Blurb:
Nothing beats getting out of the concrete jungle and into the quiet of the forest. Website
designer Scottie Ness is taking a well-deserved vacation from the grindstone,
and he plans to spend it in the solitude of Washington’s Gifford Pinchot National
Forest around Mt. Adams. He’s prepared for everything—except the lightning
storm that traps him in a wildfire.
The firefighter who rescues him sustains serious injuries and ends up in the hospital. Jax
Quintero might be abrasive, but the guy saved his life, and Scottie wants to
thank him. As they spend time together during Jax’s recovery and exploring the
state’s landmarks when he’s released from the hospital, Scottie discovers
there’s more to Jax than a smart-ass adrenaline junkie. Jax reassesses his
opinion of Scottie as an arrogant city boy who has no business in the
mountains. Though Jax’s wounds prevent them from taking things as far as they’d
like for a while, they can’t deny the heat building between them—and this is
one fire they don’t want to put out.
Buy
Links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Fire-States-Love-Alicia-Nordwell-ebook/dp/B01M119A79/
ARe: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-onfire-2142835-149.html
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/on-fire-alicia-nordwell/1124772923?ean=2940157073725
Excerpt:
Chapter One
“WHAT EXOTIC tropical locale are you going to spend your vacation drunk in?” Carter
leaned back in his chair so he could see into Scottie’s cubicle. He smirked.
“Or are you hitting the casinos in Vegas to make your fortune and leave all of
us to toil away in the trenches alone?”
“Neither. Hiking and camping in the Gifford Pinchot around Mt. Adams.” Scottie adjusted a
line of code, and the website header widened. “I’m all set to go in the
morning.”
“Seriously? You have a week off in August, and you’re going to waste it trudging through
the dirt and pine trees when you could be lounging on the beach somewhere?”
Carter shook his head. “Wouldn’t catch me doing that. Aren’t there bears and
cougars up there?”
Scottie shrugged one shoulder. “I might see a bear, if I’m lucky. Cougars are actually
pretty shy.”
“You want to see a bear?”
“It’d make a great picture.” The website he was working on needed to be visually
appealing on both computers and mobile devices, and he was having a hard time
focusing. “It’s Friday. Don’t you have some reason to duck out and start the
weekend early?”
“Nope. Miranda, Tark, and I are all going out for happy hour at Corrigan’s, but not
until six. Don’t try to change the subject. You know you can take pictures at
the beach, right? White sand, crystal blue water, and palm trees swaying in
front of the setting sun.”
“Dime
a dozen. I like living in Washington because we have so many places where I can
take beautiful nature photos. Coastline, rivers, lakes, mountains, even the
desert, all within a few hours’ drive. Besides, I’m still paying off my student
loans. I don’t have money for expensive vacations.”
“Two words. Credit cards.”
Of course. Carter wore name-brand shoes with his fancy suits and never brought a
lunch, preferring to order takeout. He’d graduated a year before Scottie, so it
wasn’t like he made that much more money. “One word. Stupid.”
Carter rolled his eyes. “Whatever, man. When I take my week off next month, I’m going
to Hawaii. Hotel on the beach, coconut drinks, and chicks in bikinis. Any women
you come across in the campground will probably be covered in pitch and pine
needles.”
“I’m not going to stay in the campgrounds. I’m hiking and camping off the trails,
and for the most part, I won’t see any people at all.”
A look of horror crossed Carter’s face. “Seriously?”
He nodded. “I used to go camping with my family all the time growing up. We’d
hike, fish, roast hot dogs and marshmallows over the fire. It’s peaceful.”
“Whatever, man. When you get munched on by a bear, can I get your chair?”
It was Scottie’s turn to roll his eyes. “I’m not going to get eaten by a bear, and
your chair is the same as mine. Why would you want it?”
“I spilled fish sauce on mine earlier this week, and now it smells funny.”
“Well you can’t have my chair, and I’ll notice if there’s a fish funk on mine when I
get back, so don’t even try to switch them. Don’t you have a project to finish?
I have to get this done before I leave.”
“Fine, fine.” Carter rolled back to his desk. “Have fun communing with wildlife.”
SCOTTIE ROLLED up his backpacking tent with an extra tarp and fastened it to the bottom
of his pack. His sleeping bag, a change of clothes, survival kit, portable
stove, water filter, and food fit inside. The rest of his camping gear was
piled along the wall, taking up most of the living room floor in his postage
stamp of an apartment. He plopped down on the couch with a beer and opened his
laptop.
