Natalie West and Toby Cooper were best friends growing up, on and off the ice. But when Toby’s hockey career took off, their friendship was left behind. Now Natalie has a crazy plan to land her crush—Toby’s biggest rival—and she needs Toby’s help to pull it off. When Nat asks Toby to be her fake boyfriend, he can’t say no. Not when it means getting his best friend back. But Natalie is all grown up now, and spending time with her—even when it’s just playing hockey together—stirs up a lot of feelings, old and new. Suddenly pretending to be interested in her isn’t hard at all…if only she wanted him and not his enemy.
Hockey tore them apart. Can it put them back together?
Disclaimer: This Entangled Teen Crush book contains adult language, ice-melting kisses, and a swoon-worthy hero. This fake relationship romance will have you wishing for a hockey player of your own…
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Interview
Please welcome Corrigan Falls Raiders author Cate Cameron to Diane’s Book Blog.
What is your favorite part of the story, Winging It ?
I have a bit of a problem with getting sidetracked by my secondary characters, and I definitely had to fight against that here, with both Dawn and Scott. They're both damaged characters, hiding their vulnerability behind not-too-attractive personality traits. Dawn is bossy, and Scott is a junior cad (a la Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones) and I love writing them both! I think there may be a fourth book in this series, and I think it's time Dawn found love...
How long did it take you to write Winging It ?
It took about two and a half months, which is fairly standard for me. I shoot for 365 000 words a year, which obviously works out to 1 000 words a day, but those words tend to come in bursts when I have time off work or at least things are slow at work. Winging It was written during prime working time, so most of my writing would have been done on weekends. Ten weekends, about 6 000 words each - shazam! A first draft is born.
And there weren't extensive edits for this one. It's my third Entangled book, so I've got a better idea of what they're looking for, I think.
If you were stranded on a desert island which of your characters do you want by your side?
I'd have to go with Chris Winslow (stars in the second book in this series, but makes appearances in the other two as well). He'd be most likely to put up with my fear, anger, frustration, and other desert-island emotions, and he'd probably make the whole thing into a fun adventure!
(And if I were stranded in an age-appropriate body on a desert island with him, I'm sure he could make me not worry too much about getting rescued!)
What is your favorite book that you wrote?
I'm usually most in love with whatever book I happen to be writing at any given time... once books are done being written I kind of lose interest in them. So my current favourite is a series I'm writing as my alter ego, m/m author Kate Sherwood - I'm not sure what it's going to be called yet, but it has a sexy cop reluctantly returning to the Montana home town he ran away from fifteen years earlier, where he reconnects with the sexy boyfriend he left behind, and who has since become a criminal mastermind. It's a lot of fun!
What's your favorite book-turned movie?
Princess Bride, absolutely. I loved the book first, was really apprehensive about it being made into a movie, and then loved the movie. A different tone, for sure, but it kept all the most important parts and added some extra flair!
Can you share a little of your current work with us?
As I said above, I tend to only care about whatever book I'm currently writing - it's hard for me to tear myself away from it in order to do promo for other books as they get published! So right now I'm finishing up a 4-book series for Riptide, still untitled, but I'm loving it.
This is part of the scene where the MC, Jericho Crewe, runs into his old flame after fifteen years apart.
There was a man standing in the shadows, a half-step inside the hallway. He’d been out of sight before, but now he’d stepped forward just a little, just enough to be noticed but not clearly seen.
But Jericho didn’t need a clear view to recognize Wade Granger. Jericho’s body made the identification, his blood singing and surging toward its once-familiar partner. So Jericho waited, trying to control himself, and Wade finally took another step forward into the light.
He looked older, but in a good way. His hair was as black as ever, but cut shorter, and his perpetually tanned skin was showing just the beginnings of being weathered as it stretched over his high cheekbones. His grey eyes were as bottomless as they’d ever been. The boy had turned into a man, but hadn’t lost his beauty.
Jericho had heard people call Wade oily, but that wasn’t the right word. Wade was
iridescent, sure, but he was quicksilver, not oil. He was beautiful and fluid and impossible to hold onto. Fascinating but deadly. He was the only thing that had kept Jericho sane through far too many nights of desperation and rebellion, and he’d been the only thing that had seriously tempted him to stay in Mosely years before.
But Jericho had left, and Wade had stayed behind. Now Wade was staring at him, assessing him, and Jericho had no idea what the man was seeing. He forced himself to wait, and finally Wade smiled. “Jay Crewe,” he said. He walked slowly toward Jericho but stayed behind the bar, sinuous grace apparent in even the simplest movements. He was wearing black jeans and a grey dress shirt, black work boots tying him in to the crowd at the mismatched tables even as something else, something indefinable, set him apart. “It’s been a long time.”
“It has.” Maybe Jericho should have found something a bit more profound to say, but nothing came to mind.
What do you prefer paperback, hardcover, or ebooks?
I'm a bit of a germophobe, so ebooks are like a gift from heaven for me! No more porous paper soaking up all the disgustingness of every person who's ever touched it, just a clean, easily disinfected plastic surface. (Okay, no, I've never disinfected my e-reader. But that's because I'm the only one who touches it! I'm not afraid of MY germs, I'm afraid of everyone else's!)
What do you love most about hockey?
I love how much a part of Canadian culture hockey is, especially in small towns. The NHL, sure, but more just the game itself--parents meeting their friends for coffee at the arena while the kids play, adults staying relatively fit playing bar league hockey (and then drinking all the exercise away after the game), the way it bleeds into everything. There's a road hockey/shinny custom for choosing teams where everyone who's playing throws his or her stick into a big pile and then the sticks are divided into two smaller piles and you're on the team with everyone whose stick is in the same pile as you. I was at a business retreat a few weeks ago and we had to divide up into three teams for an activity, and one guy tossed his pen into the middle of the table. No explanation, no discussion--everyone else just tossed their pens in, we divided the pile into three, and we had our teams. It's just... hockey. Home. You know?
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