Can Men and Women Just Be Friends? Let's See What Sam Says...

by Tawny

I am so happy to welcome a great author and a good friend to the Lair. I remember reading Samantha Hunter's debut book, VIRTUALLY PERFECT. I loved that book! And then, after I'd sold to Blaze and got to know her, I loved Sam :-) Samantha is not only a great writer, a 2009 RITA finalist and a fun gal - she's one of those people whose always there to help out, offer advice or support. I was so lucky to work with her on the DRESSED TO THRILL series, and will get to have just as much fun soon when we work on a 24 Hours: Blackout series together. And now she's here with us to chat about whether or not men and women can be JUST friends.

Check it out...

Can Men and Women Just Be Friends?

I love friends-to-lovers romance, so much so that I have written two in a row, my current release, MAKE YOUR MOVE, and my upcoming Christmas Blaze, I'LL BE YOURS FOR CHRISTMAS. I was watching NCIS the other night, my current obsession, and the characters were having the age-old debate: can men and women just be friends, with no sexual overtones or temptations at all?

My personal feeling about it is yes, they can. Absolutely. My husband has female friends and colleagues, and I have male friends whom we have known for ever, some from before we met, and it's never been an issue.

However, of the people I know who have suffered adultery in their marriages (and this includes me, from my first marriage), it was usually with a friend of their spouse, or a common friend. So. . .it does start to make you wonder.

I know the opposite is true with my husband and myself -- we were never friends, we were lovers from the start, and once, when we almost broke up, and I mentioned staying friends, one of the best things he ever said to me was "no, we could never just be friends." (Makes my heart go pitter pat to think of it -- and this was way before Spike ever said the same on Buffy, though we do love that speech). In MAKE YOUR MOVE, while Jodie and Dan have been friends for a long time, the truth is that they have always been more than that, and it just takes some time to realize it.

When men and women are attracted to each other as friends, is there really more riding under the surface, but they just have the self-control to ignore it? Can women and men view each other completely without any thought about sex at all, or is there always some kind of sexual tension between the sexes, no matter what? Have you ever had a sexy friend, or a friend who mistook your friendship for something else?

What do you think? Share your thoughts, and I'll pick a winner tonight to receive a copy of my March '10 Blazing Bedtime Stories and my new book, MAKE YOUR MOVE, along with a bookmark and a designer chocolate bar. Source URL: https://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/search/label/Samantha%20Hunter
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Book Crack

Please join me in welcoming fabulous Harlequin Blaze author Samantha Hunter to the lair today!

Hello Bandits! Thanks to Beth and the gang for having me by today... I hope we’ll have a lot of fun.

You might find the title of my blog confusing – I’m not talking about that ever present debate of cracking bindings or not, but about those books that we hook into like a drug…when we read them, we have to have more, and the cliffhangers leave us needing a new fix, and soon!

For me, I’ve found two series like that recently, Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series, which I stumbled across completely by accident on Kindle free reads and thought, hey, I’ll try it… I had no idea that I wouldn’t be able to pull my head out of that series until I had read the last line of the most recent book, which ended on a cruel cliffhanger and readers now have to wait a year! In the meantime, I’ve gone back to read her Highlander books, to sort of ease off that addiction.

Before Moning, I was into Richelle Mead’s Dark Swan series… just two books so far, but I read them with rapt attention. I like them much better, even, than the succubus series.

And before that, earlier this year, was Cleo Coyle’s Coffeehouse Mystery series, which I again read one after the other until the last, and very happy to find there is a new one coming out in a few weeks.

I enjoy many books, which are very good reads, but there’s something special about a series you get so hooked into that you can’t put it down, and that doesn’t happen too often for me – to have found 3 in one year is unusual. I think whatever makes certain reads “book crack” to each individual reader has to be different, because I know people who get grabbed by books that I couldn’t get halfway into the first in the series. It’s great that we all like different things. *G*



With the series I mention above, there were strong, capable, smart female protagonists who I wanted to root for, lots of action, smart plotting, sexy, intelligent heroes, and a lot of originality. The romance was the subplot in all three series, all were very sexy (though the mysteries not as sexy as the first two) and they all had overarching plots as well as the story of the book. They also had powerful secondary characters who were more than props. So… these are all important qualities to me in making any read book crack.

What about you? What’s the most recent series or “book crack” you’ve read that you just couldn’t pull yourself out of, or the one that you found yourself skipping meals for, staying up far too late, or snapping at anyone who dared to interrupt while you were reading? *G*

And I hope you’ll check out my current Blaze release, Caught in the Act, part of a 4-book miniseries, Dressed To Thrill (revolving around heroines who receive the wrong costume than one they ordered for various events, and that mistake changes their lives) that has been a lot of fun to write. Also, you can catch up with our Twitter Online reads which are spinoffs of the Dressed to Thrill books, one new story each month, written round-robin style on Twitter – for more, check out http://www.tweettweetlove.com/

At the end of today, I’ll give away one set of 4 Dressed to Thrill books to one lucky poster today, along with a Halloween goodie! (since my book, Caught in the Act, begins at a Halloween party).

Let’s talk book crack! *G*

Source URL: https://gbejadacosta.blogspot.com/search/label/Samantha%20Hunter
Visit Gbejada Costa for Daily Updated Hairstyles Collection