Welcome to our first week of celebrations for the amazing
In our first post, we will talk about Billy's Bones and Violated. We also have a list of Jamie's favorite things and a chance to win one of his books!
First up, Billy's Bones
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| Cover Artist: Lou Harper |
Kevin Derocher was thirty-two when he walked into Tom’s office, newly married, a baby on the way, and the collar of his red flannel shirt pulled up to hide the bruises around his throat from when he hanged himself in his garage. After his initial consult, therapist Tom Langois believes he’ll never see Kevin again—but Kevin turns up three years later to make repairs on Tom’s new house.
Kevin and Tom become fast friends, and Tom begins to suspect Kevin may be interested in more than friendship. However, Kevin remains haunted by something from his childhood—something so terrible he blocked it from his mind. These suppressed memories make it impossible for Kevin to get close to anyone without panicking and lashing out, sometimes violently. But as his past begins to surface, it becomes apparent that Kevin may hold the key to a twenty-five-year-old mystery: what happened to Billy?
Excerpt:
Tom was happy right now. Sitting on the deck of the house he owned, on a warm summer night, with a full stomach, the taste of good steak and beer still in his mouth, and Kevin nearby. If it weren’t for that nitpicky little detail of Kevin being straight, everything would be perfect.
He heard the sound of the hot tub lid being lifted up and opened his eyes. Kevin was standing over it, engulfed in a cloud of steam. “Want to get in?” He folded the padded lid back on itself, and then lifted the entire thing off and set it against the deck railing.
It was tempting. “I only have one pair of swim trunks,” Tom hedged.
“Don’t be an ass. You don’t wear a swimsuit in a hot tub.”
And with that, Kevin stripped out of his T-shirt and shorts and climbed into the water. Tom was dumbstruck. Just like that, the guy he’d been fantasizing about was stark naked. As far as Tom could tell, Kevin wasn’t even drunk.
Tom stood and walked over to the hot tub. The blue lights inside the tub illuminated the water and cast an eerie glow up into Kevin’s grinning face.
“Don’t tell me you’re shy,” Kevin teased.
“Fuck you.” Tom stripped and climbed into the water. It felt wonderful, especially when Kevin fiddled with the control console and started the jets pumping.
Tom found one of the built-in seats and slid into it, where two of the jets could massage his lower back. He sighed in pleasure. He expected Kevin to stay on the other side of the tub, but the other man swam through the center of the tub and took a seat beside him.
They sat there in silence, eyes closed while the jets massaged them. Tom was intensely aware that Kevin was naked and within arm’s reach. He couldn’t touch, but Kevin didn’t seem to mind if he looked.
Hot tubs were awesome.
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Second in today's line-up, Violated
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| Cover Artist: LC Chase |
Derek Sawyer thinks he has it all—a high-salaried position, a boyfriend, a dog, even a new cabin on the lake—until a business trip with his manager and best friend, Victor, shatters his world.
One night of drunken horsing around in their hotel room leads to the most intensely personal violation Derek has ever endured. As if the humiliation of working under his attacker every day isn’t enough, Victor reports Derek for sexual harassment. Now he’s without a job, without a boyfriend, and the mortgage on the cabin is due.
Officer Russ Thomas has worked with rape victims before, and it doesn’t take him long to sort out the truth in Derek’s tale. With his support, Derek finally reports the crime, months after it happened. But restraining orders and lawyers further Victor’s anger toward him, and even though a relationship develops between Derek and the policeman, Russ can’t be there to protect him all the time.
Excerpt:
It was a good thing hadn’t planned to sneak up to the deck, because Max went rushing ahead as soon as he saw Gracie lying beside the deck chair. Russ came around the corner of the cabin in time to see Derek’s arm flinch and pull in from where it had been resting on the arm of the chair. Derek glanced up at him with a guilty expression on his face, and Russ could tell by the way he’d crossed his arms over his crotch, as well as the bare skin showing through the sides of the deck chair, that he was naked.
Fuck. Something else normally done in private—masturbation.
“Sorry,” Russ said hurriedly. “I saw the light on, so… I shouldn’t have disturbed you.”
