Lisa: We’re so pleased to have author Eric Alan Westfall with us today on the tour for his latest release, no way out. Welcome, Eric, it’s great to have you here with us today.

Let’s start with an authorly type question today: Have you ever written a line, paragraph, or passage, and thought, “Darn, that’s pretty amazing, even if I do say so myself”? What was it?

Eric: To be honest—as all interviewees always are, right?—I have too much ego to have a single “Oh, wow! I done good!” (deliberate, not an oops) moment in anything I write. I enjoy playing with words and phrases, tweaking them until they are, as I so often say, a Goldilocks “just right.” Here, though, I’d say it’s the chapters.

In most of my recent books, particularly the Another England series, chapters start with the date, time and place(s), and the chapter breaks are either just the numbers, or the name of the character narrating. (I rarely write third person.) In no way out, though, for the first time, each chapter has a title, as well as a number. I had great fun creating the titles, with some “there” right away, and others requiring a little more thought.

Of the 42 chapters in no way out, here’s a sampling of the titles I’m fond of. They’re not in numerical order.

Banging the Bankers Back

Starting the Tangled Web

In Which a Hawk is Met, and Laughter Ensues

Birds of a Feather Try Plumage Together

Adonis on the Half-Shell

Privy Privacy

There’s also a chapter title which goes with the cover painting. But, uh, you’ll have to read to find out.

Lisa: Okay, let’s take off your author cap and put on your reader cap for a moment: what do you look for in a book, what sort of protagonists do you love, and do you have a favorite genre/sub-genre?

Eric: Okay. The first two parts are easy. The third…not so much. The answer to the first two is the same: characters I care about. If you pull me in, create strong men, strong women, I believe in, have the skill to get my emotions so involved I care what happens to them, then it doesn’t matter what the genre is, the rest of the book is going to be fine. (If I don’t care about your characters, no matter how talented you are in world-building, creating a thriller-mystery, whatever, all that is irrelevant.)

Some examples which are best read with tissues at hand because you’ll care so very much: Into This River I Drown, and The Lightning-Struck Heart (MM, both by T.J. Klune); The Second Son (Charles Sailor), and All Through The Night (Suzanne Brockmann). The latter features Jules Cassidy, a gay FBI agent in her very mainstream Troubleshooters series. He’d been an important secondary character in several earlier novels, and this is “his” book. I re-read it every Christmas.

As to a favorite genre, the tug of war is between fantasy and Regency. I started reading at five, with one of the Andrew Lang fairy tale collections. Over the past many decades I’ve been more than addicted to fantasy and science fiction. But then I “met” Georgette Heyer in 1961 as a freshman in college, and acquired a Regency romance addiction. I read hundreds of Regencies written by contemporary authors (going flip-flip-flip until I reached the end of the 37 pages of MF sex scenes), and then found gay Regencies. I’ve abandoned the MF ones. So while I still love fantasies and have acquired a…sub-addiction?…for shifter tales, the answer is Regency.

Lisa: Who designed your cover art? What was the process like, from beginning to end, coming up with the design?

Eric: Roberto Quintero created the cover painting and Karrie Jax finished it with the fonts and placement of the title and my name.

Roberto has created paintings for two earlier books: gathering of the Light and Mr. Felcher’s Grand Emporium, or, The Adventures of a Pair of Spares in the Fine Art of Gentlemanly Portraiture. Working on Emporium, he pointed out that virtually every MM romance cover has the men in poses, staring out at the reader, or looking off to the side. Which is pretty much inevitable when you’re using separate photographs for your guys.

His question: could Harry and Reggie interact? I told him about the men, and the book, and he came back with two sketches. One was great, the other blew me away. The latter became the Emporium painting and inspired an important chapter in the book.

Here, the process was the same:  giving Roberto the setting, telling him about Brendan and the Iron Marquess and a bit of what went on. He came back with a sketch involving the two and an umbrella being held by one. I thought, “No umbrella scene now, but this could work.” I’m not sure when I mentioned there was a scene with a waltz, but before I started on umbrella-writing he came back with the sketch for what you now see.

