Release Blitz + Giveaway: Bigger Love by Rick R. Reed

Join author Rick R. Reed and IndiGo Marketing in celebrating the release of YA romance, Bigger Love! Check it out and enter in the $10 NineStar Press credit giveaway!

Title: Bigger Love

Author: Rick R. Reed

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: June 15, 2020

Heat Level: 2 - Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 60100

Genre: Contemporary YA, LGBTQIA+, high school, gender-bending, school play, performance arts, romance, young love

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Synopsis

Truman Reid is Summitville High’s most out-and-proud senior. He can’t wait to take his fierce, uncompromising self away from his small Ohio River hometown, where he’s suffered more than his share of bullying. He’s looking forward to bright lights and a big city. Maybe he’ll be the first ever genderfluid star to win an Academy Award. But all that changes on the first day of school when he locks eyes with the most gorgeous hunk he’s ever seen.

Mike Stewart, big, dark-haired, and with the most amazing blue eyes, is new to town. He’s quiet, manly, and has the sexy air of a lost soul. It’s almost love at first sight for Truman. He thinks that love could deepen when Mike becomes part of the stage crew for Harvey, the senior class play Truman’s directing. But is Mike even gay? And how will it work when Truman’s mother is falling for Mike’s dad?

Plus Truman, never the norm, makes a daring and controversial choice for the production that has the whole town up in arms.

See how it all plays out on a stage of love, laughter, tears, and sticking up for one’s essential self…

Excerpt

Bigger Love

Rick R. Reed © 2020

All Rights Reserved

“There’s a man in your room. I can smell him.”

Truman Reid confronted his mom, Patsy, in the kitchen. Early morning sun streamed in brightly through the kitchen window over the sink, making Truman long for the relative freedom of summer that was about to be put to rest that very day.

Patsy glowered at him from the stove where she was scrambling eggs. She didn’t often get up to make him breakfast, but Truman had figured—at least at first—that she was doing so because this was Truman’s first day back at school. He’d be a senior at Summitville High. First days of school had always been a source of high anxiety for Truman, who’d been bullied and teased mercilessly throughout almost the entire four years. But now Truman wondered if Patsy had risen early to fix bacon and eggs because she was hiding a man in her room. You know, to distract him. This wasn’t a usual experience for his mom, Truman was sure, and he wondered if he’d embarrassed her. But he couldn’t help but wonder how a man in her room might affect his exclusive hold on her. Would he still get her undivided attention, you know, if this was a “thing”?

Of course, Patsy, lovely, diminutive, with curly black hair and wide eyes, had every right to have a man in her room. Even if that man smelled of cigarettes and motor oil. But she didn’t have the right, Truman opined, to keep secrets from him. A mother should never keep secrets from her boy, right? Wasn’t that one of those unwritten laws?

“That may be. Or may not be,” Patsy said, giving the eggs one final push-around with a spatula before dumping them on a plate. She sighed and eyed him. “I have a right to my privacy. You don’t need to be privy to every detail of my life. I show you that respect and expect the same in return.”

She’s reading my mind. Again. “Oh, I didn’t mean to pry, Mama. I just wanted to say it’s okay if you did have a man sleep over. It’s not like I would mind. It’s not like we’re not both adults around here. We have separate bedrooms and separate lives.” Truman almost choked on the words.

Patsy set the plate of steaming eggs before him. Truman saw, to his delight, that the four pieces of bacon Patsy had fried up before the eggs were all for him.

Patsy smiled, but there was something just a tad bit evil in it. “Thank you, sweetie. I’m so glad to have your go-ahead if I want to whore around.” She chuckled and returned to the counter where she’d left her mug of coffee. She leaned against the counter, mug in hand, and took a sip. Patsy was all of thirty-four years old but looked at least ten years younger in the dappled morning light, and Truman felt a rush of love for her. The bond they had was kind of a you-and-me-against-the-world one. Truman felt he could say just about anything to Patsy, and he knew she felt the same; witness the “whore” comment. What kind of mother said that to her son?

Truman wasn’t sure, but he was glad he had one who did.

Besides, between raising him, which could be, um, challenging at times, and working at the Elite Diner in Summitville’s tiny downtown, she had little time for romance. Given that Truman’s father was still a mystery to him—and to Patsy—he assumed that, once upon a time, she did have her whoring-around days, but he’d seen little evidence of them.

Until this morning.

“So who is he? Can I go take a peek? Is he hot?” Truman laughed.

