Blog Post: Guestpost & Giveaway — B.G. Thomas – Orange

A warm welcome to author B.G. Thomas joining us today to talk about his newest release “Orange”.

B.G talks to us about how the story came to excist and especially the color names 😉 and he brought a wonderful giveaway for our readers!

Welcome B.G 🙂

“Orange”: It’ Not a Part of a Series!  (Or Is It?)

It all started with “Red.” That novella, the story of a male escort with a heart of gold, had a half dozen titles before I finally went with his escort code name, “Red.” And I hadn’t intended for it to be any thing else. Well…. Not really. I will tell you that it was one of the only stories I ever submitted to Dreamspinner Press that was rejected. Initially.

 

See, I really messed up. It was written for DSP’s annual Christmas Advent Stories. But I had failed to read the requirements properly. The stories that year were to be holiday tales…outside of the United States. It was the first time they’d had quite so specific a theme. And darnit. “Red” is firmly set in Kansas City. People have often noted that my hometown is quite often practically a character in my books. Well, in “Red,” Kansas City is even more so. There was no way to rewrite my tale to fit the theme. I was very disappointed because I’d had a Christmas story in the Advent package every year since I first started writing professionally. That year I would not. DSP did however wind up buying it, and since it was a New Year’s story as much as a “holiday” story, it was published at the top of that next year. It made me happy too. Readers love that story. I’d say people to this day say it’s one of their favorites of my work.

 

Then along came another story. This one was called “Blue.” I had created a character who I thought was nothing more than a bad date for a character of mine and named him Blue McCoy. I thought his page or two was the end of him. Nothing but a humorous side note. But I found I couldn’t quite forget him. And to my surprise, even as short as his appearance was, readers liked him and asked me about him all the time. So, Blue showed up again in my novel “Hound Dog & Bean” and then in my “Seasons of Love” books as well. And then, due to many requests, he finally got his own book. Interesting trivia. “Blue” was one of the only other stories that I have ever written that was rejected by Dreamspinner Press. But again, initially. I dealt with a lot of heavy issues with that book and my editors wisely thought it needed some fine-tuning. I am so glad they felt that way. What came out at the end was a far superior book!

 

Thing was…. That title. “Blue.” I couldn’t call it anything else! And I thought about it. But “Blue” is what it was.

 

Why worry about it?

 

Because my friends. “Red” and “Blue” hints that I had started a series. And that was one thing I wanted to avoid at all costs!

 

See, I wrote a series called “Seasons of Love.” The thing about these four novels is that they were stand alone books. They could be read without reading any of the other books and they could be read in any order—although I do recommend reading them as Spring, Summer, Autumn and finally Winter. But even though I wrote these books as stand alones, I received more letters than I can count from people telling me they were waiting for all four books to come out before buying them. This meant poor sales. And it took me two years to write them. And people sort of forgot about them because I took so long to write them (which was because they are my most emotionally involved and personal stories of my life).

 

So the thing is…. I did NOT want this to happen again! While the idea of writing more books with colors for titles…hey at least six and calling them my Rainbow Books…was quite interesting to me, I was worried to death that people would wait for all six to come out. And these books really would be total stand alones. They wouldn’t be related. My guy Red doesn’t show up in any other books, certainly not the “Rainbow” books. And while Blue does, as I said, show up in other books, he isn’t planned to appear in any other of the color books.

 

Well…. Maybe one….

 

So what I did was I decided to just keep quite and write books that I could have a color title as they came to me. And that is what happened with “Orange.”

 

It started with several ideas that collided together in the most delightful way…chef among them this guy I knew who was turned on by those men you see in prison orange jumpsuits by the side of the highways being looked over by armed guards. He’d see one, growl deeply under his breath, and say, “…bad boys…!”  I had to write a book with that aroused noise and words for inspiration! I couldn’t resist.

 

I also wanted to write something about a phenomenon I have seen all my life in the gay community—maybe it’s just a strong in the straight community? I don’t know. I’m not straight—and that is that gay man who just does not seem to be interested in love.  I encountered a few of these in my naïve youth and got taken home by more than one man who came across as sweet, passionate, and sexy. In my naïveté, I got swept up by his moves and was thrilled with what happened…until he was…well…done. Suddenly I was cast aside. It was devastating. And it’s a miracle I didn’t become hardened and cold myself. I wondered what makes these men tick. Do they really only want sex? Do they really not want love? I had to know. And so I wrote my new novel. And as I did, it occurred to be almost immediately that this book would have to be called nothing but, “Orange.”

