Another paean to Nevada

Several years ago, I wrote a series based on my actual hometown and surrounding mountains in Nevada. But Dame Fate had other intentions. The three novels, co-written with another author, hit a legal barrier, and we ended up pulling the titles from circulation.

So, enter another series. I wrote two short novels—Noble, Nevada and The Chase—but I used only fictional place names for the Nevada high desert locales. That series, “Noble Dimensions,” was kind of a play on the stout cocks of the cocky characters. I also wrote a novella for the series, but I was never satisfied with it. Too short, too unresolved. So I deleted the title and moved to Scotland.

Now, at last, I’m ready to return to my beloved mountains and desert. That former novella is now twice as long and has much more meat on the bones. I’ve titled it after a character never seen in the book but only heard overhead…a prairie falcon named Godfrey.

Here’s my intro to the novel:

Looking for Godfrey

Shawn Murphy, a Nevada game warden, is a different kind of cop. With more than 10,000 miles of wilderness to serve and protect, he’s put a lot of wear on his F-250 truck in the pursuit of poachers, arsonists, freewheeling miscreants, and others. But when he meets a falconer named Dylan Morgan, he discovers how hard it can be to enforce the law.

Dylan’s a poacher, a wild-eyed falconer who’s lost his bird to the scorching blue skies of the Paiute Range. It should be easy for Shawn to issue the man a fine and let him go…but he’s wounded and needs his help. To make the situation a little more complicated, Dylan’s also a gay man needing more than a bandage on his foot.

Hours after meeting Dylan, Shawn encounters a different kind of poacher—a violent man with murder on his mind who leaves him to the mercy of the parched wilderness.

After leaving the ICU and in spite of the odds, he goes in search of a man who’s already tried to kill him, one who’s slaughtering bighorn sheep to sell their horns. Dylan, pining for his trained bird, joins the hunt, hoping for a sign of his vanished falcon Godfrey. On a quest into Nevada’s harsh wildlands, both men discover something else—something without a name they’ve both been looking for all their lives.

A short excerpt from Chapter 9, “The Hunt”:

“Prairie falcons are pretty interesting, Shawn. If you ever look for them, try the low bluffs and stands of sagebrush. Like the valley floor below. And don’t expect a lazy sweep of wings, the way a hawk does. Hell, if they’re on a real hunt, they can slam into the wind and into their prey at almost fifty miles an hour.”

“When’s the best time to find them?”

“Now is great. Any time during the day, really, but early is best. At night they sleep, building strength for the day ahead.”

This was the first time Dylan seemed to open up about his loss since the first day they’d met. Shawn pursued it, gently.

“How old is Godfrey anyway?”

His mate turned to him with a little smile. “I got him just out of the scrape…the nest…two years ago. I think the rest of the brood was taken by a hawk. I was lucky to find him then. Now…not so much.”

“You hinted once that he might be looking for a mate.”

He grinned. “The same way I was? You could be spot-on. Two years is about the time they get the urge. He could have felt my own need, somehow.”

“So…maybe your loss is his gain, love.”

Dylan’s head sank to his chest. “Yeah. It’s ironic. I think I know how parents feel when their kid goes off to college. If you love them, set them free.”

“Or maybe he set you free.”

“That’s way too fucking heavy for me. Let’s get on the move, man. We have a bad guy to find.”

Pulling Dylan close, he searched his eyes, gray-blue stands of sky and sagebrush, a world of hurt and promise. “Your quest is mine too. I meant that.”

“I know. But I remember from when my mom used to read bedtime stories to me. A quest by definition is a lifelong search. If the hunt was easy, they wouldn’t write books about it. Anyway, Shawn, let’s fill our canteens from the river, and find the cabin. I’m ready for some action.”

Over the years I’ve been writing, I’ve moved from the flatland “Big Country” of Texas to the slightly higher elevations of the “Hill Country” near Austin. How about Nevada and its mountains? I visit them now only in my dreams, and in my books. It’s no accident that I’m attracted to Scotland’s Highlands, and to Kentucky’s Appalachian Mountains, among many others I’ve written about.

