I’ve joined the Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook. From their description: “Rainbow Snippets is a group for LGBTQ+ authors, readers, and bloggers to gather once a week to share six sentences from a work of fiction–a WIP or a finished work or even a 6-sentence book recommendation (no spoilers please!).” Pretty cool, eh? Don’t forget to “Like” my Facebook page and/or my Facebook profile while you’re over there checking out this fantastic group!
This week I’m snipping from The Best-Laid Plans. For context, princes Marcelo and Efren have begun their long journey to Efren’s kingdom of Zioneven, their caravan has camped for the night, and something has disturbed Efren’s sleep.
The story alternates POVs, but this thread is from Efren’s 3rd-person POV (refreshers under the spoiler tags):
This week’s snippet:
Efren shivered as goosebumps rose on his naked skin in the chilled night air and soundlessly slipped his broadsword and knife from their leather scabbard. He glanced at Marcelo, still sleeping, although less serenely with the sudden loss of the warm body next to him.
Guilt pinged his core as he shook off a strong desire to waken and forewarn Marcelo, but he pushed it down. Marcelo, completely untrained in warfare, would be safer in here. He seemed a heavy sleeper, likely incorporating outside noises into his dreams, unused to a need to be readily alert. He might even doze through the skirmish.
Or was that just wishful thinking? Because there’d be no hope that Marcelo could escape unseen, if it came to that.
Blurb & Links
A death that wasn’t what it seemed…
A kidnapping that isn’t what it seems…
Time is running out.
The morning after his wedding night, Prince Marcelo thought he’d be embarking on a journey to his own personal fairytale happily ever after with his husband, Efren, the crown prince of Zioneven. But when news arrives indicating his sister’s death wasn’t as accidental as previously thought, that journey becomes fraught with danger.
Enmeshed in political intrigue, death, and a kidnapping that might not be what it seems, will Efren untangle the web of misleading clues in time to save the naïve young man he’s already come to admire, or will Marcelo dig deep to discover a previously untapped inner strength and determination to facilitate his own survival?
Out now at JMS Books!
Publisher | Books2Read | Kindle | BAM! | Hoopla
Have you missed out on book 1, The Contingency Plan? You can get it as a single novelette, or as part of JMS Books’ 2018 Top Ten Gay Romance anthology:
Blurb/Excerpt/Etc. | Bonus (Alt. POV) Scenes
Novelette: Publisher | Kindle (in KU) | Books2Read | Bookstrand | Blio | BAM! | Hoopla | Overdrive
Anthology: Publisher | Kindle | Books2Read | BookStrand | BAM! | Hoopla | Overdrive
#RainbowSnippets
Intense, yet with a certain sweet stillness, like the calm before a storm…
Thank you! 🌺
An agonising dilemma!
Yes. I sure wouldn’t want to make that decision. 😕
Rather a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation, isn’t it?
Pretty much! ❤️
Loved the detail of incorporating sounds into his dreams and that worry he wouldn’t be a help in a fight
Thank you! ❤️😁