A warm Love Bytes welcome to author Blaine D Arden who is  stopping by  Love Bytes.

She is talking about family and she offers a giveaway to one Lucky commentor 🙂

Welcome Blaine!

All about the brothers – by Blaine D. Arden

This is not the first time this has happened, and it will surely not be the last. Even though a number of my main characters don’t have much in the way of family left—not on purpose, I swear—some of my main characters come from large families. Llyskel’s family in The Fifth Son isn’t the largest family I’ve written, that honour belongs to Marek Moss’ family in There is Light from the LT3 anthology Satisfaction Guaranteed. For now, at least. Marek is the youngest of nine siblings.

Every time I discover a main character has a large family, I want to hide somewhere because even if they don’t appear in the story, they all need names and backgrounds. And because my characters are mostly adult, they’ll have partners, children perhaps, who all need their own names and backgrounds. The story hasn’t even begun yet, and I already have a large cast of at least walk-ons hanging around.

While The Fifth Son is all about Llyskel being the youngest of five brothers, his lack of magic, and his kinky sexual desires, his brothers play their roles in the background. And in this post, Llyskel’s brothers find themselves in the spotlight for a change.

First we have Danen. Danen is almost the cliché first son, and I’m not afraid to admit it. He’s a man who takes his duty seriously, is more than prepared to follow in his father’s footsteps, even if his father feels he needs a bit more experience under his belt before he can take on the role. He loves his wife and their daughter, but feels a bit of a failure because they’ve only managed to produce one heir, so far. He’s a strict commander, but manages to not hold his groups up to his own impossible-to-meet standards.

Lerran is second in line, but far more laissez-faire about…well, everything, really. He’s got a great girlfriend, a fellow soldier, though not under his direct command, who wouldn’t mind if they added a third to their relationship. They tend to make it a game to scout out potential thirds, but, ideally, that third would be the one to raise any children they might have. Neither of them is afraid to go after what they want, and their fights are as heated as their lovemaking. Just because Lerran’s soldiers find him lenient and easy to confide in him, doesn’t mean he can’t be as strict as his brother out on the field.

Endyrr is more or less a copy of Danen, very serious about his duties, though, with more of a sense of humour. For years, he felt the pressure of producing heirs to the line, which put a lot of pressure on his relationship with Kalnor in the early years. After numerous rows on the same subject, Kalnor called it quits, feeling his love would never be enough for Endyrr, and that he was holding Endyrr back. It took a long conversation with his father for Endyrr to finally let go of the notion that he had to produce heirs, and accept that his happiness lay with Kalnor. Even though they’ve yet to move in together, they spend every free hour each other’s company these days. Kalnor has hopes of setting up house before Endyrr makes commander.

And then we arrive at Jeon. Despite Llyskel being the youngest by far, and the one who possesses no magic, Jeon has always been the odd one out in my mind. He’s a joker who likes to be in control, or at least, that’s the image he projects.

For roughly seven years, he was the youngest, and the last of the king’s sons born before wartime. As young as he was he was always joking around, always trying to make his mother laugh through the bad times. As he grew older, he realised he could often get away with a lot by playing the joker, as long as he didn’t do it at the expense of his baby brother. He didn’t like the crying baby taking his place as youngest, and liked the extra attention he got because he couldn’t do spells even less. Truly, he didn’t start liking his brother until Llyskel gave him a painting of his own. It showed Jeon the way Llyskel saw him, with a shy smile where others saw the joker.

He jokes around as a soldier as well, much to his father’s annoyance, and can often be found hanging around a group of friends, lovers, and ex-lovers. He looks with fond exasperation onto the romantic entanglements of his brothers. He can see it makes them happy, but he prefers a no-strings-attached fooling around approach with lovers of any gender.

There you have it. Five brothers—more about Llyskel can be found in my post at Multitasking Mommas—with different characters who only feature in the odd scene, but were fully formed by the time I finished writing The Fifth Son. Sometimes I feel us writers write at least as much in background as we do in actual story.

A question for the readers out there. Out of all the books you’ve read, which main character’s family member has stayed with you the most? What about them appealed to you?

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Blaine D. Arden is a purple-haired, forty-something author of gay & trans* romance mixed with fantasy, mystery, and magic who sings her way through life in platform boots.

Blaine can be found on her website, twitter, facebook, goodreads, and by <mailto:blaine@blainedarden.com>email.

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The Fifth Son

cover by Simoné – www.dreamarian.com
illustrations by Yana Goya

Blurb:

A prince without power

In a land where magic is commonplace, Prince Llyskel has none. He can’t command spells, he has never been taught to fight, and as the fifth son of the King, he will never rule. Everyone believes he’s a weakling, most of all himself.

Powerlessness is Llyskel’s problem-and his pleasure. In his secret fantasies, the prince dreams of nothing more than finding himself helpless at another man’s hands… particularly the hands of Captain Ariv of the Guards.

Then Ariv makes Llyskel’s dream a reality, and as the powerless prince surrenders to the soldier’s desire, he finds his own true strength at last. But a web of royal politics is closing around Llyskel, threatening to tear him from his lover, and it will take all his newfound courage to escape…

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One lucky commenter will receive a digital copy of The Fifth Son