Guest Post and Giveaway: The With This Bling Blog Tour with L.B. Gregg

Today we’re so pleased to welcome author LB Gregg to on the tour for the newest installment in the Romano and Albright series, With This Bling. Enjoy LB’s guest post, and then be sure to check out the great giveaway! Details below.

Good luck!

Hi. My name is LB Gregg and I write gay romance. I’m here with Riptide Publishing celebrating the release of book three in my Romano and Albright series—With This Bling. It’s an exciting time. I know it’s also been a while and I appreciate readers sticking with me.

Expectation is a tricky thing. It took years for me to get to a point where I felt comfortable writing a new Romano and Albright book and once I did, I had a few false starts. Figuring out where to pick up the thread of Ce and Dan’s story proved harder than I anticipated.

Keeping things fresh is a challenge for any writer, and in the case of Romano and Albright, more than half a decade has passed since I last visited the guys. That’s a long time to pick up where you left off. In everything from popular culture, politics, publishing, and city’s landscape— New York City has changed. There’s a new mayor in town. Smart phones are universal, as is texting in emoji. We finally have marriage equality. Citi bikes racks fill the side streets, and Hurricane Sandy left damage, resulting in roadwork and traffic snarls. Wheat is out. Farm-to-Table is in. Uber is a thing. And so is Tinder (and Grinder) and social media is unavoidable. The High Line opened and stretches across the lower West Side, alive with history, blooming gardens, graffiti art, and tourists. And now One World Trade Center dominates the Manhattan skyline.

With This Bling begins only a couple of weeks after Trust Me If You Dare left off. Long enough for Caesar’s wounds to have healed after the BMW hijinks, but for this tentative, hot new thing between Dan and Ce to still feel fresh. The guys are just settling into a routine, but they still have a lot of questions.

Caesar makes frequent references to the here and now of 2008 and 2009 in books one and two—from marriage, to popular culture, to electronics and technology, to fashion trends—and I wasn’t sure if I should place the new story in 2015, or keep the guys sealed in the past. I struggled initially with how to adapt all the changes in our real world, with the very narrow timeline in my Romano and Albright series.

However, Caesar Romano is still the same twenty-eight year college graduate who struggles with the same day-to-day realties of life in the big city that most twenty-somethings do. Finances. Balancing family and friends. Commuting. Debt. Growing his career. Getting laid. Those basics haven’t changed for Caesar.

Yes, he’s always been a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, but because he’s young, he’s not oblivious to pop culture. Ce is and will remain current. Keeping him in the here and now wasn’t quite so difficult, because the things that make him tick haven’t changed, despite the prevalence of free wifi, a iPhone, Siri at his finger tips, and a languishing Twitter account.

And while Dan Albright might be a little above popular culture (Justin Bieber and Mylie Cyrus aren’t really on his radar), there isn’t a forty something in NY who hasn’t taken a selfie. Dan’s a smart guy. He’s hip. He’s educated. He loves to text. And the former detective has a firm opinion about both Deflategate and the World Series. He adores gadgets and video games and Dan’s not above using new and old technology to get his way. Those things won’t change about him either.

Because Romano and Albright are character driven books, I let Ce and Dan decide what things to keep, and what things they wished to upgrade. Putting Ce and Dan right here, right now, in this present, is something I’ll continue to do with the next book—Gaydar Love. The guys adapt better and faster than the rest of us, apparently, and they can pick up exactly where they left off, leaping through time and space as only fictional characters can. And neither one of them has aged. If only I could say the same.

About the Book:

Caesar Romano’s catering career is doing better than he’d ever dreamed. And so is his love life—even if his boyfriend’s house in Staten Island is way too far from civilization for his liking. But then in short order, Caesar is duped into helping his cousin propose, is tricked by his best friend and business partner into appearing on live television, and is harassed by a thug-like personal trainer and his far too beautiful wife. In fact, Caesar is almost too busy to notice that something is troubling his PI boyfriend, Dan Albright.

Almost.

Laid-back, open, charming—that’s the impression hunky former NYPD Detective Dan Albright gives everyone. Caesar can add sexually adventurous and a bit of an exhibitionist. But he also knows that Dan is hiding something—something dark and a little dangerous—and when Dan’s silence over his mysterious past threatens to harm them both, it’s Caesar’s turn to save the day.

But then again, a break-in, a gallery party, an heirloom ring, a new suit, and a stalker with bad BO are all just a typical week for Caesar Romano.

About the Author:

When not working from her home in the rolling hills of Northwestern Connecticut, author L.B. Gregg can be spotted in coffee shops from Berlin to Singapore to Panama–sipping lattes and writing sweet, hot, often funny, stories about men who love men.

For more info on L.B., because surely one can never get too much of a good thing, you can follow her on her preferred social media, Facebook. You can also e-mail L.B. at lbgregg at lbgregg dot com, visit her website www.lbgregg.com, be her GoodReads pal or follow her sporadic appearances on twitter.

Giveaway

To celebrate the release of With This Bling, L.B. Gregg is giving away a Romano and Albright mug with swag, and a $40 gift card to Amazon! Your first comment at each stop on this tour enters you in the drawing. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on December 12, 2015. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. Entries. Follow the tour for more opportunities to enter the giveaway! Don’t forget to leave your email or method of contact so Riptide can reach you if you win!