Release Blitz + Giveaway: The Ballot Boy by Larry Mellman

 Author Larry Mellman and IndiGo Marketing share new historical YA fiction, The Ballot Boy! travel to 14th century Venice with this book! Enter in the NineStar Press credit giveaway!

Title: The Ballot Boy

Author: Larry Mellman

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 02/15/2022

Heat Level: 2 - Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 85300

Genre: Historical, LGBTQIA+, YA, historical, lit/genre fiction, gay, coming out, 14th century Venice, political rulers, political intrigue and plotting, wartime action and adventure, sexual longing, family drama, betrayal, bullying

Add to Goodreads

Description

Venice, 1368.

War hovers in the wings with the fate of the Republic at stake when the old doge dies. Fourteen-year-old Nico, a street urchin from the poorest Venetian parish, is chosen at random to tally votes in the upcoming election for a new leader. Uprooted from his old life and transplanted to the doge’s palace, Nico becomes an alienated outsider at the mercy of scheming nobles.

Andrea Contarini, sixtieth doge of Venice, wants the ducal throne less than Nico wants to be ballot boy. Both walk a golden tightrope over treachery and deceit. When he witnesses a court clerk burned at the stake for being gay, Nico despairs. His romantic attraction to men is as powerful as his fear of fiery death and an eternity in Hell.

Taking advantage of the fraught transition in the Doge’s Palace, the hostile duke of Austria pushes Trieste to rebel against Venetian domination, jeopardizing her mastery of the Adriatic Sea. The Venetian nobles split, trapping the doge between hawks rabid for war, and rich merchants desperate for peace. With his own life on the line, Andrea Contarini opts to attack decisively and end the crisis swiftly, but his gambit is sabotaged. Trusting only the boy at his side, Contarini sends Nico to Trieste to be his eyes and ears. As the Venetian commanders wrangle over tactics, Nico falls for Astolfo, the young, charismatic lord of Castle Moccò, an indispensable but unreliable ally.

Will Nico return to Venice a celebrated hero? Or will he be forever haunted, guilt-ridden, and still concealing his deepest secret?

Excerpt

I’m running as fast as I can, but I can’t catch the thief. If I don’t, Alex’s life is over. The necklace the thief snatched from my hand gives away the game. Alex will be exposed. Locked up. Maybe even killed because Alex’s father, Francesco Barbanegra, has the temper and manners of a pirate. Alex’s family is rich. Very, very rich. Richer than most nobles. But they are common, like my family, which consists of my mother, who takes in laundry. She gets paid in pennies. I understand why she wants me to be ballot boy, but that’s her dream not mine. I don’t want to be ballot boy. I want to be me, whoever that is.

Only heartbeats ago, Alex and I had moored our boat to the wharf and staggered ashore, covered with mud. When Alex took off the necklace to give me—the gold dolphin on its golden chain, ruby eye glinting in the early light—the thief burst from the shed, yanked it from my hand, and took off like a demon down the deserted embankment.

“Go home,” I shouted to Alex over my shoulder, “before it’s too late,” and I tore after the thief.

The dolphin is fatal. If the thief tries to sell it at a Rialto pawnshop, the whole world will know. I can’t risk it.

Our feet slap on the mud, startling a flock of ducks. They flap their wings, burst up from the salt marsh, and take to the icy winter sky.

The thief is taller than most Venetians, with long spindly legs, no shoes, and a striped turban. He doesn’t look down; he doesn’t look back. He barrels down the embankment in the direction of the Customs House. My legs are a foot shorter than his, his stride worth two of mine. I suck air like I’m drowning and exhale prayers like I’m dying.

Queen of Heaven, hear my pleas. St. Nicholas, grant me thine aid.

When I manage to close the gap between us, he speeds up. No matter how fast I’m going, he goes faster. He clutches the gold chain in his fist, the dolphin dangling free, its ruby eye sparkling.

That dolphin is a pledge of brotherhood between Alex and me, the seal on our secrets, and a promise that I won’t be selected ballot boy because if I am, last night was our final meeting, maybe forever.

“Please, Nico.” Alex’s eyes had implored me, and I could never refuse. “You’ve been on the sea many times. I’m thirteen years old, and my father owns great galleys, but I’ve never seen the sea. This could be my last chance.”

“It’s not your last chance.”

“If you’re selected, it is.”

“Look at me. Do you think Ruggiero Gradenigo would pick me? I look like a muddy clown.”

“Anything can happen.”

Alex’s pleading eyes broke me every time.

Stars filled the sky, and the moon, hovering high above the mountains beyond the lagoon, sprinkled diamonds over the water. I’d been explaining the lagoon to Alex, showing off, I guess, paying no attention to the tide. I didn’t notice the moon pulling the lagoon out from under us until stranded fish danced a desperate tarantella on the exposed sandbars. A mile of mud separated us from the beacon fire atop St. Mark’s campanile. We jumped from the boat and sank up to our knees. We couldn’t walk, nor could we reach the shore until the morning tide swept back in and filled the lagoon. Alex would never get home without being discovered; I would never be in St. Mark’s Square in time for the selection, and my mother would kill me.

I breathe in, out, in, out, in, out, pushing myself harder and harder until I hit a wall and explode and pick myself up and keep going until it happens all over again. The thief took one look at the stupid costume Mama had sewn me for selection day, all torn and wet and muddy, and he must have figured me for a drunk noble, a pushover. Mama is convinced the costume will make Ruggiero Gradenigo select me. She believes in magic. Her eye is on the prize.

He’s waiting for me to collapse, this thief. He’s making a big mistake. He doesn’t know that every day since I turned eight, six years now, I row across the lagoon and back before the midmorning bells, and I will kill him if I have to.

He makes a move to outrun me on the straightaway in front of the old shipyard. We pound over rough planks, wobbly pontoons, and a muddy bog tangled with bramble. I’m glad he’s barefoot. It must hurt like hell. He can hear my sandals slapping the ground.

The buildings crowd close along the levee. The bogs and brambles disappear under wooden docks and wharves. Merchant galleys and cogs are moored all the way to the Customs House. The ground tapers to a point where the Giudecca Canal meets the Grand Canal. Keeping running and your turban floats.

He hasn’t lost me, so he squeezes between buildings with barely a foot between them, and I follow, the mortar between the bricks shredding my tunic.

The big bell at St. Mark’s, the Marangona, starts tolling to summon the Great Council to pray for God’s grace on the election of the doge. All 1,200 nobles are members of the Great Council. Their names are inscribed in the Golden Book. After Mass, Ruggiero Gradenigo, the youngest member of the Great Council, will walk out of the church, onto St. Mark’s Square, and pick the first commoner he lays eyes on, age fifteen or less, to be the ballot boy. That’s the law. The old doge is dead, and we can’t elect a new one until a ballot boy is selected at random to count the votes and make sure the nobles don’t cheat.

I squeeze out of the crawlspace and glimpse the thief’s turban disappearing down a dark lane the sun never reaches. Several lanes lead into this small square; all but one dead end at the water. He doesn’t know where he’s going and probably doesn’t care as long as he stays ahead of me. He’s as desperate as I am. My heart beats a battle tocsin.

I struggle to master my breath as Abdul taught me. I’m dog-tired from fighting the moon, the tide, the mud. Sweat floods my face. The salt burns my eyes. I wipe them with my muddy sleeve, squeeze them shut, and listen. This quarter is silent. Everyone is at St. Mark’s for the selection.

The thief’s bare feet, bloodied from running the embankment, leave a trail winding through a labyrinth that will lead him back to me. That’s how Venice is. Outsiders always go in circles, even we do occasionally outside our home parish.

