Hiya peeps, we have j. leigh bailey stopping by today with her newest release Reckless Hope, we have a short interview with j. leigh, a great excerpt and a brilliant giveaway, so enjoy the post and click that Rafflecopter link <3 ~Pixie~

Reckless Hope

j. leigh bailey

What’s life without a little risk?

Or a lot of risk, if you’re Sebastian Carlisle. He’ll never live up to the legacy of his dead brother, so why try? Being the wild child in a family of stuck-up rich snobs suits him just fine.  

Until he meets Micah Burke, and everything changes. 

Micah’s got too much going on for a relationship. Even if he could trust Sebastian, a distraction—a sexy, reckless distraction with a death wish—would only derail his carefully scheduled life. If it were just Micah, maybe that would be fine, but his mother and sister depend on him, and he can’t let them down. Or at least that’s what he tells himself. 

A hot moment leads to a hot night leads to a connection neither of them are ready for. And when a crisis hits Micah’s family hard, Sebastian will have to shed his bad-boy image and decide whether he can be the man Micah needs—and Micah needs to decide whether he’ll let him. 

Interview

Today I’m very lucky to be interviewing j. leigh bailey, author of Reckless Hope.

Hi, j. leigh, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Tell us a little about yourself, your background, and your current book.

Thank you so much for having me! I’m an office drone by day in the Chicagoland area, and by night I’m the author of New Adult and Young Adult LGBTQ romance. RECKLESS HOPE is the second book in my Letting Go series, and is an opposites attract story centered around two characters who have to overcome the stresses and disappointments of their past to build a happy relationship together. And, while doing this, they have to figure out who they are and, ultimately, what they want for their future.

Someone asks you for advice about writing. What do you tell them?

All of my advice to someone interested in writing comes down to one thing: PUSH YOURSELF.

If you think you can’t do something, prove yourself wrong. The minute you tell yourself you can’t do something, the harder it becomes to do it. You can’t do what you don’t try.

When I first started writing seriously, I began with short stories. I didn’t think I could write short. Everything I’d ever started growing up went on and on and on. I can’t even write a short email message. But I saw a call for submissions for short stories with a theme that had ideas brewing in my head. So I decided to test myself. Prove to myself that I could write short. Or at least, that I could try to write short. I had nothing to lose. Also, this same story was supposed to contain elements of horror. Since I read romance almost exclusively, I had to research “elements of horror.” I had no idea. So the call for submission was for a short story containing elements of horror. This was so far outside what I thought I could do, I didn’t hold out a lot of hot. But I did it. I actually managed to write the story and, after some judicious edits, kept it under the word limit. And while the story might be closer to “horror-lite,” it did contain some horror elements. And the best part? I submitted it and it was accepted within two hours, landing me my first publishing contract. Having a book with my name in it, seeing reviews of my story and the others in the anthology, reaffirmed my desire to write.

Push the boundaries of your comfort zone. The best writing, the most authentic emotions, come from that edge of uncertainty.

One of my favorite scenes I’ve ever written came about that way. I killed off a character. She was a nice lady, and a bad guy slit her throat. Again, I’m a happy, fuzzy, romance-reading, love story-writing kind of girl. Killing anyone off, let alone a nice lady getting her throat slit is about as far out of my comfort zone as I can go. But the scene, almost because it was so hard to write, turned out fantastic (in my opinion!). The horror I felt writing it somehow translated to the scene, giving it that much more impact.

So, yeah, the best advice I can give an aspiring writer is to push yourself. Don’t let yourself or anyone else limit what you can do. You’ll probably surprise yourself!

Excerpt

“I thought I knew what kind of person you were.”

“Yeah, you made that pretty clear.”

Micah cringed, but kept going. “You take for granted everything I work my ass off to achieve. It’s easy for you. And now I know there’s more to you than that. I don’t understand your choices, or the need for an adrenaline rush you seem to have.” He held up a hand to keep Sebastian from saying anything. He scooted up, resting his back against the handlebars. “I don’t have to understand. It’s part of who you are.”

“Somehow I don’t think this discussion is heading in a direction I’m going to like.” Sebastian drew his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.

“The thing is, you’re a bad influence on me.”

“I don’t—”

“You don’t even have to do anything. Take tonight, for instance.”

“Tonight?”

“I have a midterm tomorrow. I should be studying. Or even sleeping. Instead I’m here. I never have trouble doing what I’m supposed to do. Setting aside my ‘want tos’ to do my ‘have tos.’ Except around you.”

“I’m not trying to make your life harder. I’m just trying to be part of it.”

“That’s what I don’t get. You could have almost anyone. You could find someone a hell of a lot less complicated than me.”

“You may not believe it, but I don’t mind complications.”

About j. leigh

J. Leigh Bailey is an office drone by day and the author of New Adult and Young Adult LGBT Romance by night. She can usually be found with her nose in a book or pressed up against her computer monitor. A book-a-day reading habit sometimes gets in the way of… well, everything…but some habits aren’t worth breaking. She’s been reading romance novels since she was ten years old. The last twenty years or so have not changed her voracious appetite for stories of romance, relationships and achieving that vitally important Happy Ever After. She’s a firm believer that everyone, no matter their gender, age, sexual orientation or paranormal affiliation deserves a happy ending.

She wrote her first story at seven, which was, unbeknownst to her at the time, a charming piece of fan-fiction in which Superman battled (and defeated, of course) the nefarious X Luther. She was quite put out to be told, years later, that the character’s name was actually Lex. Her second masterpiece should have been a best-seller, but the action-packed tale of rescuing her little brother from an alligator attack in the marshes of Florida collected dust for years under the bed instead of gaining critical acclaim.

Now she writes New Adult and Young Adult LGBT Romance novels about boys traversing the crazy world of love, relationships and acceptance.

Where to find the author:

Facebook | Facebook Author Page |  Twitter | Website | Tumblr

Giveaway!

Win an eBook copy of Nobody’s Hero (Letting Go book 1) and an eBook copy of Reckless Hope!

J. Leigh Bailey Rafflecopter giveaway!

Check out the other blogs on the blog tour