We
are very happy to welcome Lisa Henry to the Smoocher’s Voice blog today. Henry’s
most recent novels Bliss, co-written with
Heidi
Belleau and Sweetwater are available at Riptide Publishing.
Lisa likes to tell stories, mostly with hot guys and
happily ever afters. Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She
doesn’t know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects she’s too lazy
to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other
half plotting her escape.
She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a
child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school
systems early in life. She studied History and English, neither of them very
thoroughly.
She shares her house a long-suffering partner, too many
cats, a dog, a green tree frog that swims in the toilet, and as many possums as
can break in every night. This is not how she imagined life as a grown-up.
Connect with Lisa:
Jodi: Thank
you, Lisa for taking the time to answer some questions for our readers. Please
tell us a little about yourself.
Lisa: Thanks for having me!
I’m Australian. I live in tropical north Queensland. I’ve been writing for just
about as long as I can remember. I love writing m/m, and I love the m/m reading
community. I’m also very possibly the most disorganized person on the planet,
but it’s too late to try and change now.
Jodi: What inspired you to write Sweetwater
and set the story in the 1870s?
Lisa: Rachel Haimowitz approached
me and asked me to write it for Riptide. I was excited by the idea of writing
another historical, this time set in a place I really wasn't familiar with, and
agreed to give it a try. I chose the 1870s because it suited what I needed, and
gave me a boomtown right on the edge of a bust, gold miners, the railroad, and
the burgeoning cattle industry. And the more I researched the town of South
Pass City, the more perfect it became. It was almost ephemeral – this brief,
bustling town in the middle of nowhere, that less than a decade later had
almost vanished again.
Jodi: What
type of research did you need to do for this book, especially around the issue
of homosexuality?
Lisa: I majored in history
at university, and I’ve always loved social history. I like to think I’ve got a
pretty good grounding in the prevailing attitudes and morals of people of the
time period. But of course, people have always been people as well, sneaking
around in the dark to get what they really need despite what society tells them
to do. If I’d set Sweetwater in a major city, I could have had so much fun with
that. Wherever there’s civilization, there’s a cultural underground where the
outcasts are welcome: people whose sexuality or ethnicity or religion or
politics, unless hidden, might exclude them from proper society. But Elijah is
a small town boy, and South Pass City doesn’t have that sort of
counter-culture, which means Elijah is kind of stuck with what’s on offer.
Initially that’s only Harlan Crane, a man who is not good for him at all.
I did a lot of research in
Sweetwater to try and get the historical details right, but it was also
important that my characters fit the time as well. Elijah isn’t a modern
character. He’s ashamed of his homosexuality, and believes he’s going to hell
because of it. When Grady later dodges the question of religion and hints at
being an atheist, the idea is totally foreign to Elijah. He is very much a
product of his time.
Jodi: What was the biggest challenge for you as a writer to set this
story in this time period?
Lisa: Honestly? Trying to
find out how much a shot of whiskey might have cost in a frontier saloon in
1870. I think that took me about three days searching online, and then it came
down to guesswork anyway, since apparently it could be anywhere between ten and
fifty cents, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but fifty cents went a long way in
the West!
That’s the fun part, and the
frustrating part, about writing historical fiction. The big picture is usually
quite easy. It’s the tiny details that will threaten to trip you up every time.
Jodi: The
characters in this story are intriguing and intense. Elijah, Harlan and Grady
are very different, yet they share a few commonalities. What was your
inspiration for each of these men?
Lisa: I always started with the idea of a
guy caught between the two Western archetypes: the good guy and the bad guy – the
cowboy and the rich man from town. Both Grady and Harlan grew from that idea, which
isn’t to say that Grady is all good and Harlan is all bad. They’re both
imperfect characters, but they do come to a kind of unwritten understanding
when it comes to Elijah.
Jodi: The
people in your story, the main characters as well as the minor characters are
criminals. Did you have a difficult time making them sympathetic?
