Guest Post and Giveaway: The Year of the Cock by Shane Morton

We’re so pleased to welcome author Shane Morton to TNA today on the tour for his latest release, The Year of the Cock. He’s here to chat about holiday movies and is also offering a giveaway, so be sure to check out the Rafflecopter widget below for details.

Welcome, Shane!

I have developed a problem, an addiction really, and I am not sure that there is a cure for my illness. I need to be writing but instead I cannot pull myself away from the television because it is that time of year again. Yes, I am talking about Hallmark Channel Christmas movie time! Yes… yes, I know. They all have the same plot and the characters are not 3 dimensional for the most part, but once again I have succumbed to the holiday movie deluge and cannot pull myself away.

It started on Friday. I was trying to decide between The Food Network (Cupcake Wars) and HGTV when I suddenly remembered that Halloween was over and that the 60 days of holiday movies had probably begun. They had! I set my DVR to record a plethora of holiday goodies, all the while humming We Need A Little Christmas, from the musical Mame. I apparently have holiday issues. It’s not usually this bad. I mean it’s early November and I am already in the throes of December in my feeble mind.

My favorite Hallmark film that I’ve seen this year is, A Princess For Christmas. It’s a 2011 movie that I somehow missed. It’s not a surprise to me that this has been my favorite so far because I have always been a little obsessed with English royalty. I am a sucker for a tiara! And the two leads are people I know from TV shows that I watch. Hint: one of them is the hunky Scottish man in Outlander, if any of you are watching that.

So, I know I should be writing. Of course I should be. I am halfway through my next novel about a murder mystery in a college theater department. This has been fun for me to write, since I was a theatre major and I am using the college where I went as the setting. It’s been nice to revel in the nostalgia and reminiscence about the places and things I did while I was there. Of course, I was never embroiled in a plot like this one either. If I had been, I think I would have transferred because there is some serious shenanigans going on and it does not look good for my lead character at this moment. Will he survive? Well, he is my lead, so the chances are in his favor, however I do enjoy rocking the boat… So, we will see.

I write from my past quite a bit. My latest novel, The Year of the Cock is probably the furthest thing from myself that I have ever written. There are similarities of course. When I was younger I did not want to be in a committed relationship. I was a young gay actor living in NYC! Being single was fun. Jon, the lead character of The Year of the Cock is commitment phobic. He doesn’t understand his fears and throughout the year is forced to face them so he can lead a full life with someone else. He has to want to love someone. He has to want someone else to love him. Relationships are messy and he is not. I fell in love with Jon as he came to life on the pages. He is full of faults and he does not always do the right things. He is a flawed hero that is for sure, but he is someone who can be redeemed.

I hope that you enjoy the new novel. And your holiday movie binge watching!

About the Book

Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK
Cover Design: Ry Higdon Photography
Add to Goodreads here.
Blurb: Jon seems to have it all. He is a social butterfly that always has a place to go, things to do, and people to constantly surround him. The one thing he’s missing is someone to truly love. How can he love someone else when he doesn’t like the person staring back at him in the mirror?
He is that magical being that no one chooses to be, the third wheel. He has filled his life with happy couples, in various states of married bliss, that fills the hole in his heart with the acceptance and understanding he secretly craves.

Told by the people who know him best, The Year Of The Cock, is a year in the growth of their best friend, Jon. Can he learn to love, to open himself up to the messy truth of relationships? Will he finally become the person he has tried to repress his entire adult life or will the year-end with him stuck in the status quo of his gay bachelorhood?

About the Author

Shane K Morton lives in Studio City, CA with his husband Jody and their fur baby Slayer. His first novel, The Trouble With Off-Campus Housing was published in 2016. When not writing, Shane can be found at a film festival or performing cabaret somewhere in a dark dive bar in LA.