Friday, March 18, 2016

Virtual Tour ~ Mending The Rift by Chris T. Kat ~ (Review, Interview, Excerpt + Giveaway)

Virtual Tour ~ Mending The Rift by Chris T. Kat ~ (Review, Interview, Excerpt + Giveaway)
Author Name: Chris T. Kat
Book Name: Mending the Rift
Release Date: March 14, 2016


Blurb:

In a future where man’s ability to reproduce is severely compromised, humanity has adapted to survive. Breeders—male and female—have become precious commodities, and they are strictly guarded and subject to limitations.
Luca Walker is a breeder. Though he knows what’s expected of him as the youngest son of the Northern Confederacy’s Vice President, he’s held out against the pressures of an arranged marriage because he longs to marry for love, not duty. But he’s been promised to Colonel Liam Smith and there’s little he can do about it, no matter that Luca is secretly in love with his bodyguard, Marcus Gray.
When Luca finds himself pregnant with Marcus’s baby, Smith is furious and vows to take what is his—by force, if necessary. Now Luca must fight for his life and the life of his unborn child… as well as the love of Marcus and the happily ever after he’s always dreamed of.

Pages or Words: 68,000 words

Categories: M/M Romance, Science Fiction, MPREG

Excerpt:
Excerpt from Chapter Two:

Marcus rappelled off and stepped onto the ground with a crunch of his boots. Pointing at the opening with the askew ladder, he asked, “Don’t tell me you seriously considered climbing down this way.”
Luca shrugged. “I’d have preferred spontaneous levitation, but it didn’t happen.”
He yelped when Marcus put an arm around his torso and lifted him to his feet, as if he weighed nothing. “Hey!”
Marcus silenced him with a glare, and Luca gritted his teeth while Marcus thumped dust off his clothes. “Your father is livid.”
Luca swallowed. He’d expected worried, maybe a bit mad, but livid? His father never got furious at him. Not for long, anyway. Being the baby of the family had its perks. “Why?”
“Why? Seriously, Luca, you have to ask why?” Marcus patted Luca’s behind more firmly than was strictly necessary.
Luca shifted, trying to get away from Marcus’s arm. When that didn’t help, he slapped Marcus’s hands away and stepped aside. He couldn’t think when he was so close to Marcus—when the man touched him, he sent shivers up and down his spine. He ignored the glower Marcus directed at him. “Yes, seriously. He knows I don’t want to marry Smith. I don’t want anything to do with all that shit. I want to decide what I’m going to do with my life.”
Marcus shook his head. “Smith is a good man. My brother Kyle worked for him. He said he always treated his people well. If you want I could try to get Kyle on the phone so you can talk to him. That is, if I can get a hold on him. Trust me, you’ll be in good hands.”
“You don’t get it! I don’t want to be in good hands!”
“No?” Marcus raised an eyebrow.
Luca huffed, a small smile forming on his lips. “Well, yes, of course I want to be in good hands. But I want someone to love me, and not just for my ability to become pregnant. I want… you.”
Luca’s heart thundered in his rib cage. There, he’d said it. The ball was in Marcus’s court. Sure, it had only been one night, and Marcus’s reaction afterward hadn’t been promising, but maybe he’d just been scared? Maybe he feared to lose his job? Nonetheless, there was more going on between them, and they both knew it. That one night had just been the last logical step. Luca regretted nothing.
For a moment Marcus seemed startled, and there was a softness in his eyes that was solely reserved for Luca. The softness vanished too quickly for Luca’s liking.
Instead, Luca was greeted with Marcus’s usual, scrutinizing gaze. “You don’t want me, and you better never mention this again. It was a mistake. Now get it out of your head and be a good boy.”
Buy The Book:
DSP eBook ~ DSP Print ~ Amazon ~ ARe

*** Copy provided to Bayou Book Junkie in exchange for a fair and honest review. ***

 This book is set in the future where only a few selected men and women are born breeders and they pass from their family to their husbands. Luca is a breeder and the time for him to fulfill his duty and enter the marriage arranged by his father, has come. Luca is in love with his bodyguard, though, and refuses to marry anyone but Marcus. When Luca finds himself pregnant with Marcus's baby, everything is thrown out for a loop as they race against time and Luca's fiancé so Marcus can claim Luca and the baby for himself. 

 I liked Luca, for the most part. Yes, he could be a bit hormonal and whiny, but he was likable. I probably would've liked him more if he'd exhibited a bit more of the fire that drove him to escape when the book starts later on. I am not sure what I feel about Marcus and Luca's parents, I felt like Luca was just a pawn sometimes. I did enjoy the chemistry between Marcus and Luca, they were hot together, though. 

 I feel a bit torn while writing this review, while I liked the first part of the book, even if there were a few things that I didn't particularly care for, like the way Luca ended up pregnant and his dad's involvement in that, the second portion of the story was a bit difficult for me to enjoy. I understand that this is science fiction, so the author has a bit more leeway to play with the different scenarios, but two kidnappings in one book and unnecessary use of violence against a pregnant man and a few other things that were left unanswered, made it so that I couldn't get into the book. 

 It's possible that it was just me, but while the book is well-written and some parts were very enjoyable, as a whole it just lacked something.

 Rating: 3.5 Stars. 
Today I’m very lucky to be interviewing Chris T. Kat, author of Mending the Rift.
Hi Chris, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Tell us a little about yourself, your background, and your current book.

  1. Where do you find your inspiration?

Oh, pretty much everywhere. I can be inspired by a photo or video clip, or just by walking through the aisle in a grocery store (and that really says something since I hate grocery shopping). Sometimes I find inspiration in visiting new places. Swordplay, my third Jeff Woods Mystery, is set in Washington because I visited the city about three years ago and absolutely loved it there. Mending the Rift is set in parts of Germany that I know well because I’ve lived there.

  1. When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I started out as a fan fiction writer and I considered myself a writer then. Maybe not right away, because at first I only wrote very short stories. But when the stories became more complex, and the word count rose (I started writing novelettes and novellas), the thought that I was a “real” writer popped up.

  1. Do your characters become like real people to you?

Yes, definitely. Not always right away, because sometimes it takes time to grasp a character and his needs, but they feel real to me. If they didn’t feel real, there would be no emotional connection, and why would I spend time on that? I love it when I read books in which the characters become real, when I become invested in their troubles and joys.

  1. If you weren’t a writer, what else would you like to have done?

I was only a part-time writer. I wrote on the weekends and whenever I had free time. Sometimes I went for weeks without writing, sometimes I wrote every day (though that only happened on vacation). I haven’t written anything since August last year, and at the moment I have no desire to change that fact. It allows for much more reading time! ☺

  1. What do you want your tombstone to say?

I really haven’t thought about that yet, and honestly, that’s for my surviving family to decide. ☺
Meet the author:
Chris T. Kat lives in the middle of Europe, where she shares a house with her husband of many years and their two children. She stumbled upon the M/M genre by luck and was swiftly drawn into it. She divides her time between work, her family—which includes chasing after escaping horses and lugging around huge instruments such as a harp—and writing. She enjoys a variety of genres, such as mystery/suspense, paranormal, and romance. If there's any spare time, she happily reads for hours, listens to audiobooks or does cross stitch.

Where to find the author:


Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Cover Artist: AngstyG

Tour Dates & Stops:
14-Mar

15-Mar

16-Mar

17-Mar

18-Mar



 a Rafflecopter giveaway


Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

1 comment:

  1. AnonymousMarch 19, 2016 at 6:10 AM

    Thank you for hosting me and for reviewing the book!

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)