Spring Has Arrived and So Have Four Men

A new book is here for your reading pleasure, and this one is a bit of a departure from my usual fare. If you're subscribed to the newsletter, you've already heard some about it, but for everyone else, here's the breakdown. 

"Wicked Hunger, Iron Law" is told from the points of view of three characters all embittered by, and wanting escape from, a fire an brimstone cult in which they have spent most of their lives. 

Adrien is studying to become a Druid (a faith healer and leader in the community), but finds himself instead developing a sexual relationship with a married man twice his age under the pretense of studying for the role. After the relationship almost collapses, Adrien tries to shut off his feelings for his lover, a task that becomes increasingly difficult and leads him to take more and more dangerous risks. He doesn't want to be a dirty, little secret any longer, but his lover refuses to come out. 

Luke's parents were the only people in their families to convert to the faith, and he grew up largely in isolation from the outside world, but when he senses the Wicked One's touch on him, he is faced with impossible choices that may come to define the trajectory of his life. He can turn himself over to the Pathfinders, take a vow of celebacy and dedicate his life to finding and apprehending other people like him; he can marry a woman in the coming years whom he knows he cannot love nor feel any carnal desires for; or he can leave, be free to live his life as he pleases, but lose his connections both to the faith and his parents. 

Oliver has already taken the first steps toward leaving. He has a part time job serving drinks at a theater in the Red Light District, and keeps a room in a cheap motel in the same part of town. But leaving means making uncomfortable sacrifices. If he chooses to live as an open homosexual, the faith will certainly shun him. He knows his mother will not see things through his eyes, that she will give him up for her faith, believing he has been afflicted with a trickster god's poison; and the thought of leaving his siblings behind makes him feel like a monster...like his father. When he crosses paths with a boy he's interested in at dance practice, ahead of the coming Soul Fire Festival, his uncertainty over leaving faces renewed complications. Though he wants to slow down and pursue this fledgling romance, he knows the longer he waits, the harder leaving will become; and being discovered by the Pathfinders may derail his plans indefinitely, because they will never let him leave. 

The ebook is available via the Kindle Store, and it is enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited program. Paperbacks are in the works, as well.