The old doge died last week. He didn’t last very long; he was eighty-two when they elected him back in 1365. That’s old even for a doge. I was twelve then. Mama knew I was going to be selected his ballot boy. She’d worked it all out with the Blessed Virgin and St. Mark. She took to bed for a week when I wasn’t selected, but she never gave up. She started praying for the new doge to die before my fifteenth birthday. I heard her, every night. First, she prayed forgiveness for wanting him dead. Then, she begged heaven for him to die. Now, she believes a miracle has happened. I’m going to be ballot boy. She knows. The Virgin interceded.

If I’m not in front of St. Mark’s when Ruggiero Gradenigo selects the ballot boy, I will be dead to her. She will curse me for spoiling her miracle.

The thief backs into the little square. He doesn’t see me. He sees a glint of sun on water at the end of a narrow chasm of brick. He takes off toward the water, and I get there first, waiting, as he staggers onto the wharf. On the opposite bank, mothers and their sons clog St. Mark’s Square, tricked out like piglets at the Ascension Day fair, each one praying for the job I don’t want.

The thief ducks between the pilings of the empty ferry dock. None of the ferries, trapped on the water, can move for all the other boats. Nobody is going anywhere. Every eye will remain on the Doge’s Palace until a new doge is elected. Venice is the richest city of all; the stakes are high. Mama says anything can happen.

I charge, pin the thief against a striped pole stuck in the Grand Canal, and grab for the dolphin in his hand. But he twists free and hurls himself off the dock, crashing into a boat below. The boat rocks wildly, the passengers scream, he steadies himself. Before anyone knows what’s happening, he leaps into the next boat, and the next, and the next. As fast as he can, he bounds across St. Mark’s Basin toward the twin columns at the water’s edge framing the Doge’s Palace, St. Mark’s Church, and the greatest square in the world. Executions and burnings take place between the columns, and walking between them brings a curse upon your head, which is why we call them the Columns of Doom. I saw a murderer executed there when I was seven. They chopped off his hand first, in San Barnaba Square, where he’d killed someone, strung his hand around his neck, and rowed him back here. They hung him, quartered him, and left the pieces out to dry here between the columns.

I jump from boat to boat to boat after the thief. People squawk, but I’m out as fast as I’m in, never stopping, my eye always on his bobbing turban. He scrambles up between the columns and pushes his way toward St. Mark’s Square through the bodies packing the Piazzetta.

The church doors aren’t open yet. The thief towers above the mothers and sons, his turban threading through the Piazzetta toward the church. Arsenal men in leather armor hold the crowd back, creating some space for Ruggiero Gradenigo to come out and pick. Mothers fight for places directly in front of the church.

The big bell tolls.

Mass is finished. The crowd surges forward, a wave of anticipation silencing them. The stones beneath our feet vibrate with the wild clangor of bells.

He made a big mistake, and now he sees just how big. Bodies block him on all sides. I elbow my way through the crush as the church doors swing open. The crowd gasps. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mama desperately looking for me. She’s furious I’m not up-front and center with her.

I leapfrog a tangled knot of eight-year-olds and their mothers, grasping for the thief’s throat. He panics and hurls the dolphin over the crowd. I vault, twist, and grab the dolphin out of the air by its chain. I can’t land on my feet. I come down sideways, rolling over bodies onto the cleared pavement. The guards can’t stop me.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

Larry was born in Los Angeles and educated in literature, political science, and life at the University of California, Berkeley. He has worked as a printer and journalist in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and St. Paul, Minnesota. Larry also worked with Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground on the Exploding Plastic Inevitable in NY, Provincetown, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, was mentored by Dean Koontz, and shared a palazzo in Venice with international opera singers Erika Sunnegårdh and Mark Doss.”

While living in Venice for many years, Larry also taught English, led tours, and immersed himself in the history and art of the Venetian Republic. The Ballot Boy was born in Venice and completed in St. Paul.

Larry is a lifelong social activist and writer, a voracious reader and researcher, an opera fanatic, and devoted walker. He currently lives in St. Paul with his partner of twenty-one years and his ex-wife of twenty-five years. His son is a pianist devoted to blues and jazz.

Website | Facebook | Twitter

Giveaway

One lucky winner will receive a $50.00 NineStar Press Gift Code!  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Release Blitz + Giveaway: Long Night at Lake Never by Eric David Roman

Author Eric David Roman and IndiGo Marketing hosts the Long Night at Lake Never release blitz! Find out more about the new queer horror and enter in the $10 NineStar Press credit giveaway!

Title: Long Night at Lake Never

Author: Eric David Roman

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 07/12/2021

Heat Level: 1 - No Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 50100

Genre: Contemporary Horror, LGBTQIA+, horror, horror fiction, queer horror, queer lit, lgbt horror, gay horror, gay lit, dark horror, revenge, slasher, scary, supernatural, camp horror

Add to Goodreads

Description

Welcome to Camp Horizons, where they pray all day…and get slayed all night!

Nestled against scenic Lake Never, recently outed Tyler Wills has arrived at the secluded conversion camp, where the delusional staff of counselors believes he and his fellow camper’s queer affliction can be healed solely through the power of prayer.

After a full day spent rallying against sadistic deprogramming therapies, the deranged camp director, and planning his escape, Tyler discovers a larger problem—a mysterious stranger has rolled into camp with a grudge to settle and a very sharp axe.

When night falls, the terror and body count rise. And Tyler, along with his fellow campers, find themselves trapped between a brutal, unrelenting killer and their holier-than-thou prey as they desperately search for a way to survive the Long Night at Lake Never.

Excerpt

Long Night at Lake Never
Eric David Roman © 2021
All Rights Reserved

God Hates Faggs

Tyler Wills had not gazed out the car’s window for a solid hour, but when he finally did, those three words angrily mocked him. Each word with its own crudely hand-painted sign, and each one staked in the ground along the roadside. The message, along with the overall cheap tackiness of the signs, churned his stomach.

And they couldn’t even spell it right. Assholes.

After tilting his head back, he nestled against the leather headrest of his father’s Mercedes and rolled his eyes, thinking about life and its accompanying bullshit. How much he wanted to be free—eighteen was ten months away. How much easier everything would be once on his own. Life, his way.

A glance out the window and another sign met his eyes, this one reflective green. It announced they were twenty-five miles from their destination: Camp Horizons. The crude signs, which at first appeared random, now made more sense. Tyler could have groaned or sighed loudly, but no one cared or listened. His parents remained silent the entire three-hour trip, and no noises Ty made were going to change that fact in the last thirty minutes. No radio. No small talk. Only the car’s interior noises, their collective breathing, and the curt driving directions of the British-voiced GPS.

Nadine Wills sat stone-faced and stared out the windshield, only letting the occasional sniffle escape her nose to show she was still alive. Tyler expected a ride filled with screaming and admonishments against his character, but instead, he got the Wills silent treatment. In the two weeks since the night Tyler was brought home by the police, she hadn’t acknowledged him once. She did not listen to him that night either. Once the door opened and she saw Ty there looking small and pitiful with the bulky police officer behind him, she slapped his face and demanded he go to his room. He didn’t, remaining hidden on the stairwell, giggling to himself, as the cop explained to his parents their seventeen-year-old son had been caught in the park giving, as the officer described, “vigorous oral sex.” He emphasized the word vigorous multiple times, either driving home the point he’d witnessed the offensive act, or to show how impressed he’d been by the skills displayed but remained obligated to uphold the law.

Tyler lamented life was not more like porn. If his had been, the cop would gladly have joined in, and Tyler wouldn’t have faced his third strike with Michael and Nadine. The previous two were for his attitude, minor offensives, but this infraction came with the threat of an indecent exposure charge, for which he got let go with only a warning. However, the more significant issue was the revelation their only son was queer. He knew the ordeal would cost him this time, which it did.

