Love Bytes says hello to author Max MacGowan joiing us today to talk about new release Five-Sided Heart
Welcome Max 🙂
Hello, Love Bytes! Thanks for hosting this guest post for my new novel, Five-Sided Heart.
I love polyamory. Always have, always will. The idea of an entire group of people held together by bonds of affection, passion and friendship captured my heart from the moment I first heard of it, first realized it was an actual thing that actual people sometimes actually did. All that potential, and all that love. I had to write about it.
When it came time to blog about it, I knew I wanted to introduce my characters.
My favorite part was coming up with the characters. By this point I’ve spent so much time with the guys I know them like brothers (which means sometimes I want to hug them, and sometimes I want to knuckle their heads until they scream for mercy. As you do).
An Introduction to Joshua Brown
Joshua is the second POV narrator in Five-Sided Heart. It wasn’t my intention—I thought I’d let him wait a while—but Joshua stepped right up and told me in his Kentucky drawl that he had other plans, thank you kindly.
Joshua’s had his share of troubles. Once an elementary school teacher, he spent over a year in jail, falsely accused but knowing he was only one of thousands who claimed the same every day. Sometimes he thought he’d never get out, that he’d spend the rest of his life behind bars. Even now he still has trouble believing he won his freedom and the right to walk away.
He’s gotten good at walking away, too, and has sworn he’ll never go back home again. Will never form bonds with people who could turn on him. The only person he keeps in touch with is his best friend from childhood, who can be counted on for a dose of common sense and a good swift kick in the ass when he needs it. Aside from that, he’s rootless. He wanders where he wills, seeing everything he can that’s out under the open sky. And he has no plans to stop.
Until he fetches up on the Outer Banks, and finds himself drifting to a stop. Though he doesn’t mean to get tangled up with this motley group of men, he finds himself sympathetic to pretty, scarred Gabriel, amused by chatterbox Ty, understanding of conflicted Ian, and comforted by Noah. Every time he thinks he ought to leave—surely they’ll find out about his past sooner or later—he can’t seem to make himself move on. He’s learning how to be himself again, and opening up his aching heart.
When the truth comes out, Joshua knows that’s it. He’s got to go, even if it breaks his heart.
But what he doesn’t count on is that the men he fell in love with love him back. And they’re not about to let him go without a fight.
I hope you enjoy reading his story, along with those of the other men of Five-Sided Heart!
Noah Trevelyan has lost his moorings. Disowned over his sexuality as a teenager, he hasn’t been back to his home on the Outer Banks since his fisherman father kicked him out. But when he returns for the Old Man’s funeral, he discovers
his father left him the house and boat in his will. Noah must choose whether to stay or go, but he won’t be alone.
There’s Ian, working to overcome the emotional scars left by a domineering ex-boyfriend, and Ty, a cheerful housekeeper who’s struggling to take care of his Alzheimer’s-stricken aunt. There’s Joshua too, running from the destruction of his old life, and Gabriel, who was once beaten and left for dead, and doesn’t know how to survive on his own.
Will they find in each other the strength and courage to keep living—and learn, together, how to love again? A polyamorous relationship is the last thing any of them expected to find in the Outer Banks, but it might be what they need most, and it might even be their redemption—if they can keep their group from breaking apart under the pressure.
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Joshua cocked his head back for a better angle at the place.
Watermarks showed near the top of those posts, barely a foot beneath the platform. The rest of the place wasn’t bad. Shabby, in that lived-in sort of way. Faded paint, work tools, and fishing gear, stowed whichever way their owner had cared to leave them. Sturdy sets of orange slickers hung on high pegs. A comfortable mess.
Joshua liked it. He didn’t say so, though. He had gotten out of the habit of talking, this past year and some. First out of frustration, then because he had nothing to say, and keeping his mouth shut was safer by far.
He had told himself he would unlearn all that when he got out of jail.
Funny how life worked. That had been three months ago, almost four, and Joshua had only been in general holding for about a year, waiting on his trial. Yet he still woke every day with a startle, listening for the sound of crashing bars and howling men, holding his breath against the stink. He hadn’t done the capture and murder he’d been accused of—God, no; it made his stomach twist up to think about that poor girl—but living behind bars got to a man’s head. Some days he had to stop and remind himself he was innocent, that he’d been acquitted, freed, and sent on his way.