Derek didn’t look good. He was pale and his hair was clinging to his forehead with perspiration. Of course, if he was trying to hide an erection right now, he’d probably been working up a sweat a minute ago.
“Come on, Max. Let’s give him some privacy.”
“Dude!” Derek said sharply. “I wasn’t… doing what you think.”
“I was just trying to relax a minute with a cigarette. You just… caught me by surprise.” He seemed to will himself to relax, though his left hand remained in front of his crotch. “You want a beer or something?”
Russ swallowed hard, forcing himself to look anywhere but at that fascinating patch of pubic hair poking out from behind Derek’s hand. “Sure, if you’re gonna be out here for a while longer.”
Is he going to stay like that? he wondered.
Sadly, the answer was no. Russ averted his eyes as Derek stood and went into the cabin. A moment later he returned with a couple of open beers… and a pair of gray sweats covering up the naughty bits.
Russ accepted one of the ice-cold bottles and pulled up another deck chair. Max had finished sniffing at Gracie, somewhat inappropriately, and settled down beside her. But when Derek sat back down, Russ couldn’t help but notice he still looked shaken, as if he’d had a fright.
“Are you okay, man?”
Derek took a long time to answer him, taking a drink of beer before replying, “I’m all right.”
“You’ve got, like, every light in the house on. Did you hear a noise? Or have a nightmare?”
Again, Derek was slow to respond. “I really don’t feel like talking about it.”
“Sure,” Russ said, holding up a hand in surrender. “No problem.” The strength of his desire to comfort Derek surprised him, but there wasn’t much he could do if the guy didn’t want comforting. He wasn’t a child.
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Jamie's favorite things:
1.
Poutine. Fortunately, my vegetarian husband has learned out to make a
vegetarian gravy with Bell’s seasoning that fools my taste buds
into thinking it’s chicken gravy. So it’s something we can share.
2.
Scotch and whiskey. Since attending the speculative fiction writer’s
workshop Viable Paradise, where I was introduced to Writer’s Tears
Irish whiskey, I’ve become addicted to having a shot of good Scotch
or whiskey every day.
3.
Orchestral movie scores and classical music. The Star Wars score blew
me away, when I was eleven, and ever since I’ve collected every
beautiful film score I come across. I also majored in Music Theory,
which exposed me to a wide array of orchestral music. I usually have
“mood music” playing in the background, while I write.
4.
Dogs. It’s difficult to find a story of mine that doesn’t feature
a dog. Even “The Rules” had Hans calling his Russian lover
“doggie” in Russian. I adore dogs, and can’t imagine life
without them. We currently have a loveable black lab and a foxhound
pup who barks incessantly. The barking was something we had to get
used to, but he’s a beautiful, affectionate pup, so we put up with
it. We even “talk” back to him at times.
5.
New Hampshire. I was raised here, and it’s a beautiful state. The
towns are an odd combination of run-down houses and trailers sitting
right next to beautiful Victorians—we don’t really have a
division between rich neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods—and the
countryside is Norman Rockwell beautiful, especially in the fall.
About the author:
Jamie Fessenden set out to be a writer in junior high school. He published a couple short pieces in his high school's literary magazine and had another story place in the top 100 in a national contest, but it wasn't until he met his partner, Erich, almost twenty years later, that he began writing again in earnest. With Erich alternately inspiring and goading him, Jamie wrote several screenplays and directed a few of them as micro-budget independent films. He then began writing novels and published his first novella in 2010.
After nine years together, Jamie and Erich have married and purchased a house together in the wilds of Raymond, New Hampshire, where there are no street lights, turkeys and deer wander through their yard, and coyotes serenade them on a nightly basis. Jamie recently left his "day job" as a tech support analyst to be a full-time writer.
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Giveaway:
Thanks for celebrating this fantastic author with us. Come back next week for more of Jamie's books and five little-known facts about him.
Until then, happy reading!
Thank you for the post and sharing your favorite things. #1 made me laugh a little. I don't think I could ever go vegetarian but fries are great and a gravy that has no animal byproducts must be really good if it manages to fool the taste buds.
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