Saturday, December 5, 2015

Saturday Author Spotlight: Z.B. Heller #Interview #Giveaway

Saturday has arrived again and with that comes another Saturday Author Spotlight!!!! Today I have the funny, talented, and beautiful, Z.B. Heller! We will take a look at her work, chit chat a bit, and wrap it up with a giveaway. So sit back, relax, and enjoy.


Moxie Summers is a curvy, twenty-six year-old teacher who has not had the best track record with relationships. In a drunken stupor at a bar, she meets Miles who turns out to be her sparing equal, until she vomits all over his shoes. Just when she thinks things couldn’t get worse, her dream man turns out to be the single father of the newest student in her class.

While fighting an attraction for Miles, Moxie’s conniving stepmother tries to advise Moxie she needs to get in shape if she’s ever going to catch the man of her dreams. To make matters worse a Girl Scout plans Moxie’s demise, a surprise party makes everyone blush, and then there was the skunk…

Can Moxie overcome all the Girl Scout cookies, food poisoning and a showdown at Costco to get to Miles?






Ryan Keller had it all when he came out in high school; accepting parents, friends and his own credit line for J. Crew. His cocky attitude and good looks got him what he wanted, including samples off the man meat buffet. Then he found his favorite dessert, Brandon. But Brandon wasn’t sending out a rainbow vibe so Ryan was sent to the land that crushes dread, the friend zone.

Brandon Ford was buried so deep down in the closet that clothes from the seventies had a better chance of coming out. His anxieties of acting on his desires could keep a therapist entertained for hours. Even though he did his best to build his emotions out of bricks, it was no use against Ryan’s charms.
Follow Ryan and Brandon’s relationship from high school, to college and beyond to find out if they will be Tied Together.

Warning: No Anaconda Turtles have been harmed in the making of this book.





Interview



I want to thank you so much for being my spotlight author this Saturday, ZB.  I have a few questions for you and hopefully they won’t scar you for life. LOL.
Pfft. I hope the answers won’t scar you or your readers for life. And thanks for swinging by the asylum to do this. They’re really picky about letting me out. Can’t imagine why.

You are not strictly an M/M writer you bounce from Het to M/M. How does that work for you? Is M/M something you want to stay in or will you always be both?
So you’re asking me if I swing both ways? My honest answer is, I don’t know. I loved writing Moxie because she was me, so it was easy and natural. But I feel that tale was told and it’s time to move on. I wrote Tied Together not knowing what to except. I love the m/m genre and have read a ton of gay romance books in the past few years. It’s my favorite genre. I am very happy writing m/m now. It’s like putting on sweat pants after having a massive meal. It’s comfortable and I feel it was meant to be. That’s not to say I would never go back to m/f, never say never. Wait, isn’t that a Justin Bieber movie? Crap, now I’ll have that song stuck in my head.

Tell us about Moxie. She’s a bit vivacious. Personality wise, is she you?
 I’m definitely part of Moxie, there is no question. I was a size sixteen redhead who used to teach elementary school. The big difference is that I don’t say what was on my mind half of the time like Moxie does. I DO think all of it in my head, but usually keep that side bottled up. Unless it’s people who know me really well. Then it all comes pouring out of me like bad verbal diarrhea and there is no Imodium to cure it.

If you could collaborate with any M/M author who would it be?
 I have a pretty long list. I would love to work with my friends Maris Black and Kora Knight because we are so different in our writing styles. I love how Maris creates her stories. She’s does a fantastic job at fine details. Her books are some that made me fall in love with the m/m genre. And Kora can write a sex scene to melt anyone’s Kindle. Maybe I would call it Kage Does Tad and Scott’s for Hanukkah.  Boom, Amazon best seller right there.

I think we all have a philosophy in life; what’s yours?
 To laugh and love has hard as you can. I love making people laugh. It’s like my own crack. Even though Crack is whack. Say no to drug kiddos!

