Love Bytes welcomes Amy Lane to their blog to talk to us about new release ” A Fool and His Manny”.

Welcome Amy 🙂

Feels Like the First Time

By Amy Lane

 

I’m not sure how I do this.

 

I usually don’t have a series planned when I title the first book.

 

And if I do have the series planned, it’s only in the loosest sense of, “Oh—this guy here can meet this guy here… things will happen. I’m sure of it.”

 

But I don’t really plan things in a thematic way—that just happens.

 

Keeping Promise Rock spawned a series about promises. Candy Man spawned a series about guys recovering from heartbreak. Johnnies was all about broken boys.

 

And The Virgin Manny which was supposed to be a one-book-wonder, spawned three more books—and each one had one—or more!—virgins.

 

*blush *

 

I mean, we were all virgins once, right?

 

And while it cannot be denied that the first time one does anything has a certain amount of wonder and mystique, the fact remains that the first time someone is physically intimate in a way that leaves them emotionally bare and vulnerable really is a significant milestone in someone’s life.

 

Most of us were raised with the hetero-normative idea of virginity being actual physical coital penetration—but I think as our ideas of sex and gender change, that perception has changed too. Non-hetero couples don’t have the same lock and key, or even the same physical perceptions of lovemaking—but that doesn’t mean that the first moment of physical intimacy can’t be important. For some couples, something as tame as holding hands, or kissing on the mouth can signal earth-shaking emotional changes, a heart-throbbing milestone from which there is no turning back.

 

So after the first book, The Virgin Manny, in which Tino was the titular virgin, who—by the end of the book, at least—had been penetrated in more or less the traditional way, I played with this idea a little.

 

In the second book, Brandon was the virgin—but Brandon was fearless and unfettered by inhibition. Taylor—who had enjoyed sex in a grand way as a young adult—had come back from combat scarred, both inside and out. Brandon may have been the virgin by definition, but Taylor was the one who grew the most from the physical intimacy—I think he gets points for losing his V-card too.

 

In the third book, both boys were virgins, and while their progression to physical intimacy was fairly predictable, it was also halting and awkward. In the end, the “big penetration” was not nearly as important as learning to be adults about their bodies and their emotions was in the character arc.

 

And in the fourth book…

 

Well, Dusty is the virgin, but Dusty doesn’t really give a shit about that. Dusty’s a virgin because he’s been in love with Quin for three years, and he may have had opportunities—and hormones—offering him a way out of that role, he’s also emotionally mature. He’s not going to use someone for sex when he wants somebody else but is just waiting for a better time. That would be childish. Not having sex out of choice? That’s the emotionally mature decision.

 

No, in this case, the true virginity belongs to Quinlan.  Quin’s had sex before—but hasn’t been impressed. He’s never had it with anyone he’s cared enough to risk himself for. But Dusty’s a part of the only family Quin knows. Quin’s loved Dusty for years—but sex would admit that he’s in love with him, and that’s a big step for Quinlan. Dusty’s always had a family to pick up his pieces if he falls. Quin has never known that sort of security. Trusting Dustin during sex is the most emotionally momentous thing he’s ever done.

 

So, the fun thing about the virgin trope is that by the end of the book, nobody’s a virgin anymore.

 

But I do like to think that it’s more than just the sex here—that the physical intimacy leads to emotionally mature hearts, ready to move on to the next stages of their lives.

 

I know we get to see how the first couple—Channing and Tino—move on to raise children, to watch them grow, watch them fall in love on their own. They become pillars of their family, of their community, the strength their children rely on. And it all started with that first moment of emotional maturity.

 

I have hope we see that the other couples—Dustin and Quinlan included—can move on to the same things.

 

It’s one of the perks of growing older, right?

Blurb:

A Fool and His Manny

By Amy Lane

Dustin Robbins-Grayson was a surly adolescent when Quinlan Gregory started the nanny gig. After a rocky start, he grew into Quinlan’s friend and confidant—and a damned sexy man. At twenty-one, Dusty sees how Quinlan sacrificed his own life and desires to care for Dusty’s family. He’s ready to claim Quinlan—he’s never met a kinder, more capable, more lovable man. Or a lonelier one. Quinlan has spent his life as the stranger on the edge of the photograph, but Dusty wants Quinlan to be the center of his world. First he has to convince Quinlan he’s an adult, their love is real, and Quinlan can be more than a friend and caregiver. Can he show Quin that he deserves to be both a man and a lover, and that in Dusty’s eyes, he’s never been “just the manny?”

 

Book Links:

Amazon

Dreamspinner Press

 

Award winning wool-gather, Amy Lane lives in a crumbling crapmansion with the children who are still growing, a fur-baby mafia, and a bemused spouse. She has too damned much yarn, a penchant for action adventure movies, and a need to know that somewhere in all the pain is a story of Wuv, Twu Wuv, which she continues to believe in to this day! She writes fantasy, urban fantasy, and gay romance–and if you accidentally make eye contact, she’ll bore you to tears with why those three genres go together. She’ll also tell you that sacrifices, large and small, are worth the urge to write.