Interview with Shaw Montgomery

Coast to Coast Romance with Shaw Montgomery

In this episode we ask her:

What is your favorite subgenre to write in?

What is your Favorite to read?

What are your favorite Tropes?

What trope do you dislike?

We discuss how flamboyant characters that can be triggers

What comes first the story or the characters

A review or comment about a book or series that stayed with you

A bad one?

What do you write under your seperate pen names?

Shaw Montgomery mainstream kink and bdsm female dom etc.

I.M. Innes no mainstream mm authors at that time I started under their same name, so I used a separate pen name for age play etc. the world has changed since I started

If you could write anything, what would it be?

WIP – I juggle between 3 different projects:

Next dirty daddy’s anthology

Contact Info:

Shaw Montgomery
http://authorshawmontgomery.com/

Ann Jensen

AnnJensenWrites@gmail.com

https://annjensenwrites.com/
https://www.amazon.com/Ann-Jensen/e/B08VRMR5SK/
https://www.facebook.com/annjensenbooks
https://www.instagram.com/annjensenbooks/

Skylar West

https://www.authorskylarwest.com/
https://www.amazon.com/author/skylarwest/
https://www.facebook.com/authorskylarwest/
https://www.instagram.com/author_skylarwest/?hl=en
https://twitter.com/SkylarW63773206

