Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Taste in Men

Thanks so much for having me back on your blog, Kayla. I love getting the chance to come hang out here. All those hot Spartans lounging about all over the place! I’m in Heaven. ;)

I’m afraid I can’t claim my new novel, Taste In Men, offers a Mediterranean climate or tanned, powerful warriors (you need Kayla’s books for that) but it does feature a socially awkward IT guy with a fear of commitment!

… I’m not sure I’m really selling this.

Anyway. I’m delighted to finally be able to announce the release of Taste In Men. This novel took me a long time to write, but I’m very proud of it. Taylor Dale is probably the most complicated character I’ve written to date, and who doesn’t love a complex, emotionally damaged main character?

I’m going to stop talking now and let the blurb speak for itself. Thanks again, Kayla!

Blurb
Taylor Dale is terrified of getting tied down. After years working a job he doesn’t like in a city he’s always wanted to leave, he is finally on the verge of starting over. He just has to make it through his two-week’s notice.

A team-building weekend throws a spanner in the works when Taylor meets Charles. Charles is definitely not Taylor’s type, but attraction sparks hard and fast between them. Against his better judgment Taylor decides there might not be any harm in a weekend of no-strings-attached fun.

But Taylor never was very lucky.

One night with Charles threatens to turn his world upside down, if Taylor is willing to let it. In a panic, Taylor pushes Charles away, but distance isn’t enough to stop him wanting the man. Soon, Taylor realizes he has to take a chance and see if there might be a future between him and Charles. But for that to happen he’s going to have to hope Charles will answer his call.

Excerpt
Taylor stood off from the main throng of his colleagues. It was a dreary Friday morning, cold for June and wet although the forecast Taylor had looked up on the Met Office app on his phone suggested conditions were due to improve later in the day. It hadn’t escaped Taylor’s notice that, thanks to the team-building weekend, he was at work earlier than normal. He was trying to distract himself from dwelling on that fact, by people-watching his colleagues.

It said a lot about Taylor’s time at Webb that, despite spending almost every day for the past six years with these people, Taylor knew next to nothing about them. In a way, it was strange to think he might soon never see any of them again, but Taylor didn’t think it likely he would lose sleep over it.

Taylor had never felt like part of a team, but that had been his choice. He took the job at Webb Glasgow when he was eighteen for the simple reason he needed a wage. Working for a company specializing in commercial and industrial building ventilation systems and products was, Taylor was pretty certain, never going to be anyone’s dream job. On the day he signed on the dotted line in his cheap supermarket suit he made himself a promise that in ten years his time at Webb would be a distant memory.

Six years later, more than half a decade of training courses and personal reviews and Continuous Professional Development sessions, he was about to begin cashing in on that promise. Having spent those same six years working nearly every evening and weekend on the project that, only a few months earlier, had paid off in spectacular.

He wondered if the managing directors realized how fucked they were going to be without him. Taylor doubted it. He knew a lot of them saw him as just another corporate lackey willing to jump through any hoop presented to him. That was a reputation earned during his first few years with the company when Taylor had chased every promotion and pay rise even when at times he thought the amount of sucking up might kill him. Taylor thought it was because of that and his fake smile and even faker attitude that the bosses didn’t seem to realize that despite the other colleagues in his office, including Malcolm, Taylor was the IT Department. That wasn’t arrogance on Taylor’s part, it was simple fact, and Taylor wished he could set up a hidden camera to see the chaos he knew was inevitably going to follow his departure.

A lot of sacrifices. That was Taylor’s overwhelming memory of his time at Webb, but then that had been the running theme of his life since his early teens. It didn’t bother him. Not really. Especially not now it had paid off. And he hadn’t gone completely without. Time could always be found for jaunts to Glasgow’s gay bars and nightclubs and there was never a self-imposed deadline so pressing a pretty, pampered twink couldn’t take precedence.
no relationships, no friendships requiring any sort of effort, and no other commitments that he couldn’t get out of in a hurry. Ensuring he never got tied down had always been central to the plan.



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Author Bio
Born and raised in bonnie Scotland, Douglas Black writes contemporary MM erotic romance. Welcome to your fantasy.

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Saturday, September 19, 2015

Andreas and Theron's Tale Continues with Dreamspinner Press

I just signed a contract with Dreamspinner for A Tested Love, the second book in the Apollo's Men Spartan arc! I'm so excited.

Blurb:
Abandoned and once more alone on his homestead, Andreas goes about his life trying to forget the seductive promises Theron made.

Theron is given his first kill list for the annual Krypteia. Part way down the scroll, he finds Andreas' name. Someone must have seen them together. Now that person wants to punish them both and test Theron's loyalty to Sparta at the same time.

Sent to kill Andreas, Theron must find some way to come to terms with his former attraction to the man, before it destroys him as well as Andreas.

The third book in the Spartan arc, A Shared Love, is already in third draft stage. So I know what I'll be doing between editing and promoting A Tested Love.

Monday, September 14, 2015

Vote for A Spartan Love

A Spartan Love has been nominated for Bleeding Heart Blog's Best M/M Romance. If you enjoyed the story, consider going to vote.

Theron is up for Best Book Boyfriend. Please show him some love.

The voting begins today and continues through the 21st. You can vote once daily until the polls close.