A warm welcome to author HJ Perry joining us today to talk about new release : “Rescued from Paradise”
HJ answered some questions for us and shares an exclusive excerpt. There is also a giveaway to participate in!
Welcome HJ 🙂
Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m a middle-aged, pansexual, vegan hippy mum. And very British.
What would people be most surprised to know about you?
I know how to do the ballroom quickstep.
How do you relax?
I read a long. And I love to read science fiction and fantasy aimed at kids. Something totally different to real life.
Do you have a favorite quote (either from your own books or one’s you’ve read)?
Oh, many, but now put on the spot.
How long have you been writing and what made you fall in love with writing?
I only started writing in my late twenties when I started writing comedy ideas. Nothing finished. I just liked playing with words and ideas and puns. I became a columnist for a local newspaper. And the notion of entertaining other people with my written creations grew very slowly from there.
Did you always want to be a writer?
No. Not at all. I still think of myself more as a reader. And I read for pleasure.
What are your ambitions for your writing career?
I want to write books that people love so much they want to read them again and recommend them to their friends. I’d like it to pay me enough that I could afford to do that. At the moment, there are fans of my gay romance books. And I do sell enough to make a profit. However, just like most writers, the income I make from writing is very low compared to the hours that I put in. It’s a minimum wage career.
What’s your favorite part of writing?
Having an excuse for day dreaming. Starting with great ideas and completing the final review after editors and proofreaders. All the rest is hard work.
Why did you choose to write GLBTQ romance? Why not another genre?
As a queer, pansexual person myself, contemporary queer life in the UK is what I know both through first hand experience and watching the lives of my friends. I felt I had new unique stories to tell the gay romance genre.
Do you write any other genre?
I’ve nothing published yet, but I’ve plenty of draft attempts at science fiction. I quite possibly might publish science fiction of fantasy in the future.
Describe a scene in your writing that has made you laugh?
The first three books in the Sky High Scaffolders series made me laugh lots, most of the time. I know many readers didn’t read them that way. They were British characters and very much like people I know. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. We also don’t generally mean what we say quite literally. In Our Secret Wedding, the characters were over the top in their behaviour and actions. It gave lots of super sweet feels as well as funny reactions and banter. A lot of the guys I know in construction talk, behave and joke like this all the time, although, most of them don’t have quite so much gay sex
Give the readers a summary of your latest book.
Two men stranded on an island. If one were an out gay man and the other was from a deeply religious and homophobic family, how would that go? Of course, they are total opposites, the sort of men who would never normally spend time together. Many books used this forced proximity for the gay for you trope giving us a bisexual character who has had girlfriends in the past. In Rescued From Paradise, I wanted to consider the possibility of a man who was so damaged by his family that he thought he was perhaps asexual. He wasn’t attracted to women and hadn’t considered men.
What was the most difficult part about writing your latest book.
As the vast majority of my readers are American, I challenged myself to set the story in the US and with American characters.
It would have been so easy to write British characters and set it in Europe somewhere. I’ve been to America a few times. I’ve also been to a number of African countries. The two continents both begin with A and are equally as alien to those of us who are totally European.
It was so difficult to write.
I recruited loads of help. And my editor was amazing. She is from North Carolina, as are my characters. She got rid of my Britishisms but we agreed to keep the tone more neutral rather than giving the guys authentic local accents.
What genre does it fall in?
MM contemporary
Share a few words about your latest book other than the usual blurb.
This was my first attempt at the blurb!
Two hot men in their twenties, stranded on a deserted tropical island. You know what’s going to happen, right? Even when they are opposites and get off to a bad start. Carefree Almost-A-Hippy Adam is a herbalist. Will he take a chance on love with the seemingly straight man? First, Mr. Don’t-Touch-Me Wade will have to get over his intimacy issues. When love blossoms, can it survive the rescue and return to their American small town?
Will we be seeing these characters again any time soon? Is this book part of a series?
Considering they are alone on an island in the middle of nowhere, there are lots of other characters in the book and scope for a series. It is at the back of my mind but not the front. I’ve ideas. If I develop them it will not be soon.
Tell us about your writing style.
What does your writing process look like?
My writing process is like my hair most of the time: A shocking mess!
I often start some way into the book. Get the middle done first and then work my way out. I like doing the scenes of high drama or emotion and do them first.
So I don’t write in order.
And getting it all in order is quite a job
I dictate a lot of conversations, but type most of the non-spoken words.
When/where is your favourite time/place to write?
I have a room for working. It’s full of books and completely silent. I do most of my work in the morning and often get up at 4ish.
What genre/s do you enjoy reading in your free time?
Gay romance, young adult, science fiction, fantasy, and kids books. For example, I loved Harry Potter. I love all the world of Percy Jackson books too.
What was the last book you read? What did you like about it?
I’ve just read The Disorderly Elements books by Olivette Devaux. I liked so many thing. The emotional connection between the characters is moving and fantastic. I liked the plot and the additional characters. I’m excited about reading the next one, when she publishes it.
What hobbies do you have outside of writing?
