Hi and I’m so glad to be here on my first stop of this tour! The ladies of Paranormal Romantics were so gracious to have me here, thank you!
I was asked about my inspiration for this story, what drove me to write THE REASON IS YOU. Honestly? The hot vampire Mick St. John on the long gone Moonlight television show.
If you read my book, you’ll go back over what I just said, and go…huh? There’s no vampire there. That Sharla chick is a loon. But hang on. I’ll paint you a picture. If you ever watched Moonlight, think of Mick. Think of the blue-eyed, gorgeous vampire always in black, with the sexy smile and snarky wit, that was basically forbidden for Beth to be with.
And there you have it. Alex Stone.
I was heavy into reruns of Moonlight when I was playing with a story of a single mom of a teenage daughter. I’m a character-driven writer, finding my peeps before I find the story, and all I knew so far was that my main character’s name was Dani Shane, and she was driving down a highway in the hot summer weather in a car with no air conditioning, and her daughter was painting her toenails and hanging her feet out the window. Dani was stressed and tired and headed back to her hometown to start over. Someplace she didn’t want to go.
Then Moonlight was over. And I wanted more. And suddenly Dani needed a forbidden love like that. Maybe someone she could never really be with. Maybe someone that was going to make her return home both exciting and migraine-worthy. While I love vampire shows, I don’t write about them, so it couldn’t be a vampire. But a ghost….ooooh, someone she couldn’t even touch. Like The Ghost and Mrs. Muir meets Hope Floats!
Maybe she could see ghosts and hid that her whole life…maybe that’s why she left…maybe this guy was her only friend because the townspeople shunned her. Maybe Alex would be the example she’s held every man up to ever since, because he’s all she’s ever wanted. Maybe I could still have Mick if I wrote about him as a ghost!!!! LOL!
At that point, it grew and morphed and so many things changed and expanded into a story that constantly astounded me, as they all do because I don’t plot. I take what you just read above, and feed that into a seed of a beginning and start typing. It’s scary and exhilarating, but it works so I don’t fix it. J
And that description of my thought process above was the actual one that took place one day at work, and then I came home and flopped across my bed and told my husband, “I think I have a new idea for a story.”
And voila… Here it is, in a book with my name on the cover. All because sexy mysterious guys in black with snarky charm and killer smiles make me want more of them. Even if I have to write them to make it happen. J
Thanks for letting me share!
Sharla will be giving away a $20 Amazon or BN gift certificate to one randomly drawn commenter during the tour
BLURB:
In the small river town of Bethany, Dani Shane never fit in. Being different pushed her to the fringes of society, and even leaving town for two decades didn't stop the talk. Now, with her sixteen year-old daughter Riley in tow, Dani is back in Bethany looking for a fresh start. Too bad her plans for staying under the radar are about to be thrown out the window.
Mischievous and sexy, Dani's old friend Alex still has the power to rock her world, but there's a big obstacle standing in their way—Alex has been dead for forty years. With a ghost popping up at inopportune moments and sparking conversations with her teenage daughter, Dani scrambles to find solid ground and get a grip—both on her sanity and her heart.
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EXCERPT ONE:
Preface: Dani and her teenage daughter, Riley have arrived back in Dani’s hometown, and one of the first things Dani has to deal with is catching her daughter talking to her old best friend Alex in the front yard. Alex is a ghost…
My head said to walk forward, but my feet went numb. Then he looked my direction, and suddenly I was head-to-toe buzz with blood rushing in my ears. I took a deep breath and attempted normal as I made it down the steps without tripping.
Riley saw Alex. Riley wasn’t supposed to see people like Alex.
She had her usual folded-arms-with-one-hip-jutted stance, looking annoyed as hell, while Bojangles circled the yard in a frenzy with his nose to the ground. Alex slowly took off his glasses and locked his blue eyes in on mine with that arrogant little smile of his. I felt heat radiate from every pore.
“Dani,” he said, low and smooth, and all the breath left me. “My God, look at you.”
I opened my mouth to say the same thing, that after twenty-plus years he still looked exactly the same, hot enough to melt my shoes. But then the mommy gene stood up and waved and I remembered Riley was there.
He laughed, a deep throaty sound, as he pointed at Riley.
“I knew it had to be.”
A nervous noise squawked from my mouth. Nothing profound like I always imagined it would be.
“The eyes were the first clue,” he said with a wink.
Riley frowned, her expression a mix of disgust and wariness.
“God, you know this perv? He was here on the car watching me and won’t tell me who the hell he is.”
He smirked. “The sweet, gentle nature was the clincher.”
Sharla once hunted for crab in a Honduran jungle, and explored an unknown cave on her belly through a rabbit hole. Not in the same night.
Now, she lives in Southeast Texas by the Neches River with her family, an old lady dog, and 19 cockatiels. If you wonder how she writes with all that noise--the birds actually have their own house outside. THE REASON IS YOU is her debut novel.
When she's not writing, doing the day job, or doing the family thing, she's stalking her Twitter feed.
Sharla can be found at her website http://www.sharlalovelace.com/ , on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/sharlalovelace , on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/sharlalovelace , and on Goodreads at http://www.goodreads.com/sharlalovelace .
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