A warm welcome today to author Riley Sparks joining us today to talk about her release “Bleeding Like Me”.
Riley brought with her one of her characters to answer some question, shares an excerpt and there is also a giveaway to particpate in!
Welcome Riley & Jackson 🙂

 

 

Title: Bleeding Like Me
Author: Riley Parks
Release Date: November 21st 2017
Genre: MM Contemporary Dark Romance
Published by: Boroughs Publishing

BLURB

Being gay in their neighborhood is perilous. Being gay in a street gang is unheard of. Being gay and in love with a man in a rival gang is a death wish. Through drug addiction, brutality, and seemingly endless peril, they remain; finding stability within each other that shouldn’t exist in their volatile world.

BEAUTIFUL CONTRADICTION

He didn’t paint people; the curves of their bodies and angles of their faces never interested him as much as cityscapes. The circumstances of his life had compelled him to create new worlds that he could get lost in rather than reflect the features of the people he ran from. He constructed buildings from their foundations, making them taller and stronger than he was. He adorned the edifices with countless windows, always left open or cracked so hope could pour in and fears could seep out. Tree lined streets reminded him how to breathe, pumping oxygen through the atmosphere, off the canvas, and into his lungs.

He didn’t paint people until the day he no longer desired the anonymity of his cities. The streets didn’t feel like his escape anymore, not like him. Cerulean skies gave way to pale blue eyes and bus routes to pink pouts. Evan didn’t paint people until he painted Jackson.

Find Bleeding Like Me on Goodreads

Buy Links: Boroughs | Amazon US | Amazon UK | iBooks | B&N | Kobo | Smashwords

INTERVIEW WITH JACKSON JABLONIC – by RILEY PARKS

 

My name is Riley Parks and I’m the author of Bleeding Like Me, a romance novel about Jackson and Evan, two men in rival street gangs who fall in love.

 

Riley Parks: Thank you so much for agreeing to sit down with me to talk all things Bleeding Like Me, Jack.

 

Jackson Jablonic: Son.

 

RP: Hmm?

 

JJ: JackSON.

 

RP: Right, Jackson. Got it. Is ‘Jack’ reserved for those who know you best?

 

JJ: Yup.

 

RP: In all fairness, I know you pretty well.

 

JJ: Right.

 

RP: So I can call you ‘Jack’?

 

JJ: No.

 

RP: Jackson it is. So Jackson, Bleeding Like Me tells the story of how you met Evan (Goodwyn). Have you had a chance to read the copy I sent you?

 

JJ: I read it.

 

RP: What did you think?

 

JJ: You left out a lot of the banging.

 

RP: There’s a lot of sex in the book.

 

JJ: We have more.

 

RP: Too much sex can bog a novel down and become tedious.

 

JJ: Maybe if the sex isn’t any good, ours is really fucking good.

 

RP: So you think I should have added more?

 

JJ: Maybe. I guess it would’ve been better if you focused on the boning instead of talking about shit you shouldn’t fucking talking about.

 

RP: Are you referencing the crimes you and Evan committed?

 

JJ: You’re not from the South Side.

 

RP: I’m not.

 

JJ: That wasn’t a question. It’s obvious you’re not from the streets because if you were, you would know how to keep your fat fucking trap shut.

 

RP: All of those instances of violence help readers understand who you are and what your world is like.

 

JJ: You should have wrote more about Evan. The reader, or whoever, would’ve understood more about what my world’s like if you wrote more about him.

 

Evan Goodwyn: That was kinda sweet, Jack.

 

JJ: Hmm?

 

EG: You said I was your world. The reader would know more about your world if Riley wrote about me.

 

JJ: Oh. Yeah, okay. I would have liked to read more chapters about what you were thinking rather than every other one being about me.

 

EG: I liked reading about you.

 

RP: You guys are so cute. Readers like getting to know both of you.

 

JJ: This fucking cute shit. I’m cutting this short if you get on your bullshit again.

 

RP: I’m forever on my bullshit about how cute you two are.

 

JJ: Then you can fuck off and we’ll call it a day.

 

RP: I think I got what I needed anyway.

 

EG: (smiles at Jackson) I think we all did.

 

JJ: (groans and tries to hide his smile): Corny-ass motherfucker.

 

RP: (squeals) Aww!

 

He’d never been to Humboldt Park before, but he heard it had a pretty good scene. When he was unaffiliated, he could get away with going to the gay spots on the South Side, but now that he was with the KKz, he had to be more careful. He disembarked and walked the short distance to the big rock where guys supposedly met. Sitting down on a bench, he pulled out a cigarette he had bummed off Luis and watched as a couple of queens made a connection and disappeared into the wooded area a few feet behind the boulder. He let the filter rest between his lips as he leaned back to stare up at the moon. It was a waxing crescent that barely glowed against the black expanse of the sky, making the already poorly lit park even darker.

He peered down at a man who took a seat on the bench next to him. They sat quietly, Evan’s head still thrown back and the guy smoking his cigarette as if he hadn’t just propositioned him.

“Nice night,” Evan threw out as if he was telling the moon rather than the guy beside him.

“Are you looking to chitchat or are you trying to fuck?” When Evan finally dropped his head, he noticed that the guy was peering at him with raised eyebrows. They stared for a moment, and without a doubt, a spark arced between them.

“Depends what you’re into I guess,” Evan replied, noticing that the man had a perfectly plump pout. He wanted to see what those lips looked like wrapped around his cock. “I’m not going to bend over.”

“Wouldn’t want you to,” the guy replied with a sniff, blue eyes dropping to momentarily study the grass before returning to Evan’s.

“That right?” he questioned, moderately surprised. Mr. Ready To Hook Up seemed to be tough as fuck, with his sleeve tattoos and muscular biceps that were perfectly displayed in his gray sleeveless shirt. Evan knew it was a stereotype that men who exclusively took cock were soft, but in his experience, more often than not, they had been. He’d fucked a variety of guys, and there was always some negotiating between him and a dude who was versatile. This hot motherfucker was clearly a power bottom, a fact that had Evan’s cock standing up to take notice.

“Need me to spell it out for you, Daywalker?” he huffed, eyebrows raised in challenge.

Evan shook his head and self-consciously ran his fingers through his red hair. “So you want to go—” he began.

The guy interrupted by saying, “Show me what you got.”

Without wasting another second, Evan tossed his cigarette to the ground and unzipped the fly of his jeans, arching his back enough to shimmy them, along with his boxer briefs, down his thighs so his hard cock could spring out. Instinctively, he moved a hand down to the shaft and started to pump it.

Blue eyes observed every stroke as full lips smacked subconsciously. “Yeah, I want to fuck,” the guy stated, seemingly impressed by what Evan was working with. Wordlessly, the hot-as-shit motherfucker stood up and started walking, leaving Evan scrambling to get his pants up so he could follow.

Two prizes of $15 Boroughs Bucks

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Riley has always loved to write, believing that life has the possibility to be its most beautiful when it’s portrayed on the pages of a book. Feeling the need to create and liberate in the midst of the political landscape, Riley writes novels that focus on LGBTQ protagonists, wanting to honor a community that deserves better representation depicting lives, loves and triumphs in all facets of fiction.

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