Author Saturday Spotlight: Sloan Parker #Interview #Giveaway

Sloan Parker is my favorite menage writer. She is a master of the psychology and if you haven't had the pleasure of reading her work hopefully by the end of this spotlight you will.

She has agreed to an interview and, of course, she is doing a wonderful giveaway for one lucky reader.
But first, let's take a look at some of her work.

For fifteen years Luke Moore has lived by three rules: stay off his father's radar, never spend more than a single night with any man, and never fall in love again. But one night of explosive sex and two men he can't get out of his head have Luke breaking every one of his rules. Richard and Matthew push him past all his boundaries—both sexually and personally—and now he's no longer hiding from his senator father. He's taking him on. And he isn't just falling for one man. He's falling for two. If you're going to break the rules, might as well break them big.

But Luke's father has his reasons for hating how his son lives, and he'll do whatever he can and use all his power to keep Luke away from Richard and Matthew.

Can this threesome find a way to make their unconventional relationship last with the world around them trying to pull them apart? And will Luke be able to keep breaking his rules for Richard and Matthew, or will he head back to his old way of life just when his new lovers want to pull him closer?

Richard, Luke, and Matthew return in this sequel to MORE, a Rainbow Award winner for Best Gay Contemporary Romance.

Investment manager and always-in-control Richard Marshall has just landed a historic estate he's waited years to acquire. Gone a lot for his work, he's seriously craving his men. Yet it's more than just the sex he's missing. Emotionally-traumatized Luke is still dealing with the aftereffects of his father's attempt to kill him, and Matthew's trying to find his way as part of a menage relationship.

When Luke and Matthew come clean with Richard about what they've been feeling, he knows there's only one way to solve all his problems: keep them close by accepting their help to investigate why someone wants to destroy the mansion he's trying to save. When it becomes clear he's put his family in danger, Richard has to choose between giving up control and pushing away the men he loves right when they've started to heal and have rekindled the explosive chemistry that brought them all together.

A menage relationship is hard enough. Add in danger, intrigue, a haunted mansion, and three sexually frustrated men, and it's not a typical love story. It's much more.

Reporter Kevin Price has a knack for tripping over his own feet. And everyone else's. He's in over his head undercover at the Haven, a swanky gay sex club, determined to find out why members of the club keep vanishing. Five minutes inside and he can no longer deny the truth about his sexuality. He turns to the one man he can't get out of his head, the sexy ex-cop handling security. Too bad Kevin doesn't trust cops. Not since the only night he let himself be with another man.

Walter Simon doesn't do the club scene anymore. Not since he found love and lost it. That doesn't mean he'll let anyone hurt more innocent gay men. Even if that means going head-to-head with the klutzy, closeted, much-younger reporter. Kevin has information about the disappearances. Better to keep him close. And safe.

Neither is at the club to hook up or fall in love. Now they must work together amid their growing passion in order to uncover the truth before more men disappear.



Check out all Sloan Parker's books on Goodreads

 

INTERVIEW

Thank you Sloan for being here today. You have put me in a literary trance with your books and having you here today is an honor. You have a new book out only a couple weeks old. More Than Most, sequel to More which I loved.  I’m going to ask you about that and a couple questions I’m just curious about in general. Should be fun.

Thanks so much for inviting me and for the kind words about my books. I’m thrilled to be here today.

   You’ve written More and More Than Most a menage following the characters Richard, Luke, and Matthew. One of my favorite parts about menage is the psychology of it. How did you tackle this in your writing?

In this series I really wanted to explore each man and who he is individually—and who he wants to be—but also write about their relationship as these men meet, fall in love, and learn to live as three people together. In other words, how do they tackle every day experiences and any bigger challenges that come along?  How do they communicate and learn to trust? I love exploring what drives people to feel and act in specific ways, and I always wanted this story to be about three men who came to a relationship on equal footing, having all met at the same time, and I wanted to explore what that would mean to their relationship long-term.

    Is the mechanics of writing a sex scene in a ménage a lot more difficult than you make it look?

