Hi peeps, we have Raine O’Tierney & Debbie McGowan visiting today with their newest release Where The Grass Is Greener, we have a brief chat with Raine & Debbie, there’s a great excerpt and a fantastic giveaway so enjoy the post and click that rafflecopter link <3 ~Pixie~

Where The Grass Is Greener

Raine O’Tierney & Debbie McGowan

Mistakes were made, that’s for sure. But was it the night of passion? Or walking away afterward?

That’s the question Seamus Williams must face when he gets a late night phone call from someone he never expects to hear from again.

“I miss you, Shay.”

Chancey Bo Clearwater is a cowboy through and through. He spends his days finding work on whatever ranch will take him and his nights at the pool hall. He’s always done what needed doing and never thought much about what he wanted. ’Til that drunken night with Seamus.

A world of problems now stand between Seamus and Chancey exploring what might have been, the least of which being the Atlantic Ocean. On one side there’s Chancey’s daughter who mood swings from angel to demon in two seconds flat; on the other there’s the new lodger, hogging Shay’s telly and his cornflakes, and making private Skype time hard to come by. 

Is this relationship doomed before it ever begins? Or can a surprise announcement from Seamus’s brother be enough to help the two find their second chance?

Where the Grass is Greener features Seamus Williams – the older brother of Patrick from Leaving Flowers.

Interview

Today I’m very lucky to be interviewing Debbie McGowan & Raine O’Tierney authors of Where the Grass is Greener!

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

Hello! We’re Debbie McGowan and Raine O’Tierney, two halves of a fantastic writing whole. We started collaborating early in 2015 and we’ve been writing recklessly together ever since! Our new book is Where the Grass is Greener (book 2 of The Seeds of Tyrone)–in addition, we’re working on book three, have almost completed a new humorous intrigue book, and are about halfway into something dark and mysterious. Any time our queue gets low, we just add things to the pile!

Where did your love of books/storytelling/reading/writing come from?

DM: I think partly my love of storytelling/writing comes from not being able to articulate myself well in face-to-face situations and having a very vivid imagination. Reading…I always did, and there were always books around at home growing up, so it’s part of my upbringing, I think.

RO: Apparently I’ve been making up stories since before I could write. My true passion for writing started in third grade when I decided I could one-up a classmate who wrote a story about bubblegum. (I swear, I’m not so vicious now!)

What were your goals when you started this book? Do you think you met them?

DM:  To get Seamus and Chancey together. You’ll have to read it and see if we achieved it. 😉

RO: My goal was to see what sort of romantic things we could do with our characters using only Skype, the occasional phone call, and flashback. I think we rocked it, but I might be a little biased.

Have you ever co-written with someone before?

DM: Yes, but only one other person, and only one story (so far – we’ve talked about more, just not got around to it), and that’s Al Stewart. Outside of writing with Raine and Al, I have no urge to collaborate, or even to approach other authors tentatively with that idea in mind. Al and I wrote the short story Coming Up over a few days via Goodreads messaging, and it was just for fun. Obviously with Raine, it’s a much bigger and wholly different venture.

RO: What she means is that I’m holding her hostage and she’s crying out for help! No! No more stories with Raine! (Teasing! I genuinely think Debs and I are co-presidents of our own mutual admiration society.) Writing with her is awesome and I plan to continue until we run out of ideas. My other partner-in-crime is my husband, Siôn O’Tierney. So far we only have the one novella together (Alchemy Ever After) but we talk often about other challenges we’d like to take on.

Tell us about your favorite character in a book (yours or someone else’s).

DM: My favourite characters change all the time, so it’s a difficult question to answer. In Where the Grass is Greener it’s Chancey. Six foot two of real cowboy, tough, dependable, hardworking and honest about his feelings. What’s there not to love?

RO: It WAS Matty from Deb’s Taking Him On, but then I got pissed off at Matty and we aren’t talking. Then it was Noah, from that same story. 🙂 From The Seeds of Tyrone series, really, it’s all them Irish boys! Patrick, Seamus, and Michael <3 YUM! Can’t wait to see about boy #4.

List five foods you can’t live without.

DM: Cheese, some form of bran/wheat breakfast cereal, um…a carb of some sort. Potatoes, I suppose, seeing as the book’s a bit Irish. I’d best have a fruit in there too, so bananas, and broccoli. So, that’s cereal for breakfast, a banana for lunch, and cheese, potato and broccoli for dinner (tea) forever. Yeah, I could deal with that.

RO: Meat, man. All the meat. I love meat and I love fish, which is the meat of the ocean. Oh, that’s not five. Specifically? Steak, chicken, eel, imitation crab, and capicola.

In celebration of the release of Where the Grass is Greener–we’re having a sale on Leaving Flowers~ Normally $4.99, Leaving Flowers is on sale for 99 cents!!

Available from Beaten Track Publishing | Amazon | All Romance eBooks | Smashwords |

Excerpt

“You’re quiet today, Seamus. What’s up?” the landlord asked.

“Just tired, is all. Got a leaky roof and the fecker was drippin’ all the damn night. And didn’t I get up this morning and kick the bucket?”

