Author Pene Henson is here at Love Bytes today with their blog tour for their book Into the Blue.
Welcome to the blog, Pene!
Author Name: Pene Henson
Book Name: Into the Blue
Release Date: July 7, 2016
Pages or Words: 236 pages, 72,600 words
Publisher: Interlude Press
Cover Artist: C.B. Messer
Blurb:
Tai Talagi and Ollie Birkstrom have been inseparable since they met as kids surfing the North Shore. Now they live with their best friends in a pulled-together family, sharing life and the saltwater in their veins. Tai’s spent years setting aside his feelings for Ollie, but when Ollie’s pro surfing aspirations come to fruition, their steady world shifts. Is the relationship worth risking everything for a chance at something terrifying and beautiful and altogether new?
Categories: Contemporary, Gay Fiction, M/M Romance, New Adult, Romance
Today I’m very happy to be interviewing Pene Henson author of INTO THE BLUE. Hi Pene, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Give us a to-do list for one of your characters.
Tai’s To-Do List is scrawled on a whiteboard that’s hung in his workshop out the back of their house. There’s a whiteboard marker hanging from a string. He cleans it with a rag from the workshop.
To do
- Take new quad & tri fins out with Ollie TOMORROW
- Make a call on boards to take to Trestles
- Book hotel
- Order eco-resin (Super Sap?)
- ?? Do we need an apprentice shaper, talk to Tadashi
- Download some articles on conditions at Trestles to force Ollie to read on plane
- Buy Cerulean a first birthday present from all of us. Get Jaime to make a card
- House meeting! Before we head off again.
But there are a few things that Tai’s got on his mind that aren’t on the list.
- Talk to Sunny about helping Jaime with his college applications. Figure out who they can use as references
- It’s nearly the anniversary of Ollie and Jaime’s mom’s death. Tai thinks they should have a memorial. He needs to talk to the boys.
Across from them, one of the Brazilians plays guitar. Ollie doesn’t recognize the song even when a couple of others sing along. The beach is wider and the sand finer than on the North Shore, but every beach is a little like home. Ollie misses the Blue House; he misses the surf and the palms and the shoreline he knows so well. He misses Jaime and Sunny and Hannah. Still, though he’s as far from home as he’s ever been, Ollie’s comfortable. These are his people, too. He leans back on his arms and looks up into the dark.
He’s watched the night sky since he was a little kid, but down here in the Southern Hemisphere he doesn’t recognize the hundreds upon hundreds of stars. The Southern Cross is up there. Ollie tries to orient himself.
Tai shifts toward him, then looks up and follows Ollie’s gaze. The warmth of Tai’s body settles into Ollie’s heart, grounds him. Ollie leans into him a little, and their arms brush to the elbow. The contact simmers in the air between them.
Unexpectedly, Ollie knows what he wants. “Come back to the hotel,” he says quietly to Tai. He pitches his voice low. It hums across the tiny space between them. No one else can hear him over the pounding surf and the sound of the music. It’s easy to be bold in the dark of a beach where Ollie’s never been before. He’s shocked by that same boldness.
Buy the book:
Pene Henson has gone from British boarding schools to New York City law firms. She now lives in Sydney, Australia, where she is an intellectual property lawyer and published poet who is deeply immersed in the city’s LGBTQIA community. She spends her spare time enjoying the outdoors and gazing at the ocean with her gorgeous wife and two unexpectedly exceptional sons. Into the Blue is her first novel.
Where to find the author:
Tour Dates & Stops:
7-Jul: Havan Fellows, Louise Lyons, Hearts on Fire
8-Jul: Outrageous Heroes, Unquietly Me, Dawn’s Reading Nook
11-Jul: Love Bytes, Kirsty Loves Books, Bayou Book Junkie
12-Jul: Wicked Faerie’s Tales and Reviews, MM Good Book Reviews, Butterfly-O-Meter
13-Jul: Oh My Shelves, Boys on the Brink Reviews
14-Jul: Molly Lolly, Happily Ever Chapter
15-Jul: Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words, Sinfully Addicted to All Male Romance, Prism Book Alliance
18-Jul: MM Book Escape, Making It Happen, Velvet Panic, BFD Book Blog
19-Jul: Book Lovers 4Ever, My Fiction Nook, V’s Reads
20-Jul: A.M. Leibowitz, Alpha Book Club
Rafflecopter Prize: Grand Prize: $25 Interlude Press Gift Card, Five first prizes of an e-copy of ‘Into the Blue’ by Pene Henson
Sounds like a nice book… And that cover! I really like it!!!
Hi, congrats on the new release! I’d like to read it, it sounds good.
Into the Blue sounds great and love that beautiful cover. Enjoyed Tai’s To-do list and how it shows his care for his family.
Hi, Pene! Good luck with the release!
Thank you so much for having me here! I loved thinking through Tai a bit more and reminding myself how deeply I know the boy. Feel free to chat with me anywhere, about surfer speak or m/m romance or how ridiculously beautiful CB Messer’s cover for my book is!
Congratulations on you debut release =) The cover is beautiful and the book sounds lovely. Thank you for sharing Tai’s to-do list. Tai sounds like a wonderful guy =)
Pene Henson… a new to me author! I love the blurb and wish you luck!