A #MWTease Look At Tara Quan & 'Operation Owl' ~ @LaylaTarar @decadentpub #BeyondFairyTales

Welcome to the middle of the week!
Mid Week Tease is an event where authors are spotlighting a few lines or a paragraph or two from their stories. Readers, you get to sample some delicious snippets and be teased, titillated and tantalized into the weekend!

This week I'm happy to give my blog over to Tara Quan, author of Operation Owl. She's going to share some information before her tease. Enjoy!

What would you like to tell readers about yourself?

* I’m a romance addict who likes to write bite-sized stories with ample helpings of (occasionally kinky) sex. At the time this post goes live, all my worldly possessions will be in transit while I twiddle my thumbs in a corporate rental, waiting for my husband’s orders to come through for our trans-Atlantic journey to Rome. Because the move makes Internet access a bit uncertain, I’ve pre-scheduled all my stops for this blog tour. To the best of my knowledge, my latest Decadent Publishing release comes out some time in July 2014 (so, depending on when you stumble upon this blog, it might be available now). For updates as well as a chance to win a $25 gift card, drop by my website: http://www.TaraQuan.com/Owl.

What book are you going to tell us about today?
* Though part of the Beyond Fairytales line, Operation Owl is a standalone multicultural romantic comedy featuring a geeky hacker hero and his bookish best friend. They team up to expose a cyber conspiracy at the heart of the US government and end up indulging in some other equally exciting activities.

How'd you/your muse come up with this story?
* When I answered my publisher’s submission call, I was assigned The Owl by Brother’s Grimm (a two-paragraph story about an owl that flew into a barn, which subsequently burned down). At around the same time, I was feeling a bit glum about having to leave D.C., so I decided to channel my energy into writing a romance set in the capital area. My friend’s imminent graduation from MIT, the hoopla over Edward Snowden, and my Italian class’ field trip to the National Gallery somehow combined into this rom-com—let’s just say my muse works in mysterious ways.

Describe the hero in five words.
* Geeky hacker with hero complex

Describe the heroine in five words.
* Nerdy ethnically Indian forensic accountant

Who's your favorite character in the book & why?
* Despite his potty mouth, Zack’s one of the few thoroughly nice-guy heroes I’ve written, so he’ll always hold a special place in my writing journey.

What's your favorite line in the story?
* Maya: “Who do you think I am? The Princess of Persia? I’m not the jumping over rooftops type of girl.”

A look into the story

~ Blurb ~ * Five years ago, Maya Jain kissed her best friend only to have him run out of her dorm room and leave the state. When he shows up in Washington, D.C., a wanted fugitive sought after by every branch of the US government, she can’t bring herself to ignore his plight. As their physical relationship picks up where it left off, she decides it’s time to make him see her as more than the bespectacled, bookish girl he once called “Owl.”
* After being accused of espionage and treason, Zack Strong needs a forensic accountant to help clear his name. Not knowing who he can trust, this white-hat hacker has no choice but to ask his former best friend and math tutor for help. Together they unravel a cyber conspiracy at the Barn, an NSA facility tasked to intercept electronic communications. But as they traverse the nation’s capital to avoid capture, Maya insists on letting their simmering sexual tension take its natural course. Even though he’s never been able to shake the memory of their one kiss, he refuses to let her give up her life for a man with no future.
~ Excerpt (a.k.a. The Tease) ~ * “Aren’t you going to ask me some questions first?”
* Maya frowned. “Like what?”
* “Whether or not I’m guilty of espionage, for one.”
* Though hampered by his hands, she managed a shrug. “It doesn’t matter. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
* “It depends on your definition.” It took a moment before Zack realized he’d blurted the words out loud. Judging from the way her dark brows drew together, they’d zeroed in on the exact same memory.
* Friends didn’t kiss. Given, they’d shared just the one, and he’d hightailed it out of her life almost immediately after, but the unfortunate lip-lock would always complicate the question of where they stood. And if someone asked him right then to slot their relationship into a neat little box, “friends” wouldn’t be it. Why? For one, he hadn’t thought about anything but kissing her for the past three minutes. Considering every branch of the all-powerful but dumb-as-fuck US government had painted a bright-red bulls-eye on his ass, his inconvenient reaction was a testament to their complicated status.

Buy Operation Owl when it becomes available here...
Decadent Publishing | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | All Romance eBooks | Find on Goodreads

Find Tara Quan here...
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Google+ | Pinterest

Thank you for joining us here today, Tara Quan! It was a pleasure getting to know you and your story.

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