Author Saturday Spotlight: Kate Aaron~ #Interview #Giveaway

Kate Aaron is an author of so many outstanding books.  Just when you think she's done the best there is to do, BAM! She outdoes herself. If Kate Aaron is a new author to you I guarantee she will quickly become a one-click-buy author for you soon enough.

When Kate said she had a new book coming out soon, before reading it, I asked, "PLEASE LET ME SPOTLIGHT YOU?" Of course she said yes. Kate is not just a brilliant writer, she is my friend. One of the closest I've ever had. Am I bias? Honestly, I don't think I am. Before I was friends with her I was a fan. Not the other way around. Her talent is unquestionable and when you are itching for a great read you can literally pick ANY of her books and that itch will get scratched.

For all of you today Kate has a treat for you. an interview, a book trailer, a blurb and cover to her new book Blowing It, AND, a giveaway. Blowing It comes out on February 23rd and one of YOU will win a copy.

Let's check out some of Kate's books before we get to her newest.

Free Men Series: The award winning trilogy:

The Slave (Book 1)
At twenty-seven, Tamelik has been a slave more than half his life, having witnessed his family being murdered in front of him when he was just a child. Naturally submissive, although with a petulant streak, he can’t help but fall in love with the master who treats him kindly.

Tam's dreams come true when his mistress walks out, leaving her husband behind. For six glorious months, he and his master get to be together. Then Tam is ordered to purchase another slave.

He wants to hate Kai for being unruly and ungrateful. For being of the same race as the men who murdered his family. For being his eventual replacement in their master’s bed. But it’s hard to hate a man who cries himself to sleep, flinches at the slightest touch, and blushes beautifully when he’s kissed.

Seducing Kai has suddenly become more challenge than chore, and with his master’s encouragement, Tam finds himself falling for his new companion. Except... nobody can be in love with two people at once, can they?

The Soldier (Book 2)
Three months. That’s all it took for Kai to forsake freedom and learn to love his new life as pleasureslave to a wealthy Thirskan Underlord.

Finding himself surrounded by his own people once more, Kai should have been happy: relieved to be rescued from slavery, and out of the clutches of a man who was the sworn enemy of his people. Yet his people are not how he remembers them. Distrustful of Kai, and disgusted by his relationship with not one man but two, they make it abundantly clear he no longer fits in.

Beaten, starved, and tortured, when the chance comes to escape, Kai is barely strong enough to make the journey. Even if he succeeds, how could anybody ever love the thing he’s become in order to survive?

The Master (Book 3)
Being rescued was only the start.

Otiz lies in ruins. As underlord of the region, Lysander knows where his responsibilities lie. He has an obligation to the survivors to rebuild their homes and their lives. But what about his home, his life?

Kai needs help. The damage inflicted on him goes beyond the marks left when he was tortured, but healing him might require more from Lysander than he’s capable of giving. Of one thing he’s certain: Tam and Kai will never be endangered again because of who he is, even if saving them means setting them free.

All Lysander wants is to be left in peace. To recover from the horrors of his experience at the hands of his enemies. But with pressure piling up from every angle, peace is the last thing he’s likely to find. Suffocated by guilt, Lysander begins to spiral. How can he hold everything together, when inside he’s falling apart? 

All information on where to purchase these, and all of Kate Aaron's books, can be found on her website: kateaaron.com/

Kate's New book is called Blowing It. I have an OUTSTANDING interview for you all... Meet Kate, Owen, and Magnus:

I am very excited to have Kate, Owen, and Magnus here today. I couldn’t decide who I wanted to talk to more so I have a bunch of questions for each of you to answer. I hope that is okay with all of you?

Kate: We’re all thrilled to be here. *prods Owen* Aren’t we?

Owen: Of course!

Magnus: *laughs* As long as you’re not expecting too much from me. I’ve never done an interview before. I’m just trying not to embarrass myself.

Kate: I think Owen will do that for you.

Magnus: *shoots Owen a warning look*

Owen: *wide eyed* I will not!

Magnus: Nobody will be embarrassing anyone. We’re Meredith’s guests and we’re all going to behave. Right?

Owen: Why are you all looking at me?

First, I will ask Kate the obvious question. This is a new book for you called Blowing It. Tell all your readers about it and what they should expect?

Kate: Really I feel I should hand this question over to Owen: it’s his story about how he became the next big thing in YA fiction and how it ruined his life.

Owen: *eyeroll* I did not say it ruined my life.