Using a red highlighter, he outlined the trails he planned to take and marked his
base camp as well as his possible overnight camping sites before printing out
two copies. Picking up a pen, Scottie scribbled his full name, the dates of his
trip, and what kind of vehicle he was driving on the back of one map. He’d drop
it off at the ranger station before he stopped in Trout Lake for some
sandwiches. No idea what they did to make them taste so great, but they were
way better than anything he could make. He’d have to stop by the ATM on the way
out of Vancouver to pick up some cash.
Now that he had all the nitty-gritty survival stuff out of the way, he had to get
his photography equipment in order. Scottie didn’t spend much money on himself,
but he had a nice Canon camera, lenses, a flexible tripod for his hiking pack,
and a bigger telescoping tripod in its own bag. Using a polishing cloth from
his cleaning kit, Scottie went over every piece of glass in his camera bag,
making sure all the lenses and filters were spotless. Photography might be just
a hobby, but he took pride in getting that one shot that made all the hard work
worth it.
He’d finished his beer by the time he had the last memory card and battery stowed,
and he waffled on what he wanted to do. He’d been up since six, worked a full
day, and finished getting all his camping gear ready to load in the morning,
but he wasn’t tired enough to go to bed. The weather report he checked promised
sunny days and clear nights—though it wouldn’t be nearly as warm around Mt.
Adams as it would be in Portland.
Author Bio:
The number one question folks ask Alicia when she shares she's a MM romance author: "Why
gay fiction? Why write men when you're a woman?" and her answer is:
"Why the hell not!" Alicia Nordwell is one of those not so rare
creatures, a reader turned writer. Striving to find an interesting story one
day, she decided to write what she wanted instead. Then the voices started...
Yep, not only does she talk about herself in the third person for bios, she has
voices in her head constantly clamoring to get out. Fortunately, with the
encouragement of her family and friends, she decided for her own sanity to keep
writing.
Now you can find her stories both free and e-published. When she’s not on the computer typing
away, she's a wife and a mom of two in the dreary, yet ideal for her redhead
complexion, Pacific Northwest. Except for when she disappears into one of the
many worlds in her head, of course! She can also be found quite often at her
blog, where she has a lot of free fiction for readers to enjoy or working hard,
or maybe hardly working, as an admin on GayAuthors.org under her online
nickname, Cia.
Social media:
Contest!
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Blurb:
Nothing beats
getting out of the concrete jungle and into the quiet of the forest. Website
designer Scottie Ness is taking a well-deserved vacation from the grindstone,
and he plans to spend it in the solitude of Washington’s Gifford Pinchot National
Forest around Mt. Adams. He’s prepared for everything—except the lightning
storm that traps him in a wildfire.
The firefighter
who rescues him sustains serious injuries and ends up in the hospital. Jax
Quintero might be abrasive, but the guy saved his life, and Scottie wants to
thank him. As they spend time together during Jax’s recovery and exploring the
state’s landmarks when he’s released from the hospital, Scottie discovers
there’s more to Jax than a smart-ass adrenaline junkie. Jax reassesses his
opinion of Scottie as an arrogant city boy who has no business in the
mountains. Though Jax’s wounds prevent them from taking things as far as they’d
like for a while, they can’t deny the heat building between them—and this is
one fire they don’t want to put out.
Interview with Alicia Nordwell:
Who do you like best, Jerry or Tom?
Neither, really. I was a
Woody Woodpecker and Chilly Willy fan, myself. The characters who do the
endless chasing of each other drove me crazy. What was up with Wile E.
Coyote? Order a damn turkey from ACME instead of all those useless
traps!
What’s one location you’d love to go to research for a story?
Scotland
or Ireland, for sure. I love the pagan culture and historical events,
rain doesn’t bother me since I live in the Pacific Northwest, and my red
hair would finally fit in!
Did you like to write in school?
Yes,
but I never finished anything. It took the incentive of feedback from
someone other than my English teacher to motivate me to write to The
End. I’d prefer to read than write, so that’s always a challenge when I
have the time to do either.
What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
Read,
of course. I adore reading. I also like to hike, do photography, make
promo/art graphics, volunteer at my kids’ schools, swim, stuff like
that. Quite a few of my hobbies ended up in On Fire, since they’re
mainly related to where I live. There are so many outdoor options in
Washington, I had to share several of them.
What do you think makes your story stand out compared to other “similar” stories?
I
don’t know that On Fire is “stand out” in any super creative because
the main theme was to showcase Washington. What I really tried to do was
bring in tiny elements of the culture here, like natural food markets,
rain and more rain, the eclectic people and places… stuff like that.
Plus I picked a hot firefighter and a cute photographer as the
characters, and I hope they’re really compelling for readers, like
they’re people you could step outside and meet. How can you pass that
up?
Author: Jay Northcote
