A warm welcome to author Liv Rancourt joining us today to talk about new release “Lost & Found”.
Welcome Liv 🙂
Thanks so much for having me back on the blog, Dani! I so appreciate the chance to connect with your readers.
I’m in a bit of an introspective mood, a day-after-release-day moment of pondering. What went well? What would I do differently? What is the meaning of life?
42!
(That’s a joke.)
(Have you read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? I haven’t either, or if I did, it was a long time ago. Mostly I was just worried this post had started out too seriously.)
In all honesty, I think it’s going to take more than 24 hours for me to assess how this release has gone. There’s still too many moving parts and still some key pieces that need to fall into place. There is one thing I’m certain of, however, and that is that I wouldn’t have accomplished nearly as much without the support of a whole bunch of other indie authors, reviewers, bloggers, and readers.
A few years ago, I wrote a blog post about the difference between musicians and writers. (I’d link to it, but I can’t find it, unfortunately.) See, before I started writing seriously, I sang in bands and choirs. My husband and most of my closest friends are musicians, and they’re seriously cool people. Most musicians are seriously cool people, but still, as I said years ago in that blog post, I’ve found more support among writers.
Maybe the fact that there’s only one soloist at a time creates a subtly different attitude?
At any rate, in the days running up to my release, the number of people who’ve shared and tweeted and retweeted and offered me party slots and takeovers and promo posts has just been incredible. Bloggers like Dani have been very generous with their blogs. This whole experience has been a beautiful example of the idea that “the rising tide lifts all boats.”
And I’m feeling pretty lifted.
It goes without saying that writing can be a lonely business. When it comes right down to it, it’s just me and the laptop and the words on the page. And yeah, the m/m romance community can get pretty fractious sometimes. Seems like there’s always drama brewing somewhere. Overall, though, there haven’t been too many places in my life where I felt like so many people have had my back, and I very much appreciate it.
Thanks, y’all.
Lost & Found is on sale at most retailers for $2.99 until after GRL on 10/20/19 when it’ll bump up to the regular price of $4.99. Check out the excerpt below, and make sure you enter my giveaway for the $25 gift card. And if you’re going to GRL, look me up. I’ll be there as a featured author, and I’d love to meet you in person!! Happy reading!!
Lost & Found By Liv Rancourt
Release Date: October 4, 2019
Lost & Found Blurb
A dancer who cannot dance and a doctor who cannot heal must find in each other the strength to love.
History books will call it The Great War, but for Benjamin Holm, that is a misnomer. The war is a disaster, a calamity, and it leaves Benjamin profoundly wounded, his mind and memory shattered. A year after Armistice, still struggling to regain his mental faculties, he returns to Paris in search of his closest friend, Elias.
Benjamin meets Louis Donadieu, a striking and mysterious dance master. Though Louis is a difficult man to know, he offers to help Benjamin. Together they search the cabarets, salons, and art exhibits in the newly revitalized city on the brink of les années folles (the Crazy Years). Almost despite himself, Benjamin breaches Louis’s defenses, and the two men discover an unexpected passion.
As his memory slowly returns, Benjamin will need every ounce of courage he possesses to recover Elias’s story. He and Louis will need even more than that to lay claim to the love – and the future – they deserve.
Amazon | B&N | iBooks | Kobo | More Stores
About Liv Rancourt
Liv Rancourt writes romance of all kinds. Because love is love, even with fangs.
Liv is a huge fan of paranormal romance and urban fantasy and loves history just as much, so her stories often feature vampires or magic or they’re set in the past…or all of the above. When Liv isn’t writing she takes care of tiny premature babies or teenagers, depending on whether she’s at work or at home. Her husband is a soul of patience, her kids are her pride and joy, and her dogs – Trash Panda and The Boy Genius – are endlessly entertaining.
