Native Tongue by Lucy Felthouse Blog Tour, Guest Post Excerpt, Review & Giveaway!

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Hiya peeps, we have Lucy Felthouse stopping by today with the blog tour for her newest release Native Tongue, Lucy chats about Homosexuality in the Armed Forces, we have a great excerpt, there’s a fantastic giveaway and Aerin’s review. So enjoy the post and click that Rafflecopter link <3 ~Pixie~

Lucy Felthouse - Native Tongue M

Native Tongue

(Desert Heat 02)
by

Lucy Felthouse

They may be back on British soil, but the battle isn’t over.

When Captain Hugh Wilkes fell for his Afghan interpreter, Rustam Balkhi, he always knew things would never be easy. After months of complete secrecy, their return to England should have spelt an end to the sneaking around and the insane risks. But it seems there are many obstacles for them to overcome before they can truly be happy together. Can they get past those obstacles, or is this one battle too many for their fledgling relationship?

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**For those of you that haven’t yet read Desert Heat (which is recommended before picking up this book), there’s a great value two book bundle available exclusively on Amazon, and is FREE to Kindle Unlimited members: http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk/published-works/desert-heat-native-tongue/ **

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Homosexuality in the Armed Forces by Lucy Felthouse (@cw1985)

When I started researching the first book in this series, Desert Heat, I not only needed to know lots of the ins and outs of army life, especially when it came to being in Afghanistan, I also needed to get an idea of the attitude of the British Army towards gay men. The friend that generously helped out with the rest of the research is straight, so he didn’t have any personal experience, only really saying that homophobia was no better or no worse than in civilian life. Which is what made me think about having a character, superior in rank to Hugh Wilkes, that was also from a completely different generation, and would be instrumental in making things difficult for him, and also keeping him in the closet. So this is where Major Graham Hunter came in. He’s a “bigoted old bastard” to quote myself, and is way too set in his ways to change now. Wilkes also suspects that he protests too much.

I still really wanted an insider’s view, though, so I bought a copy of a book I’d heard of—Out in the Army: My Life as a Gay Soldier by a young Welsh guy called James Wharton. I can’t remember where I first heard about the book, but I’d been wanting to read it for a while and this was the perfect excuse. I knew that just because James’ experience was one way, didn’t mean it would be the same for everyone, but it was still important to me to do the research to ensure I wasn’t getting something hideously wrong. It’s a fantastic book in its own right—massively honest and very brave, as well as intriguing—but it also gave me exactly the kind of insight I’d been looking for.

It backed up what my friend had said about attitudes in the British Army, too. I’m glad I did some digging around here—and was also pleased to find that attitudes are changing in the military, and a big part of that is due to James Wharton himself. Bravo, James.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Don’t forget to enter the giveaway before you leave, and I’d love it if you’d pop by and see my other blog tour spots!

Happy Reading,

Lucy x

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Excerpt

Wilkes had struggled terribly in the interim. Life had been tough enough while they were still out in the desert. After weeks and weeks of trying desperately to ignore their growing attraction, they’d finally given in to it. It had been stupid and risky, but, having quickly realised there was more to their attraction than the physical, they’d decided to carry on their relationship in secret while they were in Afghanistan, see how it went, and figure things out once Wilkes’ tour of duty was over. Balkhi had always intended to return to the UK for his studies, so they would, at least, be living in the same country.

Wilkes couldn’t help smirking as he thought about some of the situations they’d gotten into together. A trip to Camp Bastion and accidentally bumping into each other in the shower area had started it all off, followed by taking advantage of the relative privacy of an accommodation block. Then there’d been the blowjobs in the briefings tent, the insanely risky clinches in Wilkes’ tent… Christ, how had they never been caught? Heat flushed his cheeks at the erotic flashbacks, and he had to shove them forcefully from his mind and drag his attention back to the road before he caused an accident.

They’d always known things between them were never going to be simple, not even on returning to the UK. Neither man was “out.” And although it had been far too dangerous for Balkhi to come out in Afghanistan, there was no reason he couldn’t be openly gay here. Wilkes, on the other hand, had the reactions of his family, friends and colleagues to consider. He was certain all the people that mattered would quickly get over the shock of discovering his sexuality and accept it, but he still couldn’t shake the worry that it would adversely affect his career. His immediate superior, a homophobic old bastard by the name of Major Graham Hunter, often made his life unpleasant as it was, and that was without knowing Wilkes batted for the other side.

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About Lucy

Lucy Felthouse - Native Tongue  (2)Lucy Felthouse is a very busy woman! She writes erotica and erotic romance in a variety of subgenres and pairings, and has over 100 publications to her name, with many more in the pipeline. These include several editions of Best Bondage Erotica, Best Women’s Erotica 2013 and Best Erotic Romance 2014. Another string to her bow is editing, and she has edited and co-edited a number of anthologies, and also edits for a small publishing house. She owns Erotica For All, is book editor for Cliterati, and is one eighth of The Brit Babes. Find out more at http://www.lucyfelthouse.co.uk. Join her on Facebook and Twitter, and subscribe to her newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/gMQb9

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Giveaway!

