Thursday, August 16, 2012

Giveaway, Guest Post & Blog Tour "Biting Oz" By: Mary Hughes

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Welcome to the "Biting Oz
Book Blog Tour!

But someone is threatening the show’s young star. To save the production, Junior must join forces with the star’s dark, secretive bodyguard, whose sapphire eyes and lyrical Welsh accent thrill her. And whose hard, muscular body sets fire to her passions.

Fierce as a warrior, enigmatic as a druid, Glynn Rhys-Jenkins has searched eight hundred years for a home. Junior’s get-out-of-Dodge attitude burns him, but everything else about her inflames him, from her petite body and sharp mind to what she can do with her hip-length braid.

Then a sensuous, insidious evil threatens not only the show, but the very foundations of Meiers Corners. To fight it, Junior and Glynn must face the truth about themselves—and the true meaning of love and home.



Product Warnings
Cue the music, click your heels together, make a wish and get ready for one steamy vampire romance. Contains biting, multiple climaxes, embarrassing innuendos, ka-click/ka-ching violence, sausage wars and—shudder—pistachio fluff.

A word from Mary Hughes - 

Thank you to the Brunette Librarian for having me here today!

Inspiration behind the book?

      As a musician, playing for live shows is one of my joys. My pit orchestras are usually a small group, generally friends, often including my husband. Not only is the show fun and exciting, but we have plenty of laughs and disasters both onstage and off.
      As a writer, my prime goal is entertaining readers. Biting Oz immerses you in the world of theater, from the bright glitter of the show to the nitty-gritty action behind the scenes.
      Much of my inspiration comes from direct experience, enhanced by imagination. When I starting Biting Oz I had just played Reed II for The Wizard of Oz and it was fresh in my mind. I myself lugged around a huge tenor sax (and it was as bone-numbingly awkward as Junior says), although I admit I never whacked a vampire with it. Our real life Toto was a hoot, getting bored and plopping down to lick his, um, scenery. In the book my Toto gets even more creative J. Other real-life Oz stories: friend and trumpet player Karen W remembers “having Toto come up and sniff you at the edge of the pit.” A musical friend recounts “Professor Marvels’s camp site was complete with a camp fire (light and fan, etc.)…[and]…during one performance, Toto (a real pooch) kept sticking his nose in the ‘flames’ to see if there were more hot dogs in there!” That was the performance where “the music room below stage began flooding with sewage from the sump pump. [They] closed the doors and the show went on.....Later captioned by [a national news source] as ‘If I only had a drain!’”
       I’ll just share two other pit stories (not in Biting Oz but maybe a future book :). My husband nearly got beaned by a croquet ball in Little Mary Sunshine (the pit is below the stage) and took to wearing a hard hat to rehearsals. Reed player Leah D remembers a production of Into The Woods. “We had this ugly little cheap stuffed animal as our ‘pit mascot.’ Mostly, we’d stick him in funny places on someone else's stand, horn, music, gigbag, whatever. Our drummer, Barb, was commissioned with finding just the right sound for the giant’s footsteps. She found that holding the feet of the ugly stuffed animal and whacking its head into the bass drum was exactly the sound the director wanted. Heh heh...”
     As you can see, quite a bit goes on offstage too. Excitement, laughs, disasters, and relationships. What better inspiration for a story?



The Librarian's Thoughts:
Such a fun story! Fans of vampires will definitely love this one! It made me laugh out loud several times and the romance was pretty awesome :) In the mood for a fun fast romance with great characters, pick this one up! I'm definitely going to be reading the rest of the series as soon as I can get my hands on it!

What can you win?
Comment at the bottom on this guest post to win YOUR choice of a Mary Hughes' novel! 

In addition, fill out the form to enter to win ALL 5 of Mary's Biting Love series!

Contest ends August 28th

Check out the other awesome stops on the tour for more chances to win!

12 comments:

  1. I'm so silly, I typed my name instead of my email address on the form, haha. emily joy drake at gmail dot com

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    1. Hi Emily! I sympathize--oh, the typos I've done before my second cup of coffee. Thanks for visiting!

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  2. Love the post. I can see that offstage gets a lot of action too! Seems like a hard hat is a "must" item. Love the blurb too. Sounds like a great book. Thank you for sharing and for the giveaway.
    tamsyn5(at)yahoo(dot)com

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    1. Hey Tamsyn! Thanks for your kind words! That's one of the fun things about live theater. You plan, but never know what's going to happen--onstage or off :)

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  3. Biting Oz sounds great, Love the cover. Thx for giveaway.

    blinkysthebest at aol dot com

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    1. Thanks Lona! The cover artist is Kaxana, and I love how dramatic it is. It balances nicely with the tag line of Real vampires do musicals :)

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  4. Thanks for the post and the giveaway! Sounds like a fun read! :D

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  5. Love the series and the cover. Thanks for the giveaway.

    mythic021@gmail.com

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  6. Your adventures in the pit sound hilarious! Who knew it was dangerous too! Reading through your interviews is so entertaining :) Thank you for the giveaway!

    msromanticreads at gmail dot com

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    1. Hey Michelle! It keeps us on our toes. Watch out for flying props!

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  7. This is becoming one of my favorite series.

    mythic021@gmail.com

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