Where There’s a Will: A Guest Post and Giveaway with Author Cari Z

We’re so pleased to have author Cari Z with us today, on the tour for her new novel Where There’s a Will, book three in the Panopolis series. Enjoy Cari’s guest post, and then be sure to check out the giveaway details below.

Good luck!

Open Ends and New Beginnings

I am, at my writerly heart, a pantser.

Yeah, I am. I’m not ashamed, although I am trying to integrate a modicum of preparedness into my series. Most of the time, though, I write very organically, and whatever happens in the story happens. I write it, roll with it and then make it all consistent in the beta-ing and editing process. *offers brief thanks for the incredible patience of my editors*

Panopolis was never originally meant to be a series. I wrote Where There’s Smoke for an anthology call offered by another press, and it was rejected. I thought to myself, “Oh well, so much for that…or, wait, I could redo it and then try Riptide.” It was accepted, but I figured it would be a one-off until someone pointed out to me that supervillains fighting superheroes, from the villain’s point of view, would make a really interesting series.

Trying to make a series out of something you never intended to go that way is hard. HAAAARD. You have to look for nuance in scenes you wrote six months ago and see if you can’t blow them up into a whole new plot arc for a different story. It wasn’t easy, but I worked out the second book, Where There’s Fire, and was feeling pretty good about myself.

The third book, though, I needed a change. My original couple had been through hell, and I just couldn’t focus on them again so soon. I wanted to shake things up, try something and someone different, and I ended up gravitating toward the overbearingly-righteous Freight Train, who had turned ever so slightly to the dark side in Where There’s Fire. I thought there were interesting things to be done with a Hero in a city full of Villains who weren’t all bad, and I was right.

Where There’s A Will is, to date, the book I’m most proud of. It takes a character who was never meant to be sympathetic and humanizes him, works him over, lifts him up and then casts him down so hard he’ll never be the same. That’s life, and I promise, it’s not all bad. This story is about a regular guy in an irregular world, doing the best he can and getting some help on the way. I hope you enjoy it.

As for what comes next? I just don’t know yet, but I’m not afraid. Something always comes through in the end. In Panopolis, anything is possible.

About Where There’s a Will: Being a Hero in Panopolis means living the high life: parties, money, influence, even reality television. And I’m one of the most powerful Heroes in the city. I have plenty of fans, a manager who looks out for me (after himself), and a job that pays the bills. I should be enjoying myself.

Unfortunately, the downside of my superpower means I can’t touch anyone, which tends to put a damper on things. I probably don’t deserve all those perks anyway, since I’m working in secret with two of Panopolis’s biggest Villains to undermine GenCorp—my main sponsor and the company that controls what gets through my force field.

I obviously don’t trust my corporate overseers, but they’ve hired a new scientist who actually seems interested in helping me. Dr. Mansourian might have the answers to all my questions—not to mention a starring role in most of my dreams—but he’s hiding something big. If I let him have what he wants, I might not live to regret it.

Then again, the way things are going in Panopolis these days, I might not live either way.

About Cari Z

Cari Z was a bookworm as a child and remains one to this day. In an effort to combat her antisocial reading behavior, she did all sorts of crazy things, from competitive gymnastics to alligator wresting (who even knew that was legal!) to finally joining the Peace Corps, which promptly sent her and her husband to the wilds of West Africa, stuck them in a hut, and said, “See ya!” She also started writing, because some things she just thought she could do better. She’s still climbing that ladder, but can’t stop herself from writing, or from sharing what she creates.

Cari enjoys a wide range of literary genres, from the classics (get ‘im, Ahab) to science fiction and fantasy of all types, to historical fiction and reference materials (no, seriously, there are so many great encyclopedias out there). She writes in a wide range of genres as well, but somehow 90% of what she produces ends up falling into the broad and exciting category of m/m erotica. There’s a sprinkling of f/m and f/f and even m/f/m in her repertoire, but her true love is man love. And there’s a lot of love to go around.

Cari has published short stories, novellas, and novels with numerous print and e-presses, and she also offers up a tremendous amount of free content on Literotica.com, under the name Carizabeth.

Connect with Cari: Website || Blog || Twitter @author_cariz

The Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Where There’s a Will, Cari is giving away ebooks of both Where There’s Smoke and Where There’s Fire, a $10 Riptide credit, and a Panopolis t-shirt. Leave a comment to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on May 7, 2016. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!