A warm welcome to Max Vos joining us today on blog tour for the release of the audio version of My Hero

We have a first here today as Max brought with him two special guests 🙂

Also make sure you enter the giveaway on the bottom of the post!

Welcome Max 🙂

Title: My Hero ( audio edition)

Author: Max Vos

Audible Audio Edition

Listening Length: 6 hours and 3 minutes

Program Type: Audiobook

Version: Unabridged

Narrator: Jared Bradford

Publisher: Max Vos, Inc.

Audible.com Release Date: August 13, 2015

Language: English

Blurb:

This is a gay male romance with explicit sexual situations between men.

When he was 16 years old, Rich Miller saved a young man from drowning at his local pool. Little did he know that years later, as a senior in college and Olympic diving hopeful, Rich would meet up once again with Johnny Milloway, now a big football player – and when Rich says big, he really means “bear”. The shy jock remembers his saviour, and the two men become friends.

Johnny isn’t put off by the fact that Rich is gay. In fact, the more time he spends with Rich, the more curious he becomes. Johnny wants to know all kinds of things – what it’s like to kiss a guy, for instance. Only it doesn’t stop there…

Rich finds it difficult to believe that this relationship can go anywhere. Johnny is straight, and Rich isn’t prepared to deal with the heartache he knows will come his way in the future. He has enough on his plate as it is – the worlds are just around the corner. His father would rather watch a football game than spend time watching his son dive. What he doesn’t count on is Johnny, who can be very determined. And having Johnny in his life proves to be a catalyst for some pretty earth-shattering changes.

©2014 Max Vos, Inc.; (P)2015 Max Vos, Inc.

Buy Links:

Amazon

Audible

My Hero is also available on Itunes.

Watch this :

Trailer : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP2bUip7hxA&feature=youtu.be

I’ve asked Rich and Johnny to hang around this afternoon to talk about the first book, My Hero. Danielle has asked for an interview. This is the first one we’ve done altogether, so I’m not sure how it is going to go. But… here it is.

Max:               Okay, guys, let’s do this.

Johnny:           Is this going to take very long? I’m starving.

Rich:               You just ate!

Johnny:           So, I’m hungry.

Max:               We’re almost done for the day, so no, it shouldn’t take long.

Rich:               What are we doing?

Max:               An interview.

Johnny:           For what?

Max:                I’ve already explained this once. It’s about the book and it now being an audio book.

Johnny:           You’ve not even finished it yet.

Rich:               About the first one. Where have you been?

Johnny:           Oh. Okay.

Max:               Can we start please?

Rich:               Go for it.

Max:               What do you guys think of the audio book?

Rich:               I thought it was great. That guy sounded just like Anita.

Johnny:            I laughed my ass off when he did my mom. He does sound like her, but still is funny to me. I don’t ever think of her accent, but he got her that’s for sure.

Rich:                Ruthie hated herself in it, but it’s pretty spot on. Overall, I think he did a great job.

Max:                I agree, I think Jared did a superb job. It really brought you guys to life.

Rich:                And his boyfriend is pretty hot too. Oh don’t you give me that look Johnny Milloway, I’ve seen your eyes look him over just as well as me.

Johnny:            Yeah, but he ain’t got nothin’ on you, babe.

Max:                Back to the book please… The first individual question is for you, Rich. What do you think was the most important thing in the first book for you?

Rich:                The reconciliation with my father. Of course I felt like a total jerk about the whole thing, but that was the most important thing to me.

Max:                Okay, Good enough. Johnny, same question.

Johnny:            Rich, of course. He’s always the most important thing to me.

Max:                But he wasn’t always.

Johnny:            In a lot of ways he was. I mean, I already had a hero worship thing going on for him after he saved me at the pool. It isn’t every day that you can say that a future Olympian saved you.

Rich:                Awww, hun. You’re so sweet.

Max:                Not now. Quit kissing, I want to get this done. Quite frankly I’m sick of looking at the two of you today.

Johnny:            Then don’t look.

Max:                I was going to leave this till later, but never mind. Johnny, why did you cheat on Rich?

Johnny:            Crap. Why’d you have to go and bring that up?

Max:                Because it is a question everyone wants answered. I was going to try and be subtle about it, but… you brought it on yourself. Now just answer it. [A minute passes] Come on… out with it.

Johnny:            Fine. It started with Bunny…when she asked me out. No, actually it started when I got the evite to that party. I basically ignored that but when Bunny called, I was put on the spot. I’d just bombed a test and was really rattled. I wasn’t thinking. I just said yes to basically get off the phone with her.

Max:                Rich, has he explained this to you before.

Rich:                Yes.

Max:                Okay, keep going, Johnny.

Johnny:            After that, I knew that Rich was going to be upset. I just didn’t know how upset. I wasn’t really thinking straight at the time. And I kept putting off telling him. When I did… well you know what happened.

Rich:                Which you deserved.

Max:                Go on. Tell all of it.

Johnny:            I’m not proud of what I did. I was scared. I tried to back out of it but Mom wouldn’t let me.

Max:                But you did sleep with her.

Johnny:            Yeah. Big mistake, but I’m glad I did it.

Max:                Why?

Johnny:            Because I knew I was free to love Rich after that. If I hadn’t, I’d always have that doubt of knowing for sure or not if I was gay. I needed to make sure. I wanted to be sure I could be with Rich, if you know what I mean.

