Hi everyone. I’m Tara Lain and I write
the Beautiful Boys of Romance. I’m so happy to be here with Belinda today. We’ll
be hanging out at GayRomLit together in a couple weeks! Yahoo! Belinda
challenged me to answer the question “How did you come up with that?” The first
thing that came to mind was the question people keep asking me about my new
release, F.A.S.T. Balls. The question -- How did you decide to make the
villain a hero?
F.A.S.T. Balls is the
fifth book in a loosely connected series called Balls to the Wall. In the
second book, Fire Balls, there’s a secondary character who readers fell in
love with -- Jerry Wallender, the laid back surfer dude who becomes a
firefighter at the end of the book. Jerry is kind, innately good, a brilliant
athlete, and unashamedly gay. Also in that book is a really nasty villain, Mick
Cassidy. Mick is a homophobic firefighter who makes life miserable for one of
my heroes and ultimately gets beaten up by my main character, Rodney. We don’t
get to know Mick in Fire Balls. We’re never in his POV and no one has a
conversation with him. We don’t know his motivations. As a homophobe, he
represents a “brand” of opposition to my heroes rather than a true individual,
but he is really nasty. Late in the book, after he is defeated by my good guys,
he vanishes and we never know what happens to him. Did he lose his job? Did he
hurt other people? Some readers asked, what happened to Mick?
I got tons of emails saying Jerry
had to have his HEA. At the end of Fire Balls, he’s dating a college
professor, so I had the chance to continue that relationship, but where was the
conflict? Where was the drama in that? Those two questions readers asked me
kept playing in my mind -- When would Jerry get his HEA? What happened to Mick?
I couldn’t resist! I had to put them together.
Great villains make great heroes they
say. That expression actually refers to mixing a great villain in the same
story with a great hero which makes the hero greater when he overcomes the bad
guy. But what if the hero and villain are the same guy? Mick was a really bad villain. People told me
I was crazy when they found out I was going to redeem him in F.A.S.T.
Balls. Readers hated this guy!! But I thought since Mick was so
horrible, there had to be a very horrible explanation for his behavior. I
thought up the worst possible way that a man could become a homophobe. I
created a pseudo-religious environment in which children are indoctrinated into
homophobia from childhood. By making Mick’s upbringing totally despicable, I
hoped to make the fact that he strives to rise above it so admirable that he
would be worthy of Jerry, the readers’ favorite guy. After all, Jerry couldn’t
have just an ordinary Joe as his lover. He needed the best. So far, reviews
suggest that people love Mick!
Redemption complete! Whew. And that’s how I came up with F.A.S.T. Balls.
: )
EXCERPT:
Excerpt:
F.A.S.T. Balls by Tara Lain; The Gay Fireman and the Homophobe
Firefighter
and surfing champion, Jerry Wallender, looks like a hero to the world, but he
can’t see it. He keeps falling for these intellectual guys who end up making
him feel dumb and unneeded. On top of
that, Mick Cassidy, super-gorgeous firefighter and total homophobe, makes
Jerry’s life miserable with his slurs. Then one day Mick’s nice to Jerry and,
at the Firefighter’s Ball, Jerry offers a helping hand and ends up with a
hand-job. What the hell is going on?
Mick
Cassidy is great with fighting fires and solving math problems but rotten with
people. Raised by a gay-hating preacher, Mick’s carefully constructed world of
gay bashing starts to crumble when he meets Jerry, the nicest, kindest man he’s
ever known. Mick’s never wanted a woman
and can’t stop thinking about sex with Jerry. In fact, he can’t stop doing it.
Does that make him gay? And if he’s gay, what happens to his whole life? A
hook-up between sweet Jerry and mean Mick might be total disaster -- or the
smartest idea Jerry ever had.
The band got into the spirit and segued
from the cha cha into a meringue. Jerry didn’t know this one as well but he
mimicked Andres and pretty soon had the rhythm. Some people were standing
around watching them while others joined in and danced. Andres was so gorgeous
and so great at dancing. He even spun a couple of the women around as he danced
by them and they squealed. What a charmer.
The musicians worked up to a big finish.
Andres pulled Jerry in close then spun him out in a twirl. He circled twice,
laughed, and…stopped dead.
Holy crap. Standing on the edge of the
dance floor staring at the dancers with big green eyes was the yummiest thing
he’d ever seen. Mick Cassidy, tall, straight and strong in a dress blue
uniform, the light from the ballroom chandeliers shining off his pale gold
hair.
Jerry stared.
Mick stared.
Jerry glanced at the girl standing next
to Mick. Really pretty in a blue dress. But nothing, underline nothing, he had
seen in a long time was as pretty as that big, hunky homophobe. Mick might be
mean as piss, as Hunter said, but he stood there proving that sometimes things
that were bad for you are the ones you want most.
A hand on his shoulder woke him up. “You
okay, Jerry?”
“Oh, sorry.” He turned and smiled at
Andres, but man, it was hard tearing his eyes away. “I just saw someone I
know.”
He headed back to the table and Andres
stepped up beside him. “Was the person you know that golden dreamboat in blue
by any chance?”
He wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t
know who Andres meant. “Yeah, that’s the guy I was telling Rod and Hunter
about. The one who was nice to me.”
“Oh guapo, he can be nice to me
anytime.”
Jerry laughed. “Yeah. Too bad he’s a
raging fag hater.”
“So why was he nice?”
“I still haven’t figured that out.”
* * *
He’d been turned to stone. Hell, he had
to move. This was stupid. Mick watched Jerry’s retreating back moving off the
dance floor and saw him guiding a beautiful Mexican with him. Who the hell was
that? Jerry had said his boyfriend had left him. He’d sure moved on fast.
“You know that guy?”
He glanced at Jezebel. Oh right, she was
with him. “Yes, he works on my shift a lot of the time.”
“Sure is a good dancer. He a fag? Must
be, if he’s dancing with a guy, right.”
Whoa. He used that word all the time but
it sounded bad when she said it about Jerry. “Yeah, he’s gay.”
“Must be like your father says. You see
a lot of gay guys in Laguna.”
“Yes.” It felt weird to have his
father’s ideas dragged into his work life.
She looked out at the dancers. “I always
figured what your father says is a load of crap. Gay people are born that way
so it has to be God’s will and if it’s not then God’s a load of crap.”
Mick gasped and looked
at her. Really looked. “I don’t believe you just said that.”
You
can find Tara HERE:
Tara Lain writes the Beautiful Boys of Romance in LGBT
erotic romance novels that star her unique, charismatic heroes. Her first novel
was published in January of 2011 and she’s now somewhere around book 21. Her
best-selling novels have garnered awards for Best Series, Best Contemporary
Romance, Best Ménage, Best LGBT Romance, Best Gay Characters, and Tara has been
named Best Writer of the Year in the LRC Awards. In her other job, Tara owns an
advertising and public relations firm. She often does workshops on both author
promotion and writing craft. She lives
with her soul-mate husband and her soul-mate dog in Laguna Beach, California, a
pretty seaside town where she sets a lot of her books. Passionate about diversity, justice, and new
experiences, Tara says on her tombstone it will say “Yes”!
I've also released The Bacchi in paperback, also with a new PL Nunn cover! You can grab these two at Lulu. While they will go up for sale elsewhere, I can give you a better price there. Here's where you can find these two: 
