A very warm Love Bytes welcome to author A.F Henley stopping by  on his blog tour for new release “The Chase and The Catch”

We are treated to a guestpost an excerpt and there is also a giveaway to participate in.

Welcome A.F !

For those of you following the tour, you’ve already read through this first part. However, for the benefit of those of you that are just joining us…

 

I’ve been advising everyone that I have a rather strong fondness for excerpt and giveaway posts. (I’ve also been making sure everyone realises that it’s not just because I’m lazy. Although I am. Quite, in fact.) The main problem I have with other types of guest posts is that I usually have an issue trying to come up with something clever and/or interesting to talk about. And since I already do monthly guest posts here at Love Bytes Reviews, I figure that most of you already get your fill of me. Besides, it’s the story we’re here for… right? What’s it about? Who are the main characters? What is it these characters want to tell us with their story?

 

And hey… free stuff. That always makes for a little extra fun.

 

However, as lazy as I can be, and as appealing as simple excerpt and giveaway posts might be, I doubt anyone wants to read the same bit over and over again. So, I thought I’d take the opportunity to, one post at a time, introduce the characters of The Chase and The Catch to you.

 

As such, and with the kind of flourish due a hard-working and devoted caregiver, I present Mr. William Anson, butler for the Chase manor:

 

The Chase and The Catch

 

 

When the latch of the door jangled, John’s heart skittered into an anxious fret. He forced a swallow down a dry throat as the wood popped away from the frame. Gone was the anger over the snarky text. The apprehension over the possibility that Parker Chase was a pompous ass had flitted off into the atmosphere to frolic with John’s missing confidence. In an instant he was no longer the published author about to start a job for a prolific peer, he was an anxious fan boy about to come face-to-face with an idol. He looked up from the slowly appearing marble flooring and into the watery, judging eyes of a man who was somewhere between sixty and nine-hundred years old. The man wore a knee-length white apron, tied over a crisp, blue, fully-buttoned dress shirt and black pants. Highly polished shoes, as black as the man’s no-way-is-that-colour-still-his-natural-hue hair, finished the outfit.

 

“Mr. Liege, I presume?”

 

The man’s voice was apathetic, but professional. John nodded while he mused possibilities—Butler? Servant? Father? Resident vampire?—and let go of one suitcase to stick out his right hand. “I sure am. Pleasure to meet you…”

 

“Indeed.” The man looked down at the suitcase John had dropped. “Will you need assistance with that?”

 

John let his hand fall to his side. Butler then. At least, John decided, that’s what he was going to think of the man as. “I won’t.”

 

Fabric shuffled as the butler turned away, speaking over his shoulder, “Follow me, please. I’ll show you to the guest room. Mr. Chase has held dinner until your arrival, so it would be most appreciated if you could tend to yourself and meet me back down here in the foyer at your earliest convenience.” He stopped, waited for John to take the hint and reacquire the suitcase, and then continued. “We were not advised of any dietary restrictions so we took none into account. I trust that will be acceptable.”

 

The words were statements, not questions, but John nodded anyway, his eyes travelling over the foyer in mute fascination. Two spindled staircases flanked each side of the entrance, leading to first the second, then a third level, with tangles of twisted scrolls and forged leaves. At the end of each staircase, dangling ivy plants hung in the corners, long enough that their farthest-reaching ends brushed the floor.

Planters had been placed on various steps, each one offset on the opposing staircase by an exact replica of itself, and the greenery mixed with the marble gave the space an almost Romanesque feel. Above it all, set into the ceiling, was a stained glass skylight of varying shades of blues and greens. John had no doubt that when the sun was high, the entire room would seem as if it were under water.

 

They didn’t take the stairs, walking instead between both sets, towards the back of the house. “This is a beautiful home,” John said. “Have you worked here for long?”

 

“That would depend on your definition of the word long.” The butler directed John to the right, and past a series of floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the backyard. “If you walk the opposite length of this hallway, past the sitting room, and to the far left, you will locate the library. It has been requested that any work you wish to do outside of the guest room should be done there. Otherwise…” The butler stopped, levered a handle on a door and then nodded inside, “this is where you will spend the majority of your time.”

 

“I see.” John eyed the man as he walked past and into the room. “You’re not going to be locking the door from the outside or anything, right? Or sneaking in to leave stacks of paper on a side table whilst I sleep?” He set his suitcases on the bed, silently gleeful over the way they sank into the lush surface, then turned back to the butler and grinned. “Should I be keeping a close eye on my knees?”

 

The man didn’t crack a smile. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t understand Canadian humour.”

 

John lifted an eyebrow. “And I can’t understand if you mean that as a joke or not.”

