Monday, June 12, 2017

...And All Shall Fade to Black by Layla Dorine - Blog Tour with Excerpt and Author Guest Post


…And All Shall Fade to Black Blurb

Moving into his new apartment, Jax never expected to have to break up a fight between his new neighbors, resulting in a physical altercation and a visit from the cops. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that it would lead to him meeting Danny, the cute theater manager and playwright that lived next door. Unfortunately, his first impression of Danny and the way he’d cowered away in the fight with his ex, wasn’t exactly a favorable one.

Jax already has his own issues to deal with, between his past problems with his mother and the chain of men who’ve floated in and out of her life, his new job as a piercer in his sister’s tattoo shop and his struggles with an eating disorder; the last thing he plans to add to it is a relationship. Yet Danny isn’t so easy to ignore and when they find themselves bonding after Danny shows him around town, and more when Jax offers to help with sets for his latest play, it becomes harder and harder for him to ignore the connection forming between them.

As Jax’s insecurities and food issues grow more and more out of control, he find himself turning to Danny for help, rather than his longtime friends Callum and Max who lives just downstairs. Danny’s mix of patience, stubbornness and tough love make it harder and harder for Jax to keep his distance, and somewhere in the course of their daily lives, they find themselves moving from being friends, to being more.


Excerpt 

Heaving a heavy sigh, Jax nodded.
“All right, fine, we’ll do it your way, but when I completely screw it up, we’ll know who to blame.”
“You can’t screw it up, Jax, it’s as simple as picking out the things you like.”
Jax cocked an eyebrow at him and tapped his foot and Callum cringed.
“Okay, I should maybe amend that. It’s a matter of picking out the things you like that would actually work well together to create as space with some harmony and unity,” Callum remarked sheepishly. “So please no two dollar paintings on crushed velvet and framed black light posters. We’re adults now, time to be more sophisticated about things.”
“Yeah, okay, I’ll actually put some effort into it this time.”
From across the room Max laughed. “Hey you’ve had it easy up until now, you’ve had us decorating most of the house for you. Just remember that if you plan to invite Danny or anyone else over to your place, you might want to consider tones besides black and gray. They’re kind of depressing.”
“They are solid colors that go together. Haven’t you guys been stressing that?”
“Yes, and they’re a good start. Now think about adding some additional shades to that.”
Unscrewing the jar, jax pulled out a pickle spear and crunched away, thoughtfully running through different shades in his head and dismissing them. It wasn’t that he was picky, it was just that he wasn’t a fan of bright things. “What about purple?”
“Purple can work,” Callum remarked. “Now if you’re done stalling, can you answer my question?”
Jax scowled, confused. “What question.”
“The one I asked when you walked in here. You asked how Max knew. What did Max know?”
“Oh.”
Silently, Jax headed for a chair and flopped into its overstuffed folds, put his feet up on the Ottoman and started crunching on another pickle.
“Yeah, oh, as in oh come on Jax spill it already. You know I won’t start the game until you do.”
Groaning, Jax glared at the pair, wishing he wasn’t holding the pickles so he could cross his arms. It might have been a little childish but at that point he was in the mood to pout and stubbornly hold his tongue.
“Apparently I interrupted him kissing Danny,” Max finally supplied.
“No shit?”
“No shit,” Jax grumbled. “Him and his bellowing put an end to what was shaping up to be a really nice moment. Then he hits me with a remark about Shiro.”
Jax watched as Callum shot a look between him and Max.
“All I said was that he shouldn’t let what happened with Shiro happen between him and Danny.”
“Ohhh.”
“Yeah, and I wanted to know what the hell he meant by that.”
“Oh come off it Jax, we both knew you were pining after Shiro and too scared to do anything to make it happen. Anyone with eyes could have seen that, just from your moods and body language whenever you two were together. What I don’t get is why you didn’t just ask him out or something.”
Jax shrugged and busied himself with another pickle. It was a good question, it was just a complicated one. The truth was, by the time he figured out that Shiro was as bad at picking up on relationship cues as he was, Nozomi had swooped in and asked Shiro out. He’d never been the type to get in between two people, even at the start of a new relationship, and especially not one to do it to friends. So he’d kept his feelings bottled up, half hoping that maybe it wouldn’t work out between them, though, the signs had all been there that it would.
“Earth to Jax…hey…”
Fingers snapping next to his ear drew Jax’s attention and he turned to see Callum grinning down at him.
“You know what, I think you need to pursue things with Danny, if only so you don’t end up looking like a lovesick puppy every time someone brings Shiro up. That ship has sailed, it’s a new day my friend, and a new city, though there’s one thing that will never change.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“Me kicking your ass and leaving you to the zombies,” Callum laughed.
“You’re on!” Jax snapped, reaching for a controlled.
Max just groaned as he reached for one himself. “I can already see how this night is gonna go. You two are going to be so busy trying to throw each other in the path of the zombies or outdo each other that you’re going to end up killing me in the process.”
Jax glanced at Callum, who was staring back at him, smirking.
“That’s been known to happen,” Jax admitted.
“True, it has,” Callum replied with a shrug. “You’d think he’d be used to it now.”
“Yeah really, sheesh, I mean, it isn’t like it’s our fault that he can’t stay out of the way. Maybe if he’d learn to dodge a little better…”
“Or duck,” Jax added, laughing and ducking himself when Max threw a pillow his way.




