oct Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words, Jessie G. Books, Kimi-Chan
15-Oct BFD Book Blog, Love Bytes, Havan Fellows
16-Oct MM Good Book Reviews, Molly Lolly, Prism Book Alliance, Hearts on Fire
19-Oct Inked Rainbow Reads, Full Moon Dreaming, The Blogger Girls
Rafflecopter Prize: Two print copies of ‘Breeding Stations’
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