Welcome to author Alicia Nordwell and the Earning His Trust blog tour! Location, location, location is the topic of conversation today, and Alicia’s also offering a great giveaway, so be sure to check out the Rafflecopter widget below for details.
Writing Where You Know
This is just the second eBook I’ve set in a location close to home. I’m a firm advocate of always doing your research; know your location and make sure you do it right. If that means looking at maps, hitting the city’s website, checking tourism sites, looking up statistics on population, jobs, weather patterns, etc… that’s what you do. And, since I absolutely geek out on research, it’s relatively easy for me. I once calculated both the time it would take to fly by helicopter and drive by car from one city to the town I set as my characters’ home… for a scene just a page long.
But it’s different when I nearly call the same city home, or as close it as no never mind. On one hand, it was super easy to know the really personal details that help make the city what it is. The weather—the way a speck of ice makes Portlanders freak out and scurry into hiding or sliding all over the place—the great specialty shops that make up the shopping district, the various hospitals and their locations, and more.
The difficulty lie in what I couldn’t share: real people and places. I didn’t want to represent someone or a place in a way that would be unreal, so I made some of the details up. Are there gluten- and dairy-free bake shops and coffee houses? Oh, I’m sure! That’s a big thing here, and no wonder with how much time we spend indoors watching rain splatter against the windows.
So, while you won’t find the shop Ben and Evin visit specifically, you will find plenty of cozy nooks with great food and sweet, spicy, or just plain decadent coffee and tea. Why don’t you meet up with an old friend, or a new one, and enjoy a spare hour or two to catch up just like they do?
About the Book
Title: Earning His Trust
Author: Alicia Nordwell
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Release Date: Sept. 6th
Price: $4.99
Genre: Contemporary
Length: 38,718
Blurb: Evin lost the only two men he ever loved. But he might get a second chance with one of them—if he’s willing to take the risk.
Following the death of his husband, Evin is living in Portland and raising the infant son they had through a surrogate. Six-month-old Micah is his life, and if it means no time for activities or friendships beyond his minuscule support network, that’s a sacrifice Evin is willing to make. When he suffers a burn baking teething biscuits, the last person Evin expects to encounter in the ER is Ben, his lover from college—and the man who left him without a word of explanation.
Ben knows it won’t be easy to earn Evin’s trust and prove he’s not the same man Evin once knew, but he can’t bear to watch Evin struggle to care for Micah, hurting and alone. He wants back in Evin’s life, as a friend and hopefully more, but Evin’s heart is fragile, and the years have changed him too.
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Tour-wide Excerpt
The curtain slid on the overhead rails, and Evin held in his urge to snap about how long it took to get to him when the nurse said the ER was slow, but he froze with his mouth open.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Perez. I see you burn—” The doctor snapped his jaw shut and stopped before he reached the head of the bed. Micah was oblivious, sitting between his legs and playing with his fake keys, chewing away on the rubber tips and drooling. He clutched the soggy remains of a biscuit in his other hand.
Evin had to swallow hard himself. Of all the hospitals, in all the cities, his old boyfriend had to be in this one.
He looked… good. Older, some wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. It had been… how long since he’d seen him? Not since Ben was graduating medical school the same year Evin was graduating with a business degree. Evin certainly never expected to see him here, and by the shocked look on Ben’s face, he hadn’t known Evin lived in Portland either. Evin waited for Ben to say something else, but he just kept staring. Evin took a deep breath. He could be an adult. He was a dad now.
“Burned my hand,” he finished the sentence Ben never did. “I did it about an hour ago, and it really hurts.” Maybe he could move this along. Plus, Micah was on his third biscuit and getting fussy again. He probably needed to be changed, have some lunch, and then would fall asleep for the afternoon, just so he could keep Evin up all night again.
Ben dropped his gaze to Micah and then looked up to stare at Evin again. “What happened to you?”
