THE ONLY EXCEPTION and
THE ONLY ONE - Companion Novels by Magan Vernon
The Only Exception - Released on April 3, 2013
The Only One - Released on October 9, 2013
These books are stand alone stories that happen to have intersecting characters. In The Only Exception, we are introduced to the Monica Remy and Trey Chapman.
The Only Exception begins with Monica arriving at Central College as a transfer student from Taylor College. As an incoming sophomore, she is undertaking a double major of Political Science and Women’s Studies. She considers her political views to lean more toward liberal than conservative and is not afraid to be outspoken about what she believes. What she would prefer, though, is to fly under the radar as far as student life is concerned. That preference is immediately threatened when she begins moving into her off campus housing and is gruffly greeted by a stoic member of what she believes is housing security.
Enter Trey Chapman. When Monica first encounters Trey, dressed crisply in a dress shirt and dress pants, she assumes he is the building manager, a very cute building manager. When he makes a formal introduction, however, she immediately realizes how wrong she is. She is moving in next door to the son of the ultra conservative current governor. The very governor who had signed legislation that deeply impacted some of Monica’s strongest political views. Views which definitely did not match those of the current administration.
What begins as a polite interchange between the two, immediately becomes harsh when Monica begins to share her distaste with his father’s political views and conservative agenda.
Trey on the other hand is drawn to Monica. While they may not share the same political ideology, Monica is informed, impassioned, and not the least bit impressed with his money and connections. Not something he has encountered within the female population on campus.
When they end up in having a couple of impromptu encounters, Monica begins to feel completely polarized by Trey and his beliefs. But when they end up in the same Political Science class and begin a heated discussion over public policy, their professor pairs them up to complete a debate assignment. The debate topic is the very one that Monica vehemently opposes Trey and his father’s stance on.
The assignment forces the two of them to spend time together and after a bit, their mutual attraction begins to outweigh their political differences and they become linked romantically. Except Monica struggles to open up to Trey completely, and the reason for her transfer from Taylor is threatened to be revealed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Only One fast forwards us to two weeks later. Melanie, Monica’s friend accompanies her to a Halloween party hosted by Trey’s fraternity. Trey’s fraternity big brother John Walden, aka John Boy accidently bumps into Melanie causing her to spill her drink on her costume.
When John Boy rather inappropriately offers to take her upstairs to his room to dry off, Monica and Trey step in to shield Melanie from the advances from the resident manwhore. After changing into one of John’s shirts with an equally inappropriate logo, Melanie leaves the party with her friend.
Melanie can’t get John Boy out of her mind. The way he looked at the party wearing only a loincloth has awakened stirring in her she has not felt for quite some time. Mel, was hurt deeply by her previous boyfriend Robby and his cheating ways. But now she begins to think that maybe the best way to get over Robby is to get under John Boy. So, when John’s persistent flirting starts to crack her resolve, and a physical encounter has her beginning to think she can go through with casual intimacy, she takes herself to the campus health clinic.
Expecting nothing more than a routine exam and a prescription for contraceptives, Melanie leaves the clinic feeling liberated to begin repairing her broken heart and working out some sexual tensions with the ever present John Boy.
When Melanie and John Boy’s progressing cuddle session is interrupted by a series of persistent phone calls to Melanie’s cell phone, the mood is destroyed by the news Melanie receives when she answers the call.
Magan tackles some very difficult subject matter in both of these books. She does an outstanding job depicting very real situations that occur on college campuses across the country. Her stories provided us with ample opportunity to formulate questions to ask her and here are her responses.
RMWTPC – In The Only Exception, Monica finds herself angered over a past situation at her previous school in which she was denied specific medical treatment due to legislation passed by the conservative leadership in her state. How real do you feel this situation is on college campuses across the country?
Magan Vernon – I’ll get a little personal here. I had female problems and at 14 my doctor put me on birth control. Every single month we had to get a written form from my doctor saying it was for medical reasons and my insurance wouldn’t cover it. We had to do that until I was in college when IL law passed that contraceptives would be covered by insurance no matter what the reason. Recently that was actually repealed by the IL government (I believe 2011) and that’s what got me thinking about it. The more research I did the more I found that the bill I mentioned in The Only Exception is very real and passed in an abundance of states. This isn’t just about Plan B but about regular birth control. It affects college women, teenagers and even grown women.
