A warm love bytes welcome to author VM Sanford joining us today to talk about new release “Eyes Wide Open”.
VM talks to us about inspiration for writing and shares an exclusive excerpt with us. Also is there a giveaway to participate in!
Welcome VM 🙂
EYES WIDE OPEN
GRAVES BROTHERS BOOK 1
V.M. SANFORD
M/M ROMANCE
RELEASE DATE: 02.02.18
COVER ARTIST: ANGSTY G
BLURB
Jason has been in love with Spencer for most of his life, yet there he is, organizing Spencer’s bachelor party because Spencer’s getting married—and not to him.
Spencer wishes he could marry Jason instead of Lydia. He’s loved his best friend for years, but he needs to do the best for his family and their vineyard. Knowing he’s doing the right thing doesn’t make it easy, though.
Jason’s family pushes him to confess his feelings to Spencer, and he wants nothing more, but he’s afraid Spencer will run the other way and that their friendship won’t resist the revelation. But when Spencer gets drunk during his bachelor weekend in New York and tells Jason he loves him, everything changes—or that’s what Jason thinks.
Jason doesn’t want to be the other man, and Spencer doesn’t want him to be. That means Spencer has a choice to make. Will he marry Lydia and help his family, or will he finally give in and choose Jason?
The first thing people usually ask when they find out I write is where I get my ideas from, and I don’t always have an answer. Sometimes my brain grabs something from the news and runs with it, and sometimes I just think of it. In the case of Eyes Wide Open, my newest release, it was a mix of things.
My first inspiration came from a TV show, Shadowhunters. Remember that scene where Alec is about to marry Lydia, but Magnus gets there, and Alec realizes he’s making a mistake? That’s the one. I even kept Lydia’s name as a wink to the show.
So the first scene I thought of for the book was a left-at-the-altar scene. I knew it wouldn’t work once I started plotting and writing the book and exploring the characters’ personalities because it wasn’t something Spencer would do. He wouldn’t have let it go that far, even if Jason hadn’t gotten there in time to tell him he loved him. He knew it would have hurt Lydia even more than telling her in private. But he has that same sense of family and responsibility Alec has, and I wanted to explore just how much he’d let it influence his decisions and his life and how far he was ready to let things go.
Spencer is a lot like me. He keeps a huge part of himself hidden to make the people he loves happy, putting their needs and requests before his happiness. He knows he won’t be happy with Lydia, even though they’re friends. He’s ready to do it anyway because he thinks it’s what’s right for his family—and because it’s easier than having to face his mother.
I know Spencer’s mother is a harpy. I’ve been told she’s too evil, and I have to confess I thought about softening her a little for a while. I decided to keep her as she is because I got my inspiration for her from a person I know in real life. I’ve seen enough to know the way I wrote Spencer’s mother isn’t that exaggerated.
So there. Inspiration comes from everything—an article in a newspaper, real life people, past experiences. I carry a notebook everywhere I go, and I have a list of scenes I’ll one day use in books because I don’t have the time to write all the books they belong in. The problem is, the list keeps growing, but my days are still only twenty-four hours long!
He let Jason prop him up against the club’s wall. “I need to leave you here just enough time to flag a cab, okay?”
Spencer nodded and almost fell on his face. Yeah, the alcohol was definitely affecting him. Jason helped him straighten and leaned him against the wall again.
“Don’t move.”
“I have to.”
Jason cocked his head. “Why?”
“I need to breathe, and that means I have to move my chest.”
Jason rolled his eyes. “Just stay against the wall, Spencer.”
Spencer watched him step toward the curb, and for once, he didn’t try to look away from his ass. His feelings weren’t a secret anymore, although from the way Jason behaved, they might as well have been. It made Spencer wonder if Kenny had really told Jason how he felt. He usually trusted Kenny, but he trusted Jason more, and he was behaving as if nothing was different.
A cab stopped by the curb, and Jason leaned into the passenger side window. He talked to the driver, then turned around and walked back to Spencer. Spencer grinned at him when he got there, and Jason shook his head.
“You’re really drunk, aren’t you?”
“Maybe? I don’t know. I’ve never been drunk.”
“Of course you haven’t. You’re a good boy who wouldn’t do that.”
Spencer pouted. “I just did.”
“And you’re going to regret it tomorrow morning.”
“’t was worth it.”
“Yeah, you won’t be thinking that tomorrow. Come on. Let’s go home.”
Jason held Spencer up and helped him walk to the cab. He pushed and pulled until Spencer was able to slide into the back seat. Jason sat next to him and slammed the door shut, then nodded at the driver.
Spencer sighed and rested his head against Jason’s shoulder. He didn’t miss the way Jason tensed, but he was way past caring. He just wanted to be close to Jason, at least this once. Then tomorrow, he wouldn’t allow himself to think about what Kenny had said or how good Jason smelled, how nice it was to be so close to him.
Jason didn’t push Spencer away, and Spencer closed his eyes. His head spun a bit, but it wasn’t anything out of control, not yet anyway. He wasn’t sure how much the alcohol would affect him, and he wasn’t eager to find out. That could wait until the next morning.
A hand on his cheek almost made him jerk, but he stayed still, frozen in place. “Why did you do this to yourself?”Jason asked in a murmur, tucking a strand of Spencer’s hair behind his ear.
Spencer’s mother hated his hair, and she was hounding him to cut it short for the wedding. He didn’t want to, although he suspected he eventually would just so he didn’t have to listen to her telling him he looked like a homeless man who’d stolen a suit.
V.M Sanford has been writing about the paranormal since he was a child but decided to give publishing a try only in his thirties.
He found out he likes writing about more than wolf shifters and already has several plot bunnies lined up, waiting for him to write their books.
He’s lived all over Europe and enjoys cats, ice hockey and reading biographies of kings and queens. He’s still confused about what and who he is even though he’s in his mid-thirties, but he finally decided to come out as a transgender man, at least to his readers.
