Love Bytes says hello to Ari McKay joining us today to talk about new re release “Fortune’s Slings and Cupid Arrows”.
Hello, everyone! We’d like to give a huge thank you to Dani and all the lovely folks at Love Bytes for having me on the blog today. This is Ari, of Ari McKay, coming at you with a re-release of the heavily revised novella Fortune’s Slings and Cupid’s Arrows!
This is the second novella in our Lawyers in Love trilogy, and we rewrote it almost from the ground up because we’d never been entirely satisfied with it. Sometimes it will happen that way, where an author gets into a story and everything goes a little pear shaped, and you try your best to make it go the way you want. Sometimes, if you’re on a deadline, that results in a story that may be fine from a reader’s perspective, but where, as an author, you know it didn’t reach the pinnacle you were aiming for. We were very lucky that Dreamspinner Press wanted it, and were willing to let us go back and rework it so that we could make the story all we believed it could be.
Fortune’s Slings is a story about finding strength to make the right choices, even if making them is the hardest thing you’ve done in your life. For one of our characters, Dane Coulter, his hard choice involves whether he will give in to his father’s will, or fight for the chance to choose his own path in life. For Dane, life has always been lived under the thumb of his father, who picked his schools, his career, his apartment, and now even his fiancee. Dane has been subjugated for so long that, at first, he just doesn’t seen that there could be any other choice for him. It takes his best friend, Cal Monroe, admitting his love for Dane to open Dane’s eyes to the possibility that he could make his own choices, if Dane can discover the will to throw away everything he’s ever known for the chance.
Cal Monroe, on the other hand, has always blazed his own trail, both in the courtroom and in his private life. When he falls in love with Dane, however, he realizes for the first time that there are some battles he simply can’t fight and win. Cal is certainly willing to fight for Dane, to help show him that Dane’s father isn’t invincible, but Cal has enough wisdom to realize he can’t then expect Dane to simply choose him. For Cal, his journey is finding the courage within himself to let the man he loves fight his own battles and enjoy the privilege of making his own choices for the first time — even if those choices might not include giving Cal his heart.
As I mentioned, this is the second novella in the series which began with Santa’s Naughty Helper, and for those who enjoyed Kevin and Erik’s story, those two lovebirds have cameos in this one. And coming in the spring of 2018 will be Heart of Glass, another story with the lawyers from Caldwell and Monroe, as well as something we’re extremely excited about – a print edition of all three novellas in one volume!
If you love contemporary romance that’s hot and sweet, please check out Fortune’s Slings and Cupid’s Arrows and stick around for the next saga of Lawyers In Love!
BLURB:
Successful attorneys Dane Coulter and Cal Monroe are rivals in the courtroom and friends behind the scenes. But can they be more?
Cal’s always carried a torch for Dane, but Dane is so deep in the closet, he can’t even admit that he might be gay. His father, a raging homophobe who rules the family with an iron fist, forces Dane into an engagement—to a woman. Dane goes along with it to keep the peace and protect his mother, but for Cal, it’s the last straw.
He can’t let Dane make a mistake that could ruin the rest of his life, and he only knows one surefire way to make Dane admit what’s in his heart. But confessing his feelings to his friend could backfire, driving a wedge between them. And even then, the choice must be Dane’s—to live the life his father wants, or to give up everything he has for a chance at happiness in Cal’s arms.
BUY LINKS:
Ari McKay is the professional pseudonym for Arionrhod and McKay, who have been writing together for over a decade. Their collaborations encompass a wide variety of romance genres, including contemporary, fantasy, science fiction, gothic, and action/adventure. Their work includes the Blood Bathory series of paranormal novels, the Herc’s Mercs series, as well as two historical Westerns: Heart of Stone and Finding Forgiveness. When not writing, they can often be found scheming over costume designs or binge watching TV shows together.
Arionrhod is a systems engineer by day who is eagerly looking forward to (hopefully) becoming a full time writer in the not-too-distant future. Now that she is an empty-nester, she has turned her attentions to finding the perfect piece of land to build a fortress in preparation for the zombie apocalypse, and baking (and eating) far too many cakes.
McKay is an English teacher who has been writing for one reason or another most of her life. She also enjoys knitting, reading, cooking, and playing video games. She has been known to knit in public. Given she has the survival skills of a gnat, she’s relying on Arionrhod to help her survive the zombie apocalypse.
Website: http://arimckay.wordpress.com
Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ari-Mckay/266185570179748
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ari.mckay.7
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AriMcKay1
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6153630.Ari_McKay
I love it when guys sacrifice themselves for each other!