Blog Tour Stop - Shifting Weight by Tina Blenke ~ BFD Book Blog

Book Name: Shifting Weight

Book one of a series

Author Name: Tina Blenke

Author Bio: Tina is a retired Air Force brat and has lived in several states as well as a handful of countries. She has always had a soft spot for literature and is a voracious reader. When she isn’t writing, she can be found cuddled up with a good book. Though Tina adores a thrilling novel with sappy lovesick heroes, she is terrified of things that go bump in the night. This makes for quite a complicated relationship with zombies, something that she just can’t get enough of.

Author Contact:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tina-Blenke-Author/487878157926041?ref=hl

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tinablenke

LinkedIn: Tina Blenke

Instagram: tinablenke

WordPress: http://tinablenke.wordpress.com/

Website: http://tinablenke.wix.com/author

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Publisher: eXtasy Books

Cover Artist: Latisha Waters

Author Guest Post

How did being an air force brat and traveling all over the world influence your writing and stories?

I’d like to compare myself to an alien. Not because I’m a green creature from another planet in search of resources but because I’m a traveler without a sense of a permanent home. This alien belongs to two worlds, Thailand and the US, but I don’t belong to either of these worlds. Before you get too lost, let me explain my alien life.

I was born in West Germany, and basically it’s a country that no longer exists. I’m of German descent, a little bit, and I only look German if you squint your eyes and stare very hard. My mother is a native of Thailand and she’s the first person in her family to ever leave the country. Ever. That’s amazing considering she barely had any schooling and couldn’t speak any other language when she married my father and moved to Germany and then Japan. She’d never seen snow let alone heard of such a thing.

I didn’t move to the US until I was a couple years into elementary school. It wasn’t bad growing up on a military base where the children are all of mixed races and playing in the street was always safe. There was no such thing as racism and you learned early on how to make new friends and that people moved away all the time with short notice.

Learning that I was an alien didn’t happen until middle school. Most military families are in for the short term before they retire or find new careers. My father was career military and didn’t retire until I was seventeen. That meant that I was one of two or three teenagers on the entire base with the exception of the enlisted men across the base. I never interacted with them and it was one of the only rules I followed as a kid.

There are elementary schools on bases but there aren’t schools after that because of lack of attendance. We are bussed out to the neighboring towns for middle school and high school. It was in these towns that I learned about racism, hate crimes, and teenage rebellion. I also learned that I looked different than the majority of the population. But it wasn’t just here in the US. When I visited and lived in Thailand as a teenager, I realized that I didn’t look much like them either. I’m a hybrid, a child of mixed races, and I don’t blend in with any crowd.

Skin color is just one of the differences though it’s the most obvious. Culture, holidays, religions, social interactions, community awareness and acceptance, these things are just the tip of the iceberg that I’ve discovered in my journey on this planet. They aren’t all bad things, some are good, and some are freaking fantastic. For instance, I’m always the exotic one in the group. That can be cool. Throw in my hobby of writing gay romance and I’m always the center of attention.

My life as an alien has allowed me to see the outside of society and the interactions that people have within their own social groups and those outside. How people treat those that are different than them is really what can make or break my view of them. We should always strive to be inclusive and I think those types of struggles are always an element to my stories. I was told that writers should write about what they know and I know how to be an alien, an outsider on this planet.

Blurb(s):

Jason is a West Coast wolf Shifter who leaves his native Pack Lands to search for his destined mate. When he finds the large muscled man working out a local gym, Jason is ecstatic and apprehensive. Eric is a Changeless human and there are tense sides to the politically heated debate around the integration of Shifters and Changeless. Jason is at risk of losing control of his wolf without bonding with his destined mate. But, will Eric accept that Jason is a Shifter? And can Eric trust Jason after his heart has been left shattered from a previously failed relationship.

Categories: Erotica, Fiction, Gay Fiction, M/M Romance, Paranormal, Romance

Excerpt:

Jason allowed himself to run that night. Elation filled him making it easier to relax and allow his wolf to flow into his mind and body. The shift was seamless, years of transitioning helped his wolf to take control in under a few painless minutes. Jason knew of wolves who could never shift because the pain was so intense. It was unknown what the cause was but some insisted that it was because the Shifter’s true mate had never been found and the man could not control the beast inside of him.

The old wives’ tale had haunted Jason especially as years passed without locating his mate. Now that he knew Eric existed, it was one less thing to worry about. Now he could focus on worrying about Eric finding out he was a Shifter. Eric’s acceptance. If the two would find love and happiness despite fate playing a factor, then, and only then, could Jason think about starting a family with Eric. Maybe he was jumping the gun, but he had always wanted a man to love and a family to care for. Was it too much to want? Shouldn’t he be satisfied with finding a mate? All of this thinking and stress was weighing him down. Yes, he had found his mate, but would Eric want Jason?

His legs pumped harder as he made his way across hills and through forests with large trees reaching up towards the skies. It was not the familiar woods of his home on the Pack Lands but it felt good to stretch his limbs, pull deep pulls of fresh air into his lungs, and feel the wind tickling through his fur all over his body. With a grin, he imagined his large bear of a mate with sexual wants that matched his own.

Pages: 60 pages