Love Bytes gives a warm welcome to author Marie Sinclair who is here today to talk to us about her new upcoming release “Come As You Are”, part of the Twisted Bard series.
Marie talk to her about her book and brought a wonderful giveaway for our readers!
Welcome Marie 🙂
Come As You Are is an MMX retelling of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
About the original: The original play is was already a gender-bender with shipwrecked twins, Viola and Sebastian, who wash up on the shores of Illyria not knowing the other has survived. Viola disguises herself as a young man and finds employment with Orsino, who asks her to take messages to the Lady Olivia with whom he is in love. Olivia has been in mourning for her deceased brother for two years and vowed not to wed for several more. Undeterred, Orsino sends Viola to plead his case, and, unfortunately, Olivia falls in love with the disguised Viola. Adding to the confusion, Viola has fallen in love with Orsino.
About Come As You Are: In my MMX retelling, club owner Olivia is in a bind. Two years after she inherited the club from her brother, Illyria is failing, but she has no idea why. Her dancers are the hottest, the place is full every night, and her staff is the absolute best. Enter Vee, a newcomer to the city, who’s looking for a job as a dancer. Olivia is instantly taken with the pretty young man, but Vee only has eyes for Olivia’s lead bartender, Sebastian. Too busy mooning over Olivia to notice Vee, Sebastian isn’t so star-struck that he doesn’t recognize something is going on between Illyria’s club manager and the owner of rival club Orsino’s Grotto. As Olivia, Vee, and Sebastian grow closer, they hatch a plot to trap whoever is sabotaging the club, but the culprit’s identity isn’t the only thing that gets revealed.
About me: Twelfth Night was actually my first Shakespeare play. My parents took me to a production when I was about eight or nine. I wish I could say that it had a profound effect on me, but all I truly remember is that Fred Gwynn (aka: Herman Munster) played one of the roles and he was so tall that when he knelt in front of the actor playing Olivia, he was the same height as her. Several years later, I introduced my own kids to Shakespeare with this play. This time, I remembered a great deal more about it, and am happy to report that my entire family loved it.
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Blurb:
Welcome to Club Illyria where the music plays on, the lovers don’t always know who they are, and everyone still ends up happily ever after.
In this contemporary MMX retelling of Shakespeare’s gender-bending Twelfth Night, club owner Olivia is in a bind. The club is failing, but she has no idea why. Her dancers are the hottest, the place is full every night, and her staff is the absolute best. Enter Vee, a newcomer to the city, who’s looking for a job as a dancer. Olivia is instantly taken with the pretty young man, but Vee only has eyes for Olivia’s lead bartender, Sebastian. Too busy mooning over Olivia to notice Vee, Sebastian isn’t so star-struck that he doesn’t recognize something is going on between Illyria’s club manager and the owner of rival club Orsino’s Grotto.
Come As You Are is part of the Twisted Bard series, a multi-author series that brings the Bard to the present. It might be queerer than you remember, but it’s still Shakespeare.
Marie Sinclair is a queer (agender/pan) writer living in San Francisco, and prefers she/they pronouns. Her focus is on contemporary romance, usually on the steamy side. While HEAs are guaranteed, it will always take some work for the couples to get there, and it might not look the way they expected at the beginning. As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, Marie believes in rooting her stories in the real world of queer culture and showing how love can survive even in challenging times. Her first book, A Kind of Forever, was nominated for two Goodreads Readers’ Choice awards, and her third, Forever After, is a 2023 Lambda Literary Award finalist in Gay Romance.
Marie brought a wonderful giveaway.
She is giving away an ecopy of her brand new upcoming release “Come As You Are”.
Leave a comment on this post to let me know why you are interested in winning this ecopy 🙂