Hello! This is Ashavan Doyon, author of the College Rose Romances with Purple Horn Press and the Sam’s Cafe Romances with Dreamspinner Press, here to talk about an upcoming holiday release. I want to thank Dani and the staff of Love Bytes Reviews for the opportunity to share with you all today.
Next week will see the ebook release of A Christmas Vision. For those interested in a bit of trivia, this isn’t my first winter holiday story, not really. Gerry’s Lion, which is told in scenes based around holidays, was originally written for the Dreamspinner Advent Calendar, but the competition was fierce the year it got submitted, and it ended up starting a longer story instead. My husband is happier about this one though, as I wrote that story while on a cruise, inspired by the atmosphere. My husband forgave me. Gerry’s Lion remains his favorite piece of my writing.
A Christmas Vision is a study in writing what you know. It’s based on a college campus, and focuses on the secret lives of the staff. Not the fancy staff. The assistants. The dining staff. The custodial staff. The people who often seem either invisible or part of the scenery. A Christmas Vision takes a few of those characters and brings them into focus. Suddenly the janitor can’t be scenery. Suddenly the dining manager is more than a quiet man printing menus who everyone knows for wearing colorful chinos—and nothing else about them. I wanted those characters to come into focus, to be real, to breathe, and… importantly, because this is romance, to find love.
I have a brief excerpt to share with all of you. This is from the early chapters of the story. Carl, a campus custodian and Halloween devotee, has just bailed out Austin, a dining services manager known for colorful (and tight!) chinos, who got called in to work on Halloween and thus is on the street trick-or-treating with his little boy for scraps of candy as everyone has their light off. Carl sees the hapless pair, saves the day (it’s cute, buy the book when it comes out and read that rather lengthier scene for yourself when the book comes out!) and then this happens the next morning:
Bea was the first one in. Her schedule was staggered by a half-hour. She’d told him why once, but it was so long ago, he honestly couldn’t remember the reason. But he remembered the schedule and had the door open for her as she rushed in the brisk autumn air to the building.
“Thank you, Carl,” she said, slipping past him into the building.
Carl just smiled.
“Did Austin find you last night? I know he was frantic trying to call someone in. I suggested he try your street if he couldn’t. He lives right nearby, doesn’t he?” Bea had set her purse down on the counter by the mail bins and was sorting through her pile.
“He found me. Good thing too. His poor kid showed up with a pretty pitiful take.”
Bea looked up from her mail and stared at the wall. “Poor little Grayson.” She tutted. “That boy needs help.”
“It was a valiant effort at a costume, at least.” Carl sighed and hoped he was keeping the wistful smile aching to emerge from showing.
“Costume. Sure. I bet what you’re remembering is how tight Austin’s uniform pants were.” Bea slapped her mail against Carl’s ass. “You didn’t let the boy go without?”
Carl shook his head. “Dumped the whole pumpkin in. I was about done for the night as it was. Even gave him my Reeses.”
Bea narrowed her eyes and then laughed. “By accident, I bet.”
“Well, don’t tell Austin that. I was trying to make a grand gesture for the little boy. Like I said, he had bupkis.”
“That bad?”
“Candy corn and rolls of that chalk that masquerades as candy.”
Bea grabbed her purse and tapped him again with the mail, this time on the shoulder. “Well, now he has Reeses, doesn’t he?”
“You laugh at my pain.”
Bea shook her head as she climbed up the stairs, going carefully. They were still wet, but that had been the case almost every day for decades. “As long as you helped the boy,” she said. And then she was gone, into her office.
Carl had the strangest feeling she meant Austin when she said boy, rather than the kid. Grayson? What kind of name was Grayson?
Shrugging, Carl returned to vacuuming. He still had a few offices to hit before the directors arrived and effectively shut down his machines.
He’d just stowed his vacuum in the custodial closet when the usual early birds started arriving. Carl rushed to let them in and unlocked the doors for the day. From then it was a steady stream. Carl slipped up to the third floor and began working down. That was quietest with the fewest offices, and it was food service managers who mostly checked their dining halls before coming in.
He couldn’t help but notice the picture on the desk. Austin with his little boy. There was another one, half hidden. Austin with a woman.
Carl shook his head. “Knew it.” But he hadn’t. Carl’s gaydar had been refined from decades. He hadn’t actually been wrong in a long time. Though wishful thinking had screwed up his senses before.
And that’s all it was. Austin having a perfect ass. Tight clothes. Wishful thinking.
So, I hope you enjoyed your little sneak peak. Find out more about the book below:
A Christmas Vision
by Ashavan Doyon
THERE’S NO GLORY in custodial work. That never bothered campus janitor Carl Gibson any. He worked hard—had to. His love life was a tragedy best not reopened and his only hope for the happiness he broadcast to the world was in two things: Halloween and the shrill, ever-demanding bark of his darling Lilah. But Halloween decorations were being displaced by Christmas already, and his precious pug? He could only hope she’d hold on a bit longer.
Austin Edwards had failed his little boy. The most junior dining manager at the college, when everyone called out on Halloween, he got called in. The house lights were all dark. except one. A sparkling hope of legend at the college. For his boy’s sake, he hoped Carl was as crazy about Halloween as the stories said. When Carl filled his son’s empty bag with candy, Austin couldn’t help but wonder why such a wonderful man was so alone. He had to find out.
With Christmas fast approaching, Carl and Austin tip-toe into dating. But they both have ghosts and memories to contend with. Can Austin be Carl’s Christmas vision? Or will Carl retreat, as he always has?
Ashavan Doyon spends his days working with students as part of the student affairs staff at a liberal arts college. During lunch, evenings, and when he can escape the grasp of his husband on weekends, he writes, pounding out words day after day in hopes that his ancient typewriter-trained fingers won’t break the glass on his tablet computer. Ashavan is an avid science fiction and fantasy fan and prefers to write while listening to music that fits the mood of his current story. He has no children, having opted instead for the companionship of two beautiful and thoroughly spoiled pugs. A Texan by birth, he currently lives in New England, and frequently complains of the weather.
Ashavan went to school at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, getting his degree in Russian and East European Studies, with a focus in language and literature. He has two incomplete manuscripts from college that he goes back compulsively to fiddle with every so often, but is still not happy with either of them. He still loves fantasy and science fiction and reads constantly in the moments between writing stories.
Ashavan loves to hear from readers and can be reached at ashavandoyon@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ashavandoyon.writer/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ashavandoyon
Website: https://www.ashavandoyon.com/
Carl loves Halloween, and has good reason not to like Christmas. Austin celebrates Christmas as a reminder of something he’s lost. When I wrote A Christmas Vision, I was mindful of the importance the characters placed on the holidays, and that’s not a new theme for me. In The Colors of Romance, you see the main character struggling to identify with Valentine’s Day because of how someone treated him. In Gerry’s Lion we see a lot of holidays in focus, and why they’re important.
What is your favorite holiday and why is it important to you? Let me know in the comments and we’ll pick a winner to get a copy of one of my short novellas, either American Pride or the Tendire Gate, as a freebie for participating.