Set Ablaze by KC Burn: Exclusive Guest Post, Release Day Review and Giveaway

California firefighter Hayden Hurst is starting to realize there’s more to life than fighting fires and drinking with his buddies. He has room in his home and his life for someone special, but no one has stood out among his hookups. And while he’s out at work, admitting he’s gay is very different from showing up at social functions with a man. He’s afraid that’ll be too much for his less-than-accepting “friends.”

Broadway dancer Jez Bouchet hasn’t been mistaken for straight since he was gay-bashed at seventeen. After getting a lucrative job offer in Hollywood, he uproots his life in New York and drives to Los Angeles. His brother, who is Hayden’s best friend, arranges for him to crash at Hayden’s place.

The attraction between Hayden and Jez is unexpected but fiery, and they succumb before they’re even sure they like each other. But Jez hates Hayden’s homophobic friends, and Hayden knows Jez is too flamboyant for him to fly under the radar. Then there’s the complication of Jez’s brother.

Despite those hurdles, they fling themselves into a relationship. But Jez has secrets: a tiny spoiled dog and a determined stalker. If he doesn’t come clean, he might torch their burgeoning relationship before it has a chance to bloom.

Title: Set Ablaze
Author: KC Burn
Release Date: April 24, 2018
Category: Contemporary
Pages: 193

Amazon

Dreamspinner Press

Hi all! I’m KC Burn and I want to thank Two Chicks Obsessed for hosting me today for my new release Set Ablaze.

I know there are authors out there who have to hide what they write from family. There are readers out there who have to hide what they read. I am not one of those people. My friends are all supportive, my family is mostly supportive, my in-laws are super supportive. My hubby is the most supportive man I could ask for. When I’m not behind on deadlines, he edits my books and he’s excellent at catching plot holes and continuity errors as well as grammar mistakes.

For Set Ablaze, though, I required a different brand of support. Set Ablaze is set in a fictional firehouse, in Pasadena, California, where I currently reside. I’d done a bunch of research (like many of my books, the heroes’ professions only peripherally influence the story, so I didn’t need HUGE amounts of information about firefighters, just enough to get the parts I do reference correct). There were two questions I could not seem to locate answers for online though.

During this creation process, I traveled to Toronto for a conference. While I was there, I saw a Facebook post for the city of Pasadena. One of the fire stations was having an OPEN HOUSE. While I was AWAY. You could wander in and check the place out, and ask questions.

The conversation with my hubby went like this… “So… do you have any plans for Saturday?”

Yes, the hubby went to the open house, armed with my two questions, and took some pictures for me. It was exactly what I needed to finish the book. Gotta love my supportive hubby.

What about you? Have you been scorned for your reading choices? And I’m not necessarily talking m/m romance. Romance is often looked down on by the rest of the literary world. I’ve gotten flak for straight romances, and even just any sort of genre fiction. I really feel for those out there who can’t just enjoy the escape that reading (and writing) provides.

When I said I would review this book, I had no idea what to expect. A firefighter who’s out, but not quite out, a dancer with a future, but no home, and a puppy. So, yeah, all those together, and I said “yep, that’s for me!” Having not read this author before, I took a chance. (Meanwhile, I went and searched and found I had purchased at least one book by this author, and its in my TBR, moved up accordingly. 🙂 )

What I did not expect was the twists and turns this book would take, and not the normal ones you might expect. Jez’s brother, his reactions to Jez, and later his reasoning behind it all were surprising to me. Also, the…for want of a better word…s**t that Hayden took from his friends, despite them knowing he was gay, and how it was handled. This impressed me as a reader, because it could have easily turned into a hugely dramatic part of the book, and instead was dealt with as (hopefully) most adults would have handled it.

In the end though, I loved the relationship between Hayden and Jez. They respected each other, despite their extreme differences, and didn’t allow circumstances to pull them apart. They truly just worked on falling in love, with only a little internal drama-and a whole lot of cute puppy. 🙂

Hayden’s own issues made complete sense considering the circumstances he’d had to deal with, and the way he allowed Jez to assist with the process of letting go was touching. They really did make a good team together.

I really enjoyed this book, and am hoping to find some time soon to read Cop Out now…or if there’s another in this series, that too!

4.5 pieces of eye candy

KC Burn has been writing for as long as she can remember and is a sucker for happy endings (of all kinds).  After moving from Toronto to Florida for her husband to take a dream job, she discovered a love of gay romance and fulfilled a dream of her own — getting published.  After a few years of editing web content by day, and neglecting her supportive, understanding hubby and needy cat at night to write stories about men loving men, she was uprooted yet again and now resides in California. Writing is always fun and rewarding, but writing about her guys is the most fun she’s had in a long time, and she hopes you’ll enjoy them as much as she does.

Visit KC at her website, on Twitter, on Facebook, or find out about new releases by signing up for her newsletter.

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