We
are very happy to welcome Eli Easton to the Smoocher’s Voice blog today.
Easton’s most recent novel The Mating of Michael, is available on
Dreamspinner Press. The Mating of Michael
is the third book in the Sex in Seattle series.
Eli
Easton has been at various times and under different names a minister’s
daughter, a computer programmer, a game designer, the author of paranormal
mysteries, a fanfiction writer, an organic farmer, and a profound sleeper. She
is now happily embarking on yet another incarnation, this time as an m/m
romance author.
As an
avid reader of such, she is tickled pink when an author manages to combine
literary merit, vast stores of humor, melting hotness, and eye-dabbing
sweetness into one story. She promises to strive to achieve most of that most
of the time. She currently lives on a farm in Pennsylvania with her husband,
three bulldogs, three cows, and six chickens. All of them (except for the
husband) are female, hence explaining the naked men that have taken up
residence in her latest fiction writing.
.
Jodi: Thank you, Eli, for taking the time to
answer some questions for our readers. I am a fan of your writing style. I have
enjoyed reading all of your books, and I love the Sex in Seattle series. With
this third book, the adorable Michael finally gets his own story. Tell us a
little about your inspiration for Michael’s character.
EE: Like all characters, Michael grew from a
bit of stardust. By that I mean, I have no idea! But I can recount some of the
points of inspiration. In The
Trouble With Tony, where Michael makes his
first appearance, I knew I was setting him up for his own book later. I figured
someone who was a male sex surrogate would have to be really a unique and
compassionate person, because a lot of patients would not necessarily be
attractive and a man has to be able to get aroused in order to perform in any
way that might be necessary to the therapy. I had him flirt with Jack in book 1, to be
drawn to the broken part of Jack, and he just was really sexy in those
scenes! I guess I fell a little in love
with him then. Physically, I was inspired by the model Isaiah Garnica when he
was young. I loved his frailness and the emotion in his big brown eyes matched
what had in my head about Michael’s personality. So Michael’s physicality was
based on him. I knew Michael had to have a childhood where he was bullied
somewhat, or he wouldn’t have such a need to help underdogs, so I figured he
would not be a traditionally big, handsome, average Joe, but have a more
eccentric look.
Jodi: What was your inspiration for the Sex in
Seattle series?
EE: I had the idea for the first book – about
a detective who pretends to be a patient at a sex clinic to investigate a
murder. I thought it would be a funny situation for him to have to discuss sex
so openly with a doctor/suspect. So that’s where it all began and it grew as a
series from there. I do really like the sex clinic setting because it gives a
unique opportunity to explore sex as a basic human need and right. And something like GFY, which is Daniel’s
story in The Enlightenment of Daniel,
can be explored in a more clinical and realistic way.
Jodi: In The
Mating of Michael, James is a reclusive author. What was your inspiration
for his character? Are there any autobiographical elements in his character?
EE: It’s interesting because I knew I was
going to write Michael’s story, and he was a known character. But I went
through a lot of ideas for his ‘mate’ before I settled on James. At first I
thought about having a vet, but that seemed too close to Dr. Jack
Halloran. I thought about doing more of
a mentally disabled character like in Ethan
Loves Carter, but I wasn’t sure I would be able to master that, and I felt
like Michael needed a really strong partner, someone who could take care of him in a way. I also decided I didn’t
want James to be one of Michael’s patients because I didn’t want to deal with a
lot of ethical issues. I thought a man who was able to really appreciate
Michael would need to be someone with a lot of imagination and inherent
compassion towards others and thus someone who had suffered himself in life.
All of that ended up being embodied in James, who is a science fiction writer
who had polio as a child and is in a wheelchair because of it. Writing is his
way of escaping his physical limitations and living a fuller life. It’s not
really very autobiographical other than I know the profession very well!
Jodi: James and Alex Shaw, from Puzzle
Me This, are both differently abled,
and spend a lot of time isolating themselves from others. Although James is
older than Alex, the two characters do have a lot in common. What inspired you
to focus on characters with disabilities?
EE: I’ve
always loved romances where one character is disabled in some way – Ethan
who Loved Carter is
one of my favorites. When I wrote Puzzle
Me This, I wrote it for submission to an anthology, so I had a word count
limit (it’s a novella). I just felt like
I hadn’t ‘finished’ writing about an MC in a wheelchair so I wanted to explore
that in a full length novel, be able to dig deeper. Also, I knew from the start
that Michael’s love interest would have some kind of disability, because that’s
who Michael is. He’s someone who loves
despite those sorts of exterior factors.
Jodi: Marnie and James’ mother are foils for each
other in this story. What was your inspiration for these women?
EE: I
really didn’t plan it that way, but I wrote the last page of the book and I
thought – Oh. Right. This novel is about mothers. It’s sort of interesting that it worked out
that way. It’s not just Marnie and James’ mother Lynn. There’s also Michael’s
mother, and Felicia, the woman who ran the home for disabled children, and also
Tommy’s mother plays an important role. It’s cool, because The Enlightenment of Daniel really was about fathers—also unplanned
when I started writing it. So I guess The
Mating of Michael balances that out.
Inspiration for Marnie –
maybe a bit of Harold and Maude. I just thought Michael would have a really
unusual best friend and I loved the idea of a feisty old woman who wasn’t shy
about talking sex! I always wanted the
reader to see the ‘normal’ side of Michael’s nursing, not just the sex
surrogacy side, so Marnie became a patient too.
