Josie Kerr: Rust City Book Con Featured Author

 

Happy New Year! We are back to #ConThu with Round Two of #RustCity16 author features! Today I'm showcasing:

 

Josie Kerr

Hey! I'm Josie Kerr and I write contemporary romance novels that are like my favorite barbecue sauce - hot and sweet. (Okay, that was *really* cheesy, even for me.) I published my first novel, A Bad Bit Nice, in September 2015, and the second in the Second Chance Neighbors series, The Best Ever, just released.

I want to add that Josie and I have been "internet friends" from chatting on a parenting discussion forum, as far back as pregnancy and toddler days. (My toddler is now in drivers' ed and scheduling college visits--eek!). I'm so thrilled to welcome Josie into Romlandia! But to get on with today's feature, let's talk about RustCity.

1. Fill in the blank: "I used to be really good at knitting , but these days I'm pretty rusty." Hmmm. Rusty knitting needles seems like a bad thing.

2. Eminem or Aretha? Explain.

Lordy, Do I have to choose? I could be totally contrary and say "Iggy Pop," but I'm not. I've loved Aretha Franklin since I saw her in "The Blues Brothers," singing in a diner in her pink houseslippers, so she'll always hold a place in my heart as one of the first singers that I liked because *I* liked her, not because my mother liked her.   Man, The Blues Brothers is one of my all-time favorite movies!

3. Choose One:
Vernors
Faygo
I'm confused. And not from around here.
Co-Cola ;)

4. What are you looking forward to most at the RustCity conference?

I'm really looking forward to talking with book lovers and other authors and just meeting people, even though they really kind of freak me out. I figure, though, that a lot of the participants are introverted, so we'll be introverts together! (I'm a very gregarious introvert, which means that I talk all the damn time but then generally come unglued when I get a bit of time to myself.)  
Yes, the book-con phenomenon of cramming a bunch of introverts together in an intensely social situation is a fascinating psychological experiment...

5. Which is NOT an actual community in Michigan? (no googling!)
Bad Axe
Mullet Lake
Alpha
Hero
Colon
Kalamazoo
(The correct answer is "Hero." I got very tickled at some of the names, especially when I saw that "Alpha" was one!)

6. Your latest work of fiction features a wealthy industrialist and an R & B singer. What's the first sentence?
Terence Garnette looked at the photograph of the supposed savior of 5G Shoes and wondered what in the hell his son was thinking.

What's it about?
Garnette Brothers Shoes needs a complete image overhaul if it's going to survive, and Terence Garnette, Junior knows that up-and-coming R&B singer Ami Fischer (no, not Amy Fisher) is The One. But first, Terence has to convince his father, his brothers, and Ami that she's the right person to be the face of 5G Footwear.

7. And finally, would you like to participate in the Alpha Heroes Five Words Fiction Game?

Yes! The contemp that Shelly started is right up my alley.

Awesome! Shelly left you these challenge words: Detroit, kiss, hotel, book, con

The story begins here.

Hunter needed a drink. Bad.

“Give me a Jim Beam, neat.”

Leave it to his cut-rate travel agent to get him a room in a hotel that was hosting some sort of book convention. He had never seen so many dumpy women in sensible shoes in his life. *God.*

Hunter downed his drink as soon as the bartender placed it in front of him, and then quickly ordered another. He just had to keep his eyes on the prize: tomorrow night he had to sign that fighter, or he was totally, completely, and utterly screwed. But tonight? Tonight he was going to drink himself into oblivion. Well, as far into oblivion as he could venture for under 100 bucks.

The woman next to him laughed and tossed her shiny black hair over her shoulder, and he caught a scent of something he hadn’t smelled in years: Curve. Curve was what *she* wore, the girl that stole his kisses backstage after the play; the girl that stole his virginity, the girl that stole his heart. The girl that he ultimately lost because he was a coward.

*Maddie.*

The heady, familiar scent wrapped around, plucking images from his memory: that shy smile, those unruly, outrageous sorrel curls, those beautiful curves stretched out under him in a twin bed.

He inhaled again. He had always wondered if she was sending a subliminal “fuck you” with her choice of perfume. Probably not. Maddie was way too sweet to do something like that, consciously or otherwise.

Curve Woman shifted on her bar stool and crossed her shapely legs. There was a time that Hunter would have been all over her like white on rice. But now? An entanglement, even for a single night, was the last thing he needed.

