Hi everybody! I’m so happy to be here on Love Bytes today as part of my celebration of the release of Dragon’s Rise, book 4 of The Sun Child Chronicles. One of the challenges of a new release is deciding what kind of blog post to put where. But since this is Love Bytes, it seemed a no-brainer I should include a little romance! Even though The Sun Child Chronicle is fantasy, there are a couple of romances in there worth knowing about. This is a rather sweet peek into one of them: Main character Lucky, and his boyfriend Rio.
Early the next morning, Lucky was for once enjoying a sweet dream of the ice cream shop on Main Street in Valley City when Han woke him up with a shake.
“Someone’s here to see you,” Han said. “And I think you might want to brush your teeth before you go downstairs to greet him.”
Groggily, Lucky responded, “Can’t it wait until after breakfast?”
“It could, but get up, get dressed, and go see. I think you’ll agree keeping your visitor waiting isn’t the best idea.”
Something in Han’s tone made Lucky change his mind. He hurried through his ablutions and ran downstairs. His guest was nowhere to be found, but Han, who had apparently been upstairs talking to Thurlock, came down just then and said, “I’m pretty sure he went back outside.”
As Han went to the kitchen, Lucky went out the front door, butterflies paying volleyball in his stomach. He stepped off the porch, and there stood K’ormahk, and then, stepping out from the other side of the horse—
“Rio!”
Rio, only a year older than Lucky, had outgrown the last of his boyishness in the time they’d been apart. His dark, coarse curls were the same as ever, sporting the strands of early silver that Rio had told him were a hallmark of his family line. He’d grown taller, his shoulders broader; the muscles of his arms rippled under his brown skin. He had more beard and a leaner face. But his nearly black eyes shone with what looked like joy, and something about the way he stood biting his perfect bottom lip—
Lucky had never hugged anyone so enthusiastically as he did Rio at that moment. Rio returned the embrace, laughing. Both a little shy, they looked around to see if they were alone, and when they saw nobody nearby, they let their lips touch in a sweet kiss.
“I’m so glad—” Lucky couldn’t finish the statement, but it was all right.
“Me too,” Rio said.
“There’s so much—” Again, he gave up on finding the right words.
“Yes. I know.”
They stood and stared at each other until K’ormahk nosed in between them, and laughing, Lucky turned to hug his favorite horse.
Calmer, Lucky said, “You must be hungry. Do you want to come inside and… whatever?” He’d been going to say freshen up, but it sounded too corny to speak out loud. “And then we can go get breakfast at the manor?”
“I was at your uncle Han’s home for a while, so I washed up and whatnot there,” Rio said. Then when Lucky looked quizzical, he explained. “It was still dark when I got here, and I was wandering around kind of lost. He was sitting out on his porch—couldn’t sleep or something—and he saw me.” Rio stopped to smile and raise his eyebrows. “He knew me! I figured you must have been talking about me.”
“I confess,” Lucky said, laughing. “And he remembers you from my mother… after Hoenholm.”
“Oh, right, of course.” Rio shook his head as if to clear cobwebs. “Anyway he invited me in for a little while. I really like him, Lucky.”
The nickname sounded so sweet, Lucky couldn’t help but grin. “I’m glad. I like him too. More than just about anybody except you.” He sobered. “I wish—a lot of bad stuff is happening, Rio.”
“I know,” Rio said. “It’s why my father sent me. Stuff at home too.”
Lucky had been guiding Rio toward the manor, paying no mind to K’ormahk following along, but when Rio said that, he stopped. He found it impossible, unfathomable, that bad things could be happening at Morrow’s farm. If that was the case, things were even worse than any of them had guessed.
Rio caught his eye. “Hey, Lucky. Listen, I’ve told your uncle about things at home. He’s talking to the wizard Thurlock about it. That’s part of what my father wanted me to do—make sure they knew. But he also wanted me to stay and help if I can. So I’ll be here for a while. We’ll have time to talk about the bad stuff. Today—we can just be together, right? I wish I could say that was my idea, but it was Han who suggested it. I just want to spend the day being happy to see your face.”
Lucky smiled. “Such as it is,” he said, and laughed.
“Big nose and all.”
Lucky only laughed more, because Rio and he had argued over whether his nose was huge (Lucky) or perfect (Rio). He clasped Rio’s hand in his and said, “I can’t think of a better way to spend my time.”
