Author Spotlight: Jessica Davies & Sins of Another Giveaway Contest

Today's author spotlight is on Jessica Davies! She is stopping by to blog about her upcoming release Sins of Another and to begin a blog tour giveaway contest! Be sure to follow along to win! 

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First off, let me thank JR Loveless for inviting me here today and for being the first stop in my Sins of Another release blog tour.  

At the time of this posting, Sins of Another is available for pre-order here: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3787&cPath=399

And here’s the blurb so you have some idea of what I’m talking about:

One morning Padrig Kennedy comes home to find his partner, Nick Glenfielding, in bed with another man. Shocked, hurt, and vulnerable, Padrig flees and meets a stranger who seems to offer comfort—but he force-feeds Padrig a steady diet of drugs and prostitution instead. When he finally surfaces from his hell, it’s to another system shock: he’s now HIV positive.

Nick descends into darkness as well. Devastated by losing Padrig, he finds no consolation in the legal career he doesn’t love and tries to find solace in alcohol, spending his days in an ever-deepening haze.

Padrig and Nick find each other again, but their relationship can never be the same. If they’re to stand any chance of a future together, they must do the improbable: make sense of the past and learn to cope with new burdens they’ll bear for life. 

Today I’m talking titles.  One thing writers get asked a lot is “how do you come up with your titles?”  I wish I could say it was a grand and closely guarded mystery.  Generally I go with something obvious and hope it’s got a little deeper layer to it.  For instance, my novella Possession.  It’s about a possessed doorstop – a possessed possession, if you will.  

The original working title for Sins of Another was Innocent Wisdom, the idea being that wisdom doesn’t usually come with innocence but Padrig, though innocent, ends up in a situation from which he gains a lot of life wisdom, and unfortunately not in a very constructive way.  I found that title rather annoying, though, and scrapped it before the end.  

Instead, I took the title from a line in the story: “There comes a time when one has seen such suffering one begins to understand, in this world, even the innocent may be forced to bear the sins of another.”

The phrase is intentionally similar to “punishing the children for the sin of the fathers” – a line from Exodus – the idea being that someone who has no connection to a particular wrong-doing being the one to bear the punishment.  This applies to both Padrig and Nick, who have had their lives turned upside-down by someone else’s wrongdoing.  They are each essentially crippled without their “other half.”  

Later, toward the end, Padrig uses the same phrase in giving some advice: “But more than anything, love yourself.  No matter how much others love you, no matter how they would do anything for you, there may be times when through no fault of yours, you might be the only person you can rely on when you are faced with bearing the sins of another.”

Basically, Padrig means that you’ve got to value yourself, love yourself, and be willing to encourage yourself at times.  One cannot rely solely on others for their esteem and emotional needs, because no matter how much others may love you, there may come a time when they can’t be there for whatever reason.  That’s not to advise caution when it comes to love, but to always remember to love yourself as well as others.

Like Her Royal Highness, RuPaul, says, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else!  Can I get an amen?”

Sins of Another giveaway contest

Between now and May 29, 2013 I’ll be including clues in my blog tour stops and my own blog entries to references made within Sins of Another.  

Here’s how it works: You get the clue from the blog posts and keep track of the answers on your own.  After the last clue has been posted (May 29, 2013), email me at jessicaskyedavies@gmail.com

Make sure you follow the blog tour over the next couple months as I’ll be giving away swag bags, a goodie hamper, and a copy of Sins of Another.

Jessica Skye Davies’ blog: http://jessicaskyedavies.blogspot.com/

This week’s clue: 

Padrig’s introductory line in the foreword of Sins of Another is: “HELLO. My name is Padrig Kennedy. Padrig, not Patrick. I’m thirty-two now and have lived in East London all my life.”

He is then quick to let us know that he is not cockney, unlike a certain blossoming denizen of Covent Garden after whom is named an early computer program that mimicked natural language.  Who does Padrig refer to?

Remember, keep track of your answers on your own and check regularly to “collect” more clues!