Hi guys, we have K.E. Belledonne stopping by with her new release Daniel & Erik’s Super Fab Ultimate Wedding Check List, we have a quicky interview with K.E., we have a great excerpt and there’s a fantastic giveaway. So peeps, enjoy the post and click that giveaway link <3 ~Pixie~

Daniel & Erik’s Super Fab Ultimate Wedding Checklist

K.E. Belledonne

When Daniel gets caught up in the demands of a cheeky wedding planning app, his fiancé Erik grows frustrated with his preoccupation with adhering to heterosexual traditions. Will Daniel’s groomzilla ways give them the wedding of their dreams, or ultimately lead to their relationship’s demise?

Interview

Today I’m very lucky to be interviewing K.E. Belledonne, author of Daniel & Erik’s Super Fab Ultimate Wedding Checklist.

Hi Kat, thank you for agreeing to this interview.

Favorite thing about building your own world?

I often use real-life places when I’m world-building, and most often they’re places I’ve been and loved. Part of this book takes place in Tallenburg, which is an entirely fictional college town in  New England, and I based sections of it on different cities I’ve loved. I get to revisit those places in my head while I write, and remember what it looks like, and feels like, and smells like. It’s a wonderful way to make sure my memory of those places doesn’t fade.

What inspired you to write your first book?

The first book I wrote hasn’t been published, yet, but it all started with an intriguing detail in something I was reading. It’s about the first woman to live in my house, which is over 200 years old. I happened on a family history of the family that built it, and one of the old family stories that has been passed down is that the first woman to live her arrived just before the Revolutionary War broke out, and something caused her and her husband to leave their house while she was 9 months pregnant. She gave birth on a raft her husband was rowing upstream. They were fleeing south on a river that flows north. I just wondered what could be so urgent a danger that they would do that, and my brain started inventing all the reasons. And then I dove into research, and came up with even more reasons and ideas, and I just wrote the whole story.

Do you have a specific writing style?

My writing tends to be quite theatrical in style. You could almost plot out the lighting cues, and the scene changes, and where the curtain rises and drops.

Who are some of the authors that influenced you to write?

L.M. Montgomery and Madeleine L’Engle are the first two that come to mind. I have read every single book that either of them have written, and they have very much influenced my world view. I didn’t think about actually sitting down to write a book and trying to get it published until after I’d read Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. I love those books with a fierce devotion, and I just wanted more stories like that. Diana is an incredible author, and her books take time to craft, which is wonderful but left me impatient for me. So, I just decided to try my hand a writing one while I waited for her next book to come out!

What are some jobs you’ve held? Have any of them impacted your writing? How?

I’ve worked a lot behind the scenes in theater productions, and that has definitely impacted how I write. Not only have I learned how to take advantage of those downtimes between scenes in rehearsal to get things done, but I just tend to think in terms of how the scenes in my book play out on stage.

Excerpt

“I think Aurora is disappointed in me.”

“What?” Erik rubbed at his eye. It wasn’t even early morning, judging by the weak light coming through the blinds from the streetlights. “Who?”

“Aurora. The wedding planning app.” Daniel lay on his back, wide awake and staring up at the ceiling.

“The wedding planning app is not a sentient being. It has no feelings or opinions.”

“I feel like she’s judging me. I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

“Oh my god, go to sleep.”

“I can’t. I’m never going to sleep ever again.” Daniel tugged the blanket higher up his chest, folding his arms over it and exhaling heavily.

“You’re being dramatic.”

“I’ve got too many things buzzing in my head. There’s too many things I’m going to forget to do.”

“I thought that’s why you had that damn app, so you don’t have to remember anything; it’s all right there saved on your tablet.”

“Yes, but I have to remember to put everything in it.″ Daniel rolled over. ″She doesn’t just know everything—”

“A: She is not a she. It is an it. B: What are we doing tomorrow?”

“Oh my god, what is the point of sharing the app calendar if you’re never going to look at it?” Daniel wailed.

“I look at it. It’s just crammed so full of everything that I have no idea what’s going on when.”

Daniel blew out his breath. ”Look, I know you don’t like the calendar. We’ve been over that, but I don’t know how else to keep track of all of these appointments and deadlines.”

“I told you, we could color-code them, or something,” Erik rolled to his side and punched at his pillow.

“Aurora doesn’t give you that option.”

“Well, it should.”

“I agree, but there’s nothing I can do about that.” Daniel bunched his pillow up under his head. “Tomorrow, we have four appointments to meet with caterers: two in the morning, two in the afternoon.”

“Why so many in one day?”

“It’s the only day we both have available this week, and I am not going to make any decisions about the food at our reception without you there to discuss it.”

“Seriously, you could just make a choice, and I’ll live with it.” Erik rolled over.

“I don’t want you to just ‘live with it,’ Erik.″ Daniel tried to keep his voice neutral, but failed. ″This is our wedding. I don’t want you to just ‘live with it.’”

“Why are you getting so worked up about it?”

“We only get one chance at this. Everything needs to be perfect.”

“You’re going to drive us both crazy, you know that, right?” Erik tugged the blankets back up over his shoulder.

“Well, then, we’ll both be crazy.” Daniel squinted up at the ceiling. He was so tired of making these decisions. Why were there so many options? Why were there so many decisions? The planning was getting on Erik’s nerves; he was getting on Erik’s nerves. Erik was getting on his nerves. They were both just a pile of irritated nerves because the to-do list didn’t seem to be getting any smaller.

Daniel’s phone chimed with another notification from Aurora.

New Private Message from: MommyMargie.

His mother probably had another ludicrous suggestion for the reception, or a passive-aggressive reminder of the hymn that she and his father had had played at their wedding, that their grandparents had had played at their wedding and that she expected to hear at his wedding. Or maybe his parents had decided to paint the living room green. Who knew?

About K.E.

K.E. Belledonne is a writer, editor and translator. A native New Englander, Kat spends her spare time listening to Glenn Miller records, reading history books and cheering on her beloved Red Sox. Her first novel, Right Here Waiting, was published by Interlude Press in 2015.

Where to find the author:

Facebook Author Page | Twitter | Pinterest | Blog

Giveaway!

Grand Prize: $25 Interlude Press gift card
5 first prizes of an e-copy of Daniel & Erik’s Super Fab Ultimate Wedding Checklist

K.E. Belledonne Rafflecopter giveaway!

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