Enter Rain, a sexy badboy who's got a taste for the lash and pretty young things, like Benny. But what's a man to do when the two men he lusts after are determined that even a hook-up is not in the cards? Why, orchestrate one single night of pleasure, of course.
But when the whip comes down, and one night isn't enough, it's love, not leather, that's bound to please.
Visit Kimberly Gardner's web site
Visit Kimberly at the Fiction with Friction
Read an excerpt from Bound to Please
About Kimberly Gardner
Kimberly has been making up stories for as long as she can remember. As early as the seventh grade, she recalls slashing her favorite rockstars for her own and her friends' enjoyment. It was also around that time that she began a lifelong love affair with the romance genre, devouring category romances as fast as she could smuggle them into the house. So it's not all that surprising that her two passions, romance and putting pretty boys with other pretty boys, would ultimately come together in her writing.
Moliere says, "Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, then for a few close friends, then for money."
Kimberly is delighted at long last to be doing it for money.
Back list
Gift Of Eros, from The Ties That Bind anthology, MLR Press, February 2008
http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=SSGOEROS
Phoenix Rising, MLR Press, August 2008
http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=PHOENIX1
Woman's Weeds, from the Bravo! Brava! Anthology, MLR Press, February 2009
http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=KGWWEEDS
The Shape Of A Heart, from the Hot Comfort anthollogy, MLR Press, September 2009
http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=HCANTH01
His Leading Man, from the Encore! Encore anthology, MLR Press, February 2010
http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=ANTHENCO
An Interview with Kimberly Gardner
By Holly Hewson for The Romance Studio
HH: Kimberly, thank you for talking with us at TRS. Please tell us about your featured book, Bound to Please.KG: Thanks for having me.
Bound To Please (BTP) is my second published novel and it's a sort of sequel to my 2008 release, Phoenix Rising (PR.) I say sort of sequel because I think each book can stand alone even though the cast of characters is the same, with a few notable additions, from one story to the next.
BTP started out as Jason and Benny's story. It still is, but when I began writing I quickly realized that given the issues that these two have, I needed some additional catalyst to get them together. And so the character Rain was born. The funny thing is, Rain was not supposed to end up as a permanent part of the relationship. As I said before he was a catalyst. Except once he'd fulfilled his role, he didn't want to leave. I even tried to bribe him with his own story, but he was adamant about staying with the boys. And that's how BTP went from an m/m to an m/m/m. Bossy characters.
HH: This is the sequel to your first book, Phoenix Rising. What can you tell us about that story? KG: Phoenix Rising was my first attempt at writing m/m romance. Though I'd been reading and writing straight romance for years, it wasn't until about 2006 that I even realized there was a gay romance subgenre. The first gay romance I read was J.L Langley's The Tin Star and it is still one of my favorites. As soon as I read that book, I was hooked and I knew I had to try writing m/m romance for myself.
PR is Adam and Jimmy's story and it's where the reader is first introduced to Benny and Jason, two of the heroes of Bound To Please. But where PR is a more traditional romance, or vanilla if you will, BTP has more than a little BDSM element. In fact the BDSM is part of the central conflict in the second book.
HH: How does Bound to Please pick up where the first book left off? KG: Bound To Please picks up only in the sense that Jason and Benny are first introduced to readers as secondary characters in Phoenix Rising. The timeline continues from one story to the next and readers of BTP will get to see how Adam and Jimmy are doing, how their relationship has developed and changed since the end of the first book.
When I was writing PR I didn't have it in my head that there would be another story. But as soon as readers met Benny and Jason and got a taste of their budding attraction, they began asking for their story.
HH: What do you like best about Jason? KG: Jason was a very interesting character to write, though he was very slow to give up a lot of his personal story. In a way he really made me work for every detail. But once I began to discover things about him, I realized that at forty years old, he had done and seen quite a lot and that he had very few illusions about himself and his world. The flip side of that kind of self-knowledge is that once he gets an idea in his head, nothing short of a stick of dynamite is going to get it out.
He tends to be a little bossy and domineering especially with people he cares for because he thinks he knows best. But everything he does is done out of loyalty and affection which I think makes him a very appealing character.
HH: What do you like best about Benny and how does Rain change things up for him? KG: From the beginning Benny captured my heart so it was no surprise to me that readers loved him too. He's a very sweet and kind of naive guy who really has no clue about his own worth. He tries very hard to please other people and is used to sort of turning himself inside-out trying to be what they want or expect which is part of his problem.
Rain is actually one of the first people in Benny's life who begins to teach him that he doesn't have to do that. He shows Benny that he can be loved for who he is, rather than for what everyone else expects him to be, though at times it's not an easy lesson.
HH: Will there be more books in this world?
KG: There will, at least two more and possibly three. Though technically, none has advanced beyond the idea phase at this point, I have spoken with my editor about a few ideas and the future looks promising for more stories in the PR/BTP story world.
HH: What else do you have in store for lucky readers? KG: I'm working on my third novel as we speak. The working title is Dancing With Degas. It occurs to me that this would be the ideal time to whip out a snappy tagline designed to intrigue and tantalize. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view, I'm much better at 90,000 word novels than I am at 20 word taglines.
What I can tell you is that the story is a contemporary m/m about a blind man who loses his partner of twelve years then has to face the prospect of regaining his independence and balancing that with finding a new love.
See, I told you I was wordy.
I have also promised to write a story for an angels and demons anthology. I think that one has something to do with an Elvis impersonator and the near occasion of sin. But please don't hold me to that.
HH: What would you most like to accomplish this year? KG: I'd like to finish my current novel-length project and hopefully get it released before the end of the year. I'd also like to get a few more contracts for some of the ideas that are floating around in my head. Once a story has a contract, it goes on my schedule and it becomes real. At that point I can begin to simmer it on the back burner while I work on other things until it's ready to be written.
HH: What are you reading these days? KG: I read widely both in and out of my genre though I avoid reading romance while I'm immersed in the first draft phase of a manuscript as I am right now.
But even when I'm not reading romance, I always have on average three books on the nightstand. For example, right now I'm reading Stephen King's Under The Dome, a nonfiction book called Making Toast by the essayist Roger Rosenblatt and Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall which is a beautifully written and fascinating historical novel about Henry VIII's attempt to divorce Catherine of Aragon in order to marry Anne Boleyn.
HH: Any exciting plans for the summer? KG: I adore summer. It is, without a doubt, my very favorite season. Although right now as we're in the middle of the snowiest winter we've ever had here in southern PA, summer seems very far away.
As for plans, I have nothing personal set in stone yet. I love the beach and I'm lucky enough to live within a two hour drive of the Atlantic coast. So hopefully my husband and I will get to spend at least a couple of weekends by the ocean.
On the professional/writing front, I will be attending the RWA national conference in Nashville at the end of July. I am currently serving as president of the Rainbow Romance Writers, which is the RWA special interest chapter for writers of LGBT romance. The chapter is planning to have its first meet and greet in Nashville and I'm really looking forward to that.
HH: Thank you!
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