Release Blitz including Excerpt, Author Q&A and Review – Goalie Interference by Avon Gale and Piper Vaughn

 

 

Goalie Interference by Avon Gale and Piper Vaughn

Series: Hat Trick Series (Book #2)

Publisher: Carina Press

Release Date (Ebook):  September 30, 2019

Release Date (Print): October 1, 2019

Length (Ebook): 75,000 words (approx.)

Length (Print): 297 pages (approx.)

Subgenre: Contemporary romance, hockey romance, m/m

Warnings: tense family situations, racial microaggressions (called out on page)

Amazon

 

Book synopsis

It’s goalie vs. goalie in this brand-new enemies-to-lovers hockey romance from Avon Gale and Piper Vaughn…

Ryu Mori has had a stellar season as goalie for the Atlanta Venom. So when he’s called into management’s office, he’s expecting to hear he’s the new starting goalie for the team, not that some new guy—an incredibly hot, annoyingly bratty rookie—is here to compete for his spot.

Not everyone gets to play in the best league in the world. Emmitt Armstrong knows that, and he’s not about to waste the opportunity after grinding his way from the bottom to the top. If the Venom are looking for a meek, mild-mannered pushover, they’ve got the wrong guy.

Ryu doesn’t want to admit the other goalie’s smart mouth turns him on. Beating Armstrong at practice feels good, sure, but there are other, more fun ways to shut his rival up.

In this league, it’s winner takes all. But there’s more to life than winning, and if Emmitt and Ryu can get past their egos and competitive natures, they might just discover they work better as partners than they ever imagined possible.

One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise!

 

Excerpt

“Trevor?” Emmitt followed him into the house, which boasted a large, two-story foyer and some kind of fancy-ass window. The house was so large, Morley’s loud, boisterous voice echoed.

“Yeah?” Morley got him a beer from what appeared to be a beer fridge next to the coat hanger. He handed one over. “Smart, yeah? I mean, what’s the first thing you want when you go to someone’s house? A place to hang your fuckin’ coat, and a cold one, right?” He beamed.

“This house,” Emmitt started. “It’s…uh. Really big.”

“Right?” Morley beamed and swigged from his beer bottle. “I got it in some kind of foreclosure or whatever they call it when people buy ginormous houses and can’t pay for them. Anyway, it’s got seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms! A pool house, and a pool! It’s not heated but it could be, like, I just have to get someone out here to install a heater.”

“But why?” Emmitt asked, blinking at him.

“To swim when it’s cold, bro.”

Emmitt was overcome with a sudden affection for his teammate. He shook his head with a rueful laugh.

 

5 of 5 Stars

I feel I need to start this review with a couple of disclaimers: 1) I am a HUGE hockey fan and have been for over 35 years and 2) I think hockey goaltenders are pretty much gods. This may or may not have affected my opinion of this but…which I loved, unexpectedly. I wasn’t really interested in Ryu from book one and while I’m a big fan of Ms. Gale’s, I’ve been hit or miss with Ms. Vaughn.

This can be read as a standalone although Tristan and Sebastian are in this book quite a bit.

Ryu and Emmitt’s initial animosity is passionate which of course translated perfectly to the bedroom. At first glance, this appears to also be an opposites attract story but as we get to know both characters we can see they come from similar backgrounds and upbringing. Ryu’s not surprising but Emmitt’s dad made me angry…although living in Texas I see that type of behavior all the time. Football is king here, everything else is just a leisure activity. I was surprised at the glimpses of gentleness between these – how good they are at it and how much it worked for them. I really like them together and hope we see more of them in future installments of this series.
I was pleasantly surprised by how the goalie competition was handled and while the outcome was as expected, there were a couple of shockers along the way. There was one scene in particular that played out as expected but I would have been sorely disappointed (and probably would have thrown my Kindle in a fit of rage) had it not happened exactly that way.

In the end, I loved the story and can’t wait for the next book.  And please for the love of God tell me one of them is about Morley…and soon.

 

 

About Avon Gale

Avon Gale lives in a liberal Midwestern college town, where she spends her days getting heavily invested in everything from craft projects to video games. She likes road trips by car, rock concerts, thunderstorms, IPAs, Kentucky bourbon and tattoos. As a queer author, Avon is committed to providing happy endings for all and loves to tell stories that focus on found families, strong and open communication, and friendship. She loves writing about quirky people who might not be perfect, but always find a place where they belong.

Avon is represented by Courtney Miller-Callihan at Handspun Literary Agency.

