Author Visit: Five-Sided Heart by Max MacGowan

We're happy to host Max MacGowan today to promote their newest novel on its release day!

Noah Trevelyan has lost his moorings. Disowned over his sexuality as a teenager, he hasn’t been back to his home on the Outer Banks since his fisherman father kicked him out. But when he returns for the Old Man’s funeral, he discovers his father left him the house and boat in his will. Noah must choose whether to stay or go, but he won’t be alone.

There’s Ian, working to overcome the emotional scars left by a domineering ex-boyfriend, and Ty, a cheerful housekeeper who’s struggling to take care of his Alzheimer’s-stricken aunt. There’s Joshua too, running from the destruction of his old life, and Gabriel, who was once beaten and left for dead, and doesn’t know how to survive on his own.

Will they find in each other the strength and courage to keep living—and learn, together, how to love again? A polyamorous relationship is the last thing any of them expected to find in the Outer Banks, but it might be what they need most, and it might even be their redemption—if they can keep their group from breaking apart under the pressure.

Dreamspinner Press

Hello, Boy Meets Boy! Thanks for hosting this guest post for my new novel, Five-Sided Heart.

I love polyamory. Always have, always will. The idea of an entire group of people held together by bonds of affection, passion and friendship captured my heart from the moment I first heard of it, first realized it was an actual thing that actual people sometimes actually did. All that potential, and all that love. I had to write about it.

When it came time to blog about it, I knew I wanted to introduce my characters.

Now, I know a writer’s not supposed to have favorites. But I can’t help it. I do. Ian is my soul child. Writing him was out-and-out cathartic, and it’s so funny to me because I never saw it coming. Neither did Noah, Ty, Gabriel or Joshua.



An Introduction to Ian Walker

A conservationist who bought the house next door to Noah’s father and promptly painted it an eye-watering shade of blue (Ian’s a little color blind), Ian would be the first to describe himself as Type A. He’s bold, dramatic, and bossy, and has a tendency to take everyone beneath his mother-henning wings.

He’s also spent the last few years with a partner who royally screwed his head over. Though now an ex-partner, Winston convinced Ian that he was too unlikable to be tolerated by anyone else. That his affections were cloying, his preferences immature, and his wishes only fit to be ignored.

Ian has the sense to comprehend that everything Winston told him was a lie, but the problem is putting that knowledge into action and rebuilding his life. Every time he wants to reach out, the memory of past rebukes makes him pull away. He’s started distancing himself from everyone because it just hurts less.

And yet despite a rocky start when he meets Noah, Gabriel, Joshua and Ty, everything changes once they’re in Ian’s life. To his amazement they seem to like him just as he is. They’re not put off by his ways or offended by his need to nurture. They want him as much as he wants them. The only thing he doesn’t dare ask is where this relationship is going. He doesn’t want to make them run away.

Then, a jealous Winston shows his face and now Ian has a choice. Either take the easy road and knuckle under; miserable or not, it’s the devil he knows and he wouldn’t have to risk his heart.

Or he could stand up and fight for what he wants, for a change.

I hope you enjoy reading his story, along with those of the other men of Five-Sided Heart!

Excerpt

For a man who’d been obsessed with meticulously putting every practical detail perfectly in place, Winston had the personal organization skills of a dead lemur.

Ian pursed his lips and glowered balefully at the closet he and Winston had shared until recently. He’d been at it all morning and had barely dented the surface. Every time he thought he was making progress, he found another job queuing up. What had gone through Winston’s mind that’d made him buy seventeen identical pairs of shoelaces and then store them in a vintage hatbox? And did he expect Ian to mail him everything he’d left behind?

Probably.

Maybe he could tie all the boxes up with shoelaces instead of tape or twine.

Ian raked his fingers through his hair. He had long since passed the point of caring how it looked, and knew it stuck up in deranged, sweaty spikes. Ugh. A fine layer of dust, acquired from digging through the aforementioned closet, coated his skin and made him feel grimy and sticky. Was that grit in his hair? Good Lord.

There was, in all cases, a straw sufficient to break the camel’s back. Ian dropped the packets atop a box of broken odds and ends, including but not limited to a fresh bottle of the Swiss lube that was all Winston claimed he could tolerate, a handful of recipes for homemade power bars, and three silk ties that the, er, moths had gotten to.

Tsk. Darn moths.

There were also a few love letters not addressed to Ian, which the scissors had gotten to.

Darn scissors.

Ian hefted the box onto his shoulder and marched through the house he had fallen in love with as a green graduate student seven years earlier. He supposed conservationists tended to either love their homes or be more jaded and bitter about them than Turkish coffee served without sugar. Still, no regrets. He loved what he loved. Why should anyone say they were sorry about that?

He headed downstairs then, chin up and box at the ready. Ian bypassed the kitchen, with its neat recycling bins lined up in rows. Instead he stalked outside to the steps that led down to the beach, where a half-filled garbage can with its mouth open waited below. With no little sense of satisfaction, even if the rat bastard was likely to demand reparations for the wasted lube, Ian raised the box to shoulder height and upended it, letting the contents fall like textile rain….

And accidentally dropped the box.

Ian grabbed for it, but too late. Made of sturdy cardboard, it crashed into the trash can with a resounding clang that made him cringe. Also too late, he realized he bumped a flowerpot, full of dried-out marigolds, a hair too far over the edge of the rail. Ian covered his face at the ear-splitting smash of unstoppable force meeting immovable object. A tourist walking down the beach applauded him. Smartass.

But it still didn’t rouse Gabriel from his hunch down on the sand.

Ian sighed. Gabriel been there since late morning, equidistant between Ian’s house and the Old Man’s—Noah’s. There was no doubt of his identity. The dark sweater, the black jeans, the delicate bone structure. Ian had first seen him there when he stumbled out around nine in the morning with a cup of coffee, Gabriel tucked into as small a knot as an adult human male could manage, with his knees hugged to his chest and his gaze turned toward the sea.

One didn’t live near the ocean too long without developing the ability to recognize a soul in crisis. Poor guy.

Wanting to help him made Ian’s teeth itch—to do something useful. But what?

He blew out another breath and started down the stairs. If he didn’t pick up the broken pieces of flowerpot, some tourist kid cutting through his yard would step on the shards for sure. A lawsuit was the last thing he needed.

Someone did indeed cut through his yard then, before he reached the bottom, but not a vacationing kid. Ty. He waved up to Ian as he righted the trash can and started collecting the contents. “Having one of those days?” His grin was as wide and bright as a slice of sunlight, and even if it had to be a little at Ian’s expense, it eased a cramp in his heart that Ian hadn’t known was there.

Buy Links

Dreamspinner Press
All Romance
Amazon

About the Author

Max MacGowan is a work in progress. They’ve just turned forty, and are determined not to go gently into that good night. They identify as nonbinary genderqueer, and prefer they/them pronouns. While they can be quiet, friends will tell you all that still water can’t quite hide Max’s quirky personality, Or maybe it’s the ever-present puckish twinkle in the eyes that’s really to blame.

Max has a fantastic time writing male/male romance, and is especially fond of polyamory, found families, love in unexpected places, friends who become lovers, and romantic comedies. They’re owned by two rowdy tomcats who take pains to make sure their owner doesn’t ever get the status confused.

You can find Max on Facebook or send them an e-mail at “max.macgowan.author@gmail.com”. They’d love to hear from you!

Did you see our tag team review for Five-Sided Heart? See here!