A warm welcome to author Francis Gideon joining us today here at Love Bytes to talk about his new upcoming release “The Good Guys”. Francis also brought an excerpt and a wonderful giveaway!

Welcome Gideon 🙂

Hi everyone! I’m Francis Gideon and my recent work, The Good Guys, comes out on December 9th from Less Than Three Press. The Good Guys is a transgender romance, focusing on the lives of Oliver (a transgender man) and Avery, a bigender person. The two meet during a Live Action Role Playing (LARPing) session in downtown Toronto, then circle around one another as their personal worlds collide. Just one catch: at first, Oliver doesn’t realize he’s after the same person, but two separate people–a cute guy elf from LARPing and a sweet nerdy redhead woman from his doctor’s office.

Mistaken Identity as a trope is one of my favourites, along with Not-So Random meetings. When people constantly resurface around one another (especially in a city as big as Toronto) it starts to feel like fate, right? And that’s what the romance genre capitalizes on. Those moments of recognition where we swear we’ve met this person before, we swear we’ve been in this place before, and all of our lives up until this moment suddenly mean something. This trope sort of magically infuses everyday encounters, which is what my main goal for this story was: put a little magic back into an ordinary place like a doctor’s office or a random party you don’t want to go to. Also, when talking about mistaken identity stories that focus around gender, there’s a lot of misgendering that happens. I didn’t want that to happen with this story, especially since both MCs are trans themselves.

So when Oliver first realizes that the guy and girl he’s been after are the same person, Avery is relieved. Avery’s bigender identity becomes validated by the mistaken identity, since Avery has always wanted to be both a man and a woman, and never could decide. As the story goes on, Avery discusses how most doctors always wanted Avery to pick a side, when Avery is much more comfortable staying as both. With Oliver, Avery gets to stay that way without issue or drama. And hopefully, as an author, I get to adapt the mistaken identity trope for a new audience.

The Good Guys by Francis Gideon

Release: 12/09/2015

Less Than Three Press

Book Blurb:

When Oliver meets a really cute elf while out Live Action Role Playing, he thinks he’s found the Sam to his Frodo. He tries to find out more about Oakenshire the Elf, but comes up with nothing. When summer vacation forces the LARPing group to take a break, Oliver throws himself into his upcoming play, where he is one of the main leads. There he meets a new person to captivate his attention: Avery.

She’s smart, funny, and into all the same things that Oliver is into, even LARPing. As their friendship progresses, Oliver begins to notice the similarities the young woman has to Oakenshire the Elf. It could be his final chance to see his elf again—or another case of mistaken identity that will leave Oliver fumbling with pronouns, excuses, and hurt feelings.

“You guys,” someone called, their voice normal. “The mall cops are coming over. And the rain’s coming in. We gotta back up.”

Everyone groaned. Oliver soon heard the shifting of feet over the grass and the sudden reeling in of their brightly coloured tents. All good things must come to an end. He shrugged the flowers off his eyes and sat up, hoping to catch a better look of the elf who saved his reputation, if not his life. He felt the small hands of the elf on his back, squeezing him slightly.

“We gotta go,” he said. “Nice play, though.”

“Thanks.” Oliver took off his helmet and smiled at the elf. His skin was paler up close, dusted with freckles, with a small nose in the middle of his face. He really suited the elf character. He didn’t even appear to wear much make-up to bring out some of the more feminine features. He was already cute.

“Have we met before?” Oliver asked with a thin smile.

“Not really, not in the game. But I followed your story. Most people kind of have to if we want to play.”

“Yeah. You were good, I mean,” Oliver said, still stuttering slightly. “I really appreciated that speech at the end.”

The elf laughed. His nose scrunched up when he did. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve read too many fantasy books and played too many games. It was a complete mash-up of those.”

Both of them began to get up. Oliver dusted off his grey pants and the “metal” he kept on as armour.

“It was more than a mash-up, though,” Oliver added. His voice wasn’t loud enough against the sudden roar of the crowd as they dismantled their designs. The elf turned his back and didn’t seem to hear. He picked up the small pink vial from the ground and added it to his bag, probably to return it to one of the other players in the underground Alliance.

“Well, thanks,” Oliver said, finding the cap for the vial on the ground and handing it over. “Even if that didn’t give me immortality, I think it’s kind of a nice memory. A last hurrah.”

“Not at all,” the elf said. He took the vial’s cap and nodded a small thanks before he slid it into his pouch. His smile struck Oliver. It was delicate, nice. Oliver swallowed, feeling the familiar throb of attraction. How much of the attention that the elf paid to him was part of his character, and how much of it was other motivations? When he first began LARPing, he had spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get close to the guy who played the king, hoping that something else could bloom between them. But he had stopped as soon as he heard the king address someone over the phone. The guy was a dick; he only played a good person in the game. It was so hard, in a game like this, to really decipher character motivation from personal.

The elf still stared at him with that delicate smile. Oliver was sure that his mind was no longer in the game, and yet, he was still here.

Buy Link:

Less Than Three Press

Francis Gideon is a writer of m/m romance, but he also dabbles in mystery, fantasy, historical, and paranormal fiction. He has appeared in Gay Flash Fiction, Chelsea Station Poetry, and the Martinus Press anthology To Hell With Dante.  He lives in Canada with his partner, reads too many comics books, and drinks too much coffee. Feel free to contact him, especially if you want to talk about horror movies, LGBT poetry, or NBC’s Hannibal. Find him at francisgideon.wordpress.com.

Francis brought with him a wonderful giveaway 🙂

To win a copy of The Good Guys, please comment with your favourite romance trope and your email. He’ll select two winners before Christmas. Thank you!