Welcome Back Tara Lain - CONTEST

Good morning! Please welcome Tara Lain to IRM today!

Hi everyone! My sincerest thanks to It’s Raining Men for inviting me today. I’m Tara Lain and I write the Beautiful Boys of Romance. Today, I’m celebrating the release of my new novella, Hearts and Flour. It’s the quirky tale of a passionate vegan, raw-food fanatic who falls for a cross-dressing cupcake baker! Yep, not a story you read every day?

If you’ve read any of my books, you know that quirky is not altogether unknown to me! LOL. Quirky technically means characterized by peculiar or unexpected traits.  There’s the word I love! Unexpected.  I really enjoy writing and reading unexpected traits and combinations in my heroes. For example, when I started writing Hearts and Flour, I didn’t know that Quentin, the cupcake baker, was a cross-dresser. This is amazing since his cross-dressing becomes one of the central issues of the book. But I got my hero Micah, the vegan, to a party where I knew he would meet Quentin and suddenly Quentin, called Queen, showed up in women’s clothes. I was so surprised but I loved it because it added to the unexpectedness of the story.

In my book Fire Balls that some of you may have read, Rodney, the hero, is small, very flamboyant with pink hair and six earrings. But he’s also a black belt in karate and a total alpha male by nature.  

The recent release, Snow Balls, kind of turns that combination upside down. My hero, JJ, is big and hunky and looks like a football player. But he’s more queen than quarterback! My bisexual heroes have a touch of the unexpected too. Shay Shaleen in Genetic Celebrity looks so much like a woman he can walk in female fashion shows, but he’s a tough street kid with a chip on his shoulder. I like to put some unexpectedness in the story too. Like in Brush with Catastrophe, my hero is the most untalented of witches, but he has to save the world -- with a paintbrush!

I hope you enjoy my quirky new book, Hearts and Flour -- and I hope you win a prize in the I Love Hearts and Flour Blog Tour! Here’s a description:

Excerpt R: HEARTS AND FLOUR by Tara Lain; MM Contemporary; The Vegan and the Cupcake Baker

Available at Amazon  ARe

To Micah Truveen, raw, vegan food is his religion. So when his devoted customers show up with white flour cupcakes, Micah could kill. Then Micah comes home to find his boyfriend, Dharamaram, in bed with someone else. He throws the rat out and agrees to go to his friend’s orgiastic anti-Valentines party where he meets a gorgeous cross-dressing guy who gives him a night to remember.

Southerner Quentin Darby wishes he could stop wearing women’s clothes. He so wants to live up to his grandmother’s glowing opinion of him, he’s never even told her he’s gay. And now there’s Micah who makes him wish he could just be who he is. But Micah finds out that Quentin is the baker responsible for the plague of cupcakes afflicting the community! And Dharmaram adds a little blackmail to the mix. Can two hearts rise above the flour?

The door flew open. Yikes. Someone grabbed his arm, and it took a second to realize it was Yancy doing the grabbing. Just that quick, he was inside Yancy’s foyer and the door was closed behind him. Yancy pushed Micah’s back to the wall and spoke in a low voice. “You made it. I was afraid you’d chicken out. Good, you’re not too late, so only a few guys have paired off. You can still pretty much have your pick.”

“It’s not that easy. I think the other guy has to agree, too.”

“Well, hell, who wouldn’t choose you? Look at you.”

OK, so Micah kind of knew that people thought he was good looking. He couldn’t see it himself. He was tall enough, but kind of skinny and mangy looking. His dark, almost black hair would not stay out of his eyes. His lips were too full and cheeks too lean. Using his bike as transportation made him fit—hell, he even had a six-pack—but altogether he looked like a survivor from a desert island. He grinned at Yancy. “You didn’t choose me.” He was kidding. They’d always been friends, but no sparks had ever flown.

Yancy took him seriously. “I can’t help it that I’m addicted to giant weightlifters and linebackers. If I could look at a guy under two ninety-five, I’d look at you.”

Micah laughed. “And you’d only be off by a hundred and fifty pounds.” He looked across Yancy’s shoulder into the living room beyond. Music played and the voices and laughter sounded louder now that he paid attention. “So what’s going on in there?”

“Lots of pickings.”

“Not sure how I feel about it.”

