THAT YOU ARE HERE by Meredith Allard Excerpt, Interview & Giveaway

THAT YOU ARE HERE

by Meredith Allard

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BLURB:

On the outside, handsome, successful attorney Andrew Whittaker has everything in life. On the inside, he has everything too, only he doesn't know it. He hides the love of his life, Mark Bryce, from his family and everyone else where he lives in Portland, Oregon. Soon the weight of the secret becomes too much for Andrew. After wrestling with himself and his place in the world, he must decide how he’s going to live—with or without Mark.

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Excerpt:

Andrew’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He put his lunch bag on the counter, nodding at the message from Lisa Bloom, his secretary. He scanned his e-mails and grimaced at the phone. “I have to go.” He left at a sprint through the kitchen door to his silver Mercedes in the attached one-car garage. He didn’t even like the car, but that’s what the senior partners at his firm drove, so that’s what he drove too. Andrew opened the garage door, got into the driver’s seat, slid the key into the ignition, started the car, and jumped at the knock on his window. He shrugged sheepishly, opened the window, and took his lunch bag.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m a little distracted today.”

“Today?” A sigh. “That car is such a gas guzzler. You need a hybrid. This is Portland. You’re supposed to be green.”

“Kermit the Frog green?”

“Any kind of green you want to be.”

Andrew looked at the person watching him with such open-hearted love in those soft gold-brown eyes. 

“Mark?” Andrew said.

“Yes, Andrew.”

“Thank you.”

Mark Bryce leaned his head through the open window and kissed Andrew’s cheek. “Anything for you, beautiful boy.”

When Andrew stopped at the red light on Bancroft Street he felt his phone vibrate. He pulled his phone from his pocket, saw the screen and cringed, peering at the nearby drivers as though they were reporting his every move to some great eye in the sky. The text was from Mark.

Stop looking at your phone!

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Meredith Allard is the author of The Loving Husband Trilogy, That You Are Here, Victory Garden, Woman of Stones, and My Brother’s Battle (Copperfield Press). She received her B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from California State University, Northridge. Her short fiction and articles have appeared in journals such as The Paumanok Review, The Maxwell Digest, Wild Mind, Muse Apprentice Guild, Writer’s Weekly, Moondance, CarbLite, and ViewsHound. She has taught writing to students aged ten to sixty, and she has taught creative writing and writing historical fiction seminars at Learning Tree University, UNLV, and the Las Vegas Writers Conference. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Interview 

1. Where are you from?

I was born in New York, then when I was seven we moved to Tuscon, Arizona  for a year. Then it was onto Los Angeles, where I spent most of my life, and from there it was Boise, Idaho for a year and now I’m in Las Vegas, Nevada.

2. Tell us your latest news?

That You Are Here is my most recent novel. I have also published a short story collection entitled “The Window Dresser” and Other Stories. I’m also very excited to release the Loving Husband Trilogy as a complete box set.

3. When and why did you begin writing? When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I first thought of myself as a writer when I was 12 and I was asked to write our 6th grade graduation play. In truth, I was probably only asked because I had the neatest handwriting in the class, but I felt like a writer. In subsequent years, I had teachers who used my writing as examples for the class, and that added to my feeling that I was a writer. I knew that writing was in my future, and I tried out journalism and screenwriting but neither felt right. Finally, I found my way to writing novels and I knew I found my home.

4.What inspired you to write your first book?

My first published book was Her Dear & Loving Husband from the Loving Husband Trilogy. A student handed me Twilight (this was in 2008) and though I wasn’t into vampires I read it because she raved about it. After I read the Twilight books, I started watching True Blood, and from there I started reading Anne Rice, Charlaine Harris, and of course the standard in the genre, Dracula by Bram Stoker. After I had a brain full of vampire, a story about a vampire still mourning his long-dead human wife occurred to me. I kicked the idea around in my head for about six months, and then I decided to see if there was anything to this crazy idea. From the moment I started writing I never looked back because the characters and the story took over. Originally, I didn’t have any intention to write a piece of historical fiction, which is odd since historical fiction is the genre I’m most associated with, but once I decided to set the story in Salem, Massachusetts I knew I had to incorporate the Salem Witch Trials somehow. The story travels back and forth between Salem during the witch hunts and present-day Salem. This isn’t a blood and guts vampire story. It’s a love story, and James is a very human vampire. You could say the vampires act as a metaphor for any group of people deemed to be different by the general society.

6.What would you like my readers to know?

The greatest compliments I’ve received about That You Are Here is that people who don’t normally read m/m love stories have enjoyed reading it because it focuses on such a human story, and That You Are Here has the highest rating of any of my novels on Amazon and Goodreads. Everyone has to learn how to feel comfortable in their own skin, and everyone has choices to make in their lives about how they’re going to live their best lives while being honest about who they are. Andrew Whittaker and Mark Bryce have quite a journey to travel together, and I hope they are a couple readers cheer for. I hope readers with open minds will give That You Are Here a try.

Website - http://www.meredithallard.com/

Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/copperfield101

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/authormeredithallard

Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/That-You-Are-Here-Novel-ebook/dp/B00I17XBBE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401234223&sr=8-1&keywords=that+you+are+here

One randomly chosen Grand Prize winner will receive a $25 Amazon or BN GC and a runner up will receive a digital copy of the novel.

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