Marie Sexton's Blog, page 12

Guest Post: S. Hunter Nisbet and What Boys Are Made Of

Hello! My name is S. Hunter Nisbet, and I’d love to introduce to you my debut novel, What Boys Are Made Of.

The first thing I knew about one of my characters is that he was gay.

The second thing I knew was that nobody around him had a clue. That this, in fact, would be a major plot event that would make so many things make sense. That it would be my trump card, my big reveal. And why?

Because I like to make marketing really, really difficult.

Alright, I admit, there’s more to it than that. A lot more.

I grew up in a small town on the edge of Appalachia, where we didn’t quite have mountains, but we did have meth labs. When I was fifteen, one of the boys in my English class told me he was gay, and that went well enough that he decided to tell everyone. Six months later, his parents had him seeing a councilor to fix him. No one else at my high school came out of the closet to anyone but close friends.

That was ten years ago. So near, so far.

Not everyone comes out when they want to; not everyone comes out at all. Their decisions are not predicated on want, but on can and cannot. And I wrote a book so I could tell the story of someone who is doing their best under difficult circumstances. To someone who perhaps was going through them themselves.

And the rest of us, of course, because who hasn’t had to make bad choices under worse circumstances? If you haven’t, I hope you never have to.

I didn’t write a coming-out story, but I made one where we can understand why not. I can’t tell you that there’s a romance in this book; there isn’t. I can’t tell you that my gay character is in love—he’s not sure that he is. I can’t even tell you who he is, or where you’ll meet him, or why exactly he keeps his secrets.

You’ll have to find that out for yourself.

Summary

In this gritty debut set in a near-future Appalachia, S. Hunter Nisbet presents a stunning story of surviving the choices we make—and those that are made for us.

Simon “Saint” Flaherty is sixteen the day he enters a back-alley mixed martial arts fight in his Appalachian town. The odds are overwhelmingly in his favor, but no one expects him to win by accidentally killing his opponent, least of all Simon. His coach uses the publicity to set Simon up in the fight of his life in scarcely a month’s time, but physically ready doesn’t mean mentally ready.

Erin Livingston has taken care of Simon since he was orphaned at the age of eleven, a replacement son for the one stolen away from her by a war that tore the country apart and left her hometown in isolated ruin and at the hands of despot cartel leader Jeff Petrowski. Not only does Petrowski keep an iron grip on the community, but his grasp is also rapidly closing in on Erin as Simon’s limelight reveals a secret she’s desperate to keep hidden from the world. Now Erin is searching for a way out, any way out.

Nothing can stop Simon’s next fight, barreling toward them at the speed of a shotgun shell. No one dares help Erin, not if it means risking their lives against a man with no mercy. In this tightly woven story of enduring in the face of violence, Simon and Erin must decide whether a chance to escape a life not worth living is worth the danger of losing it altogether.

BUY IT HERE

Read an excerpt from What Boys Are Made Of below.

Excerpt from chapter three of What Boys Are Made Of. The narrator for this chapter is Art, Simon’s coach.

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After both militaries cleared out of the foothills, Mick Perry dumped his uniform in a ditch, stole a truck full of ammo, and drove back here to set up shop in his old family home, a two-story that opens straight onto the street. The sign on the front of his place says it’s a pawnshop, but what Mick deals is arms.

He also headlined the first knife tournament Buchell ever had.

I bang on the door as Simon and I enter, bell ringing above our heads. Mick’s hunched over his counter, staring into a cup of coffee. His eyebrows go up when he sees who it is.

“Hey lookie, if it isn’t the new angel of death and his handler.” He gives a whistle between his teeth that I could kill him for. “What are you doing in my humble little establishment, Saint Flaherty?”

“I got a boy here who needs to stay alive next time someone pulls a knife.”

“So you thought of your good friend Mick, huh? Knew you’d come by sooner or later. It’ll cost you a pretty penny, but yeah, I’ll give your boy knife lessons. That is why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Simon looks to me and I grin. “Mick and I go way back. We fought together, played high school football together.”

“Haven’t seen you in a long while, Artie. Must’ve been, what, couple months? Forget where I live?”

“Yeah, well, I been busy getting Simon here into winning shape.”

Mick looks Simon up and down, theatrical to a fault, taking in everything from the enormous old army boots to the T-shirt stretched tight across his shoulders. “Jesus, you sure have. And now you wanna arm him?”

“Can you do it?”

