Dreamspinner Press
When Love Gets Hairy
Jacob Z. Flores
Why When Love Gets Hairy?
Hello, everybody! It’s me,
Jacob Z. Flores, and I’m pleased as punch to be back here at Literary Nymphs.
The nymphs here have always been great to me, and I truly do appreciate that.
It’s one of the reasons I jump at the chance to come back whenever the
invitation is extended.
So just why have I been invited
back? Well, I’m glad you asked! I’m here today promoting my latest Dreamspinner
release, When Love Gets Hairy. This
is the third book of my Provincetown Series, but don’t worry: the books don’t
have to be read in order. Believe me. I know how much of a turn off it can be
to stumble across a new series only to find that you are three books behind.
That’s why I wrote each book as a stand-alone. Readers can start with this book
if they choose and then read the other books in whatever order they would like.
But enough about the series.
Let’s talk specifically about When Love Gets Hairy and why I chose
this title.
One of the obvious reasons
for the title was that the story takes place during Bear Week in Provincetown . What can be
hairier than a small New England town suddenly
filled to capacity with hot, hairy man flesh? Not much in my book.
There is definitely a bevy
of bears of all shapes and varieties in this book—from Jay the big guy with the
heart of gold to Teddy, the pocket bear, who turns the life of Nino, the main
character, upside down. The bears are everywhere, and the characters can’t walk
two feet down Commercial Street
without running into a wall of fur.
But the title references
more than just the fuzzy loving that takes place during Bear Week on the tip of
the Cape . Besides meaning bushy and unshaven,
hairy also means difficult and tricky, and that’s the true reason why I chose
the title.
Don’t worry: this book is
angst-filled. Provincetown
isn’t a place for anguish. It’s a place to have fun and be merry. To let your
hair down and dive head first into the pleasures that abound. And those
pleasures are everywhere!
No one knows that better
than Nino Santos. He lives for the partying and tricking Provincetown provides. That’s why he moved
here a few years ago. As a tourist town, new men arrive in P-town every week,
and Nino enjoys bedding as many of them as possible. When he’s done with them,
he sends them on their merry way, never to be seen again.
That’s Nino’s
modus operandi. He doesn’t invest in
romantic relationships, or any relationships really. In fact, he lives by six
simple rules designed to keep his life as simple and happy as possible. They
are:
1. Don’t fall in
love
2 .Don’t bottom
3 .Don’t let tricks
spend the night
4 .Don’t exchange
phone numbers; “it complicates things”
5 .Don’t repeat
a fuck
6 .Don’t give a
fuck
These
rules have served Nino quite well for most of his adulthood, but when he meets
Teddy, that’s when things get hairy. Yes, Teddy is a bear, and that’s part of
the hairy reference. But Teddy challenges each and every one of the Six Rules
of Nino’s Life.
That’s
what makes life so hairy for Nino. He is being forced outside his comfort zone,
and he feels emotions he has never felt in his life. For Nino, that’s extremely
difficult. He’s unaccustomed with dealing with real emotion, and navigating
that ocean proves to be the trickiest feat he’s ever taken on in his life.
Before
I go, I want to thank everyone here at Literary Nymphs. I appreciate your
continued love and hospitality. I also want to thank those of you who took the
time to read this blog post. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed sharing
it with all of you.
For those interested, I have
included a blurb and excerpt below. Additionally, as part of my blog tour I’m
hosting a giveaway.
The When Love
Gets Hairy Giveaway Contest
All you have to do is leave
a comment to this post, and your name is entered to win one of eight cool
prizes, including books from my back list to gift cards from Amazon to some of
my author swag.
Blurb:
As vain as he is
beautiful, Nino Santos happily lives life waiting for the next ferry full of
fairies to bring him new conquests. As long as they aren’t hirsute, he’s all
in. So he's shocked to wake up after a beach party he cannot remember with a
hairy naked man lying next to him.
Teddy Miller doesn’t
remember the “Bear Week” party either, much less the Abercrombie & Fitch
model wannabe next to him. Teddy doesn’t give two cents about appearances, but
guys like Abercrombie don’t return the favor. That’s why he prefers men with
extra fur and padding over carbon copy clones of perfection—a type of man Teddy
is far too familiar with.
When Nino and Teddy glimpse
each other the next morning, it’s loathing at first sight. Instead of
exchanging phone numbers, they exchange insults and vow never to see each other
again. In Provincetown ,
however, escaping a trick best forgotten isn’t easy. Mutual friends and chance
circumstances keep Nino and Teddy in each other’s orbit. But are they fighting
each other or the attraction growing between them? The answer lies amid Provincetown ’s windswept
dunes and the night neither of them can recall.