Liv can be found on-line at all hours of the day and night at her website (www.livrancourt.com), on Facebook (www.facebook.com/liv.rancourt), or on Twitter (www.twitter.com/LivRancourt). She also blogs monthly over at Spellbound Scribes (https://spellboundscribes.wordpress.com/). For sneak peeks and previews and other assorted freebies, go HERE to sign up for her mailing list or join the Facebook page she shares with her writing partner Irene Preston, After Hours with Liv & Irene. Fun stuff!
For a $25 gift card. Giveaway ends 10/31/19.
Exclusive excerpt from Lost & Found by Liv Rancourt:
“She’s a spiritualist, you know.” Louis refilled my glass, though it hadn’t been empty. “Maybe we should ask her to help find your friend.”
“A spiritualist?” Always close at hand, the darkness rose and obscured my sight. “We have no need of a séance. Elias is not dead,” I whispered, reassured by the truth in the words.
Louis’s insolent snort served to trigger my rage.
“You don’t know him.” My vehemence drew startled stares from the diners around us. “And you don’t know what it was like.”
“What?”
“The war.” A headache hit me like an ice pick to my skull. “So many died. No matter how many I patched together, there were always more.” More young men, their guts sliced open, their limbs shattered. Their eyes glazed over with the gray hue of mortality. I guzzled my wine, forcing down the bile that threatened to spew all over the table. Worse were the ones I could not help, who shrieked with pain no laudanum could blot away. I gagged on those cries, my mind filled with the scent of blood and rot.
“When did you see him last?”
Louis’s voice gave me an anchor, dragging me back to the small café on the Place, though I could not comprehend the words. “What?”
“Elias. How long ago did you see him?”
He’d filled my glass again, and I swallowed down the wine, grateful that it dulled the hammering in my head. “It’s been…” I counted backwards in time. “The war ended in November, but I was sick. They kept me in the American Hospital here, in Paris, until March, until I was strong enough to travel.”
I looked up, begging him to help me unravel my confusion. His blank expression was as smooth as a sheet of glass, giving me nothing to hold on to. “I last saw him here, in Paris.” That had been…when? “September?”
Something didn’t fit, but my memories were thin, clouded, dissipating when I tried to examine them.
“A lot could happen in a year and a half.”
I blinked, forcing away the darkness. A lot had happened. What am I missing? “I think the things I was taught as a child don’t apply in this world.”
“Ahh…” Louis swirled the golden liquid in his glass. “You talk like one of those modernists, like those poets we saw.”
Gratefully, I followed his change of subject. “Is that right? You asked if I knew what Dada was.” These memories were blurry, but only from too much drink. “Tell me.”
“Those poets would say that the new world has destroyed the old, so they make poems out of nonsense.”
I nodded, pretending I understood. “Nonsense.”
“Next, you will take up with the socialists, hmm?” His expression softened, and then, when I least expected it, he smiled.
He smiled.
And I smiled back. For a moment, I gave in to the desire to watch him, his mobile lips balancing soulful dark eyes, the smooth sleek hair framing sharp cheekbones. My heart still raced, as if I’d run along the edge of a cliff and come close to falling off.
But this man had drawn me to safety, engendering an emotion as pleasant as it was uncomfortable.
The angle of the sun’s beams deepened, and the dome of Sacré Cœur sat over my shoulder like a living force of good. A pair of streetlights flanked the diners outside, giving them enough to see their food, and M. Richard sidled over to light the candle on our table. The morning’s clouds had set off a few brief showers, but now the sky was clear, the air still warm. “This place is…lovely.”
Louis laughed. “You’re an odd man, Benjamin.” His smile grew sly. “Un peu étrange.”
Strange? “Oh…” Again, I blushed, a near-constant state. If Louis was a woman, I’d have said he was flirting with me. The rules of his game left me flustered, so I waved to M. Richard, asking for another bottle of wine. The flickering candlelight played over Louis’s features. He was…a wild thing, his injury barely restraining his spirit. Wild, and quite beautiful.
The realization—and the accompanying flutter in my belly—made me gulp the rest of my wine, as if I could drown these awkward thoughts and the feelings they engendered.