Love Bytes says hello and welcome to author Christian Baines joining us today to talk about hisnew release “Sins of the Son” book 3 in the Arcadia Trust series! 🙂
SINS OF THE SON Blog Tour #1: Pride
IF YOU CAN’T LOVE YOURSELF…
Hi everyone! Thank you so much to Dani and the team at Love Bytes for being the first stop on this blog tour for my upcoming gay paranormal novel, Sins of the Son. In honour of that title, I have one goal on this tour – to explore and indulge as many sins as possible! With that in mind I’d like to dedicate this first stop on the tour to our favourite sin, pride.
Ah, pride! Perhaps your teachers and church leaders tried their hardest to drum it out of you. To dispel you of any notion that you are special or unique. Yet here we are, naming our LGBTQ festivals and even some of our writing cons after this supposedly terrible thing. Pride in 2019 feels like a sin only in theory. Yet, when as LGBTQ people we’re still told to be quiet, to not ‘flaunt’ our sexuality or gender identity, and reminded that a ‘straight pride’ would be considered ludicrous (yes, because it misses the whole point), it can still feel subversive. Like a delicious ‘sin’ we’re almost honour bound to indulge.
Authors more than rise to that challenge. When we devote 80,000 words and hours and hours of our time to writing stories about the made up people in our heads, then put a price tag on those stories, asking strangers to trust us as their guides on this adventure or that, it is an immense act of pride. Maybe even hubris. We are building worlds from our words, which is a pretty bold, defiant act.
Yet, as I quickly found out when I started to tell people my first novel (The Beast Without) was about a Blood Shade – or vampire as some might call him – who falls for a young werewolf he’s investigating for murder, it wasn’t God who tried to ‘check’ my pride. Some people were less subtle about it than others, giving me a good natured laugh, waiting for me to assure them I was joking, or worse, for me to apologise. It was like they expected me to acknowledge that my genre wasn’t ‘serious’ literature – a struggle genre and romance writers know all too well. Cue a further sigh of disapproval when they learned my characters were both male, as if not even the safe commercial buffer of a strong woman™ protagonist torn between two supernatural lovers would legitimise my folly. It’s gay??? Who would want to read that?
Setting the story in – oh heresy – Sydney, Australia, was the final straw. How dare I suggest anything arcane or supernatural could ever happen in the fair and sunny lands downunder? Lest Auntie Jack drop her knitting, Miss Fisher find herself uncharacteristically flummoxed, and Kath & Kim face things too ‘unewsual’ for the Australian bookshelf.
I’m not alone in this though. There will always be those who want to tear down your work, for any reason. If you can’t learn to block useless criticism, publishing is not for you. Pride might be a sin to some, but for writers and creatives, it’s a crucial layer of armour. Nobody is ever going to care about your story and characters more than you, so it’s up to you to polish that story until it’s something to be proud of. Then own that achievement regardless of genre, theme, or form. You have to keep a straight face and say ‘no, I’m serious’ when someone tries to give you one of those good natured laughs. Eventually, you might even start taking pride in other people’s criticisms. As I write this, Lethe Press is delighting Facebook followers with their ‘month of negativity’ during which they share the best of their bad reviews. I think ‘meanspirited gay porn masquerading as horror’ is my favourite so far. I’m tempted to add it to my dating profile. We’ll see.
The fact that strangers are willing to pick one of my books up off a shelf and pay me money to read it and go on that trip through my imagination is a pretty fantastic. I’m grateful for it every time I see a new royalty statement or review (sometimes even a bad one, especially if it makes me laugh). Every time a reader comes up to me or recognises me at an event, reaches out on social media, or just asks when the next book is coming, it feels awesome in the truest sense. It’s also a source of great pride, and a reminder that I never have to apologise for what I write, or why.
I write stories about beautiful monsters set in Sydney, Australia, with lots of violence and gay sex. Those stories make a particular audience very happy, and that makes me immensely proud.
WIN your choice of one e-book edition of either of the first two Arcadia Trust novels, The Beast Without or The Orchard of Flesh. Simply leave a 1-2 line comment telling us about a moment you felt PRIDE – the more sinful the better! Our favourite entry wins a FREE e-book.
NEXT: Is the grass really greener? Join me at Joyfully Jay on January 16, where it`s all about ENVY.
Genre: Paranormal/Urban Fantasy
Release date: January 20, 2019
Series: The Arcadia Trust #3
Setting: Sydney, Australia
Length: 282 pages
Blurb
Abandoned by his werewolf lover, the only thing Reylan wants is to return to his vampire life of blood and beautiful boys. It’s a solid plan, until his first meal as a single man tries to kill him.
Hoping to free his young would-be assassin from the religious zealots that sent him, Reylan enlists the help of Iain Grieg, a charismatic priest with unsettling knowledge of the night’s secrets.
Surrounded by conflicting agendas and an army fuelled by hate, Reylan fights to secure his future, if he can only trust the mysterious priest and bury the ghosts of the past.
Buy links:
Christian Baines has written on travel, theatre, film, television, and various aspects of gay life, factual and fictional. Some of his stranger thoughts have spawned novels, including queer urban fantasy series The Arcadia Trust, the horror novella Skin, and Puppet Boy, which was a finalist for the 2016 Saints and Sinners Emerging Writer Award. Born in Australia, he now travels the world whenever possible, living, writing, and shivering in Toronto, Canada on those odd occasions he can’t find his passport.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/christianbainesauthor
Twitter: www.twitter.com/xtianbaines
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7024194.Christian_Baines
My moment would have to be when my grandson was born, Not very scintillating.
Every time one of the oldies in the shelter where I volunteer finds a forever family…. I feel pride. I am so proud of my work with them, my beautiful dogs, and the people who give them a chance….
Congrats on on the new book! It looks fantastic.
Love that cover <3
I feel pride whenever I see my sister's kids (I don't have/want children of my own.) and how they grew up to become great and open-minded adults. The next generation is on it'S way already. My niece told us the other day that she is pregnant 🙂 <— not very sinful xD
I felt so much pride for my youngest twin son and his wife, who purchased his first home at the age of 33. A gorgeous 1920 light pink and white Victorian house which looks magnificent, especially filled with the antiques they’ve been decorating with. Very proud of them for their accomplishments.
Much success to you, Christian!
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