A warm Love Bytes welcome to author Ashavan Doyon visting our blog today to talk about his new release “Andrew’s Prayer”.
Ashavan talks about “When sex is more” and brought a wonderful giveaway with him !
Welcome Ashavan 🙂

 

When is Sex More?

A Red White and Blue Andrew’s Prayer Promotion mini-blitz post

 

Steven was the obvious focus for a sequel to Loving Aidan. In writing the story, I’d imagined the character of Drew as the romantic catalyst for Sammy’s jealousy, but I quickly realized that wouldn’t work. Andrew Tuttleman, characterized so early by Aidan using Drew to indulge his anger over Michael cheating, could never serve as the foil I wanted for the character. I wanted someone who could sweep Aidan off his feet, and Andrew couldn’t do that. Of course in Loving Aidan we don’t know why Drew is closeted, or why he so seemingly openly engages with young men in the tunnels at the school. Instead of the romantic catalyst, he becomes the experimental one, driving and helping other young men find their same-sex desires, and then using them for his own personal gratification.

 

Of course the intensely romantic Steven reacted with the sort of vulgar mix of fascination and disgust that we’d expect of him. He feels dirty. Why? Because sex is supposed to be more. Steven’s long list of ex-girlfriends isn’t an indictment of relationships, it’s the drive of Steven’s need for there to be more to sex than getting off. With Drew he experiences the end result of his need to know. He’s definitely gay. But Steven also experiences the consequence of that. Sex for the sake of sex is still not enough for Steven. That drives him to the chance he has with Aidan, and to his need to commit fully to that first gay relationship — to know that it’s not just sex that drives him to want men, but love.

 

With Steven’s story over and filled with surprises that, in retrospect, Steven had really prepared me fairly well for even though I didn’t know they were coming, I was determined to explore Drew more fully. I failed. Miserably. Drew arriving home to a well to do family and a sister pleased to have a brother who made her look less of a failure to their parents didn’t help me understand Drew’s background. It felt contrived. It made Drew look like the pathetic sleaze that he comes across as in Loving Aidan, and perhaps even more so in Steven’s Heart. Importantly, even then, I knew that was not the Andrew Tuttleman trying to speak to me.

 

I abandoned writing Drew and turned to the other similar character, Lawrence. I’d already decided that Drew had tried to deal with being outed by pleading to one of the girls he was always wooing that it was a lie. Drew was a skilled liar. I’d concluded he’d been successful but that his parents, unlike the girl, didn’t buy the lie. Obviously I was still envisioning my original middle class Drew here, and not the poverty driven one we eventually meet. What if Lawrence, my similar character mentioned only lumped in with Drew as a closeted lit boy who gives blow jobs in the tunnels, reacted entirely differently.

 

And so my new Lawrence was born and had me thirty thousand words into the next story before Drew reappeared and demanded attention. Once Drew made his demand he didn’t let go. I immersed myself into this new Drew. Sex became just sex because for Drew’s sanity that is all it could possibly be. How can he afford to allow sex to mean anything else? And what would he do if suddenly sex meant more? Poverty stricken, suddenly Andrew’s betrayal of Aidan for money begins to make sense.

 

Drew is a deeply flawed character with a fairly simplistic primary drive. His world is his mom. From the beginning of Andrew’s Prayer this is starkly evident. Drew never resents what he’s had to do to pay their expenses. He never blames his mother. It’s simply what he had to do. Drew has so locked himself from romantic attachment that the possibility that love is a real thing rather than a cultural delusion doesn’t even occur to him. He knows what his tricks want. He knows what they’ll pay for it. He knows that even from a young twink boy that romance is never on their minds. Romance is the lie he tells so that girls will look past the sissy boy to see the lit geek.

Then he meets Grant. And suddenly there are feelings attached and having those feelings makes Drew very afraid.

Interested in learning more? Andrew’s Prayer is available at Amazon, ARe and through the Torquere website. Authors love fans that buy directly from the publisher! Everyone actually involved in the writing and publishing process makes the most money this way!

Blurb:

For Andrew Tuttleman, sex is a means to an end. With a mother too sick to pay the bills on her own and college bills to pay, Drew has spent years resorting to sex with strangers to keep a roof over his mother’s head and keep himself at school, far away from the hell where he grew up. This summer, his usual tricks are still paying the bills. But there’s a new one, Grant, who never got the memo that a trick is a no-strings deal. Convinced that Drew is the answer to a hopeless prayer, Grant seems ready to pursue Drew to the ends of the earth.

Drew, on the other hand, isn’t so convinced. Grant comes with trouble in the form of a wife and three kids, not to mention a single and unwavering requirement: that Drew give up his livelihood. Grant’s kiss makes Drew ache for more, a romance that he never dreamed possible. He finds himself unexpectedly willing to try. Can Drew weather Grant’s angry father, wife, and a daughter determined to kick him in the shins so hard that he’ll leave Grant’s life forever? It all relies on Grant’s faith in an impossible prayer.

Buy Links:

Amazon

All Romance eBooks

Torquere Press

Don’t forget to catch me tomorrow at the conclusion of the red white and blue promo mini-blitz blogging from Torquere’s own Romance for the Rest of Us blog.

Ashavan Doyon spends his days working with students as part of the student affairs staff at a liberal arts college. During lunch, evenings, and when he can escape the grasp of his husband on weekends, he writes, pounding out words day after day in hopes that his ancient typewriter-trained fingers won’t break the glass on his tablet computer. Ashavan is an avid science fiction and fantasy fan and prefers to write while listening to music that fits the mood of his current story. He has no children, having opted instead for the companionship of two beautiful and thoroughly spoiled pugs. A Texan by birth, he currently lives in New England, and frequently complains of the weather.

Ashavan went to school at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, getting his degree in Russian and East European Studies, with a focus in language and literature. He has two incomplete manuscripts from college that he goes back compulsively to fiddle with every so often, but is still not happy with either of them. He still loves fantasy and science fiction and reads constantly in the moments between writing stories.

Ashavan loves to hear from readers and can be reached at ashavandoyon@gmail.com

Ashavan brought with him a wonderful giveaway for our readers

Leave a comment on this post to have a chance to win a copy of either book 1 “Loving Aidan” or book 2 “Stephen’s Heart”.

(winner’s choice)