{"id":730,"date":"2012-09-14T08:23:14","date_gmt":"2012-09-14T06:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zahraowens.com\/?p=730"},"modified":"2012-09-14T08:35:35","modified_gmt":"2012-09-14T06:35:35","slug":"the-hand-me-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/?p=730","title":{"rendered":"The Hand-me-down"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, waddayaknow, I have a novel coming out and I get to celebrate it with some great people at the UK Meet in Brighton. They’re all writers and readers of QUILTBAG lit and I couldn’t imagine a better crowd. <\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Hand-me-Down by Zahra Owens – Cover By Paul Richmond<\/figcaption><\/figure>This new story just had to be written so badly, I pushed aside the fourth installment of my cowboy series and started writing this one. So what inspired me?
\nObviously the spewing Icelandic volcano which stopped travel in Western Europe for many days and left a whole slew of people stranded, including some people I knew who were having fun because they could extend their vacations and a few who weren’t so amused because they were losing out on business ventures.
\nI was also inspired by an acquaintance of mine who left London behind for sunny Barcelona so he could study Spanish with “the natives”.<\/p>\n

The rest of the story just grew organically.<\/p>\n

For Jez<\/strong>, I liked the idea of a business man who had tattoos underneath his handmade suit and a penchant for frequenting leather clubs because it was a great way to get laid without having to pay for it and without the other guy forming an attachment. For the tattooed suit guys, I blame MenAtPlay<\/a>. *g*
\nJamie<\/strong> was born from my taste for very damaged guys, who somehow manage to function (somewhat).
\nNick<\/strong> was a very complex character, and I don’t know if I did him justice. He “rescued” Jamie and took care of him to the best of his ability. When we meet him (and Jamie) we (hopefully) admire him for doing so, for everything he gave up for Jamie, but as the story progresses and Nick disappears from the story, we start seeing Nick in a different light.
\nNot saying more on the subject of Nick, because I don’t want to spoil it for any of my readers. I simply hope they can read between the lines and understand there is no black and white, only shades of grey (and more than fifty of them!), just like there are no people who are all good or all bad, but we all carry a bit of both inside us.<\/p>\n

Now go buy that book!<\/a><\/p>\n

If you’d like to win a copy of the eBook, tell me, in the comments, what “thing” (trying to be as inclusive as possible) you wouldn’t mind being handed down to you. Comments (especially for first-time commentators) are screened and I have very limited computer time this weekend, but I promise I’ll read them all before picking a winner!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, waddayaknow, I have a novel coming out and I get to celebrate it with some great people at the UK Meet in Brighton. They’re all writers and readers of QUILTBAG lit and I couldn’t imagine a better crowd. This new story just had to be written so badly, I pushed aside the fourth installment…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[43],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-story","tag-the-hand-me-down"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zahraowens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}