Blood and Tears by Ethan Stone Blog Tour, Excerpt, Review & Giveaway!

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Thank you for joining me in the sixth and final stop on the Blood & Tears blog tour. Today I’m sharing an excerpt from the beginning of the book. I chose it because it shows the adversarial relationship between Gabe and Drew, especially how Gabe likes to push Drew’s buttons. It starts here, but it continues and becomes a positively combustible relationship.

Enjoy and make sure to leave a comment. I’ll choose one person to win an ebook copy of Blood & Tears. Even if you’ve read it before you should read it again. So much has changed that I consider it a brand new book.

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Blood and Tears

Flesh 03
by

Ethan Stone

2nd Edition

The last thing Gabe Vargas wants to do after nearly dying is to leave his young son. But that’s exactly what FBI Agent Drew Bradley is asking him to do. According to Drew, the only way to protect Gabe and find his wife’s killer is to fake Gabe’s death.

With an already established adversarial relationship, protecting a hothead like Gabe isn’t exactly a picnic for Drew either. But Drew lets his guard down and a desire for Gabe leaves him confused. Before the crime can be solved, Drew will have to risk more than his life. He’ll also have to risk his heart.

1st Edition published by Dreamspinner Press, July 2011.

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Excerpt

Gabe

DAMN, THE pain was intense. The knife sliced into my skin, cutting and stabbing. The nauseous sensation of panic and loss and ache consumed me.

Swinging my arms wildly, I tried to fight off my attacker. Why couldn’t I see him? Why couldn’t I remember anything from that night? I wanted the memories, not the hurt associated with them.

Strong arms held me down as he yelled my name.

“Gabriel! Wake up. You’re dreaming.” He shook me.

Waking from the nightmare took effort, but I finally opened my eyes and ended the vision. Drew released me and regarded me with wide eyes.

Sitting up in bed, I wiped the sweat from my brow.

“You okay?” Drew asked.

“Yeah, fuckin’ peachy.”

“I know it’s difficult, Gabriel. I’m just trying to help.”

“You got no fuckin’ idea what’s going on in my head, man. And there ain’t a goddamn thing you can do to help me.”

He sat on the side of my bed. “Did you remember anything?”

“Nothing new.” I threw the blankets back, swung my feet to the floor, and put my face in my hands.

It had been four long weeks for both of us. We’d left Reno for Santa Cruz as soon as I was able to travel. Drew’s job was to keep me safe, and I knew his past failure at this task loomed in the back of his mind. My only job was to remember the face of the person who’d attacked me. If the nightmares and lack of memories weren’t enough, faking my death and not being able to say good-bye to Victor and Cristian kept me up at night.

“So what do you need me to do?”

“I need you to die.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Bradley?”

“It’s imperative that everyone, especially your attacker, thinks you’re dead.”

“So you’re gonna fake my death?”

Drew nodded.            

“What about Victor?”

“It’s too dangerous to take him with us,” Drew replied.

“You want to trick my son into thinking I’m dead?”

“I don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s the only way.”

I hated the plan but didn’t see an alternative. Afterward an FBI doctor injected me with a drug that lowered my heart rate so I appeared dead. Drew never gave me the details of how he got me out of the hospital and into the temporary safe house. After I regained consciousness, we spent a couple of days making sure I was stable before heading to Santa Cruz. On the morning we left, I caught sight of the local paper that had been left on the kitchen table.

It was eerie reading your own obituary, imagining your family and friends mourning at your funeral.

Finding the attacker hinged on the return of my memory, but in the month we’d been in Santa Cruz, I hadn’t recalled anything useful. Memories from that entire night remained hidden deep in my subconscious. When I wasn’t having nightmares about the attack, I was dreaming of being at my own funeral service and hearing Victor crying for his papi.” At this point I didn’t know which nightmare was worse.

I stood and shuffled past Drew.

“Jeez, Gabriel, why’re you walking in front of me when you’re nude?”

“Hey, this is my bedroom, and I sleep in the raw. Don’t be so uptight. You act like you’ve never seen a naked guy before.”

“It’s certainly not something I do on a regular basis.”

His voice was quiet, and when I glanced at him, he was blushing. I shuffled into the attached bathroom, splashed water on my face, then turned and pissed.

“Couldn’t you have shut the door before you urinated?” Drew asked when I came out.

“Again, this is my bedroom and my bathroom.”

“I don’t know how you can be so comfortable being naked and performing bodily functions in the presence of another man.”

“Damn, you talk like such a tight ass.” I winked at him. “That might be an appropriate description. I bet you have a tight ass.”

