Striking Sparks by Ari McKay – Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words

Rating: 3.25 stars out of 5

The stakes are high and the heat is on.

Beau Walker, owner of the Barbecue Shack, needs the help of Jake Parnell, his one-time rival and secret crush, in a televised barbecue competition. Beau is a proud man, but the stakes are high, and smart, sexy Jake is his only hope, even if being around Jake reawakens the attraction he’s fought for years.

Jake left his hometown, determined to build a life somewhere his sexuality wouldn’t hurt his family’s restaurant business—and far away from hunky, obstinate Beau Walker. Then his twin, Josh, is killed, and Jake returns to support his brother’s wife and children. Despite his reservations, he agrees to go head-to-head against Beau on national television. Between stress and grief, as well as pride and determination, only one thing is certain—the heat between Beau and Jake extends well beyond the kitchen.

Striking Sparks was a fun romance for me on severa levels. A lover of bbq and cooking shows, I enjoyed the storyline of a bbq competition between two family owned restaurants known for their brisket and all things smoked, two men who’ve been rivals in some way from their high school years brought back together by tragedy and bbq. And I have to say, Ari McKay pulled it off.

The authors known as Ari McKay did an excellent job with the location, making both the small town and the townspeople believable. And that cooking and receipes? Mouthwatering. Between the different ingredients each added to make their briskets or bbq a standout, I wanted to dash into the kitchen and try them out myself. I got the feeling that McKay knows the differences between a KC sauce and a Carolina one, and that love of their subject matter shines through here.

Then there’s the tragedy that brings Jake home, the death of his twin brother. This aspect of the story is poignant and real. Jake’s pain over his deep loss of both his brother, the life he’s worked so hard to establish in the city? That translates into real emotion on the pages here. You are able to easily connect with Jake as he shoulder’s his responsiblities to his brother’s widow and children, regardless of his feelings and grief.

Beau Walker took a little more work. Not because he wasn’t likable as a character. He is but because some of his ‘flaws” became tired after a point. As did his language. In other hands, his collogualisms might have sounded natural. Here they didn’t always come off as such. I liked the “local boy” pride they built into his character but for all his belief in his restaurant and cooking, that seemed to disappear when faced with Jake and his college degree even though Jake didn’t have the cooking experience.

Finally, I guess that other thing that I had some issues with is their relationship. Jake had to have been strong to have done all he did in high school, break away, make a new life for himself elsewhere. Then come back and take over his brother’s restaurant. Yet all that melts away for Beau. It comes back for the competition and then he seems to become , I don’t know, someone less. Maybe its me, but out of all of this book, it was the romance that didn’t really do it for me. I loved everything else.

I thought the writing was excellent, the plot was great, even the characters, alone, worked. I’m just not sure I thought they worked together as well as I had hoped.

Maybe you will find you don’t see that at all. Striking Sparks has plenty of bbq, great plot and sweet romance to sway you. Its another lovely story in the Dreamspun Desires series from Dreamspinner Press.

Cover art by Paul Richmond works perfectly for the story and plot. Love it!

Sales Links

Book Details:

ebook, 214 pages
Expected publication: December 15th 2016 by Dreamspinner Press
ISBN139781634771542
Edition LanguageEnglish

Striking Sparks by Ari McKay
Dreamspinner Press

Cover by Paul Richmond
Purchase it Here

Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words is happy to have one of the authors that are Ari McKay here today answering questions and talking about their latest release, Striking Sparks, a Dreamspun Desire title from Dreamspinner Press. Welcome McKay!

Hi, everyone! I’m the McKay half of Ari McKay, and I’m happy to be here with a guest post at Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words in honor of our upcoming release from Dreamspinner Press, Striking Sparks.

I’ve got a few interview questions I’d like to answer, and while I’ll mostly be answering from my own perspective, I’ve known Ari long enough (twelve years and counting) that I can speak for her on some things as well.

Are you a planner or a pantzer when writing a story? And why?

We’re a mix of both. When we begin a new book, we develop the characters first and then flesh out the plot. We start with the characters since their motives and relationship will drive the action, and we figure out what their dynamic is going to be. For example, Beau and Jake start out as rivals in Striking Sparks. An argument they had in high school shaped the men they’ve become, and the words they said to each other in anger color their interactions at first. So our main goal was to figure out how we were going to move them past the old hurts and into a new understanding.

For less action-heavy books, we tend to create a loose outline and then dive in and see where the story takes us. A lot of times, the characters will throw in wrenches we didn’t expect, and we have to reshape the story to accommodate that. Ari and I both agree that listening to what the characters want is better than trying to force them to fit our preconceived ideas of what the story “should” be. Inevitably, the finished story is stronger if we let the story develop in the way that feels most right and natural for the characters.

