TCO Reviewer: Erin

At twenty-three, Poe Montgomery is going nowhere. He still lives in his father’s basement and spends most of his time tagging with his friends. When an arrest lands him in debt, Poe accepts the front desk job at Permanent Ink, the tattoo shop owned by his father’s best friend, Jericho McAslan. Jericho is nearly twice Poe’s age, but with his ink and prematurely graying hair, he quickly takes the starring role in Poe’s hottest fantasies.

Jericho is known for his ability to transform poorly designed tattoos into works of art, but he was once as aimless and misdirected as Poe. Wanting to pay it forward the way someone once did for him, Jericho makes Poe his apprentice and is determined to keep things strictly professional. Easier said than done when Poe makes his interest—and his daddy kink—abundantly clear.

Jericho can’t resist Poe or their intense chemistry for long. But between the age gap, tension with Poe’s father, and Poe’s best friend calling him a sellout, they’ll need to ensure they’re both on the same page before they can rewrite their rocky start into something permanent.

Riptide Publishing

Amazon

Hi! This is Piper Vaughn and Avon Gale and we’re here today to talk about our sexy new contemporary romance, Permanent Ink, in which the worlds of street art and tattooing collide when a silver-fox tattoo artist falls for his much younger apprentice – who also happens to be his best friend’s son.

Co-writing: How to work through the disagreements

I’m very happy to report that writing Permanent Ink was smooth sailing all the way! Piper and I are very good at talking through things, and we spent a lot of time initially just hammering out the details before we started writing the narrative. We came up with a pretty extensive outline for each chapter, making sure we knew what would happen and how each character would react. Then, when we were writing our individual scenes, we could consult the document – or each other. We’d send more than a few messages that would say things like, “Hey, if Jericho did this, what would Poe say?” Or, we’d leave notes in the document with that line highlighted and “Feel free to change if this doesn’t work for you.”

I think the most important thing is that we both had a really good understanding of our characters right at the outset. Also, neither one of us are bothered by constructive criticism, so if Piper said something like, “Hey, I don’t think this works here because x,” I had no problem rethinking the scene – and vice versa. You sort of know going in, I think, that there’s going to be a lot of discourse and tweaking things as you adjust to writing someone else’s character!

Another thing we did that was super helpful was have writing weekends together. This meant that we could hole ourselves up somewhere (in this case, the Country Inn and Suites in Springfield, IL) and write, which allowed us to get through a large chunk of the narrative. It wasn’t always perfect (okay, lies – Piper’s scenes are always perfect, mine are messy af) but it was there, and we could build off each chapter and just keep going. It made finishing up the last few chapters separately a breeze, and by then we were in our characters’ heads enough to start editing and making sure the voices/depictions matched.

I think the thing we had to talk through the most was the title! I remember we went out for sushi after we signed the contract with Riptide to celebrate (Piper was at my house visiting and to start the project), and I’m pretty sure all my suggestions were terrible pun names. We wanted the name of the book to be the name of the tattoo shop, so you can imagine where I went with that. Eventually Piper suggested “Permanent Ink” and it was so perfect, that pun or no, we knew it was the title.

Also she let me name that coffee shop Perkatory, so I was happy 😊

I took another pull from my beer, letting my tongue linger on the lip of the bottle.

Jericho’s eyes darkened. He stared for a second before making a noticeable effort to tear his attention away. His gaze slid to the side, and his brows knitted together. I wouldn’t let him ignore me, though. I stepped closer, invading his personal space, and he met my stare again.

“That means a lot coming from you. I know how good you are.” I meant the words, even if my motivation for saying them wasn’t entirely pure. I smiled at him, peering up through the dark fall of my hair, letting my interest show.

His lips quirked.

This close, I could feel his heat through the thin material of his navy T-shirt. This close, I could see the green striations in his hazel irises. This close, I could smell soap and musk and the faint scent of beer on his breath.

I wanted to touch him so bad it was as if my hands had turned to iron and his skin had suddenly been magnetized. It felt like a fucking compulsion.

Without thinking, I kissed him.

Jericho froze at the contact. But I surged forward, crowding him back against the counter and licking at the seam of his lips, inviting his tongue out to play. Jericho gave into me with a quiet sound, a muffled groan that made my cock stiffen.

I got enough of his taste to make me crave more, enough time to think “hell yeah” and start to consider humping his hard thigh—before a loud, shattering noise broke the silence and made us jump apart.