Lisa: I hope Elijah is a
sympathetic character. And I think Grady is. Grady might be stealing cattle,
but he’s also just trying to make a living. Then again, I suppose Harlan’s only
trying to make a living as well! None of my characters are squeaky clean, but
some are definitely nicer than others.
Jodi: Elijah
has had a rough life. He seems to define himself by his lack of family and his affliction.
Was it difficult to write about his perspective?
Lisa: I think this is very
much a book about family – the family that you make, rather than the one you’re
born with. Elijah takes a while to grasp that – as an adopted son he feels he’s
a cheap substitute. Elijah is also incredibly isolated, because he’s an orphan,
and because he’s partially deaf. I think everyone has had times in their life
when they’ve felt alone and overlooked and generally worthless, so in that
sense it was easy to write from his perspective.
Jodi: Why is Elijah so
willing to go to Harlan, yet he is outraged when he realizes the other people
in the bar know his secret?
Lisa: Elijah is ashamed of
his desires, just as society tells him he ought to be. Harlan Crane is old
enough, rich enough, and despised enough not to give a damn. Harlan has also
reinvented himself before, and can do it again in a new town if he has to. He’s
fearless, which is something Elijah initially admires about him. But Elijah has
spent his entire life trying to be a good son to his adoptive father, and a big
part of that is keeping his sexuality a secret. Even when Elijah thinks he’s
risking his eternal damnation by going to Harlan, he’s still more afraid that
people will find out.
Jodi: Grady
and Harlan are both strong men, yet they are very different from each other and
want different things. Was it a challenge to write two very different
characters?
Lisa: It was great fun to
give Elijah such different choices. Grady and Harlan are very different, but
the one thing they have in common is Elijah. Neither of them look through
Elijah, like most other people in the town, which is why he is drawn to both of
them. I’d decided from the beginning that Elijah had to be with Harlan first,
or otherwise there’d be no competition at all since Grady’s so damn good for
Elijah, but I actually surprised myself by how much I ended up liking Harlan. I
mean, he’s not a nice guy, but at least he’s upfront about it!
Jodi: Bliss, a science fiction
novel, is very different than Sweetwater. Is it difficult to switch gears from writing
in the science fiction to the historical genre?
Lisa: I’ll write anything! It was actually
a relief to switch to Bliss after Sweetwater, simply because Sweetwater was so heavy on the research
and the fact checking. With Bliss, which
I co-wrote with Heidi Belleau, we did all our own world building, so as long as
it was internally consistent we could do what we wanted.
Jodi: What was your inspiration for Bliss and the town of Beulah?
Lisa: We took the name from The Pilgrim’s Progress. The place itself
we wrote as everything we thought a perfect society should be. It’s powered by
green energy, healthcare and education are free, everyone has a job, everyone
has equal rights, and there is absolutely no crime. And of course that’s too
good to be true, and it all comes at a price. That price, as it turns out for
those who break the rules, is free will.
Jodi: Beulah
is reminiscent of the concept of literary utopian and dystopian societies, but
there is a unique twist in your book. How does the chip alter the person who
has been implanted?
Lisa: The chip makes the
recipient crave praise. Basically, it turns them into a happy slave. But the
sneakiest thing about it, is the person with the chip can’t tell anyone about
it. So, if you ended up with a chipped person living with you, you’d probably
start them off doing all the housework, and they’d be totally happy to do it.
So of course we had to explore what would happen if you were attracted to that
person, and all they wanted to do was to earn your praise.
Jodi: The
phrase “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” comes to mind
when reading this book. What was your inspiration for Jericho Lowell?
Lisa: Every slick politician
who has ever lived! Lowell is handsome, clever, friendly, and comes across as
totally genuine. Like everything else in Beulah, it’s too good to be true.
Lowell is one of the most monstrous villains I’ve ever written, because he’s so
secure in his own power that he’ll destroy other people totally just to get
what he wants.
When it comes to absolute power
corrupting absolute though, I think Rory’s journey is far more interesting. He
finds himself absolutely corrupted as well, even though he never knew he was
holding all the power.
