How Forever Feels by Laura Drewry

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HOW FOREVER FEELS

Friends First #4

Laura Drewry

Releasing Oct 13th, 2015

Loveswept

From USA Today bestselling author Laura Drewry comes a warm and witty new Friends First novel—perfect for readers of Jill Shalvis and Susan Mallery. How Forever Feels is a sweet tale about the one that got away . . . and the one that came back.

Maya McKay’s heart is as big as Jack Rhodes’s shoulders are broad. Their chemistry is out of control, but it could never work between them because Jack is more than just best friends with her cheating ex-husband—they’re like brothers. Maya, the sensitive, practical florist, has given up on love and is ready to settle for like. But now that Jack’s around again, he’s stirring up old feelings—and turning Maya’s fantasies into irresistible reality.

Jack blew his chance with Maya years ago when he stepped aside for his best friend, Will, and he’s still kicking himself about it. Maya was promised forever once before, and she got burned. But when Jack realizes that second chances aren’t going to fall out of the sky, he seizes the moment—and the woman he’s always loved—to show her how forever truly feels.

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Interview with Laura

1) Who has been the biggest influence in your writing career and how?

Ask me this again next year and the answer might change (LOL) but as I sit here right now, I’m going to say Stephen King and Mary Balogh.

I’d read a handful of King’s books and liked them all, but when I read IT. . .ack! That book changed me. Terrified me. And yet I couldn’t and wouldn’t stop reading it because even though I’ve never been chased by a psychotic clown in the storm drain, King somehow tapped into every childhood fear I’d ever had. It’s been almost thirty years since I read that book and yet it stays with me.

Mary Balogh’s “Bedwyn Saga” books, particularly SLIGHTLY DANGEROUS, took my heart and ripped it into about a billion pieces. I knew, of course, there had to be a happy ending (if there wasn’t, someone was going to hear about it!) but I just couldn’t see how the stuffy uptight duke Wulfric was ever going to get his happily ever after with someone like Christine.

Two very different authors, to be sure, but the way they reached inside me and hit that nerve – whether it was fear or love – was, and still is, extraordinary and it’s one of the things that inspires me.

2)     Tell us a bit about your next release.

HOW FOREVER FEELS is the fourth and final book in my Friends First series. With a painful divorce behind her, Maya has pretty much given up on her dreams of ever having a family until an acquaintance makes her an offer she’d be crazy to pass up. They both want a child, they’d both be great parents, and he’s not looking for a wife, just a mother for his child, so why shouldn’t she jump at the chance?

It all sounds perfect until Jack comes back into her life. He’s one of the few people she trusts, and before long she’s falling head over heels for him, a feeling he’s long felt for her. But he’s also her ex-husband’s best friend and that loyalty runs deep in Jack.

So Maya is going to have to decide what to do. She and Jack might love each other, but they can never be together. On the other hand, she and Griffin can be together but they’ll never love each other.

3)     How much of your own personality/mannerisms come into play in your characters?

I don’t intentionally infuse myself into any character, but still, I think there’s a little bit of me in all of them, something that’s probably true for a lot of authors. It’s always interesting to take a single personality trait (good or bad), mix it up with others (again, good or bad) and see what happens because it never turns out the same way twice.

Having said that, though, I will cop to the fact that Maya’s game playing techniques bear a striking resemblance to the way I play. It’s not pretty.  LOL

4)     From the start, what was your most successful method of reaching your readers? What “false paths have you traveled?

Honestly, I find it difficult to accurately track what works and what doesn’t, but one thing I’m sure of is that word of mouth and reviews are HUGE. As a reader myself, I love it when a friend says to me “You have GOT to read this book.” Really and honestly, you can’t buy marketing or promotion better than that.

I don’t know if there’s a wrong path to take when it comes to reaching readers, but I will say this. When I first started out, I spent a lot of time and money finding promo items to send out; bookmarks, mugs, T-shirts, etc etc. And yes, absolutely, readers like getting gifts (who doesn’t?) but generally speaking, what they like even more is getting their hands on your next book. So while I’m not saying you shouldn’t send out a little swag now and then, I am saying you need to remember the next book is what’s most important. You can’t reach readers if you don’t have a book. 

5)     Got a publishing anecdote? Share, please...lol

At my first RWA conference back in 2005, I had volunteered to hand out bags in the goody room to all the attendees.  It was busy, but things were going pretty well I thought, right up until I went to hand a bag to the next person in line and realized it was Julie-freaking-Garwood. I gaped, I gawked, I choked, I stammered and I’m pretty sure the only words that ever actually left my mouth were “I love you.”  I’m happy to report she was very gracious.  

6)     What do you read when you aren't writing?

I’m always writing. LOL My reading choices run the gamut from YA to horror and everything in between. In the last few months, some of the books I’ve read that stand out are Lauren Layne’s new adult novel BLURRED LINES, Stephen King’s MR. MERCEDES, Sidney Halston’s sexy MMA book LAID OUT and, of course, Kristan Higgins’ new book, IF YOU ONLY KNEW (she’s an auto buy for me).

7)     What advice would you give to aspiring writers who have taken the time to learn their craft yet struggle with promotion?

Keep writing.

Promotion can be hard hard hard, and what works for one person will be a disaster for the next, so the best thing you can do is to keep writing, keep giving people something to read. In a world that seems to revolve around social media, it’s easy to spread yourself too thin, to try and be everywhere all the time. Yes, you should put yourself out there and make yourself available, but never at the expense of the next book because without a finished product, you have nothing to promote.

8)     What are your biggest concerns about the literary world? What would you change and how?

Part of me feels like I should have a deep thought-provoking answer for this (LOL), but overall, I think it’s an amazing time to be a part of the literary world. Authors have so many more opportunities and avenues now than they had five or ten years ago and it’s fascinating to watch how indy publishing, for example, has exploded over the last several years.

Are things perfect? No, but they’ve never been perfect. LOL There are always going to be concerns with things like pirating or the troubles that went on between Amazon and a few of the big publishers, and if I had any idea how to fix those things,  I would, but while we all try to figure it out, I’m going to keep writing.

Thank you so much for inviting me here today – I had a great time!


 

USA Today Bestselling author, Laura Drewry had been scribbling things for years before she decided to seriously sit down and write. After spending eight years in the Canadian north, Laura now lives back home in southwestern British Columbia with her husband, three sons, a turtle named Sheldon, and an extremely energetic German shepherd. She loves old tattered books, good movies, country music, and the New York Yankees.

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