One day after the incident, as the event became referred to, Michael barged into Tyler’s room, a disgusted look etched into his worn and wrinkled face, and his laptop clenched in his hands. Tyler rolled his eyes as his red-faced father, livid at his only son for being a filthy fucking cocksucker (his exact words), showed him the website for Camp Horizons, a “rehabilitation” center for homosexual youth. Tyler understood exactly what a pray-the-gay-away-style conversion camp consisted of. He was an educated young man and was aware of what kind of rehab went down at places like those. The blood drained from his face as Michael smirked at Ty’s horrified reaction. Nadine wasn’t present for Michael’s fiery antihomo tirade about how the camp would be healthy for him. Tyler figured a silent or else came attached to the demand he agreed to be fixed. He hoped Nadine would swoop in for a rescue, tell her husband he was being ridiculous as she had in the past and that would be all. But Ty didn’t count on her this time; he knew she wouldn’t leave the safety of the bedroom where the surplus of Xanax kept her numbed and staring at the ceiling in mindless wonderment.

The week until they left for the camp had been hell. They took everything from him: the car went first, the phone next, along with all the electronics, and like a prisoner, his remaining freedoms were stripped away. Tyler spent the week locked in his near-empty bedroom. The severity of his punishment pissed him off and it wasn’t due to premarital sex or getting caught by the police. If he’d been blown by a girl, sure there would have been some yelling and tears since Nadine cried at fucking everything. But once she settled, his father would have come into his room and congratulated him on becoming a man and probably expunged any punishment with a hearty high-five.

No, their anger, their disgust came from the fact Tyler was gay. What infuriated them more, Ty had no issue with his sexuality at all. To them, being queer equaled unacceptable, and yet, he held no shame whatsoever. For the past two years, he’d tried on multiple occasions to come out but always retreated at the last minute. He understood the truth: Michael and Nadine were bigoted archaic assholes. The kind who spoke disparagingly about queer people whenever they showed up on a television show or in a movie. “Ugh, do we need more of them?” Nadine would say as she fidgeted in her spot until the offensive parties left the screen. His father would mumble fags under his breath, and so Tyler would sit there being hurt and annoyed by the two people who were supposed to love him more than anything.

And he thought, foolishly, he could make it to eighteen and get out before he ever had to tell them. His libido thought otherwise. The allegations were true. He’d done everything the cop accused him of—and more—before the offensive flashlight so rudely shined on them in the plastic playhouse atop the slide. Tyler picked at the seams on his jeans and thought about Daniel, his long-time crush, who had finally agreed to meet him.

Closing his eyes, he pictured Daniel’s slender face, his deep eyes, and his full lips, which felt as nice as Ty had hoped. Without any of his devices, there’d been no way to see how much trouble Daniel had gotten into with his family. And no means to apologize or tell him how he’d not stopped thinking about their brief night. Nadine and Michael hadn’t merely sent Tyler away; they’d successfully cut him off from the world. He wouldn’t know if there may have been something more with Daniel than a few quick make-out sessions behind the lunchroom and a sloppy half-finished blow job.

He opened his eyes when his father’s voice demanded he wake up though he had not been sleeping. A large wooden sign filled the front windshield as they passed, declaring they’d reached Camp Horizons. In the camp’s heyday, the hand-carved sign had been brightly painted with yellows and blues, depicting a serene sun setting on a group of cabins. Each ray of the sun became a cross the closer to the camp they reached, but the current state of the sign showed those days were long gone. Now the sign’s faded paint showed off how dried and cracked the wood had become. The sign hung crooked, drooping on one side from damage to one of the posts, which no one had bothered to fix. Past the broken sign were a few hundred more feet of dense forest, which sent a chill, cold and icy, traversing up Tyler’s spine and sent shudders through his body. The camp was more isolated than he realized, and the fact unsettled him. An apprehensive knot formed in his chest and told him this place wasn’t right.

The Mercedes followed the curve of the camp’s driveway, and Tyler saw a trio of cabins nestled together along the rim of the circular drive. Behind them, sloping down the uneven terrain to the edge of Lake Never were several more. From the window, Tyler spotted a round-faced man in his late thirties, with a short beard and thinning hair, wearing a bright-yellow shirt and tan khakis, waving happily at them. Michael pulled the car around until he faced the way they’d come in. He shoved the gearshift into park, pissed off at it and blaming everything in the world for his son being a queer.

Michael turned to face Tyler in the backseat. For a moment, Ty thought his father would finally speak to him, and he did, but not with any words. The anger and disappointment were painted all over his face as they’d been for days, and the look told Tyler without question, you’d better not fuck this up too. Tyler blew him a kiss and flung his car door open, happy for the fresh air. As his parents slammed their doors, the man from the porch trotted down to them.

“The Lord has blessed us with a beautiful day, hasn’t he? Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Wills. Welcome to Camp Horizons,” he said warmly, his greeting coated thickly by a Southern accent as rich as syrup smothering a stack of pancakes. He extended his hand and shook Michael’s, and then Nadine’s, who barely registered a response. “Robert Kendall, the camp director here at Horizons. But please, Bob is fine. Been going by it for years. And this young man must be Tyler.” Bob swung his hand over to Tyler, an obviously super fake grin smeared across his round face.

Tyler refused to shake any hands. Instead, he let his focus drift around the camp as Bob spoke to his parents. If Horizons had any glory days, they were long gone. There was not one cabin which didn’t need some form of repair or wasn’t boarded up. Every surface needed a paint job, and the grounds were overgrown, except in the prominent areas along the front to keep the entrance looking deceptively beautiful. Tyler’s sneakers dug into the gravel of the drive, his thoughts only on running away, as Bob led them to the office sitting to the left of the largest cabin, which he referred to as Integrity Cabin.

For a religiously run camp, Tyler found there was not much around touting the place’s pious nature past the crosses on the camp’s entrance sign. In his head, he half expected to see nothing but crosses—hung to everything, twenty feet tall—but the camp appeared subdued.

He recanted this opinion once inside Bob’s office. The room was adorned with an obscenely large and ornately framed painting of Jesus Christ on the rear wall. Between the pictures of the camp through the years were photos of the Guides who had worked there, small but ornate crosses, placards with scripture quotes, and religious-themed motivational posters, which encouraged all to Pray it Away with the power of God.

Situated at his desk, Bob was tiny in front of the looming Jesus, who glared down on them, and the desk was covered with files, papers, and a complete set of apostle bobbleheads.

The Wills family sat quietly as Bob beamed at them with a righteous awkwardness for a silent minute. Exhaling loudly, he leaned his head up to the heavens as he began, “The Lord is here today. Yes, he is. He is always present when one of his disciples begins their Journey.” The word, said often, was always accompanied with a pompous weighted reverence. “Tyler, Horizons exists to restore those trapped within sexual sin. Our program is specifically designed to cater to those that have fallen prey to the sinful cult of homosexuality.” He bowed his head, raised his right hand, and shook like an evangelist on Sunday morning television, casting away queerness like one would cast off the evil eye.

“Homosexuality is a vile disease, and through the power of prayer, we can get Tyler onto the path of righteousness and return him to the arms of our Lord.”

“Kinda thought the idea here would be getting me out of the arms of men, but hey, who am I to argue?” Tyler could do nothing but laugh off the absurdity around him.

“God sees you, Tyler Wills, and your soul is in peril. Do you want to spend eternity in damnation and hellfire? Let’s try to approach this with some decorum. Our mission here is to save your soul.”

Tyler rolled his eyes at the idea of his soul needing saving—an impulse reaction but one that earned him a hard smack across the back of his head from his father.

“How long does this process take, making them straight again?” Michael asked with an annoyed tone, suggesting he expected to literally drop the offensive party off and leave. Nadine sat quietly, not looking at her son, husband, or Bob’s suntanned face. She stared up at the large painting of Jesus, dopey eyed in her sedated state. “Tyler had an incident,” she whispered softly.

