Love Bytes is delighted to welcome to their blog author Stephen Del Mar.
Stephen is joining us today to talk about his new release, “Equinox of the River Druid”, part of the Stories of Bennett Bay.
Check out Stephen’s post and have a chance to win an ecopy of the first story of Bennet Bay, “Dark Love”.
Leave a comment to participate in the giveaway 🙂
Welcome Stephen!
Stephen del Mar and Stories from Bennett Bay
I’d like to start by saying thanks to the crew at Love Bytes. They’ve been a great resource for me over the years and I’m happy to be working with them again.
I’m Stephen del Mar, a gay man living in the Tampa Bay Area of Florida and all my published works, so far, are rainbow bright! I’ve been heavily influenced by the Southern Literary tradition and magical realism. Setting and history are always central characters in my work. Love, loss, family—both birth and found—are common themes running through my work. My stories are more character driven than plot.
Nearly all of my short stories and novels take place in the world of Bennett Bay and Big Cypress County. Think of a queer southern version of Tales of the City or Prairie Home Companion with enchantment and magic. In Bennett Bay, the magical and the mundane rub along together. You never know what’s behind the curtain. That hunky guy at the bar drinking a mojito, is he what he appears? Take him home and you might get a beast in your bed—and one hell of a night!
When I was coming out in the 1980s, I was fascinated by how the queer world was unseen by the dominate population. We could have coded conversations and the surrounding heterosexuals had no clue. At the end of the day, they could confidently say they didn’t encounter any of those people, yet we were all around them. Magic and enchantment are metaphors for the queer experience. An experience shared by all marginalized communities.
The first three books of the series (Dark Love, The Bear the Witch and the Web, and Hunter Moon) deal with the magical world that is centered in the village of Live Oak in north east Big Cypress County. The fourth book, Return to Cooter Crossing, pivoted toward the mundane and the family drama surrounding Aidan Quinn’s return to his home village after a long absence.
That book ended with the extended Quinn family getting ready for the big Memorial Day happenings in the town of Blackwater. In the last scene, Parker Hanley, resident bad boy, rides in on his motorcycle, guaranteeing drama for our teen heartthrobs in the next book and beyond. That book, Steamboat Days, was finished five years ago. COVID, a move, my mother getting Alzheimer’s and passing, and a bothersome scene caused the delay in publishing.
The scene involved Innes, our lovable witch boy—maybe druid—who ran the riverside pub in Cooter Crossing. This scene foreshadowed the big magical climax in the future book The Deadly Dare. The problem was, Innes was too sure of himself and was more powerful than when we’d seen him last. How’d he get that way? I didn’t know. So Steamboat Days sat on my hard drive while I pondered my druid.
Equinox of the River Druid emerged from the fog. Innes is out of sorts, dealing with the aftermath of his magical mentor, Flora May Crawford, passing. His boyhood love being killed and that whole mess with the dragons and the shifters (Hunter Moon and the Red Wolf and Return to Cooter Crossing). His friends, his sister, and his husband don’t know what to do with him. Yanko, his kind of friend and new husband of Innes’ college boyfriend, shows up in a cruiser, shanghais him, and takes him upriver to find himself. It’s not the intervention they were expecting.
Flora May’s ghost and the time-dragons team up to give our reluctant druid a magical This is Your Life and Possible Futures ride. Will he choose to fight the darkness that dwells on the edge of Lake Jackson, or will he keep pulling beers? Equinox of the River Druid is now available on Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited for the next 90 days. (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0FG1PBSFN)
The first four books in the series are also on Smashwords and are 75% for the rest of July, 2025.
To celebrate the new release, we are giving away copies of Dark Love, book one in the series. Wolfgang, Dieter’s great-uncle, who raised him as a son, has passed. Dieter returns to the family farm in Live Oak to mourn. What he doesn’t expect is coming face to face with Wolfgang’s secret lover. A teenage prince cursed six-hundred years ago and killed by the Nazis in a prisoner of war camp. He’s also not expecting to drink the blue tea with Flora May Crawford and becoming woke to the surrounding enchantment. At least there is cake!
I think all my novels and many of my shorts have been reviewed here. Check them out and thanks for stopping by.
Blurb:
Trigger Warning: Sexual assault and death. Parts of this book delve into a demonic darkness that has plagued the area for centuries.
Innes Callahan is out of sorts. It’s the vernal equinox and he can’t find any balance. In fact, everything is foggy. It’s spiritually, emotionally, and meteorologically foggy. Then Yanko, his ex-lover’s husband—that he really doesn’t like that much, shows up in a new boat full of faeries saying they need to find his balls—metaphorical magical balls, that is.
Against his better judgment and at the urging of his family, he gets in the boat for a trip upriver to Hidden Springs. What he doesn’t know is the spirit of Flora May Crawford and the Time-Dragons have their own agenda. A whirlwind journey through the past, present, and future reveals secrets about Big Cypress County, his past, and future sorrows. Will he claim his magical balls and become the River Druid his father wanted him to be or will he choose the life of a simple barkeeper? And will he learn it’s dangerous to know too much about your past and future? Get this book and find out!
Stephen del Mar lives in the Tampa Bay area and writes in the Southern Literary tradition. His stories are character driven with rich settings. They often have a touch of the paranormal, supernatural, or magical realism.
Although he writes about serious subjects, they are sweetened with humor and wit. He says, “It’s a southern thing.”
Stephen del Mar contact and social info:
Newsletter: https://stephendelmar.substack.com/
Bluesky: ‪@stephendelmar.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stephendelmar.author/
Website: stephendelmar.com
Congratulations on the new release!
Thank you for sharing!