Hello everyone! Holly here 😀 I’m here today to tell you about a story of mine that’s released tomorrow. As some of you might know, I write stories to celebrate certain days – all days should be celebrated. We’ll see if I ever get to write 365 (or 366 I guess so leap day is included too). I’ll try. 

On Tuesday, 8th of June, it’s Best Friend Day, so I’m having a friends to lovers theme over at my blog this month, and Just to Breathe that’s released tomorrow is of course a friends to lovers story. 

This all started with a song. I was walking to work early one morning and I’d put on one of those Discover Weekly lists on Spotify. On came You Say with Dori Freeman. Some lines in that song stuck with me, and I spent the entire workday thinking up a story. It’s nothing like the song, but there are little snippets that fit pretty well. 

So we have Nico and Matt who have been best friends since kindergarten. Nico has been in love with Matt for years, but he can’t picture his life without him and has therefore promised himself he’ll never let Matt know in case it would ruin what they have as friends.  

On his way to meet up with Matt, he’s knocked on the head and thrown in a trunk of a car. He’s then roughed up some by a group of guys who tell him he has twenty-four hours to get them the item they want. The problem is that Nico has no idea what it is they want.  

As soon as he can, he calls Matt who is a cop. To keep Nico safe, Matt takes him to a cabin where the two of them spend the night while trying to figure out what to do next. 

It’s a fast-paced slightly insane story. I had a great time writing it LOL. 

Excerpt:

“What are you doing?”

Nico jumped as Matt appeared inside the front door.

“I told you to lock the door.”

“Like a locked door would have stopped anyone.” He should have locked the door, though. He’d been too busy pacing to remember.

Matt was balancing a small cake on the palm of his hand and held a grocery bag in the other. “Happy birthday.” He offered the cake to Nico.

Nico smiled. He’d forgotten it was his birthday. “We’re having cake?”

“Not the dinner we’d planned but better than nothing, right?” Matt grimaced. “David called while I was in the car.”

“They’ve found them?” Hope spread in Nico’s chest.

“No. Someone broke into your apartment.”

Ice filled Nico’s veins. “What?”

“I’m sorry, Nico. It’s trashed. David said it looks like they were searching for something.”

“Searching? I don’t have anything.”

Matt dropped the bag and walked up to him. He plucked the cake from his hands and put it on the kitchen island before wrapping his arms around him. Nico couldn’t relax into the embrace. Someone had been in his apartment. He couldn’t go back there.

“We’ll figure it out.”

“What did they expect? That I had The Mona Lisa hanging on my wall? It’s a shitty apartment, Matt!” He took a step back, so he could gesture with his hands. He needed to gesture.

“I know. And I don’t think they were looking for The Mona Lisa. I haven’t heard anything about it being stolen.”

“What then? My dildo collection? They’re not made of gold.”

The corner of Matt’s mouth quirked. “I didn’t know you were a collector.”

“Oh God, has David seen it? He already hates me.”

Matt crossed his arms over his chest, looking a lot like David as he did. “He doesn’t hate you.”

“He does!” Nico threw his hands in the air. “He’s always growling when I’m around, always acting as if I’m… something.”

“You are something.”

Nico glared. “He’s acting as if I’m… subpar.”

Matt shook his head. “He’s not. It’s…” He shrugged.

“What?”

“He doesn’t like the way we are.”

Nico blinked. “He’s a homophobe? Typical cops.”

Matt grinned and shook his head. “No, he’s not a homophobe. He thinks I, or you, should do something about this situation.” He pointed between them.

What situation?

“Do you want me to go check your apartment? See how bad it is?”

Nico sighed. He didn’t want Matt to leave again. Being alone in the cabin drove him out of his mind. “Yeah. Could you hide my sex toys?”

Matt laughed. “Sure. Where do you keep them?”

“Bedside drawer, where else?”

“Considering both the burglars and Amber and David have been there, I doubt it’ll do any good, but I wouldn’t mind a peek at your collection.” He winked, grabbed the bag of groceries, and moved closer to the fridge.

Nico groaned and sank down on the ratty two-seat sofa. It wasn’t a big collection, but… “I’m gonna blush next time I see David.”

Matt barked a laugh. “I doubt it’s any worse than what he already had pictured.”

