Fangirl Gush: AJ Chase (plus words from AJ)

October 20, 2009 on 8:00 am | In ERD, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

We don’t have author spotlights or guest blogs here at SS.com as a regular course of events, but I batted my eyelashes until Elise agreed I could invite one of my favorite people over to visit. AJ Chase has written never-to-be-seen-by-the-public love scenes featuring winged heroes (ok, one winged hero) just for me…er, in order to prevent me from doing it in a fanfic manner, depending upon whose version of the story you hear. She also reads my banana lube and butt-licking WIPs, lets me make her laugh out loud even though the kids are sleeping, and doesn’t laugh too hard when I suggest she name her soon-to-be-born daughter after me. Today she’ll be blogging about her new release, sexy romantic comedy CAT AND MOUSE, now available at Freya’s Bower.

From AJ:

My new book Cat and Mouse, released from Freya’s Bower October 20, the heroine, Kitty Stapleton, has the chance to hook up with her secret high school crush.  This is a fantasy that I think most of us have entertained at one point or another but at a certain time this fantasy starts to be replaced by the somewhat disturbing reality of the way people age. 

      With high school nearly twenty years behind me, everyone, certainly including myself, is a little bit less (Or in my case a great deal more in the pounds department) than they used to be.  In my case I retained a crush on the same person for all four years and oddly he looks perfectly the same.  Hardly changed at all.  Like he’s made out of plastic.  Or Dick Clark. 

      But that doesn’t mean I’d want to make that leap back into the past.  And not just because I’m happily married.  What about you guys?  Assuming that you weren’t in a committed relationship would you snatch up the chance to live out that high school dream for just a moment? 

      At this point I can’t even figure out why I liked this particular guy so intently and for so long.  I mean, there’s nothing wrong with him that I can tell, looks the same, extremely good job, very smart guy.  But I don’t even remember why I was so all fired hot for him.  Maybe I would remember if I saw him in person. 

      Kitty picked a guy that only got better with age, and maybe our crushes would have too but the question is what’s so enduring about those high school emotions?

      I think it’s just a matter of those emotions being so powerful at the time.  We hadn’t learned that ability to dull the edges of our feelings that we seem to learn as adults.  And those experiences shape us.  Our high school are often still our best friends, our high school times are often still our fondest memories.  Kitty finds that being back home with her family around her old friends makes her feel fifteen again.  And even more inadequate as a were-cat. 

      Touching base with those old high school feelings can do the same for us.  Take us back to highs and lows that would now get us a prescription for lithium.  But back in the day, that sort of thing was normal.  It could happen ten times in a day.  It could happen between our shower and getting dressed. 

      Anyway, the point is, high school was the best of times and worst of times.  Just like a Dickens novel.  Except with less soot and less cockney accents.  So what about you?  Given the opportunity would you take that chance?

Cat and Mouse is here.

AJ Chase can be found at her web site, AJ Chase Books and at her group blog, Tales From the Crit.