Fearless Blog Tour (+$100 Amazon GC Giveaway!)

Title: Fearless
Author: Chris O' Guinn
Series: N/A
Pages: 191
Publisher: Lightbane Publications
Date Published: June 3rd, 2013
Format: eBook
Genre: Contemporary YA (LGBT)
Source: Goddess Fish Promotions

Synopsis: 

At fifteen, Justin is already a cynic. He’s experienced too many betrayals, too many disappointments. He doesn’t want to be involved in anything. He doesn’t want to be popular. He doesn’t even want friends anymore, since they only ever let you down. He just wants to get through high school and the best way he can come up with to accomplish that goal is to simply be invisible.

His self-imposed exile from high school life is threatened when Liam, the scary stoner, reaches out to him. What starts out as a strange and unsettling encounter with the unnerving,  pot-smoking teenager evolves into the sort of friendship that changes the course of a person’s life.

But as Liam drags the reluctant Justin out of his shell, Liam’s own secret is revealed.

Fearless is the story of the myriad shades of love, how to find one’s courage and the transformative power of friendship.

Now, Fearless is obviously LGBT fiction. I know a lot of heterosexual friends who read and enjoy LGBT literature, but I know just as many who are afraid to give it a try. Take a look at Chris's guest post to see what he's got to say on the matter...

I'm hetero, why should I read LGBT Fiction?

This is a wonderful question. There is so much out there to read and enjoy, why should a person read about a group of people in society that they don’t identify with? This question also can be rephrased as, “I’m white, why should I read a book about the experience of a person of color?” Or, “I’m a man, why should I write a book about life as a woman?”

Books serve all sorts of purposes—to entertain, to educate, to excite our imaginations, to help us escape our day-to-day lives. At their core, though, what books really have is the power to do is to let us see the world through someone else’s eyes.

The very first book that I absolutely loved was The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton. I was just a kid when I read it, living my middle-class life and vey sure that everyone around me was exactly who they appeared to be. The Outsiders opened my eyes and suddenly I saw that people with their mohawks and leather jackets and long hair were all just people, not much different from me. By reading about people whose lives were vastly different from my own, I learned an invaluable life lesson, and one that carries through all the way to Fearless.

Of course, there’s a whole political tangent I can go off on, but we’d be here for days if I got started. I’d rather focus on why one would invest time and money in LGBT fiction. And the reason is because by reading stories about the queer experience, you will learn that we’re not all that different after all. We want love, we need comfort, we seek acceptance.

What I tried to accomplish with Fearless was to bridge that gap. I like to say I wrote a story that had a gay character but it wasn’t about being gay. The main character, Justin, was facing off with a number of problems at the beginning of the book. His being gay informed his experience, but it didn’t define him. The themes of friendship and courage that I wove into the story are universal, I think.

A lot of gay and transgender fiction is written by gay and transgender men and women, so when you are reading these stories, you are getting a glimpse into their lives. The stories may be fiction, but you can bet the experiences of the characters reflect something the author themselves went through.

So why should you read LGBT books if you’re straight? Because it helps you to understand us, and that’s important because you almost certainly have a relative, friend or coworker who is LGBT. If you can know and appreciate even a tiny bit of our struggles, you move a step closer to seeing us just as people. As with me and The Outsiders, you will no longer look at just the surface, but the person underneath. You won’t simply see the things that make us different, but the things that we share in common.

And that, in my opinion, is well worth the time it takes to read an LGBT-themed book.

Try an Excerpt!

“If I was just going to ask some dude out, like, just out of the blue—which I totally am not—it wouldn’t be Jimmy.”

“Ah ha!” he crowed. “So, who’s the lucky dude who has your eye?”

I wasn’t sure he could be trusted with my crush, but I supposed I had to stop thinking that way about everything. “This guy in my science class, Zach.”

“Zach Snyder?”

“Ew, gross.” Snyder was a mouth-breathing Neanderthal who was always picking his nose in class—when he wasn’t scratching his crotch. “I have better taste than that, come on!”

“Then which Zach is it? I can name like five—no, six—guys with that name.”

“Beal.”

Liam’s eyes lit up. “A senior! Wow, you really do go all out with a crush.”

My cheeks were burning. “He’s just this really fantastic guy—like, a really nice person, you know?”

“And the fact that he’s smoking hot doesn’t have anything to do with it?”

I fidgeted. “You think he’s hot too?”

“Dude, the guy is so good looking even straight guys want to do him.”

I snorted laughter. “You’re awful.”

“So ask him out.”

“Okay, no. I prefer admiring from afar—really far.”

Liam elbowed me. “Homecoming isn’t far off. You should ask him.”

He said it in this sing-song voice that didn’t make the idea sound any smarter. “For one, he’s a senior and I’m a freshman,” I said, ticking the irrefutable points off on my fingers. “For two, he’s so far out of my league that I don’t have the slightest chance. For three, if I tried, I’d have some kind of seizure and die. And fourth, oh yeah, he’s straight.”

Liam grinned at me. “One, two and especially three are lame. I’m throwing them out. So, let’s talk about four. How do you know he’s straight?”

Meet Chris! 

I’ve been writing since I was fifteen, not that those stories will ever be allowed out of the dark hole I buried them in. I focused primarily on the Fantasy genre for the first two decades, occasionally diverting into modern fiction. In 2010, I embarked in a self-publishing career, focusing on the young adult novel genre. When I’m not writing, I am contributing to TheBacklot.com, a gay entertainment website.
 You can follow me on Facebook and you can keep up to date with my works via Lightbane.com.

Because Chris is AMAZINGLY Generous, he is offering $100 amazon Giftcard! Comment Below to win! The more you follow the tour and the more you comment, the better your chances to win!