GUEST POST ~ Squirrel in Hiding by Holly Day #GuestPost #Excerpt
✨ GUEST POST ✨
Hello, everyone! Thank you, lovely Addison, for allowing me to steal a spot on your blog 🥰
I’m Holly Day, and I write MM romance, most often paranormal, but the occasional contemporary or alien romance slips through. Every story I write is written with a specific day in mind. This time around, we’re celebrating Read an eBook Day, which is observed annually on September 18th.
If you’re following this blog, I can only assume that this is a day you have little to no problem celebrating. All you have to do is read an eBook.
The book I’ve written to celebrate Read an eBook Day is called Squirrel in Hiding, and it’s the third story in the Scurry of Squirrels series. These are quick and easy paranormal romances with squirrel shifters and werewolves. Predatory shifters eat non-predatory, so squirrels are close to extinction, and every squirrel still alive knows not to get close to wolves.
In Doson, the local werewolf pack is a little different, though. They have not one (Squirrel Circus) but two (Squirrel Hunt) squirrel-werewolf couples. Raaz has no way of knowing that, of course. He’s running for his life, hunted by a werewolf pack, when he runs into a bunny shifter. The bunny shifter buys him a train ticket to Doson and tells him to find Nicodemus, a grumpy vampire, once he gets there.
Raaz does as instructed, and Nicodemus gives him a place to stay and a job. For a short time, everything is fine. Then Farris finds him, and it’s so much worse than just being spotted by a werewolf.
Farris is Raaz’s mate, and no werewolf will live through the humiliation of being mated to a squirrel – at least, that’s what Raaz believes.
Farris, on the other hand, already knows two werewolf-squirrel couples and is thrilled to have found his mate. If he could get a chance to talk to him, it would be even better, but Raaz runs away from him.
How do you woo a squirrel when he keeps hiding from you?
And then there is the whole deal with the books. It’s Read an eBook Day we’re celebrating after all. Farris is a reader. He has shelf after shelf with queer smut, but he’s embarrassed about it, so he covers his books with non-fiction book jackets. Preferably war-related or about other things a forty-two-year-old, dominant werewolf should be reading.
When he finally manages to get Raaz to come inside his home, the first thing he does is open one of the books and laugh at Farris. His deepest, darkest secret revealed within seconds of being in the same room as his mate.
Raaz then proceeds to explain eBooks to him, so it’s all good 😁
As I said, these are quick and easy stories. Fated mates, nut-hoarding squirrels and growling werewolves. And it’s an eBook, so you know…if you want to celebrate 😉
Squirrel in Hiding
by Holly Day
Publisher: JMS Books
Series: A Scurry of Squirrels (Book 3 – Shared Universe)
Genre: Gay Paranormal Romance
Length: Novella / 130 Pages / 34,573 Words
🛒 Purchase Links
Blurb
Every squirrel worth his name knows when it’s time to run.
Raaz Olen has been on the run for a year, ever since a wolf pack took out everyone in his family but him. When the stupid wolves almost have him cornered, a stranger helps him and sends him to the grumpiest vampire in the history of grumpy vampires, who offers him a job in his thrift shop.
Farris Randal has given up on finding his mate. He’s a big wolf shifter people cross the street to avoid. It’s a lonely life, but at least he can escape into his books. One day, when he’s browsing the local thrift shop, he scents his mate. But before he has a chance to reach him, he is wrestled to the ground by a vampire, and his mate runs away.
There is no way Raaz can ever be mated to a wolf. The pack will kill him. He has to hide. Farris doesn’t care what species his mate is, finding him is a miracle he won’t walk away from. When wolves from another pack descend on the town, Farris fears for Raaz’s safety, but how can he keep Raaz safe when he is hiding from him?
Excerpt
Farris didn’t know where to put his hands. His heart was beating uncomfortably fast.
When the bathroom door opened, he turned around and watched Raaz. Warmth bloomed in his chest as he took in the tousled dark hair and the too-big clothes. “Hi.” He hadn’t meant to whisper, but there he was. Farris’ mate. In his house. It was something he’d hardly dared dream about.
“Hi.” Raaz cleared his throat but didn’t say anything else.
“Hungry?”
He shook his head.
“A cup of tea? A glass of wine?”
“Tea, please.”
