Giveaway + Blog Tour: Banded Together by KC Burn

Happy Release Day, KC Burn! She's here today to celebrate the release of Banded Together! She's brought an excerpt & a splendid giveaway too!

I’m KC Burn and I’m thrilled to be here at Boy meets Boy for the release day of Banded Together. I hope everyone had a lovely holiday, and you’re ready for some romance!

There’s a lot of me in this book. Not that I’ve ever fronted a band or been a professor. Not quite that literal! But punk rock is a dear love of mine.

At the risk of dating myself, my first musical “choice”, where I decided what I wanted to listen to, rather than what my parents did, was Duran Duran. It didn’t take long for me to move on to new wave and alternative bands like New Order and Depeche Mode. Along the way, I also became aware of bands like The Clash, Sex Pistols, and The Ramones, then bands closer to home (Canada) like D.O.A. and Treble Charger.

Punk and industrial music were part of my formative high school years and I love it still to this day. Obviously it’s not as common as it was in the eighties, but I also love a good Mohawk (one with commitment, not a fauxhawk). There are some unfortunate associations of punk rock with far right politics but so many bands from my youth had social justice elements, like rejection of classism and racism. If you listen to the lyrics from current punk bands like Green Day or Rise Against or Dropkick Murphys, they’re filled with social commentary and it’s not in support of the conservative right.

Whew! That took a turn for the serious side! That’s not the only reason I love punk. The spiked hair, guyliner, and shit-kicking boots are pretty sexy in my opinion. And I gave Devlin some of what I consider the sexiest and most attractive parts of a punk rocker.

His counterpart, Dr. Jack Johnson, is also a reflection of another love of mine – archeology. Dr. Jack isn’t anything like Indiana Jones – and rightly so, since Indiana Jones wasn’t the most scrupulous academic. But Dr. Jack still goes out in the field, and the idea of going on digs and finding artifacts appeals to the part of me that still loves Indiana Jones. One day, I’ll write that adventure book with a dashing, daredevil archeologist, but for now, I give buttoned up Dr. Jack the perils of becoming enamored of a student. An older student, but a student nonetheless.

Banded Together is also filled with a lot of places I went to in high school and university – a lot of nostalgia for me. In the midst of that, cranky Dr. Jack and free-spirited but hurting Devlin rapidly became one of my favourite couples. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Blurb:

Punk’s not dead, but it’s time to redefine life.

Devlin Waters thought he’d have music forever. But the tragic death of his best friend ended the twenty-year run of his punk band, Negative Impression. Unable to process the loss, Devlin distances himself from everyone and everything that reminds him of the band. But forty-one is too young to curl up and wait for the end. In a search for a second career, he finds himself at university, with a bunch of kids young enough to be… his kids. His sexy archaeology professor, however, makes Devlin think about life beyond his grief….

Dr. Jack Johnson does not appreciate Devlin’s lack of respect, his inability to be serious, or his chronic lateness. Worse, he hates that he’s attracted to a student. When he realizes Devlin is the rock star he crushed on in his youth, he drops his guard—against his better judgment.

Before they can move forward together, Jack must admit to Devlin that he’s not only an admirer, but he also sings in a cover band. How will Devlin react to his ultimate fanboy when his own music has died?

Banded Together is available at Dreamspinner Press and Amazon.

Excerpt:

Most of the first lecture Jack could deliver in his sleep, and a good thing too. Several times over the rest of the hour, Jack found his eyes wandering to the latecomer in the second row. By rights, in a class this full, he should never have found a seat so close to the front, but the rest of the “fresh out of high school” crowd seemed to have an ingrained terror of sitting too close to the front, and the damn lecture hall filled from back to front.

Mature students weren’t uncommon, but usually it meant a couple of people his father’s age interspersed in the sea of kids in their late teens. It had been a gift, because as yet, he’d had not one man who attracted him show up in any of his classes. Not any of his undergraduates. Some of his graduate students had held some appeal, but it hadn’t been hard to avoid any impropriety.

This man, though, was going to be a distraction of the first order. A few years older than him, maybe as many as ten, sandy blond hair, freckles, laugh lines at the corners of hazel-colored eyes. Lean, fit, wearing jeans that lovingly cupped an ass made for sin, and a package that could tempt a saint. Something about his jawline and the sharp line of his nose gave Jack a frisson of déjà vu, but that had to be his mind playing tricks on him. No way could he have met and forgotten a man like that.

Jack Johnson might be a nerd, but he was no goddamn saint, and the sheer temptation of this man—this student—was going to make this class a million times more hideous. Last thing he needed was to battle a fucking hard-on in front of four-hundred-plus students.


Bio:

KC Burn has been writing for as long as she can remember and is a sucker for happy endings (of all kinds).  After moving from Toronto to Florida for her husband to take a dream job, she discovered a love of gay romance and fulfilled a dream of her own -- getting published.  After a few years of editing web content by day, and neglecting her supportive, understanding hubby and needy cat at night to write stories about men loving men, she was uprooted yet again and now resides in California. Writing is always fun and rewarding, but writing about her guys is the most fun she’s had in a long time, and she hopes you’ll enjoy them as much as she does.

Visit KC at her website, on Twitter, on Facebook, or find out about new releases by signing up for her newsletter.

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