Hawaii Five Uh-Oh by Z.A. Maxfield: Exclusive Guest Post, Excerpt and Giveaway

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Hi everyone! Thanks so much for welcoming me to the Two Chicks Obsessed Blog.

My Plummet to Soar books are a series of barely related books, super loosely based around “Plummet To Soar”, a fictional self-help book written by Mackenzie Detweiler, who fell from a tourist helicopter and lived to tell the tale.

Each of the books features some person touched by reading Plummet to Soar, for good or ill, whose life has changed because they were forced to rethink what they have, and what they truly want.

Today, I thought I’d share five things you might not know about each of the main characters, starting with Theo Hsu:

1. Theo’s father forced him to take combat martial arts and play the violin all through school. Sometimes dirty fighting got in the way of orchestra class. He liberated himself from the instrument by giving it to a homeless guy in Madison the day after he graduated from the police academy.
2. Once, on a dare, Theo dug a cold hole and spent the night in it. His island-born ass nearly froze off but he discovered it was true–you could use ice to insulate yourself from brutal weather, as long as you did it right.
3. As a kid, Theo and his best friend Koa used to write adventure stories together. When they were tweens, the stories got a little more intense, and some carried the flavor of Theo’s kinkier longings. What Koa doesn’t know is long after he moved, Theo kept writing. He would often take the stories and put them in envelopes, address them to Koa, but then chicken out. He burned them all in a backyard fire before he moved to Bear Lake, Wisconsin for his first job.
4. Theo likes to have his feet rubbed, but not tickled. He can’t stand to be tickled, anywhere. Even his hair is ticklish.
5. Once, Theo got stuck in his squad car, beneath a giant statue of Babe the Blue Ox, in a snowstorm, with Mackenzie Detweiler and his kleptomaniac lover JD in the back getting busy. FML!

And Koa!

1. Koa’s family wasn’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. To get by, his mother decided she should probably get a job. Her friends begged her to make the candies she always gave as gifts available at local craft fairs and swap meets. Soon, demand far outstripped the amount she could make by herself. What Theo won’t tell you is he’s at least as good a candy maker, maybe even better, than his Auntie La-La, who took over the business when his mother died. He helps out during holidays and other brisk business seasons, and also, whenever he needs to destress.
2. Koa enjoys all kinds of water sports—surfing, stand up paddle-boarding, and kayaking, but his favorite is paddling through big waves as part of an outrigger team. That’s when he closes his eyes and pretends he’s one of original navigators of Oceania, and there’s nothing but the sea, the stars, and his fellow teammates finding adventure together.
3. Koa gets weekly mani-pedis because he’s a vain bastard. He sneaks outside Waikiki to a place where nobody knows who he is because he’d hear all about it from his partner Freddie and the rest of the crew in the bullpen if they caught him. He likes his toenails cut square, his hands moisturized, and his fingernails buffed to a high sheen, thanks.
4. Koa’s family is an amalgam of the many different people who make up Oceania, but Koa is acutely aware he’s not a true native of Hawai’i. He belongs to the Islands. He believes he fits in. But there’s always a yearning inside him that will go unfulfilled. To make up for it, Koa tries a hundred percent harder to be faithful to the motto: The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.
5. At Theo’s mother urging, both Koa and Theo took up cultural dance. But Theo’s dad forced him to quit early on. Koa kept at it, even after Theo left the Islands. It was hard work, and there was no real reason for him to do it without Theo, except he was good at it, it pleased his Theo’s mom and, most especially, Koa plays a long game. Dance was a carefully calculated strategy to remain close to Theo and keep involved with his family. In that way, Koa bided his time until Theo came back. And it worked, because Theo’s mom asked him to pick Theo up from the airport when he returned, making him the first person from the past Theo laid eyes on.

I hope you enjoyed this little bit of insight into the characters from Hawai’i Five Uh-oh! It’s a bit romance, a bit suspense, and a whole lot ZAM!

I hope you read Hawai’i Five Uh-oh—and don’t forget to review it on your favorite review sites! Reviews really do make a book visible to a wider audience. They help me, my publisher, and gay romance as a genre in general! Many thanks in advance!

Thanks again,

ZAM

Koa glanced his way. “Pics or it didn’t happen.”

“I never did it,” Theo admitted. “I’m saying it’s theoretically possible.”

