Author Spotlight: Lara Brukz

It’s with great pleasure that I welcome Lara Brukz to my little piece of the Internet. I couldn’t be happier to have Lara here. Not only is she a great gal and a wonderful author, but I’m lucky to call her my friend. I hope you enjoy this author spotlight of Lara’s latest release. I’ve already got my copy. Do you have yours?

Blurb:

ReviewingLife

Reviewing Life

Sequel to Five Star Review

A Review Story

Recovering alcoholic Marshall Ellerbee still grieves the loss of his best friend and lover, Eric. After a year of sobriety, Marshall accepts a new job with the Wellness Center, something else to help him continue cleaning up his life. Things are finally improving when his sponsor has a heart attack. The counselor hired to replace him is none other than Kyle Young, the lost ex’s best friend. Kyle has always hated Marshall, but now they must work together and move past their history. When Marshall saves Eric’s life, Kyle suddenly sees Marshall in a new light. But will romance unsettle Marshall’s hard-won new stability…

ISBN-13                  978-1-62798-275-7

Pages    134

Excerpt:

Seth’s heart attack and subsequent death was hard on everyone at the center. I missed my friend, and the kids missed Seth’s down-to-earth counseling methods. I hoped whoever replaced Seth knew he or she would have very big shoes to fill. I worried it wouldn’t work for the replacement or for any of us.

Turned out that was something else I hadn’t needed to be concerned about. Marla had told me the new counselor was being given a tour that day, and I’d asked her to bring him by so I could meet him.

“Hello?” I heard Marla say when she knocked on the door.

“Come in.” I stood and was shocked when I saw Marla with the new counselor. He was tall, with dark hair, chocolate eyes and bronzed skin—flat-out, drop-dead Abercrombie-and-Fitch gorgeous. I would have said he was a perfect man, if not for one problem… he hated me.

His name was Kyle Young, and he was Eric’s best friend. Eric—my ex-boyfriend, the man I ran over with my car and paralyzed. Yeah, he hated me and justifiably so. Eric and Kyle had been best friends since childhood. They were damned-near brothers and had been inseparable when I entered the picture. I’d met them in college, and even back then Kyle hadn’t liked me.

“Marshall,” Marla said, “I’d like you to meet….”

“Kyle Young.” I extended my hand, and he took it. His grip was firm and solid. Evidently he hadn’t recognized me as quickly as I had identified him. He looked at me a moment before I saw the light dawn in his eyes.

“Marshall?” He could’ve caught flies with his mouth open so wide.

Marla looked back and forth between us. “You already know each other?” Kyle and I both nodded slightly. “That’s great,” she said, evidently not feeling the tension between us. “Since Kyle is taking all Seth’s cases, I was hoping you two would get along, but looks like I don’t have to worry about that.”

It always amazed me when smart people were clueless to obvious things, like the fact that the look Kyle was giving me meant he’d rather kill me than work with me.

“How are you, Kyle?” I swallowed hard. The man made me nervous. I’d never noticed before how attractive he was because I’d always been so focused on Eric. Kyle had no idea I was a changed man; I hadn’t seen him or Eric since before I had stopped drinking.

“I’m good,” he answered. The tick in his jaw didn’t go unnoticed. I had a challenge ahead of me. I’d been working on step nine—making amends to those people I had wronged. Eric was the person I had wronged the most, and I had been waiting to take that step with him.

“I’m the activity coordinator,” I said. “Seth and I used to work together with the kids on a regular basis.”

“I’m sure we can work together,” he replied. What he wasn’t saying was: We need to talk privately.

“I can finish giving Kyle the tour, if you have other things to do, Marla,” I said. As if on cue, her phone rang. She mouthed a thank you to me as she left the room.

“Well, this is awkward, isn’t it?” I said. He looked at me and attempted a smile.

“Just a little. I assume you’re sober if you’re working here.”

“Yeah, more than a year now.”

“Good to know.”

We were both silent for a very long minute and then we both tried to speak at the same time. “Please, go ahead,” I said.

“Look, Marshall, obviously there’s tension between us. I’m sure we can both be professional pertaining to our job.”

“Of course.” I’d learned a lot about being a professional in my months of working here.

“I’ll admit though that I don’t trust you.”

“I’m sorry, Kyle.” I saw the dark clouds before the storm formed into Kyle’s eyes and I knew I was about to get hit by lightning.

“You’re sorry, Marshall? It’s not me you need to apologize to. It’s Eric. He is the one you hurt, and you weren’t man enough to own up to what you did. No! You ran and hid your sorrows in more booze. I had to comfort and care for your lover.” Kyle ended his tirade with a single long huff, still looking as though he wanted to hit me. I didn’t know how to respond. He clearly didn’t want to hear my apologies. “I can’t do this here and now, Marshall.” Kyle stalked away.

