SCARS AND SECRETS
Author: Thomas Grant Bruso
GENRE: LGBT Mystery
Publisher: Nine Star Press
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?
Excerpt One:
The Saranac
River empties into the mouth of Lake Champlain and a sliver of late-evening sun
shimmies and slices across shavings of broken ice like a school of shiny fish.
I straighten
the blue-and-white striped silk tie my last boyfriend gifted me and stare out
at the early November landscape. The ground is dusted with newly fallen snow,
and the river, a swollen malignant serpentine of icy water, snakes through a
vista of evergreens and sycamores.
I catch my hard
stare in the reflection of the large picture window of my therapist’s office.
Dr. James
Matheson, basketball tall with peacock-blue eyes and warm brown skin, dressed
in a rosy-pink dress shirt and charcoal-gray suit, coaxes me back to the
present. His voice is butter soft and attractive, musically inclined and
bilingual. Spanish on his mother’s side, I think.
My thoughts
unravel like vines on a branch, disoriented, a broken fuse box with faulty
wiring. I blow out a loud breath and turn to the long-legged and handsome
therapist, my hands packed in the pockets of my khakis so he won’t see them
shake. Men make me nervous and weak-kneed.
Dr. Matheson is
patient and smiling, waiting for me to speak, to say something, since I’ve been
standing in silence for the last fifteen minutes, staring out at the dismal day
passing by.
I think about
my mother who lies in the hospital dying. I’ve just come from visiting her,
before my scheduled therapy session. Dr. Matheson wants to discuss it, from his
stone silence and sensitive stares.
I glance at my
wristwatch. I’ve been in Pretty Boy’s office for almost an hour, and I haven’t
said much or given the good old doc enough to judge or dislike me or cancel my
next session. I am surprised he has not asked me not to come back. Maybe he’ll
call County Hospital and admit me to the psych ward on the fourth floor if I
open my mouth and let him into my dark, sad life.
He does not
reach for the phone. He sits poised in the high brown leather chair behind his
polished cherry wood desk, with many medical certifications on the wall behind
him.
He stares
across the room at me, grins, keeping a professional manner, waiting for me to
give him his money and time’s worth.
I drag myself
toward the overstuffed leather chair across from his desk and collapse into it,
as if it is my home base.
GIVEAWAY:
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
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.
7 comments:
Thanks for hosting my new thriller, "Scars and Secrets." I will check in later today to answer questions about the book, my writing process, publishing, or anything you want to know about writing. Happy reading!
Thank you so much for hosting today.
I'm looking forward to reading this book. Thanks for sharing.
Sounds like really interesting story.
Thanks so much, Michael.
Thanks, Sherry.
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