He moves before I’m even finished with the sentence, the knife coming out of nowhere. Steel flashes for a brief second and then gleams, stopped mid-plunge as Simon’s biceps strain. Eyes lock, will against will, as he slowly pushes Mick’s weapon away from his heart.

Simon doesn’t see the second knife until it’s up against his neck.

Mick grins like a wolverine before stepping back and dusting his hands off. Who knows what Simon’s thinking. If he thinks.

“Always wanted to try that. Not half-bad reflexes, good strength. Yeah, I can do it. Get him over here every day, and don’t let him fight for at least a month, regulation or otherwise, not until I’ve got him in shape to defend himself. Has he got a knife?”

Simon begins to shake his head, then pulls out the dead boy’s jackknife that he took from me. Not that he knows what it is. “Yeah. I do.” It’s the first thing he’s said since we left the park.

“Then bring yourself and that here when you’re done with—you’re still in school, yeah? Yeah, knew I’d heard something like that. Three o’clock, be here. Now scram, Artie and I gotta talk.” Mick watches him go. “Hell of a boy there.”

“Yeah.”

“Sixteen?”

“As of five days ago.”

“And you’ve never brought him to learn in all these years because…?”

I stare at the white-shirted figure outside, tramping over the broken sidewalk, going home to clean up before class. He barely fits in the desks anymore, but still he goes.

“’Cause I didn’t think it’d come to killing so soon.”

“Hey now, just because you can use a knife—”

“Save it, Mick. I’ll see you this afternoon, alright?”

He grins, almost leers. “What, you don’t trust me and your little pet alone?”

“Course not. He’s already killed one man this week. Wouldn’t want to make it two, now would we?”

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Full disclosure: What Boys Are Made Of is book 1 of the Saint Flaherty series. It is primarily a novel of suspense, not romance. There’s no sex in the first book. There is, however, a fair amount of swearing and violence.

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Thank you so much for having me here, Marie, it’s been a pleasure! What Boys Are Made Of is available on Amazon as an ebook for $2.99 or paperback for $12.99.

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Never a Hero now available in audio!

Everyone deserves a hero.

Owen Meade is desperately in need of a hero. Raised by a mother who made him ashamed of his stutter, his sexual orientation, and his congenitally amputated arm, Owen lives like a hermit in his Tucker Springs apartment. But then hunky veterinarian Nick Reynolds moves in downstairs.

Nick is sexy and confident, and makes Owen comfortable with himself in a way nobody ever has. He also introduces Owen to his firecracker of a little sister, who was born with a similar congenital amputation but never let it stand in her way. When she signs the two of them up for piano lessons—and insists that they play together in a recital—Owen can’t find a way to say no. Especially since it gives him a good excuse to spend more time with Nick.

Owen knows he’s falling hard for his neighbor, but every time he gets close, Nick inexplicably pulls away. Battling his mother’s scorn and Nick’s secrets, Owen soon realizes that instead of waiting for a hero, it’s time to be one—for himself and for Nick.

BUY IT HERE:
Amazon
Audible
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Get Release for 50% Off!

From now through April 30th, you can get the ebook of Release for 50% off if you buy it directly from my Selz store. Use code A46YQO3H.

Davlova: a poverty-ridden city-state ruled by a tyrannical upper class. Resources are scarce and technology is illegal. But in the slums, revolution is brewing.

Misha is a common pickpocket until his boss gives him a new job. Disguised as a whore, Misha is sent to work for one of the most powerful men in the city. But his real task is far more dangerous: get close to Miguel Donato, and find something – anything – that will help topple Davlova’s corrupt government.

Misha is plunged into the decadent world of the upper class, where slaves are common and even the most perverse pleasure can be found. Although he’s sure Davlova’s elite is involved in something horrific, proof is hard to come by, and Misha begins to fall in love with the man he’s supposed to betray. Then Misha meets Ayo – a sex slave forced by the neural implant in his brain to take pleasure from pain – and everything changes. As the lower class pushes toward a bloody revolution, Misha will find himself caught between his surprising feelings for Donato, his obligations to his clan, and his determination to save Ayo.

Warning: This book contains graphic descriptions of violent sexual acts of questionable consent that may be disturbing to some readers. 

You can also still get Between Sinners and Saints for only $1.25 using discount code 6CKYDJAC. (Offer expires May 1, 2016.)

