Page 93 of Man Candy (After We Fall 1)
To Lauren Blakely, for generous advice, always.
To Carly Phillips, Erika Wilde, and RS Grey. Thank you so much!
To book bloggers, who do so much for indie authors. I am so grateful—thank you, thank you, thank you, especially Give me Books for organizing Man Candy events!
To Lauren Luman (welcome to Team Harlow!) and all my Harlots for love, laughs, and lots of inspiration.
To all my readers, who know that man candy might not be nutritious, but it sure can make you feel ambitious.
Meet the Muse
Meet Dima Gornovskyi, the MAN CANDY cover model and muse for Quinn Rusek! After seeing a gorgeous photograph of Dima on Facebook, I thought he’d make the perfect Quinn, and I reached out. What a delight to discover he’s as sweet and smart as he is beautiful! His enthusiasm and support for MAN CANDY has been a thrill right from the start. Want to get to know him better? Read on for our Q and A!
Melanie: Hi Dima! I get so many questions about you, I thought it might be fun to put a short Q and A in the back of the book.
Dima: This is such an honor for me! Thank you :)
You were born in the Ukraine, raised in Tunisia, and now you live in LA. What feels most like home to you?
Living in L.A. is a conscious choice and so here I feel most at home more than anywhere else in the world, but I'm very grateful to have grown up in Tunisia & Ukraine for introducing me to completely different cultures and experiences that taught me so much.
What languages do you speak?
English, Russian, Ukrainian, French, Italian and Arabic (but not all of them are good anymore) :)
Don’t worry, I’m sure your Italian beats my Ukrainian by several thousand chilometros. You obviously work very hard to stay so fit. How do you do it?
For work, I need to be in the gym almost every day. I used to be a dancer so I love stretching and all kinds of exercises. I am also pretty strict about my diet and I have a very active life, I'm always on the go.
I love that you have dance training! OK so for a splurge, what’s your favorite meal, and what would you drink with it?
I'm a huge fan of braised short ribs with a nice glass of red Zinfandel.
(Note to self, learn how to braise short ribs.) What's your favorite candy or dessert?
English Toffee.
What do you notice first about someone when you meet them?
How organic they are. I love when people are relaxed and natural no matter who they are or what they're doing.
What's your dream vacation?
At home with my family (I travel a lot and live far from my family so these moments are always the best).
Do you enjoy modeling? (You make it look easy, but it isn't! When I had my author photos taken, I gained new respect for people who have their picture taken constantly!)
I absolutely love it! It can be challenging at times because we are not used to seeing ourselves from different angles and perspectives, but it helps me to get out of my comfort zone.
I’m pretty sure you have no bad angles! But if you were not a model, what would you be doing?
I would be a pianist or own an advertising agency.
You play the piano too?
I used to play piano for years but when I realized that I probably wouldn't become a professional performer, I had to put it aside to develop other things. I'm absolutely in love with the piano though and I hope to come back to it when I get a little older and have more time to practice. :)
What's the craziest thing you've ever done?
