I have a wonderful visitor to my blog today who is sharing with us something quite different. The Geek and his Artist is the first YA novel from Hope Ryan. She’s shared with us the visual for the house where the story is set. It’s truly fascinating to get this type of insight into the story. I hope you enjoy seeing Hope’s creations as much as I did. 🙂
Make sure you comment on the Guest Post to enter the giveaway!
First off, thank you so much to Nic for giving me some space on the blog today!
Coming out today is my first YA novel, The Geek and His Artist. I am so excited! This has been a real labor of love and I’m thrilled to give Jimmy and Simon a chance to tell their story. It was a tough one, especially for Simon, but I think it’s an important one.
One of the things I like to have when I write is visuals. Whether it’s an actor to represent a character or pictures of a location to help me imagine a house or the like, I love to have something to look at. One way I do this is through a game.
Yup. I’m a gamer. I’ve been playing video games in some incarnation since… well, let’s just say it’s long enough ago that I don’t want to admit to it.
The game I like to use, however, to help with my visuals is The Sims. I started playing it back in the first version and currently love to build and create in The Sims 3.
Today, I’d like to share the version of Jimmy’s house I’ve made in the game. The house itself isn’t much to look at, but that’s pretty typical of Pittsburgh. The area Jimmy lives in is actually quite hilly and his house would normally sit on a slope. The Sims isn’t very good for that sort of thing, so in this case the “basement” is above ground.
A few of the other major rooms featured in the story are:
- The living room. After dinner with Jimmy’s family, Simon and Jimmy fall asleep on the couch.
- The dining room where they have dinner with Jimmy’s parents, sister, and brother-in-law.
- Jimmy’s mom’s office and Simon’s temporary bedroom.
- Jimmy’s room, view 1
- Jimmy’s room from the other side.
- And the upstairs bathroom, which plays a pretty big part in the story.
You can see more of Jimmy’s house here: https://plus.google.com/photos/105458515608616177933/albums/6151432805798800385
Do you enjoy seeing pictures of what’s in the author’s head? Do you like to know what we envisioned? Or do you prefer to picture it yourself?
Thanks again to Nic for sharing blog space today!
Be sure to follow the rest of the tour (click here to follow the Hope Ryan Geek Tour) for chances to win a paperback copy of Geek and $25 to spend at Harmony Ink!
Each comment below also qualifies you for an entry to the giveaway. One reader today will win a Geek character trading card of your choice!
Click here for the tour wide giveaway.
Simon Williams spends his lunch periods drawing his geek and trying not to think about the terrors waiting for him at home. He needs to get away from his abusive father before he suffers the same grisly fate as his mother. Because he’s learned the hard way running away doesn’t work, he’s counting the days until his eighteenth birthday.
Jimmy Bennet should be spending his lunch studying so his senior GPA is good enough to get him into college, but he can’t seem to focus thanks to his distracting artist. When he’s given the opportunity to tutor Simon in Trig and discovers Simon’s home-life nightmare, he wants nothing more than to get Simon out of danger. This need becomes more urgent when Simon comes to school the Monday after their first date with bruises, but it takes a broken leg before Jimmy can convince his boyfriend the Bennets really want him.
But the danger Simon thought was past shows up at the most unexpected time, and he must stand up to the fears he’s held so long to protect not only himself, but the man he wants to spend his life with.
You can get Geek here:
Harmony Ink Press ◊ Dreamspinner Press ◊ Amazon ◊ AllRomanceebooks ◊ Kobo ◊ Barnes & Noble
About Hope:
Hope Ryan is an out and proud bisexual, wife of a loving guy and mother to three, including an amazingly brave gender fluid son. She loves to write about the tough stuff, but also wants to see her characters happy in the end. She feels strongly about showing there is hope for everyone, no matter where you come from, how you identify your gender or who you love.
Hope likes to play board and card games and can often be found playing God with her Sims or running around, fighting monsters in a virtual version of Middle Earth. Her TV and movie preferences lean towards anime, sci fi and fantasy, though she’ll never turn down a good happily ever after love story, either. As long as there are explosions or action, she’s happy. She loves to read books of all kinds, though prefers stories about love in its many forms.
Find Hope at her website, email her (hoperyanauthor@gmail.com), or on
Congratulations on your new release the book sounds really good.
Congrats on the release of your book! I’m looking forward to picking up a copy. Looking at the post just took me back to my days playing SIMS. 🙂 Building and decorating was my favorite part. I scoured the internet looking for furnishings. Oh, and the magic items that caused the characters to have great moods and more money. Thanks for a chance in the giveaway!
Congratulations on the release of your first YA book! Great accomplishment! I have always heard of SIMS but never really knew what it was so thank you for the introduction. I loved being able to “see into your head”! I can’t wait to read more about your book! Thank you for the chance at the giveaway!
I like seeing the settings…they really give me a nice mental picture of things!
I am quite a visual person and enjoy viewing how the author visualises their characters and descriptions or pictures of places they may visit or their homes. Sometimes as the places, buildings, scenic views are are different to what I know, as I am not from the same country that is being written about, so I can visualise it better when I read the book rather than put a more familiar slant to it.