A huge thanks to Love Bytes for having me by today to talk about my new release titled Forty-two Stairs.

It is a pleasure to have you A.F 🙂 Welcome!!

It’s been said that sometimes a person has to lose everything they’ve ever wanted, to understand what it is they actually need. In Forty-two Stairs, Owen is all too familiar with loss. He lost his partner, his home, his job, and his license. He also came way too close to losing his freedom. And the only person Owen has to blame for all that is himself. See … Owen is an alcoholic.

 

Forty-two Stairs follows Owen through his recovery (not to mention a budding, yet poorly-timed romance with an odd young man named Sebastian) and I thought it would be interesting to wander through the six major steps – yes, six – of overcoming addiction, as Owen experiences them, with some short teasers.

 

The American Psychological Association summarizes the process as follows (not verbatim):

1) Acknowledging that you are powerless to control your addiction;

2) Recognizing a higher power to draw strength from;

3) Examining past errors with the help of a sponsor;

4) Making amends for those errors;

5) Learning a new way to live life;

6) Helping others who are struggling with similar addictions.

 

** Today, step five, but if you’re interested, please feel free to follow along with the rest of the tour for steps one to six. Be sure to read through to the end to find out about your chance to win you own eBook copy of Forty-two Stairs, a $50 gift certificate to the Less Than Three Press Book Market, and an awesome simulated amethyst and silver bib necklace and earring set. **

 

Step Five – Learning to Live

 

We learned how to walk. How to talk. How to tie our shoes and button our pants. We were taught how to count and write and spell our names. And just as a child faces the processes of learning how to live an adult life, so too does someone recovering from addiction need to relearn how to live. It’s a new life they’re facing, without most of the coping mechanisms they’ve relied on up to that point, and everything from what they do first thing in the morning, to how they deal with stress and confusion, needs to be adjusted and rewritten.

 

Forty-two Stairs

Excerpt – Chapter 5 – Learning to Live

 

It was an odd moment, though. Nothing had changed. One minute he’d been watching Sebastian pick through other people’s clothing, and the next they were chest deep in warm water and from then, to where they were at, Owen’s heart had decided Sebastian was his. A million people could have told Owen it was wrong, that it was too early, that they were destined for failure, and while a day ago he might have listened, now it had all become bullshit. The consequences had become meaningless. The concept of failure had lost its sting. It was as if common sense had just woken up and finally realised, that one could lose themselves for a very long time in the forest of guilt and remorse, could even convince themselves that they belonged there. But nothing—nothing at all—felt truer than redemption.

 

Even if that redemption was found in an act as simple as telling his brother he was sorry for being an anchor, or admitting to his ex that he’d been wrong. Rushing a stranger to defend Sebastian’s belongings might not have seemed like much at the time, but in truth Owen had faced unknown penalties to fight for a man he barely knew, over a battle that was seemingly pointless, and a treasure that was worthless. Understanding that he’d done that without pause, consideration, or caution had changed everything.

 

It was an old voice that spoke in his head, a new neighbour, musing about flights of stairs and journeys that would get lighter as his feet got familiar and his muscles got stronger, and his brain twisted those words into a brand new mantra: it was never about making it to the top, it was always about the quest to get there. The praise of his sponsor over following the rules wasn’t his goal, nor was it the shiny coin to carry as a symbol of how he’d made it—the reward was in the fact that he was taking the journey.

 

Copyright © 2014, A.F. Henley

 

 

Forty-two Stairs

by A.F. Henley

 

Owen has been struggling with addiction since he was a teenager, but it takes a DUI involving another vehicle for him to finally face his issues. The road to recovery is a rough one, and for Owen it’s a journey made harder by bankruptcy, loneliness, and repressed memories.

 

His new apartment doesn’t help either. It’s small, worn, and hot as hell. The only way to reach it is a tedious stretch of stairs that seems like the final insult on top of a whole pile of misery. Thankfully, the mess comes with one bright spot: intense, pretty Sebastian, who seems to have a knack for keeping his head up and finding the beauty in everything.

 

Published by Less Than Three Press

M/M Contemporary Romance

44,000 words

 

Now Available!

 

Purchase Link – LT3

Purchase Link – Amazon

 

So, you might be thinking … I’d love a shot at winning this eBook, not to mention that generous LT3 gift certificate and totally awesome pendant and earring set.

Very cool. I’m glad to hear that. Comment on this blog post to be entered into a random number draw for an ebook copy of Forty-two Stairs. As for the rest of the prize, please click here for the Rafflecopter entry.

 

Please note, one ebook copy of Forty-two Stairs will be given away for each site visit, and the balance of this contest (the gift certificate and the jewelry) is open to all blog tour participants, post one to six. For a full list of contest rules, including eligibility, please click HERE

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 

About the Author:

 

Henley was born with a full-blown passion for run-on sentences, a zealous indulgence in all words descriptive, and the endearing tendency to overuse punctuation. Since the early years Henley has been an enthusiastic writer, from the first few I-love-my-dog stories to the current leap into erotica.

 

A self-professed Google genius, Henley lives for the hours spent digging through the Internet for ‘research purposes’ which, more often than not, lead seven thousand miles away from first intentions but bring Henley to new discoveries and ideas that, once seeded, tend to flourish.

 

Henley has been proudly working with LT3 since 2012, and has been writing like mad ever since—an indentured servant to the belief that romance and true love can mend the most broken soul. Even when presented in prose.

 

Find me at:

AFHenley.com

Less Than Three Press

Amazon

Goodreads

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