Giveaway + Blog Tour: Glamour Thieves (Blue Unicorn #1) by by Don Allmon

Don Allmon is here today promoting The Glamour Thieves and talking influences. He and Riptide Publishing are offering up a $20 Riptide Gift Card to a lucky commenter. Good luck!

The Darker Side of Style

The weird thing is this: The people I admire style-wise don’t even write in my genre(s). In fact, some of it ain’t even writing at all.

So when I think about people who've influence my writing style, I’m not going to list the usual suspects: Stephen Brust, Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard, Scott Lynch, blah blah blah. They all influenced my subject matter, but not style.

So here I’m going to list the weird ones. The ones you’d never guess. (Or maybe you would.)

These influences are all pretty dark. I’m really not that grim. Honest. My grim streak is only about a mile wide, which isn't wide at all if you got some perspective.

Cormac McCarthy. I’m not talking about The Road (though I liked it). I’m talking about All the Pretty Horses and Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men. And I’m also not talking about how McCarthy ruined my ability (or my inclination) to use proper punctuation or construct proper sentences. What I’m talking about—what I learned from McCarthy—was that you could write brutal violent fiction beautifully. And somehow that made it even more awful to witness, which is, of course, the whole point in doing it in the first place.

Elmore Leonard. But not Elmore Leonard. I'm talking about the audiobook of Mr. Paradise read by Robert Forster. Now I love Elmore Leonard anyway, but this is about Forster’s reading of Elmore Leonard. Forster reads as if he’s jaded as fuck. Nothing on the page phases him. Not violence, not sex, not corruption, nothing. He’s gonna deadpan it all in this almost-Brooklyn lilt through the whole damn book. It was so goddamn cocky. So goddamn authentic. So when I wrote The Glamour Thieves, it was always Forster’s voice reading it back to me. What I learned from Forster's reading was rhythm.

(Here's an aside: Austin doesn't sound like Robert Forster. He sounds like Kevin Spacey when he's doing his gentle southern drawl for no good reason at all except that Kevin Spacey's voice is the sound of an elf's glamour.)

Gengoroh Tagame. Now before y’all go “Who?” and start Googling this guy at work, STOP. Tagame is a Japanese writer/artist of bara, a subgenre of gay erotic manga (as opposed to yaoi). A lot of his stuff is some really disturbing sexual abuse and BDSM. Mix in some Japanese baggage about gender and sexuality (even more baggage than we have in America, and that’s saying something) and you get a story that ain't for most people. That said, I love this stuff. It’s dirty and transgressive and every once in a while dirty and transgressive is exactly what I need. And here's the huge plus: Tagame’s men (and the men of bara in general) often challenge the gay physical stereotype. They’re often muscular, sure, but just as often heavy-set and hairy. They’re often young, sure, but just as often old and grizzled. They're an acquired taste to love. Just like my orcs.

So yeah, all a bit grim. But I promise in book three, The Burning Magus, despite it all, JT and Austin get their HEA. Like I said, my grimdark only runs a mile wide, not one inch more.

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Howdy y'all. I'm Don Allmon and I got a debut book name of The Glamour Thieves. It’s the first of a three book series called The Blue Unicorn. It's a grim kind of fantasy, a cybernetic near-dystopia, a rough-edged romance with few promises except for the ones that matter. Ain't nothin' worth earnin' that wasn't hard won. Join in on the comments and win yourself some loot.

About The Glamour Thieves

JT is an orc on the way up. He’s got his own boutique robotics shop, high-end clientele, and deep-pocketed investors. He’s even mentoring an orc teen who reminds him a bit too much of himself back in the day.

Then Austin shows up, and the elf’s got the same hard body and silver tongue as he did two years ago when they used to be friends and might have been more. He’s also got a stolen car to bribe JT to saying yes to one last scheme: stealing the virtual intelligence called Blue Unicorn.

Soon JT’s up to his tusks in trouble, and it ain’t just zombies and Chinese triads threatening to tear his new life apart. Austin wants a second chance with JT—this time as more than just a friend—and even the Blue Unicorn is trying to play matchmaker.

Available now from Riptide Publishing. http://www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/the-glamour-thieves

About Don Allmon

In his night job, Don Allmon writes science fiction, fantasy, and romance. In his day job, he’s an IT drone. He holds a master of arts in English literature from the University of Kansas and wrote his thesis on the influence of royal hunting culture on medieval werewolf stories. He’s a fan of role-playing games, both video and tabletop. He has lived all over from New York to San Francisco, but currently lives on the prairies of Kansas with many animals.

Connect with Don:

●     Website: www.donallmon.com

●     Twitter: @dallmon

●     Pinterest

To celebrate the release of The Glamour Thieves, one lucky winner will receive a $20 Riptide gift card! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on September 2, 2017. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!