Tour Stop & Giveaway: Dead Ringer by Heidi Belleau & Sam Schooler

Hi, and welcome to the DEAD RINGER release tour! We’re Heidi Belleau and Sam Schooler. Thanks to our generous blog hosts, and thanks to you for hanging out with us! Be sure to check out our full list of tour stops so you can see the rest of our extras and snag yourself more chances to win our giveaway!

Now, on to our interview with our cover team, photographer Marisha Dudek and artist, Dion :

Q1: We were both blown away by how perfect the cover shots were–from the model to the jacket he wore to the setup of the shots. It was pretty hard to pick just one out of the set! What was your artistic inspiration going into the shoot?

Q1: Marisha Dudek (Photographer)

Inspiration was drawn by the brief received from the client, I wanted to ensure that I captured the authentic feel of an original Marlon Brando or James Dean style, while still showing the individuality of the character Brandon in the book.

Q1:Dion (Artist)

I’m a Vintage Specialist, So a soon as I was told ‘old Hollywood’ I knew what to do.

Q2: How did you pick where to shoot?

Q2: Marisha Dudek (Photographer) :

Location was already in mind soon as I read the brief, I am extremely lucky to live in a city that has so much history and character. Melbourne (Australia) has many accessible natural and historic backdrops the options were endless.

Q2: Dion (artist)

We shot many different locations, there is something like 300 Raw images from the shoot all shot in different parts of Melbourne CBD, Australia, The cover I’m was shot on a balcony of a Cafe.

Q3: Have either of you worked on a book cover image before? How did this differ from your usual work?

Q3: Marisha Dudek (Photographer) :

This is my first book cover and hopefully the first of many for the future, I usually shoot fashion runways, to weddings, journalism and look books so this was a major change from what I usually do. Absolutely loved it.

Q3: Dion (artist)

It was in the sense of a novel but my work has been featured on covers of magazines and lookbooks, We did a photoshoot in February inspired by Cut and Run (The first book) and I posted it to Tumblr and the fans went crazy over it and thats how we landed this job (we shot around 1600 images from it).

Q4: We were particularly impressed that our model TOTALLY fit our idea of what Brandon (our main character) looks like. How did you decide to work with Tom Brennan?

Q4: Marisha Dudek (Photographer) :

How could you not choose Tom, he fitted the profile to a tee. He had that look, that one that once you see him you know that he would immediately embody the character and once you met him in person he had that professional attitude to get what we needed to bring the image to life. Absolutely amazing.

Q5: Do either of you have any upcoming projects? We’d love to hear what you’re up to next!

Q5: Marisha Dudek (Photographer) :

There are a few exciting projects in the works at the moment, keep updated via my intagram and website here are the links:

https://instagram.com/marishadudekphotography/

https://www.facebook.com/MarishaDudekPhotography

(giggling)

Q5: Dion (artist):

I do, I’ve just launched my website and Film Quality Lace front wig store www.dionmarccreations.com, All wigs are my brand and are styled by myself (the prices are in AUD currency and I do sell Internationally), I sell the most historically accurate Marilyn Monroe Lace front wigs on the market, I’ve also been super flat out with doing Hair and Makeup for film and television lately, safe to say my Life is extremely hectic at the moment.

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Title: Dead Ringer by Heidi Belleau & Sam Schooler
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Genre: Contemporary, New Adult, M/M, Romance
Length: 453 pages/Word Count: 120,000

Summary:

Brandon Ringer has a dead man’s face. His grandfather, silver-screen heartthrob James Ringer, died tragically at twenty-one, and Brandon looks exactly like him. But that’s where the resemblance ends. Brandon is unknown, unemployed, and up to his ears in bills after inheriting his grandparents’ Hollywood mansion. He refuses to sell it—it’s his last connection to his grandmother—so to raise the cash he needs, he joins a celebrity look-alike escort agency.

Percy Charles is chronically ill, isolated, and lonely. His only company is his meddlesome caregiver and his collection of James Ringer memorabilia. When he finds “Jim Ringer” on Hollywood Doubles’ website, he books an appointment, hoping to meet someone who shares his passion for his idol.

Brandon? Not that person.

But despite their differences, they connect, and Percy’s fanboy love for James shows Brandon a side of his grandfather he never knew. Soon they want time together off the clock, but Percy is losing his battle for independence, and Brandon feels trapped in James’s long shadow. Their struggle to love each other is the stuff of classic Hollywood. Too bad Brandon knows how those stories end.

Add to Goodreads.

Purchase Links: Riptide Publishing

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Author Bios

Heidi Belleau was born and raised in small town New Brunswick, Canada. She now lives in the rugged oil-patch frontier of Northern BC with her husband, an Irish ex-pat whose long work hours in the trades leave her plenty of quiet time to write.

She has a degree in history from Simon Fraser University with a concentration in British and Irish studies; much of her work centred on popular culture, oral folklore, and sexuality, but she was known to perplex her professors with unironic papers on the historical roots of modern romance novel tropes. (Ask her about Highlanders!)

When not writing, you might catch her trying to explain British television to her newborn daughter or standing in line at the local coffee shop, waiting on her caramel macchiato.

Author Links: Website * Email * Twitter * Goodreads

Sam Schooler is queer and nonbinary, and she grew up surrounded by corn, churches, and cliché “Hell Is Real” signs. After twelve years of Catholic school in southwestern Ohio, she applied to the most liberal university she could find and wound up with a degree in journalism. Now, she writes trope-subverting new adult books about people of all genders and orientations—and all the ways they can love each other. Sam lives with her wife and their two cats in Regina, Saskatchewan.

You can find her backlist and details about upcoming projects at samschooler.com.

If you’re feeling daring, follow her on Twitter as @samschoolering or on Tumblr as meetcute-s to get the full immersive experience.

Author Links: Website * Tumblr * Twitter * Goodreads

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Giveaway

Feeling lucky? Leave a comment with your email on this or any of our other DEAD RINGER tour posts for a chance to win one of our two grand prizes. Each winner will receive a $15 gift card to Riptide Publishing, plus get their choice of either a poster-sized print of DEAD RINGER’s gorgeous cover photo by Marisha Dudek, or a postcard set featuring the eye-catching ephemera of James Ringer’s filmography, designed by Vivian Ng. Contest ends October 31, 2015 and is not restricted to US entries.

Follow the rest of the tour HERE.