Tuesday Teaser - Special Guest, Josh Lanyon!

Let’s have A big Tuesday Teaser Welcome to Guest Authors!

I’m asking your favorite authors to stop by and share snippets of their work for our Tuesday Teaser Game. Try to guess the book!

My first guest needs NO introduction, But here’s one anyway: A distinct voice in gay fiction, multi-award-winning author JOSH LANYON has been writing gay mystery and romance for over a decade. In addition to numerous short stories, novellas, and novels, Josh is the author of the critically acclaimed Adrien English series, including the Hell You Say, winner of the 2006 USABookNews awards for GLBT Fiction and a Lambda Literary Award finalist for Gay Mystery. Josh is also the author of the definitive M/M writing guide Man, Oh Man: Writing M/M Fiction for Kinks and Ca$h.

Josh is an Eppie Award winner and a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist — and lives in Los Angeles, California.

PLAYERS: Here’s how you do it! 1. Guess the title of the Josh Lanyon book this teaser comes from. 2. Email me with the title of the book at zamaxfield @ zamaxfield (dot) com.  3. Put Tuesday Teasers in the subject line!

You could win an ebook copy of the book in question or another book from Josh’s backlist. Be sure to give me a valid email address so I know where to send your ebook. The 11th person to email me with the correct title WINS!

Last Week’s Winner is (having correctly guessed My Cowboy Heart): Natalija !

Tuesday Teaser by Josh Lanyon

The card was wedged under the brass 17 on my apartment door when I got back from my morning swim. For what felt like a long time I stood dripping on the welcome mat, staring at the slightly crooked number and the colored rectangle beneath.

Finally, I removed the card, examined it. A castle in flames, a man

and woman plummeting to the cliffs below, and the words The Tower.

Not good. Even if I turned it upside down so that the man and woman

seemed to be doing handsprings through the clouds and lightning, it

still looked pretty ominous.

I told myself that someone was playing a joke on me.

Funny stuff.

Only a handful of people even knew I was writing a book about the

Aldrich case. For that matter, who would care if they did know? It

was dead news in every sense.

I stuck my key in the latch and stepped into my apartment, eyes

adjusting to the gloom. Dusty sunshine poured through the arched

living room window. Everything looked just the way I’d left it an

hour ago. In the kitchen alcove the old dishwasher was steaming,

stereo lights flashed from the entertainment center, and the screen

of my laptop, which sat on the coffee table, offered a gently rolling

view of star-lined outer space.

I walked through to the bedroom. The bed was stripped, sheets piled

for laundry in the doorway. The mirrored closet doors were shut. I

got a look at my face as I moved to open them, and was irritated to

see that I looked worried: hazel eyes narrowed, tanned face grim,

body tense — Jesus. The last year had turned me into an old woman.

I slid open the closet doors, jumping back as a box of photos tumbled

from their precarious perch on the shelf above and dumped snap shots

across the carpet.

A photo of me — in a gold-sequined sombrero no less — and ****

celebrating my thirtieth birthday at Don Cuco’s landed by my bare

toes.

I stepped over the pictorial retrospective of my life, and moved on

to the bathroom, poking my head inside. Another glimpse of my

frowning face in the cabinet mirror — and, by the way, I really did

need a haircut, I reflected, momentarily distracted by the wet spikes

of my chlorine-bleached hair. The shower dripped noisily. I yanked

back the curtain with a plastic rustle.

Nothing.

Okay, bathtub ring, but otherwise nothing sinister.

Of course nothing sinister. Nobody had broken in. Why would they?

But why would someone leave a tarot card on my front door?

I went back to the kitchen, poured a glass of OJ and drank it slowly,

studying the Tarot card.

Was someone trying to tell me something? Was it some kind of clue?

More likely it was just some kind of weird coincidence. Right?

And even if it wasn’t a weird coincidence…what was I supposed to do

about it? It wasn’t exactly a lead that I could follow up. And I

couldn’t picture myself going to the police over something so…vague.

There was no defined threat and I had absolutely no suspect in mind.

I could always talk to ****.

I stared out the window over the sink at the row of second story

apartments, red doors and turquoise railings glimpsed through the

tangle of ivy and bougainvillea.

**** was a homicide detective with the Glendale PD. We’d gone

out a couple of times. Slept together once. We were still on friendly

if distant terms.

The blinds to ****’s apartment were up so it looked like he might be

home.

Tuesday Teaser - Special Guest, Josh Lanyon!