Please join us in welcoming author M. LeAnne Phoenix, here today on Love Bytes with their blog tour of The Covenant.
Welcome to the blog, M. LeAnne Phoenix!
Author Name: M. LeAnne Phoenix
Book Name: The Covenant
Series: Covenant Series #1
Release Date: January 15, 2016
Pages or Words: 280 pages; 71,000 words
Publisher: CoolDudes Publishing
Cover Artist: Kellie Dennis
Blurb:
When love is forbidden, who can you trust?
Seventeen year old David has been best friends with Jonathan for as long as he can remember, but the day he sees the pastor’s daughter press a soft kiss to Jonathan’s cheek everything changes. Overcome by jealousy, his explosive reaction reveals a deeper connection that sends their relationship spiraling down into dangerous territory.
When their clandestine love is discovered, they have nowhere to turn for help. The brutal circumstances of their parting test David and Jonathan’s covenant to each other in unimaginable ways. Forced to face their fears, it is in their darkest moments that the two young men discover that the courage, hope, and strength they need to to fight for their love, has been the foundation of their covenant all along.
Categories: Gay fiction, M/M Romance, New Adult, Poetry, Romance
Today I’m very happy to be interviewing M. LeAnne Phoenix author of The Covenant. Hi LeAnne, thank you for agreeing to this interview.
What’s the easiest thing about writing?
Losing myself in the story. When it’s right, everything falls into place and it’s like a movie in my mind. I just have to get it all down.
Name one author (living or dead) you’d like to write with?
Tolkien.
Tell us about your cover and how it came about.
I saw the cover that Kellie Dennis from Book Cover by Design, did for Leona Windwalker’s Sol’s Solstice. I was super-impressed with it, so I inquired about the artist and then I started watching her wall and her covers. When it was almost time to start putting things together for the cover, Kellie told me to look through photos on one of the websites she works off of… and that’s when I found Jonathan. It took a little while longer to find David, but he’s got a lot of great photos that will work with the rest of the series.
Is this book part of a series? Do you have ideas that could make it into a series? If it is a series, tell us a little about it.
Yes, it’s the first book in the series. It will chronicle David and Jonathan from 1992-2015, through high school and college, through careers, moves across countries. I don’t want to give too much detail; I want you to read it!
Word association. Tell us the first thing that comes to mind when you read these words.
Ketchup Mustard
Flakes SNOW!!!!
Elastic Hairties!
Timer Egg
Google Search!
David opened his locker to get out his Biology, History, and Music History books and shoved them into his backpack, swallowing hard against the lump in his throat. Jonathan’s comforting hand lit on David’s side as he came to lean on the locker to the right of David’s own, holding up in one paint-besmeared hand, a small piece of black cardboard. On it, David saw symbols, ones he thought might be Greek. Remembering the foreign exchange student from Thessaloniki shared Jonathan’s sixth period art class, he smiled and turned to his boyfriend as he took the proffered gift.
“What does it say?” David couldn’t help but smile at the joy lighting Jonathan’s eyes. “This has to be something that Kallias helped you make—”
“You aren’t wrong,” Jonathan interjected. “That is Greek writing and Kallias even taught me how to say it.”
“Enlighten me, please!” David rasped, focusing wholly on Jonathan’s gift. “Say it and then tell me what it means.”
“If I say it right, it’s agape menomou—”
David furrowed his brow, repeating, “A guppy man oh moo?”
Jonathan slid down the locker in a giggle. “Noooo! I must have said it wrong because your face… oh my gosh, your face!”
Blushing and biting his lower lip, David sank down to his haunches in front of Jonathan. “Then say it again, slower, and tell me what it means!”
Jonathan looked around, and seeing no-one in their locker bank, leaned up to whisper the Greek in his ear, the sounds slower… thicker. “Agape menomou means O love of my heart.”
Buy the book:
M. LeAnne Phoenix would tell you that the worst time of her life was the two years that she attempted to take off from writing. If you asked her to explain exactly why she did such a thing, you would most likely get the mad attempt to arch an eyebrow like her dad and then a shake of the head as she told you it was unlucky to speak of such things. Suffice it to say, it will never happen again!
Born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas in the mid-1970’s, Ms. Phoenix was young and wild (and even free!) during the crazy wondrous decade known as the 1980’s and the even crazier but now grungy decade of the 1990’s. Music is second only to the muses that live and breathe to fill her mind with beautiful men, and music always helps them to tell their stories. She is never without her iPod or her computer no matter where she goes, although, she does like to hike and take pictures of the sky and the moon, and even the occasional shot of the sun through the branches of a tree.
An avid cat lover, Ms. Phoenix has been owned by many throughout her life, though her current owner is one Lily-Rose, who really would like for her to step away from the keyboard and pay her some attention! After all, hasn’t she earned it?
Where to find the author:
Twitter: @MLPhoenix
Tour Dates & Stops:
15-Jan: Prism Book Alliance, KathyMac Reviews, Velvet Panic, Mikky’s World of Books, It’s Raining Men, Carly’s Book Reviews
18-Jan: Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words, Kimi-Chan, Nephy Hart
19-Jan: Bayou Book Junkie, Unquietly Me
20-Jan: Louise Lyons, Books A to Z, Michael Mandrake, My Fiction Nook
21-Jan: Iyana Jenna, Hearts on Fire
22-Jan: Havan Fellows, Happily Ever Chapter
25-Jan: MM Good Book Reviews, Wicked Faerie’s Tales and Reviews
26-Jan: Inked Rainbow Reads, Dawn’s Reading Nook, A.M. Leibowitz
27-Jan: Jessie G. Books, BFD Book Blog
28-Jan: Love Bytes, Elisa – My Reviews and Ramblings, Alpha Book Club
Rafflecopter Prize: A signed print copy of ‘The Covenant’
It’s more about individual words in various languages, though I guess I’m most at home with English!
The book sounds amazing!
Aww, how sweet. Thank you for the excerpt.
And in regard to languages, I love being able to say a few words – to order a meal or ask where the local train station is. My issue is not being able to understand the answers. In South Korea I rattled off a perfect order of drinks and food for the seven people I was with – then the waiter apparently asked if we wanted the drinks cold. I had to look to my bro-in-law to translate at that point.