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2nd Edition of Between Sinners and Saints available for only $1.25

Levi Binder is a Miami bartender who cares about only two things: sex and surfing. Ostracized by his Mormon family for his homosexuality, Levi is determined to live his life his own way, but everything changes when he meets massage therapist Jaime Marshall. 

Jaime is used to being alone. Haunted by the horrors of his past, his only friend is his faithful dog, Dolly. He has no idea how to handle somebody as gorgeous and vibrant as Levi. 

Complete opposites on the surface, Levi and Jaime both long for something that they can only find together. Through love and the therapeutic power of touch, they’ll find a way to heal each other, but can they learn to live as sinners in a family of saints?

This title was originally released by Amber Allure in 2011. It has been re-edited, but the content is unchanged. 

Between Sinners and Saints is available on ARe, and it’ll be available on Amazon in the very near future, but if you buy it directly from my Selz store, you can get it for only $1.25. Use discount code 6CKYDJAC. 

 

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The Five Senses Blog Tour

The brain processes all the sensory information we receive and helps us to organise and understand it. We then respond through thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Receptors all over our bodies pick up sensory information, but for people who have sensory integration difficulties, this doesn’t happen automatically, and they may get stressed – or even feel physical pain – as they struggle to deal with all the sensory information coming their way.

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Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog. I’m so happy to be part of RJ Scott’s blog tour. I admit, my personal experience with autism is quite limited, and when RJ invited me to participate in her blog tour, I had no idea what I’d write. But the above quote made me think of writing Blind Space.

Blind Space is a fun little scifi enemies-to-lovers novella I wrote a few years ago. In it, Captain Tristan Kelly — a soldier assigned to protect the spoiled son of a rich politician — is captured by space pirates and temporarily blinded.

I woke to men shouting, seemingly just down the hall from my room. I couldn’t make out their words, but there was no missing their urgency. Men yelling wasn’t necessarily indication of a serious problem. It was probably just two men having a disagreement, as often happened when we were locked together in such tight quarters for any amount of time.

I was halfway into my pants when the alarm went off, a loud, blaring horn that caused me to clamp my hands over my ears. Not just an argument, then. This was an actual emergency.

Still barefoot, wearing only my uniform pants, I stumbled into the hallway and turned toward the commotion at the end of the hall.

Pirates!

I had only a moment to see it all: Rikard, fully dressed and blindfolded, with his hands tied behind his back, and the pirates with their loose silk shirts and bright, spiked hair. They were all wearing wrap-around mirrored shades over their eyes, and I had just enough time to realize what that meant, but not enough time to do anything about it before the flashgun blinded me.

Flashguns were a favorite weapon of pirates—they blinded the victim, but not permanently. With laser treatment, eyesight could be restored almost immediately. Without treatment, eyesight would generally return in four to six weeks. It incapacitated without lowering the trade value of the commodity. Even knowing it was coming, the sudden loss of sight was unbelievably disorienting. I stumbled and fell into the wall. I had to use it to hold me up. I kept blinking— some part of my brain seemed to think it would help.

Tristan remains blind for most of the rest of the book.

Looking back, I can’t remember exactly why I decided to make Tristan blind. What I do remember is how hard it was to write a story from the point of view of a blind man. I swore I’d never write a blind character again. (Something my daughter loved reminding me of when I wrote Damned If You Do, which — you guessed it! — involved a blind man. But at least he wasn’t the POV character!)

Blind Space is a simple enough premise, but I kept stumbling over new situations where Tristan’s lack of sight changed the scene dramatically. Eating dinner, using the bathroom, shaving. Everything was suddenly more difficult. I had to rely on Tristan’s other senses. Smell especially became a big part of the narrative. And later, when Tristan gets his sight back…

Well, I don’t want to give too much away, but if you leave a comment on this post, you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a free ebook or audio download of Blind Space, and you can find out how it ends.  

Be sure to check out RJ’s blog to see the whole Five Senses Blog Tour schedule. Also, stop by the TTC Books & More Autism Auction. There are tons of fabulous prizes you can bid on from a bunch of different authors and publishers. I’ve donated signed paperbacks of Winter Oranges and Trailer Trash, as well as a complete set of the Coda books in paperback. (And if the winning bid is more than $50, the winner can choose the hardcover edition of Promises rather than the paperback.)

Thanks to everybody for stopping by, and thank you to RJ for organizing the blog tour!