Drew flushed bright red, and I chuckled. I grabbed a pair of pajama pants, quickly slipped them on, and went into the living room. I flopped down on the brown leather couch. Drew was right behind me and sat on the opposite side. I turned on the television and flipped through the channels. I settled on Brokeback Mountain and watched Drew for a reaction.

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About Ethan

Ethan Stone Avatar_ES 300X300Ethan Stone is an out and proud gay man. Which is fairly new in his life, the out part, not the gay part. He’s been queer his whole life, though he tried to deny it for years with a wonderful woman. The years in denial weren’t all bad, he has two amazing kids out of it. His son is a teenager and his daughter has made him a grandfather, three times over. A way too young grandfather.

Ethan has returned to Oregon after almost a decade in Nevada. He no longer has a day job and is doing his best to make a living at this writing thing. If he can’t make a living, he at least wants to support his Mt. Dew and beef jerky addictions.

Readers can find Ethan online.

AUTHOR LINKS:

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Giveaway!

Win an ebook copy of Blood & Tears!

(Just leave a comment on this post)

Review

Ethan Stone - Flesh 03 - Blood and Tears Cover FinalTitle: Blood and Tears (2nd Edition)

Series: Flesh 03

Author: Ethan Stone

Genre: Mystery, Suspense

Length: Novel (244pgs)

ISBN: 978-1-63476-105-5

Publisher: DSP Publications (11th August 2015)

Heat Level: Explicit

Heart Rating:  ♥♥♥♥♥ 4 ½ Hearts

Reviewer: Pixie

Blurb: The last thing Gabe Vargas wants to do after nearly dying is to leave his young son. But that’s exactly what FBI Agent Drew Bradley is asking him to do. According to Drew, the only way to protect Gabe and find his wife’s killer is to fake Gabe’s death.

With an already established adversarial relationship, protecting a hothead like Gabe isn’t exactly a picnic for Drew either. But Drew lets his guard down and a desire for Gabe leaves him confused. Before the crime can be solved, Drew will have to risk more than his life. He’ll also have to risk his heart.

1st Edition published by Dreamspinner Press, July 2011.

Purchase Link: https://www.dsppublications.com/books/blood-tears-by-ethan-stone-128-b

Review: This story is part of a series and must be read in order. This story is the 2nd edition and the story has been re-written slightly, it has gone from 3rd person POV to 1st person POV but other than some minor scene extension the storyline mainly remains the same.

 Wow! Ethan Stone you have done it again!! You have brought us yet another incredible suspense/mystery.

We start this one with Gabe in hospital after being nearly killed in an attack that saw Violet brutally murdered.  Gabe has to go into hiding with the FBI agent that he blames for the death of Casey (his male lover), Agent Drew Bradley.  As these two spend time together their feelings change into attraction.  Drew is horrified because even though he has nothing against gays he himself cannot be gay.  Gabe is determined to see what can happen between them, while Drew denies the attraction.

I wasn’t sure how I felt at first about Drew going from very straight to being gay but this author handled it brilliantly, you can feel Drew’s confusion and guilt over feeling something for a man especially when he was *taught* (insert *screamed at*) that it is a sin and the struggle as he works through what he is comfortable doing with Gabe.

Gabe is brilliant as he works through his guilt over Violet’s death and his attraction to Drew; he is also an incredible father to Victor balancing what he feels for Drew and what Victor needs. The suspense is thrilling and gripping, just who did attack Gabe and Violet and why? We also see Cristian Flesh and Colby Maddox return, as ghosts from the past emerge and try to destroy both Cristian and Gabe.

If you love brilliant, gripping, suspense, mystery, brainwashing and hot man on man sex this is definitely the book for you. P.S. There’s a fantastic exclusive excerpt from the next book Closing Ranks for us to enjoy!

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Check out the other blogs on the blog tour

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11 thoughts on “Blood and Tears by Ethan Stone Blog Tour, Excerpt, Review & Giveaway!

  1. Love the excerpt and i enjoyed the blog stops, it was nice to get some background info on the characters and the book. Thanks for this post and the giveaway chance 🙂

    ahpg(at)ziggo(dot)nl

  2. I really enjoyed this post and Blood and Tears is definitely a book I’m interested in reading. Thanks for the info that was shared today as well as a chance in the giveaway. 🙂

    flutterfli01 (at) yahoo (dot) com

  3. Thank you for the excerpt and review. This sounds like a great series.
    jczlapin(at)gmail(dot)com

  4. I love the interactions & dialogue between Ethan’s characters and I am so looking forward to reading this one. So thank you for a chance to win a copy and for your helpful insightful review.

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