Transcript

0:02

Hi, I'm Ann Jensen coming to you from the east coast of New Jersey. Hi, I'm Skyler West coming to you from the west coast of Canada. We are two romance writers using our life experiences to break down and share with you all things romance, how you find your next book, boyfriend, discovering genres and troops and looking at what works and why and what doesn't work and why. Welcome back to coast to coast romance. Today we have one of my favorite authors, Sean Montgomery with us today. Welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. You know, Sean, I just was introduced to your books through em. As I'm going through them on Amazon. I'm like, Oh, this sounds interesting. This sounds interesting. I loved how diverse you are like you're so different. And so that takes me to kind of my first question, which is if you're writing sub genre of romance, what is your favorite sub genre to write in? I like anything where the characters just get to be completely themselves, like, say outrageous things or tease their friends or just anything where I get to make them laugh. I think that's my favorite thing to write. Nice. Awesome. And you have just mentioned that you are reading her most recent read. Did you want to add anything to that about the your character your take on the characters? Well, my take on the characters. Oh my god, I mentioned it in an earlier episode. How I never ever thought that I would enjoy a romance that involve tentacles. But because Shah had written it, I was like, Alright, I just got to try it out. And so your last year, it was the third in the series, right? And it's actually a nosh. Well, it's three. So yeah, it's three guys. One, one of them being a technical alien. And I just love the way that it's not like scary alien or super. I mean, they are alpha, but they're not like, alpha whole there. Yeah. complete confidence. And of course, I know what I'm doing. And then they charge right in. And it's very logical, and the play that you had between the characters with the logic and the emotion and, and all of that was just wonderful. And you know how interesting humans are from the outside. Like, if you were looking at us, like we were some kind of a science experiment, you just be scratching your head. And I think that's one of my favorite things about writing it. Yeah. How did we survive? That's wonderful. Now, do you read the same thing that you write a vast variety? Or do you have a favorite shopping honor that you like to read? My favorite thing to read is anything sci fi, fantasy, those kinds of things. But I read all kinds of crazy things. Wonderful. So it's obviously not just within the romance genre. You read science fiction on its own sci fi fantasy on its own. Not too dry. My brother's trying to get me to read this series that he loves. But it looked painfully boring. If you would have to reread each paragraph two or three times. And I had to tell him, No. Have you ever listened to him excitedly? Go on and on about these characters? And no, I'm not gonna read it. I hear that. I hear that. Yeah, like high high fantasy or high sigh where it's like, they have figured out the science behind everything that happens. And we'll share it. Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. I mean, I grew up. I think the first science fiction fantasy book I ever read was David eddings. And I remember being Oh, good. Oh my gosh, yeah. And it was the L stones of Chanel or something. It was the second book, and it was just released. So it was, you know, they used to do that they're really big paperbacks. So it's sitting there on the stand, and I looked at it, and I was intrigued because I had elves on it. And I had read The Hobbit when I was 11. I'm like, okay, and I said, I grabbed it, and then asked my mom to buy me the first book, which they had in smaller paperback, and I was hooked. So I completely understand. So you've talked about your sub genres, as a reader and as a writer, any other particular tropes that you really enjoy writing or reading in. I love friends to lovers, friends, backs. We already know each other. We've already built that foundation, but now it kind of takes on a life of its own for whatever reason. The girls. Yeah, that is a common popular trope for sure. Yeah. And one of the things that I really do enjoy in your books is all of your characters, our friends, as well as lovers. Like you can see that you don't just see the emotional like the physical relationship building. You see a true emotional support structure gets set up between them. I think that's the best relationships have that foundation, no matter what kind of relationship it is. Now do you have a least favorite term? I don't like enemies to lovers and I have One of those books that just wasn't my idea was the characters. And I went along with it. And angry sex is fun, but it's not really who I am as a revelation lace the photog dad's book, the second book in that just, oh, he's a handful. But what's funny is I noticed that the books around it, you, you do comment a lot about how exhausting they are. And I was always wondering if it was because it was so exhausting to write. exhausting, and just the amount of feedback I got from readers about just passionate how much they hated him. They read the book, and they were gonna see what happened to him. But oh, so many people. They hated Eli or they hated and just how dramatic he was and just everything they just wanted to reach through the book and strangle him as funny. That was surprising to me. So you have a trigger character. Good for you. Yeah. I see that I can see that drama queen Central. Oh, yeah. Whereas Anne has a drama queen in her last book book for in our motorcycle romance, and I love the he she dramaqueen book. Three is a three. Yes. Oh, yeah. Jojo. Jojo. Yes. Yeah. Jojo. My my drag queen. Yeah. Well, much fun. Everything's so flamboyant. And big. Already, I had a southern belle guy. Drama queen, not drag queen, drama queen. Oh, I have a southern belle drought drama queen and a drag queen and drama queen. There you go. Yes, that's right. Any other least favorite trope, so enemies to lovers. Anything else you're not a real fan of the really the one of the only ones I don't read. I don't like the anger. For the most part. Because a lot of the time. Unless it's a really, really good story. it's sometimes hard for me to see why you would love somebody who's screaming at you. Just to see that, why you like the other person. Right? not always clear. Well, I find that I've read maybe five or six books in that genre or trope. And I all of them have been teen age or college. And so that's also got that bully down bully. bully now there's bullies. Yeah. And it's I find it. I don't know, it's almost it's almost borderline Stockholm syndrome, which we talked about with Vanessa, I think, as being one of her least favorites as well. No. And it was interesting because one of the reasons that I discovered you cha was that I was looking for Weldon kink, respectfully done kink. And your books always got listed on a bunch of different BDSM sites that I went to even the series where you have some something shame, you the whole shame eautiful shame book, they're my guilty pleasure, right? I write those when I can't think of anything else to write. Very well done. But it's a it's