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Trailer Trash, and Conflicted Relationships with Setting

Last November, I attended a writing retreat with a group of local authors. It was fun and very productive, but there was one point where we were asked to name our favorite writer movies. I have to be honest: I hadn’t even seen most of the titles named. After doing a bit of research, I don’t think I’ll go out of my way to change that, either. I like my movies to be fun, light, and entertaining. The words “poignant” and “life-changing” make me run screaming. I took a deep breath and mentioned my favorite writer movie — Orange County — with a great deal of trepidation. Sure enough, nobody there had even heard of it, and I’m sure if any of them looked it up later, they dismissed it as being juvenile and silly. Well, it is, in many ways. But it also has some really great moments. It’s kind of goofy, which is part of why I love it, but there’s more going on underneath than meets the eye.

With the release of Trailer Trash only a couple of days away, I keep thinking about one particular quote near the end of the movie. It’s in this scene:

In case you don’t want to watch the whole thing, the quote is this: “Every good writer has a conflicted relationship with the place he grew up.”

Now, whether or not I’m a “good writer” must be left for others to debate, but the last half of the line really hit home for me. I spent the first eleven years of my life in a small town in Wyoming, and I definitely have a very conflicted relationship with it. In some ways, I love it. I have fond memories of certain parts of it. But in other ways, I hate it. It’s kind of a crappy little place, more of a giant truck stop than a town. Sometimes I miss it, and yet I wouldn’t move back for all the money in the world.

The place we moved to, Fort Collins, Colorado, was bigger and nicer than my hometown in just about every way, and for a teenager, it offered a world of opportunities, but I was very much a hick from the sticks. I knew very little about the broader world. It was 1984, and I didn’t even know who Madonna was, much to the amusement of my classmates. I’m not sure I even quite realized how clueless I was until years later.

Eventually, of course, I found my place. Not only did I go to junior high and high school in Fort Collins, I went to college here too, and I chose to stay after graduation. I bump into somebody from school at least once a year. Sometimes, it’s a nice reunion. More often than not, it’s uncomfortable as hell, and so I suppose even though I love Colorado, I have a slightly conflicted relationship with Fort Collins, as well.

Why am I telling you all this? Because Trailer Trash, which comes out today, is the book born of my conflicted relationship with both of the towns I grew up in. I took my favorite parts of my hometown, and transplanted them into the fictional town of Warren, Wyoming. I also took the worst parts of my hometown, and amplified them by making the town even smaller and more isolated. And then I took some of the more aggravating parts of my teen years in Fort Collins, and tossed them into the mix. My primary goal in writing Trailer Trash was to capture the isolation and hopelessness of a dying town in the middle of nowhere, before the internet came along and made the world easily accessible to anybody with a computer.

But don’t let any of that fool you. Trailer Trash isn’t about me, and it’s not as depressing as it sounds. It’s a coming-of-age story about first love and first times and about finding hope in a place that seems to have none. And I promise, it has a happy ending.

Trailer Trash is available now. You can find it here:

Amazon Kindle

ebook from All Romance ebooks

ebook from Riptide

Paperback from Amazon

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Follow Along on my TRAILER TRASH Blog Tour

Trailer Trash comes out in just three days! After having this book on a back burner for five years, it’s hard to believe it’s finally going to see the light of day.

Buy links for Trailer Trash will be popping up on Amazon, ARe, and all the other usual vendors over the next day or so. Officially, it won’t be released until Monday. But remember, if you preorder it from Riptide, you get to download it two days early, which means you could have it in your hot little hands (or on your hot little ereader, at any rate) as early as tomorrow!

My (INSANELY BIG) blog tour also starts on Monday. Please follow along for prizes, excerpts, tidbits about the writing of the book, and lists of my favorite movies, TV shows, and albums from the 80s. Here’s the schedule:

March 21, 2016  –  Love Bytes Reviews
March 21, 2016  –  Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews
March 21, 2016  –  Bookaholics Not-So-Anonymous
March 21, 2016  –  Boys on the Brink
March 21, 2016  –  The Day Before You Came
March 21, 2016  –  Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents
March 22, 2016  –  Prism Book Alliance
March 22, 2016  –  Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words
March 22, 2016  –  MM Good Book Reviews
March 22, 2016  –  Keysmash
March 22, 2016  –  3 Chicks After Dark
March 22, 2016  –  My Fiction Nook
March 23, 2016  –  Delighted Reader
March 23, 2016  –  GGR-Review
March 23, 2016  –  Book Reviews and More by Kathy
March 23, 2016  –  Erotica for All
March 23, 2016  –  The Jeep Diva
March 23, 2016  –  That’s What I’m Talking About
March 24, 2016  –  Man2Mantastic
March 24, 2016  –  Attention is Arbitrary
March 24, 2016  –  The Novel Approach
March 24, 2016  –  Words of Wisdom from the Scarf Princess
March 24, 2016  –  QUEERcentric Books
March 24, 2016  –  Sinfully MM Book Reviews
March 25, 2016  –  Joyfully Jay
March 25, 2016  –  Cup o’ Porn
March 25, 2016  –  Wicked Faerie’s Tales
March 25, 2016  –  Booklover Sue
March 25, 2016  –  AReCafe

 

Told you it was big.

