Welcome to Liam Livings stopping over at Love Bytes today on his Love Lane Blog Tour

He answers a question, shares and excerpt and there is also a giveaway you can participate in

Welcome Liam!

And Then That Happened, by Liam Livings

Published by Love Lane Books

For all buy links please check here: Love Lane Books

And Then That Happened, Blurb:

Should you settle for a nearly perfect happiness or put your heart on the line for more?

It’s 1999 and 28-year-old Dominic’s carefully planned suburban life with his boyfriend Luke is perfect. His job as a nurse, his best friend Matt, his relationship with his parents, everything is just right. He and Luke have been together ten years, seen each other through friends’ deaths and their parents’ ups and downs, and even had a commitment ceremony.

Gabe isn’t happy with his boyfriend, but he stays with him, because, well it’s complicated.

Fate throws Gabe into Dominic’s life. And then that happened. Gabe’s open relationship, impulsive nature, enthusiasm for life and straight talking advice are fascinating to Dominic. They’re friends, they click over a shared love of Goldie Hawn and Gabe shows Dominic there can be more to life than planned and safe. So why can’t he take his own advice?

And Then That Happened is about finding a new kind of happiness, even when what you have is already perfect. And how sometimes perfect isn’t quite what it seems.

What genres do you write in? 

I always seem to write contemporary as that’s what I prefer to read. I don’t write sci-fi or historical. But I do like a happy every after. Best Friends Perfect was a gay fiction coming of age series. There is a romantic element in it, but it’s not mainly about that. And Then That Happened is contemporary, but it has a much tighter focus on the two main gay relationships within it, as well as the friendship between Dominic and Gabe.

Since then I’ve written contemporary gay romance stories, but each time I want to create the element of realism of every day characters and their everyday lives in the stories. I like a good sense of humour in my stories too – as that’s what I enjoy reading. Not laugh out loud at the end of every sentence, but little comments between characters, sarcasm, silly situations the characters find themselves in. I enjoy the phrases some people use when they talk, so tend to put a lot of that in my characters’ speech, including pensioners, countryside ‘stuff and nonsense’ writing group organisers and an Australian temp.

I tend to write in settings I’m familiar with, which fits with the everyday realism I aim for. My stories are very British, with settings in Essex, London, Hampshire (where I’ve lived, or do still live). I’ve written about a teacher, a nurse, a man who works in accounts, a man who works in a shop, I don’t tend to write about astronauts or angels. Actually, that’s a lie! I have written about a guardian angel in another contemporary story, The Guardian Angel, but to stick with the realism and everyday, the other man was an office temp, and it’s set in north London.

Liam would like you to answer the following question:

What genre do you most like to read? Does my jumbled description of my genres make *any* sense at all?

Di Anne, the ward administrator Dominic has to line manage
I walked into my office to find Di Anne on her mobile with a large family chocolate cake on her desk. ‘Someone’s birthday?’
She lifted her index finger to show she’d be off the phone shortly.
I left a pile of photocopying on her desk and sat with my back to her, trying to break the back of the next month’s off duty.
‘You were miles away,’ Di Anne said. ‘Anywhere nice?’
I smiled.
‘It’s my lunch.’
‘What?’
‘The cake, I can’t afford to buy lunch in the canteen every day. We don’t get paid for weeks and I’m on the bones of me arse already.’
‘So you’re eating a cake for lunch?’
She nodded. ‘Cheaper than buying lunch.’
‘You’re not going to share it with anyone else?’
‘Why would I? It’s no one’s birthday or anything special.’
‘Why would you indeed,’ I replied; who could argue with that logic?
‘What’s with this paperwork you left for me?’
I bit my tongue from saying, it’s your job, and instead replied, ‘I need some photocopying done, and after can you tell me who’s on annual leave for the next off duty, so I can put it in the rota?’
‘You must be joking right?’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve not got time for all that, I’m only here till five today. I’m not staying late. I was here from seven, okay, in the car park, I had to sort something out for my car, but I was still here, so…’
I looked at the clock; it wasn’t yet midday. ‘Let’s go through what else you’ve got today and see what can wait.’
‘There’s so much, I don’t know where to start.’

Eight things about Liam Livings, one is untrue, can you guess which one?

1. He lives, with his partner, where east London ends and becomes nine-carat-gold- highlights-and-fake-tan-west-Essex.
2. He was born in Hampshire with two club feet (look it up, it’s not nice) and problem ears, needing grommets: this meant he was in plaster from toe to groin until he was two, and had to swim with a cap and olive oil soaked lamb’s wool over his ears – olive oil bought from a health food shop, before it was sold by supermarkets.
3. He started writing when he was 14: sat in French lessons during a French exchange trip, for want of anything better to do, he wrote pen portraits about his French exchange’s teachers. He wrote for his school’s creative writing magazine and still writes a diary every day.
4. He grew up on the edge of the New Forest – not in the New Forest mind, but on the edge. Now it’s a national park, it’s so much more glamorous. He went to uni in London and never really left.
5. One evening, flicking through the channels, he stumbled across the film, Saving Private Ryan, and it took twenty minutes of not seeing Goldie Hawn in an army uniform, before he realised it wasn’t actually the film, Private Benjamin.
6. When not writing, he also enjoys baking.
7. He avoided any sport at secondary school by having an orthodontist appointment between the age of 14 and 16, and when he was old enough to drive, just drove home instead of playing rugby/hockey/whatever.
8. He is a car geek, his particular passion is old French classics, and his every day car is what is popularly referred to as a ‘hairdressers car’ a Mazda MX5 in powder blue – Muriel.

Email: liamlivings@gmail.com

Blog: http://www.liamlivings.com/blog

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liam.livings

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LiamLivings

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7424798.Liam_Livings

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