Featured Author & Giveaway: Jessica Freely

Jessica Freely can't resist a wounded hero. As a reader and a writer, her favorite stories are of soul mates finding redemption in each other's arms. Married to the love of her life in a beautiful relationship based on mutual goofiness, Jessica also warps minds as an instructor in Seton Hill University's Writing Popular Fiction MFA program. Her dog, Ruthie, doesn't seem to care that Jessica's an award-winning and best-selling author in multiple genres. She just wants to play tug of war with Jessica's pages.

Connect with Jessica Freely on Twitter http://twitter.com/jessicafreely or visit her website: http://jessicafreely.com

Q&A with Jessica Freely:

1. Tell us something we’d be surprised to learn about you.
   
   I'm a Buddhist. I took the precepts five years ago at Still Point Temple in Detroit and I sit zen every morning.


2. If you could travel back in time and tell the teenage you one thing, what would it be?
   
   Oh yeah, this is a good question. Okay, teenage me, listen up: The people who are telling you that your dreams are unrealistic mean well, but they're underestimating you. Ignore them and go for it.
   


3. Tell us about your cover design. Is there any symbolism from the story reflected in the cover?
   
   Shout out to the awesome Paul Richmond, the cover artist for All the Colors of Love. I told him about my idea for the cover: a superhero with a rainbow cape poised to take flight against a backdrop of blue skies. Paul took that concept and ran with it and I love the result. Dressing our hero in jeans and a T-shirt was absolutely the right move. To me, the cover captures the idea of someone who has confronted evil, prevailed over hardships, and now looks forward to a bright future.


4. In what way is your story unique compared to other books in this genre?
   
   As far as I know, it's the only LGBT YA science fiction romance that includes among its supporting characters an aquatic plant-man with a twenty-foot tail and molecular biologist who's been reincarnated in the body of a pleasure android.


5. What did you like to read when you were a teenager?
   
   I liked books where the characters went through a lot of intense emotions. Being a teenager was a wild ride. Everything that was happening was happening to me for the first time. Sometimes it felt like the world was coming to an end and sometimes it felt like life couldn't get any better but whatever the feelings were, they were big. I sought out stories that could engage those powerful feelings and release them through catharsis. I don't think everyone gets that about young adult fiction. The folks who think the books are too dark don't seem to understand that those extreme situations offer teenagers a way to safely explore and work through the emotional extremes that come along with adolescence.


6. What would you like young readers to take away from your novels?
   
   I hope to entertain readers with a story that makes them laugh, cry, and think. Young people are always getting a lecture from adults. Enough. You're entitled to just enjoy something without it being about learning a lesson. .



Now Available from Harmony Ink Press:

All the Colors of Love It sucks being the son of a super villain. At home, Harry spends half of his time getting medical treatments and the other half tied up in his father's underwater lair. It was different when his mother was alive, but she disappeared when Harry was six. He can't seem to stay out of trouble at school, and his new roommate, Antonin, thinks he’s a spaz, but somehow Harry has to find a way to stop his father's evil plans. Antonin Karganilla wants to become a comic book artist, but other than that, being gay is the most normal thing about him. His uncle is an aquatic plant man, his aunt is a molecular biologist back from the dead, and his mom is an overprotective pain in the butt. Antonin's in boarding school and it's starting to look like he and this Harry kid might have a lot in common... and that means a whole new set of problems.

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Gift Card Giveaway!

Jessica Freely has generously donated a five dollar gift card to the bookseller website of choice for one lucky winner. To enter the drawing, please leave a comment below along with your email address.