“You look alive and well to me, so you do. I say well…you look like shite.”

“Yeah, thanks very much. Think I’ll go join the lads, see if I can’t get a few more insults thrown at me.”

Seamus gave the landlord a wry grin and went over to the others, who were already well into the first of the three games they got in every lunchtime. He watched one of them take a bad shot and accidentally pot the black, the clunking of the ball as it rolled its way through the machinery of the table setting Seamus’s teeth on edge. John was right: he was dog-tired and probably did look like shite. He’d barely slept after the missed call, trying to decide whether to return it or not. His mind played tricks on him, one minute convincing him it was urgent and he should call back, the next telling him to stay strong. He’d made the move. He’d come back to Ireland. That’s what he’d wanted all along.

He had wanted it. Ever since Mam died, his sights had been set on coming home. He’d only stayed for Paddy’s sake, and now Paddy had Aidan there was nothing to keep Seamus in the States, although he was no further away from his brother now than he had been in Kansas. Never mind that he’d already made the decision before he knew Aidan even existed. No. It was a good decision. He was just—

He already knew, before he pulled his phone from his pocket: same Kansas number, same caller. His thumb hovered over the red button. Reject the call. Reject the call.

He answered.

“Seamus Williams.”

“At last! I thought I was calling a wrong number. Man, it’s so good to hear your voice.”

“Er, yeah. Yours too. What’s up? Has something happened?”

“Nothing new. I just…”

The rapid-hard thump of Seamus’s heart filled the pause, two seconds, three, four, and more. He drew breath to speak, but there was nothing to be said. Or nothing he should say.

“I miss you, Shay.”

***

The first call had been a drunk dial. Thank the heavenly father that Seamus Williams hadn’t picked up. Lord, the shit that might have come tumbling out of Chancey’s mouth. Now he was dead sober, but only slightly more composed. Had he really just said he’d missed Seamus? He tried for a laugh. It sounded as fake as it felt. Well he had missed Seamus. Nothin’ wrong with that.

“You gonna say somethin’?” He knew he was putting on the accent. Drawing out his vowels, droppings his g’s. His grandmother—who was from south Texas and who had an accent so deep it was digging itself a hole to the centre of the Earth—used to yell at him when he’d get lazy with his words.

You jus’ sound ign’rant, Chancey Bo Clearwater. Full name, cue snickering cousins, and young Chancey sank down low in his chair, ashamed at the way he sounded despite the fact they all talked just alike. The accent followed him when he moved to Oklahoma, where he picked up a whole set of strange ‘O’s, and even having lived in Kansas now for the better part of his life, it was still there underneath, just waiting to crop up in stressful situations.

“I didn’t expect to hear from you, that’s all.”

“Surprise.” He was trying for friendly, for calm. Trying to keep the I wanna put my fist through the wall and did you really mean to let me find out through Lulu? out of his voice.

“Isn’t this call costing you a million dollars?”

“Skype. On my phone. I bought minutes, y’know?”

“Is that right then?”

“But I didn’t think. It’s probably charging you too.”

“It’s fine.”

Is it? Seamus sure as hell wasn’t saying much. There was a long pause as Chancey considered his next move. He’d called because he’d wanted to talk. Not talk. Not like that. Nothing to say on that front. Seamus had made it all as clear as crystal dropped in the mud when he’d left his parting message with Lulu down at the pool hall, Rack ’Em. In a last-ditch effort, Chancey said the only thing he could think: “Boss Tina asked after you the other day when I went around for work.”

That got a laugh out of Seamus, which gave Chancey more relief than he cared to admit.

About Raine & Debbie

 Raine

RAINE O’TIERNEY lives outside of Kansas City with her husband, fellow author, Siôn O’Tierney. When she’s not writing, she’s either playing video games or fighting the good fight for intellectual freedom at her library day job. Raine believes the best thing we can do in life is be kind to one another, and she enjoys encouraging fellow writers! Writing for 20+ years (with the last 10 spent on gay romance) Raine changes sub-genres to suit her mood and believes all good stories end sweetly. Contact her if you’re interested in talking about point-and-click adventure games or about which dachshunds are the best kinds of dachshunds!

Debbie

DEBBIE MCGOWAN is an author and publisher based in a semi-rural corner of Lancashire, England. She writes character-driven, realist fiction, celebrating life, love and relationships. A working class girl, she ‘ran away’ to London at 17, was homeless, unemployed and then homeless again, interspersed with animal rights activism (all legal, honest ;)) and volunteer work as a mental health advocate. At 25, she went back to college to study social science— tough with two toddlers, but they had a ‘stay at home’ dad, so it worked itself out. These days, the toddlers are young women (much to their chagrin), and Debbie teaches undergraduate students, writes novels and runs an independent publishing company, occasionally grabbing an hour of sleep where she can!

Giveaway!

Win an e-copy of one Debbie McGowan title and an e-copy of one Raine O’Tierney title! (winner’s preference of file type and title)

Raine O’Tierney & Debbie McGowan Rafflecopter giveaway!

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