This short novel is my homecoming, my paean to a unique environment that has shaped me as a human being. I hope you’ll enjoy Looking for Godfrey.

Amazon Kindle: https://amzn.to/3v5GWpE

Smashwords: https://bit.ly/3RUUq0X

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Mystery-romance trilogy

Aidan Undercover is now a Trilogy!

Several months ago, I wrote a novella titled Where There’s Smoke, about a rookie undercover dick. The young Aidan Williamson, on the trail of a killer, finds a unique “mountain man” at the base of the demon’s penis, aka Devil’s Point in Scotland’s Highlands.

In a crude stone hut, he and Logan find something about each other that rises beyond a passing fascination. The meeting also sparks an author to continue their story… One novella becomes three… A fascination becomes the focus of a real love story.

Amazon has just published the Aidan Undercover trilogy on its own unique page. Check it out! Each novella is around 30K words (70 pages), fast and furious and full of unusual action.

 From the current promo:

🌈🕵️‍♂️🔥 Under the skirts of her majesty: AIDAN UNDERCOVER is a three-novella series about mystery, mayhem, and romance.

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE: Fire plays a part in this first mystery, as rookie detective Aidan Williamson finds something that makes him give up cigars and start sleeping in a verra hard place.

DEEP FURY… It’s both a brand of lube and an attitude. Aidan finds just enough about Victoria’s Secret to be nervous ahead of the Queen’s annual visit—and enough about his own needs to start seeing in the dark.

SPILLED PASSION… Passion takes many forms. Lust, love, jealousy, hate, fear—all can spill out when we least expect. What we leave behind in our most emotional moments may separate a man from a beast, a father from a son, or a lustful man from a dedicated lover.

#gay #mystery #undercovercop #Scotland #eroticContent #romance #action #humor #Standalone #novellas 🌈🕵️‍♂️🔥

On the new Kindle Series page. Purchase one or all!

https://t2m.io/OrVfzbtu

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Unkilted is unleashed!

I recently discovered that my roots go back to Scotland, to Clan MacGregor. That venerable clan has a reliable claim to be the most ancient of them all, having sprung from the Pictish blood of Alpin, Scotland’s first king. Fascinating!

In spite of its honorable birth, for almost 200 years the MacGregor family was almost obliterated…not their lives, but their name and reputation. Och, ’tis a long story, but the near abolishment of their name can be laid directly at the hands—and brains—of another clan, the Campbells.

In addition—during a period from the 1740s to the 1780s—no clan was allowed to bear arms, wear a tartan, even blow into a bagpipe. These and other acts were England’s attempt to stifle the Jacobite rebellion and the Catholic (non-Protestant) sentiments of the time.

Into this period of repression, in the year 1772, I drop a few protagonists, and I try to tell a bright love story…

Grier Black, whose true name is Gregory MacGregor, is a moody and angry man—a Highlander who cannot claim his name, who is not allowed to don a kilt, who cannot carry any weapon larger than a small non-metal knife. To make matters worse, his father has been killed  by—whom? King’s men? Enemy Campbells? His life is one of lawless rebellion and perpetual resentment.

Iain Stewart is Grier’s uncle. He’s twenty years older, several years’ worth  of university training more “civilized,” but just as deadly in his own way. From the time his brother was killed and his wife abducted, he has sworn to right old wrongs and to reinstate his clan’s honor. As a practicing solicitor, he operates above and below the law in Edinburgh.

David Campbell is a Quaker-trained young man whose father runs a successful print shop in Philadelphia. But his quiet life is turned upside down when he’s forced to escape the mindless cruelty of a group of Redcoat soldiers and ends up in the hands of a Dutch ship’s captain and a lecherous opportunist. He finally finds himself surrounded by strangers on a verra strange shore…the country of bonnie auld Scotland.

Here’s an excerpt from the novel…the chapter after Grier has just met a foreigner named David. From that moment on, all former bets are off…

>>>Chapter Eight<<<
Interlude

David was in turn mystified, charmed, saddened, and choked with desperate desire. Long he lay in the pallet, tossing on the hard bed redolent of unseen mountains, cupping himself, wondering at the way his small world had become a universe of possibilities.