Some back and forth on “would this work, or is it a dumb idea?” (me to him), “perhaps this,” “maybe that”…and then the first color painting. There were a few subtle adjustments…and it was done. Painting shipped off to Karrie, who came up with several ideas for precise placement of the title…though we knew it would be at the top…and differing fonts. The version you see is the one which shouted “This is the one !” at me the moment I saw it.

Et voila!

Lisa: If you won the lottery, what’s the first completely self-indulgent thing you’d do?

Eric: Buy a 1976 black Cadillac Eldorado convertible, with black leather interior, in mint condition, or if necessary, have one rebuilt to perfection. I loved that car, until some jackass in a truck blew through a stop sign, T-boned the passenger rear side and totaled it. Miraculously, not seat-belted, I was shaken, not stirred…and wasn’t hurt.

Lisa: Thanks again so much for being here with us today, Eric, it’s been a pleasure!

About the Book

Title: no way out
Author: Eric Alan Westfall
Series: Another England: Book Three
Necessary to Read Previous Books: No
Publisher: self-published
Release Date: Monday, September 10, 2018
Word Count: 150k approx.
Cover Artist: Roberto Quintero
Genres: MM Romance, historical, alternate history
Keywords/Categories: MM romance, historical, humor
Blurb: It’s April of 1816 in Another England.

And Jeremy—a whore from the Dock—is living in a guest bedroom at the London home of the (in)famous Iron Marquess, with over fifteen days missing from his life.

For someone who remembers everything from his third birthday on, it’s unnerving not to know. Fine, fourteen days for the coma and the infection delirium. But those first thirty-six hours. Do they explain how he got hurt, how he got to Ireton House, and why his lordship’s mountain-sized valet is taking care of him? Or why his ironness looks at him with nothing iron at all in his eyes?

Jeremy and the Iron Marquess both have dark secrets. Forced engagements, an inheritance, a scheme to clap Jeremy in Bedlam, the revelation of the missing hours, a problem with plumage, some numbered accounts, and a long sea voyage, all seem to mean there’s no way out of the snares surrounding them. Or is the old saying true: where there’s a waltz, there’s a way?

All royalties will go to a local LGBT organization.

Buy the Book: Universal Book Link || QueeRomance Ink || Goodreads

Tour Excerpt

IT ALL BEGINS

6 April 1816

1:38 p.m.

Ireton House, London

no way out

The voice was back.

Inside my head.

Still I swiveled, twisting to look behind, knowing I would see what I always see when the words are said—nothing. The unpainted, scuffed wooden floor was empty. The door to second story elegance had not creaked since we passed through, shutting it behind us, moments ago. The stairs to lesser third-story elegance and fourth story no elegance at all were both bare of bodies who might whisper words only I could hear.

I turned forward again, teetered, and reaching out, slapped my palms flat against the walls of the narrow servants’ stairs. Pressing hard, I tilted back, but my socked foot slipped on the slick wooden edge. When I landed, the floor made known its displeasure with a sharp splinter through the rope-belted loose trousers, ill-fitting smalls, and into my bum. I yelped.

The cold voice of Thomas, the senior footman, rose up the stairwell from the landing below. “His lordship is waiting.”

I shifted my weight to my left hip, and rolled to my knees, giving him a fine view of my bottom if he was watching, which was by now instinctive. I made a point of lifting my left leg with great care, and with equal care placing my foot on the floor, again in case he was watching. A right foot repeat and then some clearly awkward struggling to get myself as upright on the landing as I could—although a boy with a twisted spine and a twisted leg can never be truly upright—followed by a shuffle-step away from the edge. I suppressed the temptation to rub my right arse cheek. Without turning around I called down, “Well, bugger ‘is bleedin’ lordship! Me feet ‘urt ‘n me arse ‘as been ‘urt, too.”

