A warm welcome to author TJ Masters joining us today to talk about his new release Hands of Power.
Welcome 
I can’t believe that it’s almost exactly ten years ago that I wrote the original short story and I remember all the messages From Readers wanting to know more about the main characters Richard and Alan. I relented some years later and wrote a very short follow up which was printed here on Lovebytes. Still the readers wanted more and in truth the characters would not leave me alone and slowly a full length novel was born.
It is often said to writers that they should write what they know and although I don’t think that is always true, it certainly was for me with this book. Firstly I have always loved rugby so it was easy to have a rugby player as a main character. I have also been a BDSM practitioner for the last 50 years and I had long promised to present it at the core of one of my novels. The third strand to the novel explores my absolute love for Cornwall and its people. It was easy to set a large part of the story there and all of the locations are real.
I have been asked about the dedication of the book, “To Rick D.” Yes he is a real person and a dear friend of many years. As a sexy rugby playing submissive he was the inspiration for the character Richard Doyle which is why they share almost the same name.
Richard Doyle is a star player on his local rugby team and a self avowed ladies man, but he knows that something is missing. Caught up in his ultra-masculine world, he’s resigned to making the most of his limited life – until an injury on the field brings him to the office of physiotherapist Alan Jennings and he feels the touch of a Master.
Alan isn’t looking for love when Richard walks into his office, but something draws him in and Alan senses that Richard’s sexuality is coiled like a vibrating spring just under the surface.
The sex is amazing, but Alan will have an uphill battle if he means to convince Richard to trust him and to indulge in fantasies that are taboo in his world. It will take all of Alan’s patience and careful dominance- plus a visit to friends in Cornwall – to convince Richard to embrace his new erotic identity as a submissive gay man and to trust the found family that comes with it.
Spoiler alert! After two HFN endings I couldn’t do it to them again so yes they got their HEA! I’m not sure we have heard the last of Rich, Alan, Graham or Ali. They just don’t seem to want to go away yet!
T.J.
Richard Doyle is a star player on his local rugby team and a self avowed ladies man, but he knows that something is missing. Caught up in his ultra-masculine world, he’s resigned to making the most of his limited life – until an injury on the field brings him to the office of physiotherapist Alan Jennings and he feels the touch of a Master.
Alan isn’t looking for love when Richard walks into his office, but something draws him in and Alan senses that Richard’s sexuality is coiled like a vibrating spring just under the surface.
The sex is amazing (strong sub/dom themes), but Alan will have an uphill battle if he means to convince Richard to trust him and to indulge in fantasies that are taboo in his world. It will take all of Alan’s patience and careful dominance- plus a visit to friends in Cornwall – to convince Richard to embrace his new erotic identity as a submissive gay man and to trust the found family that comes with it.
T.J. Masters lives in Hertfordshire, England with his husband of forty+ years, and he enjoys the love and support of his large Irish family who live nearby. In 2009, T.J. took early retirement from a thirty-three-year teaching career and retrained as a life coach. While coaching a couple of would-be authors, he was inspired to give his own writing its chance.
With a life-long passion for books and learning, T.J. knew that he had stories to tell, books to write, and less than half a lifetime left to do it in. His books are firmly grounded in the lived personal experience of a sixty-eight year old gay man who believes that life should never be something that just happens to you. A broad set of interests and a love of people in all their variety are reflected in the settings of T.J’s stories and the fascinating characters who inhabit them.
Aside from being an avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction, he enjoys gardening, cooking, traveling, science, art, music, and history. T.J. is active in both charitable and not-for-profit organisations in the LGBTQ+ community.
Social media gives T.J. an outlet for his inner geek and he can be found on Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), Threads, and YouTube, where he loves to interact with his many readers and followers.