“I got caught vigorously sucking some cock,” Tyler boasted as his father fumed, and Nadine covered her mouth and shook her head.

“An incident,” Michael spoke over him, “that concerned us enough to bring him here for treatment.”

Bob put his hands together in a prayer stance and once again sounded like a preacher. “The path to religious righteousness is a thorny one. Romans 12 tells us, ‘Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.’” He quoted the Bible with the slimy ease of a used car salesman trying to offload a lemon.

Michael rudely cut through the religious platitudes. “And what kind of time frame does that entail?”

“Bob,” Tyler interjected before the camp director answered, “my parents are extremely uncomfortable. Neither of them is religious enough to know what Romans means. What they want you to tell them, and in the simplest words possible, is how long this introduction will take. They’re so uncomfortable. I mean, look at how much they want to leave.” The retort was worth the second smack to the head.

“The Journey is two and a half weeks, but they are laborious weeks for sure.” Bob cleared his throat. “Now I’m required to make clear that neither I nor my Guides are actually licensed therapists. We’re merely servants of God, who’ve gone through the Journey and are invested in keeping the camp running so other young people will have a safe space to embark on their own path back to the Lord.” He rattled off a few other disclaimers rapidly before sliding across the desk three papers he advised were confidentiality agreements, each stating the Wills would not divulge their therapeutic techniques.

Tyler figured his father listened and honed in, as Tyler had, on the unlicensed and unregulated part, which to anyone else would have been a huge red flag. He hoped that would have shown his father how ludicrous the entire idea was, and how potentially dangerous. Except Tyler imagined his father hoped the so-called techniques included a little bit of physical punishment. “Fucking kill them all, and we wouldn’t have this problem,” Michael Wills had once proclaimed at the breakfast table in front of his son and wife after becoming annoyed with the ongoing coverage over the fight for marriage equality.

“We here at Horizons have developed our own patent-pending, seven-step rehabilitation program, which will take Tyler on a voyage of self-discovery where he will once again find, through prayer, and our assistance, God’s eternal love. And in that love, he will find the courage to reject these deviant homosexual impulses, falsely implanted within him by Satan.

“All of our Guides have taken the Journey. They are trained to assist other young men and women going through the process. Luckily for Tyler, our attendance is rather low this cycle, which is all the better to give those here a truly one-on-one, immersive experience, which will return him to our Lord and Savior. Through God’s beautiful bounty, we are blessed to be here providing this service to his flock.”

“I’m pretty sure this shit is illegal.” Tyler’s already upset stomach tied itself in more knots listening to the eerie way Bob referred to God so subserviently that it didn’t seem to Tyler like they had the healthiest relationship. Whomever Bob was referring to wasn’t the God Ty knew, and everyone in the room would be gutted to know how well Tyler was versed with the Bible, but he kept that to himself.

“Language,” Bob chided. “We keep our words G-rated at Horizons.”

“Fine, I’ll reiterate—isn’t conversion therapy illegal?”

“No laws have been passed as of yet…in this state anyway,” Bob quickly pointed out smugly before shifting his attention to Michael and Nadine. “As you may have observed driving in, Lake Never is rather large. We are secluded here on the south side. As such, there is no access to the internet. No televisions. No radios. No distractions. And any fraternizing, in a physical manner, is strictly forbidden.”

Tyler sat back in his chair, believing he had found his way out. The first guy he found to be willing—bam—he’d get kicked out.

“Expulsion is not the punishment,” Bob declared as if reading the blueprints of Tyler’s escape plan directly off his face. “The program resets, and our Journeyer must begin again. And if this causes them to go over their allotted time, there will of course be a small fee. We will need to collect Tyler’s phone and any other electronic devices he may have. There is a landline here in my office. If you are so inclined to check on Tyler’s progress, you may call, but the Journeyers are not permitted access to it.”

Tyler laughed. They wouldn’t give a shit about his progress once they drove off. “Don’t have to worry about that, Bob. These assholes don’t care if they hear from their faggy son or not.”

“Language.” Bob’s demeanor flipped, and the word came with a more pointed tone making it clear foul language wouldn’t be tolerated again.

“Tyler, shut up,” his father demanded. “And after these two weeks he will be straight, correct?”

“Oh yes,” Bob assured Michael. “We here at Horizons are God’s mechanics, determined to help fix our brothers and sisters who’ve been led astray.”

“There is nothing fucking wrong with me. I happened to luck out and got these two braindead assholes for parents.” Tyler went to stand up and storm out. Michael proved quicker, snatching his arm roughly, forcing him down into his seat.

“Sit the fuck down right now,” Michael yelled, never once looking at his son. “You will take this seriously. You will follow the rules, and you will not come home until—”

“Until what?” Tyler pulled his arm back. “Until I magically like pussy? There is nothing wrong with me the way I am.”

Michael wound up his hand again and started to say something when Bob jumped in. “Mr. Wills, please. Tyler, we will not accept this kind of talk or behavior at Horizons. That is no way to speak to your parents. One of the commandments is to honor thy mother and father. They are your moral compass.”

“You’re fucking joking, right?” Tyler sat up in the chair and laughed. “Moral compass? My mother over there dopes herself every day to ignore the fact that my father is sticking his dick into every woman he meets. She doesn’t care about this as long as her meds are refilled, and the credit card doesn’t get declined. I do believe gluttony, infidelity, and generally being a shitty person are sins too, are they not? Where’s the rehab camp for these asses?”

Nadine shifted in her seat and exhaled loudly as she turned her face away when Michael sent the back of his hand across Tyler’s face, effectively silencing him. Bob didn’t comment on the slap, waiting a moment until the air settled before he continued.

“We are not here to discuss semantics, Tyler. We’re here to talk about you starting your Journey toward being a straight and God-fearing member of society.”

Tyler rubbed the side of his face, still hot from Michael’s hand, and shrugged the slap off. “I get your gig; you pick and choose what parts of the Bible you feel like enforcing. The rest doesn’t matter, right?”

Bob, still sporting his Cheshire-cat-like phony grin, studied Tyler as he slid the confidential agreement across the desk toward Michael. Bob motioned to the pens in the cup in front of him. “We are going to require our fee up front.”

Purchase at NineStar Press

Meet the Author

Eric David Roman.com spent twenty years wandering the wrong paths; he tends to get lost a lot (he’s from Florida). He worked the wrong jobs (as it turns out, streetwalking is not a profession for just anyone) and avoided his true passion—writing, or as he refers to it, devouring sleeves of gluten-free Oreos in a dark closet whilst crying. After hitting a low point while trapped in retail management hell (a harsh rock bottom), he rearranged his thinking (now with 75 percent less anxiety and depression) and switched his focus fully to writing; well, as much as his gAyDD allows. And now, you’re reading his bio, so things are progressing nicely. He is the author of the outrageous novella Despicable People, the new novel Long Night at Lake Never, and multiple upcoming works. Eric remains socially distant in Northern Virginia (don’t stalk him, you’d just be disappointed), where he lives, writes, and loves a mix of all things horror, campy, and queer. He spends the days with his adoring husband and loveable cat (both of whom remain indifferent to his self-proclaimed celebrity).

Website | Facebook

Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Blog Tour: Author Jeffrey Buchanan historical novels

 

Author Jeffrey Buchanan and Gay Book Promotions visit today with a blog tour tour promoting three of the author's historical novels, Sucking Feijoas, The Smile of the Dispossessed and Pansies' Revenge! Read more today to find out about the three different stories!

