In the Author Spotlight

Amber Green

AL: Hi Amber Thanks for being in the “Author Spotlight” this week. So, tell us what’s happening with you.

Amber: We got a new puppy on the first day of April. My fifteen-year-old golden retriever mix had died a year ago in January, and my big sweet white shepherd had died four months later, so we'd been looking for a puppy since St. Patrick's Day. On our last visit to the pound, one little brown fuzzy-butt just stood out from all the rest. His name's Baron. He will probably grow up to be 70 or 80 pounds.

AL: Shifters in Lust…oh my! Tell us about your newest release?

Amber: My newest release is Golden Boys, recently released in ebook form by Aspen Mountain Press http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/new-releases/golden-boys/prod_309.html and soon to be released in paperback by MLR Press as half of the Smart Ass: Pressure Point anthology. Golden Boys is my best shot at a fluffy dick-lit beach read, even though both heroes do get shot.

AL: What upcoming works do you have in store for us?

Amber: I'm working on a sequel to my Prohibition-era menage story Steal Away, which was released in February as part of Loose Id's salute to Black History Month. The sequel will be set in 1930 and partly in New Orleans, so it has to include some paranormal elements. I'm also working on a light-hearted m/m story tentatively called Crisco Twister and a war story set in Afghanistan. I'm also wrapping up the third Turner & Turner story, which started with One Good Turn at MLR Press.

AL: When you write do you do a detailed outline before you get started or do you have the idea then just 'fly by the seat of your pants'? :-)

Amber: I get an idea and I chew on it a while, writing one scene or snatch of dialogue and then another, while researching. Then I throw out all but one (maybe two) of those bits and fly with it.

AL: Of your books, who’s your favorite hero and heroine?

Amber: Oh, my--that's a difficult one. The answer keeps changing.

AL: If you weren't writing, what do you suppose you'd be doing?

Amber: Reading.

AL: Now, settle back and relax…What is this romance writer's idea of the "perfect romantic evening"?

Amber: A pile of cushions by the fireplace, slices of apple and crystal ginger, a bowl of whipped cream, the two of us leaning together while reading by firelight. Happy sigh.

AL: Spring is here! What is your favorite part about the season?

Amber: Putting out new plants for the garden. Come summer, it will be too hot to enjoy them, but the beginnings are just irresistible.

AL: If you could have any car in the world; would it be a slow rider, or one that the wind has to hurry just to keep up with you?

Amber: Fly or poke? Fly!

AL: What favorite movie; or T.V. show makes you hunker down on the sofa and settle in for the night?

Amber: I haven't watched TV in ... probably more than a year. I did recently pick up the new Star Trek movie to watch on my computer. Loved it.

AL: Imagine if you will…If you had to write yourself as a villain, what kind of villain would you be? What would you be named?

Amber: I'd be a supervillain. Someone sleek and mysterious, who acts seldom but terribly and with an inexorable...Ah, tell the truth--I'd be a meddlesome frizzy-headed finger-shaker who needles and pesters people into action, and they'd refer to me in terrified whispers: Oh, Shit!

AL: Please share a favorite quote(s) with us.

Amber: "We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home." Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965)

AL: Thanks so much for sharing with joining us this week, Amber.

Amber: Thank you for having me! I'll check back in a couple of times a day. We'll need to think up some contests, won't we? I love giving out prizes.
 
AL: If you’d like to find out more about Amber please visit:
 
www.shapeshiftersinlust.com
 

FEATURED TITLE: GOLDEN BOYS
 
Blurb:
 
Nobody expected me to take risks, much less fall prey to the street culture my family so abhors--while Jell was a living enticement to take chances, to test the rules. They say after you break one rule, all others become suggestions. But how far does that go? I had to wonder, when the FBI asked me to betray the guy I've had a crush on since ninth grade.
 
So Jell and I have one less secret between us. Which would be better news if we weren't busy escaping a psychiatric clinic in the middle of the night, half naked, with people shooting at us. The only refuge we can agree to head for is my crazy cousin Gator's retirement village. Now we're lost. We're cold. And did I mention half-naked?
 
I've never been so alive.
 
Excerpt:
 
Jell plopped sprawling in the chair beside the bed and sneered again. "What happened to med school? Or did you switch to divinity school?"
 
"I flunked out." I pulled the old fashioned blood pressure cuff out of the wall rack, and turned on the conveniently placed miniature spotlight so I could better see what to do with it. My penlight cast a bluish light that would make his skin look like something dead. In the spotlight, he was not quite the color of penuche, or pralines. His skin was fine-grained doeskin, stretched taut over wiry muscles. He'd lost weight since I'd seen him last.
 
He sat a moment, while I tried to remember how to wind the cuff around his arm. When he spoke, his voice had lost its serrated edge. "Ethan? For real? Your parents must've shit.
 
"Metaphorically speaking, yes. "You might have heard them from wherever you were, but you might've mistaken the noise for sonic booms."
 
"Did they throw you out? Hey, you need money?" He put his hand on my arm. A study in contrasts.
 
I'd been the golden boy all the time we were growing up. He'd had the bright skin, but I'd had the bright future, the parents still married to each other, the certainty I wouldn't just graduate--I was going to be a doc-tor. I was going to have a three-car garage and a house on the beach so I could watch the waves roll in at night. Now Jelly Richardson had a beach house and I made my living washing crusted vomit out of people's hair.
 
And self-pity wasn't going to get me anywhere. "They didn't throw me out, and I have a job." I also have a side job, which I have to take on faith won't involve betraying you. My finger fell on the problem, and why I'd blurted out my mission at the first opportunity. If this job did constitute screwing a friend, there wouldn't be any subterfuge about it. I'd twist his arm as best I could, but I wouldn't lie to him.
 
"You can't tell me the folks are down with this shit."
 
"No. But they're just giving me those...looks, you know?" And besides, since Monday they'd been a lot more concerned about my sexual orientation.
 
"You 'spoze to wrap it with the tube thing coming out right in the crook of the elbow. If you need a place out from under them, come stay with me. I have plenty of room.
 
"And plenty of people to share it with. Including a girlfriend. "Go from bumming off my folks to bumming off my friends?"
 
"You could tell your uncle you're keeping an eye on me. He might pay you for that."
 
"Why? What have you been doing to catch the attention of the FBI?"
 
"Is this place bugged?"
 
"If it is, they didn't tell me. And if it were, would they hire me to lure you out of here so they could talk to you?"