A warm welcome to author Mickie B Ashling joining us today here at Love Bytes

Welcome Mickie 🙂

I’d like to thank Dani for the opportunity to appear on Love Bytes to share an exclusive excerpt of my latest novel Forged in Trust, which released today at Dreamspinner. This is the fourth novel in the Bay Area Professionals series featuring doctors and dentists who participate in the BDSM scene. Although some characters from previous novels appear in this story, it can be read as a standalone. There’s an opportunity to win a free e-copy of the novel or a gift certificate by entering contact information in Rafflecopter. Enjoy!

About Forged in Trust

Dr. Ethan Marshall is the young medical student on call the night Tessa Duran murders her husband for abusing her twelve-year-old-son, Rino. Ethan stays in the cubicle while the rape kit is performed and is surprised when the boy resorts to prayers instead of tears.

Despite compelling evidence, Tessa is sent to jail for life. To avoid placing Rino in foster care, their parish priest agrees to raise him. Ethan is touched by Rino’s plight and visits whenever possible, but the connection is broken when the priest and young boy leave the area months later.

Raised by the Dominicans in California, Rino considers joining the order until a romance blossoms with a fellow student. After much soul-searching, he turns his back on everything familiar, and chooses his orientation over his perceived vocation. Upon graduating dental hygiene school, Rino takes a job at the office of Scott Gregory and Robin Kennedy.

Seventeen years have passed since that horrible night in the emergency room. Forty-three-year-old Ethan is now a Dominant in search of a full-time submissive. Twenty-nine-year-old Rino is adrift, longing for someone or something to help him find the serenity he’s lost along the way. As they rekindle their friendship, they realize they might be perfect for each other.

ETHAN MARSHALL wasn’t squeamish, unlike many of his fellow students who’d had to build up a tolerance for blood and gore. He’d been the kind of kid who pulled bugs apart to see how they were put together. While others shied away from the unpleasant aspect of anatomy class, complaining of smell and slime, Ethan was usually front and center during dissections. The human body fascinated him, and having an opportunity to look under the hood, so to speak, was the best learning tool available. Figuring out what caused a death usually went hand in hand with finding a cure. Humans were living far longer than in years past, thanks to education and good medicine, and it wasn’t unreasonable to expect to live past a hundred as progress continued to be made.

A while back, Ethan realized that genomics was the Rubik’s Cube of medicine. Many answers could be found within a person’s DNA if one had tenacity and patience. Research was the key to uncovering the mysteries behind cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and many other diseases and conditions. Ethan was a problem solver, and it was this side of him that made him choose a career in medicine. He loved puzzles, and what could be more challenging than trying to fix someone who was broken?

There was a downside to research, though—lack of human contact. Now in his third year of medical school and four months into his clinical rotations, it occurred to him that the best part of being a doctor was interacting with people. If he were to go into research, as he’d originally planned, he’d miss out. Spending eight to ten hours a day in a sterile environment with nothing but blood samples, microscopes, and petri dishes as companions could never compare to the ongoing challenges of dealing with live subjects.

Out of all the departments he’d trained in so far, the emergency room was his favorite. The frenetic life-and-death situations that presented every hour on the hour raised his energy level in a most enjoyable and productive way. Other students complained about the long hours and drooped under the pressure, but Ethan flourished, viewing each case as a chance to improve his overall skills. It sure as hell beat sitting around waiting for test results.

Ethan was six hours into his twelve-hour shift and had already cast a broken leg, teased a shard of glass out of a bloody sclera, given several tetanus shots, and retrieved a broken cucumber out of some guy’s ass. He still couldn’t understand why people didn’t invest in a proper, yet inexpensive dildo. It was certainly better to spend the money than endure the humiliation of having soggy vegetables pulled out in pieces. Ugh….

On the other hand, incidents such as that made up the majority of ER humor, and the darker and more bizarre the sexual blunders, the better. There was probably a grain of truth to the old myth of gay men sticking gerbils up their ass, and although Ethan batted for Team Homo, he didn’t hesitate to poke fun at the guys who had no common sense. Women were no better. They were equally as reckless with inserting foreign objects. The most memorable had been an electric toothbrush. In the heat of the moment, the head had popped off and gotten wedged high up in no-man’s-land. Ethan chuckled when he remembered the mortified look on Mrs. Ordinary-housewife’s face as she tried explaining her overzealous hygiene rituals.

That night, however, would leave a lasting impression on Ethan, and not in a good way. It had started out like any other emergency call, with the squawk of the ambulance announcing the arrival of another broken body. Ethan was part of the triage team gathered around the stretcher. A big bear of a man was lying faceup with his eyes closed. He must have been somewhere in his early forties and ex-military, judging from the buzz cut and the anchor tattoo on his left arm. His weathered skin had a greenish tinge, a harbinger of death. When they pulled the blanket aside, the man was nude, and Ethan zeroed in on the patient’s mutilated groin, which was still oozing blood. His brain shorted out when he realized someone had gouged out the man’s penis and left a gaping hole. He looked at his chief resident in shock, and the guy simply shook his head, silently telling Ethan the injury was fatal, and to suck it up and act like a professional instead of doubling over and clutching his own genitals in sympathy.

Purchase Links

Dreamspinner Press | All Romance eBooks | Amazon

Mickie B. Ashling is the alter-ego of a multifaceted woman raised by a single mother who preferred reading over other forms of entertainment. She found a kindred spirit in her oldest child and encouraged her with a steady supply of dog-eared paperbacks. Romance was the preferred genre, and historical romances topped her favorites list.

By the time Mickie discovered her own talent for writing, real life had intruded, and the business of earning a living and raising four sons took priority. With the advent of e-publishing and the inevitable emptying nest, dreams were resurrected, and the storyteller was reborn.

She stumbled into the world of men who love men in 2002 and continues to draw inspiration from their ongoing struggle to find equality and happiness in this oftentimes skewed and intolerant world. Her award-winning novels have been called “gut wrenching, daring, and thought provoking.” She admits to being an angst queen and making her men work damn hard for their happy endings.

Mickie loves to travel and has lived in the Philippines, Spain, and the Middle East but currently resides in a suburb outside Chicago.

Connect with Mickie

Email | Facebook | Twitter | Website | Blog | Goodreads & Ask the Author

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Sept. 2 – On Top Down Under Book Reviews

Sept. 3 – Charlie Cochet

Sept. 4 – Love Bytes

Sept. 4 – Sinfully…Addicted to All Male Romance

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Sept. 9 – MM Good Book Reviews

Sept. 11 – WoW…from The Scarf Princess

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