I truly felt bad that he’d held on to that anger, but he was right in one way: I needed to own up and apologize to Eric. And Kyle as well, for standing in for me when I was too afraid.

Author Bio:

Who is Lara Brukz? Born and raised in the natural state, Arkansas. Yes that’s right, we have computers too and shoes as well. Shoes are optional especially in this heat, hell sometimes clothes are optional too. So how does a girl from the middle of nowhere end up writing m/m fiction? Hell if I know. I started reading m/m fiction several years ago. Having the option of m/m with 2 dicks, or a m/f with a dick and a parts that I have but don’t care to read about. Of course I clearly choose the 2 dicks dueling. Just gets my groove moving!! Couple of years ago I met the awesome Ethan Stone, he’s like my twin except with a dick and I have a lot more hair on my head 🙂 . We’ve been pretty inseparable ever since. I have helped him (more like arguing) with some stories, you know giving my opinion and stuff. So long story short, he is the reason I started writing. He was the inspiration in my first book. Kiss and hugs to my gay husband. I work full-time crunching numbers and also attend college going for my 2nd degree. Mother of a rambunctious 7yr old and a wife. Yup you got it I don’t sleep a lot.

Trailer

Here’s the trailer for the book. This book can be read as a standalone.

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Roll Out the Welcome Mat for Tia Fielding

I’m pleased as punch to be hosting Tia Fielding on my blog today. I just love it when authors want to stop by and visit with little ol’ me. It makes a guy feel special, you know? Any way, you didn’t come over today to see me. You came to see Tia, so without further ado, here she is!

Tia Fielding Book Blast

HowlSweetHowlFinnshifters 3: Howl Sweet Howl by Tia Fielding

Life at the Jarvela farm hobbles on when the new year rolls in. Losing his wife and co-alpha in the storm of the decade emotionally paralyzed Sean, though he tries to cope and attempts to pick up the pieces with their children. Rider, another alpha, could give him the love and comfort he needs, but Sean is too depressed to recognize the possibility of having a male partner, and he goes into mental tailspin.

Rider makes the hard decision to leave for a while, and Sean turns his energy and sadness into working on the neighboring Metsala farm with the other members of their farm family. But Sean isn’t really getting better, and that won’t change until he can let his wolf out again. If he doesn’t, he might lose his sanity too.

Book Links:

Dreamspinner (Pre-orders) Ι Goodreads

PositivePositive

Even after a decade, the life that journalist Brent Walsh and Milwaukee homicide detective Shawn Mackey have made together is far from boring. But when a new case cuts a weekend getaway short, they aren’t quite prepared for how it will impact their personal lives. Suddenly there’s too much to juggle: Shawn will be working the case of the sharpshooter who is trying to infect random people with HIV, Brent needs to cover the story but fears a conflict of interest, one of Shawn’s colleagues is attracted to him, and Brent sincerely needs to mend the painful break with his childhood best friend, Ollie, and heal their broken hearts.

Though the case comes to a close, it’s not the end of their troubles. Shawn and Brent still face a past of old white lies, a present possibility of inviting another man to their bed, and a future with children, not to mention health issues and national fallout from the case. It’s enough to make them want to run away—until they realize they have to face those challenges head-on so they can get on with the life of love they’re hoping for.

Book Links:

Goodreads Ι Dreamspinner Ι Amazon

Five random facts about writing a novel “Tia Fielding style”

One – I rarely plan. I almost never have an outline, and I can’t remember when I wrote the last story that I knew the ending of before I got to writing the last 1/4 of the book. This leads to problems, of course. A lot of problems, actually.

Two – Because of #1, I get stuck easily and that, while added to my struggles with depression and adult ADD, make most stories hard to write. Let’s make my NaNoWriMo novel for this year an example, shall we? I lost track with it around day 15, mostly because I’ve had a cold and a bronchitis for couple of weeks now and my antibiotics make me tired as heck a lot. Adding all that to the standard difficulties means that I’m not even halfway to the novel and I’m already mentally stuck.

Three – Untangling my thoughts is never easy once I’ve gotten stuck. I suspect it’s not easy for anyone, but for me it’s pretty tricky. Mainly because I have low self-esteem as a writer. That leads me to a rut of “It’s not going anywhere, but maybe it’s not supposed to because I suck!” Yeah, not cool.

Four – Distraction helps. Because of the ADD, my mind goes from zero to “Oooh, shiny!” in three seconds or less. To prevent that from becoming a pattern of chasing shinies, I usually distract myself on purpose. Often, when I write, I have my manuscript open on half screen, while the other half runs a show of some sort. Recently it’s been MasterChef Australia, but it’s also been Top Chef, Bondi Rescue, and many other shows. Whatever requires little thinking and I can easily pause when I’m back on track again. My strategy with this kind of distraction is this: I feel my mind wandering, I quickly hit play on the show and watch a few moments, then go back to my writing. If I didn’t have the show, I’d be soon checking emails, Facebook, playing a few rounds of some game, doing unimportant research, checking some websites….

