Hi everyone —

My friend Kc Burn is on the blog today with her new book Rainbow Blues. It sounds so great. Plus, she has a $10 GC for someone who comments, so be sure to give her some recs on books you love about ordinary people. Kc is one of my RWA “breakfast bunch”, so i’m lucky enough to get to hang out with her at least once a month. She’s as nice as she is talented! Here’s Kc–

Hello, hello! So glad to be back on Tara’s blog! And I’m here to say everyone deserves a romance and the love of their life – you know… assuming they want one.

Now, I love reading about rock stars, or super rich guys, or the most successful vampire hunter in the history of ever, or a werewolf alpha so badass prophets have foretold his arrival. All fun. But I also really love reading about regular people finding someone who is their other half. Someone who fits into the spaces of their lives like they were always meant to be there.

After all, I’m a regular person, and I found an awesome man who I’ve been with for over 20 years. Now, he might be the smartest guy I’ve ever met, but me? I’m pretty average all round, and I still found my happily ever after (plus a few grumbles about whose turn it is to get groceries and stuff like that).

Rainbow Blues, my newest release, focuses on normal guys. Luke is an unassuming construction manager, who is lonely and isn’t a fresh young man anymore. Since I’m only two years younger than Luke, I don’t necessarily think of him as old, but neither is he a buff young construction guy who we might see half-naked on calendars or in Facebook feeds. He’s divorced, unsure of himself, and doesn’t have many friends.

Jimmy, on the other hand, is good looking enough to have been handed a starring role in a movie, but he’s not a superstar. At heart, he’s like a lot of people I know, including myself. He works a day job that pays the bills and spends a ton of his free time working at something he’s passionate about. For me, that’s writing. For Jimmy, it’s acting.

These guys are just normal guys, living their lives, when they finally meet someone who fits, who complements the other, makes them stronger together than they are apart, and it’s bigger and shinier and better than simply finding someone who keeps the loneliness at bay.

So let’s have some recommendations… books you like with everyday people. People who aren’t necessarily at the pinnacle of their careers or the richest or most beautiful in the world. Books with people like you and me.  I have a $10 Amazon or All Romance eBooks gift certificate for one lucky commenter.

Rainbow Blues

Having come out late in life, forty-three-year-old Luke Jordan is at a loss about how to conduct himself as a gay man. As a construction manager, he’s not interested in being out at work, but he’d like to find a boyfriend or at least some gay friends. Two years after his wife got all their friends in the divorce, he’s no closer to the life he wants.

Zach, Luke’s adult son, takes charge and signs him up for the Rainbow Blues, a social group for gay blue-collar workers. At an event, he not only finds friends but meets Jimmy Alexander, part-time stage actor and full-time high school biology teacher. Jimmy loves the stage but wishes potential boyfriends weren’t so jealous of the time he devotes to it. When he meets Luke and finds him accepting of his many facets, he thinks it’s a dream come true.

Their relationship quickly moves into serious territory, but their connection is tested to its breaking point by the offer of a juicy movie role that takes Jimmy to the opposite coast and into the path of a very sexy costar.

Excerpt:

Luke Jordan opened the door to his apartment and walked in, slinging his keys on the counter. The door slammed shut behind him, echoing in the empty silence. He hung up his heavy winter jacket and ditched his work boots in the rubber tray by the entrance.

As he did every day, he stripped off his dirty, sweaty clothes and popped them in the washing machine. His apartment might be small and shoddy and located in an area of questionable safety, but it had a washer and dryer that he loved. His affection for his washing machine and the way it allowed him to avoid the Laundromat possibly bordered on unnatural, but then again, his social life was sorely lacking, aside from weekly visits from his son. His relationship with his washer and dryer was an unholy trinity that might be the best relationship he’d had since his divorce.

A quick peek into the machine told him he could wait another day or two before it was full enough to run. Naked, he strode into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

With a groan, he stepped under the steaming spray and stood there for a few minutes, letting the heat and the pattering of the water ease the muscles bunched and knotted under his skin. Every day, it seemed, the weight on his shoulders got heavier, and he didn’t know if the tension would ever go away.

He slicked soap over his skin by rote. His soapy hands slid down to his groin, but after a few halfhearted tugs, he sighed. He was only forty-three. Life shouldn’t make him so weary he couldn’t even be bothered to masturbate. Should it?

Without any other detours, he cleaned up quick, got out of the shower, and walked the short distance to his bedroom. The drawer on his dresser stuck, and he rattled the handle to get it to slide free. The thing was a piece of shit, bought on clearance from Walmart… or Target…. Sears? He didn’t recall. Furnishing his apartment after the divorce had been a necessity, but not a memorable one. He should have spent more. It wouldn’t have put too big a dent in his bank account, but at the time he hadn’t seen the point. And now, it seemed a waste to replace his almost serviceable furniture for something better. No amount of fancy furniture would turn his apartment into anything other than a squat concrete bunker. No decor could disguise the bleakness of his life.

He pulled on a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt before slouching back into the kitchen. He opened the freezer door and eyed his selection of cardboard boxes masquerading as meals. Once upon a time he’d cooked regularly for his tiny family of three. But the effort of cooking was too much for just himself.

After selecting Salisbury steak—again—he slung it in the microwave and grabbed a beer from the fridge. One a day was all he allowed himself. At least while he was alone. Bleak was one thing. Drinking himself into a weeknight stupor was a whole different story.

A few minutes later, his “gourmet” dinner was ready, and he placed it on the coffee table in front of the couch. With a practiced hand, he flipped on the television. NCIS reruns first, then at eight there were other things on. Nothing new, unfortunately. This close to Christmas, everything was on hiatus.

He didn’t even have to check the guide to know when to change to which channel. Was this what he had to look forward to for the next forty years, or however long he had left? Appetite gone, he shoved his half-eaten meal away and laid his head back on the couch. Was this all there was for him? Could he put up with this… monotony for the tiny weekly bright spot of Zach’s visits?

The divorce had seemed like such a good idea. He and Kelly had been growing apart for years. Hell, they probably should never have gotten married in the first place, but with Zach on the way, and both he and Kelly still teenagers, it seemed the thing to do. He and Kelly were still friendly, but she’d been the social one of the pair of them. Once they’d split, Luke discovered most of their friends were her friends, but since their separation had been completely amicable, he hadn’t noticed the loss. Not until Kelly married and got pregnant in short order. Her new husband had been a widower with two kids under ten, and Kelly’s whole life changed. Suddenly, Luke’s entire social network, however peripheral he’d been in it, was gone. And he didn’t know how to build a new one.

Available at Dreamspinner Press: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=5102

KC Burn has been writing for as long as she can remember and is a sucker for happy endings (of all kinds). She edits web content by day and neglects her supportive hubby and needy cat at night to write stories about men loving men in the past, present, and future.

Visit KC at her website: www.kcburn.com, on Twitter: @authorkcburn or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kcburn