***
Josh, thanks so
much for having me here! I’m delighted to be here today as part of the Heat Trap blog tour. JL
JL - Your sig line
reads Award-winning gay romance with a dash of humour. And no tea.AND NO TEA??!! Are
you sure you're English? Are you POSITIVE?
OTHER JL - *climbs on soapbox*
Look, let me get one thing straight. The English=tea drinker thing is a total
myth, perpetuated by BBC exports such as Midsomer Murders and Downton Abbey...
*climbs off
soapbox; cries*
Okay, okay, I admit
it. The British Isles are awash with infusions of Camellia sinensis. It’s just me who’s immune to its
tannin-laced allure. What can I say? I just don’t like the stuff. Never have.
Oh, I tried to like it, when I was younger. I tried for years. I didn’t come out as a non tea drinker until well into my
teens. I just smiled, and choked the vile stuff down, because that’s what you
do, isn’t it? It’s a social convention.
Even in adulthood,
long after I’d given myself over to the blissful joys of the coffee bean, I’d
occasionally find myself keeping quiet about my unusual tastes and just
drinking the stuff down. It’s one thing proudly telling your contemporaries you
never touch the stuff. But elderly relatives? They’re from a different world.
They wouldn’t understand.
God rest you,
Auntie Margaret, with your buttered tea loaf and your ever-full teapot. I hope
you can look down on me now, as I fill my cafetière with rich, sensuously
aromatic coffee grinds, and not condemn.
JL - The protagonist
of your Plumber's Mate series is Tom Paretski (a little nod to Sara there?) and
he is indeed a plumber. A psychic plumber with a talent for finding things, but
a plumber all the same. What made you choose that particular highly unglamorous
profession for Tom?
Ms Merrow - Well, there was this rather good-looking young man
who came to fix my bath taps one day... *g*.
Actually, in all
seriousness, Tom is the one of my characters who has been evolving the longest.
I had the idea for a plumber with a minor psychic talent (less of a medium;
more of a small, as the late, great Sir Pterry Pratchett would have said) many
years ago—way before I was ever published. I remember one night in Budapest, sketching
out ideas on a bar napkin. (This may sound pretentious, but is actually true.
And pretentious.) All of which I promptly put on hold for years after, until I
was a bit more confident with this writing gig.
But you know what?
I like unglamorous professions for my
protagonists. It’s fun. There are so many big, butch heroes out there with big,
butch professions. I like writing about guys who don’t have all that going for
them, but are sexy nonetheless. Witness my rat catcher in Caught! who was born out of a Yahoo group discussion on least sexy
professions.
(And, you know,
that young man with the taps was
rather good looking.)
JL - So tell us
about the new book HEAT TRAP. This is the third one in the series, so that's
usually a turning point. Is that the case here?
MM - Ooh, I did not know
that. No, seriously, I didn’t. And yet... Tom will be at a very different place
in his life, in some ways, in book 4.
And no, I’m not telling you in what ways. No spoilers! ;)
Heat Trap has Tom and Phil coming to the
aid of a recurring character in the books, Harry Shire, the landlady of the
Devil’s Dyke pub—or rather, to the aid of her newest barmaid, Marianne, who’s
being stalked by her ex. It’s set during a rare British heatwave, so fuses are
short and tempers frayed all round...
JL - Do you have any
food allergies? Do you have a funny food allergy story to share? Here on this
blog We love stories about people who blow up like balloons, turn purple and
start to choke. Do you have a story like that? ;-D
MM - I am boringly
unallergic. But avocado makes me sick as a dog—will that do? ;) Also bananas.
And some strange cheese in Slovenia, that wasn’t cheese at all but made from
pig fat *shudders at the memory*.
And for an
island-born writer with the name Merrow, I’m ridiculously reluctant to eat
fish.
*thinks about it*
Or perhaps it all makes perfect sense, now...
;)
JL - What's your
writing schedule like? Do you write full-time?
MM - I do. Which, to the
non-writer, probably conjures up images of the author sitting down at the
keyboard at 9am and tapping away solidly until clocking off at 5pm (with
appropriate breaks for the consumption of food and vast quantities of caffeine
etc.) Unfortunately, my muse is a total
slacker about afternoons. So the creative stuff tends to resume in the evening,
slotted uneasily around helping offspring with German homework, explaining that
yes, I studied chemistry in my first year at university but no, I can’t
remember any of it, and occasionally, even getting to sit down and watch the
telly.
JL - Do you believe
in ghosts?
MM - I’ve never seen
one. But there a lot of people out there who believe they have, so who am I to
judge?
JL - Is there any
genre you'd like to tackle but you're kinda sorta afraid? I always ask this
question but in your case it might be irrelevant because you've written in so
many different genres. Do you have a favorite?
MM - Yea, verily, I am a
jack of all trades... I do like to dabble in different genres, it’s true. Hmm.
I’m not sure there’s anything I’d like to try which I haven’t. As for
favourites... Well, it’s probably the light-hearted contemporary stuff. But
I’ve just finished a historical, which I thoroughly enjoyed doing for a change.
One genre you are
unlikely to ever see me try is epic fantasy. I used to read scads of it in my
youth, but writing it? I cannot be doing with all that world-building. WAY too
much like hard work.
