Today I am joined by Angel Martinez celebrating the release of her new book, Finn: Endangered Fae. Please continue reading for an exclusive interview, a tantalizing excerpt, and a giveaway for an e-copy of the book.
Welcome to my blog, Angel!
What does the word “romantic” mean to you?
There’s a loaded question for you…I think a lot of people would answer that with things from the beginning of a relationship, the flowers, the dinners, the intimate gestures, and intimate situations. For me, romance is about the things you do after you know each other. Do you remember the little things your partner likes? Do you listen when your partner needs you? Do you understand when your partner needs space? Lust is what happens over the wine and roses. Love is what happens over homemade soup and gardening.
Other than writing, do you have any hobbies?
Hobby always makes me think of one of those old-fashioned craft stores where you buy your yarn and your model kits. It’s a funny word. Anyway – other stuff besides writing. I like to putter in the garden (the wisteria survived the winter from hell! Hooray!) I do like to travel – new cities, new places, so long as I have good companions along the way. I do love to bake. Now that I’m no longer at the evil day job, I may be doing more of that again.
Tell us something that people would be surprised you know how to do.
I can disassemble, reassemble, and accurately fire an M16-A1 semi-automatic rifle (I do not own guns and do not advocate their place in the home.) I can also, and have, act as a first responder at an accident scene (I’m a bit shy and quiet, so I think people would be shocked at me barking demands in such a situation.) These are both leftovers from my National Guard Days.
How do you celebrate a new book?
I start the next one. Seriously. Who has time for celebration? I probably should stop and take a breath and do something cool and celebratory, like a new book dance, or a new book cocktail, or something. But between promo and writing and all the other things we have to do these days? One forgets to stop and celebrate the little successes and that’s a shame.
What inspired you to write this book?
Several things, among them previous vague references to pookas in other stories, hard nudging (read shoving) from my critique partners, an old character from an adult fiction/tandem writing site and a now defunct amusement park ride.
Yeah, inspiration is a weird thing. Finn was actually “inspired” over several years. Perhaps the slowest inspiration in history. Some inspirations come as Aha! moments, true epiphanies, others, not so much.
BLURB:
When Diego rescues a naked man from the rail of the Brooklyn Bridge, he just wants to get the poor man out of traffic and to social services. He gets more than he bargained for when he discovers Finn is an ailing pooka, poisoned by the city’s pollution. To help him recover, Diego takes him to New Brunswick where Finn inadvertently wakes an ancient, evil spirit: the wendigo.
While they struggle to find a way to destroy the wendigo before it can possess Diego or kill nearby innocents, Diego wrestles with his growing feelings for Finn. Kill the monster and navigate a relationship between a modern man and a centuries old pooka. Piece of cake.
EXCERPT:
The ordeal of the shower seemed cruel, but Finn was filthy and smelled like a dumpster during a garbage strike. Diego placed one of his plastic kitchen chairs in the middle of the shower and installed Finn there, but he only slumped against the chair back, eyes closed, face turned into the spray.
Too exhausted to even flinch.
Diego fought down the little shiver of revulsion at the stench, stripped to his boxers, and stepped into the stall with him. He attacked the tangled mass of hair first, positioning Finn so his head hung back over the chair. No lice—a good sign. He might have been homeless, but he probably hadn’t lived on the streets too long. The nest of midnight snarls unwound under the caress of water and shampoo. If Finn stood, his hair would reach at least to the top curve of his butt. A strange blue-black iridescence shone in it, his natural coloring as far as Diego could tell rather than bottled special effects.
The rest Diego washed with a loofah, shoving away modesty out of a need to get Finn to his rest. An ache lodged around his heart to see how malnutrition had ravaged what probably had been a lean-muscled frame. An athlete, perhaps, before he went off the deep end, an impression reinforced by the absence of almost all body hair. Waxed or electrolysis-denuded—only Finn’s crotch sported a black thatch of soft hair. Swimmer, perhaps. The Olympic competitors often shaved it all off for every small gain in streamlining.
He turned off the water and tugged at Finn’s arm. “Come on. Let’s get you settled. You can’t sleep in the shower.”
Finn staggered to his feet and Diego all but carried him to Mitch’s room. The spare room, he corrected himself. He usually kept the door closed so the stark, unfurnished space wasn’t glaring at him.
