Fill up your e-reader with the LGBTQ+ books you love!

 

Today’s the day! If you love #LGBTQ+ fiction, head over to https://queeryourbookshelf.com, stock up, and save yourself a bundle! Each and every one of the 400+ titles listed is just 99 cents at all outlets!

I’m offering two books as part of the event, one lesbian (The Witches of Gloucester) and one gay (At the Margins of Madness). Both have paranormal themes. You can find an exclusive excerpt from the former in my Monday post, and a bit from the latter below.

Blurb

Both power and love can lead to madness

Nineteen year old Kyle has devastating visions of horrific disasters. Everyone assumes Kyle is schizophrenic, but Rob, the cop who picks him up off the street, knows better. Since his telepathic sister's brutal murder, Rob wants nothing to do with "gifted" individuals like Kyle. Yet he can't deny his attraction to the beautiful, tortured young man -- an attraction that appears to be mutual.

Excerpt

Kyle’s mouth was so dry he couldn’t swallow. His ears rang. Ants crawled under his skin, creating an internal itch impossible to relieve. He recognized the side effects of Thorazine. Must have been a heavy dose. He groped through a fog, straining for consciousness. Anything was better than the smothering lethargy the drug produced.

He risked opening his eyes. A yellow halo surrounded the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling. The brightness made him squint. It was all familiar.

He didn’t remember checking himself in. He didn’t remember anything, really, after leaving Rob’s apartment. His chest ached at that memory. He’d been so naïve, imagining that Rob might be different. That he might actually care.

Despair closed in around him. I wish I’d never woken up, Kyle mused. I wish this was all over. He closed his eyes again, willing the blackness to swallow him, but his mind remained stubbornly aware.

“Kyle? Can you hear me?” That voice, soft but strong. What was he doing here?

Kyle turned his head, fighting the drug-fuelled tightness in his neck muscles. It was déjà vu. Once again, the sandy-haired cop sat at his bedside, fidgeting with his cap, his face sombre and worried. A tiny flicker of hope kindled in Kyle’s heart. He extinguished it immediately.

“Go away.” He rolled to his side, turning his back on the blue-clad figure.

“Please, Kyle. Listen to me. I’m so sorry. Really, I was so stupid…”

Resolute, Kyle closed his ears to Rob’s pleas. No one is going to hurt me again. Especially not you. He thought about razor blades and rat poison. Alcohol was too slow. He’d do what was necessary to escape from the madness, to spare himself—and Rob—any more pain.

An image of gleaming steel fluttered through his mind. Gradually the scene returned, the terrible vision that had sent him screaming into blind insanity. Enough of the drug lingered in his system that he could inspect his recollections impassively. The vivid and disturbing premonition had been atypical, a waking fit in which he personally experienced the predicted horrors. The patterns of his madness seemed to be shifting. What did it mean?

All at once, he remembered the images he had seen when he first met Rob, the pulse-pounding blow job, the joy of being on his knees serving the powerful older man. That dream had come true, at least in spirit. Saliva gathered in his parched mouth as he recalled the weight of Rob’s cock on his tongue, the solid force of the other man’s thrusts, the sharp flavor of his ejaculate.

Rob’s hand clasped his shoulder. Kyle’s cock stirred, defying the deadening effects of the medication.

“Forgive me, Kyle. Please. Look at me, baby.”

It was the endearment that did it, cracked Kyle open and let the pain and desire flow in. He allowed Rob to roll him onto his back. He gazed up into the cop’s sky-blue eyes, tears gathering in his own.

“Rob…” he began.

“I know. I know. I’m an idiot. I tried to push you away. I lied to you. Tell me that you forgive me. That you’ll give me another chance to be with you. To take care of you.”

“Why?” Kyle struggled to raise himself to a sitting position. Rob grabbed the thin pillow and tried to help. Kyle noticed the straps hanging from the chrome rails. Restraints. He must have been really crazy. “Didn’t you want me? We were so good together.”

“I was afraid.” Rob sat back in his chair, staring at his shoes. “Afraid of your powers.”

“Powers? You mean my visions?” Kyle had a hard time imagining the tough cop being afraid of anything.

Rob nodded. “I have to tell you the truth, Kyle. About the train. The Holden force found a kid on the tracks with a badly broken leg.”

“Just like in my vision.” Kyle took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “And they saved him?”

“Of course. The next train was at midnight. If I hadn’t called when you asked me…”

“But you did call.”

Rob half-grinned. “I couldn’t resist you.”

The pressure in Kyle’s chest lessened. “It didn’t happen. I saw it, the disaster, but you changed the future.”

“We did. That wasn’t the first time, either.”

“What?”

“When I picked you, just before you blacked out, you whispered an address.”

“Yeah, I remember. I saw it scrawled on a wall.”

“I sent a man over, thinking it might be your place. He smelled smoke. There was a fire starting on the roof. They put it out before it could spread.”

“Oh my God… That’s wonderful!” Kyle wanted to jump out of bed and give Rob a hug, but his limbs weren’t quite up to that yet. He settled for squeezing the other man’s arm. The brief touch hardened him further. “It’s great! Why were you afraid? Seems like between the two of us, we’ve managed what I could never do by myself.”

Find buy links for this book at: https://www.lisabetsarai.com/marginsofmadnessbook.html

Links for The Witches of Gloucester are here: https://www.lisabetsarai.com/witchesofgloucesterbook.html