Excerpt:
When Teddy suggested they
grab something to eat, Nino surprised himself by agreeing. The yes had come out
of his mouth before he had time to think. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to eat.
He was hungry. He hadn’t had anything in his stomach since lunch with Jay at
Bubala’s.
What was the problem,
then?
The furry little bastard
wasn’t as much of an asshole as he’d once thought. Teddy had even apologized.
Even though he didn’t want to admit it, the apology meant a lot to him. People
who’d been cruel to him in the past had never been sorry. Especially not his
sisters.
So it wasn’t that he hated
Teddy. At least not anymore.
He just didn’t like that
he continued to do things he’d never done before. Eating dinner with a guy he’d
just spent a couple of hours getting to know was entirely unlike him. It also
seemed to break his sixth rule—don’t give a fuck.
If he truly didn’t give a
fuck, he wouldn’t have shared his past or agreed to share a meal. He wouldn’t
have divulged his problems with his modeling career or taken Teddy’s advice.
All of that showed he apparently gave a fuck. That was very unnerving.
How was he supposed to
protect himself if he actually cared?
“Oooh, let’s have
Spiritus,” Teddy said from his right. “I’m craving some pizza.”
What had he been thinking?
Of course, dinner with a bear meant eating carbs. He did not consume
such useless calories. “Try again,” Nino said. “How about Jimmy’s HideAway? I
can get a salad there.”
“A salad?” Teddy scrunched
up his face and stuck out his tongue. Apparently, consuming healthy food was
both distasteful and unusual. What else could he expect from a bear?
“Yes, a salad,” he
replied. “It’s healthy, and this late at night, it’s not as bad for your
digestive system.”
Teddy gave him a
raspberry. “Who cares about that? Haven’t you ever just been bad once?” Before
he could reply, Teddy cut him off. “And I’m not talking about your sexual
escapades, so don’t even start. I’m talking about throwing caution to the wind,
and instead of eating right and counting calories, just eat something because
it’s really, really, bad for you.”
“I wouldn’t look the way I
do if I did that,” he announced. Teddy peered at him out of the corners of his
eyes. He obviously was trying to determine if he was joking or not, so he added
an eyebrow wiggle for Teddy’s benefit. He didn’t want Teddy to take his comment
the wrong way. Oh God, now that sounded like he gave a fuck. Well, shit!
“Well, for that, Curly,
I’m gonna buy you a slice of pizza, and you’re going to eat it.”
“No, I’m not,” he said
with a shake of his head. “And don’t call me Curly.”
“Oh, yes you are,” Teddy
sang as he grabbed Nino’s hand and tugged him toward Spiritus, which apparently
had been mobbed by bears. The big guys were everywhere. Some sat on the curb
out front with pizza dripping grease onto their paper plates. Others didn’t
even bother with the plates. They folded the pizza long-ways and chomped down
half the slice in one bite. He could hear their arteries clogging from here.
“You wait here,” Teddy
said as he stood Nino by the tree to the left of the building. “I’m going to
wade through the crowd and get us a couple of slices.”
“I’ll wait here,” he
agreed. “But I won’t eat the pizza.”
“You’ll eat what I give
you,” Teddy said, his words made even more suggestive by the sudden twinkle in
his eyes. “And you’ll like it.”
The bears in their
immediate vicinity echoed their appreciation of Teddy’s comment by growling.
Ordinarily, their bearspeak irritated him. Tonight, though, he just laughed and
shrugged at them.
“All right, boys,” Teddy
told the bears sitting on the bench by the tree. “Watch Curly here. Make sure
he doesn’t get away, because this bitch needs to eat.”
“We’ll watch him for you,
daddy,” one of the younger bears replied. “You go get your pup some chow.”
His pup? When did he
become Teddy’s pup? He opened his mouth to correct the man, but when Teddy
nodded and told them thank you, he couldn’t speak. Did Teddy not hear what the
man said? If he did, did he not care that these guys obviously thought they
were together?
He couldn’t ask any of
those questions, though, because by the time his ability to speak had returned,
Teddy had disappeared into Spiritus.
You can buy When Love Gets Hairy here:
And I urge readers to visit
me at any or all of my social media sites:
Website/blog: http://jacobzflores.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jacob.flores2,
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/JacobZFlores,
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