GUEST AUTHOR: An interview with Brad Vance

Brad Vance released a new book, Have a Little Faith in Me, on 28th January. Isn’t the cover gorgeous! Today I’ve been lucky enough to have Brad visit and answer some questions. Check out the interview and don’t forget to enter the giveaway.

young man imagine by laying on the sofa

Blurb

When Rocky met Dex, it was hate at first sight. Country superstar Dex Dexter represented everything that budding rock star Rocky McCoy had left behind him in the Deep South – the religion, the homophobia, the hypocrisy, the lies. And Rocky represented everything that Dex had denied, had turned away from, had refused…

When Rocky met Dex, it was love at first touch. Double booked in the same slot on the main stage at CrossFest, they fought for the microphone like two dogs fighting over a bone. And when their hands met…

Rocky has had enough. “No more falling for straight guys. No way. No matter how hot. Especially if the ‘straight guy’ looks to me like a major closet case.”

Dex has had enough. “No way. I can’t be gay. I can’t lose my family, my friends, my career. I can’t.”

What they’ve had enough of doesn’t matter. It’s what they’ve never had enough of that will bring them together…

Young male fashion model posing outdoors against rustic background

Interview

Brad Vance is on tour and today he’s joining me to answer a few questions. Welcome, Brad. 🙂

Thank you! Great to be here.

Firstly congratulations on the new release. The book sounds fabulous and I can’t wait to read it. I have a soft spot for stories with musicians. Did you set out to write a story featuring musicians or was that secondary to other aspects of the characters and plot?

Brad: Thanks! It started out as an idea for a series of erotic “rock star shorts.” I’d intended to just cash in on the trend, but then I read a bunch of the existing stories. And I was frustrated with how little they actually dealt with what it felt like to be a musician, an artist, what it’s like to form a band, to create a song, what you feel when you perform a great song. And then Rocky and Dex started telling me their backstories, their childhoods and everything that made them who they are now, which instantly meant they’d be characters in a novel instead.

Rocky or Dex? Does one of the characters have a special place in your heart?

Brad: Oh, man. I love them both. I really identify with Rocky and his blinding rage at religion. All my life, religion has told me that I deserve to die of AIDS, that I wasn’t capable of love, that civil rights weren’t applicable to someone who’d “chosen” to be gay. I’m not a preacher’s son myself, but I can see how that would double the anger if you grew up in an anti-gay household and turned out gay yourself.

And I love Dex because he’s a good guy – he sacrifices a lot after Hurricane Katrina wipes out Biloxi, to help his family, to keep them from starving. He’s smart and he has a big heart and of course he’s smokin’ hot in that backwoods country-dude way that I have a weakness for. I’d say it’s more likely that I’d be Rocky, but I’d want to have Dex!

I love the idea of the contrast of hate-at-first-sight/love-at-first touch, and how one encounter can elicit such strong feelings. Can you share any secrets of how these boys feel about each other?

Brad: That “first touch” thing is something I know myself. Sometimes you go so long without touching another person, especially another man, and then some cute guy at a counter gives you your change, and your hands meet, and you’re just totally aware of how warm and soft and vital his skin is… Just that tiniest patch of skin-to-skin contact can make me shudder sometimes.

And I’m a big believer in pheromones – that some people are compatible on a chemical level that expresses itself instantly with that first touch. And when that touch leads to the kind of eye contact where you just look at that person and instantly decide, I KNOW YOU, well then you’re truly lost!

Rocky and Dex both have a lot of frustration, a lot of anger issues, a lot of family shit, which in the end makes them more compatible, because they understand each other’s histories. They’re both from the Deep South, they’re both gay, they’ve both been raised in this oppressive religious environment. They’re both artists, they’re…well shit, they’re perfect for each other. The only big difference is that Rocky’s a bottom and Dex is a top – which is the one difference you want in a relationship, in my mind!

Country music or rock music? What are you currently listening to on your iPod?

Brad: Rock all the way! Some alt-country but that’s an outlier in my playlist. Right now I’m big on the Decemberists’ new album, The War on Drugs, Mac Demarco, Diiv, the new Spoon album, Toro Y Moi, The Walkmen’s album “Heaven.”

Can you share an interesting fact your readers may not know about you?

Brad: Hmm. In my previous life, under my real name, I wrote novels that were published by mainstream publishers. I always chafed at how long they took to do anything (read, edit, copyedit), how little control I had over titles, covers and blurbs, how very, very long it took to get paid, how they expected you to write exactly X number of words for a book (which is why so many books feel padded out)… But at that time “self publishing” only meant vanity presses. I love having 100% total control over everything I do now!

Excerpt

Rocky picked up the Gibson Hummingbird. Chris Cornell played one of these. What more did he need to know?

He knew exactly what he wanted to play. How many times had he played this song, how many times had he stretched his voice, discovering his own vocal range. The notes of “Like a Stone” flowed from his fingers in a waterfall, and the words were a flock of birds banking wildly in front of the cascade, flirting with disaster.

He came to the end, the roaring finish, his eyes closed as he sang the epic wave of notes in the last word of the song, “alone.”

He’d only ever played the song when he was alone with Korey, who was no cheerleader. Korey would nod, say, “Good job.” And then tell him where he missed something.

When he was done, he opened his eyes. His new friends were speechless. “Was it okay?” he asked doubtfully.

“Holy fucking great mother of God,” Rick gasped. “Who the fuck are you? Where did you come from?”

Rocky smiled. “Under a rock. I’ve been living under a rock.”

Buy Link

Kindle Select exclusive

Giveaway

Rafflecopter Prize: 3 copies of the E-book

Click the image or click here to enter the Rafflecopter

Special Announcement

“The Worst Best Luck” was selected for a BookBub on February 19/20 – it’ll be FREE on Amazon those days, and has a 10k excerpt from “Have a Little Faith in Me” at the end.

Peter Rabe’s luck is about to change. Taking a co-worker’s car into the shop nets him a desperately needed $100 tip…and the attentions of Matt Kensington, master mechanic. Peter can’t believe that someone as hot as Matt could be interested in the young man his tormentors used to call “Peter Rabbit.” But, incredibly enough, he is. And when the Quadrillions lottery jackpot is up to $700,000,000, wouldn’t it be crazy of Peter not to buy a ticket on his lucky day? Matt doesn’t think much of money, having grown up on New York’s Upper East Side in the lap of luxury. He’d walked away from the professional drudgery his Harvard degree had qualified him for, to become a mechanic, to touch things that were real, to fix things that were broken. And a hot shy guy like Peter is another machine Matt wants to believe he can fix. But when Peter finds out he’s won the lottery, it almost feels like his luck has run out. Especially when Cody Burrell, his emotionally abusive ex-boyfriend, mysteriously re-enters his life just before he cashes the ticket and reveals his good fortune to the world… Peter must wrestle with the pressures of wealth on someone who’s grown up poor, the pressure of fame that comes with so much instant fortune, and most of all, with his own demons, the demons that Cody knows all too well how to manipulate.

Amazon – Make sure you check the price is showing as $0.00 before hitting the buy button.

About the author

Brad Vance writes gay romance, erotica and paranormal stories and novels, including the breakout hits “A Little Too Broken” and “Given the Circumstances.”

Where to find the author:

Keep up with Brad at BradVanceErotica.wordpress.com, email him at BradVanceErotica@gmail.com, and friend him on Facebook at facebook.com/brad.vance.10.

BVRC