Interview, Excerpt and Giveaway Fearsome by S.A. Wolfe

Published September 29th, 2013

Description:

Jessica Channing’s big city life should be more exciting than sixty-hour work weeks and popcorn nights with her girlfriends, but it’s not. She has worked hard fulfilling her role as a child prodigy and graduating college years before her peers. She’s the good girl, the brilliant girl.

Unfortunately, she’s also the dateless young woman.

That all changes with one phone call. Jess’s rigid, predictable life upends when she must visit a small, obscure town to deal with a relative’s death. This isn’t just any little speck of a town, though. Long lost memories come crashing down on Jess’s world when two men, the Blackard brothers, seem to lure her in. 

Dylan is cover model handsome, and pursues Jess the minute she comes to town. Then there is tall, dark and gorgeous Carson, who hides his own secrets behind his hardened reserve. 

For someone who has been governed by her own obsessive behaviors and fears, Jess lets her guard down and jumps at the opportunity to have an affair with a man she actually finds attractive for a change.

There’s just one problem. Jess discovers that she can’t have a simple romantic fling because true passion does indeed come with some very big strings attached to it. She will have to own up to her own truths about love and face the two extraordinary men; both troubled in their own ways and both determined to have her.

MB's INTERVIEW

Thank you, Mrs. Wolfe

There are rules to respect in a triangle love, and what there is a secret (or secrets) of a successful one? 
For me, I did not want an ick factor. In other words, Jess could not sleep with two men at the same time. No cheating, she’s not that kind of woman. She may be young and inexperienced, but she’s not going into “stupid” territory. Other than that, I don’t think I had “rules.” I played it by ear as the plot evolved, and I wrote what I felt was genuine to the characters. Also, it was important to show Jess questioning what she’s doing and having serious misgivings about her involvement with these two men.

Can we have the same feelings for two men? How many kinds of loves are there? 

Jess’s feelings for Carson are very different than what she feels for Dylan. That is her dilemma, trying to decipher her inner conflict over these two great guys. As she recognizes love, she realizes what “type of love” she has for both. Carson defines it as “degree of love” and I suppose that’s how I view it in real life. There are many types of love. How you love a spouse or boyfriend is very different than how you love a grandparent, child, or a teacher. I don’t believe people love everyone in their life equally, even if the love is powerful, it is attached to feelings that vary from person to person.

In a Romance the happy ending is somehow predictable. What about the stories with a love triangle, can they trick readers’ expectations? 

Yes, but maybe the appropriate word is the love triangle makes the reader, together with the protagonist, question why she’s torn between two men. It comes down to the protagonist being honest with herself and putting her fears behind her so she can move forward. And if you have a triangle, are all three people going to be happy in the end? I couldn’t leave someone hanging or have him conveniently killed off –that’s where it becomes unpredictable.

Can be a happy ending even if heroine chooses wrong first time and the men involved are brothers? How plausible can be the second relationship? 

Yes, but that depends on the people involved. That’s the tricky part, and that’s where reading my dialogue out loud as I write helps to make it sound authentic. I also needed an interesting backstory (and reveals) for one of the characters to tie the ending together. I certainly hope I made it sound plausible and that the hero’s reasons for doing what he did sound realistic for his character. He certainly had to sell Jessica on it, too, and that wasn’t easy. 

“Yet, being in love confounds me.” (Fearsome). Did lack of love experience influenced Jessica’s decisions? Can we become smarter in heart problems? 

Definitely, her lack of experience made her doubt everyone including herself. Love confounds her because her parents have modeled a pretty uninspiring look at marriage and love. It’s only after several months in Hera, with Dylan and Carson, that Jess recognizes different kinds of love. The love between the brothers, moves her. Jess doesn’t have siblings and she wasn’t raised in an affectionate family, but as the story progresses she begins to recognize the love she’s looking for in an intimate relationship, and she also begins to define her family in a different way with parameters that extend beyond her parents.

In the beginning, Jess is smart in everything but love. By the end of the story, she is smarter about love. She makes some mistakes getting there, but she’s analytical, passionate, and motivated enough to strive for real love.

I like your cover. Can you tell us your opinion about the relations between a book and its cover in general and about how did you choose the cover for Fearsome in particular? 

Thank you, I love the cover. It was designed by Damon at damonza.com. He’s an amazing book cover designer. 

I know it’s important, especially in Romance and specifically New Adult Romance, to have a cover that captures a prospective reader’s attention because there are a lot of books on the market, and you have to convey romance, love, and “sexy” in a cover without getting lost in the masses. I told Damon that I was afraid to go with a half-undressed hunky guy on the cover because there are already so many great covers like that on the market. I wanted people on my cover, but they’d have to be obscured somehow because I wanted the reader to imagine the characters in their own way rather than see actual models on the cover. I thought I might be shooting myself in the foot by doing this since the successful indie authors do very well with photographs of models on their covers. 

Anyway, Damon made six different covers and this one of the painted girl captured my attention for several reasons. 1) It wasn’t a photograph, so the reader could still imagine Jess in their own way. 2) After you read the novel, you realize this is one of Jess’s self-portraits entitled “Girl.” 3) The colors are captivating. I ran the cover options by a variety of people close to me and they all chose the exact same one because it grabbed their attention.

EXCERPT:

I’m still daydreaming when he stops abruptly to pick up his toolbox and I bash right into his back. Perfect. Didn’t I already do this with Dylan?

Carson drops the box and turns around to catch me. “I’m sorry, did I do that?”

“No, it was me.” I rub my nose.

He’s holding me by the waist, pulling me into him, but it’s not a déjà vu of Dylan. Carson is something else—something I like very much—and I suspect that being torn between two men in my own imaginary, lovelorn world is a sign of my immaturity. At least, that would be the first thing my mother would say before she asks what they do for a living. My hands are wedged between us, resting against his hard abdomen.

Carson doesn’t let go, as if he’s thinking of something to say or thinking of pulling one of those fast Blackard kisses. “This could be awkward,” he says and releases his grip on me while his hands remain hovering by me.

I’m not sure if he’s having the same thought as me, that a kiss would be awkward since I’m going out with Dylan, or if it’s awkward because he sees me as some virginal geek and he’s never touched one in person before. It’s awkward because I’m over-thinking the whole scenario!

Goodreads ** Smashwords ** Amazon ** Barnes&Noble

About the author:

S. A. Wolfe lives with her wonderfully loud, opinionated children and awesome husband. She is a voracious reader and passionate about writing, and when those two activities don’t keep her locked away in her room, she loves hiking mountains as much as she adores all the thrills New York City has to offer.

Website ** Goodreads ** Facebook ** Twitter

Author's Giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway