New Release: Cocktails & Dreams

So... not only is it Thursday, which we all know is BLOG BOUNCE DAY, but Omnific had a new release this week!! 

Cocktails & Dreams by Autumn Markus went on sale on Tuesday.

 Jena Baker's life was a Type-A personality's dream: job she loved, degree almost finished, great friends... all firmly in her control until one night of insanity when her past collides with her present.

After a New Year’s Eve party in San Francisco, Jena wakes up in a strange hotel room beside her college crush, Nicholas Cooper. Funny thing, but showing her wild side to a man she knows makes the prospect of facing him the next morning infinitely worse, so she slips away before he wakes. Back home in Davis, she decides to let old flames die…but that doesn’t stop dreams of her night with him from coming back to haunt her.

Nicholas wasn't looking for change, other than a change of scenery. His life was perfectly pleasant, even, and rational…until Jägermeister led to a madly out-of-character night. Now he's dreaming of an angel his mind can’t quite remember but his body won’t let him forget.

When fate throws Jena and Nick together again, they find their physical attraction is undeniable. But they need to discover if there’s more to them than great sex.

Can a relationship that started somewhere in the middle ever work? Or is it all just Cocktails & Dreams?

Autumn was so nice to answer a few of our crazy questions and share some of her plans for the future.

Omnific: Cocktails & Dreams is your first novel, tell us about what inspired you to write and write this book in general..

Autumn: I’ve loved to write since I was a little kid (allowances always went to pads of paper and fat pencils-lol). I wrote and published poetry and horror stories in high school and college, but let it go by the wayside until about three years ago.

This particular book was inspired by a relationship in college, and a conversation about it with a friend years later that started my What if… in motion (all writers have a What if... Ask them :D)

Omnific: Can you share a little of your writing process with us? Are you a plotter or do you write as a scene hits?

Autumn: A little of both. I don’t start writing until I have the first and last scene very clearly in my head, and a mental timeline of the ‘high points’, or key scenes, of the story. In between those points, I let the characters speak to me, and if what they want is truly undeniable, I will change what I’d planned. For example, I was very sure how this book would end… until it didn’t end that way.

Omnific: With summer upon us are you planning to escape somewhere? If you could go anywhere,  where would you LOVE to go on a vacation? And if you went, would you truly be on vacation or would you have a notebook with you to write when an idea strikes?

Autumn: I wish! I have a big family with all sorts of activities, so I’ll just be here for the summer. If I could go anywhere in the world, it would be to Ireland and Scotland. Those countries fascinate me, so I know I’d be writing things all of the time. Tell me that a good solo wander through the Irish or Scottish countryside doesn’t sound wonderful (though I just might get swept away by a Scottish brogue, so maybe I should take the hubs for safety’s sake)!

Omnific: Since Omnific is all about the romance...what is your favorite romance scene in a book?

Autumn: HAHA! I just planned to ask a variation of this question, except with movies, on my Facebook! Let’s see… You have to remember, I’m a geek girl (lol), but three books come to mind: third, the library scene in Ian McEwan’s Atonement. Very passionate! Next, two scenes in Cold Mountain (Charles Frasier)—when Ada is overcome with longing and ends up in Inman’s lap (not in the movie, but SO good), and when she’s undressing for him near the end. My favorite, though, and this may be surprising, is a scene in

Stephen King’s book, Wizard and Glass. King’s description of the lovemaking between Roland and Susan is tender and heartbreaking and beautiful.

Omnific: Now, if they made that into a movie who would you want cast opposite you? (Or if they have already made a movie, would you recast it?)

Autumn: Cold Mountain and Atonement have both been movies, and I wouldn’t change a thing—Jude Law and James Mc Avoy! Wizard and Glass has not been a movie, but if I was the right age(Roland was just 15 and Susan 16), I would cast… can’t even go there! I feel like a kiddiestalker!

 

Omnific: And the dreaded question after months of editing…do you have anything that you are working on next?

Autumn: Actually, yes! I’m in the middle of editing a completed contemporary romance manuscript, and have two other stories in the works. One is a contemporary romance set in Tennessee, called “Growing Season” and one is a historical fiction/romance set in the post Civil War south and Midwest, called “The Best Laid Plans”. I love them both, but the time is coming that I’ll have to concentrate on just one for a while *bites nails*

And we have just that little tease to get you mind working...

“So?” He grinned and raised an expressive eyebrow. “Spill it, girl. What the hell happened last night?” Jena’s eyes widened in horror, and Travis laughed. “Not the gory details, spaz. I don’t want to have nightmares about that. I’ve just never seen you take off with a guy like that. And don’t even try to pull the ‘I was so drunk I didn’t know what was going on’ thing either, because I’ve seen you so twisted that you can’t see or walk, and you still have willpower of steel. Or actually, ‘won’t power.’”

Thanks so much for indulging us, Autumn and for giving us this little peek into Cocktails & Dreams!

If you want to find Autumn, here's where she is!

Facebook


Web Site

And now...it's time to BOUNCE!!

Here's how this works:


If you are an author, click on "Get the Code Here" to get the link. Copy and paste that link in your blog post. Then hop right on and add your blog url to get added to the list.


If you are a reader, you get to bounce from blog to blog and meet some great new authors and maybe find some new books to read.


So everyone hop on and go for a bounce!