BLOG TOUR

for

Three historical novels by Jeffrey Buchanan

💜Sucking Feijoas 💜The Smile of the Dispossessed 💜Pansies’ Revenge 

💜Sucking Feijoas 💜The Smile of the Dispossessed 💜Pansies’ Revenge 

 

BOOK 1

Book Title: Sucking Feijoas

Author: Jeffrey Buchanan

Length: 283 pages

Release Date: June 24, 2020

Genre: Gay Historical novel,  LGBTQI Literary / Historical Fiction

Themes: gay liberation, coming out

It is a standalone story.

Goodreads

 

Buy links

Universal Link  |  Amazon US  |  Amazon UK 

 

 

Blurb

George thinks he’s a real man…until he is seduced by an American serviceman on duty in New Zealand during WW2.

Neddy, the son of Lebanese migrants, marries a peasant girl in an attempt to overcome his attraction to men.

Garth, an intellectual, working-class Catholic boy, escapes to Mexico but eventually returns to reveal a painful secret.

Set in New Zealand, Lebanon and Mexico between 1942 and 1986, SUCKING FEIJOAS follows the lives of gay men and how, with ingenuity, courage and love, they managed their lives – despite the odds. Now in its third edition, this deeply engaging story about sexuality, class, race and the culture wars that surrounded them, is as relevant as ever. SUCKING FEIJOAS is riveting storytelling, gay history, empowering.



Excerpt

George was ecstatic that the party was going to be held in what he now referred to as his apartment. ‘Flat’ was definitely out as a term of reference to his abode now that he had such wonderful and sophisticated friends as Garth Griffin and Neddy Berdawni. He looked around his living room, a haven of peace and loveliness, which would soon be the scene of the wild party he’d planned in honour of the passing of the Homosexual Law Reform Bill.

‘All’erta! All’erta!Abb’etta zingara! he sang in a falsetto accompaniment to the opera blasting from his stereo. ‘All’erta.’ He lifted the needle from the record and put it back a few grooves so that he could again hear the soprano rejoicing in his favourite refrain from Il Trovatore. ‘All’erta! All’ertd! Abb’etta zingara!’

Food was displayed on the Formica table in his kitchen. It looked glorious, the madeira cake and the stuffed mushrooms. But best of all was that fabulous Arabic concoction with the name he had the same difficulty in pronouncing as the frantic refrains from the opera.

‘All’erta!’ he sang as he sniffed Neddy’s hummus. ‘Amazing,’ he said, ‘it feels so good to be able to sing opera without thinking it might get me arrested. Us poor, poor queens, for so many centuries denied our pleasures!’

On the wall in front of him was a picture of Mount Taranaki, which he stared at as he reached into a cupboard for the bottle of sherry. The huge, handsome flanks of that monstrous mountain. So many decades of admiring it. So many tortures endured in its presence, each like the ice axes that climbers stuck in the flanks of that wily old mountain.

‘And there you still are.’ He saluted the mountain. ‘And me too,’ he said as he downed a mouthful of the deliciously sickly sherry. ‘Still alert, still surviving.’

He bent over the table and stuck his finger in the delicious dip he’d come to adore since Neddy had first made it for him. ‘Hmmmm, hmmiss, homos, oh something or other,’ he said in a pickled hiss. He licked his finger with the creamy substance smeared over it and closed his eyes in satisfaction.

 

BOOK 2

Book Title: The Smile of the Dispossessed

Author: Jeffrey Buchanan

Length: 313 pages

Release Date: March 19, 2020

Genre/s: Gay historical romance

Themes: LGBTQ refugees

It is a standalone story.

Goodreads

 

Buy Links

Universal link  |  Website  |  Book Depository

 

 

Blurb

"The Smile of the Dispossessed" is a love story and a political thriller set in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia and Indonesia. The novel tells the story of Fadhi and Adam who flee Baghad in the final days of the Saddam Hussien regime when they are 'outed' as being gay and accused of being enemies of the state. Despite having been lovers for many years, under the pressures of being refugees, they separate and go their own ways, both men hoping to find freedom in a country that will accept them for who they are. "The Smile of the Dispossessed" demonstrates the enduring requirement to maintain faith in humanity and the power of love.



Excerpt

The music had changed again from disco to house and that beat was what Adam wanted, the newness of it, the complete modernity, the throb of what was the latest from Ibiza and Paris.

“You will not defeat me,” he said. He took the last swig from his bottle and went by himself to the dance floor. In his tight white tee shirt and blue jeans and white sneakers with his hair cut short and three days of beard, he knew he was the centre of attraction as he moved his body to the steady beat.

“I’m the handsome Arab,” he thought. “I’m the male they all want.” In the soap opera the music would now be reaching a crescendo as the main character found himself powerful and showed the world that when you are strong you get what you want and not what you de-serve. For a while in Baghdad there had been a fabulous Brazilian soap played on national television but the dancing and the partying had been too much for the authorities and it was eventually banned. Adam felt as if he had reached Sao Paulo now and that he was in it at last, that thing he wanted so much, that space he deserved. It was the vacuum left by the Brazilians, it was the magazine where the Paris models looked glamorous and led a life of luxury and fun. And at that moment on the dance floor he knew what his life was: he was a handsome and slightly crazy Palestinian and people desired him for that. Dancing there he saw his persona and was satisfied. The soaps were life and life was the soaps. He was in the midst of this felicitous conundrum when the blond squeezed amongst the dancers and started moving rhythmically next to him.

The blond had powder blue eyes, the colour of tropical oceans. His smile was as easy as his movements on the dance floor. They didn’t speak. There was no need to as they danced through two sets of the music. It was just like the soaps had ordered. A new sequel had begun and the audience was being led into it willingly and with abandon. The first thing the blond said to Adam sounded as if it had been scripted in a studio, the writers working in participation for the exact line of introduction: “I thought about you all day and all night.”

 

BOOK 3

Book Title: Pansies’ Revenge

Author: Jeffrey Buchanan

Length:  305 pages

Release Date: April 22, 2020

Genre/s: LGBTQI Historical / Literary fiction

Literary novel about the LGBTQI community set in Wellington, New Zealand in 1918 during the Spanish Flu.

It is a standalone story.

Goodreads

 

Buy Links

Amazon US  |  Amazon UK   |  Book Depository

 

  

Blurb

A vibrant, entertaining, often darkly Gothic story is filled with passion, love, pathos, farce and humour. Pansies’ Revenge lays bare the political, social and cultural fabric of New Zealand society at a pivotal time in the nation’s history. Set in 1918 the novel explores what it was like to resist political oppression and at the same time, face a global pandemic.

It is late 1918 and in Wellington, New Zealand, four years of world war and the ravages of the Spanish flu are taking their toll on the inhabitants.

All are not for King and Country. The members of the Te Aro book club: queer, feminist, bohemian, disgruntled, are accused of sedition for reading Crime and Punishment and drawing from it the roots of the problems facing the world. The more intently they read, the more the crazed characters of the book appear to manifest themselves in Wellington.

Intrigues deepen: Cecil and Sybil Meatyard, who work the crowds to a frenzy of patriotism in the streets of Wellington for the New Zealand Women’s Anti-German League, disappear. Their diatribes about war shirkers, spies and Pansies have upset a lot of people. The sinister Crawford Denton, detective and sensualist, follows the case. A 1918 MeToo Movement begins as the influenza pandemic takes hold.

This vibrant, entertaining, often darkly Gothic story is filled with passion, love, pathos, farce and humour. Pansies’ Revenge lays bare the political, social and cultural fabric of New Zealand society at a pivotal time in the nation’s history.



Excerpt

Chapter One

Alexander Powderham, fortyish, handsome, bohemian, limped his way up Cuba Street. His left leg, having been crippled from infantile paralysis, was supported by a steel brace. He was dependent also on canes, of which he had an impressive collection, and on this occasion, he was using one intricately carved by Aroha Raharuhi, his longtime lover.

