Blog Tour & Guest Post ~ Just Between Us by Hayley Oakes

My Inspiration Behind the Characters

I have always loved angst ridden romance ever since the days of ‘My so called life’ and ‘Party of five’. I love the idea of a romance that is doomed to fail despite how much the characters are drawn to each other.

I wanted to create a story where the characters were unable to stay apart but didn’t really like each other. I also don’t like stories where the end is a foregone conclusion and so I like the reader to always guess what will happen next.

My inspiration for Kyle was every bad boy in fiction that I ever read, in my mind he was a lot harsher than I wrote him but it didn’t translate to paper and he became a tortured good guy deep down. I wanted him to be a mixture of Jordan Catalano from ‘My so called life’, Griffin from ‘Party of Five’ and Patrick from ’10 things I hate about you’. Someone who is adored by people but doesn’t require the adoration, who is effortlessly cool but doesn’t need the acceptance.

My inspiration for Sophie was the teenage angst movies that I have enjoyed my whole life. The torture of feeling like you don’t quite fit in and the hardship of realising that your parents aren’t perfect. You realise that your mum can love again and be giddy. You realise that you can get yourself into trouble and don’t have to ask permission for everything. My own teenage experiences and those of my friends were drawn on heavily,
Sophie gets a bad rep in some reviews for being whiny and selfish but really all she is someone who is too scared to just be herself and accept what she wants. She’s a typical teenager who worries more about what everyone else thinks rather than just following her heart.
 

An attraction that can’t be denied ….

Ten years spent trying to forget.

Kyle returns to his home town following years away to discover Sophie nursing a broken heart after being dumped by her fiancé.

A decade before Sophie and Kyle hated each other, she thought he was an arrogant playboy and he thought she was a spoilt princess. A drunken kiss changed everything and they spent the summer before university hiding their budding relationship.

Back then he was the achingly attractive bad boy that Sophie couldn’t resist and now Kyle attempts to revive Sophie from her misery as her friend.

But is the one person she wouldn’t let herself have the only one who can save her?

If you'd like to read a bonus scene, you can HERE

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Hayley Oakes is a wife to a Manchester United fan and a mother to a three year old daughter, both require patience and a sense of humour. She enjoys reading angst ridden romance and writing stories that she would love to read. She loves post apocalyptic movies and anything 80’s. This is her second novel.

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Twitter: @Hoakesauthor

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