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Hi, and thank you so much for letting me stop in today and talk a bit about Jax and Danny’s story  as well as others currently in the works. I never intend to start writing something before I’ve finished the project I’ve been working on, but inevitably, it always seems to happen. I’ve given up on trying to push the new stories aside or ignore them and found it easier to just grab a fresh notebook and start writing them down. As …And All Shall Fade to Black was being wrapped up, along with Serpent’s Kiss which I was writing on at the same time, these two characters popped into my head, characters who, years ago, I’d shoved into a box and ignored. I couldn’t tell their story, it was too messed up, too convoluted and twisted and more than a little bit hotter than I usually write. So many steamy bits, and me way too shy to ever put those on paper, at least, the me of three years ago was. The me today, well, she just unpacked those old characters and the few hesitant scene between Gypsy and Rogue where it’s obvious to anyone who looks at them for just a moment that there is so much love, hope, want and raw desire between them to ever be silenced.

So before editing was through on …And All Shall Fade to Black, I was sliding into Gypsy’s Rogue, slowly discovering what made them tick. Unlike in …And All Shall Fade, where Jax and Danny are strangers to one another and have that newness to navigate along with issues and feelings, Gypsy and Rogue have known each other for number of years. Gypsy, in fact, was married to Rogue’s older brother, until Randy cheated on Gypsy, and Gypsy left, leaving Rogue to keep track of their (Gypsy is gender fluid and prefers them/they pronouns) whereabouts and pine  for them and what he felt could have been, if only…

In Gypsy’s Rogue, they have the chance to figure out the ‘if only’ and so much more, but only if the ghosts of the past can leave them alone long enough. While it’s a different kind of love story from …And All Shall Fade, it’s a love story just the same, and one I look forward to sharing more of soon. 


About the Author


LAYLA DORINE lives among the sprawling prairies of Midwestern America, in a house with more cats than people. She loves hiking, fishing, swimming, martial arts, camping out, photography, cooking, and dabbling with several artistic mediums. In addition, she loves to travel and visit museums, historic, and haunted places.

Layla got hooked on writing as a child, starting with poetry and then branching out, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Hard times, troubled times, the lives of her characters are never easy, but then what life is? The story is in the struggle, the journey, the triumphs and the falls. She writes about artists, musicians, loners, drifters, dreamers, hippies, bikers, truckers, hunters and all the other folks that she’s met and fallen in love with over the years. Sometimes she writes urban romance and sometimes its aliens crash landing near a roadside bar. When she isn’t writing, or wandering somewhere outdoors, she can often be found curled up with a good book and a kitty on her lap.

Layla Dorine can be found at: 




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