Once Matt had put away the groceries, he grabbed the car keys. “I’ll be back in a few hours then. Anything you want from your apartment?”

“Clothes? I don’t know. How long are we staying here?”

Matt shrugged. “Since they’ve raided your place, they know it isn’t there. I fear they’ll come for you next.”

Blurb:

Nico Allegretti has been best friends with Matt Barnes since kindergarten. There is no one more important to Nico than Matt, and while he’s known for years Matt is the one for him, he’ll never tell him. He won’t risk ruining their friendship.

On his way to meet Matt at the restaurant, a case of mistaken identity ends with Nico in the trunk of a car. When he’s released, his kidnappers give him twenty-four hours to give them what they want. The problem is, Nico has no idea what that could be.

Not knowing what else to do, he turns to Matt, who is a cop. Together they go into hiding while looking for clues. Being kidnapped doesn’t change Nico’s resolve to not let Matt know how he feels, but hiding in a small cabin together makes it hard to ignore. Matt’s small touches and compliments must mean nothing. Had Matt felt the same, he’d let him know by now … right?

Buy links:

Contemporary Gay Romance: 15,392 words

JMS Books :: Amazon :: books2read.com/JustToBreathe

Today, we have the lovely Pat Henshaw on a visit. Welcome!

The town began as a fictional gay-friendly bar in a small Northern California Sierra Nevada community east of San Francisco. There wasn’t much beyond the bar in What’s in a Name?, the first in the Foothills Pride series.

Oh, there was a coffee shop in the mall outside town, a mall shared by two other small towns, and there were a few eating establishments, but not much else.

When Redesigning Max came along, as the author of both books, I had to come up with a little more town, so I added a new coffee shop in the two-block downtown and a diner outside it. The fictional town was growing.

By the time I’d written Behr Facts and When Adam Fell, the town had grown by leaps and bounds. On the two blocks were a construction office and a five-star restaurant across the street from a steakhouse.

It wasn’t until I was working on Relative Best, number five in the series, that I discovered I was lost. Two of the characters in the book own and operate a barber shop and hair salon. They wanted to walk down the street to the coffee shop and get drinks. How far was it? What would they pass on the way?

I was lost in my own fictional town!

Since I don’t have a graphic program to map out my tiny refuge from the big city, how could I make a map to orient myself—and my thirsty characters?

Relying on the only program I know fairly well, I used Word to come up with this map after first drawing it by hand on a legal tablet.

As I kept working on the series (eight books in all), I added buildings and notations to the map. Today’s town looks like this:

Welcome to Stone Acres, California, where gay men find their happily ever after!

What’s in a Name? – After he gets dumped on his birthday, barista Jimmy gets drunk. A hunky, handsome bartender takes care of him. But what’s the bartender’s name?

Redesigning Max – Metro gay Fredi agrees to redo outdoorsman Max’s mountain cabin. While he’s at it, Max would like a makeover too. Fredi’s delighted to agree.

Behr Facts – Construction company owner Abe Behr hates to admit one of his family is skimming from the business, so he hires accountant Jeff to look at the books. They both find more than the thief in their search.

When Adam Fell – Celebrity chef Adam misses his addict boyfriend. But when David turns up saying he’s clean, will Adam take him back and start again?

Relative Best – Singer and hotel owner Zeke falls for Native American Vic. Finding time to have a boyfriend while performing at the bar and running the hotel might proved too much for a relationship.

Frank at Heart – Salt of the earth Frank, who owns and runs the hardware store, thinks

he’s too old for true love to find him. That is, until computer game programmer Christopher and his teenage son move to town.

Waking the Behr – San Francisco entrepreneur Mitch buys the town steakhouse and hires Ben Behr to remodel it. When they view the world from each other’s eyes, they like what they see.

Short Order – Who says a man has to be tall to find love? Not sous chef John or horticulture graduate Fen whose worlds collide in December over holiday cheer.

What am I working on now? A holiday story about two men who have nothing in common and must team up for a fundraiser. And a novel about a wounded former cop who settles in a coastal California town looking for respite and the artist who challenges him every step of the way in his recovery.