The air was unseasonably warm for mid-September Wellington, which heightened the smell rising from the mounds of horse ordure left from the morning’s military parade. Outside the Duchess Tea Rooms, Alexander paused and rested on his good leg while he adjusted his recently tailored jacket, smoothing down the Irish linen with his hands, delighting in its texture and colour of golden flax. Then he adjusted his silk tie, cream coloured with charcoal flecks, loosening the knot a little at the undone top button to ensure that rakish look, which was one of casual elegance. The white, Egyptian cotton shirt had also been crafted especially for him by the clothiers Munster & Munster who, through four years of war, had survived patriotic vandalism by hanging a large sign across their shop windows, WE ARE NOT HUNS: WE SUPPORT KING AND COUNTRY. Alexander’s chocolate brown, wide-brimmed hat with a duck’s feather poking from the green woven band was also avant-garde, of a high-quality felt and based on a design he had seen in a fashion weekly from London.

About the Author 

Jeffrey Buchanan was born in Wellington, New Zealand, to a Lebanese - New Zealand family. For thirty years, including a decade with the United Nations, he worked in multiple countries in education, the promotion of human rights, gender equality and the empowerment of women. He was based for several years in the Middle East. For his Doctorate, he researched the structural, cultural and ideological components of Islamic education. Now he follows the warm weather with his husband Stuart, reads and writes fiction, and daydreams.

Read more on the author's website 

Visit his Facebook page 

 

   

Hosted by Gay Book Promotions

   

Follow the tour and check out the other blog posts and reviews here

 

Release Blitz + Giveaway: The Handsome Twist by Pezhmun D Ghiassi

First time author Pezhmun D Ghiassi and IndiGo Marketing host today's release blitz for The Handsome Twist. Learn more about the suspense and enter in the eBook giveaway for your own copy! Good luck!

Title: The Handsome Twist

Author: Pezhmun D Ghiassi

Publisher: Friesen press

Release Date: 8/19/2020

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male/Female (Male/Male interaction), Male/Male Menage

Length: 144 pages

Genre: Romance, Fantasy, Horror, Literary Fiction, New Adult, Thriller/Suspense

Add to Goodreads

Synopsis

The Handsome Twist is a dark fairy tale inspired by the author's actual life, being raised in Iran as a gay male, which for many who don't know, is equivalent to the death penalty. Due to tackling topics such as perverse behavior, taboo lust, political oppression, maltreatment, rape and homicide, in high volume of vulgar language, this book is aimed for the mature audience.
Living his sweetest life in a cozy cottage, deep in the heart of a magical forest, a little boy by the name Pezhmun is cursed on his 10th birthday by the 1st royal subject of Hell, queen of lust, to live a life full of horrific trauma and tragedy.
In the rudest awakening he is stripped from his chakras as they take human form, helping him to truly comprehend the power of love, through self acceptance and courage, where only then he meets his soulmate, but hopefully in time to save the world from plunging into eternal darkness.
This story points to topics in which many of people who grow up LGBTQ, usually face throughout the journey of self discovery and self acceptance with a hope of inspiring all to be there true organic selves.
The Handsome Twist simple edition is written in a more comprehensive manner for all to read without difficulty in comparison to the sophisticated, prosaic and poetic original version.

Excerpt

I was born on a glacial Thursday, 4 am of January 4^th, 1990, in Baltimore, Maryland, from a mixture of Persian, Irish, Italian, and Native American, something my mother use to call a Heinz 57 ketchup. A year later, after my birth, both my father and mother grew exasperated from to the complexities of the cold climate. In a drastic change of mind, our domesticity was relocated to the Sunny Scottsdale of Arizona.
I confess life in the scorched city did us well. My parents both successful businessman and woman, steady income, a beautiful home and anything to ever ask for and how I wish life always showed its brighter side to me and my loved ones, but that's not always the case, and this life we speak of isn’t always dreamy…
I recall being ten and en-route from school to home that day as a certain anxiety pommeled my paunch.
I swung the door open only to my witness, the household tarnished! I had never seen so much shattered glass and porcelain gathered in one spot! My pops seeing me rapidly tugged my wrist, marching to the bedroom, sitting us at his computer. “You want to see what your mom's doing?” My momma's shriek from the other side of the house rang loud “Parheez No! Don't do that to him!” Disregarding her plea, he opened his browser, pulling up a website.  A tall, scrawny man, his blinkers framed in glass binoculars, and a dirty brown mustache with a red cap on his head appeared as my father uttered, “You're mother is fucking this man!”  I gasped in shock! My breath shortened as I dashed to my only sibling, my older sister's room drowning in tears! I leaped to her embrace as she nurtured me.  How could someone do that to a 10-year old I pondered! Anyhow, let's let that minor one slip, considering that the least of our worries, for now, that is.
Months later, the once upon a time madly in love couple split! My father by fate lost all his fortune to his partner who had swindled him to his very last dime and as far as my mother who till that day had dedicated her life-giving me and my sister her all, chose emancipation parting ways, re-wedding to a forest firefighter named" William Delaney " who most likely now quivers in the icy flames of Hell!
My old man now left with empty pockets, and two kids on his hand did what he only knew best, returning to his homeland, Iran.
Luckily his parents had been financially blessed and were indeed the significance of benevolence granting us a home to launch a new life!
A year later, my Baba saw suitable to remarry, so he did. He pondered maybe if a motherly figure hovered our lives, it would do us good, another erroneous mistake!
My step-dame initially seemed the kindest, sweetest being to roam the earth, though gradually in time, she allowed her true colors to show vibrancy.
This woman I speak of had seen much darkness and cruelty in her life, and by the time she had been locked into our family, already had she entrapped herself in a chamber of bitterness, constructed by bricks of pessimism and paranoia. So to be honest, yes, she has a golden heart, though like myself a very fucked up past with the only difference I chose the path of wisdom, not ignorance in my years of youth.
My father made certain to never deprive her of emotion, yet still, she portrayed envy for the love and affection he offered us, making it her mission to assure our lives a misery.
By night shame would be our pillows and goosebumps of gloom our blankets. Now imagine me, my sister to her brown almond eyes, adversaries, not offspring!
Years of her crudeness sailed the sea of our existence till in a sudden twist, this compulsively jealous spouse of a wife of my father went down a darker spiral of violence as one day I declined one of her many ruthless requisitions, expecting me to drop whatever I had in hand and spring at her ease.
I stood up for myself for once, in-surprise my merit were sharpened claws! Scaring my throat, leaving a sting of blood, the image of my scrag!
If a wicked stepmother was my only pain, I'm positive I wouldn't be here scribbling away.

Purchase at Amazon

Meet the Author

 

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Raised in Iran, Ghiassi is a renaissance in the field of art! At the age 10 after the separation of his parents he along with his father and sister moved to Iran. He soon began school in a Farsi language school and easily became adapted. In his teen years he discovered himself a dilatent in the field of art by sowing clothing, painting, dancing and high school plays. Ghiassi is a graduate with a BA in Persian literature. At the age 24 he returned to America, served as a US Marine reservist and soon found himself obsessed with writing and a brilliant outlet to manage his heavy luggage of trauma and pain. He currently now resides in Southern California, studying film and directing as an actors student in hopes to one day transform The Handsome into a full length feature.

Facebook | Twitter

Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Review: A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne

The new novel from the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and The Heart's Invisible Furies , a seductive Highsmithian psychodrama following one brilliant, ruthless man who will stop at nothing in his pursuit of fame.

Maurice Swift is handsome, charming, and hungry for success. The one thing he doesn't have is talent - but he's not about to let a detail like that stand in his way. After all, a would-be writer can find stories anywhere. They don't need to be his own. Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful - but desperately lonely - older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war. Perfect material for Maurice's first novel.

