A Different Blue release week - Guest post by Amy Harmon

A Different Blue by Amy Harmon



A Different Blue

Synopsis

Blue Echohawk doesn't know who she is. She doesn't know her real name or when she was born. Abandoned at two and raised by a drifter, she didn't attend school until she was ten years old. At nineteen, when most kids her age are attending college or moving on with life, she is just a senior in high school. With no mother, no father, no faith, and no future, Blue Echohawk is a difficult student, to say the least. Tough, hard and overtly sexy, she is the complete opposite of the young British teacher who decides he is up for the challenge, and takes the troublemaker under his wing.

This is the story of a nobody who becomes somebody. It is the story of an unlikely friendship, where hope fosters healing and redemption becomes love. But falling in love can be hard when you don't know who you are. Falling in love with someone who knows exactly who they are and exactly why they can't love you back might be impossible.

Life isn't Romantic

 

Life isn't romantic.  It's hard and ugly, and people have bad breath and big bellies and thinning hair.  Couples age together, see each other at their worst, annoy each other, hurt each other, and even hate each other sometimes.  That's why we women love romance with mythical creatures that sparkle, never age, don't get bad breath or work as mail men, school teachers or plumbers.  We need that escape, that fantasy, because life is so....unfantastic sometimes.  And that mythical creature can make us swoon, giggle, and pant and never expects us to make dinner, lose a little weight, or wear something besides sweatpants.  (I love mythical men!!) 

            The first time I saw a porno – yep, I've seen one or two – I made the mistake of thinking I was going to get romance.  I didn't.  And I was not impressed.  Nor was I moved, touched, soothed, or inspired.  That's when it occurred to me that romance isn't necessarily about sex.  And I want to be a romance writer.  I want to write the kind of romance where sex is not the climax.  No pun intended.  To do that, and make it realistic, I decided I would have to create scenarios and plot lines where the two main characters can't have sex because of age or distance or propriety or, in the case of Slow Dance in Purgatory, because one of them is a ghost.  You get the idea.  In my book Running Barefoot, my characters start out at thirteen and eighteen, and sex is not even part of the equation (ew!).  This allows both the reader and the characters to get to know one another without expecting that at any moment there should be sex. 

            In my latest novel, A Different Blue, I have made the main character a senior in high school.  And, in order to allow my characters to build a relationship that is NOT based purely on physical attraction, I made the leading man, Wilson, be her young teacher.  I didn't do it to be controversial or provocative. I did it because I didn't want sex to be part of their relationship, not in the beginning.  Instead, these two characters learn from each other, inspire each other, become friends, and eventually (spoiler alert!) fall in love.  In my books, love always comes first, and sex, well...I'll let you find out for yourselves.  I'm taking a risk with my fellow romance fans who love a real steamer, but I think you'll find that a good romance should be emotionally erotic and not just physically erotic.  And lets face it, sexual tension is absolutely delicious, and it all but disappears in a novel as soon as the deed is done. 

            So even though life isn't romantic, love is.  And in spite of the bedhead and the stretch marks, love exists in everyday life, everywhere I look.  I want the characters I create to be REAL, just like you and me – or you and George – and yet come to love each other anyway.  No immortality, sparkles, or granite abs allowed.  And that, my friends, is why I write romance.

About The Author

Amy Harmon knew at an early age that writing was something she wanted to do, and she divided her time between writing songs and stories as she grew. Having grown up in the middle of wheat fields without a television, with only her books and her siblings to entertain her, she developed a strong sense of what made a good story. Amy Harmon has been a motivational speaker, a grade school teacher, a junior high teacher, a home school mom, and a member of the Grammy Award winning Saints Unified Voices Choir, directed by Gladys Knight. She released a Christian Blues CD in 2007 called "What I Know" - also available on Amazon and wherever digital music is sold. She has written four novels, Running Barefoot, Slow Dance in Purgatory, Prom Night in Purgatory, and A DIFFERENT BLUE.