My guest today is Brianna Kienitz, debut author with Nine Star Press. Her f/f soccer romance Off Pitch came out last week. Learn more about Brianna in the following short interview and read an excerpt from the book at the end of this post. Enjoy!
Meet Brianna
1. Tell us about yourself and why did you decide to become a romance writer?
Haha! Oh boy! I started writing fiction a little over a year ago. My first project (which I'm still working on) is a young adult apocalyptic sci-fi series. Though I loved reading fluffy woman-loving-woman romances, I never thought I'd have kind of story in me.
After several months of feverish writing, I was getting worn down and running out of juice. I needed a change, something completely different to cleanse my palette. I was writing on Wattpad at the time, and had prodded fellow authors to write more lesbian soccer stories. When NaNoWriMo came along last November I decided to take matters into my own hands, and Off Pitch was born.
Turns out I had a romance story in me after all. It has opened the floodgates for a whole slew of sports romances I have planned for the future.
2. Can you share some of your favourite books and authors?
The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily Danforth is my favorite book of all time. It's young adult lesbian fiction coming of age story by a Montanan about a Montanan. Being a Montana native as well, the settings, characters, and story resonate down to my roots.
Coming in a very close second place is the Starborn series by Maggie Derrick, currently in its beta stage on Wattpad and Maggie’s blog. Her magic realism stories are like living in a work of art, and are nearly impossible to put down.
I also love the Waking Forever series by Heather McVea. It's hard to beat sexy vampires who happen to be women-loving-women with grew exceptions. It's thrilling, it's steamy, it's fluffy, and it hovers perpetually near the top of my recommendation list.
3. Who/what do you consider your writing influence/inspiration?
Before I started writing, I was reading stories featuring women-loving-women voraciously. However, I'm pretty isolated in my little Hobbit hole, and I was starting to run out of things I wanted to read within my limited scope. (Twitter has opened up a whole new world for me, so now the problem is my lack of time, not my lack of reading material.)
I started writing the kinds of stories that I want to read. A lot of my inspiration comes from the characters and stories i love. If I didn't love to read what I was writing, I would never finish the story.
A lot of my inspiration also comes from dreams, real life, the people around me, experiences I've had, and the things I'm passionate about. I love Ireland and classical music, and I can't seem you keep those two things from working their way into my stories.
4. What kind of stories can the readers expect from you (contemporary/historical/sci-fi, adult/NA/YA, etc)?
Like I said, I started out in young adult sci-fi. Off Pitch is contemporary new adult. I have an unsettling amount of adorable romances planned. There are a couple of fantasy stories waiting in the wings. I can't imagine writing a story without some amount of ladies falling in love, but I like to keep an open mind. I'm a happy leaf floating wherever the wind takes me.
5. Please, introduce your latest/upcoming release.
Off Pitch follows Adeline Fahey, an undergraduate student at Northwestern University. She’s a straight-A student, but that's nothing compared to what she can do on the soccer field. Her focus is razor sharp and she’s on course to become a highly sought after professional player.
Razor sharp that is, until the teaching assistant walks into Addie’s Beginning Spanish class. A graduate student from Spain, she's already a world class cello player poised to become the darling of the symphony.
Despite the university's fraternization rules and their drive towards their goals and passions, the two women can't help but gravitate towards one another. The road is rough, but sprinkle in a sarcastic best friend, homophobic parents, and a T-rex costume, and they just might have a shot at something more in life than they ever could have planned for.
It's funny, it's steamy, it's adorable, and I hope you love it as much as I do.
Blurb
Soccer star Adeline Fahey has never taken an interest in the world outside of the pitch. The daughter of wealthy Irish immigrants, and a straight-A student, she sees nothing the the goal - finish her last two years of school and join a professional soccer team - no ifs, ands, or buts.
Then Gabriella Soto, a cello prodigy in her own right and the teaching assistant in Adeline’s dreaded Beginning Spanish class, walks onto her playing field.
After a drunken night in a T-rex costume boots their hearts onto a collision course, Adeline and Gabriella must tackle a field of school scandal, homophobic parents, and their own passionate career goals to have a shot at something more. In the face of so many obstacles, Adeline and Gabriella fear that their love may not be strong enough to score them the championship relationship they never knew they wanted.