Connect with Avon:

Twitter

Facebook

Newsletter

Instagram

Website

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About Piper Vaughn

Piper Vaughn is a queer Latinx author and longtime romance reader. Since writing their first love story at age eleven, they’ve known writing in some form was exactly what they wanted to do. A reader to the core, Piper loves nothing more than getting lost in a great book.

Piper grew up in a diverse neighborhood in Chicago and loves putting faces and characters of every ethnicity in their stories, making their fictional worlds as colorful as the real one. Above all, Piper believes there’s no one way to have an HEA, and every person deserves to see themselves reflected on the page.

Connect with Piper:

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

Website

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Author Q&A

Piper Vaughn

Q:  Name the five biggest distractions from your writing.

A: 

-Reading.

-Cross stitching.

-YouTube. I watch a lot of ASMR videos to relax, but I’m also really into cooking videos, crafting tutorials, music videos, and skincare vlogs.

-My cat. Look, she’s too cute to resist. She deserves all the pets and treats and love.

-Social media. Especially Twitter!

Q:  What is your ideal writing space?

A:  In a perfect world, I’d have my own office, with a door that locked. There’d be a desk/work station, book shelves stuffed to the brim with paperbacks and knickknacks, a cozy reading nook in the corner for when I needed a break, a few plants near the window, and space to display all of the vintage typewriters I’ve collected over the years.

Q:  What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

A:  I love to travel, listen to music (my tastes are eclectic, but at heart, I’m still a 90s grunge and alternative kid), read, and marathon TV shows or true crime podcasts. I also love cross stitching, which I’ve only been doing for about 4 months now, but I’m totally obsessed with the craft and have amassed quite the collection of supplies and patterns and have even started hand-dyeing my own fabric and creating my own designs.

Q:  What drew you to this genre?

A:  I’ve been a romance reader pretty much from the start, when I first got my hands on a few Harlequin category romances around the age of eleven. YA was a much smaller genre at the time, and while I was reading some of it—Christopher Pike, LJ Smith, RL Stine, Sweet Valley High, etc.—a lot of it also contained romantic subplots. At the end of the day, I just really enjoy watching two (or more) people form a connection and fall in love, with all the ups and downs that come along with that journey. And given that I grew up around a fair amount of death and violence, I really clung hard to the idea of happily ever afters. I still do.

 

Avon Gale

Q:  Name the five biggest distractions from your writing.

A:  Definitely video games. I love them, especially epic RPGs with a huge world map and a thousand pointless sidequests. There’s nothing I love more than fighting with my ragtag group of party members, gallivanting from town to dungeon, rage-quitting boss battles (they cheat!) and putting off saving the world to collect vegetables for that one merchant, or find the lost sheep of a poor villager. I love RPGs because they’re basically found family narratives with a strong emphasis on the power of friendship, which are also things I love to write about in my books.

After that, it’d have to be crafting — I like to knit, embroider, sew, paint, make jewelry, anything like that. I’m always up for learning a new craft (sewing and embroidery are my most recent) and I can spend a lot of time in our local yarn shop, the quilt store with the fabric I won’t let myself buy because I am still not that great at sewing in a straight line, or Michaels looking at embroidery thread.

YouTube — I watch a lot of YouTube videos, as the shorter format works well with my attention span. I love Jenny Nicholson, who has hilarious videos about bad fanfic, movies, and theme parks — I highly recommend her snark-tastic video about that awful “Escape from Tomorrow” movie shot guerilla-style in Disney parks.

My four month old kitten is also a distraction from writing, sometimes a welcome one and sometimes not so much. But it’s hard not to play with her when she’s so cute!!

For the last one, I guess I’d have to say cleaning. Sometimes I have found myself vacuuming instead of writing, in which case I’m sure somewhere my mom is weeping quality for the twelve year old I might have been, haha!

Q:  What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

A:  Video games are my biggest hobby at the moment, alongside with crafting (though the kitten makes doing that sort of hard, she likes to pounce on literally everything but especially string/yarn!). I also love to travel, especially road tripping to visit friends or go to concerts. I love to swim, either outside in a nice cold river/lake or at the gym. I obviously love reading, I still love my fandom and shrieking over fanart/fic, and I love watching horror movies. I’m pretty easily entertained, to be honest!

Q:  What drew you to this genre?

A:  I’ve been a romance reader since I was about 11, and I started reading gothic romance (“The Lost Duchess of Greyden Castle” was my first!) and then moved on to contemporary and historical. I love character-driven stories, especially ones with a happy ending. Romance has always appealed to my positivity and inherently optimistic nature, and I love being able to write in the genre I’ve read and enjoyed for so long. I especially love seeing queer characters thrive and end up happy, those narratives were ones I didn’t have growing up and I’m committed to making sure they’re out there.

 

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