Andrew Q. Gordon

{Please note, the exclusive excerpt that Christopher provided for this stop on the tour was inadvertently left off, so if you’ve viewed the post when it was first posted, stop back and check out the excerpt.}

Blurb:

I thought life after high school would be easier. I’d go to California Pacific for a year while I got a handle on my HIV, then after Michael graduated from high school, we’d blast out of here for colleges—and life—on the East Coast. Then I visited Boston and everything changed. I realized I like CalPac. Turns out, Boston didn’t have anything for me beyond one of the biggest regattas in North America.

Life grew more complicated when I got home. I couldn’t find a way to tell Michael that I’d just blown our plan for our lives out of the water. Then my CalPac coaches dropped a bomb on me. Those rowing officials who’d been watching me? They were recruiters for the national team, and my coaches wanted me to try out. They’d even let Lodestone coach me. Now I have to choose, school or crew, CalPac or Michael, and I still haven’t told Michael I can’t transfer. Is there even a place for Michael in my life? Somehow we have to withstand training at the highest levels and having different goals. Will love hold us together… or tear us apart?

The Lives of Remy and Michael: Book Two – A CalPac Crew Story

Publisher: Harmony Ink Press

Publication Date: 22 Jan 2016

Cover Artist: Bree Archer

Excerpt:

When the four of us pulled into the dock at the end of our race, I discovered we had far more than Drew, Owen, and Marissa Lodestone rooting for us. Word had spread, and all of the CalPac and Cap City rowers had turned out to cheer for us, not only my JV teammates. It was pretty cool to realize that some of those people hanging off the Weeks Footbridge had belonged to people cheering on my boatmates and me. Owen told me that by the time we neared the finish line, we had quite the following, and not just people from our various teams, either.

“People like a good show,” Owen said, “and with those getups Drew put together—”

“Everybody loves a gay unicorn. Don’t deny it.” Drew smirked. “They’d better get points for them, too.”

“Good job, guys!” Lodestone congratulated us once the boat was derigged.

I wasn’t sure what to make of that. “We missed an automatic invitation to return next year by the skin of our teeth. We’re thrown back into the lottery.”

“Let me tell you something about that lottery,” Brad said. “It’s not nearly as random as they pretend it is. Where did we start? I mean, what was our bow number?”

I thought about it. “Thirtysomething?”

“Right,” Adam said, apparently picking up the job of cheering me up. “Where did we finish, Remy?”

“I don’t know, actually.”

Adam thought for a moment and then laughed. “I don’t, either. Owen, where did we finish?”

Owen checked his phone. “Unofficially, I think you finished eleventh.”

“So what that means,” Lodestone said, “is that we passed over twenty crews. That wasn’t three men at or over thirty, Remy. That was you. You may have killed our age handicap, but you more than made up for it. I can almost guarantee this boat will be coming back. Now we have to find a way to tell Hal he’s red.”

Drew leaned in close. “They’ve never advanced that far in the pack. Ever,” he said in a stage whisper.

“Ouch!” Brad clasped his hands over his chest like he’d taken an arrow to his heart.

“Oh cut it out, you big baby. You’re the one who explained age handicaps to me.” Drew sounded tough as nails, but I also saw him give Brad a tight hug and big kiss on his cheek moments later. All I could do was smile at that. I hoped Michael and I would be there someday.

Michael. Our plan. Talk about throwing water on the buzz. I’d avoided thinking too much about it, but BU wasn’t going to work. As much as I lived for crew, I couldn’t live on it, not really. Sure, there were professional rowing bums, and apparently a moving company in the area that hired rowers to facilitate the rowing bum lifestyle, but I needed more out of life. I needed not to think about that right now, not with another, arguably more important race tomorrow.

Then I looked up, and somehow there he was again, the UC Davis rower. I knew he wasn’t stalking me. The Davis trailer happened to be next to CalPac’s and Cap City’s, but I saw him again, the same good- looking fella at the UCD trailer, who saw me right back. He smiled and I? For some reason, I smiled in return.

“Good job,” he said. “That was fantastic to watch. But… are you a member of Cap City or do you row for CalPac?”

I laughed uneasily. “I rowed at Cap City for four years, but I go to CalPac now.”

“That’s cool.”

Then the clock started ticking. Someone had to say something. Or maybe it was just me.

“I… um, have to make a phone call.” I sounded lame to my own ears. Did he look disappointed? “I’ll see you later, I guess.”

I started walking away, but I made sure my “Hey, babe” when Michael picked up could be heard.

“What was that about?” he said.

“Someone from UCD is getting a little too friendly, and while I’m perfectly willing to be neighborly, there are limits.”

Author Bio:

Christopher Koehler learned to read late (or so his teachers thought) but never looked back. It was not, however, until he was nearly done with grad school in the history of science that he realized that he needed to spend his life writing and not on the publish-or-perish treadmill. At risk of being thought frivolous, he found that academic writing sucked all the fun out of putting pen to paper.

Christopher is also something of a hothouse flower. Inside of almost unreal conditions he thrives to set the results of his imagination free, and for most of his life he has been lucky enough to be surrounded by people who encouraged both that tendency and the writing. Chief among them is his long-suffering husband of twenty-two years and counting.

When it comes to writing, Christopher follows Anne Lamott’s advice: “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” So while he writes fiction, at times he ruthlessly mines his past for character traits and situations. Reality is far stranger than fiction.

Christopher loves many genres of fiction and nonfiction, but he’s especially fond of romances, because it is in them that human emotions and relations, at least most of the ones fit to be discussed publicly, are laid bare.

Writing is his passion and his life, but when Christopher is not doing that, he’s an at-home dad and oarsman with a slightly disturbing interest in manners and other ways people behave badly.

Visit him at http://christopherkoehler.net/blog

Follow him on Twitter @christopherink.

Tour links:

22 Jan – Dreamspinner Press Blog

23 Jan – Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words

26 Jan – BFD Book Blog

28 Jan – The Land of Make Believe

30 Jan – Prism Book Alliance

1 Feb – MM Good Book Reviews

3 Feb – JP Barnaby

6 Feb – The Novel Approach

9 Feb – The Purple Rose Teahouse

10 Feb – Diverse Reader

Buy links:

Dreamspinner eBook: 

Dreamspinner Print: 

Amazon US: 

Amazon UK: 

All Romance eBooks: 

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