A warm welcome to author Alina Popescu joining us today on her blog tour for new release “Broth3rly”
Welcome Alina 🙂
Title: Br0th3rly
Author: Alina Popescu
Series: Famous on the Internet, Book One
Genre: Gay Romance, Contemporary, M/M Romance
Length: Novella
Publisher: Wayward Ink Publishing
Start your journey through the new techie/geeky gay romance series by Alina Popescu—Famous on the Internet—with the first book, Br0th3rly.
Synopsis
Fighting his relentless love for Trevor, the guy he was raised to consider his brother, has been Tristan’s mission in life.
To distance himself from Trevor, even after discovering they weren’t really related, he left for college at sixteen. Moving into the city, building a new life, and running an anonymous blog about what he considers sick, twisted feelings might make Tristan famous on the Internet, but it isn’t enough to get over his obsession. Every time he goes home, a quick glance at Trevor brings it all flooding back.
When commitment-phobe Trevor announces he’s got a serious boyfriend during one of Tristan’s rare visits home, the adoring kid brother will be forced to run once again. This time, however, Trevor doesn’t stand back and watch him leave.
Instead, he follows him, making it nigh on impossible for Tristan to keep his love a secret for much longer.
Buy Links
Don’t miss the ARe 25% off sale till January 23rd, WIP’s Unzipping 2016 Sale – 35% off all list titles till January 24th, or the huge Australia Day Sale–January 25 to January 27—50% off all titles on WIP’s website and 35% off on Are!
WIP
Amazon US
Amazon UK
ARe
B&N
How I Added Blog Posts to a Gay Romance Story
I love blogging. I think it’s a wonderful medium to express yourself: journaling, grassroots journalism, writing, sharing experiences, educating, having fun, interacting with other bloggers—every little thing you can do with a blog is amazing. I started my own blogging journey about eleven years ago with a personal blog and that was my first experience interacting with people from all over the world through comments on each other’s posts.
Beyond being something I love, blogging is now ever-present. *waves at Dani* Thanks for having me here, by the way. It’s always an honor to visit you! Book blogs, tech blogs, travel blogs, PR blogs, fitness blogs, cooking blogs, I read them all every week. So why not choose a blogger as my first Internet celebrity whose story gets told? Makes perfect sense, right?
I wanted to go further, because the blog itself is sort of a character. Or, you can think of it as a big part of the main character’s life. Until he meets his current best friend in college, the blog is Tristan’s only outlet. He writes about his feelings for his step brother there. So this one and only outlet is very dear to him. That is how I got the idea to use glimpses of the blog by prefacing each chapter with one of Tristan’s posts. This little artifice helped give the blog the same importance it has in the character’s life (and impact on his future), and to give background details on his experience loving his brother.
Initially, that was the structure of the book. One blog post followed by one chapter, repeat till you reach “The End.” As it sometimes happens, a new idea came to me. If Tristan’s blog was super popular, someone would have thought of offering him a book deal. Not uncommon and economically profitable. J That is how the email exchanges between Tristan (who starts off denying he owns the blog) and a gay romance and fiction publisher happened. My initial formula changed to Blog Post + Email Exchange + One Chapter.
The story now integrates more of the electronic communications that are a big part of all our lives. Let’s face it, email runs our lives. We’re all concerned with how many emails are in our inboxes. Or whether we have wifi to check our messages. Or update our blogs.
The downside? As with anything experimental, not everyone will like it. To some, it looks disruptive. Which is okay, because email, social media, messengers, phones, they’re all disruptive. A work email will pause a conversation, we’ll check Facebook while our friends are getting the next round of drinks, and we’ll sneak a blog update during our lunch break J
What’s your personal experience with blogs? Do you have one? Do you read them (other than Love Bytes, of course, you clearly read this one)? Any famous bloggers that you follow?
“So… I’m seeing someone,” Trev said, his voice almost a whisper.
I flinched and looked at him, but he missed my reaction. He was too busy studying the label of his beer bottle, as if he didn’t know every word written on it by heart by now.
I swallowed hard and cleared my throat. This was big. Trev never said he was seeing people. He was dating left and right, but he’d never made a point of mentioning someone before. He must have known, just as everyone else had, it wouldn’t last. So why bother? But he was making the effort now and my mind and heart recognized the immensity of his statement. They were both racing wildly and it took me a while to find my footing.
“I’m happy for you, Trev,” I said, and meant it. Sure, I wanted to stand and scream at him, throwing everything off the table and then picking a fight with the whole town to let it all out. Yet, beyond that, him telling me he was in a relationship meant he’d truly found somebody. Despite my sick obsession, I’d loved Trev all my life. There was nothing I wanted more than seeing him happy. I knew I couldn’t be the one to give him that. As disappointed as I was, knowing I would never find my happiness, at least he’d found his. Or was on his way to finding it.
Trevor frowned and nodded, his eyes never leaving the shiny label. “What about you, little bro? Are you seeing anybody?”
Like my brother, I had never really mentioned any love interests. For obvious reasons. Him asking was as unusual as his earlier update had been. I tried to figure out why he’d ask such a thing, and came up with an explanation. Now that he was happy, Trev wanted his little brother to experience the same bliss. His care warmed my heart, broken as it was. That was how I was supposed to love him; not in the deviant way I had all my life.
“Um, no one worth mentioning.” I shrugged, feeling a little awkward, when he trained his eyes on me, watching me closely, frown still in place. “I’m not really dating, to be honest. I have no time for it.”
1x$10 WIP Gift Card
2×1 Backlist Title from WIP – anthologies and individual releases included
Writer, traveler, and coffee addict, Alina Popescu has been in love with books all her life. She started writing when she was ten and she has always been drawn to sci-fi, fantasy, and the supernatural realm. Born and raised in Romania, she finds her inspiration in books of all genres, in movies, and the occasional manga comic book. She is a proud geek who needs her fast Internet and gadgets more than she needs air.
Social Links
Site & Blog: http://alina-popescu.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authoralinapopescu
Twitter: http://twitter.com/alina_popescu
Instagram: http://instagram.com/alinapopescuwriter
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/alina-popescu
Google+: https://www.google.com/+AlinaPopescu
Amazon: http://amazon.com/author/alinapopescu
Sounds great!
It was a sweet read.