Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Dressing Lily by Siobhan Shannon


Dressing Lily
Sans Soucis House
Siobhan Shannon

Genre: Lesbian Romance

Publisher:  Decadent Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-68361-127-1
Cover art by Valerie Tibbs
Book Description:
If life is a game, Olivia Lyons wishes someone would let her in on the rules. From picking the wrong sweetheart to telling the wrong secrets, she just can’t seem to win. But then she falls in love, and her world seems brighter. However, when her romance is discovered, her father sends Olivia to live with her mother in New Orleans.

Broken hearted, Olivia starts her life over, working for Claude DeCloux, who owns a jazz club. There, she meets the infamous Lily LaRue, Queen of Burlesque and learns more about herself and the world she lives in than she believes possible. Lilly, however, is very possessive, tangling Olivia in a web of exhibition and money that seems impossible to escape. Can she break free and find her way back to the only woman who’s ever truly owned her heart?

About the Author
Siobhan Shannon lives in Texas with her husband and a very well behaved dog. She writes, makes lace, dances, sings and plays fiddle every chance she gets. She loves everything about having grown-up children and hopes to live at the seashore one day. She frequently misses appointments because she is writing and fails to heed the time. She has written Dressing Lily and two speculative fiction novels. You can contact her at siobhan@siobhanshannon.com 


Social Media Links

Interview with Siobhan Shannon
Which of your book’s characters is most like you and why?
Olivia and I share a great deal. Like Liv, I never seem to understand the rules until I break one. Like her, I love first and ask questions later, and most of all like her, I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make happiness for myself and my loved ones.
What was your biggest challenge in writing your current release?
The editing process is hard. Having someone meddle with my writing gives me the heebee-geebies. I have to take a deep breath and pretend it isn’t my writing that I’m revising. When it gets really bad, I go to yoga.
When did you know you were destined to be a writer?
About the fifth grade. My mom saved a story for me from back then in my little-girl handwriting with magazine pictures for illustrations. I think the teacher even did some editing for me in red. I’ve been writing ever since, everything from essays and blog posts to poems, novels and short stories. In college, professors would assign papers and everyone else would be like, “Ah, man, anotherpaper,” and I’d be like, “Yay! Another paper.” I started submitting my writing to publishers when I was 18. Eventually, I began to find the right places for my writing.  I love telling stories and I always have. One of my friends called me a reconteuse. I had to go look it up, but she’s right, that’s exactly what I am.

Speed Round (just to get to know you better):
Coffee, tea or other: Coffee in the morning, bubbly water in the afternoon, and tea when I’m feeling low.
Music preference: Irish traditional and Jazz. There’s a surprising crossover between the two.
Favorite movie: Treasure of the Sierra Madre, with Humphrey Bogart. It’s a lesson in human nature.
Dog, cat, or other: I love my Lab. Not oddly at all, she loves me.
Favorite author: Graham Greene, particularly The Power and the Glory.  Patrick Rothfuss is great, and I’ve recently discovered Neil Gaiman.
Favorite actor: David Tenant
Favorite television show: MASH. This little gem got me through the darkest hours of my life.

Excerpt:
I didn’t set out to deliberately ruin my life. I don’t guess anyone does, and then when the walls come crashing down, it’s just so . . . surprising. One day you wake up and nothing looks the same anymore and the next, people are asking you why you’re destroying their lives. I don’t know. I woke up on one of those desperately close mornings in July when the air feels like a blanket and nothing was the same any more. I didn’t even like my coffee the same way anymore. It might have been meeting Daisy Bledsoe. Or it could have been a virus, God only knows. All I can tell you is that on that morning, everything changed.
   She wasn’t the prettiest girl I ever saw. She was tall and weathered and snaggle-toothed, but when she smiled her face lit up and you couldn’t resist smiling too. She certainly wasn’t the smartest girl I ever met, either. There were times I wanted to pull my hair out over the things she did. But on that July morning, she mesmerized me, and before I knew it I was making decisions that snowballed into a freight train that could have ruined my life. Strange but true, I think I’d do it all over again.
   I must have been about twenty when Pa sent me to Tom Harmon’s place to see if he had a fuel pump for our old tractor. I had never been out to Harmon’s before and missed my turn. I came down a road that just kept getting narrower until I had no choice but to go forward. I found myself on a grass track that petered out among dead machines and rusting farm implements in front of her house. I finally found a place where I could turn around, but that was when I met Daisy.
   It was hot and I had the windows down. I came round a bend and a big black dog decided I didn’t belong there. He jumped up at the window of Pa’s truck raising hell. All I could do is hit the brakes and lean away.
   “Max!” I heard a voice like a sack of gravel shout, “Come heah.” Max shut up and left the side of my truck, making me happy. One look at her, and I knew I was lost.
   “Can I help you?”
   “I believe you already have.”

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