SUSAN: BLOG TOUR, INTERVIEW, & GIVEAWAY "My Cowboy Heart" by Z.A. Maxfield

Join us in celebrating the Blog Tour for Z.A. Maxfield's “My Cowboy Heart”.  As part of your stop here, we have an author interview, excerpt and giveaway for you.  Thanks for being a part of the party!

AUTHOR INTERVIEW:

Welcome Z.A. Maxfield to Love Affair With An e-Reader! We’re so excited to have you join us and to be hosting the blog tour for your new book “My Cowboy Heart”!

ZAM: Thank you for having me, I’m so glad you’re letting me stop here on my “Blog Tour!”

I have to say that you are the master of writing the broken man running from a troubled past.  Where do you get your inspirations for these characters?

ZAM: I really love redemption stories. I guess we all make mistakes, so we can all use a little hope. I think writers sometimes right wrongs through their writing. They give a guy who made a terrible error in judgment or someone who has a falsely negative belief about himself the opportunity to learn and grow. That’s why a lot of us start writing in the first place.

My Cowboy Heart is really just a gorgeous love story.  There’s something so desperately sad about the hurt these guys grew up with (yet ultimately beautiful in the love they’re able to share).  Does writing about these heavy-hearted issues have an effect on you?  How do you get “in” and then “out” of that headspace?

 

ZAM: You know, I always use my experience as a mother for things like that. What would happen if this character was my son or daughter, what would I wish for? Hope for? Pray would happen to help them? I think I started out writing from the viewpoint of motherhood, and so I’m always trying to find a happy ending, a useful lesson, a redemption for each character.  

I found Malloy’s “out-for-you” storyline very interesting and you tackled it with a point-of-view I had never considered: that his confusion over being gay was rooted more from a deep place of loneliness and lack of significant relationships rather than anything else.  Could you tell us a little more about Malloy and where he’s coming from?

ZAM: I really wasn’t thinking in terms of tropes when I started the book, and after I finished, I went... OH NOES! That’s an out-for-you story! Malloy presented himself to me as a very insular, very insecure person. He holds his loyalty to Crandall Jenkins and the Jenkins family above everything else. Other relationships aren’t on his radar. I see him as a man who has an itch and scratches it as best he can, but never finds it very satisfying.

I also see him as not wanting much to do with people at all, except for his family, and certainly not out looking for possible mates. So yeah. For the purposes of our discussion, he’s out-for-Crispin, but I believe he is so busy being worried about living up to some impossible standard he’s set for himself he didn’t allow himself to think in terms of relationships at all, until Crispin came along and bowled him over. ZOMG, that’s like two, two, two tropes in one!

You seem to like to throw in the “random” story points in your books….the introduction of 3PO and his original owner being one. Ha!  Ok, ‘fess up…was Janet Atkinson based on anyone you know?  

ZAM: No. Not really. Well. Those dolls. I admit to seeing a number of crying baby dolls in Albuquerque, and I couldn’t help putting those in there. Who buys baby dolls that are frozen in a moment of real unhappiness...and then I thought, would I want to give that person back an injured dog? NOPE. 

This book was published by Intermix, part of the Penguin Group. This seems like a very significant partnership for you and for the genre as a whole!  How did this come about?

ZAM: I guess it is significant. It’s important to note the contract is due to my wonderful agent Deidre Knight who believed in me for years (even though I never gave her a book to sell until My Cowboy Heart) and all thanks go to my editor, Cindy Hwang, who seemed to feel it was a good fit for the Intermix line of books.

It’s kind of terrifying, in that there a million m/m romance books out there -- probably a whole world of better books by more deserving authors. My Cowboy Heart happened to appear in the right place at the right time, but it opens doors for a lot of other authors. M/m authors, go forth and write like the wind! Our audience awaits.

Lastly, can you give us a little peek into what’s around the bend and next for you and your readers?

ZAM: I wrote Ed and Jim’s story as a sequel for My Cowboy Heart. It’s called My Heartache Cowboy, and it’s due out on January 21. I’ll be doing a cover reveal soon! Stay tuned. I also have the second in The Brothers Grime books coming out, Grime Doesn’t Pay and look for a Holiday novella called Lost and Found, from Riptide.

Thank you SO MUCH for letting us pick your brain!  It’s been a blast!  BIG FANS!!!!! *hugs*

ZAM: Thanks so much for having me here. I’m so glad to be part of your world for a day!

SUMMARY:
A cowboy's heart has room for anything…

J-Bar ranch foreman Malloy pretty much keeps to himself—slinking around the edges of everybody else like an old coyote, doing his job and staying private. That is until Crispin Carrasco shows up. 

Lean, muscular, and with a motor mouth that won’t quit, Crispin sparks something in Malloy—something the foreman didn’t know was there. But how does a lone coyote approach the warmth of a fire? And more important, what would happen if that fire burned?

BUY THE BOOK AT:  Amazon │B&N │Kobo

MEET THE AUTHOR:

Z. A. Maxfield started writing in 2007 on a dare from her children and never looked back.  Pathologically disorganized, and perennially optimistic, she writes as much as she can, reads as much as she dares, and enjoys her time with family and friends.  If anyone asks her how a wife and mother of four manages to find time for a writing career, she’ll answer, “It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you give up housework.”

Her published books include Crossing Borders, Drawn Together, and the St. Nacho’s and Brothers Grime series from Loose Id, ePistols at Dawn and The Pharaoh’s Concubine from Samhain Publishing, and Notturno, Vigil, Stirring Up Trouble, and All Stirred Up from MLR Press. 

AUTHOR'S LINKS:   Website/Blog │Facebook │Twitter │Goodreads

GIVEAWAY:

Grand Prize:  1 winner will receive a $50 Gift Card to either Amazon or B&N (winner’s choice) and an e-copy of “My Cowboy Heart”.

Additional Prize: 3 additional winners will be selected to receive e-book copies of “My Cowboy Heart”

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

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