A warm welcome to author Cari Z joining us today on Riptide’s blog tour for their new release “Friendly Fire”.

Welcome Cari

The Inception of Friendly Fire

Oh, this novel. This. Novel. This novel was a tornado of a project from beginning to end.

 

I don’t tend to jump into writing projects. Ideas will percolate in my head for months, sometimes longer, sloshing about my gray matter and occasionally surfacing to breathe, picking up new details and fresh little bits and pieces as time passes. Eventually, the idea reaches maturation and sort of explodes into, “Omigosh, write me down now while I’m ripe and delicious!” And I do, and for the most part everything is happy.

 

Then there’s Friendly Fire. I got a random idea last year for a story about two guys, an ex-army Ranger and a reformed con artist, and all the crazy things they could get into together. I enjoyed it, then shelved it for Deep Thought time. Then, out of the blue, I got a request from a publisher: “Hey, what do you have for us next?” I thought about it, and since this one was still fresh in my head, casually pitched it to them. They jumped on it, and the next thing I knew I had a contract for a book I had almost no clue how to write.

 

I contacted my fic wife and confessed. Her first reaction was, “That’s great!”, because she’s a beautiful person. Her second reaction was, “A contemporary, really? That’s not like you.” Truer words were never spoken. Finally she got around to, “Holy crap, you better get on this fast. Need some help hashing it out?” My answer was a resound OMG yes please, and we got to work.

 

I got it done, and then before I could send it off to my editor, that particular press closed. So now I had a novel and no home for it. I contacted Riptide, they decided to give it a shot, and here we are. My first lengthy, real-world published contemporary novel—not novella, not blog story, not short story—a flippin’ novel, is reality. That’s a big deal for me for many reasons. Follow along on my blog tour and you’ll find out why. Plus, I’m going to talk about my abiding love for edged weapons, which—yay, knives!

 

 

About Friendly Fire

 

Elliot McKenzie is the king of reinvention. Five years after losing his job and his lover and almost going to prison, his self-help program, Charmed Life, is more successful than he’d ever dreamed. He thinks he’s put his sordid past firmly behind him, until he starts receiving cryptic threats . . . and realizes it might not be as over as he’d hoped.

 

Security expert Lennox West has been lost since a deadly skirmish in Afghanistan led to his forced retirement from the Army. His PTSD makes helping his ex raise their daughter a challenge. When his ex’s sister asks him to set her boss up with a security system, Lennox isn’t expecting anyone like Elliot McKenzie—a man who captures his attention and makes him feel relaxed for the first time since leaving the service.

 

But Elliot is dangerously stubborn. Even as the threats against him escalate, he refuses to involve the police, and Lennox fears that stubbornness could kill him. A battle of wills ensues that brings them closer to each other than either man expected. But if the threats turn real, they might not live long enough to get their future together.

 

Friendly Fire is available from:

Riptide Publishing

 Amazon

About Cari Z

 

Cari Z was a bookworm as a child and remains one to this day. In an effort to combat her antisocial reading behavior, she did all sorts of crazy things, from competitive gymnastics to alligator wresting (who even knew that was legal!) to finally joining the Peace Corps, which promptly sent her and her husband to the wilds of West Africa, stuck them in a hut, and said, “See ya!” She also started writing, because some things she just thought she could do better. She’s still climbing that ladder, but can’t stop herself from writing, or from sharing what she creates.

 

Cari enjoys a wide range of literary genres, from the classics (get ‘im, Ahab) to science fiction and fantasy of all types, to historical fiction and reference materials (no, seriously, there are so many great encyclopedias out there). She writes in a wide range of genres as well, but somehow 90% of what she produces ends up falling into the broad and exciting category of m/m erotica. There’s a sprinkling of f/m and f/f and even m/f/m in her repertoire, but her true love is man love. And there’s a lot of love to go around.

 

Cari has published short stories, novellas, and novels with numerous print and e-presses, and she also offers up a tremendous amount of free content on Literotica.com, under the name Carizabeth.

 

Connect with Cari:

• Website: http://cari-z.net/
• Blog: http://carizerotica.blogspot.com/

 

To celebrate the release of Friendly Fire, one lucky winner will receive a copy of Friendly Fire signed by Cari Z! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on October 22, 2016. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!