BLOG TOUR: GUEST POST & GIVEAWAY – “Home the Hard Way” by ZA Maxfield
Hello gentle readers! I’m Z.A. Maxfield, and I want to thank Boys in Our Books for the chance to come here and share my news!
Home the Hard Way is OUT from Riptide Publishing and I’m doing a big blog tour. At the end, there will be a giveaway. There are plenty of chances to enter and win the $25.00 gift certificate, as well as chances to comment and win something from my backlist at every stop.
You’re going to want to follow along with the whole blog tour, all the information is here.
I thought I’d do something different for today’s blog post! Dare Buckley suffered a scandal before leaving the Seattle PD. Because the events called into question both his professional ethics and his personal judgment, he’s been really hard on himself.
When a reporter for the Palladian Herald gets hold of him, he’s just trying to buy paint at the local hardware store. What the reporter doesn’t’ know is Dare has had a couple beers and his filters aren’t engaged.
The resulting article doesn’t paint the best picture of Dare, or the department that hired him…
The Return of the Native
By Levi Moreno
I caught up with Palladian’s newest resident, Dare Buckley, at the hardware store where he was buying paint. Dare’s the son of beloved former City Council member Kent Buckley, whose suicide ten years ago rocked Palladian to its very foundation. Though he and his mother moved shortly after the tragic event, Dare is back after a scandal in the Seattle police department forced his resignation.
He was kind enough, once I showed him my credentials, to answer a few questions for me.
PH: With regard to the scandal in Seattle. Is it fair to say you slept with a suspect in an ongoing investigation and she later tried to blackmail you?
Buckley: I’m not sure I’d call that fair. I met the woman in question at a social even in another town. We spent the night together. That was before anyone questioned her innocence.
PH: But eventually, it was discovered she’d murdered her own child.
Buckley: Yes.
PH: Is it accurate to say that you hid your relationship with her from your department?
Buckley: Calling it a relationship is inaccurate. Hiding is inaccurate. I didn’t kiss and tell, but I wasn’t actively hiding anything.
PH: But an omission can be considered a lie, if it involves a case you’re working on.
Buckley: Apparently
PH: Was your judgment impaired by alcohol?
Buckley: Where do you get that?
PH: Newspaper reports in Seattle claimed your problems stemmed from an alcohol fueled party where you—
Buckley: I went to a bachelor party. It happened in the middle of a missing persons case involving a child. It’s possible I was more susceptible alcohol because I’d gone nearly a week with little or no sleep. I made a bad judgment. I resigned from the Seattle PD because I felt there was no excusing my error. End of story.
PH: So. Your father was close friends with former Chief Deputy Tony Vicenzo. There’s talk he pressured the department into hiring you.
Buckley: My father was well-liked. I don’t know about pressure or anything. I have the skillset of a seasoned detective.
PH: You were hired when there were other officers in line for promotion with a longer employment history and cleaner records.
Buckley: (frowning) No comment
PH: Isn’t it true the real reason you came back to Palladian is to solve the mystery of your father’s suicide?
Buckley: Uh…no. The real reason I came back to Palladian is because no one else would hire me. No one knows why my father killed himself. I doubt we’ll ever know.
PH: Wait. No department anywhere else would hire you?
Buckley: You think I wanted to come back to a town where the “high-rise” is three stories tall
PH: It seems like you’re saying you think Palladian PD offers an inferior job assignment. I’m wondering if you mean that?
Buckley: No offense, but if you have to ask that question, it’s clear you’ve never been anywhere else.
At this, Buckley terminated the interview and walked away.
For whatever reason, Palladian has given Dare Buckley the benefit of the doubt. One might wish—if one cared enough, because I certainly don’t—he’d be generous enough to offer Palladian the benefit of doubt in return.
~*~
Wow! Dare isn’t making friends and influencing people, is he???
Here’s the blurb for Home the Hard Way:
Dare Buckley has come home—or at least, he’s come back to Palladian, the small town he left as a teenager. After a major lapse in judgment forced him to resign from the Seattle PD, Palladian is the only place that’ll hire him. There’s one benefit to hitting rock bottom, though: the chance to investigate the mystery of his father’s suicide.
Dare also gets to reacquaint himself with Finn Fowler, whose childhood hero worship ended in uncomfortable silence when Dare moved away. But Finn isn’t the same little kid Dare once protected. He’s grown into an attractive, enigmatic stranger who neither wants nor needs what Dare has to offer.
In fact, Dare soon realizes that Finn’s keeping secrets—his own and the town’s. And he doesn’t seem to care that Dare needs answers. The atmosphere in Palladian, like its namesake river, appears placid, but dark currents churn underneath. When danger closes in, Dare must pit his ingenuity against his heart, and find his way home the hard way.
Read more about Home the Hard Way: HERE
There’s two ways to win today! Comment below for a chance to win an ebook from my backlist AND you can also…
Enter the GIVEAWAY!
About the Author – Z. A. Maxfield started writing in 2007 on a dare from her children and never looked back. Pathologically disorganized, and perennially optimistic, she writes as much as she can, reads as much as she dares, and enjoys her time with family and friends. Three things reverberate throughout all her stories: Unconditional love, redemption, and the belief that miracles happen when we least expect them.
If anyone asks her how a wife and mother of four can find time for a writing career, she’ll answer, “It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you give up housework.”
Readers can visit ZAM at her website, Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr.
Ouch! That was quite an interview. Thanks for the post and the giveaway. :-)
jen.f {at} mac {dot} com
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I’m really looking forward to this one even more now.
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Looking forward to reading Home the Hard Way. Thanks for the giveaway.
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This was another great book by ZAM. Thanks for the giveaway!
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Well…that interview was something…really makes me want to read the book though.
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One of my favorite authors. Looking forward to reading this!
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Now that was quite the interview! Home the Hard Way blog tour keeps pulling me!
aegger.echo(at)yahoo(dot)com
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That sounds very interesting!
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Hi Barbara! You’re my winner. Please go to http://www.zamaxfield.com/books and choose a book, and then let me know which one you’d like! I’ll get it to you right away. Thanks for playing along! email me at zamaxfield (at) zamaxfield (dot) com
XOXO
ZAM
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Wow, he certainly does know how to make friends and influence people and that all so important cliché, first impressions do count! He looks like he needs someone to support him and help him through all his angst’s and I wonder if Finn is the man to do that? I think Dare is on a difficult journey and the cover inspired my thoughts of a certain poem* and eventual redemption for Dare.
Thank you for a chance to win a copy from this authors backlist and thank you ZAM for a great giveaway :)
*Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference. Robert Frost The Road Not Taken.
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Wow. What an interview. This books sounds really good. Thanks for the chance to win a backlist book!
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Love the character interview, and I appreciate the lack of spoilers!
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I really enjoyed the interview of Dare by the reporter. Fortunately for Dare, he still got hired.
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What a great way to do a blog post. I can see how he’d not be happy to be accosted in the hardware store.
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