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Tag: paranormal romance

The Haunting Crush Releases!

The Haunting Crush Releases!

This book takes place in my home town and includes the true tale of the Ashbrook Wash Ghost, so it’s pretty near to my heart. I wrote this also to point out some of the dynamics I see living in a small town on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona – including race (we are on the edge of the Pima reservation), how gay people are treated (well and not so well) and the stark division between the have’s and the have not’s. Though Kai and Conner are fictitious characters, they embolden some of the characteristics I’ve seen as a parent of two now young adults who grew up here.  There are kids living in mansions in the desert who go to school with kids on welfare and food stamps, whose home life is anything, but normal. For the most part, everyone gets along pretty well. However, there are the bullies.

I added the ghost story here, because I love the series Ghost Adventures and I’ve had quite a few ghostly experiences myself. When I was a kid, my friends and I used to do these seances with a table (like in the book) and at one point, we found our kitchen cabinet doors opening and closing by themselves. I was fortunate in that my father was an Episcopalian priest, so he blessed the house and forbade us from having any more seances and everything stopped. I’ll just add that I lived in the duplex Kai and Bryce live in and I’m telling you, there is something in that place, LOL. I did see a shadow figure in my bedroom there (believe it or not). Okay, on to the book…

Giveaways!

This time around, three lucky readers will get to pick their choice of any of my published works, including this book! There is also a free Prequel read for this book if you sign up for my newsletter🙂

And now, the Excerpt:

“Here’s your beer.” Brandon, sitting next to Kai, pushed a fresh beer toward him.

Kai surveyed the table. It was empty. Not good. “Where is everyone?”

Brandon poked at Kai’s arm. “Out dancing. Want to dance?”

“No.” He picked up his beer and slugged half of it down. Maybe he needed a shot, or maybe he needed to leave.

Conner walked up from behind him. “Brandon. What are you doing with my boyfriend?” He slid in between Kai and Brandon, his back to the table, resting an elbow on it.

Kai hung his mouth open and stared at Conner. What the actual fuck is going on tonight? Has everyone gone insane?

Brandon scoffed. “Since when is Kai your boyfriend?”

“Since last weekend.” Conner puffed out his chest. “Right, Kai?” He glanced at him and lifted his brows.

Conner must be doing the fake boyfriend routine to try and help him get rid of Brandon. He’d go along with it for now. He snapped his mouth shut and wrinkled his forehead. “Y-yeah. Last weekend.” He glanced at Brandon, then focused on his beer. He’d need more than this one to get through this night.

Brandon leaned over the table, glaring at him. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“I-I don’t know.” He wasn’t a good liar. He hugged his beer.

“It’s still new. Isn’t it, baby?” Conner wrapped an arm around him and squeezed, then kissed him on the head.

Baby? Is he nuts? Kai snarled and shook his head. “Yeah, it’s new.” Conner kissed me. Holy fucking shit. He bit his lip, then peeked at Brandon.

Brandon slid off his stool, glared at Conner, then stomped off.

He dropped his arm from Kai’s shoulders, then sat at the barstool vacated by Brandon. He came close to Kai. “So, I guess I need your phone number if you’re going to be my boyfriend.”

“Stop it. I am not your boyfriend.” What was Conner trying to pull? He straightened and faced him.

“I still want your number.” Conner shimmied his cell phone out of the front pocket of his jeans, opened the interface and handed it to him. “Please? Then I can tell you when I’m going out of town, so you won’t get mad at me.” He snickered.

Heat flushed Kai’s face. He must have been pretty obvious in the bathroom. “Yeah, okay.” He relaxed his shoulders and entered his number, then handed the phone to Conner.

He called the number.

Kai’s phone buzzed in his back pocket and he slid it out, then turned it off.

“There, now you have my number, too.” Conner smiled at him. “Want to get a Jell-O shot with me?”

Crossing the Street by Belinda McBride

Courtesy of www.homotography.com

Most readers who are familiar with me are aware that I like to cross genre. Gleefully, I hop from sci fi to fantasy to paranormal. I’ve done bisexual ménage, interracial, multi-cultural and BDSM as well. So it’s not surprising that I finally ended up writing (and loving) m/m romance…except that I never really wanted or intended to write m/m. I was pretty happy with my straight and bi romances. This genre is so jam packed with new and established talent, there just didn’t seem to be a point. But then, I also vowed never to write werewolves…

There’s always been m/m content in my romances. There’s something so wonderful and winsome about men in love. Many women love that fantasy, especially if they happen to be in the middle of the mix.  In my father’s side of the family, polyamory popped up more than once…(my female relations do love their men!) so I’m comfortable with that concept. I love my heroines and take pride in writing amazing, complex women. I was really quite content with the variety in my writing.

That first m/m story came about pretty much by accident. I was doing a little writing exercise on first person POV and the male character that I was writing really had nothing to say. So I switched to the heroine, who was a bit of a disreputable princess. She kept spouting this line over and over…. ”A whore is a whore…” Beyond that, she didn’t have much to say. So I’m left sitting there with a first person POV exercise where neither character was talking. When that happens, you either scrap the project or turn their world upside-down.

So I made the princess a man.

Suddenly, Hela, who was now Helios, had a lot to say. And my reluctant hero pricked up his ears, got a gleam in his eye and told me that his name was Griffin. The story picked up speed and was suddenly in the hands of my Loose Id editor with a release date. An Uncommon Whore was surprisingly successful.

So my thought was that it was a fluke…right? I really didn’t want to go down that road too far. But when the Coming Out series was proposed at Loose Id, another character that had been languishing in my files came forward with a purpose. His name was Oliver Bleu and he wanted a man of his own. I finally understand the reason some of my characters and stories didn’t fly…they didn’t have chemistry with their heroine!

Have I crossed the road completely? Well, no. I still love my heroines. I love my ménages. But writing m/m romance was such a delightful shake-up in my routine that I certainly won’t be leaving it behind. I like playing off alpha against alpha and pulling little surprises in the balance of dominance. I enjoy letting tough men show their vulnerability to another man. In a good romance, I expect some element of sacrifice, and having a character risk his self image and his machismo is such a sacrifice.

So how did you cross the street? Did you download a m/m romance to see what all the fuss was about? Did you stumble across a manga, only to discover that the pretty girl was really a boy? Tell me about how you came to read or write in the m/m side of the spectrum. I’ll randomly choose a comment and the winner can choose an e-book from my backlist.

Belinda McBride lives in far northern California with her family, which mostly consists of an unruly group of Siberian Huskies. She writes for Loose Id, Changeling Press, Dreamspinner Press and Passion in Print Publishing.

Please visit her website at http://www.belindamcbride.com

Or her blog at http://www.belindam.blogspot.com

More information on her latest release:

LAST CALL EUROPE: BLACK WOLF
M/M Paranormal/Shifter Romance

Blurb:
Siberians live for the thrill of the chase; wolves exist for the joy of the capture. On a foolish dare, Jasper O’Shea takes a gamble at the Last Call, letting fate chose his lover for the night.

Detective Brutus “Brutal” Ballantine came to the Last Call looking for something far different than a sly, clever Siberian Husky. Yet when the call comes over the sound system, he finds himself unable to resist the lure of laughing blue eyes and a happy tail.

The chase is on, but who is the hunter, and who is the prey?

(Author’s note: While this story stands alone, it features characters introduced in Last Call Europe: Devil’s Advocate.)

Read an excerpt at: Changeling Press