Five – Soundtrack. While I do write in silence a lot too, some stories have songs “written into them.”  I don’t mean actual lyrics or even titles in the story, although I tend to mention a lot of songs in some stories, for sure. Sometimes I come across or remember a song that fits my characters or the story perfectly. It’s kind of weird sometimes how something just hits me with a hammer.  An example? Try Green Day’s 21 Guns and think of Sean from Howl Sweet Howl.

Author Bio:

Tia Fielding is a 30-year-old Scandinavian. She is a self-proclaimed “queer girl”, lover of everything pretty, witty people, words, cats, sarcasm, autumn, and caffeine.

She uses her nights with her head in the clouds and her feet on the coffee table, right next to her laptop. Her days? She uses those by sleeping way too much.

Tia started writing stories early on, almost as soon as she learned how to write. The early stories about horses and ghosts have changed into romantic tales about people in love. She stopped writing at some point in her late teens and early twenties, but began again a few years ago, after finding fan fiction. Tia is not ashamed of her past of borrowing other people’s characters, but has found creating her own much more satisfying.

Social Media Links:

Twitter Ι Facebook Ι Goodreads Ι Website

Blog Tour List Tia

 

When Love Gets Hairy Cover & Blurb Reveal

Since The Chasing the Sun blog tour has officially ended, I figured it was a good time to discuss the third book in The Provincetown Series, When Love Gets Hairy.

Who are the main characters in When Love Gets Hairy?

My inspiration for Nino Santos

My inspiration for Nino Santos

Nino Santos, who is Van’s best friend in When Love Takes Over, takes over the spotlight. If you’ve read the first book, then you are familiar with Nino’s cocky, self-confidence and his sexy swagger. He’s got a killer bod, a perfect face, and a mass of curly locks that get him what he wants–hot studs to play with.

In When Love Get Hairy though, Nino’s perfect life is far from ideal. Not only is he having some career problems, but it’s Bear Week in Provincetown! To say Nino isn’t a fan of the heavy or the hirsute is an understatement. What’s a hot model to do when his favorite toys are not in town for a whole week?

My inspiration for Teddy Miller

My inspiration for Teddy Miller

Enter Teddy Miller. Teddy is a nice guy, and he has a good head on his shoulders. He’s content with his hairy body, shorter stature, and imperfect physique. He is who he is, and he makes no apologies. Teddy comes to P-town to have some fun with his furry friends, but when he wakes up one morning after a party he cannot remember next to Nino, well, his life is thrown askew.

For Nino and Teddy it’s loathing at first sight!

So what about that blurb?

You’re right. I suppose I’ve set the scene enough for now. Here is the official DSP blurb for When Love Gets Hairy.

As vain as he is beautiful, Nino Santos happily lives life waiting for the next ferry full of fairies to bring him new conquests. As long as they aren’t hirsute, he’s all in. So he’s shocked to wake up after a beach party he cannot remember with a hairy naked man lying next to him.

Teddy Miller doesn’t remember the “Bear Week” party either, much less the Abercrombie & Fitch model wannabe next to him. Teddy doesn’t give two cents about appearances, but guys like Abercrombie don’t return the favor. That’s why he prefers men with extra fur and padding over carbon copy clones of perfection—a type of man Teddy is far too familiar with.

When Nino and Teddy glimpse each other the next morning, it’s loathing at first sight. Instead of exchanging phone numbers, they exchange insults and vow never to see each other again. In Provincetown, however, escaping a trick best forgotten isn’t easy. Mutual friends and chance circumstances keep Nino and Teddy in each other’s orbit. But are they fighting each other or the attraction growing between them? The answer lies amid Provincetown’s windswept dunes and the night neither of them can recall.

I don’t know about you, but I think the folks at DSP did an awesome job with that blurb. They are so good to me, aren’t they?

What else can I share about When Love Gets Hairy?

Well, right now, the book is slated for release at the beginning of January, so we are only about a month away. I just can’t wait for all of you to be able to read about Nino and Teddy. I really think you are going to like them.

And last (but not least) here’s the beautiful cover!

WhenLoveGetsHairyORIGHow awesome is that cover? I think it might be the best one yet. It does a good job of capturing the mood of the book, and Michael Breyette’s work is just stunning.

Well, that’s all I have for you right now. As release day gets closer, I’ll be sharing more information about the book, but I wanted to give everyone a little sneak peek. I hope you’re glad you came! 🙂