Did he mean how Evin probably looked like he’d aged at least ten years since Ben bailed right before graduation, the last night they’d spoken? Well, spoken wasn’t a very good description for the fight they’d had after weeks of Ben ducking Evin’s questions about what he was planning. Maybe their relationship had run its course; maybe it was better for them not to be together.
But he’d never expected Ben to just up and leave. It’d been hard, but Evin had a job offer in Portland and he’d taken it. Fortunately, his best friend, Gianna, came with him, and they got an apartment together in a not-so-great area of Happy Valley. It’d been nice to have a friend he knew would stick by him, but then she met Carl, and they fell in love. Not long after that he met someone, but that had gone wrong too.
Gone was the bright, glittery guy who lit up the room in a flash, and this version of himself was all Evin knew how to be anymore. It was probably a disappointment. His hair was cut short instead of hanging down to his shoulders, and he was in a blue T-shirt and a pair of gray sweats instead of skintight everything. Nothing at all like how Ben would remember him.
Was he wondering how in the hell Evin had a kid, since he’d never even kissed a girl—at least before when Ben knew him? Probably.
Or had he brushed off their history, leaving Evin as the only one thinking about how the years had changed them—Ben definitely for the better. Most likely, he meant how Evin got the burn. He was a professional after all, and Evin was probably just another patient to him.
In the end, it didn’t really matter. His appearance, how he got hurt, it all came down to just one thing.
“Teething.”
About the Author
The number one question folks ask Alicia when she shares she’s a MM romance author: “Why gay fiction? Why write men when you’re a woman?” and her answer is: “Why the hell not!” Alicia Nordwell is one of those not so rare creatures, a reader turned writer. Striving to find an interesting story one day, she decided to write what she wanted instead. Then the voices started… Yep, not only does she talk about herself in the third person for bios, she has voices in her head constantly clamoring to get out. Fortunately, with the encouragement of her family and friends, she decided for her own sanity to keep writing.
Now you can find her stories both free and e-published. When she’s not on the computer typing away, she’s a wife and a mom of two in the dreary, yet ideal for her redhead complexion, Pacific Northwest. Except for when she disappears into one of the many worlds in her head, of course! She can also be found quite often at her blog, where she has a lot of free fiction for readers to enjoy or working hard, or maybe hardly working, as an admin on GayAuthors.org under her online nickname, Cia.
Social Media: Cia’s Stories || Facebook || Twitter || Goodreads
The Giveaway
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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I love reading bout second chances and May/December romances. Lately it’s been a lot of paranormal, but intersperced with the above! Congratulations on your new book. Definitely going in the tbr list!!
:) I like May/December too! Thanks, Blaine!
I usually don’t read historical, horror, or dystopia. I say usually because I have been grabbed by a good blurb and fell in love with a story not in my usual tastes. Congratulations on the release
redmd@juno.com
See, I adore a good dystopian story. But it has to be good, definitely. Thanks, Denise!
Sounds like a great read. Thank you for the giveaway!
Thanks, Elena! Appreciate you entering!
Things could particularly be tricky if you don’t write from what you know & creating fictional establishments could be fun. Let those creative juices flow. ;)
It is definitely easier to write what you know because there are insider terms or activities that can be hard to learn if you don’t. I happen to be a big research nut anyway, though, so I don’t always stick to just what I know. Thanks for entering, James!
I like a good romance mystery.
You know, that’s one genre I just never could get into.
I like contemporary or paranormal or a bit mystery
Paranormal is my #1 in that list. :)
I enjoy enemies or friends to lovers.
I love age gap romances. But a close second is stories with pets or children, so this sounds really good.
Congrats on your release, Alicia, and thanks for the post. I love to read stories where the locale is almost a character itself. I love to travel, but don’t get to do it much. So books are my transport to places far and wide. And when they’re about places I’ve been to, I really get into the details that remind of me of what I remember, like the cultural things, and well as the places – streets, bldgs., shops and restaurants.