Magnus: You sort of did.

Kate: You actually did.

Owen: *sheepish* What can I say? I love melodrama.

Kate: So yeah, this is the story of how being rich and famous ruined Owen’s life, and how Magnus came along and made everything all right again.

Magnus: *smiling* I’m a builder. Fixing broken things is what I do best.

Magnus, What, physically, attracted you most about Owen?

Owen: *preens and pretends to fix hair* Yeah, what attracted you most about me?

Magnus: I think it was how humble you are.

 Owen: *pouts*

Magnus: *laughing* Really? Okay well the first time I saw him in person, he was doing a reading for his second book—which is great, by the way. It’s out soon and you should all buy it.

Owen:  Oh my god could you be any less subtle?

Magnus: I was trying to help! Anyway, we were in this theatre and there were about two hundred kids in there and Owen came out on the stage to sit in this chair, and he was wearing an awful suit which made him look really hot and uncomfortable and he seemed…nervous, and I wasn’t expecting that. You expect authors are used to this stuff, and that he’d be comfortable around kids, but honestly he was as awkward as my niece and she’s at an awkward age anyway, and all I wanted to do was climb up on that stage and give him a hug and tell him it would all be over soon. I felt protective, I suppose.

Owen: Was that really your first impression of me?

Magnus: *grinning* Yeah. Right up until you gave me this look which said all you wanted to do was jump off that stage and eat me alive.

Owen: Does Magnus have any habits that drive you insane?

Owen: Um… He can be stubborn, sometimes.

Magnus: Only when I’m right.

Owen: He’s always right. And he’s a neat-freak. He makes me feel like a slob.

Magnus: Your flat isn’t so bad.

Owen: Is that supposed to be a compliment?

Magnus: You’re a workaholic. It’s not that you’re messy, you just zone out and don’t see the world the rest of us see.

Owen: He does stop me from doing that. Like I’ll start writing on Tuesday and the next thing I know it’s three days later and I can’t remember if I even paused to brush my teeth. Magnus makes sure I eat properly and take a break once every twenty-four hours. But that’s not annoying, I need somebody to do that.

Magnus: What you need is a keeper.

Owen: *blows Magnus a kiss* I think I’ve found one.

Kate, What about Owen and Magnus frustrated you the most when telling their story?

Kate: Heh, keeping up with Owen and his best friend, Ryan. Once those two start talking, it’s impossible to get a word in edgeways.

Magnus: I can second that.

Kate: They’re fun, though, so I can’t begrudge them too much.

Magnus, Your beard, is it a self-expression thing, laziness, what about it makes it you?

Magnus: Honestly? I get shaving rash. I’ve tried everything I can think of but nothing seems to work. When I’m clean shaven I look like an acne-ridden teenager, so in the end I gave up and let it grow. My brother bought me an electric razor a couple of years ago and it’s got a setting where it can trim the hair without removing it down to the skin, and it was a revelation. Now I just keep it neat but otherwise leave it alone.

Owen, Tell us all a typical evening for you and Magnus?

Owen: *groans* You’re going to think we’re really boring.

Kate: I’m sure nobody has ever found you boring.

Magnus: Does it matter what people think if we’re happy?

Owen: See what I mean? He’s always right.

Magnus: Usually what happens is I go to Owen’s flat after I’ve finished work and we spend the evening in front of the TV. Sometimes he’ll be writing so I’ll work on my laptop, and sometimes he comes to my place, but he prefers I go to his because he hates sleeping on my sofa bed.

Owen: I never said that!

Magnus: You didn’t have to. Besides, I like sleeping in a real bed when I can, too. My place is a studio—an efficiency, I think you call it Meredith?—it doesn’t have a separate bedroom so I have a pull out bed and Owen isn’t very good at pretending he’s comfortable on it. Usually I cook because Owen could burn water if left alone in a kitchen for too long, and we were eating way too much takeaway. He might be a skinny wretch, but some of us can’t afford to put on any extra pounds.

Owen: What are you talking about? You’re not overweight.

Magnus: I could definitely do with using that fancy gym in your building sometime. Working behind a desk hasn’t been kind to me.

Owen: *leering* I think it’s been very, very kind.

Kate, There is a lot of mention of food in your book. (I was starving) Have you tried any of these dishes or are they dishes you want to try?

Kate: Well as you can tell, Owen and Magnus do love to eat (when Owen remembers that’s something people do). When Magnus told me his favourite restaurant was a steakhouse, I have to admit just looking at the menu made me drool. But despite being in his neck of the woods recently, I never quite made it there.

