In a Gilded Cage
Mia Kerick
(Evernight Publishing)
Publication date: October 21st 2016
Genres: LGBTQ+, New Adult, Romance
Lucci Grimley is indeed alluring—crowned with a mane of long blond hair, and blessed with an enchanting musical talent that draws a brave rescuer to a high tower hidden in the forest.
However, this modern-day Rapunzel is a young man, sold as a child to the wealthy and childless Damien Gotham for the price of a fast car and a pile of cash. And Lucci’s heroic prince is William “Prin” Prinzing, a handsome college student and star soccer player, hired to care for the grounds of the lavish Tower Estate. Prin climbs an extension ladder rather than a long golden braid to gain access to Lucci’s second floor bedroom window, ultimately penetrating the secrecy surrounding the cloistered young man.
Friendship, and soon romance, blooms. The tower captive eagerly gives his loving innocence to his brave rescuer, which sends the strict and reclusive Gotham into a frenzy of jealous rage. With Prin, Lucci gets a taste of real life, and he wants more. Together, the young men must face Gotham’s ruthlessness and pay the price of liberating Lucci.
Hello,
and thank you so much for welcoming me to your blog today to promote the
release of my New Adult LGBTQ fairy tale retelling called In A Gilded Cage by Mia Kerick. In A Gilded Cage is a dark and passionate M/M retelling of the
story Rapunzel, as told by The
Brothers Grimm. This is edgy NA
contemporary fiction illustrating how one young man rescues another, and in
many ways, saves himself.
Here
is a brief interview so that you can get to know me!
How did you get
started writing?
I
have always been a dreamer, or as they say in the Disney realm, an Imagineer. I
have long been a designer and developer of make-pretend things in my life. As a
grade school kid, I could express my creativity and whimsy through play-acting.
My sister, her best friend, and I were members of an indigenous society when we
played outside by the stream in our woodsy backyard. We made tiny pots out of
the claylike sand we found on the banks of the stream, and we created complex
shelters out of sticks. I also frequently played with dolls—large (baby dolls) and
small (Barbie Dolls). Sometimes I was a young mother on the run (can’t remember
what exactly I was running from) living in a dingy motel room (my bedroom) with
a newborn baby (Mattel’s Baby Tender Love) to care for. Other times my Barbie
and Skipper were Olympic gymnasts (they specialized in floor exercises). If
worse came to worse and no dolls were available, I could create a soap opera
saga for a leaf family—the Maples adopt an Oak baby when a harsh autumn breeze
blows away Oak baby’s parents. I even played with rocks—and I’m not talking
about those cute painted ones, with little faces that look like frogs. I’m
referring to your basic sidewalk stone, dirt-covered and lacking all traces of
glamor. Getting some of my less imaginative neighbors to play rock family was,
at times, tricky.
Making
pretend with the neighborhood kids diminished as we entered the teen years, and
although I will confess to breaking out my Barbie dolls sporadically until the
age of seventeen, I shifted my expressive outlet to writing. An interesting
fact: at about age fifteen I wrote the basis of the story that at age forty-five
became my first published novel, Beggars
and Choosers. All of my
characters resembled the 1980’s rock and roll singers (think really BIG hair)
that I obsessed over, and I was one
of the romantic leads.
So,
in short, which this answer was not, I have a powerful imagination, which maturing
did nothing to diminish. And so my play-acting shifted from acting things out
with my body, to acting them out with toys and dolls and yes, sometimes rocks
and leaves, to acting them out in my head through my writing.
Who influenced you?
My
primary influence has long been my older sister, the one I’d been trying to
keep up with ever since we belonged to the same indigenous family in my
backyard as children. After experiencing mutual admiration—no not obsession, we
just liked him a lot—for the Edward Cullen character from Twilight, my sister was moved to write. And yes, her little sister
was hot on her heels. A large part of our relationship is now “book talk”,
where we discuss what we are working on, ask questions of each other, and offer
honest opinions.
Do you have a
favorite book/subject/character/setting?
I
will again own up to my strong appreciation of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. And in particular, I adored the
character of Edward Cullen. I will also admit that I wasn’t quite certain why
Edward affected me so much. I asked myself, “Why on earth do you like this
character so much?” Could it be that I
was merely being influenced by the beautiful images of the actor, Robert Pattinson,
who played Edward? Was I so shallow that a near-perfect physical representative
of a character in a book could influence me to such a degree?
With
relief, I realized that I had some real reasons for buying into this character.
First, you must know that I am a romance reader and writer.
I
believe in love…
I
believe that love is love…
I
believe that love can save…
To
sum it up, love is, in my opinion, a many splendid thing.
And
what I loved about Edward was the way he loved Bella. Not only was his love for
her all consuming and completely self-sacrificial, in nature, but it was also
dangerous. He was dangerous. He was
the very bad good guy, or maybe the very good bad guy, that so many of us can’t
get enough of in our romance reading.
Prior
to reading Twilight, I almost
strictly read historical romance. So, for setting and time period, it had never
been contemporary novels for me.
Another
character I love (all-consuming and self-sacrificial and dangerous love, check,
check, and check) was Mr. Rochester of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. I enjoyed reading about the propriety of life in
historical fiction, and I guess Edward Cullen has old-fashioned moral in the
bag, as well, seeing as he was over a hundred years old, and from a much more
traditional era.
What advice do you
have for someone who wants to be an author?
My
most successful YA novels have been the ones in which I totally cut loose and
broke the rules, writing what was in my heart. There are a lot of rules, you
know, for a piece of fiction to be acceptable to publishers. Don’t be too
wordy, never use a passive voice, avoid clichés like the plague, don’t refer to
popular culture too specifically or it will date your book, by all means don’t
be cute as readers might feel left out of an inside joke, and always avoid alliteration (hehehe).
There are plenty more rules where these came from. But my advice cannot be
found in a list. My words of wisdom for new authors is be true to yourself.
Readers can spot a fake a mile away.
Where is your
favorite place to write?
I
have four (wonderful) children who, over the past years, I have carted around
to all kinds of extracurricular activities. So, I have often written in my
black Volvo wagon, parked outside a dance studio, or a gymnasium, or an SAT
class. I can get the job done, pretty much anywhere. But my favorite place to
write is in THE RED SOX ROOM, on my comfy couch, surrounded by my baseball
heroes.
What else would you
like to tell us?
I am a collector of cats. Right now we have four. Usually
we have more.
I hope you will check out In A Gilded Cage by Mia Kerick!
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 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 men and their relationships, and she believes that sex 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 for providing her with an alternate place to stash her stories.
Mia is proud of her involvement with the Human Rights Campaign and cheers for each and every victory made in the name of 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.
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