Guest Post and Giveaway with PT Michelle

Today the wonderful  P.T. Michelle is here to share with us why she wrote her most recent release. And she has offered up a giveaway item as well. Thank you for being here P.T. Michelle - I'm really looking forward to the second book in this series  LUCID. You can check out my review of Brightest Kind of Darkness here.

WHY I WROTE BRIGHTEST KIND OF DARKNESS by P.T. Michelle

By the time I was ten, I was what you’d call a heavy reader, but it wasn’t until my neighbor introduced me to romance novels when I was thirteen that I became a voracious reader. Romances were bigger than life. They were sweeping and epic, thrilling and exiting. Not only was I able to get caught up in the action and adventure, but I enjoyed trying to figure out the mysteries that often took place in far away, exotic places. The best part was, I got to do all of that while cheering for the main characters to fall in love. In my mind, the romance was the desert that topped-off a delicious and fulfilling meal.

As I grew older, my reading tastes expanded to other fiction genres, non-fiction and the classics, but somehow a romance novel always managed to make it into my shopping cart along with other book purchases.

When the itch to tell stories of my own surfaced, it made sense that I’d write what I enjoyed the most…romances. And so I did, loving every minute of it. Then several years ago, while beta reading the next book in a YA author friend’s continuing series, I was instantly hooked! As I read, I remember thinking, This is gritty and soul-wrenching and…I love it! Where were YA books like this when I was growing up? Of course, my friend’s amazing talent and accessible literary style had sucked me in, but she’d also written a darn good story!

After that, I proceeded to devour YA books left and right. The more I read, the more intrigued I became. I wanted to write stories about first love, about having to make tough decisions in unusual and sometimes not-so-pretty situations. AND the best part was, I could still write about irresistible guys and the blush of excitement in getting to spend time with them.

BUT, if I was going to write YA, my first one couldn’t just be any story. It had to be the right story. BRIGHTEST KIND OF DARKNESS wasn’t the first young adult story I wrote, but it was the first one that grabbed onto me and wouldn’t let go until I finished that first book AND had already written a fourteen page outline of book two. LOL! When I finished the book, I polished it, then I rewrote it…more than once.  In writing this first book in my BRIGHTEST KIND OF DARKNESS series, I got to do what I loved all over again, write a story full of mystery and adventure…and about falling in love.

"I love writing stories from an adult point-of-view and will continue to do so, but some stories need to be told from another perspective, one that views life, not from the microscope of past experience, but from a wide angle, gotta-take-it-all-in-for-the-first-time-right-here-right-now lens."

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you like dark paranormal romantic YA, I hope you’ll give BRIGHTEST KIND OF DARKNESS a try. Amazon | Barnes & Noble 

Coming Spring 2012: BRIGHTEST KIND OF DARKNESS, book 2: LUCID!

ABOUT P.T. MICHELLE

P.T. Michelle is the young adult pseudonym of Patrice Michelle, author of fifteen romance novels and novellas. When P.T. isn’t writing, she can usually be found reading or taking pictures of landscapes, sunsets and anything beautiful or odd in nature.

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