My feet didn’t hurt much any more. Though bandaged still, and covered with the thick wool stockings sagging around my ankles, they had almost healed. But the pretense might keep me here, with a comfortable bed, and good food, for just a while longer. I grinned a small, wicked grin to myself, and wiped it away as I turned to face the stairs. “Right, then. Shall I drop me britches, turn ‘n bend and you can see what’s stickin’ in me bum, ‘n maybe come up ‘n pull it out?”

It was amazing how much disdain could be contained in stare and stance. Thomas even managed to look down his nose while looking up the stairs.

“Orright, orright. Jus’ wait a bleedin’ minute. ‘n you might want to close yer eyes so’s y’don’t see somethin’ what might ‘orrify you, just in case me grip slips, ‘cause I ain’t goin’ nowhere with somethin’ stickin’ in me arse.”

My hands were on the knot in the rope, and I grinned broadly when the footman closed his eyes, with a stern “Be quick about it then, boy.”

I untied the knot, loosening the waistband since whoever supplied the trousers was much thicker around the middle than me, using my left hand to hold the pants up. I reached behind, and working my right hand into my smalls and found the painful little bugger. With thumb and forefinger I wiggled it free, brought my hand round to the front, and looked at the bloody, bloody thing. I shouldn’t have, but I did. I lifted the three-quarter-inch sliver before my face. “Oi! Is this a dagger wot I see before me?”

Bloody hell. Bloody, bloody, bloody hell. Maybe Thomas wouldn’t…. Well, bloody hell all over again, he did. The footman was looking at me now, his eyes wide, his mouth open to say something, and then he slowly shut it.

It would only make it worse if I tried to cobble together an explanation of why, or how a sixteen-year-old street boy (the age I gave) could paraphrase The Scottish Play. I shut my own mouth, dropped the splinter, retied the knot, and began descending the stairs with care, one thumping step at a time. I braced one hand against the wall—his lordship did not believe in hand rails for his servants—in case of another slip. The footman waited until I was almost at the landing before turning away. Watching my downward struggle, he was unconcerned about the possibility of another fall, his expression informing me if I fell I was on my own. I followed in silence as we went through the halls of the first floor to the front of the house.

Ah, his lordship’s library. I stared at the door.

I’d been in there, just the once, when I shouldn’t have been. But then, I shouldn’t have been in the house in the first place, but I was, though I didn’t know why. Or how I came to be here. Both were part of what was missing. I could remember every…bloody…thing in my life up to the night before…whatever…happened. Remember the Dock on the 12th, the clock in my head saying it was ten thirty at night when I finished the last man. I remember the glint of the shilling as it spun through the air, making me get off my knees, bend and stretch to reach it in the muck. The feel of the metal between my fingertips as I picked it up. Then the twist and roll away, my back taking the brunt of the kick meant for my belly. The man was one of those who, once done, and eager to be tucked and buttoned away, feels guilty and lashes out at the one responsible for his sin. I remember his silhouette as I got to my feet, his realizing how much taller I was, and how the silhouette turned and hurried away.

Then nothing more until I woke up too damned many days later in a bloody nobleman’s house, in sobbing agony, weak, my feet, head and thigh throbbing with pain.

About the Author

Eric is a Midwesterner, and as Lady Glenhaven might say, “His first sea voyage was with Noah.” He started reading at five with one of the Andrew Lang books (he thinks it was The Blue Fairy Book) and has been a science fiction/fantasy addict ever since. Most of his writing is in those (MM) genres.

The exceptions are his Another England (alternate history) series:  The Rake, The Rogue and the Roué (Regency novel), Mr. Felcher’s Grand Emporium, or, The Adventures of a Pair of Spares in the Fine Art of Gentlemanly Portraiture (Victorian), with no way out (Regency) coming out a month after Of Princes.

Two more fairy tales are in progress:  3 Boars & A Wolf Walk Into A Bar (Eric is sure you can figure this one out), and The Truth About Them Damn Goats (of the gruff variety).

Now all he has to do is find the time to write the incomplete stuff! (The real world can be a real pain!)

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