My Thoughts
Zander is a rockstar. Like an over the top screaming girls photographer following rockstar. He wants someone to write his story and he has picked Elizabeth to do just that. In the middle of all that is a love story. One that is sweet and sexy and swoon worthy. The more they get to know each other, the more Zander realizes that he might just be ready to settle down with her. Along with Elizabeth, the more I learned about Zander the more I fell for him. He's a handful that is for sure, but he is a beautiful one all the same. Reading their story stirred up emotions and made me connect with them. I loved all of it.
I give Rise 4 hearts!
Zander is a rockstar. Like an over the top screaming girls photographer following rockstar. He wants someone to write his story and he has picked Elizabeth to do just that. In the middle of all that is a love story. One that is sweet and sexy and swoon worthy. The more they get to know each other, the more Zander realizes that he might just be ready to settle down with her. Along with Elizabeth, the more I learned about Zander the more I fell for him. He's a handful that is for sure, but he is a beautiful one all the same. Reading their story stirred up emotions and made me connect with them. I loved all of it.
I give Rise 4 hearts!
About the Book
“You have the ability to make controversial characters
sympathetic. Maybe I just want to be understood.”
Acclaimed
literary biographer Elizabeth Winston writes about long-dead heroes. So bad boy
rock icon Zander Freedman couldn’t possibly tempt her to write his memoir.
Except the man is a mass of fascinating contradictions - manipulative, honest,
gifted, charismatic, morally ambiguous.
In
short, everything she sought in a biography subject. When in her life will she
get another chance to work with a living legend? But saying yes to one
temptation soon leads to another.
Suddenly
she’s having heated fantasies about her subject, fantasies this blue-eyed-devil
is only too willing to stoke. She’d thought self-control was in her DNA, after
all she grew up a minister’s daughter. She thought wrong.
Outside your comfort zone is the only place worth living...
Zander
Freedman has been an outlier - many would say an outcast – for most of his
life. But there’s no disaster he can’t overcome, from the break-up of his band
to the fall-out on his reputation. His Resurrection Tour is shaping up to be his
greatest triumph - if his golden voice holds out. Contracting a respected
biographer is simply about creating more buzz; Elizabeth's integrity the key to
consolidating his legacy as one of rock’s greats.
All
the damn woman has to do is write down what he tells her. Not make him think.
Or
encourage the good guy struggling to get out. And certainly not to fall in love
for the first time in his life.
Turns
out he is scared of something - being known.
Rise - a redemption story of a rock star going
straight(er) through the love of a good(ish) woman.
Turning a bad boy into a romance hero
By Karina Bliss
Zander Freedman, the rock star hero of Rise, has been a
minor character in three previous books. I wrote him as vain, selfish and
egotistical, a neglectful son, bad brother and lousy boyfriend. And yet readers
loved this guy and wanted his story, possibly because of his few attractive
qualities - unflinching honesty, intelligence and a keen sense of irony.
One of my biggest challenges in finding ‘the hero-within’
was Zander’s reputation for vanity. How is a reader going to fall in love with
a guy rumoured to have had everything from Botox and tattooed eyeliner to hair
implants?
In one scene, I had the heroine’s family voice every Yuck
the reader would have around a guy with a ‘beauty’ regime. And then fall over
themselves when they thought Zander was visiting. Because the guy’s still a
rock god, still extraordinary. And it’s too easy to criticize a stranger. In
effect, I'm asking the reader to keep an open mind.
Given that Zander is smart and ambitious it also made sense
that he would deliberately exaggerate his vanity for the press. Any publicity
is good publicity when this showman is promoting the band’s tour. He also takes
a pragmatist’s view of maintaining his looks; keeping in shape is simply a part
of his job as Rage’s frontman. And finally, I made him supremely confident in
his masculinity. At one point he even says, “A real man should be able to
seduce a woman in a tutu and a tiara…Actually that would be fun.”
Most importantly, I gave Zander the vulnerability attached
to being a beautiful person. Women date me because of the way I look. What will
happen if I stop these treatments? Who will love me as I age? The Beauty, as
well as the Beast, is judged on appearances.
Of course that’s just one aspect of the reinvention of
Zander Freedman. Hopefully, I’ve intrigued you enough to read about his moral
make-over.
Do you have a favorite bad-boy hero? Enter the Release
Giveaway and go into the draw for an e-book of Rise.
About the Author
New
Zealander Karina Bliss’s debut, Mr Imperfect, won a Romantic
Book of the Year award in Australia, the first of eleven books
published through Harlequin SuperRomance. Her most recent release, A
Prior Engagement, was a Desert Island Keeper at likesbooks.com. Her next
release, Rise, is a single title, self-published contemporary which
continues the story of Zander Freedman, who first appeared as a villain
inKarina’s bestselling title, What the Librarian Did – a book
that made DearAuthor’s Best of the Year list in 2010.Two
of Karina’s books have also featured in Sizzling Book Chats at SmartBitchesTrashyBooks.
Find
out more at www.karinabliss.com
Giveaway
No comments:
Post a Comment