We’re so pleased to have author Kayleigh Sky and the Jesus Kid blog tour joining us at TNA today. She’s talking about genre boundaries today, and there’s also a giveaway, so be sure to check that out below.
Welcome, Kayleigh!
When Genre’s Just Another Word for Freedom
I was one of those kids who always knew I wanted to be a writer. I never wanted the stories to end, and when they did, I’d just continue them in my imagination. When I was growing up, I participated in a program that provided low cost books to the students in my middle school. I’m not sure who managed the program and how it was funded, and the books were typically off-sized with different covers than the retails versions, but it was like Christmas whenever a delivery came in, and I’d get another stack of books to plow through. Many of these books frustrated me, though, and I’d invent alternate endings because I didn’t like the ones the authors came up with. I was convinced I could do it better, so my imagination took off.
I loved to create stories; it’s all I wanted to do. I loved my classes in English and creative writing and literature, but the direction of these classes was classical. In other words—literary. Don’t get me wrong. I love literary fiction, too, and of course, I wanted to set the world on fire with my own writing. Win the Pulitzer and the Nobel Prize. That meant high-brow writing, so that’s what I wrote. Literary fiction. It didn’t matter that literary fiction wasn’t all I liked. I put Raymond Chandler on the same pedestal as Ernest Hemingway. I love pulp fiction and film noir. Dostoyevsky and Mickey Spillane. Mainstream romances not so much. But Jane Eyre? Greatest. Book. Ever. Also, if you ever get a chance to pick up an old Phyllis Whitney romance, do it.
But back to my point—literary fiction was supposed to be the pinnacle, so I published a book called You Hear Me? using the pen name Ainsley Finn. At the same time, though, I had discovered the world of M/M, a genre within the romance genre, which is a genre with its own sub-genres of mystery (with all of mystery’s subgenres), suspense, contemporary (with a dizzying array of tropes), paranormal, fantasy, dystopian, and science-fiction. And probably more. If I missed your favorite, forgive me. This was heaven to me. But how do I label myself in a world like this. Am I a science fiction romance writer? Pretty Human was science fiction. A writer of dystopian fiction? That was Backbone and Jesus Kid. But Doll Baby was contemporary suspense, and Trinkets was contemporary with a hint of mystery.
My next release will be a contemporary, coming-home, second chances kind of story, again with a hint of mystery. Right now, I’m plotting a paranormal, and I have a few other science fiction stories on the back burner. Pretty Human was mpreg. I think it’s tough to brand yourself when you write all over the spectrum like this, but the freedom appeals to me. I mostly, but definitely not always, write dystopian and science fiction. Yet, as I mentioned, paranormal and other contemporary romances are on my horizon. The romance and M/M community allow me the freedom to choose “fuzzy” boundaries. Romance, but in a boatload of different ways. Who gets to do that with literary fiction? Or even mainstream commercial fiction? Not many writers.
This is a fantastic genre for expressing oneself and exploring all the different ways of thinking and being. In a book like Jesus Kid, you can explore the future and an indomitable human spirit all within the cozy comfort of a romance. And for somebody who never really fit in anywhere else, the M/M romance community is a breath of fresh air. Not a bad place to crash land.
About the Book
Buy Link: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 114,000 words
Blurb: Thirty years ago, an asteroid stuck the Earth. Now killer plants hunt the last surviving humans.
Ori Scott is a young junkie running from his mother’s prophecy that he’d one day save the world from the killer plants. Her preaching made him a laughingstock and now he hides in his drugs. But he can’t hide the change in his veins. They are turning green, and the prophecy is dragging him into a dark struggle between invisible forces. Set up on bogus drug charges, Ori is taken to a secret facility where he becomes a test subject in experiments to discover an antidote to the alien plant’s sting.
Jack Doll is a cop with a vendetta against the plants that killed his best friend. All he has in the world now is his old friend’s lover, Rive. Together they form an unbreakable bond—or so he thought. Jack has never liked Rive’s friend, Ori, but he believes in Ori’s innocence and doesn’t understand Rive’s strange indifference to Ori’s conviction. Struggling with his suspicions, Jack can’t help digging into a mystery that draws him closer to Ori than ever before—and closer to somebody who has secrets to hide.
Alone and scared, Ori is grateful for Jack Doll’s friendship, and his longtime crush soon blossoms into love. But Ori has no plans to accept his fate. He wants to escape, and he doesn’t care if he takes the cure with him.
About the Author
Kayleigh Sky is a m/m erotic romance writer. Kayleigh’s stories are tales of struggle and pain, loss and despair. Love is won in the battle to rise out of the depths of darkness. Victory is in the sweet bliss of happily ever after.
Once upon a time Kayleigh hid out in a cold dark garage reading a book her parents forbid her to read. She was nine years old. The book? Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, a story of love between two men–well, actually the story was a little more complicated than that, but hey, she was nine.
In the dark of the garage, a light, a passion, a sheer joy for love in all its manifestations awoke.
And love between two men–Hot!
Kayleigh’s men are often broken, always brave, and always memorable.
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The Giveaway
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Follow the Tour
December 8 – Queer Scifi
December 9 – Making It Happen
December 12 – The Novel Approach
December 14 – Love Bytes
December 18 – Sinfully MM Romance