Guest Blogger: BA Tortuga - Fistfights and Foreplay

Y'all, I've got the amazing BA Tortuga on my blog today, and when she contacted me to ask for a guest blog spot, I'm pretty sure I squee'd in delight. I'm not entirely sure who's doing whom the favor, here, because I've never read a single BA story that I didn't love, and she's one of the very sweetest, nicest, most fun people I've been privileged to work with since I started the whole writing-and-editing gig, which given how awesome everyone else I've met has been, is really saying something.

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Fistfights and Foreplay- Or how you can’t write Texans without a fight sometimes

Hey, y’all! I want to thank Ms Liz for having me. I love working with her, laughing with her, and sharing the geekiness. :D

You might have noticed my tagline is because sometimes fistfights are foreplay. Well, they tell you to find something that’s in all your books, a running thread.

Mine?

Fistfights.

I’m SO proud. ;-)

Today I bring it up because my new book, Terms of Release, is about my old stomping grounds in East Texas, and has more than its share of fistfights in it.

Sage, one of my heroes, has a bit of a checkered past, and a lot of folks gunning for him. He tried hard to make like smoke and disappear, but there are times when a man has to stand his ground. He gets his share of beat up, but he also throws down with his brother in law, a handful of rednecks trying to kill him and his friend Wilma outside a diner, and ends up on the bad side of a tornado, where he has a scuffle in the hospital.

What is it about East Texas and fistfights? I’d say it’s in the water. I’ve never been to a wedding or funeral where someone didn’t get to fighting, and my daddy works as a bouncer in the bar on his free time. For fun.

Does this mean we’re less evolved than the rest of the country? Probably. It also means that emotions run high in Texans, making us damned fun to write about. If it’s not worth fighting for, well then, it’s not worth it. Period.

Says the woman who can’t go to Wal-Mart anywhere within a hundred mile radius of Dallas without getting into a screaming match, at the very least.

Grins.

Sage and Win from Terms of Release, they have a lot that’s worth fighting for, and it takes a lot for Sage to work up the courage to brazen it out. That’s only one of the reasons I love this book so much. I hope y’all do, too.

The Terms of Release is releasing March 24, 2014 from Dreamspinner Press and I’m proud enough to bust.

Official Blurb:

They say a man can always come home. So after doing hard time, Sage Redding heads to his family’s northeast Texas ranch to help his ailing daddy with the cutting horses.

Adam (Win) Winchester is a county deputy and the cousin of one of the men killed in the incident that sent Sage to prison for almost a decade. While Win's uncles, Jim and Teddy, are determined to make Sage and the entire Redding family pay for their loss, Win just figures Sage has paid his dues and maybe needs a friend. Maybe he needs more than a friend. In fact, Win’s counting on it.

No one’s denying Sage is an ex-con who went to prison for manslaughter. Regardless of the love he has for his father, he’s returned knowing things will likely go badly for him. Maybe a man can always come home, but he may not be able to stay.

Paperback buy link (first 20 copies come signed): http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4820

Ebook buy link:
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4776

Where to find BA:
http://www.batortuga.com -- website
batortuga.blogspot.com – blog
@batortuga on twitter
https://www.facebook.com/batortuga