RMWTPC – You did an excellent job writing both sides of the contraception issue. How did you go about researching the topic so you could provide the balanced ongoing debate between Monica and Trey?
Magan Vernon – I actually had the same debate class that they take in college and that’s what my paper was on. I used some of that research and some of my own personal experience in it.
RMWTPC – When Monica and Trey bathe together, he demonstrates his lack of experience with the opposite sex. Was this a difficult scene to write?
Magan Vernon – I have to thank my alpha reader for this one. She came up with the idea that he shouldn’t exactly be able to glide into sex that easily. I had a few other scenes in which they were interrupted so this one kind of just segued into it and wasn’t too hard to write, more like I had to stop laughing.
RMWTPC – In The Only One, John Boy’s character is described as a manwhore. Do you think fraternities foster a culture of casual sex and that co-eds are more easily drawn to those in fraternities than the general student population?
Magan Vernon – I actually dated a fraternity guy for almost two years in college. John Boy had a lot of his characteristics. I wanted a character that had a stereotype attached and show a heart of gold, instead of perpetuating that stereotype of the casual sex co-ed.
RMWTPC – In The Only One, Melanie contacts her ex-boyfriend about her situation. Why did you not feel it necessary for Melanie to push him to come clean about his connection to the issue and also to determine if he put anyone else in the same danger?
Magan Vernon – Here’s my bare my soul moment, I was in the same situation as Melanie in college. I found out that the guy I was dating was cheating on me and thus, that happened. I wanted girls to know that it does happen. That even if you think you’ve only been with one guy and you’re safe. It’s not always like that.
RMWTPC – What is next for you and when can we expect your book?
Magan Vernon – My next book is One Wild Night, it’s a serialized series in which one 50 page book will be released every six weeks. It focuses on Valerie from The Only One and her waking up married to a male stripper in Vegas. The first book comes out December 5th.
You can follow Magan on her blog at: www.maganvernon.com
On facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-Magan-Vernon/215620155165079
On Goodreads at: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5237606.Magan_Vernon
And you can purchase her books on:
Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Magan-Vernon/e/B006ID6UA2
Barnes & Noble at: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/magan-vernon
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Magan
THE ONLY EXCEPTION and
THE ONLY ONE - Companion Novels by
Magan Vernon
The Only Exception - Released on April 3, 2013
The Only One - Released on October 9, 2013
These books are stand alone stories that happen to have intersecting characters. In
The Only Exception, we are introduced to the Monica Remy and Trey Chapman.
The Only Exception begins with Monica arriving at Central College as a transfer student from Taylor College. As an incoming sophomore, she is undertaking a double major of Political Science and Women’s Studies. She considers her political views to lean more toward liberal than conservative and is not afraid to be outspoken about what she believes. What she would prefer, though, is to fly under the radar as far as student life is concerned. That preference is immediately threatened when she begins moving into her off campus housing and is gruffly greeted by a stoic member of what she believes is housing security.
Enter Trey Chapman. When Monica first encounters Trey, dressed crisply in a dress shirt and dress pants, she assumes he is the building manager, a very cute building manager. When he makes a formal introduction, however, she immediately realizes how wrong she is. She is moving in next door to the son of the ultra conservative current governor. The very governor who had signed legislation that deeply impacted some of Monica’s strongest political views. Views which definitely did not match those of the current administration.
What begins as a polite interchange between the two, immediately becomes harsh when Monica begins to share her distaste with his father’s political views and conservative agenda.
Trey on the other hand is drawn to Monica. While they may not share the same political ideology, Monica is informed, impassioned, and not the least bit impressed with his money and connections. Not something he has encountered within the female population on campus.
When they end up in having a couple of impromptu encounters, Monica begins to feel completely polarized by Trey and his beliefs. But when they end up in the same Political Science class and begin a heated discussion over public policy, their professor pairs them up to complete a debate assignment. The debate topic is the very one that Monica vehemently opposes Trey and his father’s stance on.
The assignment forces the two of them to spend time together and after a bit, their mutual attraction begins to outweigh their political differences and they become linked romantically. Except Monica struggles to open up to Trey completely, and the reason for her transfer from Taylor is threatened to be revealed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Only One fast forwards us to two weeks later. Melanie, Monica’s friend accompanies her to a Halloween party hosted by Trey’s fraternity. Trey’s fraternity big brother John Walden, aka John Boy accidently bumps into Melanie causing her to spill her drink on her costume.
