Interview: Authors Erin McRae / Racheline Maltese @erinmcrae @racheline_m #RLFblog #LGBT

Starling

Title Starling

Genre Contemporary Gay romance

Authors Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese

Book heat level (based on movie ratings): R

Interview with Erin and Racheline

What were you like when
you were in school?

Erin: When I was a junior in high school, I was bored out of
my mind in English class and one day I guess my teacher got tired of me just
sitting on the windowsill at the back of the room, doing my own thing, and took
me down to the school book room. Like, this massive room, with these weird
concrete walls because it was adjacent to the room under the pool, which was
also a nuclear fallout shelter — my school was built in the 60s — full of
shelves crammed with all the non-textbooks the school owned. And she just walked
me through the whole room, and pulled off a copy of every book she thought I
should read that the curriculum didn’t cover anymore. I still have them all.

Racheline: Most of my pre-university education was at a
private school that had been known as Miss Hewitt’s Classes for Young Ladies at
one time. I got a fantastic literature and Latin education there, and I am
grateful for it. But I was extremely awkward, and didn’t fit in in terms of
class and background. I spent a lot of time hanging around with adult artists
outside of school because my parents are painters. No one knew what to do with
me, and I got bullied a lot, but I also learned tons of trivia about forks and
courtesies.

Would you rather stay
inside and watch snow falling, or get out in it and build a snowman?

Erin: Snowman. We don’t get a lot of snow in DC — and when
it does, it tends to be a disaster — so most of the snow I know is in my
hometown in upstate New York. There’s an incredible silence when snow is
falling, that’s not quite like silence anywhere else. I love all the cities
I’ve lived in, but I miss that silence.

Racheline: I am deeply superstitious about the first snow
each year. I’ve had a lot of really magical (and usually romantic and/or
sexual) luck happen around those first snowstorms. But I also hate the cold.
I’ll stay outside for the first one, then I am over it.

What is your favorite
quote?

Erin: “The work is the prayer.” For which even
Google isn’t giving me a proper attribution. But it’s one of those things you
hear everywhere.. And when a lot of people say it, it’s this sort of zen thing
about not being preoccupied with results and just letting the effort be what
counts. And there’s definitely value in that. But where I first encountered the
quote was from Baz Lurhmann, who says it all the time and it’s always like a
curse. From him, it’s about putting everything you have into the work and kind
of just fucking the obstacles that get in your way. On the hard days, it’s a
reminder to me to just put my head down and keep going.

Racheline: “Tomorrow is the first lie of the
Devil.” — Robert Fripp. I don’t really believe in the devil, but I think
it’s a useful quote, not just about procrastination, but about how seductive
time is. You never know when you’re going to be hit by a bus. If you want to do
a thing, do it now.

What was your favorite
book as a child?

Erin: I read Little House in the Big Woods so many times the
cover fell off, and I still come back to that book and everything else written
by Laura Ingalls Wilder. History was my first love, because for me it’s always
just about people, living their lives in so many different circumstances and
situations. Which is just what all stories are, really.

Racheline: When I was twelve, Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat
came out. For some inexplicable reason, it was available to buy at my school
book fair and a friend who knew I was afraid of vampires dared me to read it. I
read it again and again and again, because it was the first thing I had ever
read that said big emotions were truthful and okay and necessary. It was also
the first time I encountered any sort of queerness in text. It really saved me,
I think, from being more miserable than I already was at that age.

What was the last movie
you watched (home or theater)?

Erin: Marie Antoinette, for research purposes.

Racheline: Guardians of the Galaxy. That entire movie
succeeds on its soundtrack,which may tell you my age. But that film is all in
the hips.

Buy This Book

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Starling-Racheline-Maltese-ebook/dp/B00NH0MFOO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1410387761&sr=1-1

About the Book

When J. Alex Cook, a production assistant on The Fourth
Estate (one of network TV’s hottest shows), is accidentally catapulted to
stardom, he finds himself struggling to navigate both fame and a relationship
with Paul, one of Fourth’s key writers. Despite their incendiary chemistry,
Alex’s inexperience and the baggage they’re both carrying quickly lead to an
ugly break-up.

Reeling from their broken hearts, Alex has an affair with a
polyamorous co-star and Paul has an ill-advised reunion with an old flame.
Meanwhile, the meddling of their colleagues, friends — and even the paparazzi!
— quickly make Alex and Paul’s real life romance troubles the soap opera of
the television season.

But while the entertainment value may be high, no one knows
better than Alex and Paul that there are no guarantees when it comes to love in
Los Angeles.

Author bios

Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese’s gay romance series Love
in Los Angeles, set in the film and television industry, is published by
Torquere Press. The first novel, Starling, was released September 2014; its
sequel, Doves, is scheduled for January 2015. Racheline is a NYC-based
performer and storyteller focused on themes of sex, gender, desire and
mourning. Erin McRae is a writer and blogger based in Washington, D.C. You can
find them on the web at http://www.Avian30.com.