Rich:                I understood after that. I’ve had friends who, when trying to come out, went through a lot of the same things. No one chooses to be gay and when you suddenly realize it, you kind of freak out. It is like your whole life changes.

Johnny:            Yeah, and I’d never looked at guys before. And yeah, girls were fun and I liked ‘em but… I guess they didn’t… I don’t know, they never really did it for me like Rich does. Rich can explain it better than I can.

Max:                Rich, you want to add anything here?

Rich:                Of course when it happened I was really upset. It was that whole idea of him being straight after what we’d meant to each other. I was already in love with the big goof and the things that Ruthie had said kept going through my head. But when we talked, I got it. I didn’t like it, but I understood why he did what he did. I think it has to do with that whole sliding scale of how gay you are. Some guys, like me are just gay all the way. Others are only a little gay, bordering on bisexual. I think that was Johnny’s case.

Max:                And things are working out with your father, Rich?

Rich:                Yeah, but then you know that. It was slow at first. Awkward, but we’ve moved on.

Max:                Are you ready for The Olympics?

Rich:                More than ready. Johnny’s been a big reason for that.

Max:                How so?

Rich:                He’s keeping me grounded. It also helps to have a workout buddy.

Max:                Is there anything either of you might like to add here? Keep it to the first book please.

Johnny:            Best sex ever and I still have a thing for powdered doughnuts.

Rich:                He’s such a goof sometimes. All he seems to think about is sex, food and football.

Johnny:            Hey, it works for me.

Max:                I’m really sick of listening to the two of you today. Go on, get out of here. I’ll see you in the morning so be ready to talk then.

Johnny:            Good, let’s eat.

Rich:                See you in the morning, Max.

Reviewed by Alexander

TITLE: My Hero

AUTHOR: Max Vos

PUBLISHER: Self Published

LENGTH: 6 hours, 3 minutes

NARRATOR: Jared Bradford

BLURB:

When he was 16 years old, Rich Miller saved a young man from drowning at his local pool. Little did he know that years later, as a senior in college and Olympic diving hopeful, Rich would meet up once again with Johnny Milloway, now a big football player…The shy jock remembers his saviour, and the two men become friends. Johnny isn’t put off by the fact that Rich is gay. In fact, the more time he spends with Rich, the more curious he becomes.

REVIEW:

My Hero was intriguing to me because both MCs were athletes, albeit very different types of athletes, one being a diver, and the other a football player. Both Rich and Johnny were solid, characters, had a good amount of depth, and their coming together felt natural and dare I say, believable. I have to admit that the connection between Rich and Johnny felt a bit tenuous at first. It wasn’t until Johnny started to give in to his feelings that I could begin to see them together for more than just sex, and it was also at this point that I could see Rich getting hurt by the big, closeted football player.

It was easy to empathize with Rich, especially at the beginning, worried that he was being played as the fool. I guess it would be easy to come out if you are a huge football player who can beat the crap out of anyone who crosses you, which would be one of my less favorite parts of the story. I am not saying inaccurate, because I have no idea what the dynamic is like in that regard, but learned many years ago that battles are best fought with non-violent means or the consequences could be severe, especially at a school.

There were a few times when the story could have zigged, and ended up zagging, which was great, as I was kept guessing about what would happen to Rich, in particular, when he was in Atlanta. What also appealed to me is that there were a good balance of secondary characters that encompassed many walks of life, from homophobic, to accepting, to uncertain, and indifferent. This added depth, and supported the storyline well. Something I noticed was that Vos used epithets throughout the book, and while it worked at times, there were quite a few instances where the character’s name would have flowed better in my opinion.

I was very happy that Vos selected a narrator that had an age appropriate voice, as this is a pet peeve of mine. Bradford had the right vibe for the story, and did a pretty good job differentiating Rich and Johnny, maintaining continuity throughout the narration. I did find Bradford’s female voices to be a little contrived at times, especially Johnny’s cousin who sounded British but for the life of me, I could not see where that came from. I will admit that it is very difficult to search for information in an audiobook versus even a print book, but with Johnny’s mom having one accent, his father sounding American, her voice just did not do it for me. The many college-age male characters also had their own slightly different sound, just enough to make the dialogue flow nicely, and not get confusing.

My Hero is definitely a solid effort in terms of a unique and enjoyable story, some pretty hot scenes, and a good narration on the part of Bradford who is definitely a narrator to look for in the future.

STORY RATING:

AUDIO RATING:

About Max:

Max Vos is a classically trained chef with over 30 years of food service experience. After retiring in 2011, Max found himself with time on his hands and was urged to turn his talents to writing. ‘Cooking English’, a short story, was his first published work, and has four other short stories currently in publication with Ravenous Romance. His first novel, My Hero was a number one best seller on Amazon. He continues to challenge himself with varying topics, from Marine Vampires to taboo subjects. The one thing you will always be guaranteed to find in his writing is hard, gritty, man-on-man sex.

Max loves hearing from readers. You can keep up with him by reading his weekly blog posts on his own blog page: http://www.maxvos.com/

or his Facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/max.vos.393?fref=ts

Email him at: max.vos@aol.com

2 audio code for a copy of My Hero

3 Ecopies of My Hero

2 Ecopies of a Backlist Title ( winner’s choice)
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