A warm welcome to author Rob Rosen joining us today to talk about his new release “Fate”.
Rob shares an excerpt and also brought a giveaway with him!
Welcome Rob 🙂

My ninth novel, Fate, hit the shelves on November 20^th. I now look back on my time writing it and to the blurb that so aptly describes it:

One man, four lovers, and just ten years to choose one set the Hollywood stage in this hilarious coming of age tale of family, friendship, and fate.

I remember starting the book, knowing that the concept of fate would play a major role. Little did I know how just major a role it would eventually have, the entirety of the book centering around this mesmerizing theme, tying all the characters together… not to mention, tearing them apart.

I, like my main character, Eddie, have always been fascinated by fate. Does it exist or do the people we meet in life, the situations we find ourselves in, well, is it all just dumb luck, chance? Me, I believe in fate. Too many of my relationships, the friends that I’ve met, the places I’ve been, have been unlikely ones, with one in a million odds or more against them happening.

With Eddie, the same can be said. And that’s why I fell in love with him, with his family, with his friends and lovers. Fate brought them all together, and I was rooting for fate to keep them that way, knowing that it frequently doesn’t work in our favor, just like it wouldn’t always work in Eddie’s. Friends come and go, family as well, replaced by others, many of them fated to be in our lives, fated to eventually leave our lives, but fated just the same. Not chance. Not dumb luck.

For Eddie and me, fate shaped our lives. And if you didn’t believe in it before, I hope you do after you read my book.

To help wet your whistle, here’s a short excerpt (you can also check out the advance praises here: http://www.therobrosen.net/Fate.html):

He didn’t say anything. There was a pause, and then he pushed himself up until his face was just above my own. I stared up into his eyes. The room was dark, but I could still make out the faintest shade of blue. “Say it,” he whispered.

“Say what?” I whispered back.

“Say that you wanted me to kiss you.”

His face moved in even closer. The room was hot, hotter still by the sheets and the blanket and him hovering above me. “I wanted you to kiss me because we were best friends and you were leaving me forever.”

He chuckled, the vibration travelling through the bed and up into my chest. “Not so forever though, huh?”

And then there was that kiss again. Only it wasn’t the kiss from before. Brian wasn’t seven anymore and this wasn’t a fleeting goodbye. In fact, this was more of a hello, nice to see you, let’s stay like this until our lips need a crowbar to pry them apart. And, guess what? There were no crowbars in the minifridge. Not even a fingernail clipper. Nope, all there was, was me and him kissing as if nine years hadn’t even been nine seconds and he didn’t have a girlfriend and our mothers weren’t in the next room.

If that previous kiss all those years earlier had been my first kiss, then the second one was one hell of an encore. My mom would kill for such an encore, in fact. You see, among everything else in the universe, it was unique and perfect and wouldn’t ever be forgotten, not when I was thirty, not when I was eighty.

When at last he broke free, his face still above mine, he smiled. “And why did you let me kiss you this time then?”

I pulled my hand up above the sheets and blanket and ran it through his thick mane of hair, just like I’d always wanted to do. “Because we’re best friends.”

His lips again touched down on mine before he resumed his position. “Are we?”

My hand caressed his cheek. There was a light stubble there. I wondered if he could grow a beard, or if he would in a year or two or six. “I don’t know what we are. It just felt like the right thing to say. Does that make sense?”

He nodded. “Do you believe in fate, Eddie?”

My body suddenly tensed and then relaxed. There was that word again: fate. It felt as if he had hit me with it. “You think fate brought us together again, or that it brought us together the first time?”

His hand also rose from beneath the covers before finding its way through my hair, his fingers lightly raking across my scalp, sending a million little goosebumps up my arm. “When I saw you standing in the parking lot earlier tonight, that’s the first word that popped into my head.” The kiss repeated. I was shocked that it was even more amazing than the last. “So do you?” he asked, when again he moved his lips away.

My eyelids fluttered open. “Do I what?”

“Believe in fate?”

Yes, I did in fact. Though I was scared to admit it. Scared that I’d be tempting it. I was sixteen. This was all new to me. And so I replied, “Well, my mom is pretty damned funny, but not worth travelling all the way from Pittsburg to see.”

“So that’s a yes then?”

I pulled him in, my arms wrapped tightly around him. I kissed him in reply. That felt safer than a yes. That felt more honest, at any rate. That felt, like I’ve said, perfect.

book blurb:

Eddie is in love. The problem is, Eddie’s in love with four men… four men simultaneously, that is. But who does Eddie love more? And can the heart feel for that many men equally? Ah, but it does have four chambers, so four seems the most logical choice… at least, of course, to Eddie.

Paula is Eddie’s famous mom. One by one, each of his lovers comes to work for her, their lives so connected that if one of them itches, another one scratches. But who will wind up with whom in this hysterically funny tale of life and love and friendship? In the end, it’s up to fate to decide what none of them could possibly have seen coming.

Buy Links:

MLR

Amazon

Rob Rosen

Author of the award-winning novels Sparkle: The Queerest Book You’ll Ever Love, Divas Las Vegas, Hot Lava, Southern Fried, Queerwolf, Vamp, Queens of the Apocalypse, Creature Comfort and Fate, and editor of the anthologies Lust in Time, Men of the Manor, Best Gay Erotica 2015 and Best Gay Erotica of the Year, Volume 1.

www.therobrosen.com

give away one e-copy (PDF) of my novel, Sparkle: The Queerest Book You’ll Ever Love.