Once Upon a Twilight!: Blog Tour: Beautiful Stranger | Christina Lauren | Interview

Today we kick-off a one week tour to celebrate the mass market release of BEAUTIFUL STRANGER written by the duo Christina Lauren (Christina Hobbs & Lauren Billings). Beautiful Stranger is the much anticipated sequel to the New York Times best selling Beautiful Bastard.

Lauren (on the left) and Christina (on the right) have been writing all kinds of stories together since 2009. This is not the first erotic romance they’ve ever written . . . but it is the first one under this name. Separated by the pesky state of Nevada, these co-author besties talk several times a day, agree that Ruby Pumps is the best nail polish color ever, and would, if given the choice, spend all day staring at the ocean from the San Clemente pier.

For information about their Young Adult books, check out Swoontini.com.

You can find them online: Web|Christina's Twitter|Lauren's Twitter|Facebook

Interview with Christina Lauren

Welcome to OUaT!!! Its such a treat to have the awesomesauce writing duo behind Beautiful Bastard and Beautiful Stranger on the site today. First off tell us how it all came to be that two friends began writing a story together?

Well, thanks so much for having us! It really is so fun to come here to talk BOOKS with you!

We met while writing fanfiction. Christina wrote the popular story The Office (which would later be reworked into BEAUTIFUL BASTARD), and Lo wrote vamp AU fics such as My Yes, My No, and the Blissward trilogy. We loved each other’s stories, and when we met in person, we decided to try to write a one-shot together. This became the story A Little Crazy, which was very well received. From then on, we just decided to write together because it was so much fun.

OUaT: How do you guys divide the writing in the books? By chapter, by scene or by characters? Or does it change every time you begin a new book?

We outline together, usually in person. And then we break it up into chapters, choose the ones we want to write (or, in some cases, don’t want to write) and we go from there. It’s usually divided by chapters but not always. Sometimes, as with our young adult works, we break it up by scene.

OUaT: We know that Beautiful Bastard was written originally as a Twilight fan-fiction story and then later edited to become its own entity, but Beautiful Stranger is an original story that was never a fanfic, how did Max and the Beautiful Stranger story come to life?

When we sold BEAUTIFUL BASTARD to Gallery in September 2012, they offered a two-book deal.

But we had edited BB to end where we felt it should end; the last 80 pages or so are all new, and we liked how it wrapped up. So, writing a sequel to BB wasn’t an option we wanted to consider. We had a couple of ideas bouncing around – one was the familiar story of boy-meets-girl-in-a-bar . . . and we decided to run with it and make it our own. The idea for STRANGER came out after we’d made the book deal with Gallery, and we wrote it in October to December of 2012. It was FUN.

OUaT: So who does Christina and Lauren pick as there fave guy so far? Is it Bennett or Max?

You wouldn’t make us choose, would you?? Oh, the pain. Bennett is all fire and passion, drive and control. Max is what our friend Tonya calls “sugar”. He’s confident but adoring. The two of them couldn’t be more different, really. So, if it’s all right with you, we’ll just take one of each.

OUaT: When you’re writing your characters, do you have an easier time with the ladies or the fellas? What makes them easier?

In general we both write both point of views. But Lo tends to have an easier time writing the female POV and Christina writes the male POV faster. Overall, it doesn’t matter; we both get into the characters’ heads and take root there.

OUaT: I always wonder when I read books that have very descriptive sexual scenes, how long does it take to come up with all that sauciness? Who handles those parts in the duo?

We both write the “lemons”. In fact, those are the easiest scenes for us to write. We just close our eyes (literally) and let the words fly. For the most part, the sex scenes in our books are the ones that require the least amount of revising.

OUaT: We learned recently that you were signed on to write 5 more books? What was the first thing you both did to celebrate the news?

We called each other and screamed happy noises and then called our husbands and made more happy noises. We love working with Adam Wilson, and we adore the team at Gallery (S&S). And, we love writing these books!