I want him to desire me…in a different way from Archer…the way I have sometimes dreamed. In the way of David and Jonathan…the same way I want him.

Once, with his far away associate Alan, he had thrilled to the light touch of another man. That was an infinity ago, in a time and place forever lost, and it had lasted mere moments. This new excitement would not leave his flesh, or his fantasies.

He is to be my trainer, hardly my lover. He comes to this place to find women. He lives and thinks at cross-purposes to my own beliefs. Be careful, David.

But he could not expunge from his mind the thought of touching and kissing Grier Black. Yes, a black fox. He thought about the words he had read in Shakespeare…Lean and hungry.

Finally, testicles swollen, throbbing with the pain of holding back, he stroked himself until his hands were wet with spilled longing, and then he slept.

~o~

Grier could not sleep. He had unrolled his saddle blanket near Corbie, where his stallion stood in a half-doze. The large animal would lie down later, when deep sleep pulled him to the fragrant new grass.

He lay on his back gazing at the same stars and the same moon he and David had seen half an hour ago. Then, the sky had shimmered with the kind of light he had rarely seen. It had been a canopy of unknown and unknowable mystery, in a singular moment of peace.

He tried to forget the image of the flaxen-haired young man bent like a crescent moon over a reflecting pool…his comely buttocks flexing in mute acceptance of his own renegade eyes…

Stop, Gregory MacGregor. The lad is an innocent in a world of corrupt men.

Never, in all the years he had desired other men, never before had he made love with his tone of voice and the inflections of his speech, with the silent language of his body. He was too restless, too much in a hurry to find the next moor and drink from the burn that lay just over the next hill. He was always trying to escape…something. Some wayward phantom that had never revealed itself.

Och, he had never showed himself so openly…not until tonight. Now, turning once more onto his stomach, he cursed himself—again—for his obvious show of lust to a boy who had already suffered the worst of vile humanity.

Let it go. Let sleep come…

You can find Unkilted at one of these fine ebook vendors…

Amazon https://amzn.to/2BVJ5rj
Sea to Sky https://bit.ly/2R5wDzB 
Smashwords https://bit.ly/2StIFzn 

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Divine Mag finds Stag Heart, O’Quinn

I’m thrilled to be chosen for an author spotlight on the UK internet publication Divine Magazine. Edited by acclaimed M/M author Susan MacNicol, it’s marketed to the GLBT community across the pond and here in the USA. You can to directly to the article where you’ll find other gay-centered authors, news, and entertainment:

https://divinemagazine.biz/author-spotlight-erin-oquinn/

….Or you can read it here, now. Or both!

I created my pen name, Erin O’Quinn, because it reflected a life-long infatuation with Ireland. But my real name is Bonita Franks…“Bonita” because my father loved everything Hispanic! I was born almost on the side of a mountain in Nevada, a miner’s daughter. I never lost my fierce love for raw nature and the pioneer spirit, both of which show up in my work. Now retired, I live in a rural environment in Texas, surrounded by cats, cedars, and very wild flowers.

[So, what have you written?] and [How many books to your series?]

I have 37 titles—novels, novellas, and a few short stories—all but ten in the M/M genre of GLBTQ-themed lit. The following graphic shows those M/M works. To make for an easy grouping, I divide them into three sets: those centered in Ireland (9), Scotland (13), and Nevada (5).

In four novels, I journeyed back into the “pre-history” of Old World Ireland and Scotland, back to the time of St. Patrick himself. One of those works is Stag Heart, my latest novel and the one I’m highlighting today.

Stag Heart is the natural follow-up to Warrior, Come Again—the story of five men who reluctantly return to Cambria, northern Britannia, in pursuit of something very personal. So you could say that my featured book is the fourth in a series, but it’s definitely a stand-alone.

[How has your writing evolved since your first book?]

My first gay lit effort was a two-series historical work I call “The Iron Warrior,” written for a publisher, for which the contract has since expired. When those two novels were freed from bondage late last year, I re-wrote, re-formatted and re-covered them; then I wrote a much-needed third novel and published all three of them with my own “company,” New Dawn Press. Those works are

Warrior, Ride Hard

Warrior, Stand Tall

Warrior, Come Again

Those first two books were rife with sex…what the publisher demanded…which I toned down when I held the editorial and publisher whip hand! By the time I wrote the third one last November, the sex had become only part of the tapestry, although of course central to the main characters’ odyssey. And when I penned Stag Heart (in the same universe) a few months go, I allowed the sexual content to be just as vital and yet not the driving force of the book.

