NEW RELEASE
Adult Contemporary Rockstar Romance
Release: January 28, 2015
“You have the ability to make controversial characters sympathetic. Maybe I just want to be understood.”
Acclaimed literary biographer Elizabeth Winston writes about long-dead heroes. So bad boy rock icon Zander Freedman couldn’t possibly tempt her to write his memoir. Except the man is a mass of fascinating contradictions - manipulative, honest, gifted, charismatic, morally ambiguous. In short, everything she sought in a biography subject.
When in her life will she get another chance to work with a living legend? But saying yes to one temptation soon leads to another. Suddenly she’s having heated fantasies about her subject, fantasies this blue-eyed-devil is only too willing to stoke. She’d thought self-control was in her DNA, after all she grew up a minister’s daughter. She thought wrong. Outside your comfort zone is the only place worth living... Zander Freedman has been an outlier - many would say an outcast – for most of his life.
But there’s no disaster he can’t overcome, from the break-up of his band to the fall-out on his reputation. His Resurrection Tour is shaping up to be his greatest triumph - if his golden voice holds out.
Contracting a respected biographer is simply about creating more buzz; Elizabeth's integrity the key to consolidating his legacy as one of rock’s greats. All the damn woman has to do is write down what he tells her. Not make him think. Or encourage the good guy struggling to get out.
And certainly not to fall in love for the first time in his life. Turns out he is scared of something - being known.
Rise - a redemption story of a rock star going straight(er) through the love of a good(ish) woman.
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Why are rock
stars so popular with readers?
By Karina
Bliss
Oh sure, they’re sexy, rich and
famous but so are a lot of other fictional romance heroes. Here are four traits
that distinguish rock stars from other bad-boy heroes:
1. They’re musically gifted, which
means they’re creative, playful, pre-disposed to sensitivity and have a sense
of rhythm. Useful to our heroine in all sorts of ways...
2. They don’t have to be alphas. The
band dynamics throw up opportunities to write the artistically-sensitive beta.
Not every hero has to be a showman, (though the hero of Rise, Zander Freedman,
definitely is!). But because of their musical temperament, even the alpha
rockers are more emotionally expressive than other hero types like your warrior
or chief.
3. They’re unobtainable. Every woman
wants them but only one – the heroine – can win their heart.
4. They’re born rebels. Musicians
are genetically pre-disposed to being self-determining, stubborn and
interesting individuals because they choose the road less traveled.
Do you agree or do you believe rock
stars are the self-indulgent, depraved egotists my heroine expects Zander to
be? Enter the Release Giveaway and go
into the draw for an e-book of Rise.
Turning a bad boy into a romance hero
By Karina Bliss
Zander Freedman, the rock star
hero of Rise, has been a minor character in three previous books. I
wrote him as vain, selfish and egotistical, a neglectful son, bad brother and
lousy boyfriend. And yet readers loved this guy and wanted his story,
possibly because of his few attractive qualities - unflinching honesty,
intelligence and a keen sense of irony.
One of my biggest challenges in
finding ‘the hero-within’ was Zander’s reputation for vanity. How is a reader
going to fall in love with a guy rumoured to have had everything from Botox and
tattooed eyeliner to hair implants?
In one scene, I had the heroine’s
family voice every Yuck the reader would have around a guy with a ‘beauty’
regime. And then fall over themselves when they thought Zander was visiting.
Because the guy’s still a rock god, still extraordinary. And it’s too easy to
criticize a stranger. In effect, I'm asking the reader to keep an open mind.
Given that Zander is smart and
ambitious it also made sense that he would deliberately exaggerate his vanity
for the press. Any publicity is good publicity when this showman is promoting
the band’s tour. He also takes a pragmatist’s view of maintaining his looks;
keeping in shape is simply a part of his job as Rage’s frontman. And finally, I made him supremely confident in his
masculinity. At one point he even says, “A real man should be able to seduce a
woman in a tutu and a tiara…Actually that would be fun.”
Most importantly, I gave Zander
the vulnerability attached to being a beautiful person. Women date me because
of the way I look. What will happen if I stop these treatments? Who will love
me as I age? The Beauty, as well as the Beast, is judged on appearances.
Of course that’s just one aspect
of the reinvention of Zander Freedman. Hopefully, I’ve intrigued you enough to
read about his moral make-over.
Do you have a favorite bad-boy
hero? Enter the Release Giveaway and go into the draw for an e-book of Rise.
The rock star & the academic: Making opposites attract
By Karina Bliss
I love the opposites-attract trope,
‘You say toe-ma-toe, I say toe-mate-o’. (FYI, as a Kiwi, I say it the first
way). I couldn’t have written two people more different than my egotistical,
rock-star bad boy Zander Freedman and my warm-hearted, church-brat academic Elizabeth
Winston.
With opposites, it’s easy to see
what’s keeping your characters apart. But when you’re writing romance, what’s
more important is what brings and binds these two together. What do they have
in common? Both Zander and Elizabeth are smart, independent, take-charge people
who share a similar sense of the ridiculous, and I made sure my plot gave them
opportunities to join forces.
I found this wonderful Oscar Wilde
quote, which I adopted as my theme for Rise. “Every saint has a past, and every
sinner a future.” As I wrote the book, it reminded me to add dimensions to my
story characters. Just because my heroine is a good person doesn’t mean she
lacks a wild side, and vice versa for the hero.
Opposites or not, the hero and
heroine need to appreciate each other in a way no one else does. In Zander,
Elizabeth sees a caretaker hero, capable of kindness and vulnerability. In
Elizabeth, Zander sees a wolf in sheep’s clothing, someone as adventurous as he
is.
In a
romance, the challenge for opposites is to incorporate the qualities of the
other - the qualities they lack - so two halves become a perfect whole.
Can you recommend favorite romances
that use this dynamic? Enter the Release Giveaway and go
into the draw for an e-book of Rise.
About the Author
New Zealander Karina Bliss’s debut, Mr Imperfect, won a Romantic Book of the Year award in Australia, the first of eleven books published through Harlequin SuperRomance. Her most recent release, A Prior Engagement, was a Desert Island Keeper at likesbooks.com. Her next release, Rise, is a single title, self-published contemporary which continues the story of Zander Freedman, who first appeared as a villain inKarina’s bestselling title, What the Librarian Did – a book that made DearAuthor’s Best of the Year list in 2010.Two of Karina’s books have also featured in Sizzling Book Chats at SmartBitchesTrashyBooks. Find out more at www.karinabliss.com a Rafflecopter giveaway
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