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GIVEAWAY!! Blog Tour – Spotlight: Fashion Victim by G.T. Herren with an interview
Fashion Victim
written by G.T. Herren
published by booksBnimble
find it here: Amazon, Goodreads
About the book – from Goodreads: To hear her buddy Chanse McLeod tell it, Paige Tourneur is rotund, cute as a button, a truly bad driver, and the best friend a gay P.I. could possibly have.
Now Paige gets a chance to tell it herself in her own witty and worldly-wise way. Please! Is that really her name? Seems like she has quite a past and in FASHION VICTIM, it’s starting to haunt her.
Since his first novel, Greg Herren’s fans have been begging him to spin off their favorite character, the hard-drinking, hard-bitten, smart-mouthed red-headed reporter with the heart of gold and the unlikely name.
In her first solo outing, she’s long since left the Times-Picayune, played out a stint on television, and has now landed a job at Crescent City Magazine, which sends her out to do a personality piece on bitchy fashion designer Marigny Mercereau. Only Marigny ends up dead fifteen minutes before her fifteen minutes of fame.
Twisting through Marigny’s creepy past, Paige is accompanied, as always, by best friend Chanse, her cop buddies Venus Casanova and Blaine Tujague, and (finally!) by the perfect man: her new boyfriend, Blaine’s brother Ryan. So what happens when a woman meets the perfect man and her past comes calling?
Every Free Chance Book Reviews is pleased to welcome G.T. Herren, author of Fashion Victim, to the blog today. He is touring the blogosphere with CLP Blog Tours and has answered the following questions for all of you.
Please tell us in one sentence only, why we should read your book. Because I think you will all really enjoy it—it’s kind of Project Runway meets Murder She Wrote.
Which character did you enjoy writing the most? The least? Well, I do love writing about Paige, but I have to say the most fun character in this book was her boyfriend’s mother, Athalie Tujague. Athalie is a very proper Uptown matron, with the white gloves and pearls—but with a very earthy, realistic outlook on life with a wicked sense of humor. There really isn’t a character I don’t enjoy writing—but if I had to pick one, I guess it would be Audrey Vidrine. She was a rather unpleasant person, and that’s never as much fun to write.
How long did it take you to write Fashion Victim? What was the process like? From beginning to end, I think it took about four weeks. I write really quickly—I’m luckier than most that way, and I rarely get stuck. I originally wrote it as a short story about eleven years ago—I never could get it to work as a short story, because there was too much story—so I already had the characters in place. Of course, I wound up changing everything about the plot because I didn’t much care for what I had originally conceived…I also wrote this in a different way than I usually do…experimenting with my process. I’m not sure I’ll use that process ever again…it seemed harder, but that might have been because I’d never written that way before.
Why did you decide to write a novella series of chick lit mystery? I had always wanted to write from Paige’s perspective—she’s been a long-running character in my Chanse MacLeod series. Julie Smith, my editor and publisher at BooksBNimble, has always known that I wanted to do this, and has always encouraged me to…so one day she asked me if I would write one for BooksBNimble and I jumped at the opportunity. I like to challenge and push myself as a writer all the time, and when you write a series it’s very easy to become static and get into a rut…writing other things keeps my series characters fresh. I really had a great time writing this, and am very grateful to Julie for giving me the chance to make this dream a reality.
What’s one piece of advice you would give aspiring authors? Don’t get it right, just get it written. You can always fix and rewrite, but you have to have something to fix and rewrite. Getting the words on the page is the most important thing.
Who has been your biggest inspiration? Tennessee Williams has always been a huge inspiration to me—his amazing works, at any rate. The language and imagery created by the way he weaves words together is just so beautiful, poetic and extraordinary. I often page through his plays at marvel at the gorgeous sentences…I often start my novels with a quote by him.
Who are some of your favorite authors? Stephen King, Poppy Z. Brite, John D. Macdonald, Sue Grafton, Ross McDonald, Laura Lippman, Steve Hamilton, Julie Smith, Michael Koryta, Ace Atkins, Rebecca Chance, Alex Marwood, Megan Abbott, Alison Gaylin, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, Daphne duMaurier, Mary Stewart, Hank Philippi Ryan, Jess Lourey….there are so, so many!
In your opinion, what is one book that everyone should read? Rebecca by Daphne duMaurier. It’s an extraordinary achievement on every level. I read it again every year and it’s always as fresh as it was the first time…and it seems like I always find something new in it.
Tell us three things about yourself that cannot be found on the internet…at least not found easily. I love to do household chores—really, I do! I love to cook and do the dishes and laundry and sweep and mop and vacuum….it’s really helpful to my creative process, whenever I get stuck I clean something. It always works.
I love to binge watch TV shows, either through streaming or on DVD’s.
I used to be addicted to daytime soaps, and actually aspired to be a soap writer for many years. I stopped watching them when I started writing, but still remember the glory days of spending my afternoons with All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital.
About the author: Greg Herren is a New Orleans-based author and editor. Former editor of Lambda Book Report, he is also a co-founder of the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival, which takes place in New Orleans every May. He is the author of ten novels, including the Lambda Literary Award winning Murder in the Rue Chartres, called by the New Orleans Times-Picayune “the most honest depiction of life in post-Katrina New Orleans published thus far.” He co-edited Love, Bourbon Street: Reflections on New Orleans, which also won the Lambda Literary Award. He has published over fifty short stories in markets as varied as Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine to the critically acclaimed anthology New Orleans Noir to various websites, literary magazines, and anthologies.
And now for the GIVEAWAY!! Fill out the Rafflecopter form below for your chance to win an eBook one of two copies of FASHION VICTIM!
Happy reading wherever you are and whenever you get a free chance!!!
4 Comments
by Samantha
Thanks for sharing!
by The Every Free Chance Reader
No problem!
by scottynola
Thanks so much for hosting me! This was my first ever blog tour!
greg herren
by Chrissy TheEveryFreeChanceReader
You’re welcome! I was happy to be a part of your first tour!