My great friend and sorority sister, Gwyneth Bolton, has a gritty new contemporary on the shelves: Protect and Serve. Here’s the back cover blurb:

Penny came home for family reasons, not to face her difficult past… or the man she still loves. But Jason is determined to have answers, answers that it breaks her heart to give. And it seems that nothing will keep Jason from the truth this time. Or, hold him back from what he wants to protect and serve the most… their chance for a future together.

If that doesn’t whet your appetite, I don’t know what will! Here’s Gwen now, dropping in to answer a few questions, generally hang out and have fun, and give away a copy of the book at the end of the day to a lucky commenter.

Note: WordPress is doing funky things with my formatting, but we’ll try not to let that bother us too much.

Let’s get started…

AC: Thanks for stopping by, Gwen! What’s new in Syracuse these days? Are you teaching over the summer semester?

GB: Hi, Ann! Thanks for having me over! I love visiting your blog. I’m not teaching this summer. Actually, I think I might be allergic to summer school.

AC: LOL! I can’t blame you for that!

Okay … let’s get down to business.

Protect and Serve is the first of four books in your new series, Hightower Honors. It’s the story of police detective Jason Hightower, who gets a second chance with his first love, Penny Keys, and is another great story from you. But the story is very different from your last Kimani Press Release, If Only You Knew, and your voice is, IMHO, much grittier and sharper. Did you set out to write something entirely new, or was this just the story that popped into your head and part of your natural evolution as a storyteller?

GB: I think it’s all of the above actually. The thought of writing the same exact kind of story over again bores me. I’d like to think that each of my novels is different in pretty substantial ways. I try to write a different story each time I write. But that could just be writer Gwyneth thinking too highly of herself. They might actually all be the same.

AC: No—they really are different. Trust me. I know these things. J

GB: All of that is just a long way of saying yes, I did set out to write something entirely new.

But it’s also very much the case that this is the story that popped in my head. I saw the opening of the story just as clear in my head as a picture on a television screen. I saw this woman at a wake and this man wanting to reach out and comfort her and also confront her about a past hurt at the same time. I knew I had to figure out what their story was and tell it. So, yes it did just pop into my head, too.

Finally, I think it is a part of my evolution as a storyteller and part of me sort of coming into my own voice. I actually think that Protect and Serve is as close to my voice as any of my novels. But my friend Cheryl Johnson would laugh at that.

With each new novel, I tell her, “I think I’ve found my true voice in this one.”

AC: Another craft question because I can’t help myself. I love craft. *VBG* The dialogue in this book is very vivid and I feel like I can hear these people talking—like maybe I’ve met them before. Dialogue can be tricky. Was it hard to get the characters’ spoken words out of your head and onto the page?

GB: I wasn’t hard at all. I love dialogue. It’s my favorite thing to write. I swear I should be a playwright sometimes. I love listening to people talk. I also love trying to get the nuances of their speech down. And don’t get me started speaking in different dialects… But I digress… (smile) I’m also always looking for interesting phrases and sayings. The one thing I wish we could do more of in romance is really play with various dialects. We don’t have a lot of wiggle room to really capture different speech patterns.

Maybe one day, I’ll write a mainstream novel or even a literary novel so that I can really flex my dialogue muscles.

AC: Oh, that would be great! Keep us posted!

In the meantime, what should readers know and understand about Penny and Jason and their difficult journey to a happily-ever-after?

GB: Love is patient… Love is kind… (smile) Okay… Seriously, I think Penny and Jason offer that glimmer of hope that even if things don’t work out in a relationship the first time around, there’s always a chance that they can work out the second time. Jason is a do-right man in every sense of the word. He’s hardwired to do the right thing. His upbringing pretty much won’t allow for anything else. And, while Penny’s grandmother raised her right, she’s had other influences that make her a little unsure if she can be the kind of woman that Jason needs. She is still dealing with a lot of guilt about the things she did in the past that hurt Jason. I think the most important thing for folks to know is sometimes we block our own blessings.

AC: Oh, wow. That’s deep, Gwen.

GB: But we can always get out of our own way and still manage have it all. It’s never too late for love.

AC: Let’s hope not!

Protect and Serve is full of sensory detail and cultural experiences, like the scene during Sunday services at a black church and the dinner afterward. I know a lot of your readers will be nodding their heads with you, feeling like they’ve lived many Sundays that were very similar to the one you described. And you’ve said you wanted to set a story in the town you were born in—Paterson, New Jersey. I’ve never been there before, but I certainly felt like a got a real taste of it after reading this book.

