Seeing Red – the reason for today
Gosh it’s been a long time since I had a new mm romance novel to release. Everything has changed since then.
My last novel before this was Contraband Hearts, an age of sail romance from Riptide Publishing. That was more than a year ago, in February 2018.
In romance terms a year between novels is an eternity.
What have I been doing all that time?
Well, I wrote two cozy mysteries and a space-opera, and I re-released all my Riptide books under my own imprint. I sorted myself out so that I had three pen names, one for cozys, one for SF/F (including steampunk) and Alex Beecroft for romance.
And I made a plan for the future.
The plan involved looking at what people actually wanted me to write and deciding to write more of that.
You wouldn’t think it would take me ten years as an author to reach that point, would you? Sadly some things are only obvious from the outside.
Anyway… I took a good look at my back catalog. I decided that the books which had consistently sold the best were obviously the ones that people enjoyed the most and wanted more of.
Trowchester Blues was consistently at or very near the top of that list, with Blue Eyed Stranger and Blue Steel chain hovering in very close second and third places.
It was an obvious decision after that to write a new Trowchester story.
I’m so glad that it was! Because I’d been feeling guilty ever since Blue Steel Chain for leaving poor Idris without a happy ending of his own.
One of the nice things about writing a series of books is that you get to see your bit-part characters become heroes.
Finn, one of the main characters of Trowchester Blues, runs a gay book club from his bookshop, and this forms the heart of the gay scene in Trowchester for those people who don’t like to go to nightclubs.
In Trowchester Blues, we first meet Finn’s friend Idris, who runs the Mermaid Tea Rooms down by the river. He’s a gossipy British-Bangladeshi man who brings cake to the book-club meetings and is delighted by the progress of Finn and Michael’s romance.
Then we meet him again in Blue Steel Chain. Our hero, Aidan, has just come out of an abusive relationship and needs help in re-establishing himself as a fully functioning member of society. Idris gives Aidan a job, and delights in the progress of Aidan and James’s relationship.
Except that he does grumble a little about always being the bridesmaid and never the bride.
I made him wait for years.
And then, of course, when he did get his own story, I heartlessly capitalized on his laid-back, tolerant nature and his big heart to give him one of the most asshole-ish partners that I had ever written.
Poor Victor! I actually am very fond of him. But he is not even a bad boy at the beginning the book. He’s a bad man, and that’s much worse.
But Finn had kidnap and arson to contend with in his book, and Aidan had murder. A certain amount of drama is required for a Trowchester novel.
And the city looks so sleepily charming from the outside!
(Or of course if you’re in Kindle Unlimited you can read it for free 🙂 )
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