a humiliation kick, but it's not a bully. It's, it's you know, so it's one of those things that a lot of people have trouble understanding where there's a difference between bullying and being mean. And yeah, the first one comes a little bit close to bully. But it's I think it's really clear fairly quickly. That's because they're just going into college in that for that, but and they they don't understand why they're reacting to each other that way. It's still a learning process of why does this turn me on kind of a thing. And so they're both feeling a little bit awkward about it not going to stop but both trying to give the other person what they want. So yeah, that was the closest that comes to anytime bullying. But no, it's they're really cute together. Yes. So as a writer, or sorry, as a reader, do you have some favorite authors or some favorite series that you really enjoy? I read all kinds of different things. Like I'm right now I'm excessively watching the calendar cap down for Laurel K. Hamilton's new book, her Angel series. I'm really excited about that. Oh, well, maybe you could read mine as a warm up. Yeah. Just throwing it out there. Oh, yeah. I like her Anita Blake series. That was one of the first things I read where the character had such an interesting transformation. And I could watch through the series because I started that series before. There was anything even interesting in my own personal life, so much less like I was still reading really Just like regular kind of roaming, just like eye opening. And it was that was my first hint of going to explore lots of different things. Yeah, I think we all have one of those authors where we pick up a book and it just takes us in a completely different angle than where we've been so far. For me, it was Renee rose. I just happened to be scrolling through K. au. And I thought, Oh, I like the cover is what it was. And and then I saw I downloaded the night. Sorry, I went, Oh, sort of those books. Yay. Looking around, making sure no one saw me. That's funny. For me, it was Robert Hyland time enough for love. It was just and that was when I was in my early teens it was seeing not a story about a gay man or pan or bisexual or whatever we're calling it today. With it was not just seeing someone have an alternate sexuality. It was seeing someone normalized, like no, this is how society is now. And then the Herald evolved a mirror Mercedes Lackey, I think having gay protagonists and everything like that, like it just opened up my mind to that this could be normal. Yeah, right. And I absolutely loved that. Now. All right, I gotta know, your story is which comes first? Is it the story or the or the the characters just jump in your head, and the character, the characters, sometimes it's like a, just like a first little flash of a conversation will come through, and I'll write that down, and not come back to it for like six months. I've got one that I'm finally coming back to that I read the first page two years ago. And I just I knew that I could see the scene. I knew what he was doing. And just I'm like, I don't know where you're going. Okay, we'll just we'll write this down. So yeah, I'm very much character driven. Nice. Awesome. So have you ever had a review, or a specific comment from a fan, about a book or a series that really kind of stuck out for you, it's stayed with you, the I had with at a Grl, a couple of years ago, and one of my readers came up to me, and when they figured out who I was, and finally noticed, like the little name tag, and like, the light went on, and like in their head, like that light bulb moment, literally almost flashed over their head, they started to cry, because they had been reading some of my books and figured out things about their own personal life. Wow, and what they've been thinking and really kind of a different direction for their own personal life. And that has just always stuck with me. It was just one of those moments that I will go to my grave remembering, because they really touched me the sweet things that they said, Wow, that's incredible. That's amazing, huh? How about something that you thought was just what why did you write that, like, why? And if anybody ever listening to this, you left this review, just understand, I understand where you're coming from. And I'm not offended. But not too long. After I got several age Play Books out and the backless was starting to fill up, I got a I don't read reviews that often because I have a hard time sorting out the helpful information from the emotional information. So it's not good for my mental health. But I was reading a couple of reviews. And because there was one low review that I really didn't understand, like buy the book on everybody like this, I don't get it. So I read the review and just couldn't help but laugh. They was a very low star review. And they started off with basically this might not be the author, this might be me, but and then they went on to explain that there was like the third or fourth book they've read by me, and they were all too sweet. And they kept waiting for the anks and waiting for more books that have a lot more drama. And they just haven't found it yet. And so they were very disappointed. And basically described by books as peanut butter fudge. It sounded like a really good idea, but it was just too sweet. To get that review out of my head is the Wow, have you ever? No kidding. I was too sweet for them. Because they're not really going to find a whole lot of drama. I don't like making myself cry when I'm writing. Why would I want to make everybody else cry? I mean, we have those moments but no, there's no anchor. Lots of sweet kinky fluff. And it was just my favorite negative review ever. I'm pinatas lunch. That's awesome. Wow. That's neat. It's like It's like the book that you know my blurb doesn't say a roller coaster. You know, like it's like okay, no, this is like your fourth book. And this is Not me, this is you. You should not have read the next one if you don't, right. And it works the other way too. Like I don't think I have a single review that doesn't say wow, hot steamy scenes. Eight. So if you don't want a hot steamy scene, chances are you shouldn't read mine. All on my first book, I had a hard time getting reviews. So I send out some more copies and did that. And when I was asking for our readers, I explained the content. And I was like, Okay, I would prefer it if you've read age play and things like this in the past, because that's, I didn't want to start with anybody. Absolutely. Every review, I got back started out as I've never been anything like this. But Dude, that's the way to give an author a heart attack if you just haven't got dead in their office floor. No kidding. I was so glad when the review stopped feeding. Just like whoa, whoa, okay. And you write under more than one name, is that correct? Do you want to share a little bit about the differences in the sameness of the pen names that you write under. I started out writing a shadow gallery and doing mainstream mainstream II kind of kink and BDSM just some female domination then moving into the Mmm. But I wanted to do things that were a little bit more outside the box at the time. When I started, there wasn't a single mainstream mm author who had contemporary BDSM and interesting things under