Joy spread in Farris’ heart. “Coming right up. Have a seat.” He gestured at the couch and hurried into the kitchen where he put the kettle on. Then he poured all three bags of trail mix into a bowl and carried it into the living room.
When he entered, Raaz was leafing through a book with a frown on his face. He glanced up at Farris. “This isn’t the book it says on the cover.”
Fuck. “It’s not?”
“This is porn.”
“It’s not porn.” Shit, was it porn? Which book was behind The World’s Greatest Submarines jacket? Some of the books he had were pretty spicy.
“Dude, he watched his hole stretch around his throbbing cock as he pushed in.[OG1] It’s porn. Why do you have porn wrapped in submarines?”
Farris’ tongue stopped working. This was the first conversation he had face-to-face with his mate, and he’d read part of a sex scene out loud to him seconds after having discovered his biggest secret. “I can’t have people come here and see—” He gestured at the wall of books.
Raaz made a sound, a suppressed laugh if he had to guess. Great, his mate was laughing at him. Farris’ cheeks heated.
Reaching for another book, Raaz watched him. His eyes were dancing as he held up the book, so Farris could see the cover. Adolf Hitler: From the Beginning to the End. His heart sped up again. What title was it? His mind had gone blank.
Raaz put the book on his lap, opened the cover and read the title page. “Oh, I like this one.”
Time stopped, and a buzz built in his ears until he couldn’t hear anything else. “What?”
Pointing at the book, Raaz met his gaze. “This one is good. I like all her books, or I’ve liked all the titles I’ve read. I haven’t read anything in a year, so there might be something new out, and I don’t think I’ve read her entire backlist.”
“You’ve read it?” The only other person Farris had met who read the same kind of books he did was Dahy, and it wasn’t a perfect overlap. They preferred different tropes.
“Yeah. Back when I had a phone, I used to read a lot.”
Farris frowned. He had a phone, they’d been texting, and what did a phone have to do with anything?
“Why are you hiding your books?”
Shaking his head, Farris wasn’t sure he understood the question. “What would people think if they—”
Raaz laughed low and huskily, and it had a fire light inside of Farris.
“What do you think eBooks are for?”
“What?”
“Don’t you have the Kindle app on your phone?”
The kettle sounded, telling him the water was boiling. What the hell was a Kindle app?
“Jesus, give me your phone.” Raaz held out his hand.
Farris grabbed his phone and unlocked the screen lock before heading to the kitchen. If Raaz wanted to call someone, he’d let him.
He busied himself making two cups of tea and took them into the living room.
“Okay, now you need to create an account.” Raaz held out the phone.
“An account.” Farris didn’t reach for the phone. He didn’t have many apps, and he wasn’t sure he wanted more than the necessary ones.
Raaz sighed. “What’s your email address?”
Farris gave him his work email, and Raaz raised an eyebrow at him. “Your boss won’t be angry with you for using it for personal use?”
“Using what?”
“The address.” Raaz waved a hand. “Never mind.”
“I don’t think Konrad can tell.”
“He’s your boss and your alpha?”
Farris nodded. “I’m blessed.”
Raaz barked a laugh, and a shiver danced over Farris’ skin. Damn, he wanted to hear that sound again. He wanted to hear all the sounds. Carefully, Farris moved around the coffee table and sat on the couch next to Raaz but left plenty of space between them. He wanted to pull him onto his lap, but something told him Raaz wouldn’t appreciate it.
“Okay, your password is Raaz is best in one word followed by three exclamation marks.” He leaned forward and held out the phone. “Log into your email and confirm.”
“Confirm what?”
“That it’s your email. Jesus, how old are you?”
“Forty-two.”
Raaz rolled his eyes. “I meant you have to have gone through this process a million times.”
“I avoid accounts.”
“Trust me on this. You’ll want it.”
About the Author
According to Holly Day, no day should go by uncelebrated and all of them deserve a story. If she’ll have the time to write them remains to be seen. She lives in rural Sweden with a husband, four children, more pets than most, and wouldn’t last a day without coffee.
Holly gets up at the crack of dawn most days of the week to write gay romance stories. She believes in equality in fiction and in real life. Diversity matters. Representation matters. Visibility matters. We can change the world one story at the time.
Author Links
This sounds so cute!
Yes! I’ve added it to my cart over at JMS, awaiting the next sale. The first book in this shared universe series is one of my fave stories! Loved the second one, too, and I’m looking forward to this one. ❤️
Excellent!!