Love Bytes says hello and welcome to author Duo Ari McKay joining us today to talk about the release of “The Quality of Mercy”, part two in their series.
Ari tells us about the story and brought a giveaway for our readers.
Welcome Ari McKay 🙂

Hello there, everyone! Ari of Ari McKay here! Thanks to Dani and all the wonderful reviewers at Love Bytes for giving me the opportunity to talk to you about our latest release, The Quality of Mercy. The story is a historical Western, set in Texas in 1890, and it’s the sequel to our novella Finding Forgiveness.

 

Like the first Bent Oak Saga story, The Quality of Mercy is about love, redemption, and second chances. Carlos Hernandez will be familiar to those who have read Finding Forgiveness; the handsome cowboy is a heart breaker who was Matt Grayson’s first lover. Matt and Carlos parted on friendly terms, which is why Carlos could come back to Mercy and find employment on Bent Oak Ranch. Carlos is happy to have a place to call home, and he’s very happy that Matt has found love and happiness with Gil Porter, Bent Oak’s owner, but seeing Matt and Gil together makes Carlos yearn for a love of his own. But while Carlos has been free with his physical affection, his heart has only ever belonged to one man. Unfortunately, Carlos was young and foolish and didn’t realize what he had with Jules Wingate. He wasn’t ready to settle down, and so Carlos hurt Jules to drive him away, a mistake he quickly came to regret.

 

Jules was devastated by Carlos’s infidelity. As a school teacher, Jules’s life is scrutinized more than those of most others, and his pain is too much to hide. He leaves town, moving to Stafford, Texas, and finding friendship and acceptance from a young widow named Mary. As Jules and Mary grow closer, they each confess their secrets to the other, which creates a strong bond between them. When Mary learns she’s dying, she begs Jules to help her so that her young son, Albert, isn’t left alone. Jules loves Mary as a dear friend, and he doesn’t hesitate to marry her so that he can care for her and provide Al with a home following Mary’s tragic death.

 

When Jules takes the position of schoolmaster in Mercy, he doesn’t expect for his past to come back to haunt him in the person of the man he never stopped loving. But if Carlos is older and wiser, Jules is as well, and Jules is determined he’ll never give Carlos another opportunity to break his heart. Carlos has his work cut out for him, if he is ever to convince Jules to forgive him and give them both a second chance at love.

 

McKay and I love redemption stories. We had originally intended for Finding Forgiveness to be a standalone story, but Carlos’s tale simply begged to be told. Second chances are so important in life, and they make a wonderful basis for a romantic tale. If you enjoy stories steeped in history and characters searching for love, we hope you’ll give The Quality of Mercy a look. Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful day!

 

BLURB:

 

Gil Porter and Matt Grayson’s Bent Oak Ranch in Mercy, Texas, is a rare haven for gay men in the nineteenth century, and their friend Carlos Hernandez will need it when a man from his past unexpectedly comes back into his life.

 

Jules Wingate hopes to start over in Mercy as the schoolmaster after a scandal sent him and his son fleeing their former home. But he discovers he’s left one bad situation for another when he encounters his former student and lover, Carlos. No matter how Jules tries to resist, he yearns for the passionate connection they once shared… before Carlos broke his heart.

 

Carlos knows his foolish, immature actions hurt Jules, but he desperately wants a second chance and to show Jules he’s changed. But trust so badly broken is hard to repair. While he works to earn Jules’s forgiveness, someone else at the ranch has his sights set on Carlos—and he doesn’t care how many lives he has to ruin to make Carlos his and his alone.

 

BUY LINKS:

Dreamspinner Press

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Ari McKay is the professional pseudonym for Arionrhod and McKay, who have been writing together for over a decade. Their collaborations encompass a wide variety of romance genres, including contemporary, fantasy, science fiction, gothic, and action/adventure. Their work includes the Blood Bathory series of paranormal novels, the Herc’s Mercs series, as well as two historical Westerns: Heart of Stone and Finding Forgiveness. When not writing, they can often be found scheming over costume designs or binge watching TV shows together.

Arionrhod is a systems engineer by day who is eagerly looking forward to (hopefully) becoming a full time writer in the not-too-distant future. Now that she is an empty-nester, she has turned her attentions to finding the perfect piece of land to build a fortress in preparation for the zombie apocalypse, and baking (and eating) far too many cakes.

McKay is an English teacher who has been writing for one reason or another most of her life. She also enjoys knitting, reading, cooking, and playing video games. She has been known to knit in public. Given she has the survival skills of a gnat, she’s relying on Arionrhod to help her survive the zombie apocalypse.

Website: http://arimckay.wordpress.com

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ari-Mckay/266185570179748

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ari.mckay.7

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AriMcKay1

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6153630.Ari_McKay

AriMckay is generously giveaway an ecopy of “Finding Forgiveness”, the first story in the Bent Oak Saga

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