So, we have three novellas all coming out this year (BEAUTIFUL BITCH 7/9/2013, BEAUTIFUL BOMBSHELL 9/2/2013, & BEAUTIFUL BEGINNING 11/19/2013). The novellas are all short books that follow the story of Chloe & Bennett after BEAUTIFUL BASTARD. And every other character you meet in the books (Max, Sara, Will, Hanna) will join into the novellas as they progress.

Our third full-length BEAUTIFUL novel, titled BEAUTIFUL PLAYER, comes out 10/29/2013. If you’ve read STRANGER, then you’ll know what we mean when we say that PLAYER is Will’s book.

OUaT: Describe Beautiful Stranger in 140 characters or less (twitter style)?

Loveable British playboy meets wary girl looking for a fresh start. Sometimes it’s easier to keep everything public, than to let him in . . in private. (Okay that’s 152 characters but eh . . . eats cookies)

OUaT: Can you both share something funny or that we don't know about your writing partner that we would enjoyed learning about?

Lo says: By 5am, Christina has energy levels somewhere between hummingbird and Tinkerbell. She is bubbly and energetic, but it’s a fascinating (and misleading) ruse. You might think all that energy would translate into crazy, or at the very least some type of neurosis but no. She is ruffled by nothing. Literally nothing riles her up, and it’s one of the reasons why our writing partnership works as well as it does, because I can be . . . intense.

Christina says: Lo played softball all through school, traveled the world in a youth symphony, and is a neuroscientist specializing in macular degeneration. She’s a jock, a musician, a PhD and a NYT bestselling author. DAMN.

OUaT: We have come to learn that a book being optioned is the first step in a long process of it making it to the big screen, if it even gets the far along in the process. I’m sure you have been asked several times who would be your ideal cast of Bennett and Chloe, can you share with us today so those that haven't read Beautiful Bastard have someone to visualize as they read the book?

We are so excited about the prospect of a film! We’ve been in touch with our producer, Jeremy Bolt, and really love the ideas he has for adapting the book into a movie. We hope to share some news with you soon!

As far as casting goes . . . it’s tricky. When we’re writing, we don’t always see the characters the same, and certainly we don’t always see them as being a specific actor. The characters kind of become their own person, with features made up from a number of different actors or models, or even just how we would imagine them.

That said, some great suggestions we’ve heard for Bennett are: Henry Cavill, Jamie Dornan, Adam Levine, Devin Paisley. For Chloe, almost everyone wants Mila Kunis. We also like Rachel Bilson, Emilia Clarke. But honestly, wouldn’t it be fun to see some unknowns?

(BTW, you should totally check out the BB Fan Film site – they’re doing a lot of fun stuff).

OUaT: If you ladies are given the choice to be 24 hours in any book, which story would you choose and why?

We would both choose THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE by Jandy Nelson. Or, maybe with Prince Po in GRACELING . . . for a FEW days.

A charming British Playboy. A girl determined to finally live. And a secret liaison revealed in all too vivid color. Book two in the NYT Bestselling series.

Escaping a cheating ex, finance whiz Sara Dillon's moved to New York City and is looking for excitement without a lot of strings attached. So meeting the irresistible, sexy Brit at a dance club should have meant nothing more than a night's fun. But the manner--and speed--with which he melts her inhibitions turns him from a one-time hookup and into her Beautiful Stranger.

The whole city knows Max Stella loves women, not that he's ever found one he particularly wants to keep around. Despite pulling in plenty with his Wall Street bad boy charm, it's not until Sara--and the wild photos she lets him take of her--that he starts wondering if there's someone for him outside of the bedroom.

Hooking up in places where anybody could catch them, the only thing scarier for Sara than getting caught in public is having Max get too close in private.

You can check out Yara's review of Beautiful Stranger HERE and Beautiful Bastard HERE.

Since this is a celebration, what kind of celebration would it be if it didn't have a amazing giveaway to go along with it. Thanks to Simon & Schuster and Christina Lauren, we will be awarding one winner a brand new Kindle Paperwhite. This giveaway is international where ever Kindle can be used. Good Luck!!!