Owen: You missed out. The pulled pork is delish.

Magnus, Your job is massively stressful. Have you ever considered going into business for yourself?

Magnus: I wouldn’t say it’s as stressful as some people’s jobs. I’m only a building surveyor. When I was on site as a joiner it was simpler, and I definitely got a lot of satisfaction out of seeing a shabby room stripped down to bare brick and transformed into a dream kitchen, but I like being involved at the front end with the planning stage, overseeing the trades, and designing the end product. Working with insurance complicates things in one regard, because I’ve got to find a balance between what the homeowner wants and what their insurers will pay for, but then on the other, I get to see the really dramatic stuff: houses absolutely gutted by fire or flood, people’s lives in pieces, and I get to be the one to make it all right again. And maybe one day I’ll have my own firm, but with the economy being what it is right now, I consider myself lucky to have the job I’ve got. Like I’ve said to Owen when he bitches about his work, we can’t all do our dream job for a living.

Owen, Do you think you will write outside YA?

Owen: Well as I never intended to write YA to begin with, I think so. My first love was always literary gay fiction: Tóibín or Hollinghurst or Leavitt. And I could actually publish that under my own name, given my agent made my change it for the YA market. Even if I never write anything really successful, I don’t think I’ll be completely happy until I’ve published something in that genre.

Kate, How much research did you have to do for this book verses how much you already were familiar with?

Kate: I have to confess, I’m familiar with Owen’s and Magnus’s careers, having done both myself (although Magnus thinks more fondly of working in construction than I do). I wasn’t very familiar with the area of London Owen lives in though, so that required a research trip or two.

FOR ALL OF YOU: What is your favorite YA book of all time?

Magnus: Owen’s. Without doubt.

Owen: You can’t say that!

Magnus: Why not? It’s true.

Owen: Even if it is, everyone will just think you’re saying it out of loyalty.

Magnus: And that’s a bad thing? I’m a loyal boyfriend, and I love your books. I don’t care if I’m not supposed to say so, I’m saying it.

Owen: You really don’t get how this publicity thing works, do you?

Kate: Owen, shut up and take the damn compliment.

Owen: *bristles*

Kate: As to the question, I think my favourite YA is probably Harry Potter. I know the story isn’t perfect but Rowling created this magical, incredible world, and then she made it fit into ours so plausibly. I know dystopian YA is very trendy right now, and I love the Hunger Games series, but I think it’s much easier to invent a whole new world than it is to interlace fact and fiction the way Rowling did. Then again I’ve always loved that sort of fantasy: the Narnia books were probably my first introduction to it and they’re still firm favourites as well.

Magnus: *looks pointedly at Owen*

Owen: Um… *whispers* I don’t really like YA.

Kate: You can’t not like YA. Nobody doesn’t like YA.

Owen: I got into it for a bet, remember? I was slagging off the entire genre!

Kate: And then you read every YA book you could find. There must have been one you liked.

Owen: Well, there was one which was kinda cool. Rebecca’s World by Terry Nation. My local library had a copy so battered the cover was taped on. It was like this crazy, Alice in Wonderland style tale with monsters and riddles and the most self-assured eight year old ever imagined. Except she wasn’t priggish like Alice. I fucking hated Alice.

Magnus & Owen: Would you 2 ever have kids of your own?

Owen: *makes violent choking sound*

Magnus: *laughing* I think there’s your answer.

Owen: I hate YA and I hate kids. There, I said it. I’m a terrible children’s author.

Magnus: He doesn’t hate kids. He’s great with my niece.

Owen: Your niece and I barely tolerate each other.

Magnus: She adores you really. She’s just shy.

Owen: Well so am I. I wouldn’t know what to do with one of my own.

Magnus: No. You’d probably start writing and forget to feed it.

Kate, As a British writer what is the most challenging part of writing to an American audience?

Kate: I think mainly it’s a matter of comprehension. I’ve heard stories from British writers who’ve had negative reviews for spelling “colour” wrong, but I’ve never had that sort of problem. It’s more we have one word for something, Americans have another, and how can you write an English character giving the American term for some everyday item in a way that seems organic to the plot? Generally, I trust my readers to work out what something is from the context if they don’t know the word, or else I trust their ereader dictionaries to translate for me J

Magnus, You’re a Surveyor, you see a lot of architecture. Do you happen to have a favorite building in London?

