Guest Post and Giveaway: Darkness by Kate Sherwood

Please help us welcome author Kate Sherwood to TNA today on the tour for the latest released in the Common Law series, Darkness. She’s talking creative conflict today and is also offering a great giveaway, so be sure to check that out below.

Welcome, Kate!

The Cop and the Criminal

One of my first attempts at guest blogging on a larger scale was at Dear Author a few years ago. I wrote about how the challenge of writing romance is to make readers believe that the leads are meant to be together, but also to create enough conflict that readers believe they’re being torn apart over the course of the book. And then, of course, to resolve that conflict in a way to allow for a realistic happy ending. In that guest blog I argued that m/m writers have often relied on homophobia, in some incarnation or other, as the conflict that keeps the characters apart, and I suggested that we should be challenging ourselves to find other compelling sources of conflict.

In my Common Law series, the main source of conflict comes from one character being a Cop, the other a Criminal. I’m not claiming it’s a new setup, but it was certainly a fun one to play with. For both Jericho and Wade, their jobs are more than jobs; Jericho truly believes in justice, while Wade has been challenging authority his whole life and has no intention of stopping. And they’re both clearly identifiable in their roles—Jericho is back wearing a uniform, and Wade is notorious in their small home town. So it’s not just the pressure they put on themselves, but also the pressure from the rest of the world.

So the conflict part was easy, especially when I locked them both in the same small town and added some FBI agents to keep the pressure on. Resolving the conflict? That was a bit trickier, but I’m pleased with how it turned out.

Have you guys come across interesting sources of conflict in any recent reads? How about any old favourites? What is it that keeps your favourite characters apart? And how do they manage to solve the conflict in order to live happily ever after?

About Darkness, Part Three in the Common Law Series

A murdered prostitute. An obvious suspect. Clear evidence. For once, Jericho Crewe has a straightforward crime to investigate, and Wade Granger isn’t involved.

It all seems so simple, but Jericho’s instincts won’t let him rest. As he investigates, he finds troubling suggestions that the murder is a part of something larger and more sinister. But working within the boundaries of the law may keep him from finding the truth. If Jericho doesn’t break the rules, an innocent man may rot in jail while a killer remains free to strike again.

Inevitably, it all comes back to Wade. Because who else knows as much about breaking rules? And who else knows Jericho the way Wade does—not wisely, but far, far too well?

Now available from Riptide Publishing

About the Author

Kate Sherwood started writing about the same time she got back on a horse after almost twenty years away from riding. She’d like to think she was too young for it to be a midlife crisis, but apparently she was ready for some changes!

Kate grew up near Toronto, Ontario (Canada) and went to school in Montreal, then Vancouver. But for the last decade or so she’s been a country girl. Sure, she misses some of the conveniences of the city, but living close to nature makes up for those lacks. She’s living in Ontario’s “cottage country”–other people save up their time and come to spend their vacations in her neighborhood, but she gets to live there all year round!

Since her first book was published in 2010, she’s kept herself busy with novels, novellas, and short stories in almost all the sub-genres of m/m romance. Contemporary, suspense, scifi or fantasy–the settings are just the backdrop for her characters to answer the important questions. How much can they share, and what do they need to keep? Can they bring themselves to trust someone, after being disappointed so many times? Are they brave enough to take a chance on love?

Kate’s books balance drama with humor, angst with optimism. They feature strong, damaged men who fight themselves harder than they fight anyone else. And, wherever possible, there are animals: horses, dogs, cats ferrets, squirrels… sometimes it’s easier to bond with a non-human, and most of Kate’s men need all the help they can get.

After five years of writing, Kate is still learning, still stretching herself, and still enjoying what she does. She’s looking forward to sharing a lot more stories in the future.

Twitter: @kate_sherwood

The Giveaway

To celebrate the release of all four books in the Common Law series, we’re giving away one four-tour-wide GRAND PRIZE of $100 in Riptide credit! Enter at each stop on each tour (once they go live) to maximize your chances to win! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on April 8, 2017. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the Darkness tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!