How else has my writing changed? I find I am much more lyrical, even sometimes poetic. I have evolved a keen ear for dialog, and a sharp eye for the natural world around my characters. Those “talents” have always been there in my writing; but now I strive for them—a certain cadence and rhythm, a subtlety of language missing in my early efforts.

The last important way I’ve changed is the use of humor. Oh, the comedic was always around. But now, every work is rife with irony and tongue-in-cheek humor.

[Five things people wouldn’t know about me] and [What places are on my Bucket List?]

Stepping back for a moment from the literary side of Erin O’Quinn, I thought I’d reveal a few deep, dark secrets about myself. 

I actually like spiders.

I cannot find my way on my own street.

I once sold Volvos and Saabs literally in a forest in Germany.

I taught college English for about five years.

My favorite job was driving a forklift and hauling pallets for a garden shop.

And l have a few places on my Bucket List, in no particular order:

Edinburgh, Scotland (the hub of my time-travel M/M novel Come Again, My Love)

Inishowen, Ireland (the crux of some early novels)

Stirling Castle, Scotland (especially the Unicorn Tapestries, which I’ve seen only in my novella The Unicorn’s Secret)

~oOo~

[What do you think makes your book stand out from the crowd?]

Today I want to talk about my most recent novel, Stag Heart. 

It’s definitely not a cookie-cutter kind of book. First, it’s set 1500 years ago, on Ireland’s sacred Hill of Tara. But the shenanigans and the intrigue are anything but sacred! What happens when a wilding, a natural soul, is thrown together with the bad-boy son of a king? What could go wrong…?

I managed to write this novel in three distinct voices, each man having his own pov in alternating chapters.

~Dub, an actual historical figure, is the warrior-scholar ollamh or wise man to Leary, a real historical high king in the mid-fifth century. He was baptized by Patrick himself and has a certain spiritual gravitas.

~Oisean, a complete innocent with the heart of a young wild animal, is the brother of Dub’s dead wife. He’s a young man whom Dub brought back to Tara at the end of Warrior, Come Again and who’s now living with Dub and his twelve-year-old son.

~Fergus is a drunk and a rogue, the youngest son of King Leary. Circumstances force him to train with Dub, to live in his household. And his sexual preference is clearly for his own—sex, that is!

The conflict (and tension) in the story is clear. Dub is tasked with training the king’s son. But the king’s son has a strong attraction to his brother-in-law, the wilding Oisean, against Dub’s express orders. And to make the conflict even more ironic—unknown even to him, Fergus is on a secret mission whose purpose is to assassinate Dub.

My biggest challenge in writing this novel was not just the juggling of three distinct points of view. The pov of Oisean had to reflect his unschooled, utterly alien understanding of the “civilized” world he’s now facing….and the unfamiliar pull of intense sexual excitement…in words that are simple yet evocative.

This brief excerpt may give a sense of Oisean, his way of seeing his  new world, and his confusion about the smoldering sexuality of another young man.

~oOo~

Their eating ritual was different tonight. They ate where they sat, cross-legged in a circle, the same as always. But instead of taking up their food with their fingers, Dub showed them how to use a metal object to take it from the trencher to their mouth. 

Oisean understood without asking. Because of our guest.

The man named Fergus seemed to ask a bird-sky full of questions with his strange eyes, but he said nothing. Not wanting to stop the music that sounded sweet here, deep inside the heart place, Oisean stayed quiet also. But he could not take his eyes from their guest.

Fergus was shorter than himself, by half a hand. His hair seemed to shelter fire and sunbeams among the acorn-brown strands. From time to time, he pushed it from his brow with the thumb of his left hand. His shoulders did not show the same swells and ridges as his stag-brethren, and Oisean guessed he did not use his bow very often. His face was pleasant to look at, with its neat little nest of red-brown hair on his chin and his upper lip. Not very often, his mouth seemed to crook in an unwilling smile, like a child who knows not whether to laugh or cry.