JL - writers are
notoriously unhealthy. What is one healthy thing you do on a regular basis?
MM - I go to the gym
three times a week. To which people often say, “You must be really fit.” And I
reply, “You would think so, wouldn’t you?” Sadly, all my time on the rowing
machine is largely negated by days spent sitting staring at the computer screen
exercising only my fingers (on the keyboard,
good heavens, what on earth were you thinking?) and by a wicked red wine
and cheese habit. But on the plus side, I get a lot of writing ideas in the gym. You may suspect this is due to the
number of young, fit bodies one tends to see there. I couldn’t possibly
comment. ;)
JL - I notice a lot
of my British writing friends are beginning to sound a wee bit militant about
the "Americanization" of their work through publishers here in the
States. What's that about? Why do you feel it's so important to retain that
British feel and tone? Think of how these publishers are saving you from all
those reviews that cite "misspellings" in your work! ;-D
MM - Heh, I’m not as
militant as some—to be shamefully honest, I can never even remember if it’s
supposed to be whiskey or whisky, and I’m more-or-less blind to missed-out
“u’s”. But I do draw the line at having British characters say “ass” or
“gotten”—IF, that is, they’re out of their teens. It’s amazing how Americanised
teen language has become over the last ten years or so. Chiefly, it’s amazing
it’s taken so long, given how much American TV we watch over here!
What it comes down
to is being true to the character. If you’re not true to the character, then
the reader who can spot that will be pulled out of the story. Who wants
that? And let’s face it, we Brits can
cope with Americans saying “ass” and even “fanny” when they mean bum (although
the second one makes us squirm a bit). I think it’s rather disrespectful to
American readers to assume they need protecting from the odd arse.
JL - What do you
love most about writing? What do you find most challenging?
MM -
(a) Writing.
(b) Writing.
Okay, that’s not
terribly helpful. Hmm. What comes most easily to me, without a doubt, is
dialogue. Raymond Chandler famously said, “When in doubt, have a man come
through the door with a gun in his hand.” When I’m in doubt as to where to go in a story, I get a couple of
characters to walk through the door and have a bit of a natter.
What doesn’t come so easily is plotting.
Which, obviously, is why I started writing mysteries...
JL - When it comes
to friends and family are you better at giving or receiving advice?
MM - Oh, giving, yes
indeedy. Nuff said.
JL - What are you
working on next?
MM - I’m currently
working on Book #3 of The Shamwell Tales, which has the snappy yet evocative
working title of Shamwell 3. It
features, as one of the main couple, a side character from Shamwell #2, otherwise known as Played!
(due out June 2015) After that, I’ll be
working on a leap year themed novel, due out by a staggering coincidence (not)
on 29th February 2016. After that... Well, I would say it’ll be Plumber’s Mate #4, but a couple of the
characters in Shamwell 3 are showing increasing signs of demanding
their own story, so who knows...?
***
Giveaway: I’m offering a free
ebook from my backlist (including Heat Trap)
to a randomly chosen commenter on this post.
And there’s a grand prize of a signed
paperback copy of book #2 in my Plumber’s Mate series, the EPIC award finalist Relief Valve, plus a pair of rainbow-coloured merino wool blend wrist-warmers,
hand-knitted by the author, for one lucky commenter on the tour.
I’m happy to ship internationally,
and the more blog posts you comment on, the more chances you get!
Please remember to leave an email
addy in your comment so I can get in touch with you if you win.
I’ll be making the draws around
teatime on Wednesday 1st April, GMT (no joke!)
Good luck! :D
***
JL
Merrow is that rare beast, an English person who refuses to drink tea.
She writes across
genres, with a preference for contemporary gay romance and mysteries, and is
frequently accused of humour. Her
novella Muscling Through was a 2013
EPIC Award finalist, and her novel Slam! won
the 2013 Rainbow Award for Best LGBT Romantic Comedy. Her novel Relief Valve is a finalist in the 2015
EPIC Awards.
JL Merrow is a
member of the UK GLBTQ Fiction Meet
organising team.
Find
JL Merrow online at: www.jlmerrow.com,
on Twitter as @jlmerrow, and on
Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/jl.merrow
***
The wrong secret could flush their love down the drain
It’s been six months since plumber Tom Paretski was hit with a
shocking revelation about his family. His lover, P.I. Phil Morrison, is pushing
this as an ideal opportunity for Tom to try to develop his psychic talent for
finding things. Tom would prefer to avoid the subject altogether, but just as
he decides to bite the bullet, worse problems come crawling out of the
woodwork.
Marianne, a
young barmaid at the Devil’s Dyke pub, has an ex who won’t accept things are
over between them. Grant Carey is ruthless in dealing with anyone who gets
between him and Marianne, including an old friend of Tom and Phil. Their
eagerness to step in and help only makes them targets of Grant’s wrath
themselves.
With Tom’s
uncertainty about Phil’s motives, Tom’s family doing their best to drive a
wedge between them, and the revelation of an ugly incident in Phil’s past,
suddenly Tom’s not sure whom he can trust.
The body in the
Dyke’s cellar isn’t the only thing that stinks.
Warning:
Contains British slang, a very un-British heat wave, and a plumber with a
psychic gift who may not be as British as he thinks he is.
Available in
ebook and paperback: Samhain | Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | ARe
