Heat Things Up with Cari Z on Superheroes and Where There’s Smoke…(guest blog and giveaway)

Where There’s Smoke by Cari Z
Riptide Publishing

Here today at Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words is Cari Z talking about Superheroes and her release Where There’s Smoke.  Check out her guest blog and book details below. And don’t forget to leave a comment to be entered in the giveaway.

Cari Z on Superheroes….

Superheroes seem to be having a moment right now. A big one.

They’re everywhere. They’re in blockbuster movies (hello my Avengers, it’s been far too long), they’re getting their own shows on TV, they’re on t-shirts and backpacks and bags of Doritos. Yes, I can now eat Captain America-endorsed Doritos, and that actually does incline me to grab a bag. I mean…it’s Chris Evans. Yes, please. Then there are the comics, don’t even get me started on the comics and how much money I’ve spent and how many different timelines there are, I will go insane if I think about it too hard.

I love superheroes, from the staunch to the sly, but I’ve also got a major soft spot for those who are endowed with great power and choose not to accept that great responsibility along with it. Or if they do, they do it for what we’d think of as the “wrong reasons.” Money, notoriety, the sheer thrill that comes from using your power for yourself and no one else. Selfish reasons. Personal reasons. These are the sorts of motives that turn a potential hero into a villain, but that doesn’t necessarily make a person bad.

These are the people who take a shitty situation and make the best of it, or decide not to let someone else make their decisions and run their lives. You don’t have to be The Joker to make villainy interesting. Be a nihilist, be a hedonist, be the Jackie Estacado of the criminal underground. This was the sort of character I wanted to focus on in the first book of the Panopolis series, but naturally I couldn’t start right there. Instead I took a normal guy named Edward Dinges and stuck him in Panopolis, the city of Heroes and Villains. I gave him a decent job, an average history and an overall humdrum life, and then…I made him fall in love.

With a villain.

How does love change you in the face of overwhelming odds? Where There’s Smoke has the answer.

Panopolis is a rough place to be an average Joe. I came here looking for adventure and excitement, but nobody cares about one more normal guy in a city filled with super-powered heroes. The closest I’ve come to glory is working in a bank that villains often rob.

But then I maybe accidentally-on-purpose helped a villain escape the hero who was trying to save the day. Imagine my shock when, a week later, that villain asked me out for coffee. One date turned into more, and now I’m head over heels in love with Raul.

Falling in love with the guy dubbed the Mad Bombardier isn’t without its downsides, though. I’ve had to deal with near-death encounters with other villains, awkwardly flirtatious heroes who won’t take no for an answer, and a lover I’m not sure I can trust. It’s getting to the point where I know I’ll have to make a choice: side with the heroes, or stand fast by my villain.

Either way, I think my days as a normal guy are over.

Cari Z was a bookworm as a child and remains one to this day. In an effort to combat her antisocial reading behavior, she did all sorts of crazy things, from competitive gymnastics to alligator wresting (who even knew that was legal!) to finally joining the Peace Corps, which promptly sent her and her husband to the wilds of West Africa, stuck them in a hut, and said, “See ya!” She also started writing in earnest then, because when you have no television, no car and nothing to read other than a French translation of Twilight, you find ways of entertaining yourself. She’s been back in Colorado for a while now, but stuck with the writing.

Cari posts a free weekly serial on her blog at carizerotica.blogspot.com. Come read, come say hi, or check out her other works at cari-z.net.

• Twitter: author_cariz
• Facebook:”https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008212125132
• Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/CariZ

Giveaway

Every comment on this blog tour enters you in a drawing for a paperback copy of Rules To Live By. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on May 2. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Don’t forget to add your email so we can contact you if you win!  Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.