Today I am so pleased to welcome Cari Waites (aka Lisa Henry) to Joyfully Jay. Cari has come to talk to us about her latest release, Stealing Innocents. She has also brought along a great giveaway. Please join me in giving her a big welcome!

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Hi! Welcome to the blog tour for Stealing Innocents by Cari Waites. Who is not-so-secretly Lisa Henry. I’m visiting some of my favourite blogs around the place to talk a bit about writing Stealing Innocents, and sharing some of my influences, ideas, and even an excerpt or two! Don’t forget to leave a comment, for your chance to win prizes!

I would be a terrible secret agent or criminal mastermind, which is shame, because they probably pay really well. My problem? I can’t keep a secret. Which is why everyone now knows that Cari Waites is Lisa Henry.

The Cari Waites project began with a twofold focus. I wanted to experiment in self-publishing, but I also wanted to write some darker stories, that most publishers wouldn’t want anyway. Because there’s no use pretending: for every happy ending I write, there’s a part of my brain that whispers “But you could go dark!” And obviously that’s what I did here, with Cari Waites as a safety net.

Gamble Everything was the first thing I published. And, totally unapologetically, I wanted to write a dubcon story where the bad guy is twisted as all hell, and he wins. That was the whole point. I published it in serial format on Amazon and Smashwords, and didn’t really pay a lot of attention to the rankings or the ratings or anything. Hey, I said this was an experiment in self-publishing, not a comprehensive study. I am not the sort of person who spreadsheets, okay?

I also didn’t do any promo. Mostly because I’m lazy, but also because I felt a little weird about the idea of presenting myself as Cari Waites when my readers already know me as Lisa Henry. So I put it out there, sat back, and waited to see what happened.

What happened as that Gamble Everything picked up some traction on Goodreads. I didn’t join in any of those discussions because I felt it would have been dishonest to participate as a reader when I was actually the author.

Then fan mail happened. Fan mail from one of my co-authors.

Staying out of conversations was one thing, but actually replying to an email to someone who knew me, while I was pretending to be someone else? That was going to get confusing real fast. So I totally fessed up, first to the co-author who emailed me, and then to my other co-authors because, apparently, once I’ve spilled a secret I just keep doing it.

Then Riptide approached me and asked if I’d be willing to sign a contract with them for my Cari Waites stuff. Wow. Could my experiment in self-publishing have gone more wrong? But of course I said yes, because I love the Riptide team, and I knew that with their editorial staff behind me my stories would be a lot stronger.

So then I admitted to everyone that Lisa Henry and Cari Waites were the same person. So much for having a secret identity! I guess I’ll never be a spy after all.


Blurb

Stealing InnocentsThose who dare to scratch the surface of ordinary, everyday life may be horrified to find a sick underbelly beneath—a nightmare world populated by villains and victims, predators and prey, where the rules of society no longer apply.

Where you’ll find people like Danny, the boy who sells himself to pay for his father’s gambling debts and ends up in a situation more twisted than he ever imagined. Or Troy, the cop whose obsession with saving a brutalized human trafficking victim turns deadly. Or Drew, the mental patient who begins to suspect his nightly delusions of abuse by his doctor are actually real. Or David, the cuckolded husband who decides the best way to get revenge is to seduce his wife’s barely legal son.

Stealing Innocents is an exploration of our darkest human impulses, where sex is power, love is horror, and there’s no such thing as a happy ending.

This collection contains three edited second editions stories that were previously individually published, plus one all-new story, by Lisa Henry writing as Cari Waites.


Bio

Lisa likes to tell stories, mostly with hot guys and happily ever afters.

Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She doesn’t know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects she’s too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other half plotting her escape.

She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school systems early in life. She studied History and English, neither of them very thoroughly.

She shares her house with too many cats, a green tree frog that swims in the toilet, and as many possums as can break in every night. This is not how she imagined life as a grown-up.

Cari Waites is her much darker alter ego.

Connect with Lisa:

• Blog: lisahenryonline.blogspot.com
• Twitter: @lisahenryonline
• Goodreads: goodreads.com/LisaHenry


Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Stealing Innocents, Lisa is giving away a $20 Riptide credit and an ebook of your choice of title from Lisa’s backlist. Your first comment at each stop on this tour enters you in the drawing. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on January 16, 2016. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. Entries. Follow the tour for more opportunities to enter the giveaway! Don’t forget to leave your email or method of contact so Lisa can reach you if you win!

  • 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.
  • All book prizes are in electronic format unless otherwise specified.
  • 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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