 

COVER BLURB:

Frank Sinclair believes only in the visceral, the real, what he can touch and taste. After all, his mother left him when he was five years old, so how can love exist? His next sexual conquest is what makes his world go around, not romance and happily ever after. The hot guy he sees working along the highway in an orange jumpsuit fuels his bad-boy fantasies. Coincidentally, the very same guy shows up at the gas station across the street from his apartment building, and you can bet Frank is going –d to take his shot.  Roy Ingalls is Frank’s bad boy parolee in orange, and he’s ready and oh-so-willing to be his next conquest. But Roy isn’t quite the bad boy he seems—deep down he’s sweet, naïve… and the most intoxicating man Frank has ever met.  The sex is the best of their lives, but can a man who mistrusts love and another who isn’t ready to admit he’s actually gay ever move beyond friends with benefits?

 

A FINAL WORD:

Frank, one of the two heroes of my story, and been pacing and wringing his hands the entire time I wrote this. He’s nervous that I’m telling his story. He keeps asking me to put more in this post. I’ve decided to let him have a few words instead.

 

“Hey! Sorry to break the ‘Fourth Wall’ here, but Ben just wasn’t saying it all. Something I want you all to know. I’m not an ass okay? And I’ve read the reviews here at LoveBytes and I see the things you readers don’t like, and…well. It’s making me sweat! I’m thinking, these people are going to frigging hate me! But please. Give me a chance. When I meet Roy, I’m just not prepared for how he’s about to turn my life upside down. I fight it too. I do something some of you might not like. But goddamit! In the end love conquers all. I learn a lot. Chief of which is I can’t blame my philandering, womanizing father for the way I am. I mean I could. But we’re all responsible in the end for our actions. I believe that. And guess what? Now I believe in love.”

 

And that was Frank. I hope his words and mine intrigue you enough to check out my new novel, “Orange.” It was a labor of love!

 

Yours always,

BG “Ben” Thomas

 

PS: Are there any more “Color” books in the work for my “not” series? Well…. There is this character of mine who runs a vegan restaurant called Café Namaste café that has appeared in several of my previous books. It is just possible I am almost done with a novel about him. A perfect name for such a book might be, “Green” And in “Blue” we were left with a bit of a mystery about a long-lost brother named Indigo. People are asking for his book. And who am I to say, “No”?

 

BUY LINKS:

Dreamspinner Press

Amazon

Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

 

 

B.G. Thomas lives in Kansas City with his husband of more than a decade and their fabulous dogs Sarah Jane and Oliver. He is blessed to have a lovely daughter as well as many extraordinary friends. He has a great passion for life.

 

B.G. loves romance, comedies, fantasy, science fiction, and even horror—as far as he is concerned, as long as the stories are character driven and entertaining, it doesn’t matter the genre. He has gone to literature conventions his entire adult life where he’s been lucky enough to meet many of his favorite writers. He has made up stories since he was a child; it is where he finds his joy.

 

In the nineties, he wrote for gay adult magazines but stopped because the editors wanted all sex without plot. “The sex is never as important as the characters,” he says. “Who cares what they are doing if we don’t care about them?” Excited about the growing male/male romance market, he began writing again. He submitted a novella and was thrilled when it was accepted in four days. Since then the romantic tales have poured out of him. “It’s like I’m somehow making up for a lifetime’s worth of story-telling!”

 

In 2015 he made and entry every day in his blog “365 Days of Silver,” where he found something every day to be grateful for. You can find it right here: https://365daysofsilver.wordpress.com/

 

“Leap, and the net will appear” is his personal philosophy and his message. “It is never too late,” he testifies. “Pursue your dreams. They will come true!”

Website/blog: https://bthomaswriter.wordpress.com/about-2/

 

B.G brought with him a lovely giveaway for our readers!

Have a chance to win an ecopy of “Red” or “Blue” (winners choice).

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway