Welcome, Rainey! I have to ask…why do you love hats so much???
Because I am finally confident enough to wear them! No, seriously. I’ve always been really shy and my self-esteem has been, er, wanting. But within the last year or so, I started to care less about what people thought about my rather eccentric taste in hats and shoes and earrings. And I’m so much happier. Bring me all the hats, Owly! I want them all on my head! <3
How many books do you have currently published and what projects are you working on?
Right now I have two novellas published with Dreamspinner Press: Under the Table and Into His Heart and Sweet Giordan, Please Remember and I just this year participated in the GR M/M Group’s Love’s Landscapes challenge and wrote Somebody Nice!
Most Beautiful Words is my first novel (YAY!), but the end of 2014-2015 I’m contracted for X-Mas Cake: A Modern Fairytale (a novella with Beaten Track Publishing), Bowl Full of Cherries (Dreamspinner novel), Alchemy Ever After (Dreamspinner novella I wrote with my husband!), and finally I’ll Always Miss You (YA novel with Harmony Ink)
Right now I only have two projects actively in the works: The sequel to Bowl Full of Cherries and an anthology with the lovely LJ LaBarthe and Cate Ashwood.
What was your journey toward being published like?
True story of my journey to publication: I start writing in the third grade, by the eighth, I’d decided I want to be a published author. Doubt set in and I write in total secret for ten years, my only reader being my husband. Then a friend admonishes me on Facebook and says, “What’s the point of writing if you aren’t going to share it?” Rising to her challenge (or bait!) I decide, “You know what?! I can do this.” Within a year, I was doing all the things that eighth grade Raine had been waiting so long for. Sharing stories, editing, soliciting publishers, and then finally, signing contracts. So, if you’re writing in the dark right now, I’m issuing the challenge to you: be a lionheart. Consider yourself slapped with a glove. Shoot! That’s a dueling challenge. No! I’m a terrible shot.
You write about what you call “The Sweetness.” Tell us about that. What does it mean? Where did it come from?
I love, love, love to write about falling in love for the first time, about forevers, and fidelity. I write about warmth and kindness, and sweet things. It really started with my depression and this need I had to put something really super *positive* out into the world. As a librarian, you can bet your sweet behind that I believe in intellectual freedom: writing what you want to write and reading what you want to read! And I think that the dark, gritty, hard things are valid and there’s a need for those books. But I also think the world can be dark so often that I want to write something that give people a moment of relief and maybe even hope?
Do you have any advice for other writers?
Write all the things all the time. Think about writing. Read. Snuggle an Owly. Write some more. Read about writing. Write about reading. Get a library card. And most importantly: be kind and SUPPORT your fellow authors!
Owl, thank you so much for having me at your blog today! <3
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Cover Artists: Brooke Albrecht
BUY LINKS: eBook | Paperback | Amazon
BLURB:
Twelve-year-old Autumn’s world is shattered when her beloved Great-Pop, Tommy Johnson, suffers a stroke that leaves him comatose. With everyone around her resigning themselves to the inevitable, Autumn is the only one not willing to give up. She and Great-Pop have more secret stories to share with each other, after all. More stories about Roy McMillan—the great love of Tommy’s life whom he lost fifty years ago.
Autumn struggles to keep Great-Pop on this side of death’s door. But how can she compete with the beautiful and mysterious Valley—a place of surreal magic where the sun never fully sets? Especially when there’s someone familiar in the Valley who will do everything he can to keep Great-Pop from returning to her.
EXCERPT:
But Rook had no interest in waiting for permission. He’d come forward, snaking his arms around Toren’s sheet-covered waist and pulling him hard against his body. “It’s just a kiss,” Rook breathed before he put his lips against Toren’s. Should he protest? Had he protested? Toren couldn’t remember. In that moment there was nothing but Rook’s firm lips, gently teasing his own apart. Toren kissed back, tasting the other man, sucking at his bottom lip. Rook’s mouth was intoxicating, and quite suddenly, Toren forgot why he’d ever resisted. He liked kissing Rook. But after only an appetizer’s worth of his mouth, Rook pulled away. The sensation of their mouths pressed together lingered, and Toren was dumb with the moment. Lost on it. Uncertain what they’d even been talking about.
“Do you remember me now?” Rook asked.
“Mmn,” Toren agreed, warmth lingering on his lips. “Rook.”
Silence was his reply. The arms around his waist fell away, leaving him feeling cold.
Toren slowly opened his eyes to find he was standing alone, clutching his sheet, as Rook walked away from him toward the staircase.
PRIZE GIVEAWAY:
Enter the drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card.
TOUR DATES/STOPS:
October 10: Angel Martinez, My Fiction Nook, Up All Night, Read All Day
October 13: Amanda C. Stone, Decadent Delights
October 14: Jade Crystal, Nephylim
October 15: LeAnn’s Book Reviews, Velvet Panic
October 16: Full Moon Dreaming, Dawn’s Reading Nook
October 17: Wake Up Your Wild Side, Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words
October 20: Parker Williams
October 21: Cate Ashwood, Love Bytes, Book Reviews, Rants, and Raves
October 22: Regular Guys, Hot Romance, Emotion in Motion
October 23: EE Montgomery, MM Good Book Reviews
October 24: Iyana Jenna, Prism Book Alliance
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Called “Queen of the Sweetness” (well, two or three people said it anyway!) Raine O’Tierney loves writing sweet stories about first loves, first times, fidelity, forever-endings and…friskiness?
Raine O’Tierney lives outside of Kansas City with her husband, fellow Dreamspinner Press author, Siôn O’Tierney. When she’s not writing, she’s either asleep, or fighting the good fight for intellectual freedom at her library day job. Raine believes the best thing we can do in life is be kind to one another, and she enjoys encouraging fellow writers. Writing for 20+ years (with the last 10 spent on M/M) Raine changes sub-genres to suit her mood and believes all good stories end sweetly. Contact her if you’re interested in talking about point-and-click adventure games or about which dachshunds are the best kinds of dachshunds!
Author Contact:
Raineotierney.com | Dreamspinner Press Author Page | The Hat Party (LGBT Author Interviews!)
Facebook Fan Page | Twitter
