Bookish Lifestyle: Indie Author Spotlight: Shana Vanterpool (Guest Post & Giveaway)

Time for another Indie Author feature in a series of spotlights I'm going to be doing once a month!

This month, we're spotlighting a debut romance author...

Shana Vanterpool!

About Shana

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When I walk into a book store I feel at home. When I smell the pages of a brand new book things make sense. When I read I am who I always wanted to be. I read to escape and I write so others can as well. My family, my actress dog Bella, coffee, and a steamy love story are a few of my most precious things. My Sweet Demise is my debut New-Adult contemporary romance novel. Keep up to date with future releases by following on Twitter: @shanavauthor

Guest Post

My name is Shana Vanterpool, and I was lucky enough to be a part of Jessica's wonderful book world to do a guest post for her Indie Author Spotlight. Thank you for having me Jessica! I'm going to talk about my debut release, My Sweet Demise, a steamy emotional new-adult contemporary romance that pushes the limits on trust and intimacy, how I came to write for the new-adult genre, and what it means to me and my writing.

My Sweet Demise isn't my first novel. For a long time I was submerged in the young-adult world. I devoured it, lived in it, and breathed it. I also wrote it, but after many failed attempts to get published I tapered off and started reading more. I tended to write more darker reads, pushing limits I wasn't sure were appreciated at the time. And then I discovered a new world about older characters that involved sex and emotion that young-adult did not possess. New-Adult. A strange intriguing intoxicating new world. I fell in love swiftly, not looking back once. There were no boundaries, no rules. There was nothing stopping the characters from falling and loving, from discovering who they were and living.

So I tried and wrote my first new-adult novel, testing myself. I knew how far my characters would go, having pushed them before, but how far would I go? I discovered fairly quickly that I opened a whole new can of worms inside of myself. I found a space in this writing world that called to me like nothing else ever had. Writing about love from the YA perspective was sweet, moving, and lasting. But writing from it from a NA perspective proved to be more rewarding. It was consuming watching two human beings come together, pushing them, feeling them push back, and believing in the world I created. I found my place and discovered what I'd been missing.

I don't write about perfect couples. People are imperfect. One persons actions and hurts are not another's, and each individual character garners a different response. I have a things for bad boys who want more, and heroines who are willing to look past what others can't see and find something special. There is beauty in the darkest places. There is love within your fears, and sometimes the harder paths in life turn out to be the most rewarding.

My Sweet Demise is a perfect example of this. Kent Nicholson and Raina O'Connor come together like gas and fire. They explode, and within their explosion they find their selves, struggling with trust and hurt and emotions they forbid themselves to have. Their intimacy was a wild ride to write about. Trust is an issue we all struggle with, but for others it can be a dilapidating hindrance. Healing can almost be as hard as the fall.

I wanted to find out what happened when you took a damaged man and a damaged girl who struggled with trust and put them together. I wanted to find out how far they'd hold on to their fears before they let them go. How hard were they willing to fight for the happiness their pasts told them they couldn't have?

My Sweet Demise is sexy, dark, painful, damaging ... and sweet.

About My Sweet Demise

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Desperation makes a girl do crazy things…

When twenty-one year old Raina O’Connor is kicked out of her room on short notice, she’s thrown into a frantic search for a new place to stay. As the situation becomes more urgent, her choices have dwindled to her least favorite option—ladies’ man, Kent Nicholson.

Kent Nicholson loves women, just not as a roommate…

When a gorgeous blonde with big hazel eyes answers Kent’s ad for a roommate, his red flags start flying. He’s looking for a wingman, not a chick who will put a damper on his game or drench his apartment in pink. It’s clear she’s in a bind, and something about her makes him break his own rules. But when he reluctantly accepts, it’s with four concrete conditions.

Be his wingman. Don’t get in his way with other girls. No bitchy attitudes. And most importantly, she can’t fall for him.

Pretty sure this was the world’s worst idea—ever…

Trust is something earned. Raina learned that the hard way when her father broke her heart as a child, making it easy to steer clear of relationships. But living with Kent somehow stirs emotions Raina has always forbidden herself to have. Plus, he’s everything she never wanted—untrustworthy, pigheaded…and gorgeous. Something tells her Kent isn’t free of his own secret scars…

Love can drag you down and spit you out, and be worth every second.