I’m thrilled to have Emjay Haze on my blog today to talk about her new release, Home Is Where You Are. I’ve known her since we both used to publish with Torquere Press, and she’s an absolute delight.
Home Is Where You Are is set in Vermont and is part of the Dreamspinner Press series States of Love, which features contemporary m/m romances by fifty different authors set in each of the fifty states. I’m super excited about this book because a lot of it takes place on a farm that’s all about grassfed dairy and maple syrup, and I have fond memories from when I used to work on a farm a lot like that. Home Is Where You Are should be a great read!
—Dale
About Home is Where You Are
For a chance at a future filled with love, he’ll have to face a painful past.
Eric, recently dumped by his boyfriend, is summoned home after his dad suffers a stroke. His family farm in rural Vermont holds memories he’d rather forget, but with his degree in agricultural business, Eric is needed to clear up a predicament with the bank. In trying to forget the bad, Eric has also lost sight of the good: green meadows dotted with grass-fed dairy cows and the sugar maples that once produced the area’s finest maple syrup. With Eric’s help, they will again.
A captivating farmhand named Phil tempts Eric to give the countryside another chance, but before they can consider being together, Eric must move past more than his feelings for his ex-boyfriend—he’ll need to stand up to the ghosts that sent him running from the farm in the first place….
Home is Where You Are: A Character Interview
by Emjay Haze
The two main characters, Eric and Phil, grew up in the same town, but couldn’t be more different. Eric left the country to live in Burlington and works in a bank, and Phil, born and raised in the small rural town of Glenville, followed his parent’s footsteps and is a farmhand working at Eric’s parents farm and sugar house.
I thought it would be fun to do a character interview of the two main characters before they meet again. Part 1 of this interview, where I talk to Phil, is on yesterday’s stop on the blog tour: https://www.mjhauthor.com/home-is-where-you-are-blog-tour/
City Boy/Country Boy – Part 2 – Eric
Q: What do you do, Eric?
Eric: I’m an account manager at Green Mountain Bank and Trust
Q: Bank manager?
Eric: No, I manage a few of our corporate accounts in the area. Help with loans, that sort of thing.
Q: How long have you lived in Burlington?
Eric: I went to college at UVM and loved the area, so I stayed.
Q: What’s your degree in?
Eric: Agricultural business.
Q: That’s a far cry from working at a bank. Do you have future plans for that degree?
Eric: (shrugs) My parents want me to come home and take over their farm someday.
Q: Sounds like you don’t want to?
Eric: (sighs) I don’t know. I don’t really go home much.
Q: Where are you from?
Eric: (slight hesitation) Um, Glenville. It’s in the Northeast Kingdom a couple hours away.
Q: What was it like growing up in a small town?
Eric: I couldn’t wait to get out.
Q: Is there a story there?
Eric: (glares) No.
Q: Coffee or tea?
Eric: (laughs) I love iced coconut-milk lattes.
Q: Even in the winter?
Eric: Yep.
Q: Are you single?
Eric: (long hesitation) I live with my boyfriend—um, sort of.
Q: Your sort of live with him, or he’s sort of your boyfriend?
Eric: It’s complicated.
Q: Any wedding bells in your future?
Eric: (barked laugh) I’m still young, so no.
Q: How old are you?
Eric: I’ll be twenty-five in a couple of months
Q: What’s your favorite meal?
Eric: I usually make ramen or take out Chinese.
Q: But what’s your favorite meal?
Eric: (deep in thought) Chicken pot-pie.
Q: (laughs) I haven’t had one of those in years.
Eric: Me either. My mom used to make them.
Q: Sounds like you need a trip home.
Eric: (stiffens, then shrugs)
Well, that’s all the time we have.
Check out part 1 (Phil) on yesterday’s stop on the blog tour: https://www.mjhauthor.com/home-is-where-you-are-blog-tour/
Where to Buy Home Is Where You Are
About Emjay Haze
Emjay Haze is a Pennsylvania girl living in a Virginia world, growing up in the Philadelphia suburbs and moving to Northern Virginia to follow her now husband of twenty-plus years. She has two kids in college, a year-old puppy named Max, a black-and-white cat named Tux, a gecko named Rex, a yellow tang called Reggie, and we hear the eels are coming this week.
The family pastime is baseball, specifically the Nationals. She’s also a huge Redskins fans and loves classic rock. Emjay graduated with a degree in creative writing in 2015 after realizing it was the only thing she really wanted to do.
She has a wide and diverse work history in the fields of travel, hotel management, high-tech communications, web development, real estate, and the nonprofit health care industry where she has held positions such as travel agent, hotel concierge, web programmer, Realtor, account manager, and many, many others, giving her a varied and unique set of experiences that she draws upon in her stories and characters.
Emjay fell in love with the m/m romance genre after discovering the world of fanfiction several years ago and hasn’t looked back. Her family keeps asking when she’ll write something they can read, but she’s still having too much fun with her boys. Her goal is to broaden the minds of those who might not normally pick up a gay romance because it’s more about the person than the sexuality. She’ll take you on a roller-coaster journey, but you’ll always get a happy ending.
- Website: www.mjhauthor.com/emjayhaze
- Twitter: @emjayhaze
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/emjayhaze
- Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14254769.Emjay_Haze
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