There’s a lot of drama in the M/M universe. Mostly about identity and female authors. I don’t want to get political about it, but do you have a view on this as an honest female writer in this genre?
Hold on, let me grab a bottle of wine for this…
I believe that there is a lot of drama in the book world period. I do think it’s amplified in the m/m community right now because the genre is really taking off and people have zeroed in on it. But as the saying goes, Love is Love. Is it really that different writing about the way two men or two women love each other? It might be true that men and women handle situations differently. Hell, there’s the whole Man is from Mars, Women are from Venus. But there is no reason that a woman from Venus can’t visit Mars, gain insight and then write about it. Do I know what it’s like to be a gay man? Of course not (even though I think my true soul might be a gay man or at least a thirteen year old boy). But I can watch, study and learn from gay men. How did George Orwell write Animal Farm? He was neither a pig nor a dictator. But he learned about different dictators and used that knowledge to benefit his writing. The short answer here is I watch a lot of gay porn.

If you could pick one of your books to be a major motion picture, which would you pick and who would you cast?
 It would be The Chronicles of Moxie staring Amy Schumer. She’s the only one who would have the “moxie” to pull it off. I mean, who else can naturally have a conversation if you like hairy balls or smooth balls? Can you see Dame Judi Dench doing that? However, I bet that woman has got quiet the potty mouth on her.

Do you have a favorite song you listen to when you need a pick me up? Tell us!!!

 I’m an eighties girl. I love listening to songs from that era like Madonna, the Bangles, Depeche Mode, U2. Recently I haven’t even turned on the radio because I listen to a lot of audio books. It’s how I multitask because there are so many books I want to read.

Can you tell us what you are currently working on and what future projects you have in the works?
 Right now I’m working on a novella for Brandon and Ryan called Tied in Knots. That is scheduled to be released in January. Then I have another m/m in the working will hopefully will come out late spring.

How can your fans/readers follow you through social media? Facebook, Twitter, Website?
Stalking is acceptable:
Twitter: @zbheller
Instagram: zbheller
Website: www.zbhellerbooks.com


Thank you so much, ZB, for being here today! I look forward to following your career.
Thank you! And you can follow me to the ends of the earth. Although I might throw you into a lava pit if you get to mouthy ;)




Giveaway

Z.B. Heller will gift one person a $20.00 Amazon gift card!!!
WOO HOO!

To enter simply fill out the rafflecopter below! Winner will be contacted via email so be sure to check your spam!
Contest will run until December  11th. 

A huge thank you to the amazingly delightful Z.B. Heller! You all need to check out her books and PLEASE always review what you read!!!!

 





a Rafflecopter giveaway

4 comments:

  1. Hi Z B I'm not great at jokes but I found this one:

    A child asked his father, "How were people born?" So his father said, "Adam and Eve made babies, then their babies became adults and made babies, and so on." The child then went to his mother, asked her the same question and she told him, "We were monkeys then we evolved to become like we are now." The child ran back to his father and said, "You lied to me!" His father replied, "No, your mom was talking about her side of the family."

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  2. Great interview!

    I just finished reading Tied Together and it was brilliant. Can't wait to read more !

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  3. Great interview! Loved Tied Together so I can't wait to read Tied in Knots. Here's my joke:

    An older man walks into a bar wearing a stovepipe hat, a waistcoat and a phony beard. He sits down at a bar and orders a drink. As the bartender sets it down, he asks, "Going to a party?"

    "Yeah, a costume party," the man answers, "I'm supposed to come dressed as my love life."

    "But you look like Abe Lincoln," protests the bartender.

    "That's right. My last four scores were seven years ago."

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  4. Three men are playing golf at a Country Club: Obi Wan Kenobi, Darth Maul, and a very old man.
    Obi Wan tees off and hits his ball in the sand trap. He mind controls his caddy to mark it a hole-in-one.
    Next, Darth Maul hits his ball and it lands in the rough. He walks over to his ball and uses the Force to throw it on the green.
    Finally, the old man hits his ball over the trees and, into the parking lot, onto a parked car.
    The man lifts the car using the Force and brings the car to the green and drops the car on green, the ball then falls off the car and into the hole. Obi Wan turns to Darth Maul and says, "Damn, I hate playing with Yoda!!!"

    ReplyDelete