Inspiration for Lynn – I
knew that if James had contracted polio in this day and age, he didn’t grow up
in the United States or get vaccinated. I also wanted him to have adored his
mother. So Lynn is a free-spirited and very young single hippy mother who
travels with James.
Jodi: There are a few subplots going on The Mating of Michael. Was it difficult
to create James’ back story and subsequent anger in such detail?
EE: I researched polio—read a few
autobiographies of people who had gotten it as children. And those stories of
how that happened and what it felt like were so powerful, I just couldn’t leave
it out. It gave me a good nudge to
really delve into James’s background, how and where he got the polio, how that
felt for him, and what happened subsequently. It made him a much stronger, more
fully-bodied character and put some obstacles in Michael’s path for him to
overcome.
Jodi: The sex surrogacy scenes in the book are
very detailed. How did you research the sex surrogacy aspect of Michael’s job?
EE: Well, Google is my friend! Also, I read
the autobiography of a sex surrogate and watched a documentary (the details are
given in my acknowledgements). I found it fascinating the sorts of deep issues
people can have around sex and intimacy, and how slowly the surrogate has to go
sometimes. So that was the inspiration for Lem.
I thought it was important to show
what Michael did, that being a sex surrogate involves real therapy; it isn’t
just a glorified prostitute position. It takes a lot of patience and compassion
and also it’s not just – jump to anal sex at the first session, and it’s not
about getting off. I wanted to show why
Michael is so good at it, why he’s unique. In order for James to ever be able
to accept it and not see it as ‘cheating’, the reader had to be able to accept
it first.
Also, one of the things I
really love about reading is getting to experience different lifestyles,
places, and professions, so, hell, if you’re going to have a sex surrogate MC,
you’d better damn well show me what that’s really like! lol
Jodi: The excerpts from the science fiction story,
James’ background, Michael’s jobs, and Tommy and Lem’s stories add a lot of
depth to this novel. Do you outline the details in your stories before you
write? What is your process for developing the subplots in your stories?
EE: I am a plotter, but I kind of go back and
forth between outlining and really just diving into a scene (before the full novel
outline is done). I get impatient to
write sometimes. And also, I try to keep my plot fairly high level and let stuff
happen organically within the scene.
Jodi: Will there be more books in this series?
Will Lem and John have their story told?
EE: If Michael does well, there may be another
book or two down the road for Sex in
Seattle. It’s not on the schedule currently, but it’s a universe that could
go on indefinitely. There are no plans
to tell Lem and John’s story, but who knows? Maybe as a short story at some
point.
Jodi: You have a number of books published, but
this is the only series? How does writing books in a series differ than the
standalones? Which do you prefer writing?
EE: I plan to do more series, I just haven’t
gotten there yet! There’s something
comforting about returning to a known universe, like the Expanded Horizons sex
clinic in Sex in Seattle, and being
able to check up on old characters. I’m
not sure I’d say I have a preference for writing either though. It’s more about
what’s right for the individual story and if it lends itself to a series or not. I’d like to return to Clyde’s Corner from A
Prairie Dog’s Love Song and do a novel set in
that universe.
Jodi: Have you always been drawn to the romance
genre? When and why did you decide to
write exclusively in the m/m genre?
EE: Yes, I’ve been a romance reader for a lot
of years. I read m/f romance for many
years—a lot of regency like Eloise James, and also cowboy stuff like Pamela
Morsi or Maggie Osborne. I got into m/m through fan fiction actually. Once I’d read a bunch of that I started
seeking out published m/m romance and found there was a whole genre out there.
That was about two years ago. I just decided to try my hand at writing it (I
wrote thrillers in the past but never het romance) and really enjoyed it. Since
then, I’ve been writing it exclusively.
Jodi: I know you probably love all of your
characters, but do you have any favorites?
EE: I really love Dr Jack Halloran—he’s such a
hardass. And Michael, of course! I’m quite fond of Mick and Fielding from Blame
it on the Mistletoe and Joshua from “A
Prairie Dog’s Love Song”. Also, um, Jordan and Owen from Superhero.
Yeah, it’s hard to pick just one. ;-)
Jodi: What is your next project?
EE: I try to keep my ‘coming soon ‘page on my
website up to date with my current projects if you ever want to check
(http://elieaston.com/work-in-progress/). I recently finished a murder
mystery/romance set in Amish country and I’m currently editing/lengthening my
historical “The Lion and the Crow” for publication with Dreamspinner. Next up is my 2014 Christmas story, which I’m
really looking forward to digging into!
The Mating of Michael
Sex in Seattle: Book Three
Everyone admires Michael Lamont for being a
nurse, but his part-time work as a gay sex surrogate not only raises eyebrows,
it's cost him relationships. Michael is small, beautiful, and dedicated to
working with people who need him. But what he really wants is a love of his
own. He spends most of his time reading science fiction, especially books
written by his favorite author and long-time crush, the mysteriously reclusive
J.C. Guise.
James Gallway’s life is slowly but inexorably
sliding downhill. He wrote a best-selling science fiction novel at the tender
age of eighteen, while bedridden with complications of polio. But by
twenty-eight, he's lost his inspiration and his will to live. His sales from
his J.C. Guise books have been in decline for years. Wheelchair bound, James
has isolated himself, convinced he is unlovable. When he is forced to do a book
signing and meets Michael Lamont, he can’t believe a guy who looks like Michael
could be interested in a man like him.
Michael and James are made for each other. But
they must let go of stubbornness to see that life finds a way and love has no
limitations.
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