It’s been a blast launching WATCH POINT, my gay Navy SEAL abduction romance, and I would like to thank all the blogs and sites that featured the book, reviewed it, hosted my essays, and participated in the giveaway! All told 154 comments were entered the drawing for a Cecilia Tan gay fiction prize pack, including some Daron’s Guitar Chronicles swag, The Prince’s Boy, and such!
Scroll to the bottom to see the ultimate winner! 🙂
Some highlights from the tour:
- I did a “Down and Dirty” interview for USA Today’s “Happy Ever After” column, in which I reveal my love of Sour Patch Kids, Yuri!!! On Ice!, Queen + Adam Lambert, and Peter Tork of the Monkees.
- At Heroes & Heartbreakers, I blogged about how everything I learned about wilderness survival, which is put to good use in Watch Point, I learned not on the Internet, but in the Girl Scouts:
“At first, I resisted [my mother’s attempts to get me into Girl Scouts]. I resisted anything that was associated with the word ‘girl.’ I got the Handbook with all the merit badges in it and was mildly disgusted how many of the badges were for things like cooking and sewing. (I’d already learned to sew.) But I stuck it out because there was talk of going on a camping trip. Real camping! Staying overnight in a tent in the woods! I couldn’t wait for that. The Girl Scout motto is ‘Be Prepared.’ I brought my own camping kit (including canteen, frying pan, etc), Swiss army knife, and other tools…” - At Love Bytes Reviews I posted a list of Eight Things I Learned About Navy Seals:
“The average man trying to qualify to be a SEAL can do 79 situps in two minutes. The best of the recruits can do 100. They may be the only romance heroes who actually have the abs pictured on the book’s cover.” - At Bayou Book Junkie I wrote about why I had to write our hero, Eric, in not just the first person but in present tense, something I don’t normally do, but which just worked perfectly for him:
“In the case of Eric the puzzle I needed to solve was how to let the reader see what’s going on in Eric’s head even though Eric himself avoids introspection? It was important to give the reader a deep look inside because so much of what Eric does– like kidnapping Chase–looks villainous from the outside. But inside we know he’s deeply concerned with honor and justice. This parallels Eric’s sexuality, which includes role playing and BDSM which may look abusive from the outside, but from the inside we experience as deeply caring, careful, and loving.” - At The Novel Approach I wrote about explicitly giving Eric half-Asian/half-white ethnicity and why that choice was important thematically to me:
“I am a mixed-race person, and being ‘mixed-race’ has been the ‘hip fad’ three or four different times in my life. Like bisexuality, it is a trait that is easily appropriated by authors as an easy ‘outsider’ marker, a metaphorical symbol of their character’s uniqueness.” - At OMG Reads I blogged about “Military Romance as Guilty Pleasure“:
“I am against using the term ‘guilty pleasure,’ because it is so often applied against things that we shouldn’t be guilty about [especially liking romance]. But I do have a wee bit of guilt over one corner of romance, and that’s military romance. My conscience nags me: how can you enjoy reading and writing Navy SEALs when you don’t agree with American military might being abused around the world?”
I write about the paradox of loving military heroes, but not the way our government abuses them. In Watch Point we get into the subject of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell as the reason why Eric is no longer in the military. In future Wayward Warrior books I’m planning to also touch on other ways our government has failed to serve those who serve us, including budget cuts to veterans programs and so on.
Reviews
Dog-Eared Daydreams reviewed the book, saying:
“If you think Watch Point is your usual falling-for-your-captor story, you’ve got another thing coming. This is my first Cecilia Tan read and I was more than impressed with how she made this such an original tale of vengeance, freedom, and kink.”
The Novel Approach loved it, as well:
“I’ve always loved miscalculation as a romantic catalyst, and Eric falls into the trap of underestimating Chase from the start … and watching Eric’s respect for Chase grow was the lit match to the short fuse you know damn well is going to blow up before the happy ending.”
The one negative review (if I can call it that?) was from Boy Meets Boy Reviews, who were disappointed that the dubious consent was not dubious enough. Riptide Publishing is pretty serious about making sure content warnings are used, and Watch Point is tagged with dubious consent, BDSM, military, enemies to lovers, and hate sex. As the review states: “Most of those tags (IMO) should come with a “lite” disclaimer,” and “All the people who do not do dub or non-con, this is the dub-con for you. This might be the fluffiest dub-con I’ve ever read.”
I don’t disagree at all. Compared to my dub-con fanfic–or even to what goes on in The Prince’s Boy—Watch Point is *relatively* lighter on the transgression. 100% valid review! I still support the content warnings, though, since this is still a kidnapper/kidnappee setup, so for those who find dubious consent triggering or problematic, this is not an allergen-free book. People who are sensitive to those issues should still proceed with caution.
The Winner!
To pick the winner I compiled all 154 comments left throughout the tour in a spreadsheet, assigned by row number, and then I used the website Random.org to pick the winning number. People who left comments on multiple blogs were entered multiple times; each comment counted as an additional entry into the drawing. The number that came up was 94 and so therefore the winner is Lisa for a comment left at the Erotica for All blog!
I truly appreciate all the comments, thoughts, and enthusiasm from everyone on the tour. I’m emailing all of you a little something in thanks for making it a really fun and memorable week. 🙂 So thank you HB, Paul, James, Didi, Joanne, Nancy, Christina, Timitra, Jennifer, Ginger, Lee, Debby, Trix, Shirley, Jennie, Lee, Tanya, Diane, Jodi, Lennis, Brian, and everyone else whose names may not have come through. 🙂
Here’s the full itinerary of giveaway stops:
1. November 6, 2017 – OMG Reads Essay on Military Romance
2. November 6, 2017 – Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents
3. November 6, 2017 – La Crimson Femme
4. November 6, 2017 – Diverse Reader – Excerpt from Ch. 1
5. November 7, 2017 – My Fiction Nook
6. November 7, 2017 – Bayou Book Junkie – Essay on the First-Person Present-Tense Narrator
7. November 7, 2017 – Creative Deeds
8. November 7, 2017 – Wicked Faerie’s Tales and Reviews
9. November 8, 2017 – The Day Before You Came
10. November 8, 2017 – MM Good Book Reviews – Excerpt from Ch. 2
11. November 8, 2017 – Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words
12. November 8, 2017 – TTC Books and More
13. November 8, 2017 – Erotica for All
14. November 9, 2017 – Jessie G Books
15. November 9, 2017 – Dog-Eared Daydreams – Review
16. November 9, 2017 – Book Reviews and More by Kathy
17. November 9, 2017 – The Novel Approach
18. November 10, 2017 – We Three Queens
19. November 10, 2017 – Love Bytes Reviews
20. November 10, 2017 – Open Skye
21. November 10, 2017 – Unquietly Me
