Book Name: Come to My Window
Series? No
Release Date: January 2015
Author Name: Mia Kerick
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Author Bio:
Mia Kerick is the mother of four exceptional children—all named after saints—and five nonpedigreed cats—all named after the next best thing to saints, Boston Red Sox players. Her husband of twenty-two years has been told by many that he has the patience of Job, but don’t ask Mia about that, as it is a sensitive subject.
Mia focuses her stories on the emotional growth of troubled young people and their relationships, and she believes that physical intimacy has a place in a love story, but not until it is firmly established as a love story. As a teen, Mia filled spiral-bound notebooks with romantic tales of tortured heroes (most of whom happened to strongly resemble lead vocalists of 1980s big-hair bands) and stuffed them under her mattress for safekeeping. She is thankful to Dreamspinner Press, Harmony Ink Press, and CreateSpace for providing her with alternate places to stash her stories.
Mia is a social liberal and cheers for each and every victory made in the name of human rights, especially marital equality. Her only major regret: never having taken typing or computer class in school, destining her to a life consumed with two-fingered pecking and constant prayer to the Gods of Technology.
Where to find the author:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MiaKerick
Publisher: Mia Kerick
Cover Artist: Reese Dante
Blurb(s):
Justine Laraby and Kemina Lopez are intimate acquaintances yet they have never exchanged so much as a single word. For months, high school senior Justine, and famed model, “Kemina, the Baby Vixen” of Nightingale Lingerie, have been peering at each other across a narrow alley between brownstones in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. This mutual observation soon turns into the exchange of handwritten messages on signs they hold up whenever they come to their bedroom windows. Via this “sign language,” a friendship grows, and Justine learns that Kemina is, like her, a high school senior, but with a controlling mother and a modeling career that requires her to maintain an unnaturally thin physique. And through the window, she also witnesses her new friend exercising fanatically, hoarding food, and being physically and emotionally abused by her ambitious mother.
Window messages evolve into clandestine meetings and soon a tentative romance blooms. But Justine must come to terms with her own “mommy issues,” as well as accept her gender identity and sexual orientation, before she can provide Kemina with the support she needs to survive a family life that resembles a ruthless business transaction.
Will Justine be strong enough to throw open the window so Kemina can escape society’s suffocating expectations?
Window messages evolve into clandestine meetings and soon a tentative romance blooms. But Justine must come to terms with her own “mommy issues,” as well as accept her gender identity and sexual orientation, before she can provide Kemina with the support she needs to survive a family life that resembles a ruthless business transaction.
Will Justine be strong enough to throw open the window so Kemina can escape society’s suffocating expectations?
Categories: Contemporary, Fiction, Lesbian Romance, Romance, Young Adult
Excerpt:
But it’s not until the screen fills with the image of this baby seal, all white and fluffy with dark vulnerable eyes that we both gasp a little bit and then turn to look at each other. I can feel her breath on my lips and my nose is nearly touching hers, and, well, I don’t know about Kemina, but I’m all kinds of spellbound by this moment. She reaches up and touches my jaw, just below my ear, with this soft brush of her fingertips, and I have no choice but to lean down and kiss her. Not that I was looking too hard for another option. Cuz I wasn’t.
I kind of thought that my first kiss would be like an electric shock or the sharp poke of cupid’s dart or fireworks exploding in a dark night sky, but it’s not like any of those things. The way it feels when my lips touch Kemina’s is soft and gentle and tender. It’s a yielding of her mouth to mine, and then mine to hers. It’s an intimate moment that’s breathy and warm and sweet and just ours.
“Ummmm….” She lets out this sound that makes me think of how it feels to sink into a hot bath after a long afternoon of ice skating in frigid temperatures. “That was my first real kiss.”
“Real kiss?” I ask. Our lips are only about an inch apart. I have a strong feeling that her second real kiss is only a moment away.
Pages or Words: 182 pages
Hi, it’s Mia Kerick and I am here today to answer this question:
Why did I change from writing YA gay romance to YA lesbian romance? (By the way, it isn’t a permanent change away from YA gay romance, just a single book that may lead to a few more…)
So I’ve had reasonable success with my YA gay romance novels, and some readers might wonder why I decided to make a change and write a YA lesbian romance. There are several reasons.
And now this slightly less than enthralling mystery is unveiled…
To start, I’m an author who is extremely motivated by music. There’s a song called “She Keeps Me Warm” by Mary Lambert, that moved me deeply enough to want to write a book about the sentiments it inspired. I heard it and wanted to create my own couple who could experience what this song made me feel.
"She Keeps Me Warm"
She says I smell like safety and home
I named both of her eyes “Forever” and “Please don’t go”
I could be a morning sunrise all the time, all the time yeah
This could be good, this could be good
And I can’t change, even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
And I can’t change, even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
My love, my love, my love, my love
She keeps me warm, she keeps me warm
What’s your middle name?
Do you hate your job?
Do you fall in love too easily?
What’s your favorite word?
You like kissing girls?
Can I call you baby?
Yeah, yeah
She says that people stare ‘cuz we look so good together
Yeah, yeah, yeah
And I can’t change, even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
And I can’t change, even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
My love, my love, my love, my love
She keeps me warm, she keeps me warm [x2]
I’m not crying on Sundays, I’m not crying on Sundays [x2]
Love is patient, love is kind [x4]
My love, my love, my love, my love
She keeps me warm, she keeps me warm
When I listen to this song, I sense the warmth and safety and desire for permanence of two women in love. Playfully teasing questions adds to the feminine feeling.
“What’s your middle name?
Do you hate your job?
Do you fall in love too easily?
What’s your favorite word?
You like kissing girls?
Can I call you baby?”
And the lyrics are so honest, with the singer’s recognition of who she is and what she wants and how this good, warm loving feeling could really work for them as couple.
Beyond music, another reason I chose to write this particular YA lesbian romance is because of my battle for society to accept women’s bodies in all shapes in sizes. I detest the way that much of society expects a woman to be slim and fragile, and even consider thinness to determine human worth. Kemina, the eighteen-year-old lingerie model in Come To My Window, is constantly pushed to diet and exercise to the point of maintaining a figure that is far more slender than the one she was born to have. And so when Kemina decides that she is weary of the constant battle against excess curves, she relies on the support of her new girlfriend to survive the uproar. So with this novel, I was able to further explore my personal journey with body image.
Finally, I had an idea for a character that I was challenged, and ready, to create. My character Justine has always thought of herself as a major tomboy, but as she proceeds through her teen years, she is starting to realize how her rather masculine gender identity and expression fits in with her sexual orientation. Her feeling for the gorgeous girl she sees across the alley when she glances out her bedroom window, forces her to accept the fact that she feels like a boy in more ways than how she dresses and the way she wears her hair. I wanted to create Justine, to experience her first love, and to see how she would deal with taking a stand.
The subthemes of motherhood and perfection seemed to fit in well with the YA lesbian romance plot I established, so I was able to blend these in quite seamlessly.
Sometimes it all just fits, which is the case with the characters, themes, and plot in Come To My Window.
Tour Dates/Tour Stops:
26-Jan
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Sales Links:
All Romance eBooks Link: https://www.allromanceebooks.
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