Thursday, August 16, 2018

To See The Sun by Kelly Jensen Virtual Book Tour | Spotlight, Excerpt & #giveaway #giveaway @RiptideBooks @kmkjensen @TTCBooksandmore


Survival is hard enough in the outer colonies—what chance does love have?


Life can be harsh and lonely in the outer colonies, but miner-turned-farmer Abraham Bauer is living his dream, cultivating crops that will one day turn the unforgiving world of Alkirak into paradise. He wants more, though. A companion—someone quiet like him. Someone to share his days, his bed, and his heart.
Gael Sonnen has never seen the sky, let alone the sun. He’s spent his whole life locked in the undercity beneath Zhemosen, running from one desperate situation to another. For a chance to get out, he’ll do just about anything—even travel to the far end of the galaxy as a mail-order husband. But no plan of Gael’s has ever gone smoothly, and his new start on Alkirak is no exception. Things go wrong from the moment he steps off the shuttle.
Although Gael arrives with unexpected complications, Abraham is prepared to make their relationship work—until Gael’s past catches up with them, threatening Abraham’s livelihood, the freedom Gael gave everything for, and the love neither man ever hoped to find.

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Excerpt...
Posting an HV at Heart Companions had been like being a contestant on some ridiculous gameshow. Price had told him to have fun with it. Gael had had to restrain the urge to delete his profile once people had started responding:
A woman had wanted to add him to her harem.
Fifteen separate invitations to contract with Booyah Companions—a service that would not have matched him with a single lonely colonist.
Dick pics, tit shots, and combinations of both.
One respondent had had six breasts. And tentacles.
Twenty hours after the nightmare had begun (or had taken a bizarre left turn), he’d received a polite, concise message from Abraham Bauer. In his first HV, Bram appeared as nervous as Gael, stuttering over hello in almost exactly the same place—which probably wasn’t hard to do, but kind of endearing? And his voice. Really good face, but it had been his voice that had ultimately won Gael over. His accent was soft and mellow, as though he had all the time in the universe to consider his words and shaped each one specifically before using it.
During the week in which they’d negotiated contract terms, Gael had become fond of his voice.
Bram began this latest message with a firm “Hey” followed by the expected pause. “I figure you must be about a day out,” he continued. “If you’re anything like me, you’ll be glad to have solid ground under your feet again. Hope the transitions haven’t been too rough. I’ll have to tell you about the time our ice harvester got caught in transition and we all thought we might end up in some alternate reality.”
Bram smiled and the tightness in Gael’s chest eased a little, even while his stomach knotted furiously over the mention of alternate realities. If the Lennox got stuck in transition, he’d ask for a suicide pill. Better to know his end.
“So, I haven’t planned a whole lot.” Bram scratched the side of his face in a gesture that was already becoming familiar. “I reckoned we’d just, ah, see what you wanted to do. There isn’t much to see here yet, of course. My farm. Some sights along the way there. It’s quiet out here, but I get the idea you’re looking forward to that.”
A flush of guilt burned Gael’s insides. Was he using this man, this seemingly nice, unassuming, and apparently lonely farmer? Bram’s short missives had been such welcome respite from the horror following his botched job. Every day had been an exercise in patience, waiting for a message from Bram while hiding and trying to avoid the nightmares where he shot his brother, the girl, or opened doors only to find Julius Trass screaming on the other side.
Sitting here now, he almost felt as though he’d won the grand prize in that stupid gameshow.
“So, anyway,” Bram went on, “this is just a short one. I . . . I’m looking forward to meeting you. I guess I hope you’re of a similar mind. But, hey, life is what it is and, well, I want you to know that I’m a fair man. We’ll see how this works, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I hope you don’t mind me sayin’ I hope it does.”
Pink tinged Bram’s cheeks and he ducked his head, obviously embarrassed. He muttered something and ended the connection. He must have decided afterward to leave that last part in before sending the HV on to Gael’s comm address—which was sweet and interesting.
Gael watched the short message again, not so much listening to the words as watching Bram’s face. Absorbing his presence. The breadth of his shoulders showed Bram’s physical strength. He was a large man, but had a gentle way about him. He moved like he spoke, slowly and methodically. He seemed really nice.
How soon would he expect them to be intimate? Up to this point in Gael’s life, sex had mostly been a transaction. Bram obviously wanted more than that, and Gael wanted to deliver. He had no idea how love worked, though, except as an overwhelming obligation to a person who relied on you to make life happen in a sensible and orderly manner. Loic had needed that, and Gael had loved his brother with every fiber of his being.
He played the holo again, pausing just as Bram spoke his final words: “We’ll see how this works, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I hope you don’t mind me sayin’ I hope it does.”
Touching the projected image, Gael disturbed the pixels over Bram’s shoulder and moved his finger down to the center of Bram’s chest.

“I hope it does too.”
If aliens ever do land on Earth, Kelly will not be prepared, despite having read over a hundred stories about the apocalypse. Still, she will pack her precious books into a box and carry them with her as she strives to survive. It’s what bibliophiles do.
Kelly is the author of a number of novels, novellas, and short stories, including the Chaos Station series, cowritten with Jenn Burke. Some of what she writes is speculative in nature, but mostly it’s just about a guy losing his socks and/or burning dinner. Because life isn’t all conquering aliens and mountain peaks. Sometimes finding a happy ever after is all the adventure we need.
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Riptide giveaway... To celebrate the release of To See the Sun, Kelly is giving away a $25 Riptide credit and some swag stickers and a bracelet! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on August 18, 2018. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following along, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!
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