But there are some books that require more rigorous planning. Several of our Herc’s Mercs books were plotted out in advance, and while we did leave wiggle room for changes, we knew where we were going to start, where we were going to end up, and (more or less) how we were going to get there before we started writing. That series has more action-adventure elements, so we needed to decide on the main plot points beforehand in order to work toward each one in a way that would make sense and develop the characters’ relationship along the way.

Can an author have favorites among their characters and do you have them?

I think it’s fine for an author to have favorite characters. I’d be surprised if there were many authors who didn’t! Maybe a character is a favorite because they were easy to write or because the book was written during a time in the author’s life that they have fond memories of in general, so there’s this positive association. Maybe the character embodies what the author would like to be themselves. Maybe the character is just plain likable, flaws and all. Whatever the reason, I think most of us do have characters that we enjoy(ed) writing more than others.

As you can probably tell from my answer to the previous question, Ari and I view our characters more as muses than as toys in a sandbox. We don’t pick them up and move them around exactly the way we want; we get in their heads to figure out who they are, and we listen to their voices.

Sometimes, their voices are really, really loud.

For us, the loudest characters are often our favorites. They make their desires clear and tell us exactly what they want to do and say, which makes writing them more like taking dictation than pulling teeth.

Some of my favorite characters are also the ones I had fun writing, often because they were funny or because they were significantly different from me, and I had fun slipping inside their skin and being outrageous in ways I’m not in real life.

Ari and I have a few favorite characters and couples out of our body of work, but I think if we had to choose an ultimate favorite, it would be Daryl and Emerson from Herc’s Mercs: Bloody But Unbowed. They’re an “opposites attract” couple, but they clicked so well, and we had fun writing them snarking at each other.

If you were to be stranded on a small demi-planet, island, or god forbid LaGuardia in a snow storm, what books would you take to read or authors on your comfort list?

Jane Eyre is my first choice. I’ve loved that book since I was thirteen years old, and I’ve read it many times over the years. To this day, I admire Jane’s fierce independence. The line “Reader, I married him” tells you everything you need to know about her and her strong sense of agency – and why I love her.

I’d take my complete collection of Jane Austen’s novels. Who doesn’t love a delicate skewering of 19^th century social conventions? If I could take Stephen King’s entire body of work, I would. If not, I’d go with Carrie, The Stand, and his short story/novella collections. I’d have to throw in some Gail Carriger, Jaqueline Carey, and Kelly Link too. There are others (there are always “oh, and—!” books and authors when talking to a bookworm), but those are the ones I’d pick today. Tomorrow, it might be different! Except for Jane Eyre. That one is always first.

Where do you normally draw your inspiration for a book from? A memory, a myth, a place or journey, or something far more personal?

Oh, we draw inspiration from just about anything! We refer to being inspired as having a plot bunny gnawing on our ankles. We’ve gotten inspiration from real life events, books, movies, song lyrics, art… you name it! With Striking Sparks, we were inspired by photos of Paul Newman and Robert Redford as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Those two men were ruggedly hot together, and we wanted to write a couple of cowboys based on them. In the end, our characters grilled the beef instead of herded it, but they’re both macho Texans. Jake is based on Newman and Beau is based on Redford (without the mustache).

Striking Sparks will be released by Dreamspinner Press on December 15^th. We hope you enjoy it! Happy holidays from both of us to all of you!

About Striking Sparks

The stakes are high and the heat is on.

About the Authors

Ari McKay is the professional pseudonym for Arionrhod and McKay, who have been writing together for over a decade. Their collaborations encompass a wide variety of romance genres, including contemporary, fantasy, science fiction, gothic, and action/adventure. Their work includes the Blood Bathory series of paranormal novels, the Herc’s Mercs series, as well as two historical Westerns: Heart of Stone and Finding Forgiveness. When not writing, they can often be found scheming over costume designs or binge watching TV shows together.

Arionrhod is a systems engineer by day who is eagerly looking forward to (hopefully) becoming a full time writer in the not-too-distant future. Now that she is an empty-nester, she has turned her attentions to finding the perfect piece of land to build a fortress in preparation for the zombie apocalypse, and baking (and eating) far too many cakes.

McKay is an English teacher who has been writing for one reason or another most of her life. She also enjoys knitting, reading, cooking, and playing video games. She has been known to knit in public. Given she has the survival skills of a gnat, she’s relying on Arionrhod to help her survive the zombie apocalypse.

Arionrhod and McKay

CONTACTS:

Website: http://arimckay.wordpress.com

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ari-Mckay/266185570179748

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ari.mckay.7

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AriMcKay1

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6153630.Ari_McKay