QSFer Tinnean has a new historical fantasy book out:
Johnny Smith meets Church Chetwood during the dark days of the Great Depression. He knows Mr. Chetwood can’t be his forever. Why would the handsome and charming director want to stay with a young man who has nothing but his body and skills in bed to offer? His Mr. Chetwood can have any women—or man—he wants, but Johnny is going to keep him as long as he can.
When they have to leave suddenly on the SS August Moon to evade the process servers trying to find Church, Johnny is glad they’ll have more time together. But the crew rises up against the good Captain Johansen, urged on by a stowaway who wants the August Moon for himself. Johnny and Church, together with the captain, the cook, a wireless operator, and the little girl Johnny saved from prostitution, are cast off into a small lifeboat—and doomed to the open sea. Their other option is to try to land on the island where Church once discovered a saber-toothed tiger. The problem is, the last time Church was on this island, twelve men paid the price with their lives. Will Johnny, Church, and their friends make it out alive this time?
Giveaway
GIVEAWAY
Excerpt
I FOUND it hard, at times, to believe I was actually sailing the South Seas with Church Chetwood. He’d gotten me aboard the SS August Moon just before she’d sailed out of New York harbor and shown me to a cabin. “This is our cabin,” he’d told me.
It wouldn’t last. One day he’d grow tired of having a male lover, and he’d go back to the skirts who’d offer to sleep with him in hopes he’d put them in his moving pictures but who wouldn’t love him the way I—
I knew it wouldn’t last.
I had no family, no home….
I wasn’t the kind of mug happily ever after happened to.
#
“WE’RE FORTUNATE that we’ve got that hold full of weapons,” Captain Johansen was telling Mr. Chetwood as I brought the lunch tray up from the galley. I paused in the entryway to watch them, unobserved.
The skipper was a tough old bird, in remarkable shape for his age. His hair was salt-and-pepper, as was the walrus mustache that draped over his upper lip. He was a good captain, his only vice appearing to be the pipe he was never without, and he had accepted my last-minute inclusion aboard the August Moon good-naturedly.
“There’s always a demand for guns, Jo,” Mr. Chetwood conceded, using the nickname he sometimes called Captain Johansen by.
Church Chetwood was some twenty years younger than the skipper. Until a couple of years ago, he had made his living filming travelogues to be shown in the moving picture palaces throughout the hinterlands of America, bringing the wild, the unusual, the breathtaking to small town inhabitants who would never have the opportunity to see them otherwise. Dark hair and eyes, of average height, and physically fit, he was my lover. He was also the only person that I truly loved.
“We were really lucky the ones we never got around to using on the last trip weren’t confiscated.” Mr. Chetwood smiled at me, then turned back to the skipper. “We’ll be able to use them as currency.”
“Really lucky.” But the skipper didn’t sound as if he believed that. A lot of men he’d sailed with for years hadn’t come back from that voyage. He smiled sadly as he accepted a bowl of fish stew and a slice of two-week-old bread from me. “We should be sailing into Selamat datan within a couple of hours.” He peered at the bread and sighed. “It’s a good thing we’re taking on fresh supplies. Charley’s a good cook, but even he can’t do anything with weevily flour.”
“It’ll be nice to have something other than fish. Thanks, kid.” Mr. Chetwood took the bowl I handed him and speared a bit of fish onto his fork. He studied it dispassionately before deciding to go ahead and put it in his mouth.
“I thought you liked fish, Mr. Chetwood.” I set the tray aside.
“Yeah, but not for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” My lover sent me a grin that never failed to make me go weak in the knees. “How are you doing, Johnny?” He hooked his free arm around my waist and pulled me close to his side. Unseen by the skipper, his hand drifted down and petted my backside before settling on my hip.
“I’m good, Mr. Chetwood.” I leaned discreetly into his caress.
“No more seasickness?”
“Gee whiz, Mr. Chetwood, I haven’t been sick in months.” The first few days out of New York had been a nightmare. We’d been sailing into the tail end of the hurricane season, and the Atlantic had been rough. I hadn’t been able to leave the cabin I shared with him, puking my guts up, and I knew for a time he had been afraid I might not survive the week. Once we reached the calmer waters of the Caribbean, though, and began our passage through the locks of the Panama Canal, my stomach had a chance to settle down. I’d quickly acquired my sea legs, and I hadn’t been sick since.
Buy Links
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Author Bio
Tinnean has been writing since the 3rd grade, where she was inspired to try her hand at epic poetry. Fortunately, that epic poem didn’t survive the passage of time; however, her love of writing not only survived but thrived, and in high school she became a member of the magazine staff, where she contributed a number of stories.
It was with the advent of the family’s second computer – the first intimidated everyone – that her writing took off, enhanced in part by fanfiction, but mostly by the wonder that is copy and paste.
While involved in fandom, she was nominated for both Rerun and Light My Fire Awards. Now she concentrates on her original characters and has been published by Nazca Plains, Dreamspinner, JMS Books, and Wilde City, as well as being self-published. Recent novels have received honorable mention in the 2013, 2014, and 2015 Rainbow Awards, and two of the 2014 submissions were finalists.
A New Yorker at heart, she resides in SW Florida with her husband and two computers.
Ernest Hemingway’s words reflect Tinnean’s devotion to her craft: Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it.
Email: tinneantoo@gmail.com
Live Journal: http://tinnean.livejournal.com/
Twitter: @tinneantoo
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Tinnean
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Tinnean/e/B004QS65KQ/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1391469662&sr=1-2-ent
I enjoyed the excerpt it sounds like a fascinating read especially the part about the Island. I’ve added the book to my wish list.