Welcome romance author, Karyn Lawrence...


 Welcome Karyn! Looking forward to getting to know more about you and your work - wishing you lots of sales and success :)

What is the best and worse thing you have learned from an editor/agent?
I have learned so much from my editor, it’s tough to pick the best, but probably the advice she gave me was to write my love scenes as if the characters were blindfolded was the most helpful. This forced me to describe sensation and emotion, rather than just stage directions.

I never looked for an agent with novels, but when I queried agents for my screenplays, the worst thing I ever received back was a paragraph long rant on how my “pitch” was too short. “You only gave me the concept and main storyline! I don’t have any idea what happens.” It was puzzling. I was taught to pitch to entice them to read the script.

Then I spent days drafting a three page long version of a pitch for another script I had, and his response was, “No thanks, I have a similar concept in production.”

What is your typical day?
I work a nine-to-five day job managing a graphic design department. I try to write during my lunch break, then squeeze a few additional hours of writing when I get home, after the kids are in bed.

What do you read while in the midst of a project? Or don’t you?
Usually I can’t read while I’m writing. I reward myself when I finish a draft or polish, and buy a few books, then inhale them on a weekend binge.

What do you do with a paperback once you’ve read it?
If I liked it, it hangs out on my nightstand for a while and might get re-read. If I wasn’t a fan, it goes almost immediately to one of the bookshelves in my home office.

Are you nervous about friends reading your books?
No, although my father has chosen not to read them due to the sexy parts. (There are a few scenes that are pretty racy.) He works as a nurse and took a stack of paperbacks into the hospital break room to give to his coworkers. Apparently one of the nurses came to him a few days later and asked him if he’d read it, and looked relieved when he said no. She said she couldn’t imagine how uncomfortable those scenes might have made him. J

What things inspire you to write? Location, music, film or even in a book?
Music, most definitely. When I wrote screenplays, I listened to soundtracks or instrumentals without words, but with novels it’s the opposite. A lyric can inspire a scene, or in the case of my work-in-progress, a song can inspire an entire book. Mumford and Sons, “White Blank Page” inspired “Surrender.”

What’s next for you?
“Surrender,” the third book in my series is due out in April, and my debut novel is currently on sale now for 99¢ through Dec. 21.

Keep
by Karyn Lawrence

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BLURB:

Billionaire CEO Shawn Dunn has plenty of sex, power, and money. A woman turning down his advances? Unfathomable. Yet that’s what she does, again and again.

Kara Hayward is supposed to be off limits. Her sister is hiding from the dangerous assassin she escaped from, and it’s best for everyone if Shawn keeps his distance. Certainly as far as Kara is concerned. Shawn’s only after one thing and then he’ll walk away, just like her ex-husband.

But Shawn has larger desires and he’s used to getting what he wants. He doesn’t care if being together is dangerous. He doesn’t believe that threat to him, or his empire, is real. Right up to the night he has everything taken away.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EXCERPT:


“You'll stay here where you're safe, until we have a plan.” Shawn stared at her as if waiting for an answer.

Was there any other option? She sighed. “Okay.”

She expected him to get up out of the bed, to go to the shower, but he continued to sit there like a lump.

“Thank you,” he said, “for agreeing.”

Annoyance grew in her. “Can you stop doing that? Treating me differently?”

“What?”

“How you're being nice to me. I don't like it.”

He blinked. “I'm sorry, you're asking me to be mean?”

“No, just treat me like you used to. I can't handle it when you come at me all . . . sideways.”

“Sideways?” he said, a small laugh escaping him. “Are we in combat?”

She scowled.

He exhaled and then gave her a large grin, and she could see it in his eyes. The game was back on. He finally moved, but it wasn't how she wanted it to go. He had on the smallest pair of boxer briefs she'd ever seen, and they clung to every inch of him.

“Want to take a closer look?” he asked, looping a finger under the waistband.


AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Karyn Lawrence is an author, graphic designer, and screenwriter. She published a nonfiction book about color guard after an editor discovered her blog, way back in the infancy of the Internet and long before blogging was really a thing.

She has been a screenwriter for more than fifteen years, with rather mild success, and grew tired of her stories only reaching a handful of readers. The decision was made to try fiction in early 2013 and once she figured out how to write internal dialogue again, the prose came fast and furious. She most enjoys writing smexy (smart-sexy) books featuring a lovable SOB hero and a tough-as-nails heroine.

Karyn is a Chicago native who lives in Kentucky with her epic husband and two adorable sons.



Twitter: @karynsloan




Karyn will be awarding a $25 gift card to Amazon, a signed paperback copy of both "Keep" and the first book in the stand-alone series, "Stay", bookmarks from "Stay" and a can kozie with the logo from the fictional beer company that the hero owns in "Keep" (Swag and print book are US only) to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here: 

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