Curve Woman shifted in her seat again, but this time it was to groan and roll her eyes. “Oh, come on! ‘Detroit Rock City’? Really? Playing this song in this city is not ironic; it’s just lame.”

Hunter chuckled. “I completely agree. Looks like you need another drink,” he said, nodding at her empty glass. “What’re you having?”

*Oh, God, Maddie. You can do this. You’ve waited four years for this.*

“A Virgin’s Kiss.”

Hunter shook his head. *Where do they come up with the names of these drinks?* “Another Virgin’s Kiss for the pretty lady.”

After the bartender served her, Maddie smiled demurely at Hunter. “Thank you.”

She wrapped her lips around her straw and widened her eyes, just like Jenna said she should.

“You’re quite welcome.” He flashed that megawatt smile at her, but then frowned a bit as he looked closer at her. “I’m sorry, I know this sounds like a complete douche bag pick-up line, but do I know you?”

Maddie froze on the stool. *Did he…? Could he…?* She sucked almost half her drink down, stalling, trying to figure out what she was going to say, how she was going to play this.

Sensing her unease, he extended his hand. “I’m Hunter.”

Thanks Josie! I love the perfume element! (I have to apologize too, my template has a weird override thing in place so that I can't accommodate italics very well. One of these days I'll have to get around to fixing that...)  Anyway, can't wait to hang out with you in Detroit. Is the Virgin's Kiss a real drink? Will lightning strike me if I order one? For the answer to these questions and many more -- register for Rust City Book Conference! (links below)

Josie can be found on various places around the internet: website  | twitter | instagram: @authorjosiekerr | pinterest  | facebook  | Amazon.com 

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Sunday Soup - September 27

In The Soup This Week... Roselynn Cannes, Josie Kerr, Barbara Bretton and Jeffe Kennedy.

Soup Dish:  on my mind
✽So I need to apologize for the lack of Reading Until Dawn features over the past couple of weeks.  It turns out that authors sometimes have deadlines that are more important than mine, if you can imagine that.  With the con less than 2 weeks away (!!) I'll be wrapping up the features pretty soon, and we should see the conclusion of the two amazing stories in progress.  Stay tuned!

✽September is always a busy month around here.  It's back to school, and two of our family of four have birthdays, and we have end-of-summer projects to get completed.  Seattle has had a record-breaking warm and dry summer, and I've been very glad to see the return of cooler, damper weather.  It's great for reading.

✽I've been a little off social media lately -- what's the buzz?

What I'm reading
✽Fallen, by Roselynn Cannes, was a really good read. Set in a Greco-Roman alt-history world, I loved this militant heroine and the man who is a match for her.  I will caution that the author does not class this a romance, and it doesn't not have an HEA. There is a pretty compelling set-up for another book, and we may eventually get there. In the meantime, I'd just call it alt-history fiction, without anything magical or supernatural to put it into fantasy territory. Perhaps similar to some of Guy Gavriel Kay's less mystical novels. Because I didn't know exactly which genre to peg it into, I did wonder where it was going at times.  I tried to just be open, but it turns out I rely a lot on knowing what category something is in-- which is more a commentary on me and my ways than the book.

✽A Bad Bit Nice, by Josie Kerr. Full disclosure, I've been "internet friends" with this author for a ridiculous number of years, so I was REALLY excited when she published this, her first romance.  The heroine is a 40-something, tattooed IT professional with a foul mouth and a soft heart (I relate), and the hero... oh my, the hero.  He's everything you'd want in a hero.  Tender, gorgeous, creative, protective, understanding; he's the still-waters-run-deep type.  If you like Penny Watson, I think you might like this. If I have a criticism, I'd say there's a lot going on in this story, and maybe didn't need quite as many of those extrinsic plot points.  But I liked the characters and the romance quite a lot.

✽Shore Lights, by Barbara Bretton. An angsty contemporary with a TON of women's-fiction type family drama.  Not bad at all.  There is an HEA, but there is also a second book that starts with wedding planning.  I read the first chapter or so and kind of didn't want to know the rest. Perhaps a theme with me, I think I just didn't like the break in my comfy familiar pattern.

✽I have finally, FINALLY started reading Mark of the Tala, by Jeffe Kennedy and I seriously want to call in sick tomorrow so I can hide somewhere in a cushy chair and read it all the way to the end and then download the next book and read that one too.  I have read an enjoyed Kennedy's erotica for quite a while now but hadn't nabbed this one. I'm enjoying it all the more for the wait.