I have three children all of school age. I don’t have time for hobbies! I do read a lot, but I also live watching films. Mostly, I opt for SF films or action. I love the Marvel super heroes films.
Book Title: Rescued From Paradise
Author: H J Perry
Publisher: LoveLight Press
Cover Artist: Resplendent Media
Length: 58,000 words
Release Date: October 22
Blurb
Two hot men. One deserted tropical island.
Carefree Adam Bennet comes from a long line of earthy people— gardeners, herbalists, hippies, and farmers. His grandmother taught him and his brothers to live off the land, to heal themselves, and above all, to trust their intuition about a person or situation.
Mr. Don’t-Touch-Me Wade O’Rourke wouldn’t dream of something so pedestrian as living off the land. His family is monied, and formal. Taking his place in his uncle’s company is the thing to do— never mind that he hates his life, and he has reasons to hate his uncle, too.
When Wade and Adam meet on an airplane they don’t quite hit it off. But they’re the only two survivors of a crash landing on an island paradise, they have to join forces to survive.
Will Adam take a chance on love with the seemingly straight man? Underneath Wade’s business suit, which he once wore like armor against intimacy, is a hard body and a tender heart.
When love blossoms, can it survive the rescue and return to their American small town?
This full-length, standalone novel contains:
Tropical fruit too juicy to just eat.
A man damaged by his homophobic upbringing.
Steamy man on man love action and a happy ending.
Broken.
Perhaps he was. He rarely sought physical contact and most often pushed it away. He’d thought it was how he was made. But here on the island with Adam, Wade experienced new and unfamiliar feelings.
Longings.
Desires.
Adam never pushed or punished him for it. That made it easier to return those touches. To initiate them sometimes.
Adam made it easy to want those things, and with that freedom, to go at his pace. And it made it very easy to desire more affection, deeper affection from Adam. Wade wanted that.
It was obvious to Wade that Adam found him attractive, and slowly it dawned on Wade, the feeling was mutual. If there was a man to be attracted to, Adam’s body stirred something in his gut. A longing. A desire to take things further. Make them more physical.
After all he’d witnessed, the stuff he’d gone through, Wade had to control the when and where of being touched, even by a woman. He’d never expected to have that with a man. Not after it had been drilled into him just how wrong it was. An abomination.
Now, he craved to know more. What it would be like with another man.
How could he now approach Adam to ask for more? And if he did, would Adam turn him down? He would be well within his rights to do so. Wade would respect Adam’s decision, of course, but he didn’t think Adam would say no. He hoped he wouldn’t say no.
He had to find out and get this burning question out of the way. He crawled out of the cave. Adam would be down by the waterfall, having a bath.
Never had he known anyone to have so many baths before. Adam said he constantly felt the gritty sand against his skin. Wade suspected that Adam simply liked being in the water. There were chores to tend to, fishing that Wade needed to get in if they wanted to eat. None of it was too urgent. He left the pole at the cave and went in search of Adam.
They had to talk, and Wade couldn’t concentrate until they did.
Adam was right where Wade knew he would find him. His clothing piled on a rock, washed and spread out to dry. He stood beneath the waterfall as it cascaded down over his head and shoulders. Even though Wade could only see Adam’s chest, he could imagine the naked body beneath the surface of the water, hidden from view. He licked his lips, savoring the delectable image in his mind.
Of course, they’d seen each other naked before. Being trapped on an island didn’t encourage modesty after a while. Who else would see them?
A product of his upbringing, Wade stayed the more modest of the two. Adam was respectful of privacy and comfort levels and kept the shameless parading around to a minimum. Unfortunately for Wade.
The shame was that Adam covered up a beautiful body. He was tall, slim without being thin, and although they’d both lost some weight, they weren’t at starvation levels of thin.
Adam was still a sight to behold. His hair was so light as almost to be white from near constant exposure to the sun, in sharp contrast to his tan. They frequently went without shirts, especially on particularly humid days, and it showed in the golden color of Adam’s skin. He would fit the model for a beach bum if they’d been back at home.
“Want to join me?” Adam asked over the sound of cascading water.
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HJ Perry is a 49 years old mother of three school aged children. They live by the English seaside and from her hometown she can see France. Helen loves reading. If it were possible, she’d do nothing else. She reads science fiction, fantasy, young adult, all types of LGBT fiction, and, of course, gay romance. Aside from reading she likes walking and watching films, most often science fiction or thrillers.
HJP has written many books about men falling in love in England where, for the most part, LGBT people are treated with the same respect as anyone else. Having worked in the construction industry for years in real life, she has written many fictional characters working in similar macho, male dominated environments.
Despite reading American books and watching American shows, writing American characters has been a huge challenge for her. With a lot of help, Rescued from Paradise is her first novel featuring Americans and set in the US.
Social Media Links
Blog/Website
Facebook Author Page
Enter the Rafflecopter giveaway to win one of three ebooks from HJ Perry’s Backlist
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I love the sound of this! I can close my eyes…see the waterfall…feel the sun…smell the ocean… Perfection!
Thank you for the review!