 

“Very good, sir.” The butler nodded. “If there’s nothing else then, I’ll see to dinner and watch for your return.”

 

“There is.” John sat down on the side of the bed, shifting his weight to bounce the mattress a few times. He widened his smile when the man sighed. “I’ll need your name, please. As you already have mine. And I’d like you to call me John, not sir. In typical Canuck fashion, I’ve even phrased that to make it seem as though it’s a request instead of the demand that I mean it as.”

 

The silence that settled over the room was even heavier than the stillness John had felt in the front yard. Odd, somehow. John had imagined wild parties and lots of music. Cocaine and champagne. Parker Chase was the actor who’d brought hard-core sexuality into mainstream Hollywood. So where were all the long-legged models and the strung-out musicians? Sure, he’d read that Parker was somewhat reclusive, but he’d assumed that had more to do with what Parker was trying to hide from public eyes—farm animal fetishes or some damn thing. On the contrary, the house seemed painfully quiet. Lonely, even.

 

“Come on,” John prompted. “Don’t make me call you Jeeves.”

 

The butler surprised John by using his elbow to nudge the door shut. The moment it latched, the butler locked their gazes and lifted his chin. “I don’t agree with this.” He held up his hand, stopping John’s comment when John attempted to reply. “It’s not you. Or your writing, or what you do, or any of the self-deprecating ideas that tend to come to a discriminating mind when it is disagreed with. My reasons are my reasons because of what I know and how I know them, and they are no concern of yours. What is your concern is that you should not be here. Not now, not ever. Not you. Do yourself a favour, Mr. Liege, and go home. Forget about this project. Forget about Parker Chase altogether.”

 

John leaned forward, frowning. “I don’t understand…”

 

“I don’t expect you to.” The man clasped his hands in front of him and took a deep breath. “I also have no doubt you’ll completely disregard what I’ve just told you. That you’ll think I’m crazy. Because you have something to prove, or something to work through, or whatever it is that made you the perfect pawn in the first place. But I beg you to ask yourself something. There are a million authors out there. Have you stopped and asked yourself why it was you that Mr. Chase chose? What a romance writer could possibly have to offer a man who scoffs at the concepts of fidelity and monogamy? Mark my words, Mr. Liege—you are here for his amusement, not for either of your careers.”

 

*~*~*

 

BLURB:

 

After one of his fans committed suicide, John lost everything: lover, confidence, drive. When he is given a chance to get back on his feet, he is happy to take it—even if it’s just writing an actor’s autobiography. It might not be romance, or even fiction, but it’s something, and there are worse people to work for than the charming, successful Parker Chase.

 

That doesn’t mean working for Parker is easy, however. A staunch supporter of living for the moment, Parker goes against everything John believes in. He feels out of place in every moment of Parker’s Hollywood life, stuck in a game of wits that at times seems almost contrived…

 

*~*~*

 

Copyright © 2014 by A.F. Henley

Published by Less Than Three Press

51,000 words

Gay Contemporary Romance

Buy Links:

Less Than Three Press

Amazon

Amazon.UK

Please note: Novel contains some explicit content.

Now for the giveaway!

 

On behalf of the tour, I’d like to invite you to join my giveaway by taking part in the Rafflecopter below. The prize consists of a Swarovski crystal spider clip, a $20 gift certificate to the Less Than Three Press book market, and a signed, print copy of The Chase and The Catch (when available). Click through for terms and conditions, further details, and your chance to win!

 

** Please note that this giveaway is being offered tour-wide and there will be one awarded winner for the entire event.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

My huge thanks to Love Bytes Reviews for having me by again today. As always, it’s a pleasure and an honour to be a guest on your site. 😀

 

 

AF Henley <3

 

~*~*~

Henley was born with a full-blown passion for run-on sentences, a zealous indulgence in all words descriptive, and the endearing tendency to overuse punctuation. Since the early years Henley has been an enthusiastic writer, from the first few I-love-my-dog stories to the current leap into erotica.

 

A self-professed Google genius, Henley lives for the hours spent digging through the Internet for ‘research purposes’ which, more often than not, lead seven thousand miles away from first intentions but bring Henley to new discoveries and ideas that, once seeded, tend to flourish.

 

Henley has been proudly working with LT3 since 2012, and has been writing like mad ever since—an indentured servant to the belief that romance and true love can mend the most broken soul. Even when presented in prose.

 

Find more here:

Website: http://afhenley.com/

Amazon Page: http://www.amazon.com/A.-F.-Henley/e/B00FIODWSK/

Publisher’s Page: http://www.lessthanthreepress.com/author-a-f-henley/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AFHenley

Twitter: http://twitter.com/AFHenley

Check out Amber’s Review on The Chase and The Catch Here!