Magnus: Is this the part where you expect me to say the Gherkin or the Shard or something? Honestly, I’m not keen on modern architecture. Owen calls those buildings glass boxes, and he’s not wrong. I like buildings with character, even if that means working with them is always a nightmare. Parts of the Tower of London have been standing for a thousand years, and I think that’s just incredible—not only the workmanship involved in building something which will last for so long, but also the fact that I can go there and walk the same corridors or touch the same walls that Elizabeth I or Henry VIII or William the Conqueror did. Buildings are our most tangible link to history: we can connect with generations of predecessors simply by standing in the same places they did.

Owen, Did your doorman ever get the nerve to ask out your friend? (I’m omitting the name to prevent spoilers)

Owen: *still staring at Magnus* Sorry, what was the question?

Magnus: *sheepish* Did I get carried away?

Kate: Meredith wants gossip.

Owen: Oh! Gossip I can do. Except I’ve been sworn to secrecy.

Magnus: Has that ever stopped you before?

Owen: Well, let’s just say I always get an extra big smile when I pass the doorman these days. Although if they break up, I think I might have to move.

Kate, Do you have a strict writing schedule? How does the very talented Kate Aaron write a book?

Kate: Oh god, by not using words like that! Most of my books are written in my local Starbucks (shout out to my baristas!). I discovered not long after I started writing full-time that I needed to get out of the house in order to buckle down and really concentrate. My “usual” order has grown more elaborate over the last eighteen months, but my productivity has increased. And if I look like I’m daydreaming or wasting too much time on Facebook, one of the other regulars will come over and crack the whip.

Magnus: What’s the future hold for you and Owen?

Owen: Because that isn’t a loaded question!

Magnus: *smiling* I don’t know how to answer that, except to say I have a good feeling about it.

Owen: That’s because he knows if I start overthinking things my bestie will slap me sensible.

Magnus: Yes, we owe Ryan rather a lot.

Owen: Sometimes I think he likes you more than he likes me.

Owen, Do you all go to karaoke still, and if so have you and Magnus done a duet?

Owen: Ha! I’ve dragged him out a couple of times, but I’ve yet to get him on the mic. One day.

Kate: What’s next for you? What projects are you working on currently?

Kate: Right now I’m working on the third Puddledown book, titled The Poison Pen. I’m hoping to have that out around late-March/April. After that, who knows? I’ve got a couple of ideas, so we’ll have to see which one shouts loudest. It might even be Owen again.

That’s all I have for you 3. Thank you SO much for sitting and talking with me.

Kate: It was our pleasure.

Magnus: I had a great time! I don’t know why Owen’s always bitching about interviews.

Owen: Oh my god, stop!

 NOW!!! Check out this AWESOME cover and blurb for Kate Aaron's book, Blowing It:

Owen Barnes never expected writing to make him rich, much less with a YA novel written for a bet. Being nominated for the Carnegie Medal, the most prestigious award a children’s author can win, is a dream come true. But Owen’s newfound fame comes at a price, and not just changing his surname to Black.

Gruff, gentle building surveyor Magnus Cassidy is the first man to catch Owen’s interest in almost two years. Owen’s agent, Max, might be trying to control his image, but Magnus sees the real Owen: the eyeliner, drainpipe jeans, and sexy underwear, not the Young Conservative in a tweed jacket Max is turning him into.

When a photo of Owen and Magnus appears online, just weeks before the Carnegie ceremony, Max starts damage limitation. Out and proud since he was fourteen, Owen isn’t going back into the closet without a fight, and he refuses to let his agent erase Magnus from his life. Encouraged by his friends, Owen lashes out, not realising his behaviour could hurt the man he’s doing it all for. Can Owen find a way to reconcile his public and private lives, or has he already blown it?

Blowing it will be available on Amazon, Smashwords, ARe, iTunes, B&N and more on February 23rd! I've already read it and will absolutely post my review when it releases. Trust me YOU WANT THIS BOOK! One lucky person, right now, has the chance to win a copy of this book. So enter below.Contest runs until the the 23rd. Winner will receive their copy ON RELEASE DAY! WOOP! So enter below, winner will be emailed so check your spam and remember REVIEW!!! It's so important.

I want to thank Kate, Owen, and Magnus for being with us today and hope that their story is received with all the awesome it deserves!

Check out the book trailer~ it's FABULOUS! If you can't view the trailer here, click on this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f2uAVoXSbE

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