As long as I focus on what the characters are feeling throughout the scene, I typically find the sex scenes somewhat easier to get on paper than the other moments in a story, even with a threesome. When I’m writing a rough draft, if I’m not “feeling” what the characters are going through, then I tend to skip that sex scene and come back to it later. If I wait to write it until I’m really feeling what the characters are going through in that moment, then it’s much easier for me to follow them through the experience and capture the sex scene as it plays out in my mind. With three guys in a scene, the one big difference is that I may need to tweak the language or their movements a bit more than usual so that the interactions are something the readers can easily picture without getting confused.

    When you wrote How to Save a Life (The Haven Book 1) it comes smack in between More and More Than Most. Two different series with intertwining characters. How difficult is that and how do you organize it all before you sit down to write?

Originally I was planning to write the MORE books, then switch to different characters in the spin-off series (The Haven books), but my editor at the time was really interested in seeing Walter’s book so I decided to write that one before MORE book 2, and it ended up working out really well timing-wise to set it chronologically in between the MORE books.

As for keeping things straight, I have a series bible with dates and an overall timeline that connects the two series. That’s been very helpful in keeping track of what I have planned for which characters. THE HAVEN books have more characters overall and will feature a new couple in each book so there will likely be more cross-over with those books in the future than with the rest of the MORE books.

    Are there more The Haven Series and More series books in your (our) future?

Yes. There will definitely be more for both series. I’ve got at least one more novel-length book planned for the MORE boys. In addition to two books I have in the works for The Haven series, I have ideas for more characters so that series could go on for a while.

    If you had to cast Richard, Luke, and Matthew what actors would get the roles?

It’s very hard to imagine them as anyone other than who they are in my head, but if I had to choose I’d say: Hugh Jackman for Richard, Chris Pine for Luke, and Darren Criss for Matthew. Not because they necessarily look like the guys, but I think it would be fun to see what those actors would do with the roles.

     What challenges have you faced with social media, or even the general public, when you say “I’m a gay romance author?”

Not that much, really. So many people have been supportive of the genre and specifically me as an author. I’ve made some wonderful friends in the larger romance community and in my local writing group who have been incredibly supportive of me and what I write, even before they’d ever heard of the genre and that others were writing in it.

I’m also the kind of person who tends to move past the more negative comments rather quickly as those people aren’t the ones I want to engage with online. I’ve been very fortunate in that I get the most amazingly positive messages from readers, and those interactions more than make up for the few negative ones.

    What topics are too taboo for you to address?

There are definitely a few topics I’m personally not interested in writing about and some of those would fall under the usual “taboo” categories of romance, but I’m not one to box myself in or discuss what isn’t my thing when it might very well be something others enjoy. When it comes to reading fiction, I’m all for people reading whatever is interesting and enjoyable to them as individuals.

     Aside from The Haven Series and More series can you tell us about your other future projects?

I’m also working on a novella—or what I think will end up being a novella-length e-book. There’s no suspense or mystery element to it, and those stories tend to be shorter ones for me. They focus much more heavily on the romance and character interactions so they are a nice break from the suspense storylines. This one is a friends-to-lovers story about a physical therapist and one of his patients.

    What would you say your greatest inspiration comes from?

Lots of things really. A spark of an idea may come from a photo, people-watching, a dream, song lyrics, an article, a news story, or just daydreaming when I’m stuck waiting somewhere and my mind starts to wander, playing “what if” with different topics and characters.

  Where & how can your fans follow you and your upcoming projects? Twitter, FB, website?

My website and newsletter are the best places to get updates on my projects, but I’m also on Twitter and Facebook.

Thank you so much Sloan. This has been so amazing!

 

You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for having me and for such thoughtful questions. They were a lot fun to answer.

 

AUTHOR BIO:

 Sloan Parker writes passionate, dramatic stories about two men (or more) falling in love. She enjoys writing in the fictional world because in fiction you can be anything, do anything—even fall in love for the first time over and over again. Sloan lives in Ohio with her partner and their neurotic cats. Her greatest moments in life are spent with her family, her friends, and her characters.
To contact Sloan, find out about her other books that are available for purchase, and read free stories, visit: www.sloanparker.com. If you'd like to be notified of new releases and get exclusive sneak peeks, be sure to sign up to receive Sloan Parker's newsletter via her website.

GIVEAWAY

Sloan Parker is offering one winner a reader's choice ebook! 

Contest will run until  June 5th! Winner will be contacted via email. So, check you spam!

I want to thank Sloan for being here today and for sharing her talent with us.

Good luck, all!

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