Title: Fallen Angel
Series: The Angel of 13th Street 2
Author: Eden Winters
Publisher: Rocky Ridge Books
Release Date: 2/27/17
Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 63,000 words
Genre: Romance, Age difference, urban, rent boys, redemption,
second chances
Synopsis
Who can save the rescuer of lost souls?
For ten years ex-rent boy Noah Everett has
fought the good fight, offering second chances to those still in the life. Now
he’s cracking under the stress. What began as a two-man mission is now going
corporate, meaning rules, regulations and inexperienced volunteers needing
guidance in a field Noah makes up as he goes along. Who can he turn to when his
mentor’s strength is all but gone and his lover is leaving for college—possibly
for good?
Four years at State with a full ride
scholarship will launch Jeremy Kincaid’s future, but his present includes Noah,
Doc, and the closest he’s ever had to a family. And a meth addict who’s become
Jeremy’s own personal mission.
An attack sends Noah spinning out of control.
Jeremy has to find the way to reach Noah before the man he knows and loves
disappears forever.
Excerpt
Noah slammed a case of beer down in the cooler
and fished his ringing cell phone out of his pocket. Nobody called his personal
phone at this time of day without good reason. “Noah Everett.”
“Noah? Hey, man. It’s Chip.”
Noah emerged from the cooler, passed through
the bar and mouthed, “I’ll be back,” to Mary behind the bar. He stepped out the
back door of The Twelfth Street Bar and Grill and plunked down onto a dry spot
on the stoop. The rain had finally stopped, raising the humidity to sweltering
levels. If this call didn’t need privacy he’d have stayed in the cooler.
“Have you thought any more about what we
discussed?” Given the phone call, the caller probably had. Trouble was,
thinking alone didn’t seem to be getting them anywhere.
The casual, “Yeah,” didn’t bode well.
“And?” Fuck.
A long silence followed. “Well, my… my
boyfriend isn’t a bad man. I mean, he treats me good and stuff, it’s just that
I don’t like… I don’t like—”
“You don’t like him pimping you out to other
men,” Noah finished for Chip.
Inside his bar, sixty-seven notches decorated
a doorframe, signifying sixty-seven rent boys who’d left prostitution behind
and started over someplace else.
Had Doc Cook carved a notch somewhere when
he’d pulled Noah from the gutter, dusted him off, and pointed him in the right
direction?
What the hell made Chip stay with the user?
Noah should’ve notched him in at sixty-eight by now. Instead Chip sat on a
fence, dreaming of a better life and fooling himself into believing he could
have it here.
An exasperated huff sounded
in Noah’s ear. “Yeah. Things were cool until he started arranging dates for
me.”
Arranging dates? Noah ran his fingers through his short
hair and blew out a breath. Motherfucking pimps. More like pimples on the ass
of mankind.
Chip continued trying to talk himself out of
seeing reason. “I dunno, maybe he’ll stop. I mean, I know he loves me.”
Loves me? Chip had strange ideas of love. He
loves me, and we’re only doing this until we have enough money to go away and
have it be just us. Noah had said those same words to himself once.
But “us” never happened.
Empty promises had sustained him through
sleazy meetings that had started with come-ons and a handful of cash and ended
with Noah grateful when johns did him in a hotel room so he could scrub himself
raw after they left.
And some johns had scared the fuck out of him.
Chip would be a hot commodity in certain
markets. Cute, in an innocent, boy-next-door kind of way, easily influenced,
with an inborn willingness to please, and, worse yet, gullible, much as Noah
had been many years ago. Chip might as well hang a sign around his neck: “Use
me!” No way would the boyfriend give up such a low maintenance
source of cash.
Noah began pacing behind the building, boots
crunching against gravel. Every kid who called forced him to relive his own
past, his own fuck ups.
Damn it all to hell! Had the kid known so
little love in his life that he’d cling to a sick illusion?
“Do you actually believe he’ll stop?” Noah
kept because I sure as hell don’t to himself
More silence, a sigh, and then a rare scrap of
reality from Chip. “No.”
