Happy Spring everyone! Today I would like to welcome to my blog, featured author, Lauren Mae. Check out her info & our fun Q & A below!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lauren H. Mae is a romance author who loves a hard-earned happy ever after. She loves to break her characters' hearts, then put them back together bigger and happier than they were before.
Her books are full of strong friendships, hard life lessons, and love that endures the biggest ups and downs. The Catch is her debut novel and is the first book of the Summer Nights Series. Book two, The Rules, will be available summer 2020.
Lauren lives in New England with her husband and two sons. She survives the cold by binging romance in either book or movie format, and she owes almost all of her writing success to her slight addiction to Red Bull.
Get To Know The Author: Q & A
Q: What is the most rewarding part of being a author?
A: The most rewarding part about being an author is chatting with other romance readers. I absolutely love when someone connects with one of my characters or picks up on some small thing I included and sends me a message about how it resonated with them. I'm a reader too, so I get the real love we can have for fictional characters, and when someone falls in love with mine, it's the best feeling.
Q: What age were you when you first started writing?
A: I'm not sure! I started writing poetry at a very young age. I focused on that all the way through college until a professor assigned us to write a novella and I fell in love with the idea of creating my own characters. Crafting pretty prose is still fun for me, but creating entire people with backstories and rich fictional lives and relationships is addicting!
Q: As an author, what would you choose as your mascot?
A: My author mascot would be a fish because I often think of my editing process as swimming around my manuscript, biting at things here and there until it's finished.
Q: Do you karaoke? If so, What is your go to karaoke song?
A: Yes! I absolutely love karaoke and my go-to song is Picture by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. I love singing a duet with whoever will participate (usually someone I beg into it)
Q: What is one piece of advice you would give to a aspiring author?
A: My biggest piece of advice is to know which advice to listen to and which advice doesn't work for you. That said, I'm a big believer in knowing the rules inside and out before you break them. Understand why "everyone" does something one way, and then figure out how you can play with it--be it structure or sentence level stuff--without losing the spirit behind the "rule".
The beach wasn’t deserted, but the few people who roamed it at this hour were enjoying the waves from afar, no one daring the water. A flash of light lit up the distant horizon, flickering wildly across the clouds and startling her, before quickly handing the sky back over to the night.
Cat hesitated. She’d been playing in the ocean all day, but now it had magically evolved into a dark and brooding force in the dark. She was suddenly nervous about exploring it. “Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.”
“It’s just heat lightning,” Josh said. “It’s still far away.” He had a confidence in his estimation that she assumed came from living on the coast, under undiluted night skies and open air where people could really feel nature. It fit him to know that.
They continued down to the edge of the water, dropping their things on the sand along the way. The lazy advance of the tide began to reach her toes and she turned to him, anticipation skittering through her veins. “Ready?”
“I am if you are,” he replied. She wondered if they were still talking about swimming.
Making the decision that she was ready, whatever the proposition, she grabbed his hand and waded in, letting the water splash the front of her thighs. She could feel his eyes on her and she let their fingers fall apart, continuing until she was waist-deep. Leaning backwards into the water, arms outstretched to keep afloat, she smiled brightly at her own bravery. This wasn’t so hard.
“It’s warm,” she said.
Josh followed in after her, recapturing her hand and pulling her up against his chest in one smooth motion. The courage she’d been riding on quickly deflated, making way for a feeling akin to leaning over the railing on a rooftop balcony and letting yourself imagine the fall.
“Cat?” His voice was a low rumble, and he tipped her chin up with his fingertips. “Would it be okay if I kissed you? I’ve been trying all day.”
Well, that didn’t take long. But she supposed that’s why they were there. Her heart thudded as she settled against him, studying the restraint on his face. He was giving her control, and she desperately wanted to take it, to flirt and make him dangle in uncertainty for a few more moments. Her attempts at a smart answer were defeated, though, by the way the moonlight was cast across his strong jaw and glowing eyes. All she could do was nod.
It was enough. Josh took her face in his hands again, the way he’d done at the bar, but this time there was no way he was pulling back. She squeezed her fingers around his arms, and his eyes rolled shut for a long blink. When they opened again, his fully bloomed pupils had turned his blue eyes almost black, the way the night had darkened the sea. She was equally as intimidated by the change, like at any moment she might be swallowed up by either one.
Josh’s hands remained innocuously on her hips as he pulled her closer and slowly leaned down. By the time he finally pressed his full bottom lip between hers, she thought she might faint from holding her breath. He pressed again, parting her lips and letting their tongues gently touch. The kiss was sweet, respectful—everything she would have wagered against in such a charged moment, and her whole body melted like butter in his hands.
Cliché, she tried to tell herself, as she stood there tasting mint and alcohol on his tongue, letting him hold her like she was something precious to him. She would have rolled her eyes at herself if they weren’t squeezed shut in reverence to the moment.
Finally, he pulled away with a sweet smile that dropped straight into that empty cavern behind her rib cage and began unpacking its bags. He set her back down on the sandy bottom, and clasped his hands behind the small of her back, holding her up. Thankfully, or she might have just floated away after that kiss, never to be heard from again.
-Excerpt from "The Catch"
Want to read more? Purchase "The Catch" NOW Available on Amazon http://tiny.cc/pfukmz
Get In Touch
Website: www.laurenhmae.com
Instagram: @laurenhmaeauthor
Twitter: @lhmae_me