“Don’t worry. Take your time and see if there’s anything to your liking. This is a no-obligation event.”

Micah took a deep breath. “OK.”

“C’mon.”

Yancy led him into the living room, which on another occasion would have looked out over the ocean and the city lights of Laguna. As it was, the long drapes hanging over the cathedral windows were pulled tight. And it wasn’t hard to understand why. Most of the maybe fifty or so men stood in groups talking and flirting with drinks and some food in their hands. But on one chair, two guys were kissing like they could clean each other’s tonsils, and a glance down the hall showed a man leaning against the wall while another dude sucked him off. The orgy was beginning. Shee-it. Watching was sexy. It was hard to force his eyes away from the public blowjob. Hard being the operative word. The room even smelled like sex, and his cock was turning into a steel rod in his jeans.

Yancy led him to a bar. “What’ll you have?”

“Red wine if you’ve got it.”

“Of course. I even have the organic wine with no sulfates, just for you.”

“Hey, thanks man.”

Yancy poured some deep red wine into a stemmed glass and handed it to Micah. “Want me to introduce you around?”

“Naw. Let me wander a little.”

“OK, but no hiding.”

“Just want to get the lay of the land.”

Yancy clinked his glass to Micah’s. “I’m more concerned about Micah getting laid.”

He looked around the room. “What about rubbers? Are these guys using them?”

Yancy grinned. “I hand them out by the barrelful.” He reached in his pocket and, true to his word, produced a string of six condoms. “I want you to use every one.”

Micah laughed and his cock did its happy dance just at the thought. “No worries.”

He sipped his wine and walked over to the door to the patio and looked out. Wow. Heaters surrounded the huge pool and men took full advantage, skinny-dipping in the blue water. Bare asses ran along the pool deck, and two guys fucked against the far edge of the deep end while two other guys looked on with their cocks completely erect. Whoa. He needed some of that action. He really did.

He’d taken one step out when he caught a glimpse of a person walking by him in the dining room. Crap. Was that a woman? One of his hands reached down and covered his cock, which was funny since at least ten guys outside were naked and Micah was fully clothed.

E-mail:                   tara@taralain.com

Website:              http://www.taralain.com

Author blog:       http://taralain.blogspot.com

Book blog:           http://beautifulboysbooks.blogspot.com

Goodreads:        http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4541791.Tara_Lain

Pinterest:         http://pinterest.com/taralain/

Twitter:               http://twitter.com/taralain

Facebook:           http://www.facebook.com/people/Tara-Lain/100001514105686

FB Page:          http://www.facebook.com/taralain

Amazon:          http://www.amazon.com/Tara-Lain/e/B004U1W5QC/

B&N                 http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Tara-Lain?keyword=Tara+Lain&store=book

ARe      http://www.allromanceebooks.com/storeSearch.html?searchBy=author&qString=Tara+Lain

Would you like to join our I Love Hearts and Flour Party? Grand Prize? A Beautiful Cupcake Soap and Cherry Vanilla Sugar Scrub! Second Prize? A $5 Amazon GC . (Plus, there’s a book drawing--see below) Here’s what you do!

·         Promo Hearts and Flour and/or Tara Lain in some way. Tweet it, Post it on FB, Pin it, email to friends, Like the Amazon Page, Post it on Google Plus, Share in a Goodreads group, add it to Shelfari, etc. Be creative!

·         Then put a comment below saying what you did (with your email so I can find you!).

·        You can enter AGAIN at Beautiful Boys Books -- if you do another promo

·         And there’s a special drawing for a backlist book too if you post on your blog or review the book.

·          Come to Beautiful Boys Books for all the rules if you want. First, do your promo and post your comment below with your email.

  

Tara Lain’s first erotic romance novel was published in January of 2011. She’s now on book 17. Her best-selling novels have garnered awards for Best Series of 2011, Best Contemporary Romance, Best Ménage, Best LGBT Romance and Tara has been named Best Writer of the Year in the LRC Awards. In her other job, Tara owns an advertising and public relations firm, and she carries her promotional instincts into her writing career as well. She lives with her soul-mate husband in Laguna Beach, California, a pretty seaside town where she sets a lot of her books.  Passionate about diversity, justice, and new experiences, Tara says on her tombstone it will say “Yes”!