Review & Excerpt Tour for INSATIABLE by Michelle Hazen
Michelle Hazen is back with INSATIABLE, the next standalone in her Sex, Love, and Rock & Roll series. When a sex addict lead singer falls into friendship with a hard rock diva, he must fight their attraction or risk ruining her life. Fans of rockstar romances will devour this angsty yet heartwarming story about a bad boy who’s a good man. “Insatiable is a beautiful story about love. There’s romantic love, the love between friends, the often painful love we share with our family, and for Jax, finally the ability to love himself.”--Reads and Reviews Blog Title: Insatiable Author: Michelle Hazen Release Date: July 2, 2018 Publisher: Self-published Series: Sex, Love, and Rock & Roll #3 Genres: Contemporary Romance Page Count: 322
Synopsis:
Jax Sterling is a sex addict with the heart of a golden retriever puppy. As the lead singer for the Red Letters, it’s easy to hide his loneliness behind his bad boy lifestyle…until he lands on tour with a hard rock goddess who makes him want the relationship he can never have. Onstage, Ava’s all chains, whips and guitar licks, but the backstage confessions they share are darker than their leather. She wants Jax, but he wants better for her than him. But then, bad news drops that threatens the life of one of his bandmates, and the loyalty of the other. Terrified by how little he has left if he loses his best friends, Jax takes the plunge to let someone else into his life. Until Ava finds out his ugliest sin, and it’s nothing she can forgive. **This book contains spoilers to earlier books in the series, but can be read and understood as a standalone. No cheating, no cliffhanger, HEA guaranteed.** Goodreads → http://bit.ly/2GLB6xk Buy Now: Amazon | iTunes | B&N | Kobo Amazon → https://goo.gl/jKoDXf Barnes and Noble → https://goo.gl/3Jn33o Kobo → https://goo.gl/fphZC3 iTunes → https://goo.gl/iP9F3y
Songs Inspired the Characters for Insatiable
Here’s a link to the Playlist so you can listen along: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJf_UZXpovh74xkoaD19o8j2wQjb24v2H The characters in Insatiable purely came to me through music. My lead singer, Jax Sterling, got cracked wide open for me when a friend sent me the song Leave Out All the Rest by Linkin Park. It’s a song all about somebody who has screwed up so hard that he’s not sure if he’s more afraid of what people will remember about him, or of not being remembered at all. It was Jax. The whole thing’s even sadder now that the musician who wrote it committed suicide, though that also makes sense, if you listen to the song. There’s a sense that once you’ve done so many drugs, normal life will never be enough, and God knows that’s Jax’s problem, too. And okay, I didn’t think my song inspiration for my sex addict character would be sent to me by my pastor-in-training/middle-school art teacher friend. Lesson learned. He was further filled out by the song Stars by Grace Potter, for the line “If I know you at all / I know you’ve gone too far.” Because he’s a character of extremes. In the way he organizes his kitchen, in the way he throws himself into his performances. In drugs, and in sex. In the way he loves—he holds nothing back and more often than not, this leaves him bleeding. From there, I started listening to three songs by The Revivalists (aka literally the best band on the planet). Gold to Glass: Because the line “All my gold turned to glass” is the most perfect metaphor ever for the shine of celebrity hiding imperfections, but never for long. It Was a Sin: It’s one big, soul-cracking lament from a man who has sinned too much and is painfully aware of it, singing about all the things he can’t change. Monster: It starts out with a musician talking to an infatuated groupie girl “She said she wanted to get her name into a song.” She obviously admires him, but he’s warning her to save herself, to stay away from him. And that’s really what Jax always does: He’s always warning away Ava and every other girl who gets near him because he thinks he’s a monster, this broken creature who is doomed to hurt anyone near him. Ah, Jax…he always breaks my heart. Now for Ava, the Lady Gaga of hard rock and roll. She and Jax are a power couple of musicians, she’s a ballbuster and she’s got style. The first song that opened her up for me was sent to me by my critique partner, Katie. It’s the song Waiting Game by Banks. And okay, by this point you’re probably thinking that when I need characters for a book, I just sit around waiting for people to send me songs. Actually, though, this is pretty weird-this book is my only one where my characters were partially developed from songs. The Banks song has these incredible lyrics: (“What if I never even see you because we’re both on a stage? / Don’t tell me to listen to your song because it isn’t the same.”) It’s also perfect, because Ava’s voice when she’s singing ballads is pretty much a cross between Banks and Halsey. Which brings me to my next character inspiration song, Gasoline by Halsey. She sings with a lot of bittersweet soul about the agonies and ecstasies of fame. “Have you bought a hundred dollar bottle of champagne like me / just to pour that motherf**er down the drain like me” “You are part of a machine / you are not a human being / with your face all lit up living on a screen”. Jax thrives on fame, but it’s slowly killing Ava. But Ava’s also a fighter. I listened to a lot of Pink when I was writing for her, and songs like Put the Gun Down by ZZ Ward and pretty much anything by Dorothy. It was incredibly fun writing for two musicians, because a lot of how they understand each other comes through their performances, and their music. One of the most emotional scenes of the whole book is this duet they sing together. The song is Apologies by Grace Potter. It’s a gorgeous song, and when they sang it, I’m not sure who was crying more: me or Ava. Because if there’s anything that touches me more than a wounded bad boy rock star, it’s finding the woman who loves him enough to lift him up beyond all his sins.
About Michelle Hazen:
Michelle Hazen is a nomad with a writing problem. Years ago, she and her husband ducked out of the 9 to 5 world and moved into their truck. As a result, she wrote most of her books with solar power in odd places, including a bus in Thailand, a golf cart in a sandstorm, and a beach in Honduras. Currently, she’s addicted to The Walking Dead, hiking, and Tillamook cheese.
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