A warm Love Bytes welcome to author Anna Butler joining us today to talk about her new release “Heart Scarab”
Anna talks about Gay Heroes , shares an excerpt and she brought along Two giveaways!
Welcome Anna 🙂
Author Name: Anna Butler
Book Name: Heart Scarab
Series: Taking Shield Book: Two (series should be read in order)
Release Date: July 22, 2015
Publisher: Wild City Press
Cover Artist: Adrian Nicholas
Pages or Words: 97,900 words
Blurb:
Telnos is an unpleasant little planet, inhabited by religious fanatics in the festering marshlands and unregistered miners running illegal solactinium mines up in the hills. But the Maess want Telnos, and Shield Captain Bennet’s job is to get out as many civilians as he can—a task that leaves him lying on Telnos while the last cutter of evacuees escapes in the teeth of the Maess invasion.
Bennet is listed missing in action, believed dead on a planet now overrun by Maess drones. His family is grieving. His long-term partner, Joss, is both mourning and guilt-ridden.
And Fleet Lieutenant Flynn? Flynn is desolate. Flynn is heart-broken… no. Flynn is just broken
Categories: Gay Fiction, Science Fiction
Blog Title: Gay Heroes
I’m delighted to be here today to say a little about my new release, Heart Scarab, the second of the Taking Shield books.
Taking Shield is set in an alternate universe where Earth has been dark for millennia. One of her last colonies, Albion, has thrived since first landfall over seven thousand years earlier, and is now a regional galactic power in its own right with colonies and settlement planets of its own. Sadly, that means the humans of Albion have come up against an alien race, the Maess, that appears to be intent on destroying Albion and every last human, presumably because the Maess’s own interests are threatened.
Set against the big sweeping sci-fi saga of Shield Captain Bennet’s adventures as he infiltrates Maess bases and leads raids deep into enemy space, is a big sweeping love story between Bennet and Fleet Lieutenant Flynn of the dreadnought Gyrfalcon. But it’s not a romance. Not as the readers of m/m romance would think of romance. It isn’t a story of two men attracted to each other, being faithful and loving, overcoming the odds, and, at the end, having the Happy-For-Now or Happy Ever After finish loved by every true romantic. This is a generalisation, but romance appears to be about the main characters being gay first and foremost, and a plumber or a rocket scientist or a dentist second.
Taking Shield isn’t that. It is a love story—intense at times, dark at times. But really, it’s genre science fiction where the main characters are gay men. But it isn’t a story about gay men. It’s a story about men who have dangerous jobs to do to try and keep their people safe, and they are also gay. And throughout the big sci-fi story, there are relationships with other people, some of them het. They do pine for each other, you understand, but they don’t *pine*. They get on with things: life, jobs, fighting the war, and saving the planet. So the Maess war and everything Bennet has to do there gets equal billing with the slow unfolding of his relationship with Flynn.
If you like sci fi sagas, if you like love stories where the obstacles the heroes face are as big and sweeping as their galaxy, I do hope you’ll give Bennet and Flynn a try.
I can’t promise you a happy ending. I can say that eventually, there’s some hope Bennet and Flynn will have their chance to be together. But it’s not assured. There’s no real happy ever after. There’s only the promise that there might be.
Rather like life, really.
Flynn liked kissing. In fact, Flynn considered himself something of an expert in the art. He’d tried it in all its forms, from the first tentative pressing together of juvenile lips that had you wondering what all the fuss was about, to the discovery that if you just opened your mouth and, you know, kind of moved everything, your tongue suddenly had a lot more positive uses than just allowing you to articulate clearly and swallow things without choking. Flynn got the hang of it, ran with it, and never looked back.
Soft kisses and hard kisses; kisses that were wet and slobbery with people who didn’t know exactly how to hold their lips to get the best and sexiest effect, and wet and sexy kisses with people who did. Kisses that turned the blood to molten lava and kisses that cooled you as you came down. Kisses that inflamed and kisses that soothed; feverish kisses and languid after-sex kisses. Kisses that meant only good fellowship and casual affection, and kisses that were desire incarnate.
Flynn had not only tried them all, he’d made them his own. He was considered by all the relevant authorities to be rather a specialist in the area.
Flynn really liked kissing. He had been gratified by the discovery that Bennet liked it too. Because now he could add slow kisses to the repertoire. Kisses so leisured and intense the world came to a stop while a hot tongue moved over his lips, explored each and every tooth down to the last molar, while teeth pulled at his bottom lip, biting it gently until it was swollen and hot and heavy, and he had to lick his lip to cool it and met Bennet’s tongue with his. Only then, would Bennet’s mouth close over his and start a real in-earnest kiss that lasted several more centuries. Those were kisses Bennet seemed to specialise in.
Flynn was always willing to take tips from another expert. A man should always try to extend his technique.
Sales Links:
From Wilde City Press as an ebook or paperback.
From an Amazon near you (Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk links)
Amazon CA
Kobo
Anna Butler was a communications specialist for many years, working in UK government departments on everything from marketing employment schemes to running an internal TV service. She now spends her time indulging her love of old-school science fiction. She lives in the ethnic and cultural melting pot of East London with her husband and the Deputy Editor, aka Molly the cockapoo.
Where to find the author:
The Butler’s Pantry (Facebook Group)
Tour Dates & Stops: Wednesdays July 22 – November 4, 2015
22-Jul
29-Jul
5-Aug
Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words
12-Aug
19-Aug
26-Aug
2-Sep
9-Sep
16-Sep
23-Sep
30-Sep
7-Oct
Wicked Faerie’s Tales and Reviews
14-Oct
21-Oct
28-Oct
4-Nov
Â
 
a copy of my novella, FlashWired (epub, mobi or pdf)Â Â to one random commentator!!
Rafflecopter Prize:
– Â Chance to enter a rafflecopter for
(i)  top prize of an Amazon gift voucher (is $50 overdoing it? It makes for a decent prize!)
(ii) Â second prize, winner’s choice of a Heart Scarab ipad cover or kindle cover
(ii) Â third prize, a Gyrfalcon iPad cover
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Hi Anna! I love your cover it great.
Hi Sherry – it’s fabulous, isn’t it? I was very lucky – Adrian Nicholas at Wilde City designed the template we can use across the entire Shield series. I love it!
HI Sherry – you’re the only commentator here, so by default you win a copy of FlashWIred. Do email me at annabutlerfiction @ gmail. com and I’ll send you a copy in whatever format you prefer. Cheers!