Miniature artist Ian Meyers has one week to rebuild his damaged set. Needing help, he goes to End o’ Earth, the local comic and gaming shop. Owner Simon Derry pushes all of Ian’s buttons, and he also has steady hands and the skills Ian needs.
Before they can even grab a beer, Ian meets Lydia Derry, Simon’s wife. If Ian had any interest in women, he’d suggest a threesome, but then Simon explains that he and Lydia are polyamorous, and if Ian wants Simon, neither of them will complain. If anything, Lydia encourages the relationship.
Ian’s all in, and it’s fantastic working with Simon to piece together his set and then take each other apart at night. His friendship with Lydia grows too. The only problem is, the more time he spends with Simon, the more he wants everything Simon already has with Lydia: A house. A cat. A commitment. So Ian runs, and shatters the trust he has with them both—right when they need him the most. Piecing their relationships back together might prove harder than a smashed set.
Available now from Riptide Publishing and Amazon
Excerpt...
Chapter One
Ian
It was amazing how fast two weeks’ worth of work could be destroyed. I mean, I’m used to it—half the models I built were meant to be blown up or set on fire or otherwise obliterated in a sea of special effects. This one wasn’t any different, a lovely detailed miniature of a sacred grove, complete with altars and idols—everything the larger set had—surrounded by trees in the heart of the forest. My miniature had been destined to be burnt to the ground in a spectacular magical explosion, since the EPA kind of frowned on pyrotechnics in the forest on the Olympic Peninsula. Apparently, fire and trees didn’t mix.
At least, that had been the intended fate of my model before Anderson had fallen backward into the damn thing and crushed it into tiny little bits. Stunt actors, I swear—bones made of steel. Poor set was absolutely no match for two hundred pounds of falling man.
My heart stopped, or tried to.
Would have made a great shot had Anderson been in a giant rubber suit. But this was Wolf’s Landing, not some science fiction show with mecha and monsters.
Ginsberg helped Anderson up and looked at the ruins of the model in the same way someone peered at roadkill. Pity mixed with revulsion. “Oh, shit.”
“Sorry, dude.” That from Anderson.
I couldn’t speak. Didn’t know what to say. We were supposed to film the scene this evening and now my model was . . . gone. Anna was going to have kittens. Large hungry kittens with claws and teeth and a taste for blood.
You think stuff is safe on set, that people would be careful. I croaked, still looking for the right words.
Anderson scratched the back of his head. “Can you fix it?”
I met Anderson’s gaze. Behind him, Ginsberg’s eyes were wide, and he backed away, his hands raised in surrender.
“Did you . . . really . . . just ask me that?” I barely recognized my own voice. It was too calm and cool. Nothing like the litany of oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck running through my soul.
Anderson flinched and glanced at the shards of wood, clay, and paint—he’d also managed to bend the metal leg of the table my model had been sitting on—then met my stare again and hunched his shoulders. “I mean— I’m sorry. It was an accident.”
“Tell that to Anna.” I jammed both hands into my hair, and the trembles started. Holy shit. Two weeks of work undone. I barely had any supplies left, and the production schedule was so damn tight, I didn’t know if there was any time for me to rebuild the set.
About Bluewater Bay
Welcome to Bluewater Bay! This quiet little logging town on Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula has been stagnating for decades, on the verge of ghost town status. Until a television crew moves in to film Wolf’s Landing, a soon-to-be cult hit based on the wildly successful shifter novels penned by local author Hunter Easton.
Wolf’s Landing’s success spawns everything from merchandise to movie talks, and Bluewater Bay explodes into a mecca for fans and tourists alike. The locals still aren’t quite sure what to make of all this—the town is rejuvenated, but at what cost? And the Hollywood-based production crew is out of their element in this small, mossy seaside locale. Needless to say, sparks fly.
This collaborative story world is brought to you by eleven award-winning, best-selling LGBTQ romance authors: L.A. Witt, L.B. Gregg, Z.A. Maxfield, Heidi Belleau, Rachel Haimowitz, Anne Tenino, Amy Lane, SE Jakes, G.B. Gordon, Jaime Samms and Ally Blue. Each contemporary novel stands alone, but all are built around the town and the people of Bluewater Bay and the Wolf’s Landing media empire.
Anna Zabo writes contemporary and paranormal romance for all colors of the rainbow. They live and work in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which isn’t nearly as boring as most people think.
Anna grew up in the wilds of suburban Philadelphia before returning to their ancestral homelands in Western Pennsylvania. As a child they were heartily disappointed to discover that they couldn’t grow up to be what they wanted (a boy, a cat, a dragon), so they settled on being themself whenever possible, which may be a combination of a boy, a cat, and a dragon. Or perhaps a girl, a knight, and a writer. Depends on whom you ask. They do have a penchant for colorful ties and may be hording a small collection of cufflinks.They can be easily plied with coffee.
Anna has an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University, where they fell in with a roving band of romance writers and never looked back. They also have a BA in Creative Writing from Carnegie Mellon University.
Twitter: @amergina
Riptide giveaway... To celebrate the release of Outside the Lines, one lucky winner will receive a $25 Riptide credit! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on December 23, 2017. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!
TTC giveaway... Please read as the entry
process has changed
Monthly giftcard giveaway:
The monthly giftcard giveaway has changed slightly, it will now be done via
Rafflecopter. Simply complete all the entries below which includes a “comment”
entry. You will leave a comment on this post, then copy the URL address above
and copy that into the comment entry in the space provided. Then at the end of
the month I will chose the winner via RC, pop back over to the blog to verify
their comment, then announce the winner!
enjoyed reading the excerpt from chapter 1 ...congrats
ReplyDeletejmarinich33 at aol dot com
I enjoyed the excerpt. I would love to read more.
ReplyDeletedebby236 at gmail dot com
Thanks for the excerpt!
ReplyDeletejlshannon74 at gmail.com
Thanks for the excerpt. I hope you’re having a great release week!
ReplyDeleteserena91291@gmail(dot)com
Congrats, Anna, and thanks for the excerpt. Sounds like a great penultimate addition to this entertaining collaborative series. Although I'm not built that way myself, I don't mind learning about mature polyamorous relationships. - Purple Reader,
ReplyDeleteTheWrote [at] aol [dot] com
Thank you for the excerpt!
ReplyDeletehumhumbum AT yahoo DOT com
Thanks for the excerpt!
ReplyDeletelegacylandlisa at gmail dot com
It's been a great tour!
ReplyDeletevitajex(at)Aol(Dot)com
Thanks for the excerpt, the book sounds great.
ReplyDeleteheath0043 at gmail dot com