Noah forced his voice calm when he really
wanted to jump through the phone and fix the dumb kid’s life before it was too
late. “From what you’ve told me, your parents are out of the question, but how
about your grandparents? Or older brother?” Those were Noah’s first choices:
stick Chip on a bus and let others with a personal interest manage putting his
life back together. Second choice? Put him on a bus to a safe house; let those
better qualified handle the details.
This time, no uncertainly colored the adamant,
“No! Definitely not! I can’t go home.” More quietly Chip added, “But I’m not
sure how long I can stay here, either. He… he talked to a friend of his
yesterday.” Even through a telephone connection, Noah envisioned a shudder. “I
don’t wanna be in videos.”
Oh shit. Videos. Noah slammed his hand against
the wall. No!
“Charge extra for pictures, Noah,” Stevie had
said. Noah’s pimp didn’t want to miss a buck, and every time Noah flexed and stretched,
it was an easy extra that went straight into the pimp’s pocket.
Bad enough how Noah had made his living
without adding hard evidence. It was only a matter of time before Stevie sent
him to a studio.
Noah couldn’t go back in time and save his
eighteen-year-old self, but he could save Chip. If only the guy would listen.
Purchase
Rocky Ridge Books | Amazon
What’s in a Word?
Thank you for allowing me on your blog today to talk about
Fallen Angel (The Angel of 13th Street 2)
Those who are familiar with my beta work and critiquing
learned early on that I don’t really care for words like “walk”. What’s wrong
with walk, you ask? Nothing, really, it’s a perfectly acceptable word, just…
lazy. It doesn’t pull its weight or tell us much.
Yes, it tells that someone is going from point A to point B,
but one little word change can impart much more information.
Case in point: Noah Everett. In The Angel of 13th Street he
suffered a major leg injury, one that will hound him for the rest of his life.
But rather than repeat the tale in Fallen Angel, or retelling the event, I can
give a hint or reminder:
Noah shuffled.
Noah hobbled.
Noah limped.
Noah trudged.
Any of these choices brings to mind that Noah has a bad leg.
So “Noah shuffled across the floor” says more than “Noah walked across the
floor”, doesn’t it?
Now what if Noah sauntered? What if he strutted or
swaggered? One simple word fix changes the entire meaning. Now, instead of
appearing tired or hurt, Noah appears cocky or self-confident.
There are many other words that I avoid for the same reason,
“look”, “move” and many more. “Look” doesn’t say much, but “glared”,
“glowered”, “gazed”, “stared”, and “gawked” do.
I’ve taken out my wrath on other lazy verbs in posts tagged
“What’s In a Word” on my blog, Magnolias and Men.
And to find out more about Noah Everett, Jeremy Kincaid and
the other denizens of 13th Street, pick up your copy of The Angel of Thirteenth
Street and the sequel, Fallen Angel, today.
Run, skip, hop… anything but “walk.”
Meet the Author
You will know Eden Winters by her distinctive
white plumage and exuberant cry of “Hey, y’all!” in a Southern US drawl so
thick it renders even the simplest of words unrecognizable. Watch out, she
hugs!
Driven by insatiable curiosity, she possibly
holds the world’s record for curriculum changes to the point that she’s never
quite earned a degree but is a force to be reckoned with at Trivial Pursuit.
She’s trudged down hallways with police
detectives, learned to disarm knife-wielding bad guys, and witnessed the
correct way to blow doors off buildings. Her e-mail contains various snippets
of forensic wisdom, such as “What would a dead body left in a Mexican drug
tunnel look like after six months?” In the process of her adventures she has
written fourteen m/m romance novels, has won several Rainbow Awards, was a
Lambda Awards Finalist, and lives in terror of authorities showing up at her
door to question her Internet searches.
When not putting characters in dangerous
situations she’s a mild-mannered business executive, mother, grandmother,
vegetarian, and PFLAG activist.
Her natural habitats are airports, coffee
shops, and on the backs of motorcycles.
Tour
Schedule
Feb 27
- Books,Dreams,Life
Feb 28 - Love
Bytes
Mar 1 - Dean
Frech
Mar 3 - Wicked
Faerie's Tales and Reviews | Bayou Book Junkie
Mar 3 - Scattered
Thoughts and Rogue Minds
Giveaway
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