Saturday, September 5, 2015

Jeffrey Rivera Guest Post

This is a first for the blog- a guest post! Let's all give Jeffrey a warm welcome and wish him a happy birthday! He's a friend and colleague who's helped me a lot this year! His upcoming release Sing To Me is a beautiful contemporary love story, a little different from the worlds where Maurin and Jax live but one I'm happy to share and know you'll enjoy reading!




An Interview With Jeffrey Rivera

Why did you choose such a surprising twist?
You know, the writer in me wants to create a story that’s more realistic, but I know that’s not what readers want.

Readers don’t want something believable. They don’t want something realistic necessarily. What they want is a fantasy, and I like to give them what they want. The reader in me wants the same.  I think that we have enough tragedy in the world that we don’t want to put up with having to read that too. We want to escape. We want to live a life and experience a life in which we don’t have to deal with all the pain and suffering. And if there’s pain and suffering then we want to know that everything is going to be all right in the end. And so I wanted to create a story with Sing to Me that would make people happy, and allow them to escape and give them what they want and what they’ve been dreaming of.


What inspired you to create the character Cody?
I was inspired by this person I heard about who was trying to pursue his dream in light of having a wife who was suffering from some serious medical issues. I wanted to create a really sexy guy who is tough and who has a heart of gold. And I know a lot of guys like that in my life. I have a really good friend who is sort of a rocker type of guy. He’s an attractive guy who is great with his wife and has a heart of gold; a sensitive guy; a good person who would do anything for you. And so I really wanted to create a character sort of like that.


What inspired you to create the character Emma?
I wanted to create a character that was a strong woman who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. I loosely based her a little bit on my sister who’s soft and sweet but feisty. I wanted to create a character that could be strong enough to be against a strong guy like Cody. I do not like weak characters, let alone weak women characters. And I don’t think readers want that either, but, you know, they also want someone who’s vulnerable and who has a softer side to her. I can think of a good friend of mine who is a performer, and she is a sweetheart, and she could be kind of tough as nails at times. But she’s got the biggest heart. She will help anybody and even people who she shouldn’t help, because she’s just that kind of person, and has always been that person. So, Emma is sort of like that too.


What inspired you to create Emma’s grandmother?
I wanted to create a character that would be interesting to read. I love

minor characters in stories whether it’s movies or TV shows or books that kind of steal the scenes and are memorable. And so that’s why I wanted to create this grandmother character. I so love Lauren Bacall and I wish I could have gotten to meet her before she passed away. But I love feisty older women who don’t lose their personality in being older; who stop trying to be nice and start being real, and will say whatever’s on their mind. My great-aunt; we called her Aunty Diva; she was sort of like that too. She would say how it is and say things that sometimes hurt, but you knew she didn’t mean anything by them and she would always tell the truth. I just loved that about her. She would say things that were slightly inappropriate, but we loved it. And so I wanted to create a character like that.

SING TO ME
by Jeff Rivera


They want to pull the plug on his brain-dead wife.

When rock-star-to-be, Cody White meets sassy Emma Lohan, he doesn't know what to make of her.

Obviously out of his league, she’s outspoken, full-figured, beautiful, college-educated and has a heart of gold.

She's perfect and he can't stop thinking about her. She’s nothing like the girls he's dated before.

It doesn't make any sense.

And yet, true love rarely does.

Little does he know she will teach him what it means to love, what it means to fight for the girl of his dreams and what it means to give up everything he's ever wished for; for the chance at something he never thought was possible.

True love and kisses from the heart.

But when tragedy strikes and her life is on the line, Cody is broken. He must make a choice: accept that the girl he knows will never be the same again or stay with her when she needs him the most and give up his life-long dream of becoming a rock star forever.

Get your copy today. Click here: http://bit.ly/SINGTOME