To do what, well, Joshua was still working on that part of the equation.
Up ahead of him, Noah fished a set of keys from his pocket and plugged one into the lock on a battered wood door that had once upon a time been painted sea green. He went at it like a man who expected to find a firing squad waiting for him on the other side, his shoulders dropping in relief when the lock’s tumblers turned and a light push opened the door.
Joshua had heard what he’d heard on the boat and on the shore. Enough to put the pieces together and know what Noah’s story was—it made his chest ache for the guy. Life was rough all around, the way Joshua saw it, and not all prisons were made of brick and mortar.
Breaking out or breaking in, it all came down to the same thing.
And then to find you had the key all the time? He whistled to himself. Had to be hard, that. Damn hard.
Ian gave a decided nod—he was a decided sort of man, Joshua thought. “There. Now that that’s settled I’ll be on my way.”
“You’re not coming in?” Noah turned his head in surprise.
“Oh no. I’ve already had my nose too far up in your business for one day,” Ian said with a twitch of his pert mouth. “Do I want a hot shower? Yes. My own hot shower, and then my own clean clothes. I’m in the blue house, just to the left. You can see it from here.”
Joshua glanced that way and spied it easily. He winced. The neon blue of that paint seared the eyes.
Noah looked as if he meant to argue the point, but a mighty sneeze made them all jump. It’d come from Gabriel, who was dripping wet and crimson cheeked, though otherwise as pale as milk. He looked dazed and shocky to Joshua, as if he hadn’t quite processed that he was safe on dry land yet.
“Speaking of hot showers and the need for one….” Ian patted Gabriel’s shoulder. “Like I said before, Noah Trevelyan. Welcome home.”
Noah shook his head as he watched Ian stride away. “I don’t know what to make of that man.”
“Kinda doubt many people do,” Joshua surprised himself by saying. “But he’s probably all right.” Noah chuckled anyway. He still sounded tired and looked a little bit lost, but better than he had been when they first set out across the Sound. “I expect you’re right. Gabriel—it was Gabriel, wasn’t it? Come on. Probably better let you have first crack at the shower. I’ll find you something dry to wear.”
Joshua hoped for Gabriel’s sake that John Trevelyan had been a small man. Otherwise any clothes on offer would likely drown him all over again.
Ty stood back to let Gabriel and Noah enter before him. His lips were pursed in thought, and his drying curls nearly stood on end with the salt water they’d soaked up. “You think he was serious about feeding us?”
“You’d know him better than I do,” Joshua said.
Ty wrinkled his nose. “Not really. And it’s been a long time.”
“Would his Old Man have been serious about feeding us?” Joshua asked.
“Ha! Damn right he would have. More like stuffed us till he had to roll us home like barrels.” Ty brought his hands together with a brisk clap. “Okay. Give me fifteen minutes. Oh. Sorry, my mouth gets ahead of my mind. See, there won’t be anything edible in there, right? Except for canned peaches and saltines. He loved those. I don’t know why, but the crumbs got everywhere. Drove Great-Aunt Lily nuts.” He blinked his big blue eyes. “Where was I?”
It was another thing Joshua had learned to keep to himself, but he did enjoy a sweet mouth on a hard-bodied man. Lord love Ty if he wasn’t the cutest damn thing. “Edibles.”
Max MacGowan is a work in progress. They’ve just turned forty, and are determined not to go gently into that good night. They identify as nonbinary genderqueer, and prefer they/them pronouns. While they can be quiet, friends will tell you all that still water can’t quite hide Max’s quirky personality, Or maybe it’s the ever-present puckish twinkle in the eyes that’s really to blame.
Max has a fantastic time writing male/male romance, and is especially fond of polyamory, found families, love in unexpected places, friends who become lovers, and romantic comedies. They’re owned by two rowdy tomcats who take pains to make sure their owner doesn’t ever get the status confused.
You can find Max on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/people/Max-MacGowan/100009993105655 or send them an e-mail at “max.macgowan.author@gmail.com”. They’d love to hear from you!