Welcome to our Grand Finale celebrations for the stupendously talented
For our final post, we're going to talk about
Motel.Pool.,
Housekeeping, and
Pilgrimage, plus you'll see our Q&A with Kim, and get one more chance to win one of her books!
Let's start with
Motel.Pool.:
Blurb:
In the mid-1950s, Jack Dayton flees his working-class prospects in Omaha and heads to Hollywood, convinced he’ll be the next James Dean. But sleazy casting couches don't earn him stardom, and despair leads to a series of poor decisions that ultimately find him at a cheap motel off Route 66, lifeless at the bottom of the pool.
Sixty years later, Tag Manning, feeling hopeless and empty, flees his most recent relationship mistake and takes to the open road. On a roundabout route to Las Vegas, he pulls over to rest at an isolated spot on Route 66. There’s no longer a motel or pool, but when Tag resumes his journey to Vegas, he finds he’s transporting a hitchhiking ghost. Jack and Tag come to find much-needed friends in each other, but one man is a phantom and the other is strangely cursed. Time is running out for each of them, and they must face the fact that a future together may not only be a gamble... it may not be in the cards.
Excerpt:
“Fuck!” Tag shouted. He rolled down the car window and let the slipstream tear the postcard from his fingers. It disappeared into the darkness.
“That was littering,” said an accusing voice.
Tag whipped his head to the side—and saw a man grinning at him from the passenger seat. Tag screamed. The car swerved onto the shoulder. He overcorrected, turning sharply the other way, flying across the northbound lane and onto gravel, spinning sideways. For an eternal moment, the car was poised to roll, teetering like a tightrope walker on a windy day. Tag wasn’t wearing a seat belt. He took a breath and waited to die. Then the Camry found its balance and skidded to a halt.
Without even planning to move, Tag flung open his door and leapt out of the car. But then he stood there, breathing hard, every muscle in his body tensed. After several seconds, the passenger door opened. Someone got out—Tag couldn’t see details—and sauntered to the front of the car, where he was illuminated by the headlights.
He was a young man, twenty, maybe twenty-one years old. His sandy hair was short on the sides but longer on top, swept back in a sort of pompadour that probably required a lot of product. He was a couple of inches taller than Tag’s five eight. His plain white tee stretched over wide shoulders and a muscular chest and tucked into the trim waist of his blue jeans. He was smiling.
As Tag gaped, the man turned his back and perched his butt on the hood of the Camry. Tag didn’t see how the guy managed to produce a cigarette and lighter, but the flame flickered brightly, the guy exhaled noisily, and a cloud of smoke drifted through the headlight beams.
Tag stepped around his open door and walked in front of the car. The man looked relaxed, a little amused. “You almost killed yourself just now,” he observed.
“Who the fuck are you? And how the hell…?” Tag ran a shaky hand through his hair. Had he really been so preoccupied as not to notice someone sitting in his backseat when he left the park? He certainly would have noticed him climbing into the front. It wasn’t like the Camry was a big vehicle.
The guy took another puff and tapped ashes onto the ground. “My name’s Jack Dayton.” He tilted his head slightly. “Maybe you heard of me? I was in a couple of movies.”
Tag shook his head mutely, and Jack shrugged. “They weren’t very big parts.”
“But what the fuck…? How…?” Tag smoothed his hair back, as if that might help make sense of things—or at least enable him to utter a coherent sentence. But he remained incredibly confused, his heart beating wildly. Later he might decide that was a good thing; his heart hadn’t been beating much at all lately. But now he only felt like he needed a chair and a stiff drink.
Jack took a few more leisurely drags on his cigarette before grinding it out beneath his heel. He wore black leather boots that looked like they’d seen a lot of miles. “I hitched a ride. Didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Hitched? But… I locked my car. And I didn’t see you, not until just now.”
“Locks aren’t a problem for me. And as for the rest….” Jack blinked out of existence.
Get the book:
Housekeeping:
Blurb:
When Nicky Hauser walks in on his restaurant-owner boyfriend having sex with a waiter, Nicky loses his lover, his job, and his home all in one night. Although he’s nearly thirty, he’s never settled on a true career, and he has nothing to show for his years with Tom. Depressed and unable to find work, Nicky ends up couch-surfing with friends until he lands a house-sitting gig for a wealthy family.
When Nicky’s clients discover that he loves to clean, demand for his services skyrockets. Word of mouth leads him to Spencer Cartwright, a busy computer consultant and a slob. Spencer and his wife divorced when he came out, but he’s never found the time or courage to settle down with a man. As Nicky sets Spencer’s house to rights, the two men find friendship. But Nicky’s past experiences make him wary of risking everything on love.
Get the book:
Pilgrimage:
Blurb:
Fiscal analyst Mike Carlson is good with spreadsheets and baseball stats. He doesn’t believe in fate, true love, or fantasy. But then a fertility goddess whisks him away to another world. A promise has been broken, and if Mike is ever to return to California—and his comfortable if lonely life—he must complete a pilgrimage to the shrines of a death goddess.
A humiliating event convinces Mike to hire a guard to accompany him, and hunky Goran is handy enough with a sword, if a little too liberal with his ale. A man with no home and no family, Goran is deeper than he first appears. As Mike learns more about Goran, his disbelief wavers and his goals become less clear. Contending with feuding gods, the challenges of the journey, and his growing attraction to Goran, Mike faces a puzzle far harder to solve than simple rows of numbers.
Excerpt:
It was time to hit the road. He waited for the hostess or one of her family members to approach his table. Maybe they could tell him how far away Kutina was and how to get there. Instead, one of the other customers rose from his seat, strolled across the room, and collapsed onto the bench across from Mike.
Blurb:
