Blog Tour, Giveaway and....a Recipe! ~ Manties in a Twist by J.A. Rock

Hi! I’m J.A. Rock, and right now I’m touring the internet talking about my latest release Manties in a Twist—Book 3 in The Subs Club series. Thanks so much to the blogs that are hosting me on this tour, and be sure to leave comments on the tour posts for a chance to win your choice of two backlist ebooks and a $10 Amazon gift card!

Hot Sauce

Manties in a Twist is narrated by Kamen, the Subs Club’s resident dudebro. Kamen loves many things: dogs, sports, wings, his friends, his boyfriend, wings, women’s underwear, wings, sex…and hot sauce.

Preferably on wings. But he’d chug it straight from the bottle if it came to that.

Whenever I write a book, I try to find something that connects me to the main character, whether it’s a personality trait or a hobby or a favorite song or movie. Or condiment. Because I know I’m gonna have to bond with each of them for the duration of the writing process, so it helps to have something in common. For Kamen and me, I think it was hot sauce.

For a long time, I didn’t understand the glory of hot sauce. It was something I associated with guys I knew from high school and college, whose palates were not particularly discerning, and who drowned everything from mac & cheese to pancakes in ketchup or mayo or Frank’s Original.

But I’ve always loved spicy things. And so, a few years ago, I finally put hot sauce on a burrito.

Game. Changer.

Now, I can’t get enough. Hillbilly Holler’n, Cholula, that sriracha with the rooster on the bottle…it’s all beautiful. And I will put it on almost anything. Recently, I discovered a place in Chicago with amazing vegetarian spicy wings, and I had probably the most Kamen-esque moment of my life, because I was given three different kinds of hot sauce and it was like I’d glimpsed heaven. But maybe my greatest hot sauce triumph involved cookies.

It was kind of an accident. I make a lot of chocolate-with-cayenne baked goods, and I was out of cayenne, so I tried replacing the cayenne with Tabasco.

So if you are also a hot sauce lover and a baker, this is my gift to you. Because these were really good (they’re also vegan, but you can use regular milk in place of almond milk):

Chocolate Snickerdoodles

(Adapted from a recipe by Isa Chandra Mokowitz)

Ingredients:

·         1/3 cup sugar

·         1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

·         1/2 cup canola oil

·         1 cup sugar

·         1/4 cup pure maple syrup

·         3 tablespoons almond milk

·         2 teaspoons vanilla extract

·         1 2/3 cups flour

·         1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

·         1 teaspoon baking soda

·         1/4 teaspoon salt

·         1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

·         1/2 teaspoon Tabasco (or other hot sauce)

Preparation:

1.      Mix the topping ingredients together on a flat plate. Set aside.

2.      In a medium mixing bowl, use a fork to vigorously mix together oil, sugar, syrup, and milk. Mix in extracts.

3.      Sift in remaining ingredients, stirring as you add them. Once all ingredients are added mix until you’ve got a pliable dough.

4.      Roll dough into walnut sized balls. Pat into the sugar topping to flatten into roughly 2 inch discs.

5.      Transfer to baking sheet, sugar side up, at least 2 inches apart (they do spread). This should be easy as the the bottom of the cookies should just stick to your fingers so you can just flip them over onto the baking sheet.

6.      Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, they should be a bit spread and crackly on top.

7.      Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Hot sauce: yes or no? Tell me all about it in the comments.

About Manties in a Twist

Look, I’ll never stop missing Hal, but this Subs Club my friends started to review suck-ass doms isn’t gonna bring him back or give him justice. For me, it’s just another chance to hang out with my friends, even if they think I’m too dumb to understand the important work we’re supposedly doing.

But maybe I’m not as dumb as they think—at least I know when I’ve got a good thing going. Which is why I just moved in with my dom. Ryan’s awesome possum. He’s really short, never makes me feel stupid, and is up for anything. One word: costumes. Two more words: women’s underwear. We’re all about the lace, no leather.

Except when we do pony play. We first tried it as a joke, but turns out I’m ballin’ at it. Now PetPlayFest is coming up, and I wanna take down the Subs Club’s archrival, Cinnamon the ponygirl, in the horse show.

My friends think I’m spending too much time with Ryan and ignoring my obligations to the group. But since when is friendship an obligation? Ryan’s my first serious relationship, and I want to take it . . . seriously. At some point I need to think about my future, not my past.

—Kamen

About the Subs Club series

After the death of their friend Hal at the hands of an irresponsible dom, submissive friends Dave, Kamen, Miles, and Gould band together to form the Subs Club—an organization seeking to expose dangerous local doms. The club slowly evolves as romances blossom, loyalties are tested, and tensions mount in a community already struggling for unity in the wake of Hal’s death.

From domestic discipline to knife play to fashion paraphilia, and from family drama to new jobs to first loves, the members of the Subs Club explore life’s kinks inside and outside of the bedroom as they attempt to let go of the past and move forward.

About the Author

J.A. Rock is the author of queer romance and suspense novels, including By His Rules, Take The Long Way Home, and, with Lisa Henry, The Good Boy and When All The World Sleeps. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Alabama and a BA in theater from Case Western Reserve University. J.A. also writes queer fiction and essays under the name Jill Smith. Raised in Ohio and West Virginia, she now lives in Chicago with her dog, Professor Anne Studebaker.

Connect with J.A. Rock:

Website: www.jarockauthor.com

Blog: http://jarockauthor.blogspot.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jarockauthor

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ja.rock.39

Giveaway

To celebrate, J.A. is giving away your choice of two ebooks from her backlist and a $10 Amazon gift card. Leave a comment to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on April 9, 2016. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!