We’re so pleased to have the writing team of Reesa Herberth and Michelle Moore joining us today on the tour for their New Adult Comedy, Detour. There here to reveal a bit about their MCs and are also offering up a great giveaway, so be sure to check out those details below.

Welcome, Reesa and Michelle!

Detour: Four Versions of Nick and Ethan Who Never Made it to the Page, and One Who Did

We’ve been writing Nick and Ethan (the main characters in our latest book, Detour) for over twenty years.  In all that time, we’ve dressed them up in a lot of different clothes.  Here are a few Nicks and Ethans who weren’t ready to be shared with the world.

Konamasi – Old school, original flavour Nick and Ethan. This near-future roleplaying brought to life an Ethan who’d agreed to have some sketchy cybernetics implanted in his head for reasons of… industrial espionage?  I think?  Honestly, that part of the plotline took a faaaaar back seat (think third-row, folded down into the floorboards) to the accidental love story that sprung up instead.  Who -doesn’t- fall for the addict they trip over in the middle of a park, especially when he turns out to have the same kind of brain implant, and be the long lost son of the richest family in town? (I watched a lot of soap operas at the time. I make no apologies.)

Punk!Verse – I’m pretty sure this version came next.  Ethan and Nick went from their late 20’s to their late teens (or in Nick’s case, his not-as-late-as-he-claimed-teens), and they gained friends and family.  This is where Nick’s friend Stefan first showed up, as Nick’s roommate, protector, and a member of their terrible punk band. Ethan’s family grew into the large, loving, chaotic group they are today.  Nick and Ethan fell hard, fast, and messily for one another, and we had a ton of fun writing them as they learned to be adults. Which probably should have told us something, but we didn’t clue into New Adult fiction for a long time.

Privateers – It was Barbados. Nick was the Governor’s disgraced son. Ethan was an amnesiac shipwreck survivor, who’d probably been on his way to life in a monastery before pirates left him adrift.  Stefan made an appearance as the grumpy ship’s doctor.  I still want to write this story, but we’re going to need some new characters.

Gothic!Verse – This was purely self-indulgent, dark as hell, more than a little creepy, and super fun to write. Southern gothic roots, but set in a seaside mansion on the coast of Maine.  Secret passages, laudanum, and the requisite “sex in a rainy, windswept field” scene.  I also still want to do something with this story, but I’m not ready to have that much of my id on display.  It should be noted, however, that Ethan and Nick?  Totally in love.

All of which led us to…

Detour – A friend of ours once told us, “You guys are hilarious. You should write a romcom.”  So we tried.  And we failed.  Kind of.  What we’ve got instead is Detour, a New Adult contemporary that has some really funny parts, some really sad parts, and just a touch of the absurd- kind of our calling card. This Ethan and this Nick are more than just the latest versions of characters we’ve built, torn down, and rebuilt over the years.  There’s a spark of magic in these two, as though, through twenty years, all those different universes, and across a continent, they’ve finally come home for good.

About the Book

Ethan Domani had planned the perfect graduation trip before tragedy put his life on hold. Smothered by survivor’s guilt and his close-knit family, he makes a break for the open road. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he’s got the whole summer to figure out who he misses more: his boyfriend, or the person he thought he was. It’s just him and his memories . . . until he almost runs over a hitchhiker.

Nick Hamilton made some mistakes after his younger brother died. His violent ex-boyfriend was the most dangerous, and the one that got him shipped off to Camp Cornerstone’s pray-the-gay-away boot camp. His eighteenth birthday brings escape, and a close call with an idiot in a station wagon. Stranger danger aside, Nick’s homeless, broke, and alone. A ride with Ethan is the best option he’s got.

The creepy corners of roadside America have nothing on the darkness haunting Ethan and Nick. Every interstate brings them closer to uncharted emotional territory. When Nick’s past shows up in their rearview mirror, the detour might take them off the map altogether.

Buy the Book: Amazon || Barnes & Noble || iBooks || Kobo

About the Authors

Reesa Herberth grew up in Hawaii, tried Arizona for a few years, and eventually settled in the D.C. area, where they have trees and rain.

She’s held a variety of crazy writer jobs, including book and video store manager for a defunct chain of music shops, office goddess for an artisan ice cream maker, cheese-cup scrubber at an organic goat dairy, high school secretary, and dye-stained proprietress of a small yarn and fiber business.

When not writing, she can usually be found reading, gardening, cooking, or spinning yarns of another sort entirely. She often resents her need for sleep.

With Michelle Moore, she is the author of the Ylendrian Empire books, including The Balance of Silence, the award-winning space opera caper, The Slipstream Con, and Peripheral People, a sci fi thriller with psychics and squishy feelings, coming soon.

Connect with Reesa: Websites: michelleandreesawrite.com and ylendrianempire.com || Email || Goodreads

Michelle Moore has a well-documented obsession with travel, television, frappaccinos and flamingos. These, however, come in a distant second to her love of writing. Most evenings she can be found huddled over her laptop at the local Starbucks, dividing her time between actually writing and pretending to be a barista.

While Michelle would like to claim child prodigy status, the truth is that she’s only been scribbling words on paper since she was six.  However, she’s moved beyond those initial Dick and Jane story knock-offs to the Ylendrian Universe, a much more rewarding and enjoyable choice of subject matter.

Connect with Michelle: Websites: ylendrianempire.com and michelleandreesawrite.com || Email || Goodreads

The Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Detour, Reesa and Michelle are giving away a $20 gift card to the Ripped Bodice! If the winner is outside the US, it will be a $20 Amazon gift card instead. Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on May 12, 2018. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following along, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!