Friday, May 20, 2016

Spotlight-Excerpt, Giveaway & Author Interview: POWER PLAY by Avon Gale (Scoring Chances #3)


Power Play
Author: Avon Gale
Series: Scoring Chances
Book: Three
This book can be read as a standalone

Release Date: May 9, 2016


Blurb

A freak accident during the Stanley Cup Playoffs put an end to Max Ashford’s hockey career. Despite everything, Max gets back into the game he loves—only this time, behind the bench as an assistant coach of the Spartanburg Spitfires, the worst team in the entire league. But nothing prepares him for the shock when he learns the new head coach is Misha Samarin, the man who caused Max’s accident.

After spending guilt-ridden years for his part in Max’s accident, Russian native Misha Samarin has no idea what to do when he’s confronted with Max’s presence. Max’s optimism plays havoc with Misha’s equilibrium—as does the fierce attraction that springs up between them.

Not only must they navigate Misha’s remorse and a past he’s spent a lifetime to forget, but also a sleazy GM determined to use their history as a marketing hook. But when an unwelcome visitor targets the team, Misha revisits his darkest days, which might cost him and Max the beginning they’ve worked so hard to build.

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Cover Artist: Aaron Anderson
Pages or Words: 240 pages

Categories: Bisexual, Contemporary, Fiction



Excerpt:
“I’d never watched this, you know.”

“The YouTube video?” Misha had seen that too. It was filed with angry commenters yelling that he should be deported back to Russia.

“The hit.”

Misha blinked. “You’ve seen the commercial, though. Yes?”

“Yeah, I wish I could say I haven’t seen that. But I meant, I didn’t watch this until a few months ago. They played that game on the NHL channel, so I watched it.”

It never occurred to Misha that Max wouldn’t have seen it, but then he remembered that Max was the hero, not the villain of the story. Misha watched the hit play out on the screen. What must that feel like, to watch the moment it all ended? When Max hit the ice, did he know that game was his last? Did Misha know it was his? How had he felt? He couldn’t remember.

The scene switched to the replay. Misha watched dispassionately, retreated into the blinding pain of his migraine, and told himself that it was all right to suffer, that he should, that he deserved it.

Max paused the video. “Look. See what I have there?”

Misha blinked. He had not expected questions. “I—what?”

“The puck, Misha. The puck. Your hit wasn’t late.”

Oh. “Yes. I know.”

Max stared at him. On the television screen, their younger selves were suspended at the moment everything changed. 


Buy the book: 




Meet the author:
Avon Gale was once the mayor on Foursquare of Jazzercise and Lollicup, which should tell you all you need to know about her as a person. She likes road trips, rock concerts, drinking Kentucky bourbon and yelling at hockey. She’s a displaced southerner living in a liberal midwestern college town, and when she’s not writing you can find her at the salon, making her clients look and feel fabulous. She never gets tired of people and their stories -- either real or the ones she makes up in her head.



Author Interview

1. Which of your characters would you take on a date? And where would you go?

I would totally take Zoe on a date, from Breakaway. We’d go see a hockey game, of course! Ditto with Jared Shore. I think I might drive Malin Lacroix crazy, and me and Avery would talk too much to go anywhere where you were supposed to be quiet! 

2. If Character X from one book got in a fist fight with Character Y from another book, which one would win, and why?

Ha, well, I’ve had this happen sort of – Ethan Kennedy and Jared Shore have fought since they’re both hockey enforcers, and Matt Huxley (from Power Play, also an enforcer) has fought Ethan Kennedy. I am trying to imagine Avery and Max getting into a fistfight, but somehow I don’t think that would actually happen. They’d end up laughing and buying each other a beer. 

3. Character X meets the characters from Book 2 - F*ck, marry, kill?

Max would totally sleep with Ethan, marry Riley, and there’s no way he’d kill anyone :D 

4. How do you come up with the characters?

They sort of come up with themselves, LOL. I have a general idea what I want them to be like, and they take shape as a I write. Sometimes they end up being very similar to my original plan and sometimes, not so much. In fact, nine times out of ten they manage to surprise me. 

5. How about questions like which character would you want on your zombie apocalypse team or to be stuck alone with on a deserted island?

I’d want Misha on my Zombie Apocalypse Team, definitely. 






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