Love Wanted by John Inman | Cat's Release day Review, Excerpt & #giveaway @Dreamspinners

When it rains, it pours. Not only has Larry Walls been evicted from his apartment, but his hours have also been cut at the department store where he works, leaving him facing homelessness.

Meanwhile, Bo Lansing, a total stranger to Larry, toils at a dead-end job as a fry cook while attending night classes to become a certified chef. When the school closes its doors without warning, leaving Bo in the lurch for thousands of dollars in tuition, his dream of becoming a chef is shattered and his financial troubles spiral.

Desperate for a new beginning, each man answers an ad for live-in help posted by a wealthy recluse, and wonder of wonders, they are both hired! Just as their lives begin to improve, a young Kumeyaay Indian named Jimmy Blackstone joins the workforce at the Stanhope mansion.

When Mr. Stanhope’s true reason for hiring the young men is discovered by one of the three, a fourth entity makes its presence known.

Greed.

With all these players vying for position in a game of intrigue orchestrated by one lonely old man and a mischievous ghost, can a simple thing like love ever hope to survive the fray?

Buy links: Dreamspinner | Amazon US | Amazon UK 

Cat gives this one 5 Meows with a 4 Purr heat index... 

Oh Wow! Where to start. Love Wanted starts out fun with a man in his 90's placing an ad for help. Though between the line he is looking for more than just a butler and chef as he has no heirs.  

Then we meet Larry eating peanut butter on toast staring at an eviction notice. My heart went out to him. Larry is such a sweetie. Then we meet Bo. A chef in training working in a greasy spoon and his culinary school closes stiffing him his tuition.

The two men meet at the interview and chemistry is there, so it seems.  We get to watch as David and his maid watch them on hidden camera's and even do a bit of meddling when things seem to go awry to get them back on track. There is a twist I didn't see coming and we also have Jeremy in the mix, David's dead lover that refused to leave David even in death ( *swoon*). The story line is fun, sweet with some sex tossed in. 

I love the older people so much I think they nearly stole the book. I would love to read the story of David and Jeremy (*hint hint*) If you love meddling old people, ghosts,  pugs, a bit of a twist, sweet romance  with some hot ma-sex  you will love this.

Excerpt...

Prologue

THE MANSION is situated on a lonely mountaintop in the high desert outside San Diego, California, just a handful of miles from the US/Mexican border. Piercing a stuccoed exterior, the delving eye of our camera pans inward through burled walnut paneling, up a long winding staircase, past sconces and portraits and diplomas long yellowed with age, until we come to a damask-wallpapered bedroom on the second floor where Roger David Stanhope sits at his desk, staring down at his wizened old hands.

They are arthritic and unsteady, those hands, weak now and speckled with age spots. They had not always been so. He could remember those same hands in his youth. They had been lithe and strong once, firmly fleshed and sprinkled with golden hairs. He had taken them for granted back then as they chopped wood, deftly spanned chords on a piano, stroked a lover’s skin.

In his youth, he had enjoyed a passion for carpentry. He remembered the feel of wood on his hands, be it the bark of a living chestnut tree or the smoothly sanded plank of cherrywood he had incorporated into a china cabinet to be proudly displayed in the dining room downstairs.

He had absorbed an entire lifetime through those very fingertips. His hands had not been palsied and hesitant in his youth. They had been skilled and exact, either gentle or strong, depending on the moment. They had not ached in the night or lost their grip holding the lightest of objects or grown numb for hours on end in cooler weather. They had served him well for decades, those hands. He had grown to trust they would be there for him to the end.

Which made their betrayal now all the more annoying.

Even the simple task of unpeeling a stamp and applying it to an envelope was a major undertaking. If it hadn’t been so pathetic, he might have laughed at himself. For even at the ripe old age of ninety-three, he still had a few laughs on tap. They were dispersed rarely these days, but they were still there, stored away, ready to toss into the air like confetti at a moment’s notice.

Before stuffing the letter inside the envelope, Roger David Stanhope perused it one last time. As he did, one of those hidden laughs, a mere chuckle really, sputtered up from his throat and bounced off the burgundy walls of the suite of rooms he rarely left these days.

His bedroom boasted an antique four-poster bed and other heavy, ornate pieces that had been fixtures in this house for more than a century; more than two centuries actually, having been delivered here by Roger’s great-great-grandfather following a long sea voyage packed in the hold of a brigantine out of Liverpool. The same seaport would later launch the first and final voyage of the ill-fated Titanic. Happily, the brigantine had not suffered the same fate as the doomed ocean liner. The furniture it carried had been antique already when it safely crossed the Atlantic, rounded Cape Horn, and threaded its way through the Straits of Magellan before heading due north to San Diego Bay.

Today, while the brigantine was long gone from the face of the planet, the furniture was still here, and undoubtedly priceless.

But that did not impress the man holding the letter. He had wielded wealth far too long for anything with a high dollar value to hold sway over him now.

Remembering the Titanic, however, brought forth his second chuckle of the morning. He was the Titanic now, he suddenly realized, still a-sea upon his own maiden voyage. His own first and final adventure. He was about to meet his own fucking iceberg, whatever it might turn out to be. But he had a chore to accomplish before he let those metaphorical waves flood over him, inundating his holds, dragging him down into the cold dark depths where he would never be seen again by living eyes.

Well, not a chore, really. It was more of a larkish good deed. Thinking of it now, his old face crinkled into a merry smile that, had he a mirror handy with which to study it, might have brought forth the third chuckle of the morning. In that merry smile could be seen glimpses of the handsome young man he had once been. The business tycoon, the explorer, the lover of one man and one man only, who had shared Roger’s life for seven decades, but who had slipped beneath his own waves two years earlier.

