Ralph Ashton gets more than he bargained for when police question him about the death of his ex-boyfriend: An LGBT Mystery by Thomas Grant Bruso Book Tour & Giveaway

 

 

SCARS AND SECRETS

Thomas Grant Bruso

 

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GENRE:  LGBT Mystery

 

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BLURB:

 

Ralph Ashton gets more than he bargained for when police question him about the death of his ex-boyfriend Elijah Ray, whose body is discovered at the edge of the Saranac River.

 

When the local police visit Ralph and ask him about a critical piece of case evidence, Ralph becomes a prime suspect. He sets out to learn what happened to Eli the night he left his apartment and is startled to learn about his former boyfriend’s shady past.

 

As Ralph pursues a dangerous investigation, he discovers things about Eli he did not know while they were together.

 

Ralph’s life starts to unravel when he loses more people close to him as his mother lies in a hospital bed dying of cancer. Is learning about the truth of Eli’s death worth jeopardizing his safety?

 

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EXCERPT 

I find it hard to hold Dr. Matheson’s gaze. Shyness overcomes me and I wring my hands. My anxiety levels heighten. My stare darts across the room at the sudden arrival of hard balls of sleet beating the glass and the braying wind cutting through the tops of snowcapped trees across the lake.

 

My breath catches, and I hear Dr. Matheson talking, his voice muffled, the tail end of his last words: “…do you want to talk about it?”

 

I cringe and feel his eyes on me when I turn away to the ice-crusted window on the far wall. My eyes close, and my lips clamp shut in a jagged line as rage seethes under my thin layer of vulnerability. My gut clutches.

 

“Ralph?” he says.

 

My name means nothing to me. Foreign, a stranger, someone I left in the past.

 

I lift my head slowly, and it is as if an unseen, supernatural force presses down on my shoulders, forcing me to keep quiet.

 

I am guarded as the walls go up around me. A nerve twitches under my right eye. Maddening!

 

Dr. Matheson shifts in his chair, and I sense that I have kept him waiting too long; his displeasure is like a bulldozer digging through the tendril of roots and dead zone of my brain, demolishing my thoughts. He’s got to get home to his girlfriend, wife, whoever. Maybe it’s a blind date, I imagine, invoking vulgar and naughty thoughts of Dr. Matheson in a heavy-duty threesome. One of the bottoms is me. I lift my dreamy gaze to his masculine, model-thin face, chiseled jaw, and rugged handsomeness. I can smell the citrus scent of his cologne ten feet from where I sit. Heat crawls into my face, aroused, my interest and other unmentionable areas proudly piqued.

 

I want a man like James: Built like a Greek God, Zeus or Ares. Tough. Striking. Dominant.

 

“What are you thinking about?” he asks, curling his small puckish lips. “You seem far away.”

 

Clingy cobwebs of darkness thicken inside my head, gauzy and wet, sticking to the wall of my brain like silly string. “Deadness,” I say, uncertain where this conversation is heading.

  

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

 

 

Thomas Grant Bruso knew he wanted to be a writer at an early age. He has been a voracious reader of genre fiction since childhood.

 

His literary inspirations are Ray Bradbury, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Jim Grimsley, Karin Fossum, and Joyce Carol Oates.

 

Bruso loves animals, reading books, and writing fiction, and prefers Sudoku to crossword puzzles.

 

In another life, he was a freelance writer and wrote for magazines and newspapers. In college, he won the Hermon H. Doh Sonnet Competition. Now, he writes and publishes fiction and reviews books for his hometown newspaper, The Press-Republican.

 

He lives in upstate New York.

 

 

Amazon buy link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DPJH61CD/ref=sr_1_9

 

Barnes & Noble buy link: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/scars-and-secrets-thomas-grant-bruso/1146630720

 

Publisher’s website buy link: https://ninestarpress.com/product/scars-and-secrets/

 

 

 

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GIVEAWAY 

 Thomas Grant Bruso will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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