I realized I’d dropped the beer bottle and a puddle of golden liquid was spreading across the linoleum at our feet. “Oh shit.”

Jericho stared at me, his mouth still wet from mine. “Fuck.” His gaze went from me to the broken glass on the floor. “Fuck. That should not have happened.” He snatched the roll of paper towels from the holder on the counter and started spreading a few on the floor to sop up the beer.

I watched him, trying to swallow past the sudden tightness in my throat. He was so focused on the mess it was obvious he didn’t want to look at me.

“I’ll go get the cleaning stuff,” I announced.

Jericho’s jerky nod was my only answer.

I went to the small utility closet across the hall and briefly thudded my forehead against the wood.

“Shit.”

I hoped I hadn’t just fucked up my apprenticeship.

I hoped I hadn’t made things super fucking awkward.

And more than that, in spite of knowing it was probably wrong to want him—he was my boss, my mentor, my dad’s best friend—I wished I hadn’t dropped that stupid bottle.

So this was my first foray into “daddy kink”. And really, it is a good training wheels still on intro to it. And while it was fairly vanilla and pretty well done- I don’t think this particular kink is for me. BUT, I still really enjoyed the book.

Poe is a brat. Straight up early 20’s brat. I have nightmares about my own teen becoming Poe. Oy. But I would say that he is what every Gen X and above refer to as a spoiled Millenial. And he really isn’t spoiled, he just wants to paint graffiti murals with his best friend, work as little as possible and skate. Too bad he keeps getting busted for the graffiti,

Jericho- Poe’s dad’s best friend- has an offer. Poe can work for him and move up to interning as a tattoo artist. A pay it forward deal after someone helped Jericho years ago. And so it begins.

Some of the things I really enjoyed about this book- watching Poe slowly shed his brat shell and become more and more interested in tattooing. Seeing how it is art; how it is unique and personal to every person. Watching him grow that was was my favorite part.

The chemistry between Poe and Jericho was pretty hot. They danced around each other for a bit, which I always like. I’m not a big fan when they immediately jump into bed or there is insta love. Jericho really struggled with his attraction to Poe.

The secondary characters fit in really well with the story. Especially Blue, Poe’s best friend. After finishing the book I cannot wait for his story! I won’t say with whom, because I am not a spoiler.

3 1/2 pieces of eye candy 

About Avon Gale

Avon grew up in the southern United States, and now lives with her very patient husband in a liberal Midwestern college town. When she’s not writing, she’s either doing some kind of craft project that makes a huge mess, reading, watching horror movies, listening to music or yelling at her favorite hockey team to get it together, already. Avon is always up for a road trip, adores Kentucky bourbon, thinks nothing is as stress relieving as a good rock concert, and will never say no to candy.

At one point, Avon was the mayor of both Jazzercise and Lollicup on Foursquare. This tells you basically all you need to know about her as a person.

Connect with Avon:

• Website: www.avongalewrites.com
• Blog: www.avongalewrites.com/category/blog/
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/avongalewrites
• Twitter: @avongalewrites
• Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/avongalewrites/
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/avongale/

About Piper Vaughn

Piper Vaughn wrote her first love story at eleven and never looked back. Since then, she’s known that writing in some form was exactly what she wanted to do. A reader at the core, Piper loves nothing more than getting lost in a great book—fantasy, young adult, romance, sci-fi, she loves them all (and has an over-two-thousand-book library to prove it!). She’s an avid tea drinker, a hockey fanatic, a vintage typewriter collector, and loves to travel so much she has “wanderlust” tattooed on her ankle and dozens of countries on her bucket list. Recently, she discovered the world of nail art and realized she’s pretty handy with a paintbrush—as long as it’s a miniature one.

As a bisexual and Latinx person, Piper takes great pride in her heritage. She grew up in an ethnically diverse neighborhood and strives to put faces and characters of every ethnicity in her stories, so her fictional worlds are as colorful as the real one. She currently resides in the suburbs of Chicago with her husband, son, and a cat that has Piper wrapped around her little paw. Above all, she believes that everyone needs a little true love in their life … even if it’s only in a book.

Connect with Piper:

• Website: http://pipervaughn.com/
• Blog: https://pipervaughn.wordpress.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pipervaughn
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/pipervaughn
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/pipervaughn7/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/piper.vaughn/
• Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104698982870458063898

To celebrate the release of Permanent Ink, one lucky winner will receive a $20 Amazon gift card and a “Poe” coffee mug! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on August 12, 2017. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!