Once Maurice has had a taste of literary fame, he knows he can stop at nothing in pursuit of that high. Moving from the Amalfi Coast, where he matches wits with Gore Vidal, to Manhattan and London, Maurice hones his talent for deceit and manipulation, preying on the talented and vulnerable in his cold-blooded climb to the top. But the higher he climbs, the further he has to fall...

A Ladder to the Sky is my maiden voyage with this author and I devoured it with gusto. I think it was a good place for me, specifically, to start because Maurice Swift is a sociopath. There are no "good" mental illnesses but there are ones far more interesting than others to me. Maurice is many things-amoral, narcissistic, brutally ambitious-but he's not boring. My first reaction to him as a twenty year old ingratiating himself to the aged, lonely and slightly pitiful Erich Ackermann was, 'oh, you're a nasty one, aren't you?'.

He is. He has no redeeming qualities. To be a famous author and a father are the only two things he's ever wanted. Both of which he lacks the necessary skills to attain success either for lack of creativity or lack of empathy. One would think that in and of itself would be some sort of poetic justice but is there such a thing as justice when it comes to a sociopath?

For me, that's what the book came to be about rather than his relentless climb toward fame and fortune at any cost, and in that regard, Boyne really distinguished himself by staying true to the characterization rather than serving up some sort of insipid claptrap.

Maurice is diabolical and lives his life inveigling ideas from others for his own personal gain without remorse. He has several weapons in his arsenal. The most powerful of which are his considerable good looks, sex or the withholding of it, his affection, his time, his money, his business nothing is off-limits. They're all just a means to an end, people are disposable to him and this is his story told in three parts, covering most of his lifespan and how he increasingly contravenes morality to get what he wants.

The first part is told from Ackermann and Gore Vidal's perspectives. There aren't enough superlatives to describe how much I loved this part. Ackermann is a sympathetic character who did a terrible thing but his motivation for doing so is what separates him from Maurice.

Gore Vidal, though, is having none of Maurice Swift and it was fantastic! A long time ago I bought a copy of "Vanity Fair". I'm sure there was some celebrity on the cover that I just had to know all the things about but what I wound up discovering was Dominick Dunne. Immediately charmed by him and his particular brand of storytelling, I found myself signing up for a subscription. Every month I couldn't wait to see what stories Dominick would tell me. He knew EVERYONE and everyone knew him; he was a urbane and people gravitated toward him, myself included. Gore reminded me of Dominick and I found myself feeling bereft that I'd missed out on the Gore Vidal experience. This is not a humorous book but some of what came out of his mouth not to mention his thoughts had me snorting.

The second part is told from Maurice's wife, Edith's perspective. This was the weakest section of the book to me and not for the obvious reasons. It encompasses her work as a newly successful author and professor which made sense since it's her story too but it also involved her family. She has a pathological sister, Rebecca, who is embroiled in a divorce/custody battle that took a significant amount of page time and I couldn't make heads or tails of why it was necessary to the narrative. To illustrate how sociopaths come in all shapes, sizes and genders? True, but not crucial to the story, in my opinion. I liked Edith and her voice but the family drama I could've done without.

The third part we delve into the mind of the sociopath. Entertaining, thy name is Maurice Swift. Truthfully, I could probably write a short story about Maurice but I'll refrain and just say he's ruthless, contemptible and obnoxious, but also cunning and charismatic when he chooses to be, thus is the nature of the sociopath. If I said I wasn't absorbed by him, it would be a lie.

Each section was given its own tone and voice which is what I was most dazzled by. Even the writing style changes to fit each person. If that's not embodying a character, I've no idea what is. I did notice the words 'crestfallen' and 'daresay' often but maybe these are mainstays of the literary types? A minor quibble in an otherwise outstanding and infinitely readable story. Flow is certainly in Boyne's wheelhouse and I would recommend A Ladder to the Sky to those who can appreciate an unsympathetic protagonist.

Also, to whomever came up with this tongue in cheek cover, you're a genius.

A copy was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Blog Tour + Giveaway: Queen Called Bitch: Tales of a Teenage Bitter Ass Homosexual by Waldell Goode

We're happy to have the Queen Called Bitch: Tales of a Teenage Bitter Ass Homosexual blog tour drop by the clubhouse today! New author Waldell Abraham Goode and IndiGo Marketing drop by with book info and goodies! Don't miss the author interview, excerpt from the coming of age memoir and NineStar Press eBook giveaway!

Title:  Queen Called Bitch: Tales of a Teenage Bitter Ass Homosexual

Author: Waldell Goode

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: 7/24/17

Heat Level: 1 - No Sex

Pairing: No Romance

Length: 69300

Genre: Memoir, Memoir, Lit, gay, coming of age, African-American, family drama, high school, college, humorous

Add to Goodreads

Synopsis

A loud-mouth, black, gay teenager struggles to find himself in rural America. After having realized his inability to attend his top-choice school, Waldell Goode embarks on a journey to reevaluate why the grand departure appealed to him in the first place. He learns that as much as he can control his nonexistent love life, there are other factors that aren’t as easily mutable. He comes to terms with his peculiar relationship with his mother, the inevitable heartbreak in store for him no matter how hard he’s tried avoiding it, and the voice of God, in all her beguiling glory.

Excerpt

Queen Called Bitch
Waldell Abraham Goode © 2017
All Rights Reserved

ONE: Ryan Murphy’s a Fucking Liar

I officially begin with this because it is one of the more poignant issues I’ve been dealing with. It’s not that I have anything against Glee. I applaud the nature and success of the series, but I dislike how certain plot points, characters, storylines, and adolescent relationships deviate from realities concurrent with that of the authentic experience of my life. Glee is an excellent series, bringing awareness all across America of certain groups that have been neglected or outcast in a universal school setting. There isn’t any show that has mastered such a feat at the level Glee has, which is why the series remains a phenomenon, reaching and inspiring children all over the world to be themselves and embrace each other’s differences. Unless they’re Asian, in which case they’re promptly reminded to remain silent and take their proper places in the background where they belong; it’s amazing they’re allowed to consider themselves series regulars and not simply extras. I hate what they did with the token Asian character, Tina. They tried making her a more prominent character later in the series, failing miserably.

Reflecting on Glee, I would say their portrayal of high school is fairly accurate minus the students who appear to be better suited for an AARP commercial. I would even say my high school career was somewhat similar to Kurt’s, the token gay character. I was unsure of myself freshman year. I spent my time mostly in solitude, trying to avoid much of the ridicule I received in my eighth grade year. I was involved with the drama team where I met fellow weirdos like myself, I was hiding the fact that I’m gay, and I unwittingly thought no one knew it—despite how blatantly obvious it was, and everyone else must have been previously enlightened.

Sophomore year was even better. People began to know me and who I was, that I wasn’t a predator and spiritually intertwined with Satan. I came out as completely gay that year. Even I wasn’t buying the bisexual nonsense I fed myself and others in years past. I began to dress as I so desired and fully embraced the inner, gayer me. Being involved with the local university’s theater department, I had become acquainted with more degenerates who celebrated abnormality.

Junior year was when I finally came into my own. I led the drama department to a couple of victories as I was cast in the main role, and attended the Governor’s School of Southside Virginia Community College. I enjoyed myself the most that year, even though Governor’s School was stressful as hell and I failed chemistry. Senior year, the focus was on finding money to attend a university or college, and that didn’t happen so I suppose one could consider that a failure, but I considered it an opportunity to fuck around for another semester.