Jodi: Tate
and Rory are both from Tophet, but they have very different backgrounds. Tell
us a little about these men.
Lisa: Tophet is a polluted,
crime-ridden society on the verge of collapse. Tate is very much a product of
that society. He’s a criminal who has travelled to Beulah in the hopes of an
easy score. He was brought up in a bad neighborhood, and hung around the wrong
people, but does want something better for himself in the future, if he can
clear his debts.
Rory has come to Beulah for a fresh
start. He’s worked incredibly hard to be accepted as an immigrant in this
perfect society. He has no close family back in Tophet, and is ready to make
Beulah his home. Despite his misgivings about the place, he desperately wants
to believe it’s perfect.
Jodi: This
book is intense, and some of the scenes are uncomfortable to read. Was it
difficult to write the forced sex and humiliation?
Lisa: I won’t say the scenes
were difficult to write, although we definitely discussed how readers might
receive them. A lot of the scenes in Bliss
are very disturbing. Often, when we write sex scenes, we do it to show two
characters physically expressing their love and affection. Here, that’s not the
case at all. Most of the sex scenes have more in common with horror than
romance. Even the scenes where Tate and Rory are together are uncomfortable,
because Rory has no idea what’s going on in Tate’s head, and how there’s a part
of him, despite what he says, that really doesn’t want to do it at all.
Jodi: How is writing with a
co-author different than writing a book independently? Do you have a
preference?
Lisa: I write much faster
with a co-author, because while I’m happy to shelve my own projects when I hit
a roadblock, with a co-author I feel obligated to work through any
difficulties. Co-writing is also an exercise in negotiation. When you write on
your own, you don’t have to negotiate, but you also don’t have the fun of
coming up with so many different scenarios, some of which might not have
occurred to you on your own. But I like both!
Jodi: What is your next project?
Lisa: Coming up next is
another co-written project, this time with J.A. Rock, with whom I share a hive
mind. That’s our theory anyway. We’ve written a crime caper trilogy (with added
Shakespearean flair) called the Playing
the Fool series. It’s a definite change of pace from both Bliss and Sweetwater! The first book is The
Two Gentlemen of Altona, and it’s coming in December. You can find out
about the series at Riptide.
Sweetwater
Wyoming Territory, 1870.
Elijah Carter is
afflicted. Most of the townsfolk of South Pass City treat him as a simpleton
because he’s deaf, but that’s not what shames him the most. Something in Elijah
runs contrary to nature and to God. Something that Elijah desperately tries to
keep hidden.
Harlan Crane, owner of the Empire
saloon, knows Elijah for what he is—and for all the ungodly things he wants.
And Crane isn’t the only one. Grady Mullins desires Elijah too, but unlike
Crane, he refuses to push or mistreat the young man.
When violence shatters
Elijah’s world, he is caught between two very different men and two devastating
urges: revenge and despair. In a boomtown teetering on the edge of a bust,
Elijah must face what it means to be a man in control of his own destiny, and
choose a course that might end his life . . . or truly begin it for the very
first time.
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Bliss
They're always happy.
Rory James has worked hard all his
life to become a citizen of the idyllic city-state of Beulah. Like every other
kid born in the neighboring country of Tophet, he’s heard the stories: No crime
or pollution. A house and food for everyone. It’s perfect, and Rory is finally
getting a piece of it.
So is Tate Patterson. He’s from
Tophet, too, but he’s not a legal immigrant; he snuck in as a thief. A city
without crime seems like an easy score, until he crashes into Rory during a
getaway and is arrested for assaulting a citizen. Instead of jail, Tate is
enrolled in Beulah’s Rehabilitation through Restitution program. By living with
and serving his victim for seven years, Tate will learn the human face of his
crimes.
If it seems too good to be true,
that’s because it is. Tate is fitted with a behavior-modifying chip that leaves
him unable to disobey orders—any orders, no matter how dehumanizing. Worse, the
chip prevents him from telling Rory, the one man in all of Beulah who might
care about him, the truth: in a country without prisons, Tate is locked inside
his own mind.
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