Today I am so pleased to welcome Wade Kelly to Joyfully Jay. Wade has come to talk to us about her latest release, Misplaced Affection. (Jason loved this one and reviewed it here.) She has also brought along an excerpt and a great giveaway. Please join me in giving Wade a big welcome!

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Interaction Between Characters

Characters don’t exist in a vacuum. I am not a person to have a book about XX and YY without having interaction between A, B, C, & D along the way. I like to see what happens with family members and friends because I think it is realistic. We all have some sort of family and friends that add to or cause frustration with our relationships. With these layered and varied interactions there are good times and possibly conflicts. But sometimes a little conflict is good.

In a romance novel, much of the time you get the bonus of having the conflicts all work out by the end. I say “most” because there are the ones that carry some conflicts into a sequel or something, but since the romance genre likes the HEA or HFN, the conflicts get resolved 95% of the time. Only, the characters might find new conflict in the next book. Ha ha.

Conflict is the way we work out the problems. It would be nice if everything was rosy and the main character could talk and have a conversation that solved everything. NOT. The story would be over in a page or two. Novels are about discovering what the conflicts are between the main characters and how they are resolved through interaction with each other, and with family and friends.

In Misplaced Affection some of the conflicts Flynn needs to work through are with his father. I really enjoyed writing Vic Brewer because I could talk about the things that children feel as they watch and learn from their parents, but also realistically see the same life events through the father’s reactions. (If that makes sense?) Flynn is my main character, but much of him was shaped from living with his father after losing his mother and brother. They are two men living very quietly together, yet separate. How does this shape a young man? How does being a single dad play out in Vic’s life? They are dependent on each other.

Conflicts bring out the best and the worst and force change. I love Vic Brewer for this. I wanted his character to be a constant thread through the book and I was super pleased with how his character developed. He starts as a point of weakness and maybe the reason Flynn is not very assertive. Flynn has an absent drunk as an example. Can we blame him for not knowing how to be a man? But as the story develops I change the father as well as the son. Vic Brewer becomes a strength or a force in Flynn’s life as well as Zach’s. Conflict forces change and Vic makes the choice for the better.

In a short but sweet excerpt to wrap up my blog tour, I thought I’d show the more jovial side of Flynn’s dad. He is the character I had change the most, I think, and this is half way into his arc.

I hope you enjoyed this blog tour and all the excerpts I shared. More than that, I hope they piqued your interest in my newest novel Misplace Affection and convinced you to buy it! Lol. Jason, here at Joyfully Jay, reviewed the book at length so you could even take a peek at his review if you need more convincing.

Thank you for stopping by!


Excerpt

About a month later, I found my dad staring out at the pool as he often did, sipping his coffee. “Hey Dad,” I greeted him like I normally would.

“Good morning.”

I smiled. Things had certainly changed since November. Now it was March and we shared many more smiles than I remembered from the past.

“I remember making love to your mother on Valentine’s Day.”

I cringed. That had been weeks ago! Couldn’t my dad forget he’d heard us? Why? Why did he have to bring it up… again? I took the milk out and poured a glass as if I hadn’t heard him.

“That’s why Nate was born on November thirteenth. Your mom said it was the date with the highest birth rate because it was nine months after Valentine’s Day, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her the Internet said otherwise. She’d been convinced.” He chuckled a low, soft laugh. “I miss her.”

“I miss her, too.” It was the only response I knew to give. What else could I say?

“Do you think she’d understand if I found another woman?”

I almost missed the shelf as I set the milk back in the fridge. “What? Are you dating someone?”

He turned his smiling face my way. “No. But I’m thinking about it. I don’t want to be alone. Seeing you and Keith, knowing you’re… you know… it makes me happy to see you happy. I think it’s about time I moved on. I want to be happy, too.”

“I’m glad. But if you can never mention again how many times you can hear us, I think I’d be even happier.”

He laughed more heartily and agreed. “Okay, I won’t. Is he still coming to dinner tonight? I thought I’d give him a little present.” He handed me a paper bag and I took it.

Inside was a box of condoms.

I closed it and hung my head to the side. “Are you kidding me? There is no fucking way you’re giving this to Keith. No way. That’s sick.”

He laughed harder. “Your mother isn’t here. It’s up to me to do all the embarrassing things I can think of.”

I grinned at my dad’s belly laugh. “No, it isn’t.” And then I was laughing too. I couldn’t remember a time when we laughed so hard. Just when the laughter died down, Keith walked in and my dad started all over again.

“What did I miss?” he asked, walking over to me.

I kissed my lover between guffaws and wrapped my arms around him, tugging him close. Lover. Oh wow, Keith was my lover and my dad had given me condoms. There was no way I could explain it to Keith, so I laughed until I cried.


Blurb

1_FINAL_MA_prefect-cover_lg-sized-copyClichés are overrated and loving the boy next door may not be as genuine as the love Flynn sacrifices along the way.

Knowing he’s gay and acting on it were two separate notions to Flynn Brewer until he’d met Keith, his first boyfriend, in high school. Before then, being gay wasn’t as real as the pain of living day-to-day. Flynn’s fear of coming out to his religious best friend Zach in their conservative community destroyed his relationship with Keith, but Flynn rationalized his avoidance and bottled up the truth until it was regrettably too late.

Zachary Mitchell was the perfect son and role model as far as the outside world could tell. Active in his church while attending college, Zach had a personality that could sell anything, do anything, or be anything. Except, he couldn’t sell the truth to himself. Just when he was ready to reveal his internal conflict to Flynn and expose the darkness lurking in his heart, and in his “perfect” family, Zach met a girl and got sucked deeper into his chasm of deception.

Caught in a living Newton’s Cradle of his own design, Flynn must choose between idealistic childhood fantasy, or a tempestuous passion that could ignite the very air he breathes.

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Bio

madison_parker_MG_5911-WEBWade Kelly lives and writes in conservative, small-town America on the east coast where it’s not easy to live free and open in one’s beliefs. Wade writes passionately about controversial issues and strives to make a difference by making people think. Wade does not have a background in writing or philosophy, but still draws from personal experience to ponder contentious subjects on paper. There is a lot of pain in the world and people need hope. When not writing, she is thinking about writing, and more than likely scribbling ideas on sticky notes in the car while playing “taxi driver” for her three children. She likes snakes, can’t spell, and has a tendency to make people cry.

Visit Wade Kelly at www.writerwadekelly.com, writerwadekelly.blogspot.com, or follow her on Twitter.


Giveaway

Wade has brought along two $10 Amazon gift cards to give away to two lucky readers. Just leave a comment at the end of the post to enter. The contest ends on Wednesday, January 14th at 11:59 pm EST.

  • By entering the giveaway, you’re confirming that you are at least 18 years old.
  • Winners will be selected by random number. No purchase necessary to win.  The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning.
  • If you win, you must respond to my email within 48 hours or another winner may be chosen. Please make sure that your spam filter allows email from Joyfully Jay.
  • Winners may be announced on the blog following the contest. By entering the contest you are agreeing to allow your name to be posted and promoted as the contest winner by Joyfully Jay.
  • Prizes will be distributed following the giveaway either by Joyfully Jay or the person/organization donating the prize.
  • By entering you are agreeing to hold Joyfully Jay harmless if the prize or giveaway in some way negatively impacts the winner.
  • Readers may only enter once for each contest.  Duplicate entries for the same giveaway will be ignored. In the event of technical problems with the blog during the contest, every effort will be made to extend the contest deadline to allow for additional entries.
  • Void where prohibited by law.
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