How different he is from Drust, with his storm of hair…or Brenn, raven-black of eye and mind…or my other stag-brethren.

The guest kept his eyes on his food, but sometimes he looked up. When that happened, not once but twice, Oisean felt an arrow pierce his deepest core, lower than his belly…

His eyes were not just brown, but dappled like stones in a river bed—where flashes of gold and green and sable seemed to mingle and flare, like dancers before a ritual flame.

The second time, he dropped the metal thing in confusion. His thoughts had never been so…so full of dreams.

~oOo~

Thank you kindly for allowing me to take a  bow. You’ll find my social media and links to my works here:

Erin O’Quinn’s author pages:

Kindle US http://amzn.to/1w8PVgI

Kindle UK http://amzn.to/24BcIcj

*Queer Romance Ink http://bit.ly/2mnG1hL  (links, reviews, etc.)

Sea to Sky http://bit.ly/2lJ72bd (epub or pdf links, excerpts)

Smashwords http://bit.ly/1s3cf1q  (epub)

*QRI is the best because everything is there at a click. You just have to wait a few moments for the data to kick in!

Facebook main page https://www.facebook.com/bonita.franks 

Facebook author page https://www.facebook.com/ErinOQuinnEroticWriting/ 

Twitter https://twitter.com/erinoquinn_erin 

Blog “The Man in Romance” https://romancemanlove.wordpress.com

Blog “Ac´cent Gay Lit Authors” https://gaylitauthors.wordpress.com

Blog “Gaslight M/Mysteries” https://caitlinfire.wordpress.com

Novel Stag Heart, blurb:

What happens when an innocent, natural soul is thrown together with a highly attractive but morally corrupt young man?

Stag Heart tells the intertwined story of three men.

Dub is a scholar-warrior seeking inner peace in an often brutal world.

Fergus is the bad boy son of a king who needs to learn how to become a man.

Oisean is an innocent, a wilding whose soul stirs in rhythm with raw nature.

These three are forced by circumstance to live and learn and finally survive together on Ireland’s sacred Hill of Tara, where mischief and mayhem lie hidden by ancient stones.

An M/M historical romance fantasy-adventure

Purchase links:

It’s all here at QRI:  https://is.gd/bQK5lo  (all links, reviews, explicit excerpt)

~and~

Kindle US https://is.gd/G6elnN  

Kindle UK https://is.gd/ocon0O  

SeaToSky https://is.gd/MrfeiG (pdf or epub)

Smashwords https://is.gd/vU7yxi (epub)

 

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Over the edge…The Burns Enigma

I’m posting this for the stalwart followers of Erin O’Quinn’s work and words. Here is a promo I am running on Facebook:

When Burns walks into that good night in THE UNICORN’S SECRET, how will Thomas cope with the rest of his bleak existence? Is there a way these two lost souls can still find each other and save each other?

A tough cop and a reclusive civilian discover that an old crime and a new murder are connected. Worse, the common denominator is one of them.

Thomas Fitzgerald and a “new” lover are in the shadow of a criminal, one who has set his mind on brutal revenge.

The first five Burns! Mysteries tiptoed to the brink of the paranormal and finally teetered over the edge. What will happen in this mystery, as then and now and tomorrow start to merge? The enigma begins with Burns…

Watch for THE BURNS ENIGMA, coming soon to an ebook store near you… And by that, my friends, I mean as soon as I can sell a few copies of that damned unicorn.
~

Find the first five in the series on one of O’Quinn’s author pages:

#gay #erotic #romance #mystery #paranormal #novellas
Kindle US http://goo.gl/aqc454
Kindle UK https://goo.gl/EvzdLd
ARe/OmniLit https://goo.gl/m3lUf4 (pdf and epub formats)
Smashwords https://goo.gl/80Tw3v (epub)
BURNS TOO DEEP / THE DUNDEE LAW / RED, RED ROSE / THE DEVIL IN FALKIRK / THE UNICORN’S SECRET
The Burns! Box Set (mysteries 1-4) saves 62%

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