Welcome to author Cari Z., who’s stopped in today to chat a bit about her latest release, Handle with Care, a brand new addition to Dreamspinner Press’s Dreamspun Desires line.
Enjoy!
Sometimes I wish I had the luxury of a career “do-over.”
I’m not one of those writers who started at the top of her game. Some authors burst onto the scene and their first book is a hit, and it sets them up in a different kind of place. A place of expectation, probably a place of very real pressure. I imagine it to be a happy and decidedly tense situation, slightly uncomfortable due to all the people hanging on their every word and the attending difficulties, but also a lot of fun.
That’s not me. And I’m not writing this to be a downer, I have no problems with the way my career has worked out. It’s been slow and steady, starting with free work, moving on to publishing in anthologies, and finally my own novellas and novels. It was never my full-time job—still isn’t—and I was never drawn to focus on the business side of things as heavily as a lot of authors.
Point in fact: I never wrote contemporary, the powerhouse of the romance genre.
Or if I did, they were only short little one-off stories. 10k or fewer drifts into the land adjacent to reality known as “Contemporary Romance-ville” and then back to the realm of science fiction, fantasy, and all other types of genre-bending weirdness. I liked it that way. I loved it that way, that stuff was easy for me to write. But I think, and this has been a long time coming, that I would have had more fun if I’d tried harder to get into contemporary sooner. I like reading it, after all, I just didn’t think I had the chops to write it for the longest time.
Even when I did finally open the doors to contemporary novels, I went with thrillers. I’m a huge James Bond/Jason Bourne/John Wick fan, so gun fights and explosions seemed like a natural direction, whereas challenging interpersonal emotional content…maybe not so much. But I don’t like setting arbitrary limits on what I can and can’t do, and so finally I came around to the idea of a contemporary novel that focused on something other than life-changing catastrophes. No murder, no mayhem, just a couple of guys learning about the depth of their affection for each other while dealing with a family wedding.
Okay, so there is some mayhem, and maybe a few people want to commit murder every now and then, but for the most part Handle With Care is nonviolent toward both people and property. It’s a softer book than I’ve written before, with a slow-burn love story and a lot of emotional baggage being unpacked. It’s funny, it’s gentle, and at times it’s frustrating. If I was starting my writing career over again, this might be one of the novels I hope I’d put out there early on—something to raise the bar for what I can write in our very own world, instead of speculating about the stars. I’m proud of it, and I hope you enjoy it.
And now…back to writing about colonizing distant worlds.
Baby steps, folks. Baby steps.
About the Book
A fragile heart needs extra care.
Burned-out social worker Aaron McCoy is on vacation for the first time in years—boss’s orders. Road-tripping to his brother’s wedding with his best friend, Tyler, seems a fun way to spend the mandatory two-week leave, and they set out for Kansas—and a difficult homecoming.
Aaron’s mother was a drug addict, and his adorable younger brother was quickly adopted, while Aaron spent his childhood in foster care. As Aaron mends fences, Tyler hopes to show him that this time, he won’t be left behind to face his problems alone.
Aaron’s opening up to how right it feels to be with Tyler and to the possibility of taking the leap from friends to lovers. But along with the wedding celebration comes a painful reminder of the past. Aaron’s heart is still breakable. Can he put it in Tyler’s hands?
Buy the Book: Dreamspinner Press || Universal Book Link
About the Author
Cari Z. is a Colorado girl who loves snow and sunshine. She has a wonderful relationship with her husband, a complex relationship with the characters in her head and a sadomasochistic relationship with her exercise routine. She hopes that you enjoy reading what she’s put out there as much as she enjoyed writing it in the first place.