Kim, thank you very much for having
me on your blog! I'm excited to share my new release Too Good To Be True?,
which is a sequel to Seizing It, with you and your readers. It
released on February 27th.
Too Good To Be True? is an m/m contemporary romance story. The main
characters are Kit (Nikita) Hall and Dale Miller. They've met and fallen in
love three months ago. Kit works as a receptionist in a veterinary clinic and
in addition is a freelancer (translations). Dale Miller is a veterinarian and
Kit's new boss. Kit is also epileptic. So, let's talk a bit about the term
epilepsy.
Epilepsy is a chronic neurological
disordered that is characterized by seizures. There are different types of
seizures. The best-known types are called gran mal seizures. The person's
muscles contract and relax rapidly, causing convulsions. There's always the
danger for the epileptic to break something because they don't have any control
about their extremities at all, which usually results in a fall. During a gran mal seizure the person
may have trouble breathing or lose control over their bladder. After such a
seizure the person normally sleeps (for how long depends on the individual).
Upon waking up they are often confused or suffer from amnesia but these wear
off when the person regains consciousness completely.
Some people experience something
called an aura before a gran mal seizure. This aura may include various
symptoms, for example: dizziness, hallucinations, unusual emotions, altered
vision or hearing. An aura may only last a few minutes but can take up to
several hours.
Then we have petite mal seizures or
more commonly named absence seizures. These seizures are characterized by a
sudden lapse of consciousness. Often they are not visible for a bystander as
they only last seconds and can be misinterpreted as disinterest. Absence
seizures are nonetheless dangerous because even several seconds of
unconsciousness can result in an accident.
Epilepsy cannot be cured but it can
be controlled with medication. However, there's a high percentage of people who
are not able to control their seizures.
Kit Hall has suffered from epilepsy
his whole life long. After he broke up with his lover Hutch, Kit did everything
he could to stay seizure-free. He was successful and even able to get his driver's
license, which had been a huge success for him. In Too Good To Be True? Kit's
epilepsy is taking a turn for the worse, and he's not coping well with it.
He lashes out at Dale, who is doing
his best to help Kit in any way he can. Kit is a stubborn character and doesn't
like to depend on anyone—which he often makes clear with inappropriate and
sometimes even hurtful behavior and comments. He doesn't want to be reduced to
be “the epileptic” and fights it with all his might.
Will Dale's patience snap? Find out
in:
Sequel to
Seizing It
Blurb:
Three months after Kit falls in
love with Dale, his epilepsy takes a turn for the worse and his nightmares and
flashbacks about his abusive ex intensify. His work at the veterinary clinic
and as a freelance translator only adds to the stress. As Kit's life flies out
of his control, his last tether of sanity frays as Dale grows frustrated with
Kit's stubborn independence.
Dale wants to be Kit's rock—to step
in to help—but the walls Kit builds may be too hard to break through.
Excerpt
from Chapter Three:
Two strong hands gripped my shoulders
before I had a chance of stomping away. I groaned loudly. “Get the fuck—”
“It’ll be okay, I’m here.”
I was about to ask him what the hell
he was talking about when my world suddenly tilted on its axis. I found myself
on the floor on my side with a sofa cushion quickly placed under my head. My
eyes widened when it dawned on me what was going to happen. A whimper escaped
my mouth, followed by, “Not a seizure. I don’t want to—”
I broke off midsentence. My whole
body spasmed and jerked, my last coherent thought being that this was going to
be a big one.
I was right with my prediction. When
I woke up shortly for the first time, the first thing I became aware of was the
sharp smell of vomit. I coughed and choked, the nausea leaving me reeling from
its intensity.
“Hey, welcome back,” Dale whispered
in my ear.
“Sick,” I croaked, while willing my
stomach to quit churning.
My body moved on its own, eliciting
a surprised yelp from me. The movement stopped immediately, and Dale said, “I’m
just moving you a bit so you’re not lying in your puke. I’ll get a washcloth.
Don’t move, okay?”
Move? I couldn’t even pry my eyes
open, which wasn’t that bad because I had at least a chance to keep the tears
from running freely.
“Kit? Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
One of Dale’s hands lifted my head
while the other one pushed something aside. Something else was placed
underneath my head, from a feel of it, another cushion. The first cushion had
probably been soiled by me. Embarrassed, I sniffed.
“Don’t, kitten,” Dale said before he
pressed his lips firmly against my right temple. Then he was gone.
I busied myself with struggling
against new waves of nausea and holding back tears of utter humiliation.
“Kit,” Dale sighed when he came
back.
He swiped a warm washcloth over my
mouth and face, cleaning me up in his usual gentle manner.
Dale kissed my cheeks, no matter how
hard I tried to pull my head away. How could he even stomach to be so close to
me? My breath had to reek, and kissing this pathetic, sniffling mess on the floor
surely couldn’t be high on his to-do list.
“Kit! Stop it! I’m not going
anywhere. I love you. A seizure doesn’t change that.”
Sooner or later he would change his
mind, I was sure of it. He was supposed to be my lover, not my caretaker.
“Kit, please calm down.”
That was easy for him to say. He
wasn’t the one feeling sick like a dog and embarrassed beyond belief. There was
also the fact that my body still felt weird, as if it wasn’t through with
whatever it did when it decided to seize.
I became aware of my hands clenching
to fists and my arm muscles contracting symmetrically. “No,” I whispered, “no,
no, no.”
My muscles suddenly spasmed, and I
heard myself panting and Dale exclaiming, “Oh hell!” before unconsciousness
claimed me again.
Chris
T. Kat
Chris T. Kat lives in the middle of
Europe, where she shares a house with her husband of many years and their two
children. She stumbled upon the M/M genre by luck and was swiftly drawn into
it. She divides her time between work, her family—which includes chasing after
escaping horses and lugging around huge instruments such as a harp—and writing.
She enjoys a variety of genres, such as mystery/suspense, paranormal, and
romance. If there's any spare time, she happily reads for hours, listens to
audiobooks or does cross stitch.
Links:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ChrisTKat
DSP author page: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/index.php?cPath=605
Okay, so I am so NOT stalking you, not at all, nope, okay so maybe a little, but I do like to see the thought behind the book. And while I suppose that was possible in pre-internet days, now the author spends a LOT more time talking about the books, so that's kinda cool as a reader - as an author it's a big time suck, but we so don't need to go there. Sigh, more to add to my seemingly endless to read list. I really might need to get sick or something just to catch up. :P
ReplyDeletecongrats again
AQG
LOL I can live with you stalking me a little bit since I do the same with you. ;-)
DeleteI really liked to write this guest post. Not every form of epilepsy is the same and everyone copes with it differently but I've seen too many kids and adults have seizures and people turn their backs to them in disgust, so this is an important topic for me.
Thanks a lot for stopping by, Andy!