Series title: Foothills Pride

Author: Pat Henshaw

Publisher: JMS Books

Buy links:

JMS Books: https://www.jms-books.com/foothills-pride-c-82_464/

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=foothills+pride+series&crid=2RT7TZ0K04SBF&sprefix=foothills+pride%2Caps%2C224&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_15

Pathenshaw.com: https://www.pathenshaw.com/foothills-pride/

Queeromance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/pat-henshaw/

Author bio:

Pat Henshaw, born and raised in Nebraska, has lived on the U S’s three coasts, in Texas, Virginia, and now California. Before she retired, she held a number of jobs, including theatrical costumer, newspaper features reporter and movie reviewer, librarian, junior college English instructor, and publicist. She also loves to travel and has visited Canada, Mexico, Europe, Egypt, and Central America as well as almost all fifty US states.

Now retired, she enjoys reading and writing as well as visiting her older daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren on the East Coast and playing havoc with her younger daughter’s life in NorCal. She thanks you for reading her books and wants you to remember that every day is a good day for romance.

Author links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pat.henshaw.10

Twitter: @HenshawAuthor

TikTok: pathenshaw1

Website: https://www.pathenshaw.com

Hello everyone, Holly Day here. Today my story The Hunger Gap is released.  

Do you know what the hunger gap is?  

In Sweden, where I live, we can’t grow things all year. Our winters are too dark and too cold. Some crops can survive in the garden beds, kale for example, but they don’t grow. So everything we want to eat during the year we have to plant during spring and summer, and then we need to preserve it. Or had to, is more correct since we now have fresh fruit and veg all the time in the shops – not from Sweden, though. 

Potatoes and salted herring were pretty much all there was to be had during the winter months before we had the overflowing grocery shops we have today. 

When covid hit, I wasn’t particularly scared of getting sick (don’t get me wrong, the virus is scary) but I worried more about what would happen if borders closed completely. We wouldn’t survive up here and the thought of starving scared the crap out of me. 

For how long would you survive if you didn’t have a shop or a marketplace to go to? 

If you live in California (just as an example) you can grow things all twelve months of the year. It’s possible. If you have a piece of land, you could grow stuff. Here? Not so much. 

The Hunger Gap takes place in a dystopic future where every district has to produce their own food. I gave the people about the same climatic conditions as I have where I’m at. This means that now in May, things are slowly starting to get green. We’re still at risk of getting nights below freezing, so lettuce, radishes, brassica, and a few other crops are about what you can grow at this point. Though I moved my tomato plants to the greenhouse a few days ago. I’ll likely have to carry them inside again, we’ll see. 

So, The Hunger Gap, no fresh veggies, and everyone living outside the city limits have to grow enough food to not only feed themselves but the entire city. To make sure no one gets more than the other (unless they’re rich and powerful, of course) they have controllers – government-employed workers in charge of bringing the food into the city market every Friday. 

George is a homesteader, and Axel is a starving controller with a daughter. It’s pretty much as grim as it sounds LOL 

Excerpt:

Axel hadn’t been in a barn in about thirty years. He’d spent the summers with his grandmother as a child, and she’d had a small farm similar to this. But that had been before the economy collapsed, before people were starving. Axel hadn’t paid much attention, there had been food in abundance, and no weekly controls or food tolls.

“I keep them here.” Mr. Vega gestured at a small stall with a couple of laying boxes in the corner and a roosting bar on the opposite wall. Axel didn’t know much about keeping hens, but it looked a bit too clean compared to the vague memories he had of his grandmother’s chicken coop. “See, there is one now.” He gestured at a bird coming in through the door. Axel frowned. He knew nothing about hens, but the one strutting around by the barn door looked more like a rooster than a hen.

Mr. Vega took a few hasty steps in its direction, and it hurried off. “Oh, she ran off.”

Of course, it did. Mr. Vega had intentionally scared it off. Axel frowned at him. A crow cut through the air. “That’s a rooster.”

“What?”

“The crowing. I might not know a lot about homesteading, Mr. Vega, but that sound, it’s a rooster.”

“It’s June’s rooster. She’s allowed one.”

For a second, Axel wanted to argue. He couldn’t appear weak. Before he accused Mr. Vega of anything, he glanced down at his paper. June Stone, George Vega’s next-door neighbor, was granted three hens and one rooster. She was a single mother of three and was allowed to keep fourteen eggs a week—seven eggs, as every adult was allowed, then two per child, and one extra because she was a homesteader. He assumed she was allowed the extra hen so she would cover her own consumption. He still didn’t understand the rules. Many seemed as if they’d been made on a whim and then never changed.