$15/£10 Amazon GC

(Just click the link below)

Lucy Felthouse Rafflecopter giveaway!

(Ends 6th June 2015)
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Make sure to follow the whole tour—the more posts you visit throughout, the more chances you’ll get to enter the giveaway. The tour dates are here: http://www.writermarketing.co.uk/prpromotion/blog-tours/currently-on-tour/lucy-felthouse-13/

Review

Lucy Felthouse - Native Tongue MTitle: Native Tongue

Series: Desert Heat 02

Author:  Lucy Felthouse

Genre: Military

Length: Novella (93 pages)

ISBN: B00WZUO42I

Publisher: Writer Marketing (Published May 12th 2015)

Heat Level: Explicit

Heart Rating: ♥♥♥ 3 Hearts

Reviewer: Aerin

Blurb: They may be back on British soil, but the battle isn’t over.
When Captain Hugh Wilkes fell for his Afghan interpreter, Rustam Balkhi, he always knew things would never be easy. After months of complete secrecy, their return to England should have spelt an end to the sneaking around and the insane risks. But it seems there are many obstacles for them to overcome before they can truly be happy together. Can they get past those obstacles, or is this one battle too many for their fledgling relationship?
Author’s note: Although this story does work as a standalone tale, it’s recommended that you read the first instalment of the characters’ journey first—Desert Heat, which is available from all good retailers.

Product Link: http://www.amazon.com/Native-Tongue-Lucy-Felthouse-ebook/dp/B00WZUO42I 

Review: This is book #2 in Desert Heat series and I honestly can’t give it more than 3 generous stars. I liked book #1, but I felt the heat and chemistry between the characters was missing, their relationship was too insta-love, and we didn’t get to know the characters because the book was too short; so I was hoping a sequel would take care of that problem. Unfortunately, I don’t really know any more about the characters than I did at the end of book #1.

The author states that this book can be read as a standalone, but I have to disagree with that. As little as we got to know Hugh and Rustam during the first book, we at least got a glimpse of their lives and their struggles that helps us understand their behavior and decisions in Native Tongue; book #1 serves as the basis, the foundation of their relationship, and I feel that without reading that first, a reader would be left questioning many things. There are also too many references to their situation and their experiences in Desert Heat, so I think that needs to be read first.

I liked the book, but I didn’t come even close to loving it. It was very predictable (before Hugh came out to his family, I was hoping they weren’t going to say “Oh honey we knew you were gay for a long time!” but they did!!! So disappointingly cliche!), and maybe too short to really show the men integrating and adapting to their return to England. I really wanted to get a glimpse of both their lives, but we mostly see Hugh and his family and co-workers; I was hoping for more insight into Rustam’s feelings and thoughts, because he’s the one who’s making major changes to his life, but we didn’t get that.

Many times I was confused as to what POV was used; sometimes I thought for sure the story was told in 3rd person from Hugh’s POV, but other times it seemed like it changed to the author’s POV. It made for some very awkward story telling! And as bad as this is going to sound, I’m going to say it anyways; I felt like I was reading an MF book the whole time. I have no idea why I got that impression, because there was certainly enough man-on-man sex (maybe even too much for such a short book), but there you have it. Maybe it’s because the chemistry between Hugh and Rustam felt short yet again, maybe it’s a lot of little things that added up, gave me that feeling.

One thing that pressed my annoyance button was the way Rustam spoke. All that formal language was driving me insane! It is, cannot, do not…you get the idea. It’s fine in moderation but that’s the way he spoke all the time. I understand that English is his secondary language, but so is mine! I didn’t start to speak English frequently until I was 21, and I never used the formal language like that. Besides, we usually take our cues from people around us and try to adapt our speech to theirs so that we don’t stand out too much. This issue didn’t lead me to lower the rating for this book, but it bothered me so much, I had to mention it.

If you read Desert Heat, you should read Native Tongue, you’ll at least see Hugh and Rustam together in a different setting. 

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7 thoughts on “Native Tongue by Lucy Felthouse Blog Tour, Guest Post Excerpt, Review & Giveaway!

  1. I really enjoyed Desert Heat (which I read in the Unconditional Surrender anthology). I’m really looking forward to continuing reading Rustam Balkhi and Captain Wilkes’ story

  2. Congratulations on your new release. Lucy is a new to me author and I’m looking forward to reading some of her works. Thanks for sharing and much success!
    taina1959 @ yahoo.com

  3. I enjoyed Desert Heat and am glad you wrote a sequel. Congrats on the release!

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