GUEST POST :: A Jumble of Emotions by Holly Day #Excerpt #GuestPost
✨ GUEST POST ✨
Hello everyone! Thank you, Addison, for allowing me to revisit the blog! It’s always nice to be here 🥰
I’m Holly Day, and I write MM Romance stories, most often paranormal, but the occasional contemporary story slips through, and there have been an alien or two over the years. All my stories are written for a specific day, you know, like Squirrel Appreciation Day or Keep Off the Grass Day.
Today I’m here to talk about my latest release, A Jumble of Emotions.
A Jumble of Emotions did not turn out as planned. Now, I’m a pantser, or a discovery writer, or whatever you want to call it. Since all my stories are for specific days, there will be an element to match the day, and most often, before I start writing, I either have an idea of my characters or I have a scene playing out in my head that won’t let go of me.
When I, earlier in the year, told my publisher I would write a story for Scar Appreciation Day, I planned on doing a sequel to When at War with Witches, but then ideas of an empath started to take over my brain, and I figured it would do for Scar Appreciation Day.
For weeks, while walking the dog, small scenes, ideas, and personality traits flitted through my mind, and I was really looking forward to starting the story.
Then, right as I was about to start writing, I watched a documentary series about Jeffrey Dahmer.
See, the thing about not being a planner is that sometimes your brain takes you on a journey you aren’t prepared for.
I saw a shunned wolf shifter, scarred and broken, who didn’t think he’d ever find love, and then an empath who’d see the good in him. Because we all know empaths see past appearances and mistakes made in the past.
I was imagining this as a story of love and acceptance, of seeing one’s scars as healing and resilience (which pretty much is what Scar Appreciation Day is all about) and coming out on the other side with all the happiness you deserve.
Instead, I ended up with an empath, suffering through having been held captive by a serial killer (thank you, Jeffrey Dahmer *growl*), and has pretty severe anxiety because of it.
I still have my shifter, scarred and tarnished, but he now has to be the ‘strong’ character. It was not how it was supposed to be.
That does not mean that I dislike this story – I don’t! But my idea of it and the end product are not the same.
Good or bad, I don’t know. It is what it is. Two characters, one with visible scars and one with invisible, working side by side to find a missing teenager. What should’ve been a quick assignment turns into a road trip across the country, where none of the clues they unearth make any sense.
It’s a slow-burn story, with a touch-starved wolf and a touch-averse empath. If it sounds like something you might like, give it a try!
A Jumble of Emotions
by Holly Day
Genre: Paranormal Gay Romance
Length: Novel / 66,094 Words / 258 Pages
Heat Rating: 3 Flames
🛒 Purchase Links
Blurb
A werewolf exiled from his pack. An empath drowning in emotions. A missing girl binding them together.
Talon Huxley doesn’t need a partner. As the only shifter working for Iniko Enterprises, he’s used to being alone. When a teenager goes missing, his boss pairs him with Alistair Sheehan, the reclusive empath they rescued years ago. The empath Talon can’t get out of his head.
If Alistair had a choice, he’d never leave his apartment, but his bills don’t pay themselves. Shifters are rare, and Alistair has never met one before now. Talon is big, scarred, and terrifying. In other words, everything Alistair should fear, and yet he makes him feel safe.
As they search for the missing girl, it becomes clear the case isn’t what they were led to believe. Someone is deceiving them, but Talon won’t allow anything to happen to Alistair. He’ll keep him by his side night and day. For the sake of safety, if nothing else.
Excerpt
Alistair huddled by the trash cans outside the entrance to his building. People tended to keep their distance from them when they passed on the sidewalk.
Normally, there weren’t many people milling about, and fewer still near the trash cans. He had a shitty apartment, in one of the lower-income districts of Ridgestone, and it suited him fine. People were too busy with their own problems to pay him much attention.
He hadn’t slept. He’d dozed for maybe half an hour. His hands were shaking, and his breaths were coming in short puffs.
The October morning was cold, but not cold enough to numb him.
When a black Chevy truck turned the corner of the narrow street, every muscle in Alistair’s body tensed. It didn’t belong here.
It slowed and then stopped right outside the door to his stairwell. The windows were tinted black, but he could make out the massive man in the driver’s seat.
Then the door opened, and Talon stepped out. Alistair gulped and pressed his back against the brick wall behind him.
Talon didn’t walk any closer. “Alistair?”
He nodded.
“Ready to go?”
He wanted to shake his head, but he had to go. It was his job. It took another few seconds before he could get his feet to move.
Talon got back into the truck, and Alistair stopped again. Where should he sit?
When the passenger door opened from within, he forced himself to move. He climbed in and hugged his duffel bag to his chest.
“Want to put the bag in the backseat?”
Alistair didn’t move, didn’t breathe. He couldn’t feel Talon. It made him look at him. Talon watched him in return; there was a frown between his brows.
Why couldn’t he feel him?
“Okay.” Talon blew out a breath. “I think we need to work on communication. Can you nod?”
Alistair nodded, and there was a quick tug at the corner of Talon’s mouth. It made the scars deepen, the ragged marks denting only to smooth out when the almost-smile disappeared.
“Good. Can you shake your head?”
Alistair stared at him for a second, then he gave a slow shake.
“Awesome. Do you want to put the bag in the backseat?”
Alistair kept on staring.
“Shake or nod.”
Turning, Alistair pushed the bag between the seats and dropped it on the back seat.
Talon nodded and turned the key in the ignition. “And off we go.” He maneuvered them out of the narrow street and onto the highway. “Did you read the file?”
When Talon glanced at him, Alistair nodded.
“Do you think it’s Sidorov?”
Alistair increased the distance between them. Was it a trick? Would he ridicule Alistair if he said something? Punish him if it went against what Talon believed? “No.” It wasn’t more than a whisper, but it was a word.
“You don’t.” Talon nodded at the road ahead, which didn’t make any sense.
Alistair remained quiet, and thankfully, Talon didn’t ask anything else.
When Talon turned off the highway and into the airport parking, panic rose in Alistair. He couldn’t do this. Every muscle tensed, and a buzz built in his ears.
“Breathe.”
Alistair jumped at the sound of Talon’s voice.
“What will make it easier?”
“W-What?”
Talon frowned. “It’s being around too many people, right?”
Alistair nodded. Talon didn’t need to know one person was too many.
“So what will make it easier? Do you have a strategy?”
A strategy?
“A coping mechanism. When you go grocery shopping, what do you do?”
“I order online.”
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.