Mr. Vega, for example, could keep eight eggs for himself, not a single more, but on Friday when he got in line for his food package at the town square, he could be given seven eggs, and then he’d have the right to them. If Axel dropped by on a control and found fifteen eggs, Mr. Vega would be punished. It made no sense.

Axel took a deep breath as a wave of dizziness hit him. “Ms. Stone lives on the other side of the hill.” He tried to focus on the conversation, and not on Mr. Vega or the rules.

Mr. Vega nodded. “Yes, but birds roam, and our properties border each other. We have a fence between them, but we’ll hear the rooster. And sometimes they fly over the fence.”

Axel wasn’t sure he believed him, but he let it go for now. He straightened his back and met Mr. Vega’s gaze. “I’ll be back on Thursday, Mr. Vega. I expect you to have everything ready for me when I come.”

They walked out of the barn and toward the car where the guard was waiting. What was the point of having him if he stayed by the car when Axel inspected the property?

“It’ll be eggs.”

“What?” Axel blinked, having lost himself in his head again. For a second, he thought Mr. Vega would smile, but then he scowled instead.

“My payment this week. It’ll be eggs.”

“Oh, no vegetables?” He looked around the garden bed closest to the car. What he wouldn’t give for something fresh. He hadn’t had anything green in months.

“We’re in the hunger gap, Mr.…”

“Rowe, Axel Rowe.” Damn, should he have introduced himself when he arrived? Probably.

“There won’t be any vegetables for weeks. The government hasn’t decided yet how many seeds we’re allowed this year.”

They hadn’t? But it was already April. From what Axel could remember, his grandmother had the windowsills packed with seedlings in April. Maybe he remembered wrong.

“What’s this then?” He gestured at the plants taking over the garden bed.

“Chicken weed.”

“Chicken…”

“It doesn’t count as chicken food.”

Axel nodded. “And that?” He pointed at some leaves coming up through the soil.

“Bishop weed.”

There it was again, a flicker of something too quickly concealed for Axel to know if it was there or if he imagined it.

“Is it edible?”

“It’s not poisonous. Can’t have poisonous plants growing where the hens peck around. I wouldn’t survive if they died.”

Axel assumed he was telling the truth. The hens would help a good deal to keep Mr. Vega fed. A quick glance at the record before he’d exited the car had told him, Mr. Vega most often paid his toll in eggs.

Mr. Vega turned toward the house, effectively preventing Axel from asking more questions. “See you on Thursday, Mr. Rowe.”

Axel nodded and climbed into the car.

Blurb:

After years of the government taking everything he grows, homesteader George Vega has had enough. Food is scarce and people are starving. To provide for himself, he’ll need to break the law. Together with his next-door neighbor June, he sets up a system to hide food from the controller during his weekly collecting visits.

Axel Rowe won’t survive much longer. Every scrap of food he can get his hands on, he gives to his six-year-old daughter, but it isn’t nearly enough. Luck is on his side when he secures a job as a controller. He realizes taking the job will make people dislike him, but he has to eat.

George understands the danger he’s in when his old, lazy controller is replaced with a new, more observant one. Axel suspects there is something George is withholding, but when George takes care of him after nearly collapsing from hunger, Axel is more curious about how he’s able to keep food for himself than he’s interested in reporting him. George knows the risk, but after having looked into Axel’s desperate eyes, he’s compelled to take care of him. But can an outlaw homesteader have a relationship with the man who’s supposed to make sure he follows the law?

Buy links:

Dystopian M/M Romance: 23,976 words

JMS Books :: Amazon :: books2read.com/TheHungerGap

 

 

About Holly:

According to Holly Day, no day should go by uncelebrated and all of them deserve a story. If she’ll have the time to write them remains to be seen. She lives in rural Sweden with a husband, four children, more pets than most, and wouldn’t last a day without coffee. 

Holly gets up at the crack of dawn most days of the week to write gay romance stories. She believes in equality in fiction and in real life. Diversity matters. Representation matters. Visibility matters. We can change the world one story at the time. 

Connect with Holly @ https://lnk.bio/xpae or visit her website @ hollydaywrites.wordpress.com