Thanks for joining author Bru Baker on the tour for her latest release, Camp H.O.W.L., a new installment in Dreamspinner Press’s Dreamspun Beyond house line.
Welcome, Bru!
Hi, I’m Bru Baker, and thanks for joining me here on The Novel Approach as I wrap up my blog tour for my latest release, Camp H.O.W.L.
I had a lot of fun putting my own spin on werewolf lore, but at the heart of it, Camp H.O.W.L. is about two slightly broken men–one who was betrayed by his biology and another who was betrayed by his family–who lean on each other as they each find their own way forward. It’s a theme that you’ll see again and again in my books because it’s one I can’t get enough of exploring. It’s even in my tagline–real, relatable romance. I write about the kind of guys I’d like to know. Men who are kind and complicated and imperfect, but who want to be better. They just don’t always know how to get there.
Dr. Tate Lewis is a prime example of that. He abandoned his Pack as a teen, which was doubly difficult because his father is the Alpha. But he didn’t agree with the way the Pack viewed humans or the lifestyle they led, and he had the inner strength to walk away from it all without knowing what would come next. Luckily, he met a werewolf who was able to take him under her wing and help him heal and blossom. His own abusive childhood is why Tate went into psychology, and that–as well as the isolation it affords him–is why he’s at Camp H.O.W.L. helping teens through their Turn.
Until Adrian shows up, presumed human until his Turn takes him by surprise at 27. Stranded thousands of miles from his Pack, he has no choice but to take refuge at Camp H.O.W.L. He and Tate form an instant bond, but Tate’s history makes it hard for him to accept.
In today’s excerpt, you get to see Adrian putting all the pieces together with the help of Kenya, the werewolf mentor who saved Tate from himself a decade earlier.
About the Book
Title: Camp H.O.W.L.
Author: Bru Baker
Release date: Nov. 1, 2017
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Cover Artist: Aaron Anderson
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Length: 238 pages
Tags: Gay; M/M; werewolves; Dreamspun Beyond
Blurb: Moonmates exist, but getting together is going to be a beast….
When Adrian Rothschild skipped his “werewolf puberty,” he assumed he was, somehow, human. But he was wrong, and he’s about to go through his Turn with a country between him and his Pack—scared, alone, and eight years late.
Dr. Tate Lewis’s werewolf supremacist father made his Turn miserable, and now Tate works for Camp H.O.W.L. to ease the transition for young werewolves. He isn’t expecting to offer guidance to a grown man—or find his moonmate in Adrian. Tate doesn’t even believe in the legendary bond; after all, his polygamist father claimed five. But it’s clear Adrian needs him, and if Tate can let his guard down, he might discover he needs Adrian too.
A moonmate is a wolf’s missing piece, and Tate is missing a lot of pieces. But is Adrian up to the challenge?
Buy Links: Dreamspinner Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play
The Excerpt
“It’s….” She shook her head and started over. “What I’m about to tell you, it’s disturbing. But I don’t want you to let it color how you think of Tate, as hard as that will be. He’s his own man, and he’s worked very hard to get where he is.” She smiled fondly. “Dr. Lewis is light-years away from the scared boy I met back then. At nineteen, he was Tatum Bodkin, a kid who couldn’t stop looking over his shoulder, waiting for his past to catch up to him.”
Something about the name Bodkin sounded familiar, but it hovered at the edge of Adrian’s memory. He recognized it as significant, but he couldn’t remember why.
Kenya nodded knowingly. “Heard of his family, I assume?”
“I think I know the name, but I can’t quite place it.”
“His father is the Alpha of—”
That was all Adrian needed to put the pieces together. “Shit,” he said, breathless. “Tate is a part of that werewolf liberation group?”
Calling it a group was kind. It was more of a cult, or at least that’s how the Werewolf Tribunal viewed it.
“He’s not, no,” Kenya said, enunciating the words carefully. “His family is. That’s why he’s taken such pains to cut himself off from them, Adrian. He escaped the sect soon after his Turn and started a new life. He even changed his name when he was twenty-one. I helped him do it. He didn’t want any ties to his family, and legally, he doesn’t have any now.”
Alpha Bodkin and his Pack were infamous among werewolves. They lived on a sprawling compound in rural Idaho, and not much was known about them other than that they believed werewolves shouldn’t have to hide who they were. Aside from their remote location, they took absolutely no measures to conceal their existence. They shifted and ran as wolves whenever they wanted, and from what Adrian had heard, that was a lot of the time. They lived off the land and were completely off the grid. They were the werewolf version of the bogeyman. “If you don’t behave, we’ll send you to live in Idaho.” Adrian had heard his sister say that to his eight-year-old nephew last week.
“He seems so normal,” Adrian blurted out, shame creeping over him as soon as the words left his mouth. He sounded like a serial killer’s neighbor being interviewed on a cut-rate cop drama.
“He is normal,” Kenya snapped. She blinked and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Adrian. That wasn’t very professional of me. I’m protective of him.”
“I’m glad. It sounds like you were there for him when he needed someone in his corner.”
She smiled. “I was. And I’m hoping you will be that person now. The two of you share something more than a regular Turn bond. I think Tate knows that, and it scares him. His father is a disturbed man, Adrian. He took so much that is wonderful about werewolf culture and perverted it. Tate still struggles to overcome some of the things he learned as a child. It’s a difficult thing to do. It takes a strong person to challenge the ideology of their upbringing, but sometimes even the strongest wills falter.”
About the Author
Bru Baker spent fifteen years writing for newspapers before making the jump to fiction. She now balances her time between writing and working at a Midwestern library in the reference department. Most evenings you can find her curled up with a mug of tea, some fuzzy socks, and a book or her laptop. Whether it’s creating her own characters or getting caught up in someone else’s, there’s no denying that Bru is happiest when she’s engrossed in a story. She and her husband have two children, which means a lot of her books get written from the sidelines of various sports practices.
Visit Bru online at www.bru-baker.com or follow her on Facebook or Twitter.