The First 100 Kisses

 Wild Women Authors is pleased to feature Danielle Bannister and The First 100 Kisses. Up first is waitress Chloe Clark. We’ll have her go first to explain what’s going on with this fun, steamy romantic novella.

 Good morning, Chloe. Thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the basics, like where you’re from. I’d love to tell you someplace warm and exotic, but southern Maine. Born in Saco, but I live in Portland now. Maine still. Not Seattle. That would be cool though!

Tell us a bit about The First 100 Kisses. Okay, so here’s the thing. I live next door to my best friend. Liam. Weird, I know. But we’ve lived beside each other for, like seven years, and in that time, you get to know a person. Liam and I are totally platonic. Like brother and sister, you know? Yeah, sure, he’s gorgeous, but he’s also really awkward. Most people avoid him. He just doesn’t know how to people. I dig his weird. Anyway, he gets this call from his high school sweetheart, wanting to go on a date, to catch up. That sort of thing. Which is cool for him. He doesn’t really get out, you know. Homebody. Likes his routine, that sort of thing.

          But one night while watching Outlander, a show we LOOOVE, he asks me for help. No BEGS me to help him. Get this. He needs help with kissing. The guy is completely clueless. He hasn’t kissed another woman since this Angel chick he’s going out on a date with. Liam is super stressed about it. He wants me to give him some pointers. No. Correction. He wants me to SHOW him some pointers. He wants to practice his kissing on me. Well, what’s a bestie to do? You have to help your friends out, right? He just needed the first 100 kisses under his belt, and he’d be an old pro. Of course…it would probably be a bad thing if I liked it, huh?

Sure. Whatever you say, but let’s go back to the beginning. What did you think the first time you saw Liam? Honestly, it was ‘Damn. He is fine.’ I was moving in and he came up to help me lift some boxes.

Yeah, so what was your second thought?  Did he just tell me the proper way to lift a box? Ha. I totally thought he was mansplaining things, but actually, it was just Liam being Liam. Like I said, he’s a bit odd, socially. Never really says the right thing.

What do you like most about Liam? Besides his kisses? I kid, I kid, but those are hot, let me tell you. What I like most about Liam is his honesty. He doesn’t have a filter, you know? Which can sometimes be jarring, but you also know where you stand with him. If he says something, he means it. And that’s kind of a novelty for me.

How would you describe him?  Well, the man is attractive. There’s no getting around that. But he’s also hard working, smart, like way smarter than me, loyal, honest, open, curious, brave…should I go on?

No, that’s okay. How would Liam describe you? Ha! An absolute basket case? Honestly, I don’t know what he sees in me. We are total opposites.

What made you choose waiting tables as a career? I’m not sure it was much of a choice or much of a career. It was supposed to be a temporary job while I tried to get some money to pay for college. It was never supposed to be the thing I was still doing in my thirties.

Oh, yeah, we get that one. What is your biggest fear? Oh, that changes day to day. I guess, today, it’s that Liam will realize I’m not the woman he wants to be with. Wow. That’s all kinds of pathetic. How about we say spiders instead. Less Freudian abandonment issues with spiders.

How do you relax? What’s that? Ha. I guess a hot bath. Or binging Friends.

Who is your favorite fictional character?  James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser, obviously.

What is the best piece of advice you ever received? You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

Thanks for spending time with us, Chloe. We appreciate it a lot. Now we’d like to chat with Dannielle.

What movies or books have had an impact on your career as a writer? If it wasn’t for the Twilight Saga, I wouldn’t be a writer today. Ten years ago, I picked up those books, and I haven’t stopped writing or reading since then. Odd how one book can change the whole trajectory of your life. But books can be that transformative. I wanted to move someone the way those stories moved me.

What event in your private life were you able to bring to this story and how do you feel it impacted the novel? Well, I think Chloe’s self-doubt rings true for not just me, but for everyone when they are putting themselves in such a vulnerable place as daring to love someone. It’s scary stuff so I suppose that insecurity. That doubting the other person could ever feel the same. Obviously, for Chloe, I had to raise the stakes of her doubt, because that’s what we do as authors. We write our characters up a tree and throw rocks at them.

Tell us a bit about your publisher. This series is self-published because too many publishing houses wanted the POV to be in third person, and I just couldn’t do it with this story. It felt important to me that Chloe be in first person. We needed to be fully inside her head and feel her insecurities for the story to play out the way I wanted it too.

What book[s] currently rest on your TBR pile? Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning. I’m a little late to the game on this series. Better late than never?

Lastly, what's up next and when can we expect to see it on the shelves? Funny you should ask. The sequel to The First Hundred Kisses is coming out on April 27^th so now is the perfect time to read book 1! The sequel is called The Second Hundred Kisses.

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