My high school career, one could say, was excellent and probably everything it was supposed to be. A necessary step in my life, but I can’t seem to shake the part about loneliness. For my senior trip at Governor’s School, we went on a boat ride for an hour and a half. In a tiny vessel meant for maybe eight to seat comfortably were crammed fifteen people shoulder to shoulder, stuffing packed lunches into their mouths as the tour guide blabbed on and on about the three foot deep lake that takes twenty minutes to travel from shore to shore. Rounding the trip for the fourth or fifth time, my English teacher, sitting beside me, established conversation as a means to keep me either from sleeping, or hauling my ass overboard. Our discussion grew from her love of animals to my high school experience, to her decades—long marriage with her husband of infinite years, and on to the scandal of her marrying her old high school principal. She asked me the one question everyone in my high school career managed to avoid, ignore, or already know the answer to. It was remarkable. Before that moment, I had never considered it. I wanted to contemplate the depth of my relations, possibly due to a lack of allowing myself to ponder the grim truth of deeply rooted negative dispositions I choose to utilize as defense mechanisms.

She looked me in the eye and leaned in close. “Waldell, are you lonely?” She spoke as if she was asking about the weather.

Although we were gently gliding atop a lake and I had consumed two bottles of water with my complimentary lunch, my mouth ran completely dry.

I took a second, regained the wind that had instantaneously been trounced out of my chest, and replied with a smooth and concrete, “No. I have amazing friends.”

Somehow she knew. I could see it in her eyes. That wasn’t what she was asking. She would clarify, and there would be no way I could playfully avoid its severity or laugh it off as I had become accustomed to doing.

She looked at me with deeper expression now, and asked, “No, but Waldell, are you really lonely?”

I began to look away and pretend to notice an area of the lake I previously hadn’t seen; we circled back for the thousandth time and nothing could’ve been missed. I couldn’t avoid it. I couldn’t make it funny, laugh it off, reference my mother or her alcoholism. I could only be honest with my professor, and in doing so, stop lying to myself. This is the one instance I can recall when lighthearted commentary failed to enter my mind when I needed some sort of comical relief… or relief in general. I looked her in the eye again, and with all the gusto I could find out there on the lake with sixty other people strolling along the pier, going about their day, eating their triangularly shaped cold cuts, I told myself the truth for the first time in four years with a single word.

“Yes.”

And here lies my problem with Glee. Kurt is an amazing character. He’s beautiful, funny, witty, he has flaws, and the greatest attribute a creator may accomplish with any character is the fact he’s human. I appreciated that representation of a homosexual teen in mainstream media. Before him, there weren’t many who closely resembled me. Friends and family who were familiar with the show deemed me “black Kurt,” or “Blurt.” I admired him, the character, his weakness and ultimate triumph over an oppressive society. As Oprah taught the world, one of the singular greatest gifts a person in the media can give is lending voice to the voiceless. That was Kurt Hummel, analogous with millions of gay teens all throughout the world, struggling to find themselves against social pressure and bullying. Kurt, portrayed by Golden Globe Award winner Chris Colfer, was a hero in a generation needing one.

I relate to this character. I understand this character; he lives in a small town, I live in small town. He knew he was gay from a very young age, and I remember when I was five and my father told my sisters they were turning me into a faggot. Kurt might as well have been real as far as character development goes. Many people felt or feel as if they know him. My biggest hindrance isn’t Kurt. It’s Kurt and Blaine, the boyfriend he found by transferring to a private magical school for gays only. Where was my Prince Charming, willing to stop the world and sing me thirty-two bars of a romantic cliché written nearly one hundred years ago, warning me of the freezing air outside as a means to keep me inside and eventually sleep with me? Where was my holiday crush, dying to sing a song with me made famous by a legendary songbird and famed homosexual porn star husband? Google Jack Wrangler, your life will be better because of it. I’m happy for the characters. I’m glad that it was as simple as taking a trip to Gay Land, picking out the sweetest model, and driving him back home to live out your days in happy gay bliss while each of you takes turns being more perfect. Kurt and Blaine are so wonderful, they even have sex in a special teenage special gay way, fully clothed, when Kurt loses his virginity.

Truth is, there was no guy willing to sing me anything. There isn’t a school of gays you can attend while testing the waters, trying to sniff out the next Neil Patrick Harris. Chances are if you’re a gay male and you’re from a small town, you won’t get many Prince Charmings knocking down your door, willing to make you feel special. Hell, chances are if you’re a gay kid attending high school in a small town, you’re probably the only gay in the vicinity—the only openly gay one, of course. Where was my romance? The best I’ve gotten was a thirty-eight-year-old on Grindr lusting after a minor’s dirty pictures he never received. I didn’t go to the prom with my boyfriend, I was never sung to or caressed in that way, I don’t know what “I love you” means beyond friendship, my first and last kiss occurred in tenth grade and the next day the boy denied it ever happened. The only time I’ve ever been called attractive was by a straight bi-curious friend who considered me his “experiment” that led absolutely nowhere, and the only date I’ve ever been on was a non-date with a gay guy who just wasn’t interested in me that way. Glee is astonishing, but honestly sometimes even after you’ve had the proper revelations and accepted yourself and others around you, life still hurts.

It’s not Glee’s fault that I don’t have anyone. I take sole responsibility. But I blame them for hope. I, along with the rest of America, cheered for Kurt and Blaine’s first kiss. However, their kiss didn’t make me any less alone. It’s me who still cries in the middle of the night for reasons I “thought” I didn’t know, but in actuality was avoiding. It’s me who lives with the moment my teacher decided to get personal and made me truthful. It’s me who has no one and continually decides to largely suffer in silence. How do you tell a friend, “Hey, I need you” without sounding weak? How do you admit it to yourself without remembering how painful it is? And how do you still believe in love when it has never happened to you?

I falsely call Ryan Murphy a liar, because it has never happened to me. He’s deceitful because he made me forget that characters, while closely resembling real people, are fiction and their stories can have endings that include tremendous declarations of love and overwhelming displays of affection because they’re written in. As a real gay teenager living in a real small town, I have been living the truth of what Glee has to avoid if only for their namesake; there is quite possibly no love story waiting for me.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Amazon | Smashwords | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

Author Interview

What does your family think of your writing?
When the book came out it was a shock to them. I informed them while I was writing it, when I sought out a publisher, when the publisher picked it up – but when the initial cover art came out they freaked. I guess they didn’t think it was going to be real. I’m the first published author in the family. They’re supportive of my career even if they don’t actively engage in the art produced.

Tell us about your current work in process and what you’ve got planned for the future.
Hah. You mean, all the unwritten sitcom pilots in my head? Write them down. Sell them to Hollywood. Make some money.

Do you have any advice for all the aspiring writers out there?
Do it. Even when you don’t like yourself. Even when you don’t believe in yourself. Even when it’s hard.

If you could travel forward or backward in time, where would you go and why?
I would go forward. I want to see the amazing things I’d never get the chance to see.

We’ve all got a little voyeurism in us right? If you could be a fly on the wall during an intimate encounter (does not need to be sexual) between two characters, not your own, who would they be?
Bernadine and John. The scene in Waiting to Exhale when he announces his intention to make an honest woman out of his mistress.

If I were snooping around your kitchen and looked in your refrigerator right now, what would I find?
Probably mold. I live in a shared apartment with three other people. It can get pretty gross. And the refrigerator’s been broken for several days so . . . .

Meet the Author

Waldell Goode was born in Halifax, VA and is currently following dreams in Boston, MA.

Facebook | Twitter

Tour Schedule

7/23    We Three Queens      

7/23    Happily Ever Chapter

7/24    Books,Dreams,Life     

7/24    A. O. Chika Book Blog

7/25    MillsyLovesBooks      

7/25    MM Good Book Reviews      

7/26    Love Bytes      

7/26    Boy Meets Boy Reviews        

7/27    Divine Magazine        

Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway




Save

Save