______________
I hope you enjoyed the excerpt. If you want to find out about all the other release celebration goings on, check the post at this link: http://queerlyya.rainbow-gate.com/dragons-rise-release-schedule-of-events-blog-tour-giveaway-facebook-party-book-signings/ .
Don’t forget to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway to win books or a gift certificate! Answer the “If I had magic I’d be like…” poll, sign up for my newsletter, or tweet a message. Enter as many times as you like!
Also, comments are more than welcome! I always love to hear from folks, and I’ll do my best to respond. Meanwhile, happy reading, and thanks to all—including a special thank you to Love Bytes for hosting me.!
Author: Lou Hoffmann
Title: Dragon’s Rise
Series: The Sun Child Chronicles
Series book number: 4
Series type: True series, read in order
Publication Date: July 9, 2019
Publisher: Harmony Ink Press
Cover artist: Catt Ford
Length: Novel, 313 pages, 130,000 words
Genre, tropes, types: YA Fantasy; sci-fi elements, LGBTQ+ Characters include Gay Teen MC and other LGBTQ+ characters, limited romance elements, series is coming-of-age/meeting destiny; shifters, dragons, magic, aliens, alternate worlds/dimensions
Notes: Includes: violence/battle in a fantasy setting, horror elements including zombies/wraiths/aliens, physical abduction/abuse of children depicted as horror.
Sexual elements/heat level? Sexual allusion, no direct reference to sexual activity or on-page sex
MC age: 16
Keywords: fantasy, epic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, dragon, magic, wizard, shifter, alien, destiny, battle, YA, teen, LGBTQ+
Series description:
Cursed and exiled to Earth by a witch, Lucky has only his name, a pocketful of strange items, and the destiny to become the Sun Child and lead his world through its darkest time. In an epic adventure full of dragons, shifters, talismans, magic, alien enemies, shifting time, and wars waged for survival, humanity’s only hope is one young man’s unquenchable strength, spirit, and heart.
Blurb:
Five days after his sixteenth birthday, Lucky—or Luccan, as he’s known in the Sunlands of Ethra—cut down a horde of wraiths with the help of his magical, living blade, Ciarrah. Then they ended the worst undead of all—Lucky’s mother, Liliana, or rather the evil creature she had become. Now he needs a chance to rest, but he can’t catch a break. The otherworld invaders want to take Ethra as their new home, and one defeat hasn’t even slowed them down.
Ancient wizard Thurlock continues to help Lucky learn about his unique magic as they travel together, but when they reach the capital city, they find few allies and too many Sunlandian traitors. They’re forced to flee, but their discouraged spirits lift when they’re joined on the road by an old wizard friend of Thurlock’s and some new young allies. Lucky has armies, friends, family, shifters, dragons, a faithful dog, a winged horse, and magical tools on his side. But when war comes like a great storm, hurling at him everything from zombies to hateful wizards to twisted drakes, can he hope to prevail—or even survive?
Lou Hoffmann, a mother and grandmother now, has carried on her love affair with books for more than half a century, and she hasn’t even made a dent in the list of books she’d love to read—partly because the list keeps growing. She reads factual things—books about physics and history and fractal chaos, but when she wants truth, she looks for it in quality fiction. She loves all sorts of wonderful things: music and silence, laughter and tears, youth and age, sunshine and storms, forests and fields, flora and fauna, rivers and seas. Even good movies and popcorn! Those things help her breathe, and everyone she knows helps her write. (Special mention goes to (1) George the Lady Cat and (2) readers.) Proud to be a bisexual, biracial woman (of European and Native American descent), Lou considers every person a treasure not to be taken for granted. In her life, she’s seen the world’s willingness to embrace differences change, change back, and change again in dozens of ways, but she has great hope for the world the youth of today will create. She writes for readers who find themselves anywhere on the spectrums of age, sexuality, and gender, aiming to create characters that live not only in their stories, but always in your imagination and your heart.
Author Links:
Visit her on her blog: http://www.queerlyya.rainbow-gate.com
Like her page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LouHoffmannBooks/
Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lou_Hoffmann
Check out her Amazon Author Page: http://queerlyya.rainbow-gate.com/ciarrahs-light-event-schedule-get-blog-tour-links-here/
This is late, but thanks for hosting my book tour! 🙂