Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Solace by Gini Rifkin Creating Characters & Giveaway

BLURB:
Solace Goodeve, one of Mother Nature’s favorite Fae Warriors, is assigned to Earth to help save the planet. Reptile invaders, disguising themselves as humans, are waging a takeover—and Mother is mad enough to eat asteroids. Solace is ready to prove herself as a warrior, but having a human for a partner is not in her battle plan—even if the man is rugged, ripped, and ready for action.

Army Ranger, Tanner Jackson, has seen his share of black op missions. The last one took a toll on both body and soul. Tanner isn’t looking for love, even though his new partner is six-foot-tall and drop dead gorgeous. However, after Solace shows him a new meaning to working undercover, he may have to reconsider that possibility.

As the Reps plan to sabotage NOAA, Tanner and Solace must learn to trust one another. But as they're trying to save the world, Solace and Tanner might just lose their hearts—and that takes the most courage of all.

Creating Characters:
   Sometimes I think the stories we write are already out there somewhere in the multiverse, and we are just fortunate enough to tap into them. That’s why some characters seem to have such a mind of their own. I try to follow my original plan for them as far as height, weight, hair and eye color, and personal history, but as the story progresses these qualities are open to change. It’s not my idea, it’s theirs.

   How they respond to situations, other characters, the adventure, and even dialogue, shapes them, surprises me, and hopefully draws in and entertains the reader. This applies to villains as well as the hero and heroine. And these changes rarely make them more perfect, but just the opposite. The changes are often imperfections making them more relatable, more endearing, or perhaps more hated.

    In my story Solace: Fae Warriors book 1, I had double the fun when creating the antagonist. He had two forms, human-like and reptilian. And I had the added challenge of making him believable and relatable in his Rep form. Hey lizards have feelings too. Since this book is contemporary, and my prior six books are historicals, I had to apply a different mindset for myself as well as the characters. You’d think living in the time period one was writing would make things easier. It didn’t seem to.

Then there is the fact that while the hero in Solace is a tasty bit of human man-candy, the heroine is Fae and from another world. Her interpretation of life on this planet comes from her Earth Indoctrination class 101. I guess my most important job is to help the characters who people my books to become real enough for you to want to be them, have lunch with them, or run in terror from them.

EXCERPT:
Angry voices filtered over to her. She couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it sounded like they were arguing amongst themselves. Snatching the bag from her head, she blinked and took stock of her surroundings. Two Reps looked ready to go for one another’s throats. The third sat in a nearby chair, holding his thigh, groaning in pain. Studying her surroundings in more detail, she discovered they’d brought her to an abandoned warehouse. An image of “Mr. White” flashed through her mind. What was it with these guys and warehouses? At least this one appeared cleaner, and other than a few small odds and ends, nearly empty—except for the
huge steel cage they’d locked her in.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Gini Rifkin writes adventurous romance, past, present, and into the future. Her current book Solace, number seven for The Wild Rose Press, is a sexy sci/fi/fantasy romance. When not reading or writing, she has the privilege of caring for a menagerie of abandoned animals including ducks, geese, rabbits, goats, donkeys, and cats. She was born and raised in Illinois, became a registered nurse by age 19, and when struck by wanderlust, moved to Colorado where she met her husband Gary. They shared the journey for 30 years, spending vacations doing Mountain Man reenacting. Although Gary has passed on, a little bit of him lives on in every hero she writes. Her writing keeps her hungry to keep learning new things, and she considers family and friends her most treasured of gifts.


GIVEAWAY:
Gini Rifkin will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour, and a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn host.

The more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

6 comments:

  1. Great excerpt! Thank you for the post.

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  2. Thank you Books and Other Spells for hosting my tour today. What a great blog you have here.

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  3. For your own reading, do you prefer ebooks or traditional paper/hard back books?

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  4. Thank you for the post and the giveaway!

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