Into the Blue by Pene Henson- Blog Tour and Giveaway

Book Name: Into the Blue

Author Name: Pene Henson

Release Date: July 7, 2016

Pages or Words: 236 pages, 72,600 words

Categories: Contemporary, Gay Fiction, M/M Romance, New Adult, Romance

Publisher: Interlude Press

Cover Artist: C.B. Messer 

Goodreads

Blurb: Tai Talagi and Ollie Birkstrom have been inseparable since they met as kids surfing the North Shore. Now they live with their best friends in a pulled-together family, sharing life and the saltwater in their veins. Tai’s spent years setting aside his feelings for Ollie, but when Ollie’s pro surfing aspirations come to fruition, their steady world shifts. Is the relationship worth risking everything for a chance at something terrifying and beautiful and altogether new?

Excerpt:
Across from them, one of the Brazilians plays guitar. Ollie doesn’t recognize the song even when a couple of others sing along. The beach is wider and the sand finer than on the North Shore, but every beach is a little like home. Ollie misses the Blue House; he misses the surf and the palms and the shoreline he knows so well. He misses Jaime and Sunny and Hannah. Still, though he’s as far from home as he’s ever been, Ollie’s comfortable. These are his people, too. He leans back on his arms and looks up into the dark.
He’s watched the night sky since he was a little kid, but down here in the Southern Hemisphere he doesn’t recognize the hundreds upon hundreds of stars. The Southern Cross is up there. Ollie tries to orient himself.
Tai shifts toward him, then looks up and follows Ollie’s gaze. The warmth of Tai’s body settles into Ollie’s heart, grounds him. Ollie leans into him a little, and their arms brush to the elbow. The contact simmers in the air between them.
Unexpectedly, Ollie knows what he wants. “Come back to the hotel,” he says quietly to Tai. He pitches his voice low. It hums across the tiny space between them. No one else can hear him over the pounding surf and the sound of the music. It’s easy to be bold in the dark of a beach where Ollie’s never been before. He’s shocked by that same boldness.

Interlude Press  / Amazon / B&N / iBooks / Smashwords /ARe 

 Book Depository / Indiebound

Today we're very lucky to be interviewing Pene Henson, author of INTO THE BLUE.

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

1) What book do you wish you could have written?
Hmmm. That’s tricky. I mean, my first answer is I wish I could have written the novel that I imagined this as when I first thought it up. Writing it down makes it rougher and less beautiful, but also adds things I never knew when I started thinking about surfers in love and their extended found family.
But a book written by someone else? Iris Murdoch’s THE SEA THE SEA is a book I could never have written than broke my heart and pieced it together. Or Ann Pachett’s BEL CANTO. My son wishes I’d written Harry Potter. I mean, I guess that would be good 

2) How important are names to you (in your books)? Do you choose names based on liking the way it sounds or meaning? How do you choose your names?
I don’t agonise over names, but they are important to me. My first port of call for names is finding something that this person’s parents would have chosen. In my book Ollie is the son of a young white woman who’s not very well off and dreams big for her sons. The names she chooses sound like kids who have money. I also wanted something a little bit cute for Ollie as he’s so reserved and prickly. Tai, on the other hand, wanted a name that was Samoan, like his parents, but a younger brother name rather than a first son’s name which might be more religious. The name reflects a love of the sea.
Some other names in my book flipped around as my needs for the character flipped around. For example, Hannah was Noah at first and Karise was the older Lilian.

3) Were you already a great writer? Have you always enjoyed writing?
I’m pretty sure I’m not a great writer. I enjoy writing and I love the things I think I bring to it, a kindness and a sense of people’s motivations, an interest in beautiful places and bringing people out of their comfort zone.
For a long time I only wrote poetry, but I always loved the process of finding one word to put after the other. It’s only recently that I discovered the joys of plotting and developing characters.

4) How long have you been writing?
I wrote as a child but I left it quiet for many years and resumed writing at 26 or 27, which is a good 15 years ago now. For a long time I just wrote short pieces and character sketches. But I’ve spent the last two years writing mid-length stories before building up to this first novel.

5) What hobbies do you enjoy?
I love soccer and cricket, watching and playing (poorly). I also play guitar (very poorly) and sing. And I’m an extrovert so I love time with my friends and family.

Meet the author:Pene Henson has gone from British boarding schools to New York City law firms. She now lives in Sydney, Australia, where she is an intellectual property lawyer and published poet who is deeply immersed in the city’s LGBTQIA community. She spends her spare time enjoying the outdoors and gazing at the ocean with her gorgeous wife and two unexpectedly exceptional sons. Into the Blue is her first novel.
Where to find the author: Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads / Blog
 

Tour Dates & Stops:
7-Jul: Havan Fellows, Louise Lyons, Hearts on Fire
8-Jul: Outrageous Heroes, Unquietly Me, Dawn’s Reading Nook
11-Jul: Love Bytes, Kirsty Loves Books, Bayou Book Junkie
12-Jul: Wicked Faerie's Tales and Reviews, MM Good Book Reviews, Butterfly-O-Meter
13-Jul: Oh My Shelves, Boys on the Brink Reviews
14-Jul: Molly Lolly, Happily Ever Chapter
15-Jul: Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words, Sinfully Addicted to All Male Romance, Prism Book Alliance
18-Jul: MM Book Escape, Making It Happen, Velvet Panic, BFD Book Blog
19-Jul: Book Lovers 4Ever, My Fiction Nook, V's Reads
20-Jul: A.M. Leibowitz, Alpha Book Club

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