When John Boy rather inappropriately offers to take her upstairs to his room to dry off, Monica and Trey step in to shield Melanie from the advances of the resident manwhore. After changing into one of John’s shirts with an equally inappropriate logo, Melanie leaves the party with her friend.
Melanie can’t get John Boy out of her mind. The way he looked at the party wearing only a loincloth has awakened stirring in her she has not felt for quite some time. Mel, was hurt deeply by her previous boyfriend Robby and his cheating ways. But now she begins to think that maybe the best way to get over Robby is to get under John Boy. So, when John’s persistent flirting starts to crack her resolve, and a physical encounter has her beginning to think she can go through with casual intimacy, she takes herself to the campus health clinic.
Expecting nothing more than a routine exam and a prescription for contraceptives, Melanie leaves the clinic feeling liberated to begin repairing her broken heart and working out some sexual tensions with the ever present John Boy.
When Melanie and John Boy’s progressing cuddle session is interrupted by a series of persistent phone calls to Melanie’s cell phone, the mood is destroyed by the news Melanie receives when she answers the call.
Magan tackles some very difficult subject matter in both of these books. She does an outstanding job depicting very real situations that occur on college campuses across the country. Her stories provided us with ample opportunity to formulate questions to ask her.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Megan, these questions are a bit on the vague side so as not to create spoilers. If you wish them to be more to the point, please let me know.
RMWTPC – In The Only Exception, Monica finds herself angered over a past situation at her previous school in which she was denied specific medical treatment due to legislation passed by the conservative leadership in her state. How real do you feel this situation is on college campuses across the country?
Magan Vernon – I’ll get a little personal here. I had female problems and at 14 my doctor put me on birth control. Every single month we had to get a written form from my doctor saying it was for medical reasons and my insurance wouldn’t cover it. We had to do that until I was in college when IL law passed that contraceptives would be covered by insurance no matter what the reason. Recently that was actually repealed by the IL government (I believe 2011) and that’s what got me thinking about it. The more research I did the more I found that the bill I mentioned in The Only Exception is very real and passed in an abundance of states. This isn’t just about Plan B but about regular birth control. It affects college women, teenagers and even grown women.
RMWTPC – You did an excellent job writing both sides of the contraception issue. How did you go about researching the topic so you could provide the balanced ongoing debate between Monica and Trey?
Magan Vernon – I actually had the same debate class that they take in college and that’s what my paper was on. I used some of that research and some of my own personal experience in it.
RMWTPC – When Monica and Trey bathe together, he demonstrates his lack of experience with the opposite sex. Was this a difficult scene to write?
Magan Vernon – I have to thank my alpha reader for this one. She came up with the idea that he shouldn’t exactly be able to glide into sex that easily. I had a few other scenes in which they were interrupted so this one kind of just segued into it and wasn’t too hard to write, more like I had to stop laughing.
RMWTPC – In The Only One, John Boy’s character is described as a manwhore. Do you think fraternities foster a culture of casual sex and that co-eds are more easily drawn to those in fraternities than the general student population?
Magan Vernon – I actually dated a fraternity guy for almost two years in college. John Boy had a lot of his characteristics. I wanted a character that had a stereotype attached and show a heart of gold, instead of perpetuating that stereotype of the casual sex co-ed.
RMWTPC – In The Only One, Melanie contacts her ex-boyfriend about her situation. Why did you not feel it necessary for Melanie to push him to come clean about his connection to the issue and also to determine if he put anyone else in the same danger?
Magan Vernon – Here’s my bare my soul moment, I was in the same situation as Melanie in college. I found out that the guy I was dating was cheating on me and thus, that happened. I wanted girls to know that it does happen. That even if you think you’ve only been with one guy and you’re safe. It’s not always like that.
RMWTPC – What is next for you and when can we expect your book?
Magan Vernon – My next book is One Wild Night, it’s a serialized series in which one 50 page book will be released every six weeks. It focuses on Valerie from The Only One and her waking up married to a male stripper in Vegas. The first book comes out December 5th.
You can follow Magan on her blog at: www.maganvernon.com
On facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-Magan-Vernon/215620155165079
On Goodreads at: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5237606.Magan_Vernon
And you can purchase her books on:
Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Magan-Vernon/e/B006ID6UA2
Barnes & Noble at: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/magan-vernon
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Magan
