We
are very happy to welcome MJ O’Shea to the Smoocher’s Voice blog today. O’Shea’s
most recent novel Impractical Magic is available on Dreamspinner Press. Impractical
Magic is
the sequel to Newton's
Laws of Attraction.
M.J. O’Shea grew up and still lives in sunny
Washington state, and while she loves to visit other places, she can’t imagine
calling anywhere else home. M.J. spent her childhood writing stories. Sometime
in her early teens, the stories turned to romance. Most of those stories were
about her, her friends, and their favorite cute TV stars. She hopes she’s come
a long way since then…
When M.J.’s not writing, she loves to play the piano
and cook and paint pictures, and, of course, read. She likes sparkly girly girl
things, owns at least twenty different colored headbands, and she has two
little dogs who sit with her when she writes. Sometimes her dogs comes up with
the best ideas for stories… when they're not busy napping.
Visit M.J. at http://mjoshea.com.
Jodi: Thank you, M.J., for
taking the time to answer some questions for our readers. I am a fan of your
writing style, and I have read almost all of your books. I loved the Coming
Home series. Will you be writing a series around the characters in Impractical Magic and Newton’s Laws of Attraction?
M.J.: I think that one will just
be the two books. I don't see any realistic way to bring more characters into
that set and expand on it and I have a lot of other ideas I want to try!
Jodi: According
to your bio, you have been writing since you were a child, and in your teens
you wrote romance stories focused on people you knew. Are the characters in
your books inspired by people you know?
M.J.: Yep, all the time
actually! Sometimes it's literally name only, sometimes it's name and
everything else as well. I put my best friend Jeana in The Luckiest, her little
sister Jani actually became the little sister in Impractical Magic. She's a different age and I made her look
different, but the personality is the same. Amy from the Rock Bay books (since
you said you like them:) ) really exists, completely the same other than her
profession. And in a book I have coming up, a lot of the background werewolf
characters are my friends from high school.
Poppy Dennison and I are actually putting
quite a few familiar names and faces in our upcoming series Coconut Cove, with
permission of course! We thought it would be fun to populate our television set
with people in this genre.
The only thing I don't do is base the
romantic leads on people I know. That would be a little weird for me!!
Jodi: Have you always been drawn
to the romance genre? When and why did
you decide to write exclusively in the m/m genre?
M.J.: I'll basically read
anything that's good so while I've never been drawn particularly to romance
more than anything else, I've always liked a good romance novel. So far that's
the only thing I've been published in, but I'd be more than open to trying
other things. Same with writing exclusively gay romance. I don't, actually only
write that. That's just what I've had luck getting published.:) If all goes
well, you could be seeing other things from me in the future as well. I'd like
to keep doing this, but try other things too.
Jodi: In
Newton’s Laws of Attractions,
we meet Ben and Rory, who have a reunited after eight years of being apart.
What was your inspiration for that story?
M.J.: Well, I'd like to say
we've all had our share of dramatic high school romances, lol. I just thought,
hey what if… and went from there. I decided they'd both be teachers, partly
because that's what I did before I started writing, so it was something very
familiar to me (also, guess who was the girls' soccer coach lol), and partly
because I wanted a place where they couldn't avoid each other very easily.
Jodi: Fenton
Keene is the focus of Impractical Magic. In the first book, Fenton
is a colleague and friend of Ben. They are known as the “trouble twins”.
Although Fenton likes to go to gay bars with Ben, readers are given the
impression that he is straight. Will we learn more about what makes him tick
and why he does not tell Ben the truth in the sequel?
M.J.: I always meant for Fen to
be ambiguous. They made enough comments in the first book about how he likes to
go to the bar that I hope people weren't very surprised that he might like more
than the cocktails at the Sugar Shack. There will definitely be more about what
makes him tick in Impractical Magic,
and his reasoning for keeping his new romance a secret, although I'm not even
sure he can verbalize it at first.
Jodi: Does
the sequel pick up where Fenton is being cryptic about his new romance (while
Ben is on sabbatical)?
M.J.: I go back a tiny bit so
that the readers can see Fen meeting Kevin, but yes. A good part of this book
takes place over the summer that they're together and then there's all of the
things that need to happen afterward.
Jodi: Fenton
tells Ben that he doesn’t want to talk about his new romance because it is too
new. Is there more to it than that?
M.J.: Definitely! Isn't there
always? It has a lot to do with his past and some internalized issues that he
has.
Jodi: What was the inspiration
for Impractical Magic? Did you have the sequel
planned when you wrote the first book?
M.J.: Basically, I liked Fen and
I needed someone to come in and rock his world. He'd been the comic relief in
book one and for a lot of his life and I wanted him to get the chance to
actually be something more than the best friend.
Jodi: Tell us a little about
Kevin, the fireman.
M.J.: Kevin is
both sweet and nice, but also more experienced than Fen who's quite a bit
older. He's exactly what Fen needs at the time when they meet.
Jodi: What is your next project?
M.J.: After Impractical Magic, there will be some actual magic (lol) in the
paranormal shifter book I have coming out in August called Loveblood. It's YA because I didn't think the story would work in
an adult setting, but I had a great time writing it. And of course I got to get
the yearbook out and do some werewolf casting. That was hilarious (at least I
thought so!).
I have a lot of things cooking this year though! Here's a link
to the blog entry where I talk about them:
http://mjoshea.com/2014/02/14/coming-soon-from-mj-oshea/. Those are all pretty
much in order of release. Right now I'm working on Corkscrewed:)
Impractical Magic
Sequel to Newton's Laws of Attraction
Physics teacher Fenton Keene is looking forward to a summer of
doing nothing but hanging out with friends and maybe getting into a little
trouble. With his best friend out of town, trouble seems like the best option
and it comes in the form of his building's newest temporary resident, a
gorgeous fireman named Kevin.
Fen's been attracted to men before, but this is the first time
he's considered acting on it. And act he does.
Fen and Kevin have an intense summer fling. Just in time for
Kevin to go home, more feelings develop than Fen can ignore, but they don't
stop Kevin from leaving. Once Kevin's gone, Fen can't stop thinking about him.
That's when reality sets in and Fen faces the difficulties of distance and
fidelity, while Kevin balks at Fen's reluctance to tell his friends and family.
They just need to find a way to make their magic more practical
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