Guest Post and Giveaway: Her Hometown Girl by Lorelei Brown

Welcome to author Lorelei Brown and the Her Hometown Girl virtual blog tour! Lorelei is talking distractions today–something we can all relate to–and there’s also a great giveaway, so be sure to check out the details below.

Butt in chair, hands on keyboard. That’s the ideal, right? That’s the only way to get the hardcore writing done and the pages knocked out. And like Nora Roberts says, you can’t edit a blank page.

Except sometimes my pages stay blank. I get distracted. Not in a bad way, I don’t think. I’m not a super soldier and I just don’t think I’m one of those people who can write every day. It doesn’t lead to my best books. I need some time to fill my life back up.

That being said, here’s my five favorite distractions:

1. Stupid ass ipad games. I have no aspirations to greatness in this arena. My favorite game at the moment is SimCity. It’s not hard. I click animated factories and select materials and then put them together to craft things. Every so often I get to collect gold from my city taxes. There are weekly challenges where I have to craft a certain amount of items in a certain timeframe. My brain, it is happy when I play this game. It’s calm inside my head. I also play Simon’s Cat, which is like Candy Crush, except with cute cat animations.
2. Peaky Blinders is my current favorite tv show. I used to like House of Cards, but halfway through the new season the Russia plotline popped up and I simply could not handle it. I had to turn it off. Even my crush on Claire Underwood couldn’t overcome my current inability to invest in dirty politicians as entertainment. We’re all too busy fighting awful politics in real life. So, Peaky Blinders it is. Cillian Murphy’s eyes are luminous. The setting is rich and nuanced. When Tom Hardy shows up and they verbally spar, it’s happy happy bonus times.
3. Sometimes I think I’m the slowest knitter on earth. I have about four inches of what will someday be a lightweight sweater (I hope) but those few inches have taken me…six months? I think? I’ve recently joined a knit-along, and my fervent hope is that I am not the last person to finish their project. I don’t even care if I’m next to last. That’s a win in my books!
4. I never thought I would be this person. I joined the Army eighteen years ago and the running was something I just had to get through. I managed. I mean, sure I got a stress fracture in my hip and then Achilles tendonitis, but I made it through and that’s what mattered, right? Heh. Now I run for fun three days a week. It’s insane. I don’t run long – only about 2.5 or 3 miles – and I always, always, always run on a treadmill. It keeps my ankles relatively pain free. But I adore my run time. (Even though it’s a toss up which I do slower, knit or run.)

Reading. Duh, right? Stephen King (all hail!) said “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” I went on a camping trip with my family this summer. It was a four day trip. I took four paperbacks. I worried that maybe I wasn’t taking enough books, so I made sure I had oh, half a dozen or so loaded on my iPad. Heh. I didn’t go through them all though – I only finished two and started a third. Pretty low key after all. ;)

About Her Hometown Girl

I had doubts before the Big Day—doesn’t everyone?—but I didn’t expect to find my fiancée banging the caterer’s assistant right before the ceremony. Especially because he’s a guy. And we’re lesbians. The proper sort of Southern Californian lesbians who invest in hedge funds and wear bedazzled wedding dresses and wouldn’t be caught dead in a Subaru.

But then I became a runaway bride, headed straight for Belladonna Ink to get the kind of tattoo I always wanted and my ex always called trashy. She didn’t approve of a lot of things I did. I think maybe she didn’t approve of who I am.

So I’m determined to be as much of myself as I can manage. Dating my tattoo artist? I’m in. Cai is smart, sexy, and mysterious. Exactly what I need for a rebound. She keeps herself guarded, but I understand—I’m holding on to secrets too. The kind of secrets that make a girl want to run home to Mom, even if home is Idaho. Maybe especially then. I just didn’t expect Cai to come with me.

I wonder what it would take to get her to stay forever.

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About the Belladonna Ink Universe

Belladonna Ink is the hottest female-centric tattoo parlor in Southern California. It doesn’t matter if you’re cis, trans, het, gay, or spectrum, our host of female tattoo artists will give you beautiful ink, personally designed. We don’t believe in paint-by-number drawings—you’re worth more than that. Give us a chance and we’ll help you find the meaning in your personal scribbles, and turn your skin into our professional canvas.

Just one thing: it’s really weird, but all our friends and some of our artists keep falling in love. Maybe it’s something in the ink.

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About the Author

After a seminomadic childhood throughout California, Lorelie Brown spent high school in Orange County before joining the US Army. After traveling the world from South Korea to Italy, she now lives north of Chicago. She writes her Pacific Blue series of hot surfers in order to channel some warmth.

Lorelie has three active sons, two yappy dogs, and a cat who cusses her out on a regular basis for not petting him enough.

In her immense free time (hah!) Lorelie cowrites award-winning contemporary erotic romance under the name Katie Porter. You can find out more about the Vegas Top Guns and Command Force Alpha series at www.KatiePorterBooks.com or at @MsKatiePorter. You can also contact Lorelie on Twitter @LorelieBrown.

Connect with Lorelie: Website || Twitter: @LorelieBrown || Facebook

The Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Her Hometown Girl, one lucky winner will receive a bottle of Macallan single malt whisky! Contest IS restricted to both US entries and to those over the age of 21. Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on September 9, 2017. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!