**INTERNATIONAL GIVEAWAY** Jamie Brenner author interview-Ruin Me

I'm excited to welcome back to The Reading Frenzy Jamie Brenner who is here today talking about her newest and e-only novel Ruin Me.
Jamie's publisher St. Martin's Press has graciously offered OPEN INTERNATIONALLY a giveaway of a print edition of Jamie's last release The Gin Lovers. Click this link for Jamie's interview about The Gin Lovers and see contest details below.
Jamie Take it away!

• ISBN-13: 9781466862135
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 5/6/2014
• Sold by: Macmillan
• Format: eBook

St. Martin's Press is sponsoring this giveaway

OPEN INTERNATIONALLY

for one print copy of Jamie's last novel

The Gin Lovers

Thanks St. Martin's Press

Good Luck!

Jamie Hi Welcome back to The Reading Frenzy
Tell my readers about Ruin Me.
Thanks so much for having me back! RUIN ME is a star-crossed love story set in the world of modern art – the high priced art in Manhattan galleries and the illegal paintings on the sides of buildings known as “street art.” My heroine is the daughter of a powerful gallery owner. And she falls in love with a mysterious street artist who hates everything her mothers stands for.

Jamie your publicist at ST. Martin’s Press describes Ruin Me as built around street art, a new edgy direction in romance. Wow!
Without giving too much away can you expand on this?
Last year I saw a documentary called Exit Through the Gift Shop, about a British street artist known as “Banksy.” My first thought, seeing this guy paint buildings under the cover of night, creating images that are beautiful but also provocative and meaningful, is that he’s a total “bad boy” hero. I knew I wanted to use this setting, and a guy like him, in a novel. In the realm of heroes, we’ve seen billionaires, bikers, MMA fighters, tattoo artists. But I hadn’t yet seen a street artist. To me, they are the perfect hero: they are creative, they have something to say, and they don’t ask permission to say it. In most cases, they are breaking the law on a regular basis, so there’s the “anti-hero” element. To me, this is sexy. This is the type of guy who not only attracts women, but can inspire them to find their own voice.


Jamie I’ve been hearing the term “new adult” a lot lately.
What exactly is new adult and what audience is your main focus?
New Adult is fiction that explores a very specific time period in a person’s life. It’s college through the few years just post college, when we are literally newly adult. It’s a time of uncertainty, of struggle, of figuring out who we are and what direction our lives will take. Some people see it as YA with lots of sex, but that is not how I see it. To me, it had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with being out from parental care and influence, free to make your own mistakes. But also free to have your own successes. It is also the time when a lot of people experience their first “adult” relationship, and our partners can really influence us at that time in our lives. That influence is what I wanted to explore in RUIN ME.


How does new adult differ from YA?
New Adult is for a more mature readership. My daughter reads YA, but I would not want her reading RUIN ME or most of the New Adult novels out there. For YA, the emphasize is on the young. In New Adult, the emphasis is on adult.



Jamie during our last visit when you were talking about The Gin Lovers it was on my B&N forum and you told us that you once worked for B&N.com.
Unfortunately B&N closed down their on-line book club forums May 1st, a sad day in the book biz. Since you’re knowledgeable on both sides of the writing desk why do you think booksellers are having such a hard time when publishing and novels are flourishing?
I’m extremely upset to hear about the closing of BN book club forums, the latest in so many changes and losses when it comes to book sellers. The loss of book review columns in major newspapers, the closing of physical stores. I read that the beautiful Barnes & Noble in Union Square might close within a year. To me, that’s like hearing they are shutting down The Metropolitan Museum of Art or taking away the Chrysler Building. As far as why, it’s so complicated. Publishing and novels are flourishing, but in a different way than they used to. An author used to publish first in hardcover that cost $25. Now many authors publish first in ebook only – and not just self-published, but from major publishing houses. So the book is not in stores. And it sells for $3.99. The economics are changing. Rents for books stores are going up, and book revenue is going down. And newspaper book reviews are competing with an explosion of online review outlets. Michiko Katutani, the gold standard of reviewers in The New York Times, is competing with the voice of the people on Goodreads. Who has more influence? Now BN is not only dealing with maintaining their physical stores and their online store, but developing e-readers. It’s the wild, wild West right now, and book sellers are getting shot.

You also mentioned your participation in Heroes and Heartbreakers
Are you still contributing there?
I love Heroes and Heartbreakers and I am still writing the occasional “First Look” for them. But for the past few months I’ve been writing steadily for the romance blog Romance at Random doing book reviews, author interviews, and TV recaps. http://www.romanceatrandom.com/

So Jamie are you a full-time author?
Lately, I feel like I’m not a full-time anything: it’s always juggling a dozen different things. On any given day, I’m working on a novel, reading a novel for review, and watching and recapping a TV show for Romance at Random. And then there’s the odd freelance writing job in the mix. Then in my spare time, I’m a mother to a teenager daughter and a ten year old daughter J I don’t know if I’ll ever do just one thing.

What’s your favorite part about being an author?
When you’re young you have an idea of how you want your life to be, and then when you get to be an adult you realize that you can’t have everything. One thing that was extremely important to me, that I felt my life would be incomplete without, was becoming a published author. So for me, my favorite part is that it happened. I feel like the adult me kept a promise to the childhood me.


Thanks for taking the time to talk about your new novel. Good Luck!

Connect with Jamie – Website – Facebook – Twitter

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jamie Brenner is the author of THE GIN LOVERS, chosen by Fresh Fiction as one of their Top 13 Books to Read in 2013. Jamie also writes erotic fiction under the name Logan Belle. Her debut novel, BLUE ANGEL, was the first in an erotic trilogy published by Kensington, followed by the erotic romances NOW OR NEVER, THE LIBRARIAN and MISS CHATTERLEY. Her novels have been translated into a dozen languages. She lives in Manhattan, blogs for Romance at Random and Heroes & Heartbreakers, and is busy raising two daughters who aren't allowed to read her books.

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