Silence stretched out between them again. It was a long ride, and as Koa drove, Theo flew his hand out the window and marked the buildings he remembered. So much had changed. He’d changed.

When they pulled into Theo’s mother’s driveway, Koa turned to him. “I hope you don’t mind, I don’t have time to come in. Say hi to your mom.”

“Okay.” Disappointment warred with relief in Theo’s heart. Relief came out a winner. The last thing he needed was disinterested bystanders. “Pop the locks, I’ll just get my things from the back.”

He stepped down, went around, and hauled his things out. From the outside pocket of the lightest one, he pulled a signed copy of Plummet to Soar. He’d put it there to give to his mother because he’d assumed she’d pick him up. He had other gifts for her, so it didn’t matter.

“Hey, brother.” He smiled awkwardly and waved for Koa to roll down the window. “Present for you.”

“Mahalo. Really?” Surprised, he took it and gave it a quick perusal. “Hey, it’s autographed to you. You sure?”

Theo nodded. “That book changed a lot of things for me. I hope you enjoy it.”

Koa’s dark eyes—when he lifted his gaze—held some earnest question Theo couldn’t begin to answer. They widened. “I don’t suppose you ever figured out what happened at the end of that thing you were writing…?”

“You remember that shit?” He said the words like Sheesh, who remembers? As if he hadn’t just been thinking that very thing. Obviously now he understood what those ridiculous stories were, but at the time?

Looking back, Theo blushed with shame.

Koa gave his lower lip a quick nibble. Theo’s dick sat up and got ready to beg. Down, boy. “I think when last I read, our plucky heroes were in a Malay prison.” Koa glanced at him. “Sentenced for a crime they didn’t commit.”

“Tunneling their way to freedom.” Theo nodded. “One of those boys always got himself jammed up, and the other saved the day.”

“Well, you write what you know.” Koa was laughing at him.

Theo didn’t take lead and he wasn’t much of a follower. Sidekick was more his style. But in those stupid stories, he always, always saved the day. Maybe with Koa he’d wanted to try taking the lead….

Koa asked, “Wasn’t one of them about to be caned?”

“Yeah?” Theo admitted hoarsely. At the time, news stories of corporal punishment—as applied to dumb Westerners in places like Malaysia and Taiwan—had fired his imagination, for a lot of reasons. Some not so wholesome.

Koa snorted. “You dug writing that dark shit. The beatings. The extra, extra tight male bonding. Admit it.”

“Hell yeah.” Motherfucker. You went there. I cannot believe you went there the second you saw him again. “I never finished writing any of those. But there’s always time, you know?”

Koa glanced over again. This time, unmistakably, he checked Theo out. “Maybe you should.”

Holy mother. Had Koa just…?

Did he just…?

Koa’s SUV was well clear of his mother’s property before Theo had the words to respond.

 

A Plummet to Soar Story

Feckless, luckless, and charming, Mackenzie Detweiller is the author of a self-help book one reviewer calls “the most misbegotten motivational tool since Mein Kampf.” He’s maneuvered himself into a career as a life coach, but more often than not, his advice is bad. Really bad.

It’s even getting people hurt… and Mackenzie sued.

It falls to Mackenzie’s long-suffering acquisitions editor, JD Chambers, to deliver the bad news. He chooses to do so face-to-face—to see if the spark he senses between them is real when they’re together in the flesh. Unfortunately, a snowstorm, a case of nerves, a case of mistaken identity, and finally a murder get in the way of a potential enemies-to-lovers romance.

There are many, many people who have good reason to want Mackenzie dead. JD must find out which one is acting on it before it’s too late for both of them.

Amazon ebook

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Dreamspinner Press

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Z.A. Maxfield started writing in 2007 on a dare from her children and never looked back. Pathologically disorganized, and perennially optimistic, she writes as much as she can, reads as much as she dares, and enjoys her time with family and friends. Three things reverberate throughout all her stories: Unconditional love, redemption, and the belief that miracles happen when we least expect them.

If anyone asks her how a wife and mother of four can find time for a writing career, she’ll answer, “It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you give up housework.”Links:

Website: http://www.zamaxfield.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorZ.A.Maxfield
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ZAMaxfield

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zamaxfield/?hl=en
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2738500.Z_A_Maxfield

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2A01S43

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/z-a-maxfield