the same name. They just didn't do it. So I started putting my bookmark curious things that I wanted to write like the age plain and fast and things like that under a separate pending right now everybody goes, why don't you just do that? Like, why not all the same? Now Mike has to remember a few years ago, nobody did that. The world has changed? Oh, yes, it has. But I understand that because I was been struggling. I recently put out a series under a different pen name. And leading up to that I struggled and had suggested keeping the same pen name. And someone said to me, and it's, I've thought about it more sense and went doesn't really make sense to me. But they gave the idea of Okay, imagine Stephen King who always writes the same thing. brilliantly, but the same kind of style stuff, all sudden decided to write something different. And fans are buying the books thinking they're gonna get the same product, but it's quite different. So I still think it makes sense, not because of what's acceptable, not acceptable, but more just because of a fan base. Yeah, if I had to go back and do it all over again, I'd probably do everything under one pen name, just because for me, the main thing that carries through all of the books are very relationship focused, very sweet. And no matter what they get up to in the bedroom, has that tender kind of lucky feel throughout all of that, so I think I would have done things a little bit differently. But really, even a couple of years ago, it just nobody get that. Yeah. Though, I will admit that sometimes when I'm trying to, you know, clean the brain, like, I just need something nice and fluffy and light. That's why I'm like a pull up with a shovel curious, because I know I'm going to be happy. I know I'm gonna enjoy it. And love, love the characters. That's awesome. Now, if you could write anything, not romance, not like, not necessarily even in your skill set right now. But like just in your head, if you could write anything? What would it be? I like historical stuff. Like I grew up reading the Highland romance novels from my mother's bookshelf. And so I would love to do that kind of historical sweeping romance, they probably end up being a lot of cake for them. Because the time it takes to really research all of it. And the level of detail is not my personality, unfortunately. If somebody who really was good at that part, oh, yeah, but no, just on my own. I'm not that detail oriented. It's awesome. Yeah, I think you're right, I think historical and of course, what Regency way, way more, has a particular leanings. The only way like I'm with you, I love reading historical and I have read much, much, much much. And I've thought about if I was to write one how to do it. And I think I would focus in on a village, a town, a city, keep it very specific to the events of that time within that place instead of say, what was going on in the world. Like, I don't do much research for me. We'll see it wouldn't be for me just because I've read so much but then I know me I Stop a goat. Well Wait, hang on a second. And I want to make sure I was very accurate. So it would be quiet. Well, that's the kind of book that you spend a year to two years writing. Yeah. I just it's not my personality. I mean, I have, I haven't have history classes that I took in college to majored in, honestly. And I read so many romance novels that really weren't like those Highland ones, were well, well researched at the time. And just the historical accuracies and the battles and all the kinds of things that they touched on. Dude, high school history was a breeze. But no, just, I could do like a good overarching kind of idea. But it's all the little minute details about what people were wearing, and just Yep, all those kind of things. That would be just way too hard. Oh, I think that's why the Outlander books are so big, like the actual novels, the writer has definitely immersed herself in that time. And you don't even question what she says about the dress and how they looked. And because you come to realize, yeah, you come to realize that she's literally cornered that she's done very well. Okay? So Shar, I know that you probably are always working on something, but you have a current work in progress that you want to share with us. I've actually got I'm working on several different things, but almost like three different books to add, and juggle just to keep myself focused, because I'm clearly where my children got ADHD from. I can't even complain with their squirrel moments. Good time, just as bad. But I'm currently in the middle of finishing, nearly finished the book that's going to go in the next 30 days anthology. And that's so much fun. But writing short books just kills me. Because my people are long winded. They want to talk things out. They want to explore things. And I'm like, No, don't do this has a page limit. Knew to do that. Stop. Meet down. Okay, what else are you working on? Do you have a long running series that we're This is the seventh book. And they're generally fairly short, just because when I first started them, I thought it was going to be just a one off thing of a random character idea that I had, like, look at this down, and nobody will ever read it. That'll be the end of it. And it kind of got a life of its own. And there were six books then and seven books. And so I'm playing with them again. They're my theories. So awesome. There's so much awesome. Yeah, they're so it's so it's so do we have any more of the alien ones coming? Oh, of course. We're gonna get long waiter to pizza restaurant who is fascinated with the aliens. And he's going to get his first date with an alien and they're just so cute. No, younger kind of couple this time. Not like the grownups who were so confident. So I'm kind of curious to see how a young alien who is approaching dating a human. Gotcha. So you're doing like the new young lover first love trope in there. Yeah. Nice. That's awesome. I absolutely love that really? Typical romance. Only you could make a say that. Sadly. Oh, that's wonderful. All right, well, we will put all of your contact information into our show notes. For anyone who is interested, is there anything else you would like our listeners to know just if they're really curious about trying testicles of aliens for the first time, then they can check out that series as my new neighbors. And it's just basically aliens have landed on earth. And instead of the Apocalypse, they've learned to go to Walmart, figure out driving and that kind of stuff. And it's just a fun take on how it could happen. That one of my favorite characters is in the second book because he thinks he is just badass. He learned to drive and he drives taxi. The way they see things is just hysterical. They're my favorite characters direct. And I love that the people around him feel the same. They're like he's, he takes his life in his hands. That's fantastic. I'm really happy. You're here with us today. Shaw. Thank you for joining us. Oh, thank you for having me. This has been wonderful. I'm not a fan girl. Thank you. I'm so glad you two got to meet. Yeah. Thank you for listening to coast to coast romance. I'm Ann Jensen. And I'm Skyler West. If you'd like to contact either of us. Our links are located in the show notes. Have a great week. Thanks so much for joining us.