Aftereffects by LJ Greene (VBT, guest post, excerpt, and GIVEAWAY) GFT ADULT title

I am happy to share a guest post by author LJ Greene, who shares...
 

Boo! And Yay! The Ups and Downs of Writing
by
L.J. Greene

Writing, for me, is like being in an angsty teenage romance. One minute, it’s all sweet, sweet ecstasy and you swear you’ve landed Thor himself (the movie version!), all perfect and beautiful, and muscles on top of muscles. The next minute, you’re kicking him to the curb, drinking boxed chardonnay to the music of Adele and planning your satisfying life with cats.

Because let’s face it, writing is hard. Whenever I hear authors say their books just flew out of them, I fantasize about extending my foot and tripping them as they walk by.  (I’ve never actually done that, by the way, but damn if it wouldn’t be tempting.) Writing often gives you those high highs and low lows, with very little in between. It’s something you have to be willing to truly work at. And it should be that way. After all, earning even one reader is a privilege. But at the same time, you also have to be kind to yourself. You have to believe in the value of your words. And most of all, you have to trust that your voice is worthy to join the chorus.

I’ve written three books to date, and I can honestly say that at one point or another in the writing process I have despised them all. My search history will attest to the fact that I actually once googled ‘what to do when you hate your manuscript.’ (Who knew there are actually websites for that!) But the longer I’ve been doing this and the more I interact with other authors, the more I’ve come to realize that we all go through this. It’s normal. Even Bruce Springsteen has said about the song-writing process for some of his most iconic work that he simply failed until he didn’t – that certain songs were crap until they weren’t.

So when we sit alone in front of our keyboards and expect ourselves to be Hemingway the first time through, we should probably keep in mind that even Hemingway scrapped certain scenes, rewrote entire chapters, and compared himself unfavorably to others. It’s just the nature of the angsty romance that every author has with writing. The trick, I think, is to not give up on what you’re doing until that thing you’re writing becomes the thing you intended it to be – to believe you have it in you, and then make it so. Because when that happens, it’s magic.

Of all of my books, Aftereffects was the most arduous to write, probably because it’s my most personal and the bar was set very high to get it just right. It’s a gorgeous friends-to-lovers story with a squeal-worthy HEA and two utterly loveable characters. I adore the book. It might even be my favorite. But it wasn't that way every day. Many days, it was Adele and chardonnay and cats…

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Aftereffects

by LJ Greene

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GENRE:   Contemporary Romance

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BLURB:

What could be more terrifying than falling in love with the person who is your good place? Maybe realizing just a smidge too late that there can be dire consequences to becoming your best friend’s lover.

The lives of Keir Stevens and Selene Georgiou serendipitously collide midspan on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, one jarring step ahead of fate. He’s a temporary transplant from Seattle; she’s facing the biggest career opportunity of her life. They have no notion of the common thread that connects them. 

As they come to discover they share a similar adversity, their relationship evolves from a fun and frivolous infatuation with nowhere to go into a true friendship with sincerity, humor, and respect at its heart. 

It’s awfully hard not to fall in love with that—even if you’re pretty darn certain you shouldn’t.

But when love and friendship suffer their own devastating collision—their interests brutally conflicting—the consequences of blurring the lines between the two suddenly become real. In the end, which one will be the stronger? And more importantly, can either survive?

AFTEREFFECTS is a standalone dual POV adult contemporary romance about the things we choose in life out of all the things that are beyond our choosing—a tale of love and friendship, of time and how we spend it, and of the inner wars that ultimately show us what really matters.

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EXCERPT
 

Selene lifted her left hand and touched my face with her palm. It was definitely a new kind of closeness for us, at least sober—one to which I gave no resistance. Her skin felt warm and smooth as she stroked my cheek gently. And I couldn’t take my eyes off her face. My God, she was stunning. This close, I absorbed the perfection of her features, of her delicate earlobes. A tiny piece of dark hair curled around the back of one.

The air between us seemed to crackle quietly, and I sat frozen in my seat in case any movement might cause her to draw away.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you clean-shaven,” she said softly.

I could feel her breath, too, warm against my face. My fingers itched to reach up and touch her mouth, to feel whether it was as soft as I remembered. My heartbeat picked up not only faster but harder, like it was punching me from the inside.

Had a goal been scored just then I wouldn’t have noticed. Nothing could have pulled me from that trance. I didn’t hear anything going on around us. Not the crowd, not the announcer, not the buzzer.

Only her.

Only her voice and her eyes and her breath. The memory of her mouth.

“Do you have a preference?” I asked roughly. I had no idea what possessed me to ask her that.

No, that’s a lie. That other side of me wanted to be everything she wanted and would have shaved every single day if that’s what she asked of me.

“No.” Her beautiful lips curved slightly upward. “How could I choose between James Bond and Indiana Jones?”

Her palm came to rest on my jawline, and I took a deep breath. When had my wanting her turned into this painful kind of ache?

Under the sanctity of her expression, I had a sudden and startling thought that maybe we could write a different ending for the two of us. One I hadn’t yet considered. Maybe there was a different story we could tell in which the things we had to offer would be enough.

There was obviously more to our relationship than just friendship, and perhaps we could figure out how to have something more than what we’d allowed ourselves. After all, there was care and respect at the heart of everything we did together. That had to mean something.

Buy links:

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

LJ Greene is a self-professed obsessive multi-tasker who writes really boring stuff by day and lets her inner romantic fly by night.  This California native is married to the most amazing man and has two beautiful children, not old enough to read her books.   (They probably wouldn’t want to anyway on account of the “Ew, gross” factor.) She’s an avid reader of all genres with an embarrassingly large ebook collection, and a weird penchant for reading the acknowledgements at the end of a novel.  She's also a music lover with no apparent musical talent, a travel enthusiast, and a cheese connoisseur. 

Author website

Twitter: @authorljgreene

Facebook: LJ Greene

 

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