There’s also supposed to be a live chat on Friday, March 25th, but the details of that are still hazy. I’ll update here on the blog as soon as I know more.

Still not sure if Trailer Trash is your cup of tea? Check out what author R.J. Scott had to say about it. (And I promise, I didn’t pay her to say any of it!)

Thank you to everybody who’s already read or ordered the book! I appreciate your support.

Now… bring on Monday!

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One More What?

Once upon a time, my good friend Ethan Stone sent me a short story to read. It was one he’d trunked a few years prior, and he wanted to know if I thought it could be submitted to a publisher. The story was about an older man and much younger man who lived in the same apartment complex. I thought it had potential, but I also felt it had a couple of problems. We talked about how he could fix it. We debated expanding it into a co-written novella, but in the end, Ethan saw that I was taking it in a new direction and told me to go ahead and do whatever I wanted with it.

What I ended up doing was moving the story to the Vietnam era and drastically changing the ending. That story became One More Soldier. It was originally published by Silver Publishing back in 2010 (and has since been re-released by me). Although I offered to put Ethan’s name on it as a co-author, he felt I’d changed it enough that it wasn’t really his story anymore (although I’ve always been honest about having stolen it from him). I will forever be grateful to him for graciously letting me hijack his story.

Then, a few months ago, Ethan said, “I think I’ll rewrite that story my own way.” And he did. His version is called One More Time, and it’s available now.

Now, it should be noted, these stories both came from the same seed (which Ethan wrote), but both of them are significantly different than that original story. But don’t be surprised if you find a few things (other than the character’s first names) that seem the same.

ONE MORE TIME

Love, Vegas Style, Book 3

Small town cop Will Jacoby is comfortable in his life, or so he thinks. When he realizes that Brannon Frost, his neighbor and friend, has grown into a handsome young man, he’s confused by his interest. Things get even more messed up in Will’s head when Brannon kisses him.

A man would know he’s gay before the age of thirty, right?

When Brannon’s father dies, Will steps up and becomes the friend Brannon needs. Soon Will is no longer able to deny his feelings for the young man, even though it could damage his carefully constructed life and career.

This story was formerly part of the multi-author anthology Uniform: A Man in Uniform MM Bundle.

BUY IT HERE

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Damned If You Do Available for Preorder

You can now preorder Damned If You Do from Amazon.

The path to temptation is paved with a hellish amount of paperwork.

Soul acquisition is a drag, but if Abaddon doesn’t catch up on his quota, he could be demoted to scooping poop for the Hounds of Hell. With a deadline hanging over him, he heads for the Bible Belt, looking for the perfect combination of sweetness and challenge.

Seth is a blind musician, part of a traveling tent revival. He’s cute, mystically talented, and quotes the Bible at every turn. His soul is pure enough to fill Abaddon’s quota for months to come, and Abaddon is determined to claim it.

The problem? There’s the revival foreman who watches Abaddon’s every move. Then there’s the mystery of Seth’s many unusual talents. Lastly, there’s Abaddon himself. He’s beginning to like Seth a bit too much. Maybe Seth deserves something better than damnation.

But Hell’s agenda isn’t negotiable, and time is running out. If Abaddon doesn’t play his cards right, he could condemn both of them to the worst fate of all—an eternity apart.

Warning: Contains a Bible-quoting twink and an irreverent devil who’ll do anything to avoid going “back to the office”. Also, snakes. Lots and lots of snakes.

Damned If You Do will be released June 14, 2016. Preorder it here.

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Second Hand now available in audio!

Second Hand is now available on Audible. It’ll pop up on Amazon in the next few days or so. And yes, the rest of the Tucker Springs series will also be released in audio eventually. Never a Hero is currently in production and will probably be released in late April. Stay tuned for details!

BUY IT HERE
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