Restoration Blog Tour - 8/26 to 9/12/14

Restoration (originally titled Aftermath) is probably the most serious story I ever wrote. It wasn't written from that happy place of world building and plot twists. It was written in anger. For the Restoration Blog Tour, I've written about several myths still perpetuated about male rape, about support and how a partner can help. I've written about why I wrote something so different from my normal work.

This one's important to me - I don't write Contemporary unless it's for a reason.


Thank you to all the wonderful bloggers who were kind enough to let me discuss a difficult subject on their blogs:

Lee Brazil
Piper Vaughn
Ethan Stone
Love Bytes Reviews (with a pre-release review of Restoration)
Fallen Angel Reviews
Sharita Lira
V.s. Morgan
Beany Sparks
Rainbow Gold Reviews

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Restoration
Mischief Corner Books
All Romance
Amazon

Blurb:

Victor and Cody have the American dream - a house, two cars, upwardly mobile income, and each other - but all is not well in paradise. Cody's trust in other people’s goodwill led to one recent assault. A few months later, a friend’s betrayal leads to another. Battered every waking moment by fear and shame, all his joyful creative energy transforms into brittle, aggressive lashing out.

Victor, wracked by guilt and shackled to a grueling, time-devouring career, must find a way to help Cody back from the darkness and to keep him safe from his self-destructive behavior. With the help of a common-sense therapist, some loyal friends and Cody's own impetuous nature, their recovery and their relationship might even stand a chance.

Please Note: This is a re-edited third addition with expanded content. (Formerly titled Aftermath)

Excerpt:

When did they drain all the colors out of everything? Cody stared out the window of his hospital room. Even with the drugs in his system, mood levelers one of the doctors had said, everything hurt. Strange things made him nauseous and irritable, like watching the clouds drift and change. Clouds shouldn’t have made him angry, the dull red of the blanket his mother had brought him shouldn’t have, but they did. The curve of a chair arm, the lift in a nurse’s voice, the squeak of shoes all made him angry in a terrible, gray way, anger through a miasmic fog.

It’s my own fault. Not strong enough or man enough to defend myself. Not smart enough to stay clear of trouble. Stupid. Weak. Worthless.

He wanted to claw his brain out of his skull. He wanted to scream but didn’t have the energy. He wanted the flickering images to stop replaying behind his eyes, awake, asleep, he couldn’t escape them. Worst of all, he wanted that horrible, cigarette-ruined voice to stop whispering in his ear.

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