A New Direction

by Chris T. Kat

Hello, I’m Chris T. Kat, visiting the lovely Blogger Girls. 🙂 I’m here to talk about my new release, Sacrifices (A Jeff Woods Mystery, Sequel to Attachment Strings), a m/m mystery/suspense story  which was published by Dreamspinner Press on April 28^th.

Sacrifices is the sequel to Attachment Strings, which was published in June 2013. In that book, readers were introduced to the main characters, detective Jeff Woods, and his love interest Alex Fisher. Jeff chose to become a detective because he wants to make society a better, safer place. Although it’s a tough job, it’s also his dream job. Now, why did I go in a different direction with him in the second book?

At the end of Attachment Strings, Jeff is outed as gay. I had to choose how other people would react to that and, most importantly, how Jeff would react to everyone knowing his secret. Jeff himself is relieved to be out of the closet, but not many people were of the same opinion. As much as I’d love everyone to accept other people, that’s often not the way things happen. People get rejected or downright abused for their sexual orientation, a disability, sometimes just for wearing the wrong clothes. I tried to paint a realistic picture for Jeff. He couldn’t stay in his chosen occupation, but when another job was offered he grabbed the chance.

That’s not to mean Jeff likes his new job—far from it. He resents it because he doesn’t see sense in a radio talk show. On the other hand, it pays the bills and there are no erratic working hours, which is a plus for him since he’s now in a relationship with Alex. Jeff is fond of spending time with Alex and his little brother Sean, which was easy to describe. Jeff’s struggle between his resentment of the new job and the knowledge it’s the best he can do in those circumstances wasn’t that easy.

I believe a lot of people have been in situations or jobs which they didn’t love but held for other, more personal reasons, and I hope it comes across that Jeff’s decision is born out of the desire to strengthen the family bond between him, Alex, and Sean.

About Sacrifices

When he was outed on the local news, Jeff Woods gave up his dream job as a detective to become an on-air radio personality. The sacrifice was worth it to keep Alex and Sean in his life, but Alex lost his job, too. Jeff can tell Alex worries he’s pressuring Jeff too much, first with Sean and now the lack of money, but he has no idea what that will lead Alex to do. Desperate times bring out the stupidity in some people, and when Jeff discovers Alex is in over his head in a situation he can’t handle, he needs all his self-control to stay calm.

Life is not easy with the Church of Virtue still spouting venom wherever they go, homophobes at the police department, a gangster who wants Alex in the worst possible way, and a bed that barely holds one grown man, much less two (and a child), but Jeff is there to stay for good, and he’ll do what it takes to make Alex believe him.

Now available at Dreamspinner Press in eBook & Paperback.

Excerpt from Chapter Two:

Somehow I survived the day. Even though I’d worked here for two months now, I hadn’t grown accustomed to the bustling, hectic activity. Sure, the station had been busy too, but that had been different. Here it was all talk about stuff I really didn’t give a shit about.

Anyway, I had done my work for today. I’d compiled information about criminal activity in and around Atlantic City, which included a couple of robberies, an attempted rape, an attempted murder, a few brawls, and a missing person. I had my own talk show once a week, telling an interested audience all about what crimes were happening in their city. Astonishingly, the show was a huge success. Most people believed what I said because I’d been a cop. Sometimes there were huge controversies, though these were usually about me as a person rather than what I had to say.

For some people, I was a hero—for rescuing Sean and Alex, for having been a cop, for being outed and standing by my man, or whatever other reason. For some people, I was scum for exactly the same reasons. There’s just no pleasing everyone.

The members of the Church of Virtue definitely didn’t like me. They didn’t like a lot of people, especially gays. At least there had been no parade of Church members chanting in front of the station and waving stupid posters. On the other hand, they never appeared on Mondays. Maybe they actually needed to work somewhere too?

But—there always seemed to be a but—I’d received another letter from them in which they berated me for consciously misleading the public and forcing my gay ways on them. I’d read the letter three times. I always read them several times, each time hoping they’d make sense in a way I could understand. So far, comprehension eluded me.

It was early afternoon when I printed out what I wanted to talk about tomorrow. After reading through it and marking important details, I eyed the clock. I still needed to check and verify some facts, which translated into calling Parker.

Leaning back in my chair, I rolled my head from side to side, trying to get rid of the cricks. I sighed when the tension in my shoulders eased, then picked up the phone and dialed. “Hey, Alex, it’s me. How’d it go with Sean?”

“Not bad. What did you bribe him with?”

“Not going to tell you,” I sing-songed.

“Why not?” Alex sure sounded exasperated.

“Because it’s my secret.”

Alex snorted. “Any other reason for calling me? He’ll be back in about an hour and I need to get some stuff done around here.”

“What stuff?”

“Oh, the exciting stuff: cleaning the bathroom, vacuuming, and so on. Other guys my age go diving, hang out in bars, or whatever, but hey, I gotta clean the bathroom. Yay me!”

I chuckled. “Poor you.”

“Thanks for your sympathy.”

“You’re welcome. Any luck today?”

The silence that greeted me from the other end of the line told me all I needed to know. Eventually, Alex answered in a subdued voice, “No. No luck today.”

“You’ll find a new job,” I said, ignoring the guilt about using a platitude.

“If you say so.”

“Give it time, Alex.”

“I am giving it time!” His voice rose and I braced myself. Nothing came forth, other than harsh breathing.

“Alex?”

“I’m not going to flip, don’t worry.”

Before I had time to process what I was saying, the words were out of my mouth. “Oh, good!”

Alex suddenly laughed. “It’s that bad?”

“That’s a trick question, right?”

“Well, no matter what you say I’ll be pissed off, so… yep.”

“Then I’ll go with saying nothing.”

“That’ll piss me off even more.”

“Imp.”

Alex laughed again. “Hey, insulting me might piss me off even worse.”

“I met Parker this morning. He invited us for dinner in two days. I said we’d be there.”

“You really need to work on your subtly-changing-the-topic skill,” Alex replied.

“I’d rather work on you tonight.”

“Geez, that was bad.” Despite the rebuff, I heard the smile in his voice. Mission accomplished.

About Chris T. Kat

Chris T. Kat lives in the middle of Europe, where she shares a house with her husband of many years and their two children. She stumbled upon the M/M genre by luck and was swiftly drawn into it. She divides her time between work, her family—which includes chasing after escaping horses and lugging around huge instruments such as a harp—and writing. She enjoys a variety of genres, such as mystery/suspense, paranormal, and romance. If there’s any spare time, she happily reads for hours, listens to audiobooks or does cross stitch.

You can find Chris at the Blog, Twitter, Goodreads, Facebook & Amazon.

In honor of her new release, Chris has graciously offered to give away a paperback copy of Sacrifices to one luck winner!

The giveaway starts now and will end next Sunday, May 11th, 2014, at 11:59 pm EST. After which the lucky winner will be randomly picked.

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment below with your email address and you’re in!

Make sure to follow the blog for the winner’s announcement post or check back next Monday, May 12th, 2014, to see if you’ve won.

Don’t forget to check out Nikyta’s review of Sacrifices to see what she thought of it! You can also pick up your own copy at Dreamspinner Press!

Good luck!