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Book Title: Under Five
Author: Michael War
Cover Artist: Aisha Akeju
Genre/s: Gay, Contemporary, Urban Fantasy
Length: 40 000 words/172 pages
Release Date: May 30, 2018
Blurb
Mike is good looking, charming, and has no trouble attracting men—as long as his clothes stay on. But the moment they come off, something always seems to go terribly wrong. When his sister takes him to a faith healer to fix the problem, he is provided with a spell—and left with a lot of doubts.
But after meeting Kevin, Mike decides to give the spell a try…
Thank you for having me here at Love Bytes Reviews today to talk about Under Five.
I think you can probably guess what’s going on in the book by looking at the title and cover. One of the things I wanted to accomplish with the cover was to give a hint at what was to come, but without giving away the twist. While this is a new release, the truth is that I have been working on this story for quite some time.
Under Five started out as a short screenplay that I wrote while in college. The idea came to me one night when I was out with my friends, and I noticed that anytime they checked out a guy, one thing they hoped for was that he was packing some major heat. That made me wonder what would happen if a great looking, charming young man suddenly found himself questioning why he had trouble keeping a guy. He would be the kind of guy who considered himself the total package and doesn’t want to accept that having a small one could possibly be the reason he gets dumped. But I didn’t want to just have him just wonder. I wanted him to try to find out in the most bizarre and improbable way.
Inadequacy is something a lot of people face. I know that I have certainly had my hang ups about a few things, sometimes to the point of obsessing over them day and night. It always seems like people are looking for some magic cure to make it all better. So as I was trying to figure out how the MC Mike would solve his problem, it hit me: why not read off a simple spell. But then then have the spell not be as simple as he thought.
I’m originally from South Texas, from a small town that is literally five minutes away from Mexico. As a Latinx writer, I wanted a way to incorporate some of my culture and flavor into this book. That is why I decided to introduce the curandera (faith healer) character. She provides a means for Mike to get answers, even if he doesn’t fully believe in what she does. I’ve run into many people who have sought the help of curanderas, and have seen how people feel they have changed their lives. In the past, other than making my MC’s Latinx, I had never really dived into my culture the way I have here. I think I was simply afraid to get the details wrong or not do it justice. But this time, I felt it fit rather well, even if it takes place somewhere up north instead of Texas.
Now, I don’t want to give away what he learns or how he learns, or even if he has to depend on the phrase “it’s not the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean.” What I can say is that I hope you are caught of guard at what happens, and that you get a few chuckles and a lot of feelings along the way.
This was the first time anyone asked for the lights to be completely out. I mean, there are some guys who like the dark, but they always want some sort of light coming in. It could be a candle, night light, or just a crack from the closet, just something to keep things from being completely black. But not this time. Carlo wanted the lights completely off. I wasn’t sure whether to be offended, or to simply just go with the flow.
But it did kind of bother me, even while we were kissing and rubbing each other all over the place. I tried to forget about the fact that we messed around the last time with all the lights on, but it was still nagging me a bit.
“Everything okay, Mike?” Carlo asked. While I couldn’t see them, I knew his emerald green eyes were pointed directly at me. They were fake, but man, did they compliment him so much.
“Nah, I’m good, just come over here,” I cooed, pulling him up closer to me. We still had our clothes on, so it was easy to grab his shirt and bring him in closer. I wanted to feel his hot breath against my neck, followed by his gentle kisses. The two times we hooked up before, we only kissed, and both times we only had our shirts off. But this time around, I wanted more. I wanted him to take me, to ravage me. To fill me up and not stop until we were both on the verge of exploding.
I could tell that Carlo was a bit surprised, even though I still hadn’t completely adjusted to the dark, but he seemed into it and let me drag his mouth closer to mine. He took his hands and gently placed them on the back of my head, pulling a little on my hair but not enough to cause me pain. “Don’t stop, keep going,” I moaned. Carlo intensified his kisses and started moving down towards my neck, then pulled back and little and began to pull my shirt off. I started on his before my shirt even hit the floor, and now for the first time tonight, we were both finally showing some skin towards each other. After a bit of kissing and exploring, I forgot about the light situation. Thanks to the moon beaming through my curtains and right toward my bed I was able to make out where I wanted my hands to go. Carlo had the body type I loved; bearish, with broad shoulders and big, strong arms. But what got me was his chest. In the moonlight and without a shirt, Carlo was simply beautiful. Even though I wasn’t a bear myself, I could appreciate the slight hairy trail he had going from his chest down to his stomach. I could see that the trail went even further, and I wanted him to reveal more.
Carlo continued to kiss me down my body, but I stopped him right before he got to my stomach. “Let me take off your pants,” I ordered. I was hoping he would be turned on by the dominance in voice and simply obey. “No, you first. I want to show you everything I have to offer you,” Carlo responded, his hands rubbing the top of my shorts, fingers slightly pushing under the elastic. He let it snap a few times before slightly licking his lips. I arched up a bit to help him out, and he obliged by grabbing my shorts at both ends and pulled them off along with my underwear. He placed his hand on my now erect cock, then stopped for an awkward minute.
“Something wrong?” I asked. “No, um, just thought of something,” he replied, giggling a bit before continuing. “Now get ready to have the best sex that you….” He didn’t finish. How could he now that he was giggling like crazy? I wanted to jump out of the bed right then and there, but he still had my dick in his hand, and even though it was getting flaccid, I didn’t want to make any sudden moves and damage myself. “Would you mind letting go? I would like to get dressed.” He did, even though he was still laughing like a lunatic. I picked up my clothes and put my underwear on, then went for the lamp by my bed. Carlo was sprawled out across my bed. While his laughing had stifled a bit, his red face showed that something had amused him to no end.
I slipped my shorts back on and began to gather up his things. “Oh come on, don’t be that way. I’m sorry. We can still mess around. I just need a minute.” The moment he finished his sentence, Carlo began laughing again. He put his hand over his mouth so it wouldn’t be so loud, but it was no use.
“What the hell is so funny? I was good enough for you before. What changed now?” I stared him down hard; so hard that I was able to break his laughing fit up once and for all.
“I don’t want to offend you. You’re a nice guy. I was just taken by surprise. You know how it is with these things,” Carlo stated as he got up from the bed and walked over towards me. “No, I don’t know. I don’t have a clue about what is going on.”
Carlo took my hand and looked me straight in the eyes with his emerald greens. For a second, I almost melted. But then the laughing started going on in my head again, and my fury came back full force. Looking at Carlo’s face, I could tell he had something he wanted to say, but just couldn’t. He kept biting his lip, and you could tell he was thinking very carefully before he spoke again. The anticipation wasn’t helping my tolerance, so I knew that I had to speed things up a bit.
“Just spit it out.” Carlo looked at the floor one more time, then right back at me. “It’s just….well….I…..I didn’t expect it to be so small.” I really don’t remember what happened after that, but I do recall that I was rushing him out in just his underwear, not giving him anytime to put his other clothes back on. He pleaded with me a bit, asking to stay and make it up to me. And I almost did — until he mentioned that his was just used to bigger.
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Michael War is a writer whose real life tends to be on the boring side, which is why his imagination seems to float towards gay romance. Aside from writing about beautiful gay men of all types (bears, jocks, twinks) getting it on, he also enjoys writing poetry and screenplays. War holds an MFA in Creative Writing and plans to write more romance themed books in the near future. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook for updates on upcoming stories or with any questions or comments. Or, you can read his blog for some mindless ramblings.
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Sounds like a interesting read. Thank you for the post.