My question–and I do have one–is this: how did you go about deciding which details/experiences to include?

GB: Thanks, Ann! I take that as high praise since it is coming from the “Queen of Vivid Details and Master of Using the Senses.”

AC: *VGB!*

I’ll slip you that five-spot later …

GB: I really wanted to give the readers enough to get a feel for these two families, the city of Paterson, the flavor of North Jersey, etc. But I also wanted folks to be able to sort of fill in the dots in their own way. So when you say that you felt like you’ve been there before that’s what I want.

I think most Kimani readers have had that black church experience, or knew someone with that black pleather sofa with the cotton coming out of it or the plastic covered furniture… As a reader when I see one of these images a host of other images come to mind for me and suddenly I’m seeing the scene in living color. I have no idea how I decided which ones to include, though. I do know that I really tried to give just enough to paint the picture and leave room for readers to make their own connections as well.

AC: Was this book hard or easy to write, and why?

GB: This book sort of poured out of me. I really knew Penny and Jason and their story fully and the characters were talking to me the entire way.

AC: I love it when that happens!

GB: I think one reason why it was so easy was because I was able to pull on all of those feelings and emotions of teenage love and remember the angst.

Compared to Make It Hot, Protect and Serve was a breeze. The entire time I was writing Make It Hot, Lawrence, the hero from The Law of Desire, kept coming into my head and my dreams, saying “what’re you writing Joel’s story for? You should write my story next. You know you want to. Look at me, I’m the hottest Hightower…” And sure enough, The Law of Desire just poured out of me just like Protect and Serve. The cops were easy. The firemen made me work for it. (smile)

AC: Here’s one of those questions you like to throw at me, and I think turnabout is fair play, especially since you’re a writing professor: what’s the book’s greater message, and is it a theme that runs through your other books?

GB: Aww man…. I knew my interviews would come back to bite me one day.

AC: Heh-heh-heh!

GB: If I said I have no idea, then I won’t be able to ask this question anymore.

AC: Don’t even try it!

GB: Hmmm… I think the overall theme is it is never too late for love.

AC: Never too late for love … I like it!

Tell me about the other Hightower brothers. Are they all as hot as Jason? Spare no detail! What do they all have in common, and what are their individual quirks? Which one is your favorite? What kind of women do you have in store for them?

GB: Those Hightower men… mmm… They’re all as hot as Jason. In fact, I think they would each say they are hotter than Jason and each one believes that he is the hottest Hightower. Seriously, they seem to be getting hotter and hotter with each novel. And they are so much fun to write. They’re all strong and honorable men who always try to do the right thing. They’re all tall, dark, and alpha. And they have all devoted themselves to lives of public service as cops and firemen.

Jason is the baby boy and he was the first to fall in love. He was a goner from the moment he met his childhood friend Penny Keys.

Joel is the family joker and prankster. He always has a wisecrack but he meets his match in a sassy physical therapist who comes into his life when the laughter has left him. Lawrence is the brother with a bit of an edge. He was the one Hightower that almost ended up on the wrong side of the tracks but he’s been working hard to prove himself worthy ever since. Too bad the women that catches his eye is someone he thinks might have criminal ties.

And Patrick has vowed to never trust another woman with his heart after catching his former wife in bed with another man. He has no plans to fall victim to love again. With a determination and will so strong, you know he is going to fall fast and hard. (smile) A single mom who is also a kindergarten teacher is going to knock him off of his feet.

One thing I noticed about the heroines for the novels in the series is that I gave both of the cops women with a little bit of bad girl history and both of the firemen got these really sweet wholesome girls with no bad girl edge. But all of the heroines are sassy, sexy, and smart and have exactly what it takes to claim the heart of a Hightower.

AC: What’s on your agenda for the rest of the summer? What’s your next project?

GB: This summer I’m working on my second academic book. It examines black women’s book clubs and reading groups. And I’m finishing the 4^th and final Hightower Honors Series book Sizzling Seduction.

AC: Wow! No breather for you, eh? Well, thanks for making time to stop by, Gwen! It’s been a pleasure having you, as always!

If you have a question or comment for Gwen, leave it and you’ll be entered to win a copy of Protect and Serve at the end of the day. Don’t forget to check back to see if you’ve won!