Patsy answered the three questions in short order: “None of your business. No, you can’t. Yes. Very.” She took another sip of coffee and tightened the sash of her white chenille bathrobe. Truman noticed she was wearing a little makeup this morning—mascara, some blush, a hint of lip gloss. She hadn’t overdone it. Truman would say she looked “dewy” if she asked. “You need to eat up and get in the shower, young man. The bus will be here—” She turned to look at the wall clock on the soffit above the sink. “—in twenty minutes. I know you need your primping time.”

Truman dropped his fork to the table. “Seriously? Only twenty? Good Lord.” He wrapped his bacon up in a paper towel and headed for the single bathroom. Patsy blocked his way. “Since when do we leave our plates on the table? What? You think I’m your servant?”

“Mom!” Truman whined. “You know I need time to get ready. Please, please, please take care of it for me. I’ll love you forever!”

“Okay. This once. And sweetie, I’d thought loving me forever went without saying. But you cook and clean up tonight.”

“Deal.”

Truman rushed to the bathroom, wondering if Patsy would use the time to sneak her man out of the house. Too bad the only window looked out on the backyard. It was frosted glass anyway.

He hoped his mom had found someone to love.

He hoped his mom hadn’t found someone to love.

It had been just the two of them for so long, Truman didn’t know if he could cope with someone else vying for Patsy’s affections. He felt a little sense of violation at the thought.

In the bathroom, Truman laid out on the counter all the stuff a boy would need to make a suitable senior-year debut: eyeliner, clear mascara, blush, and the lip gloss that added no extra color to his lips but made them shine.

He stepped into the shower after brushing, flossing, and exfoliating his face.

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Meet the Author

Real Men. True Love.

Rick R. Reed is an award-winning and bestselling author of more than fifty works of published fiction. He is a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Entertainment Weekly has described his work as “heartrending and sensitive.” Lambda Literary has called him: “A writer that doesn’t disappoint…” Find him at www.rickrreedreality.blogspot.com. Rick lives in Palm Springs, CA, with his husband, Bruce, and their fierce Chihuahua/Shiba Inu mix, Kodi.

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Review: The Mighty Have Fallen by Bonnie Dee

Theatre headliner Trevor Rowland is at the peak of his career when disaster strikes. In one fell swoop, he loses his eyesight, his fame, and his boyfriend, who absconds with most of his money. Trevor must take on a flatmate, hardworking East Ender Jack Burrows, to afford the rent. Anger and bitterness have taken up residence in his heart—but Jack shines light into the shadowy corners with his relentlessly sunny disposition.

Jack introduces Trevor to a local drag club and convinces him he can enjoy the stage again. Trevor’s defences slowly come down as Jack becomes much more than a barely tolerated roommate. 

But will Trevor’s fragile trust be destroyed when it appears he’s been manipulated yet again by a man he’s come to care for? Will he reclaim his life or crawl back into a shell of defeat? Trevor must learn to trust not only a man, but himself, once more.

I’m a huge fan of Bonnie Dee’s words and have read her work across the genres. The Mighty Have Fallen is a great example of how she can bring a lot of elements to a story without becoming melodramatic just for the sake of it and keeping the focus on the evolution of the characters. Reading the blurb makes this story sound damn weighty, and while Trevor is going through a shitstorm in his life, the overall feeling is definitely more on the hopeful side and it was a much easier read than I expected. I was all geared up for some heavy angst and I was happy Trevor’s story didn’t go that direction.

Not that Trevor’s illness and adjustment to his new life is glossed over in any way, but the role his roomie Jack plays keeps the story heading to the positive and hopeful. We meet Trevor after he’s gone through occupational therapy and after his crappy boyfriend has hit the bricks. So, The Mighty Have Fallen is more about Trevor getting his independence and confidence back than about everything that led up to him losing so very much.

The only thing that I would have loved was to have Jack’s perspective as well. There was never a question as to his feelings for Trevor or his motives (at least to me, even if Trevor was a little clueless for a bit there), but I really loved his character and his attitude so more of him would have been a treat. This is definitely more of Trevor’s story though and adding more would have meant adding a lot more I think to get the right balance. Jack’s backstory would have to be there and so would more of Trevor’s detail, and again, I don’t think that’s what The Mighty Have Fallen was about, this was Trevor’s journey.

While I loved, loved, loved the evolution of the relationship between Trevor and Jack (who doesn’t love when roomies with bennies moves into all the feeeeeels???), I also really liked reading the interactions with the secondary characters. Trevor’s illness and all that he’s gone through has affected his perspective in so many ways and the conversations he had with his parents and old neighbor were well done and have more perspective on all that Trevor was learning about himself and his world.

