Euterpe YA Event - Character Interview with Eric Quinn from Love Sucks

Hey, hey!

Today, we have a character interview with Eric Quinn from Love Sucks by Sage Collins!

Thanks to Eric and to Sage! Let's get going!

Eric, thank you for joining us today.

No, thank you, Mera.  I'm glad to be here.  *bright smile*

Can you tell us a little about yourself?

Absolutely.  I'm captain of Pecado High's football team and the team's star wide receiver.  I'm just kidding about the star part.  Of course the real star is my friend Aaron, our quarterback.  I hang out with the team a lot, but I don't want you to think I'm just a dumb jock.  I get straight As too.  *grins*  Besides, my two best friends are an artist and a klutz.

And you drain lust with your touch?  What is that like?

Oh, hey, you know about that?  Well, that makes everything easier to answer.  Yeah, I'm a Haustor, which means I have this recessive demon gene that makes me drain some kind of emotion.  In my case it's lust.  My best friends Mailee and Justin drain love and inhibition, respectively.

Basically, we eat those emotions instead of food.  We can't taste or get any kind of nourishment from real food, so I have to eat lust to live.  If I drain someone too long, they'll lose the lust for the person they were thinking of when I touched them, but I'm careful.

It's not so bad, really.  Unlike Mai, I haven't let it keep me from doing what I want to do with my life.  I mean, I'm not scared to get tackled during a game for fear that I'm going to drain the other guy completely.  Most guys aren't particularly lustful during football games, thank god.  And to eat, I take little bits from the girls at my school.  Just a slight touch here or there, nothing permanent.  They're usually thinking about me, so it's not a big deal.

Nobody could doubt your confidence in your looks.  So, surely a guy as hot as you has a girlfriend right?

Thanks.  *smiles and briefly touches her shoulder* 

Nope, I'm still single.  Actually, it's kind of out of necessity.  I mean, any girl I kissed could be drained completely of her lust for me, and then where would we be?

There is a girl I like, and I actually can touch her... but it's never been the right time to tell her.

Would that be Mailee Jones, the heroine of Love Sucks?  Tell us about her.

Yeah, Mai.  Well, she's my best friend.  The clumsy one.  *laughs*  She's shy.  She doesn't really trust people, except for me.  She's too afraid of losing them.  She drains love, so she's lost a lot of people through her touch, and her brother Matt--another love-drainer-- left town a couple of years ago.  I promised him I'd take care of Mai.  That's why I can't tell her about my feelings for her.  Matt would kill me. 

Well, that, and I kind of screwed up.  *rubs the back of his neck*  Back when she was twelve and I was fourteen--I mean, she seemed like such a little kid back then compared to me.  She said she was in love with me and I rejected her.  So, yeah, now what could I possibly say to her?  It's probably too late to say anything.  I'm graduating this year.

Plus, she's starting to trust other people.  Which is great.  She's made friends with the new girl Joanne and her brother Logan.  And I get why she trusts Joanne.  The girl is way too bouncy and innocent.  I don't really understand her trust of Logan.  Maybe it's the diet thing.  He's diabetic, so he has to watch how many carbs he eats.  She has to watch how much love she eats.  That's probably it.

Anyway, it's good that she's making other friends.  I just feel bad that she's always going to be nervous about touching them.

What's your biggest secret?

You mean other than that I drain lust?

(softly) I know how a Haustor can become human, and I never told Mai...

Why not become human yourself then?

No, I'm doing fine.  I have friends, both Haustor and human.  I have great parents that love me.  I have a future.  And I get to do what I love.  Besides, if I was human, Mai and I could never touch.  And she doesn't rely on Justin like she does me.  So it's better this way.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Five years is hard because I'll be out of college by then, and I don't even know what I'm majoring in!  But next year I'm hoping I'll be a Sundevil.  There's a scout from Arizona State coming to Homecoming, so keep your fingers crossed that I get a football scholarship.  That's where I really want to go, near to my parents and Mai and Justin. 

Why were you chosen to do this interview?

Mai was supposed to do it, but she begged me to take her place.  I offered it to Justin, but he decided he had more important things to do.  He's probably off procrasticleaning our apartment.  As long as it keeps him out of trouble, I guess.

Why should we read Love Sucks?

Because, haven't you always wondered: how much love would a love sucker suck if a love sucker fell in love?  I know I have.

Shhh, don't tell Mai I said that.  She hates being called a love-sucker.  Or a vampire.  It's best to stick to Haustor.

Well, thanks for stopping by, Eric.

It's been my pleasure.

Read more about Eric Quinn in Sage Collins's Love Sucks, available for purchase from Musa Publishing.

Blurb: Mailee’s greatest wish is to be an ordinary teenage girl, but thanks to one stupid demon gene she consumes love from any human she touches.  The only person she can touch is her best friend Eric, a hot lust-drainer.  Except for slight hand-brushes to keep from starving, she avoids humans.

Until she meets Logan, a diabetic and the first human who could understand Mailee’s diet angst.  She grows closer to him, but each touch risks his love for her.  If she wants a normal relationship, she’ll have to become human. But the only way requires her to free and be infected by demons representing the Seven Deadly Sins. Sloth? Pride? No problem.  But when wrath-infected Mailee punches the cheerleader who’s making eyes at Eric, she realizes getting through the sins might cost too much.

Like Eric. Because if she turns human, he’ll be the only one she can’t touch.

Author Bio: Sage works as a mad scientist, testing water to keep it safe from supervillains and industries. In her free time, she likes destroying tongue twisters and writing about winged girls and invisible or imaginary boys, but she only did the former in LOVE SUCKS.  She does not eat love but loves eating coffee ice cream.  You can read her short story “Fireflies” in ABSOLUTE VISIONS, a sci-fi/fantasy anthology.  If you’re lucky, you might catch her blogging at http://sagelikethespice.wordpress.com/ or tweeting as @Sagecollins.