That parting had not been a sad one. Not really. Jeremy had been ill for several years before the cancer finally took him. He had suffered enough. And as Jeremy himself had said on the very morning that would be his last, eighty-nine years on this incredible planet, most of it spent in the arms of one wonderful man, was more than anyone deserved.

By the time that fateful morning rolled around, Jeremy had become a mere shell of the beautiful, swashbuckling rascal he once was. On that day, he had lain in the same four-poster bed where Roger now slept and taken Roger’s hand for the very last time. His final speech came in fits and starts—it was such a torture for him to speak—but he finally wrested the words into existence.

They were words Roger would never forget. Nor would he forget the anguish Jeremy bore to utter them.

“We were lovely together in our time, Rog. Both of us handsome and strong and madly in love. Looking at us now, no one would ever believe how dashing we once were. I can still close my eyes and taste your beautiful young cock. I can still feel the heat of your juices spilling across my tongue. Your strong, sculpted body thrumming beneath my hands. And oh, how you relished me. Do you remember, Rog? Do you remember how well we fit together? How unconditionally we craved and savored each other?”

On that fateful morning, which was to be their last, Roger had squeezed the old hand he cradled. He was lying beside Jeremy in the bed, his head on Jeremy’s chest. He lifted his head and pressed his bloodless lips to the throat of the man beneath him.

“I remember, Jeremy. I remember it all. Every day. Every moment. You made my life worth living.”

“And you mine,” Jeremy had answered, a gentle smile softening his mouth even as he tried to fight back the cough that rarely left him these days. It was in the very midst of that smile that his blue eyes dimmed and the breath slowly leaked from Jeremy’s cancer-riddled lungs, leaving him at long last still and lifeless in the bed. His old fingers slowly relaxed in Roger’s hair. The house grew silent around them but for the ticking of the Regulator clock in the hall. The bedroom, for the first time in decades, echoed with the beat of one heart instead of two.

Sensing that great silence settle around him, Roger had sadly smiled. It was the same gentle smile that Jeremy now wore in death. Pain free at last, his misery ended. Thank God.

“Good-bye,” Roger had whispered softly into the silent air, his words lying listless in the space between the damasked walls. “Until we meet again, my love.”

Later the tears would come, but at the moment of their parting, Roger felt only blessed relief to see Jeremy’s beloved face calm and untortured by the traitorous body that had held it ransom for so long.

And now, on this morning two long years later, with the house still silent about his head, Roger wrenched himself from the memories and stared back down at the letter in his hand, his heart once again jovial, eager to begin this final chapter of his life. This final escapade. Hand-printed on the paper was the suggested wording for a help wanted ad. That’s what the letter contained. Nothing more, nothing less. It would run in the San Diego Union-Tribune the following Sunday if all went as planned.

A simple ad. But not so simple either.

Roger’s sweet old smile returned, once again casting youthful shadows over his weathered face as he read the letter one last time before slipping it into the envelope and sealing it shut.

Later, Mrs. Price, the old woman—and friend—who did for him, at least for a few weeks longer, would carry it down to the door and deliver it into the hands of the mailman, who would cart it away, thus setting the wheels of Roger’s final adventure in motion.

And oh, what a splendid adventure it would be!

A flurry of hammering in a nearby room told him the technicians were still hard at work installing the cameras. Just a few finishing touches, they had told him, a few tweaks, and the system would be up and running. He had to give the tech guys credit. Not once had they asked the purpose behind installing hidden surveillance cameras in every room of the mansion, nor of the control panel with an array of monitors, which had been mounted in what had once been Roger’s massive walk-in closet. Behind the high-tech installation sprang a tangle of fiber-optic cables and cathode-ray tubes, glisteningly new and shooting off to various parts of the mansion, concealed in baseboards and crown moldings. By manipulating a computer mouse, each high-resolution camera could be swiveled left or right, panned out to display an entire room, or pulled in tight for a close-up that filled an entire screen. The room housing the monitors was just off the master bedroom, not six shuffling steps from where Roger now sat in his silk brocade dressing gown with his white shock of hair still ruffled from sleep, surrounded by countless photos of Jeremy and himself, which were hanging on every wall and perched on every shelf.

As he sat, he softly hummed a tuneless song and turned the envelope over and over in his hands. Waiting for Mrs. Price to come and fetch the outgoing mail. Waiting for his final adventure to start.

While he waited, the smile never left his face.

John Inman is a Lambda Literary Award finalist and the author of over thirty novels, everything from outrageous comedies to tales of ghosts and monsters and heart stopping romances. John Inman has been writing fiction since he was old enough to hold a pencil. He and his partner live in beautiful San Diego, California. Together, they share a passion for theater, books, hiking and biking along the trails and canyons of San Diego or, if the mood strikes, simply kicking back with a beer and a movie.

John's advice for anyone who wishes to be a writer? "Set time aside to write every day and do it. Don't be afraid to share what you've written. Feedback is important. When a rejection slip comes in, just tear it up and try again. Keep mailing stuff out. Keep writing and rewriting and then rewrite one more time. Every minute of the struggle is worth it in the end, so don't give up. Ever. Remember that publishers are a lot like lovers. Sometimes you have to look a long time to find the one that's right for you."

• John's Website: http://johninmanauthor.com
• Blog: http://www.johninmanauthor.com/John_Inmans_Site/Johns_Blog/Johns_Blog.html
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/john.inman.79

• Be sure to leave a comment to be entered into the TTC Books and more monthly comment giveaway. EVERY comment that is relevant to the specific post will be entered. Prizes include various gift cards and swag donated by Publishers, Authors and blog Owner. REMEMBER TO LEAVE YOUR CONTACT INFO! How else will I notify you if you win?