Interview and Giveaway: When Heaven Strikes by F.E. Feeley Jr.

Please join us in welcoming author F.E. Feeley Jr. today on the tour for his new release, When Heaven Strikes. We have a short interview to share with you, as well as a giveaway, so be sure to check out the Rafflecopter widget below for entry details.

Welcome, F.E.!

The Interview

Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

F.E.: Well, I am an Aries with a Leo Moon – that means I say weird shit and I tend to yell it at people. LOL. Kidding. I am passionate. Maybe too passionate, sometimes. I tend to step in it once in a while. I can be wrong and often am. But when I am I’m just as loud in apologizing for it. I learn out loud. I grow in the open. I live that way. And that I don’t apologize for. There’s nothing like being in the sunlight. I’ve lived in the shadows of my life for too long.

Q: Did you always know you wanted to be a writer? Have you held any interesting jobs while you worked on your books?

F.E.: No. I didn’t. My life was hell before I came to write. I think, maybe, because I was trying to do what the world thought I should do instead of doing what it was I loved doing. What I had a passion for.

There’s a grief that cannot be named for those who walk around with a story burning a hole in their heart. And most of the time it’s a story of who they are and where they’ve been. The creating processes when it comes to storytelling is so cathartic. It’s so life affirming. It’s an interesting way to figure out what it is you REALLY feel about life in general.

When you extract your past, your experiences, your thoughts and put them to paper – it moves from this ephemeral memory that dances around in the dark corners of your mind into a tangible – I can hold this in my hand – substantive thing and at that point one can make a value judgment on it, cast it into the trash and be done with it, or throw it out into the marketplace of ideas and let the market take it and let them see it for what it is, and bear witness to your grief, love, life, joy, pain, all of it.

Q: Why did you choose to write GLBTQ romance? Why not another genre?

F.E.: Oh, wow, talking about stepping in it.

The truth is I didn’t choose romance. It just seems that all things ‘gay’ these days is brought in under romance. Which is fine, to some degree. I think romance is a noble genre despite its detractors. I mean, let’s face it, it’s something we all look for in our own lives to varying degree. Otherwise match.com and companies like that wouldn’t be the multibillion dollar industries they are today. Without Jack and Rose, Titanic would have been a 3-hour documentary.

When I wrote my first book The Haunting of Timber Manor, I went to look for a publisher. I was looking for a queer publishing house. I knew nothing of m/m.

While I’ve been here, I’ve yet to write a straight on romance. While there are romantic threads running through my books, my focus has been on the characters being who they are in relation to the situation that they’re in.

I’ve been gay my whole life. I know gay people. I feel like other people have come before me and paved the way for me. Introducing the world to who we are and how we love.

I’m just taking the torch, so to speak, further into other things.

Q: What does your writing process look like?

F.E.: Headphones, word doc, coffee, dog, and an idea.

Q: Do you have a favorite quote?

F.E.: homo sum: humani nihill a me alienum puto – Publius Terentius Afer (A.k.A Terence)

“I am human. Therefore, nothing human can be alien to me.”

Q: How do you relax?

F.E.: Yoga. Buddhist prayers. Sex. Food. Not always in that order.

Q: What would people be most surprised to know about you?

F.E.: I am a sap. I get emotional. I remember I had an emergency appendectomy. The best conversations start off this way, right? Anyway, when they wheeled me into my hospital room after surgery I was still in a drug-induced fog. But the nurse turned on the television and it was that commercial where the ‘ugly idea’ gets rejected in various places before being taken in and walking onstage in all its rainbow-tailed glory? I was a sobbing mess. Just inconsolable. *two thumbs up* Thanks Morphine! But seriously, Steel Magnolias graveyard scene, Shadowlands, Dean and Sam whenever something bad happens, forget it.

About the Book

Book Title: When Heaven Strikes
Author: F. E. Feeley Jr.
Cover Artist: Goonwrite.com
Genre/s: Contemporary Romance, gay literature
Length: 298 Pages
Goodreads Link
Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Paperback
Blurb: Can love survive heaven’s wrath?

Artist Ted Armstrong lives a solitary and eccentric life. The survivor of child abuse disguised as religion, Ted has cut himself off from the world.

Then Ted meets Anderson Taylor, and it’s like being struck by lightning.

Anderson is a cardiac surgeon whose passion for his work has consumed him. He fears he’ll never find a partner—until he sets eyes on Ted. It’s happening fast, but both men know what they feel is right.

Confronted with an angry preacher, a scandal, and an act of God that threatens to destroy everything, their relationship will face its first true test.

Tour-wide Excerpt

“He was scared.

“Grandma, what’s wrong?”

“Thunderstorm, baby. Hang on,” she said to him, and then to his mother, whom he just spotted to their left, “Where’s the car?”

“At the front of the lot. We were one of the first ones here this morning,” Ann said as she worked to keep up in her flip-flops.

On the water, he saw his yellow bucket floating bottom down. It was spinning hypnotically, but it was when Anderson looked skyward he found himself becoming terrified. Above the lake, the sky had turned a sickly green. The clouds directly above it and moving in closer were swirling in a tight formation with what looked like a big black eye staring down at them.

“Grandma! What’s that?” Anderson exclaimed pointing skyward. She stopped and turned to look.”

“Oh, my God,” she breathed, mostly to herself. Anderson felt panic begin to set it.

Someone shouted close to them, “Jesus Christ! It’s a tornado!”

Watch the Trailer

About the Author

F.E. Feeley Jr. is a poet and the author of six published works – four full length novels, two short stories featured in anthologies, and a good deal of poetry.