A warm welcome to author Leigh Dillon joining us today to talk about new release “Raising the Bar”, part of the States of Love Series by Dreamspinner Press.
Welcome Leigh 🙂
In every good romance, there comes that moment where All Is Lost. Or at least, it appears to be, because it isn’t a very good romance if all the heroes’ dreams and desires truly crumble away into a pile of ash. Plots that culminate in failure and despair may be the stuff of great literature, but it makes for a pretty depressing beach read. Still, the teasing possibility of Happily Ever After turning into a gloomy “never” is the spice that keeps a romance story tasty! The excerpt I’ve chosen takes place at the nadir of Destin and Tonio’s relationship. Life isn’t a fairy tale, and sometimes love doesn’t conquer all. But maybe the cliché is true, and you really do have to give something up completely before it can come back to you…
Title: Raising the Bar
Author: Leigh Dillon
Release Date: September 7, 2018
Category: Contemporary, States of Love (Virginia)
Pages: 91 (ebook)
Blurb: Destin Bellingham has inherited a problem. Thanks to his late playboy father, Destin faces putting a For Sale sign on his family’s historic horse farm. Getting his talented stallion, Black Sambuca, into the Grand Prix show ring would put Bellmeade back on the map—if only someone could make “Sam” behave like a show horse.
Disgraced top rider Tonio Benedetto has his own problems, but he can work magic with difficult jumpers, so Destin hires him despite his bad-boy reputation. The street-smart, openly gay loudmouth from Miami and the closeted, buttoned-down son of Old Dominion Virginia make a rocky pairing, but time is running out to save Bellmeade from bankruptcy.
Opposites attract, sparks of tension grow into flames of passion. But if Tonio fails to tame Sam, will true love become a lost cause too?
Destin sighed. “I’ve been thinking about something you said on our trail ride at Sky Meadows. About your dad not passing his training business on to you because you were gay. Maybe my dad felt the same way.”
Tonio folded his arms and leaned on his elbows, his expression deeply interested. “How so?”
“That’s when the spending started—right about when I went off to college. Well, maybe not the spending, but the not caring. It’s like he gave up.”
“Why wouldn’t he?” Tonio leaned closer. “You didn’t stick around and make him understand. You didn’t even talk to him. It’s like the goddamn Silence of the Bellinghams.”
Destin looked down at his plate. The expression on his father’s face—the hurt and disappointment—suddenly made sense. Of course Dad had assumed that was the end of the Bellinghams. Why save the farm for grandchildren he would never have?
“The Silence of the Bellinghams,” Destin said bitterly, looking up at Tonio. “I’ll put that on Bellmeade’s tombstone.”
“Oh, great. I make a point and you turn it into maudlin bullshit.” Tonio pushed himself off the chair back.
Destin jumped up. “Don’t go,” he said as Tonio made a move toward the back door.
Tonio stopped. “I need to start packing,” he said, not looking at Destin. “It’s a long drive to Florida.”
“You don’t have to leave till tomorrow. I know I screwed up. I can’t fix it, but let me make it up to you.” Destin stepped up behind Tonio and put his hands on Tonio’s hard-muscled shoulders. He let his palm slide over Tonio’s sweatshirt until the found the bare flesh of the nape of his neck, and he ran the balls of his thumbs over the soft, curly down that covered it. “If we have to say goodbye, let’s at least do it right.”
Tonio sighed and shuddered a little, leaning his head back against the pressure. Destin moved closer and let his arms drop till they circled Tonio’s lean waist. He pressed his face against the back of Tonio’s neck and inhaled his fragrance, musky and male, spiced with the tang of human sweat and seasoned with the mellow undertones of leather and horse. Love and desire washed over Destin in a dizzying wave. Tonio was everything, the life and spark Destin’s mannered existence had never contained. He’d never expected to find perfection in such a crude package, so counter to everything he’d been raised to value. But what had he been raised to value? Good manners, surface polish, and a deep respect for tradition, if tradition meant never deviating from the course charted by his seven-times-great-grandfather in a world far different from the one Destin inhabited today. Tonio, at least, was real. He was now. And perhaps for that very reason, he could never fit in Destin’s world.
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Leigh Dillon is a native of horse-happy North Central Florida but has deep family roots in the Virginia and West Virginia areas. Coming of age in the dinosaur days of cable television, when fledgling channels filled their empty blocks of programming time by airing entire equestrian competitions, Leigh’s young brain became infected with a lifelong mania for show jumping, three-day eventing, and other exotic horse sports. Though tragically denied a pony of her own in childhood, Leigh has wreaked her revenge by including equine characters in almost everything she writes.
A bookbinder and librarian by trade, Leigh has also worked on local thoroughbred horse farms. Leigh’s short fiction has been featured twice in the Florida Writers Association annual story collection, and one of her book-length works received Book of the Year honors at the 2017 Royal Palm Literary Award.
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