A warm welcome to author Renae Kaye who is joining us today to talk about her new release “Knowing Me, Knowing You, which is part of the succesfull Loving You series.
Welcome Renae 🙂
Thank you for having me on your blog. Love Bytes has always been one of my favourite blogs and I’m honoured to be here again. I’m also super excited about my new story because I love Shane and Ambrose’s “quiet love” to bits. Knowing Me, Knowing You is now available and you get to catch up with all the group.
One thing I’m asked a lot is, “Why do you write?”
For POWER! The evil power to control someone! I am the GOD who controls the destiny of my characters! **bursts into maniacal laughter**
Actually, I would laugh hysterically if anyone asked me WHY a certain character of mine did anything, because I maintain that even though I’m the author, I have absolutely no control over my characters. An author is just a conduit in which the characters tell their story.
But the reason I started to write came from me as a reader. I get frustrated with the ending of some stories. You know how you think the story needs just one more chapter to finish off their story and make you feel satisfied? I get that a lot, or when an author skips over a chunk of time within the story and just tells the reader that this was the outcome, yet I want to know HOW it happened.
I used to itch to write, just so I could finish off that story in the way I wanted or needed. That itch used to sit with me. For twenty long years it sat there and people around me told me I couldn’t/shouldn’t write. No one made a living from writing, and besides—Renae? A writer? They would finish it up with a scoffing sound. No one encouraged me to write.
The moment the itch became uncontrollable was when I was dissatisfied with the books I was reading. A lot of it had to do with location – I wanted to read books set in Australia that were a familiar setting and full of local language. I love international stories, but stories of home are great to me too and there just wasn’t enough of them.
Then I went through a patch where I couldn’t find the type of books I wanted to read. There were plenty of uber-masculine football guys or cops, there were lots of rich billionaires and industrialists, and plenty of alpha wolves. But I didn’t want that. I began to wonder where were all the stories about the non-alpha guys? Where were the stories about the guy next door who drives an old car and likes reading books rather than watching football?
That was the moment I broke down under the strain of all the voices in my head and began to write Jay and Liam. I wanted Jay in all his twinkish, feminine, outrageous ways. And that’s how Loving Jay was born.
And I continue to write these characters – those ones that are not drop-dead gorgeous, super rich princes, or bursting with the need to crush beer cans with their fists. I like to write everyday guys, looking and acting like the guys in my life or the guys I see at the local shopping centre. The background of my character of Jake from The Blinding Light was based on a real person. The physical appearance of Harley from Shawn’s Law was a guy I saw walking his dogs, and Shawn’s appearance is based on a guy who worked at the sporting complex I attended. Hank from The Shearing Gun has a personality and “voice” based on my brother, Brett and Gavin from Bear Chasing are based on my neighbours, while Vinnie from The Straight Boyfriend is what I assume a guy from my high school grew up to be. They are all everyday people with jobs and looks and homes like me.
Similarly I wrote Knowing Me, Knowing You. Shane appeared in both Don’t Twunk With My Heart and The Straight Boyfriend. You may not have noticed because that’s Shane. He’s just in the background, but he’s an integral part of the group. He doesn’t realise this until later, but the group dynamics means he’s important.
In Don’t Twunk With My Heart you will see it’s Shane who picked Kee up after he was assaulted, and takes him to the hospital. He also checks up on Kee after a night out, and in The Straight Boyfriend it’s Shane who Vinnie confides in. Shane is always there to support his friends in the group.
When I speak of the group, I’m talking of Jay’s friendship group. There is a core group of five friends – Jay, Kee, Vinnie, Shane and Hiram. Jay’s relationship introduced Liam to the mix, and in turn Liam brought in his best friend, Aaron, and his brother, John. The Straight Boyfriend saw Vinnie and Aaron get together, while Don’t Twunk With My Heart saw Kee fall for Tate and he joined the group’s shenanigans on Sundays.
All three of the Loving You series books has a theme of football. Firstly, because it’s our national sport, and secondly, because it’s our national sport. **laughs** The group has bonded over their support for football and John’s football team. So, as the evil, powerful author who likes to cause chaos in her characters’ lives, I decided to find Shane a boyfriend who was a famous footballer. Wouldn’t that make the football fanatics in the group green with envy?
Perth’s a small “town” and I actually know a couple of AFL footballers who have played in the top level – their personalities helped me create Ambrose. For inspiration I looked at the players on my son’s junior league football team and picked one of the guys that I think has such raw talent that with just a little bit of luck he’s going to make it one day. It just happens that he’s part Aboriginal. He’s my basis for what Ambrose was like as a child. One of my classmates from high school happens to be one of those AFL footballers I know and is part Aboriginal too, so I used him to create the high school-aged personality of Ambrose, and voila, the story came together.
Ambrose Jakoby, high school friend of Shane and Jay, part Aboriginal, top level AFL player… and Shane’s secret lover. I’m honoured these characters chose me. Read their story in Knowing Me, Knowing You.
Blurb
Can friends turned occasional lovers move beyond past mistakes and wrong assumptions to build something that can last?
Quiet bookworm Shane has a big secret—one he’s kept for fifteen years. AFL superstar Ambrose Jakoby grew up next door to Shane. They were close friends, and Shane supported Ambrose through school.
One night, everything changed.
Before Ambrose left Perth as a scared eighteen-year-old to head to Melbourne and take up his new footy career, Ambrose and Shane slept together.
For the next nine years, they continued a secret friends-with-benefits situation whenever Ambrose was in town. Shane never knew exactly where he stood or how to define Ambrose’s sexuality—and Ambrose didn’t know either. Then last Christmas, everything changed again, and a disagreement strained their friendship. Shane vowed to get over his unrequited love.
But Ambrose is back, recovering from an injury and hoping to make amends. He claims he’s ready for a real relationship. But Shane has to decide whether Ambrose means it and whether his Hufflepuff soul can take the chance.
Buy Links
Dreamspinner Press
Renae Kaye is a lover and hoarder of books who thinks libraries are devilish places because they make you give the books back. She consumed her first adult romance book at the tender age of thirteen and hasn’t stopped since. After years – and thousands of stories! – of not having book characters do what she wants, she decided she would write her own novel and found the characters still didn’t do what she wanted. It hasn’t stopped her though. She believes that maybe one day the world will create a perfect couple – and it will be the most boring story ever. So until then she is stuck with quirky, snarky and imperfect characters who just want their story told.
Renae lives in Perth, Western Australia and writes in five minute snatches between the demands of two kids, a forbearing husband, too many pets, too much housework and her beloved veggie garden. She is a survivor of being the youngest in a large family and believes that laughter (and a good book) can cure anything.
How to contact Renae: Email: renaekaye@iinet.net.au Website: www.renaekaye.weebly.com FB: www.facebook.com/renae.kaye.9 Twitter: @renaekkaye Instagram: @renaekayeauthor