I did get a bit fussy with Trevor when he had the clueless bit with Jack and questioned Jack’s motives, I couldn’t blame him given his past, but I also was feeling very protective of Jack by this point and all I wanted was for Trevor to make it right. Kudos to Trevor for pulling it together at the eleventh hour, conquering his fears and getting his HEA on with Jack.

**a copy of this story was provided for an honest review**

Review: Overly Dramatic by Rebecca Cohen

Andy Marshall moves to London looking for a fresh start after breaking up with his long-term boyfriend. To stave off boredom from his day job as an accountant and to meet new people, Andy joins a local amateur dramatics society called the Sarky Players based in Greenwich, South London. Despite his best efforts to avoid it, Andy is cast as one of the leads in a truly dreadful play called Whoops, Vicar, There Goes My Trousers, written by a local playwright.

The play might be bad, but the Sarky Players are a friendly bunch. Andy quickly makes new friends and finds himself attracted to Phil Cormack, a local artist helping with the props. But life doesn’t run to a script, so Andy and Phil will have to work hard to improvise their own happy ending. 

From page one, I had high hopes for this author's writing style. The humorous tone and witty observations were right up my street. It was these two things that kept me reading, I enjoyed the nod to modern culture - Andy and Naomi's gif war. I mean, who hasn't reposted/tweeted/pinned/e-mailed ridiculous animal gifs? No? Really, well you must have at least laughed at them right? Come on, nobody will tell your little secret, hell there are whole TV programmes dedicated to ridiculous animals! Well, I'm not to proud to admit I like a good animal gif and laughed at this bit. Mentally recognising many of the gifs mentioned may have added to the liking...

Ussie also made me laugh. Hell, she was my favourite character; 

"An octogeneraian with too much time on her hands."

She not only pens farcical plays full of double entendres, she games as a sexy elf and wishes to write erotica. Go you Ussie, grow old disgracefully and have fun!   I mean, who doesn't want to be like that when they hit their eighties? I know I do!

Unfortunately the characters was where it fell down for me, mainly because the only one I truly liked was Ussie. This means it is probably a  personal thing, because the writing wasn't bad, I just didn't really grow attached to any of the characters, not even Andy the MC, and this is a big thing for me. I need to... not even like the characters, but have an attachment to them. 

Andy seemed a bit know-it-all, Phil blew as hot and cold as a British summer, and the others seemed to be stereotypes. Naomi - cool, collected Naomi, Andy's office mate and first proper friend ends up having a slanging match with Jeanette because of some texts sent to Naomi's husband. That whole storyline annoyed the living daylights out of me, especially Andy's advice to Naomi, not that she join the players too, but that she keep an eye on Mark and Jeanette. Interfering bastard. I hate the implication that you can't have a laugh with someone (usually of the opposite gender) without it meaning you are flirting. Not even just flirting, but flirting with intention. Pisses me right off! I found it all the ,more irritating that Andy had only just become friends with these people and was dishing out advice. 

Yeah, I found it difficult to become attached to the characters, but as I said, this is truly a personal judgement and just because I didn't overly like them, doesn't mean you won't. I did enjoy the story as a whole, but I do need to invest in the characters for the story it really resonate with me.

A couple of times things were mentioned, that I stored away thinking they would be important to the story later, yet they never became an issue. This felt like a rooky writing mistake. At the start of rehearsals it is mentioned dates to keep clear and Andy notices a clash with his mum's surprise party. I really felt, the fact that this was mentioned, meant it was going to be significant to the plot later...but it wasn't at all. There is a quote by someone, possibly Alfred Hitchcock, that I can't find, so here is my mangled version of it (if anyone knows the actual quote and context please mention it in the comments):

" If there is an umbrella in scene one, it had damn well better rain by scene four."

Seeing as I seem to be particularly grumpy this morning I am going to mention a bugbear, and this is purely indulgent, definitely a me thing, and probably more to do with the publisher than the author but... I hate when books are set in England yet have an Americanised spelling. I have nothing against American spellings, nine time out of ten they make way more sense than the British version, but if it's set in England, use the English version. Please. Every time I came across the word theater I had a mental tantrum and said THEATRE, THEATRE, THEATRE. 

Theatre.

Sorry. Totally personal to me. I don't care about the spelling if the book is set in America, it wouldn't cross my mind (actually, the English version would then send me into my mental rant). I've just seen it in so many books and it really bugs me and takes me out of the book...again I reiterate, this is a personal thing.

Okay, so, all in all a fun book that I'm sure will be loved by many. Don;t let my personal dislikes put you off - sometimes a book is just not for everyone and I certainly didn't hate it. I'm tasked with writing a review about how I honestly felt about a book, and this is it.

A copy of this book was given in exchange for an honest review.

Find out more at Goodreads.