Girlfriends Cyber Circuit Presents Tanya Lee Stone

And now for something completely different (and that's an appropriate transition line, since I'm going to see Spamalot this afternoon). Though, actually, today's topic isn't too far off the archetype path, as it's a Girlfriends Cyber Circuit post about Tanya Lee Stone's novel, A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl, which is now available in paperback.

I must say that the Bad Boy is one archetype I haven't worked with much, as I'm much more drawn to his opposite, the Best Friend. I can't even think of a Bad Boy I've written, not even as a secondary character. I must have been a parent's dream as a teenager because I never went for the dangerous tough guys. I was more likely to be swooning over the Eagle Scouts. Maybe writing a good Bad Boy I can understand and even end up liking is the next challenge I should set for myself (after I find a way to send a Best Friend on a vengeance vendetta).



So, anyway, about the book:
A BAD BOY CAN BE GOOD FOR A GIRL is a cautionary tale. Teens are dealing with sex, whether we’re ready or not. This novel is about three very different girls who date the same player guy. About how the choices they make shape who they want to be. About empowerment.

Meet Josie, Nicolette, and Aviva. Three very different girls who all meet the same bad boy with an irresistible knack for getting into their blood and under their skin.

Three girls. One guy. Who will come out on top?

In A BAD BOY CAN BE GOOD FOR A GIRL, Tanya Lee Stone takes a hard look at love and sex and asks the questions: “When can a bad boy be good for a girl?”

Now, some interview questions:
What inspired you to write this book?
The title. I had been experimenting with my style, branching out from the things I had been publishing, when I attended a short story workshop. George Nicholson was talking about wanting short story submissions for an anthology theme of "bad boys" and I immediately scribbled my title, A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl, in my notebook. The title invoked so many questions for me, I was on a roll.

How much, if anything, do you have in common with your heroine?
There are three heroines and, like the readers who have been emailing me, I find pieces of myself in all of them. I love hearing who sees themself in Josie, or Nicolette, or Aviva--and it's often parts of all three.

Do you really find the bad boys appealing, and if so, what is so appealing to you about them?
I found many a bad boy appealing when I was in school. I think it's less about them and more about learning about ourselves--testing our own boundaries to see where they are; see who we are.

Is there anything else you'd like to say about this book or the process of writing it?
I had the time of my life writing this book! It was important to me to present strong female characters who weren't afraid to express their sexuality, and who wouldn't be punished for it. I wanted to capture that heady time of first love/first times without heading into the territory of anyone suffering for their choices--no one gets pregnant, dies, or gets sick. There are emotional consequences to the choices some of the characters make, but I wanted the emphasis to be about the characters learning more about who they were, what mattered to them, and who they wanted to be. What's interesting to me is that the title can scare off certain readers at first; until they see what the book is really about. Then they want to buy it for their girlfriends, sisters, or kids. That's incredibly gratifying to me.

For more info, visit Tanya's web site. Or, you can buy it at Amazon.