Author Bio and Links
Brianna Kienitz (pronounced Kee-nits) started out as an avid reader of lesbian fiction. When reading no longer sated her appetite, she turned to writing the stories she craved. Brianna believes a good story should make you feel every moment deeply, whether it be laughing until it hurts, crying yourself dry, or screaming with unbridled rage. Her Wattpad works have been widely read and have received multiple awards from the Wattpad community. Her current project, Off Pitch, was named Wattpad LGBT Book of the Month in March 2017.
Brianna lives in Missoula, Montana, where she works as a slayer of transit demons, and a dance instructor. She spends most of her down time hiding in her Hobbit Hole with her wife and cat, curating T-rex costume GIF’s and pretending not to be socially awkward on the internet.
Excerpt
It hadn’t even been two weeks, and already I was falling behind in my Spanish class. Much to my chagrin, I needed help if I was going to pass the class. And so it was that I found myself making my way to the place where Marcy had said she would be holding office hours. A few people threw casual greetings my way as I maneuvered through the narrow hallways.
“Heyyyy, Fahey,” a generic-looking bro said as he passed me by. I was too caught up in trying to remember if I knew the guy to respond. I was fairly certain I had never met him before.
Sometimes, being me was weird. A lot of people on campus knew who I was, not because I was a particularly social person, but simply because I was one of the top athletes in the school. I had received a full scholarship to come play soccer for Northwestern, and started every game during my freshman year. From the start, I was a force to be reckoned with. I’d been the school’s leading soccer star ever since. As such, my name had made it into the school newspaper after almost every game, often accompanied by pictures of me tearing it up on the field.
Suffice to say that I had achieved a moderate amount of celebrity on campus in the two years I had been here. It made me more than a little uncomfortable at times, but not enough to deter me from my passions. I played soccer because I loved the game, and nothing could change that.
I reached the office I had been seeking and stopped short outside the open door.
“Oh, hello. Adeline, right?” Gabriella sat at a nondescript desk in the cramped space beaming up at me more brightly than I felt the situation warranted. I hadn’t realized I was still standing in the doorway staring until Gabriella’s smile faded slightly and she cleared her throat. “Would you like to come in?” she asked, sounding concerned and confused by my behavior.
“Oh, right. Sorry. Just Addie is fine.” I snapped out of my stupor and took the seat at the end of the desk reserved for wayward students such as myself.
“What can I do for you, ‘Just Addie’?” she teased with a good-natured chuckle.
“Well, I’m hoping that you might help me pass this class. I’m terrible at Spanish.”
“Everyone is terrible at Spanish at first. That’s why they call it learning,” she replied with thinly veiled sarcasm. Gabriella may have seemed shy in the classroom, but clearly there was more to her than met the eye.
I had yet to be in such close proximity with her. Now that I was, I could see a spark burning behind her jewel-like hazel eyes that spoke of something fiery hidden beneath her reticent exterior. It created a persona of mystique that I was finding terribly distracting. It didn’t help that she was utterly gorgeous. Her chocolate-colored hair perfectly complemented her bronze skin. She was relatively small in stature compared to my five-foot-nine frame. I guessed she was a few inches shorter than me, and her curves were to-die-for.
“So, did you have something specific in mind to work on, or did you want me to teach you the whole of the Spanish language right now?” Gabriella’s snark caught my attention, and I looked down sheepishly to avoid staring at her any longer.
“Umm...I guess I don’t really understand the whole masculine/feminine thing.” Of course you don’t. You’re a lesbian. I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing at my poor choice of words.
Gabriella was the picture of patience as she explained the difference between the masculine and feminine word endings, and the mechanics that went along with them. I marveled at the complete lack of condescension in her explanations. I had been to office hours with other TA’s and professors that had left me feeling like a fool by the end of the session.
“Where are you from?” I asked several minutes later, once I felt that I was beginning to get a handle on the concepts we were discussing.
“España,” she replied without looking up from the diagram she was drawing to display different vocabulary words with feminine and masculine endings.
“Oh. That explains the accent.” Wow. Smooth, Fahey.
“What about you? You don’t sound wholly American, either.” I was glad Gabriella had chosen to ignore that dumb comment.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said with a cocky half-grin. “I’m from Naperville, but my parents are Irish immigrants. I guess their accents rubbed off on me a bit.”
“Huh. That’s cute.” I didn’t know if she realized what she said, but the comment made me blush furiously. I was glad her attention was still focused on creating the endings table. “So, Naperville. Isn’t that pretty ritzy?”
“I guess so.” I shrugged, not wanting to delve into the details of my family or my upbringing. I was spared that uncomfortable conversation by a knock at the door. A young man I didn’t recognize stood in the doorway.
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