Welcome to B.G Thomas stopping by here at Love Bytes with his blog tour !

A Summer of Love

 

It happens. There is something about the weather, most especially spring and summer…. Perhaps it’s hormones? A million years of evolution telling us that it’s time to mate? Perhaps it is the hope that the flowers growing and bursting into bloom brings? The cookouts. The ability to wear airy clothes and not be trapped in the house? Then there is that whole thing about melatonin. It’s our own natural anti-depressant and it’s the sun that causes our bodies to produce it. In the winter we are not only trapped inside, but there is less sunlight hours and our production of melatonin drops…. And in the spring and summer it starts to rise again bring on a happier nature.

 

Whatever the reasons, countless relationships begin at this time of the year—people fall in love. Sometimes it lasts….. And sometimes it doesn’t.

 

For quite a few years now I have been participating in a retreat out in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere with about a hundred and twenty five gay men. It is amazing. Ten days—ten days!—away from the outside world in a place that is as close to magick as I have ever experienced in my life. The peacefulness! The beauty. It’s like visiting Shangri-La, Brigadoon or K’un Lun.

 

And one of the first things I noticed at my very first Festival were two men finding an almost instantaneous and powerful togetherness; call it an affair, call it sex, call it love….  Watching them was sexy and beautiful and filled me with happiness.

 

This kind of thing happens every year….

 

 

It is amazing how fast these two men fall for each other….everywhere you look you see them walking hand in hand, gazing into each other’s eyes, kissing in the shadows beneath the trees, cuddled together naked out on the raft in the middle of the lake. It’s enough to make a writer want to write a novel!

 

And that is just what I did.

 

The book is “Summer Lover” and it was inspired by lots of things. The festival I attend, the incredible brotherhood and family of gay men at the event, and the watching of men fall so passionately for each other. AND hearing the words of a long time attendee as we sat on a swing beneath the big oak tree at camp: “It’s summer boyfriends. They can’t help it. It’s the nature and magick of this place. They think it’s forever. It rarely is once they go back to the real world….”

 

Sadly enough I found out he was right. Once they leave camp and go back to the real world their love often died. One man would move lock, stock and barrel from where they lived to go hundreds of miles to live with the other, and that is when they found out their perfect man leaves his underwear on the bedroom floor. and his dishes in the sink, and he works too many hours, and he does something as human as farting. All these things can kill love fast.

 

But I have also seen the love work. I have seen these guys do the smart thing and take it slow and by the next year, wow, they are still happy and wow, suddenly it’s been years, and they are together, and they found each other at a magickal festival attended by a hundred and twenty five gay men.

 

*sigh*

 

Makes me so happy.

 

And that was the challenge of my book. To not only capture the wonders of a gay men’s spiritual retreat out in the middle of nature, but to show that sometimes two men can find love.

 

I think I succeeded. Not only that, but I got an email from one of my fellow Festival attendees the other day that made me very happy. He said, “I’m about a third of my way through reading it and enjoying it immensely. I do find myself wondering what it would be like for someone who has never been to Festival, or maybe even never heard of anything like Festival, to read. I was thinking I now have another thing to show people who ask ‘So what’s your festival like?’ And usually all I can say is, ‘Well, it’s really hard to describe. You kind of have to experience it yourself….’  But now I can say: ‘Here’s this book!” No. I’d better say ‘Go BUY this book! You can get a better idea of what it’s like!’”

 

Wow, did that make me happy!

 

There will be some of you who won’t ever have the opportunity for one reason or another to be able to attend a gay men’s spiritual retreat. Not in person. But you can through my book. And you can also see if the two men who fall for each other will make it in the real world once the festival is over.

 

Of course I wrote this book. What do you think is going to happen!

 

Love and Light, and thank you to Love Bytes for the opportunity to talk with you all today!

BG Thomas

 

Author Bio

 

Greetings! I’m BG Thomas and I live in Kansas City with my husband of over a decade and our fabulous little dog, Sarah Jane. I see my wonderful daughter just often enough to miss her when she isn’t there!

I have a romantic soul and I am extraordinarily lucky to have many friends.

I love romance, science fiction & fantasy, horror and more, and I’ve gone to litertue and media conventions my entire adult life, and been lucky enough to meet many of my favorite writers. I’m a “Star Trek” and Joss Whedon fan from way back!

I have written all my life, it is where I find my joy. In the 90’s, I wrote for gay magazines, but stopped because they wanted me to cut out story and romance, and write only sex.

Then through a few friends, I discovered the growing market of M/M Romance and was thrilled beyond words. FINALLY, a way to write the stories I always wanted to write. Adventure, romantic comedy, science fiction, and more, but with gay characters. And I wouldn’t have to fade to black! People wanted to read the erotic as well. Plot and sex! HURRAY!

I very much believe in “The Law of Attraction” and that “thoughts become things.”

A lot of things all started happening at once for me! I heard the words, “Leap, and the net will appear,” and something re-kindled inside. I sent out a story and was thrilled when it was almost immediately accepted.

I believe that we are divine expressions of the Universe, each and everyone.

“It is never too late! Pursue your dreams! They will come true!”

find true love at last.

 

Author Links:

Website: http://bthomaswriter.wordpress.com/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/bgthomaswriter?fref=ts

Twitter https://twitter.com/BGThomasBooks

 

Summer Lover

By BG Thomas

Release Date: July 25, 2014

Buy Link:

Dreamspinner Press

 

Seasons of Love: Book Two

Scott Aberdeen doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or God. Or love—at least, he knows no one will ever love him. After all, he has carried a torch for his best friend Sloan for a decade, hoping his feelings will be returned one day. But when Sloan finds springtime love with another man, Scott’s fantasies are crushed and his skepticism confirmed. Cedar Carrington, raised by rock star parents, leads a free-spirited, nomadic life, never staying in one place for long. Due to a dark past he refuses to share or even think about, he is willing to let men into his bed for sex, but never for the night. When Scott finds himself camping in the middle of nowhere with over a hundred men who all believe in love—and faeries and a magickal gay brotherhood—he’s pretty sure he’s in the wrong place. And when Cedar connects with cynical, critical Scott, he wonders how he could be falling in for this man of all men. But hearts and lives have been transformed at the Heartland Men’s Festival before, and it might be just the place where two very different men can release their pain and find true love at last.

B.G. will be giving away 5 copies of Book One in the series Spring Affair at the end of the tour

 

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