He sat Finn down against the wall, brought him a pair of flannel pajamas, soft with age, and went out to the front closet to retrieve the air mattress and vacuum. Six boxes lay stacked against the wall; all that remained of Mitch’s things. Diego ran a hand over one, and then shook his head against the temptation to open the top and look at its contents. When he returned, Finn hadn’t moved from where he sat, naked and dozing in a patch of sunlight.
“You might want to put those on.” Diego toed the pajamas closer as he dragged the air mattress into place. When Finn’s only response was a long sigh, he added, “We need to get you warm. I don’t want to have to take you to Emergency.”
With a puzzled frown, Finn unfolded the material and managed, after looking back and forth between the pajamas and Diego’s jeans a few times, to pull the bottoms on. His efforts with the top, though, were sabotaged when the vacuum roared to life. He startled and scuttled sideways, wide-eyed and panting.
Diego hurried to switch it off. “Sorry. Should have warned you.”
“Is it some sort of small dragon?”
For a moment, Diego stared in blank surprise before he caught himself. At least the nature of Finn’s delusion was becoming clearer. He might even share his history later when he had the energy, perhaps some tragic story of an exiled prince. For now, Diego thought it best to play along.
“Not a dragon. Just a machine. It blows out and sucks in air with great force.”
“Ah.” Finn seemed disappointed, but waved a hand for him to continue.
Mattress inflated, Finn dressed and installed in bed, Diego thought he should get something in him before he drifted off. He tried tap water first but Finn jerked his head away, the color draining from his face.
“Tainted,” he gasped. “Great Dagda, it reeks.”
Diego sniffed above the glass, puzzled. New York City water, piped in from the mountains, was cleaner than most but it was treated. Chlorine. Fluoride. Maybe Finn had an allergy to one or the other.
Bottled water produced a less violent reaction. Finn smelled it, nose crinkled, but he downed half the bottle in desperate gulps before Diego could take it back from him. Hydration, at least, wouldn’t be an issue.
The hurdle of food remained. Starvation often did terrible things to the body’s ability to accept nourishment. Not the best time to offer a hamburger and fries. Diego decided he should start with the foods one was supposed to give sick kids: bananas, rice, applesauce and toast, minus the applesauce, since he didn’t have any.
Finn wouldn’t touch the boiled-in-tap-water rice. He nibbled a corner of the toast and set it aside with murmured apologies. The banana completely stumped him. He turned it over and over in his hands and finally tried to bite through the skin.
“You eat these?” He handed it back to Diego with a grimace.
All right, so his reality doesn’t include New World fruit. Diego peeled the banana for him and handed it back. “You don’t eat the skin. Try the inside.”
Finn took a careful bite and his eyes widened. “That’s not bad.”
Diego could only watch anxiously, praying his guest wouldn’t choke, as the rest disappeared in three bites. With a contented sigh, Finn handed the peel back, gathered the covers into a circle in the center of the mattress, and curled into a tight ball inside his nest. By the time Diego brought an extra comforter to cover him, Finn was fast asleep.
Clean and at rest, his face had a childlike quality with his hair tucked behind one finely-curved ear. Diego wasn’t certain it was a handsome face, almost unearthly in its delicacy, and though Finn stood six inches taller, he had the odd feeling he could scoop that long frame up in his arms without much effort.
He backed out and closed the door as quietly as he could, confident Finn wouldn’t die on him. Tomorrow he would see about finding the right agency to take his guest, preferably one that wouldn’t hand him right over to immigration.
A few hours of peace while Finn slept should let him at least get through the current chapter he was writing.
The moment he sat ready at his desk, fingers poised over the keys, the phone rang.
PRIZE GIVEAWAY:
Angel is giving away an e-copy of Finn: Endangered Fae.
AUTHOR BIO:
While Angel Martinez is the erotic fiction pen name of a writer of several genres, she writes both kinds of gay romance – Science Fiction and Fantasy. Currently living part time in the hectic sprawl of northern Delaware, (and full time inside the author’s head) Angel has one husband, one son, two cats, a changing variety of other furred and scaled companions, a love of all things beautiful and a terrible addiction to the consumption of both knowledge and chocolate.
AUTHOR LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/amartinez2
https://www.facebook.com/Angel.Martinez.author
http://angelmartinezbooks.tumblr.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AngelMartinezrr
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