Hi! Welcome to Lisa Henry and Heidi Belleau’s blog tour for our new release, Tin Man. We’re visiting some of our favourite blogs around the place to talk a bit about writing Tin Man, and sharing some of our influences, our ideas, and even an excerpt or two! Don’t forget to leave a comment, for your chance to win prizes!
Tin Man
(Bliss Universe)
by
Lisa Henry & Heidi Belleau
Petty thief Ashoka “Ace” King knows better than to get in the way of Tophet’s Anti-Terrorist Unit. Rightfully feared in Tophet’s crime-ridden underbelly, a face-to-face encounter with an ATU is almost certainly a death sentence. But Ace has never been one to follow the rules.
Soren Lau might be an ATU rookie, but he’s not naive enough to believe everything his superiors tell him. Then again, he’s not stupid enough to disobey them, either. If he doesn’t shoot and kill as ordered, he might be next on their list.
But when Soren meets Ace, a moment’s hesitation is all it takes to put both their lives on the line. They don’t know each other, they don’t trust each other, and there’s no way in hell they can both walk away from this alive. But with suspicion and mortal danger mounting against both of them—and the forbidden attraction blazing between them—there’s nothing they can do but try.
Riptide
Excerpt
Ace leaned back, panting.
Oh fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck.
The ATU guy was out. Still breathing, but unconscious. Not a moment too soon, either. Ace hadn’t been sure he could keep fighting for much longer. Now, with the buzz of adrenaline fading, his hands started to shake and his body started to feel every ache.
Ace shifted off the guy. He should have just shoved him over the edge and let gravity deal with him. Except he was suddenly seized with the urge to look the guy in the face. To give Ace something to gloat about later, maybe, or just to see what he looked like, this man who’d tried so hard to kill him.
He pushed the guy’s goggles up and off, and then tugged the balaclava back.
Shit.
The ATU guy was a kid.
He had a fucking baby face. And not just a baby face, but a pretty baby face. He seemed a little unfinished, a little soft around the edges. Cheekbones he hadn’t grown into yet. Ears he definitely hadn’t. A soft, full mouth. Dark brows. Long lashes that lay against his cheeks. There was a tiny mole on his right cheek, and Ace couldn’t resist touching it. The boy’s lashes flickered, and he moaned.
Fuck.
This was the guy who wanted to kill him? This guy? He’d looked so terrifying in his helmet, with his firearm. This face didn’t match that. The universe had to be playing a joke when some monster from an ATU death squad looked as sweet as a fucking choirboy.
But he’s not. He was a killer, a crucial cog in the machinery of Tophet’s oppressive regime. The boot that stamped them down and ground them out like bugs. That was what Ace told himself as he clutched the guy by his heavily padded shoulders.
He looked at the boy again, letting his gaze skim from the guy’s face down to his heaving torso. Underneath all that armor, was his body as unassuming and delicate as his face? For just a second, fantasies of revenge flitted in Ace’s mind. The things he could do to a guy like this. A pretty, delicate guy. Except, fuck that. Ace would never go there. Although why he gave a shit when this asshole deserved everything coming to him, he didn’t know.
Either way, he wasn’t just a pretty boy. He could fight, as well. Ace had been lucky to maintain the advantage the last time. He didn’t need to go testing his luck again.
He dragged the guy toward the ladder. Maybe he could tie him up or something, and leave him for someone else to worry about. Or maybe—another dark fantasy—he could actually turn a profit here. There were enough cartels in the district that would love a bargaining chip like this one, or even just the sport he’d provide. Ace wondered what the guy was worth.
And then you’ll be exactly the kind of scumbag crim they all say you are.
Hard to claim the moral high ground when suddenly all he could picture was a future with money in his pocket and a meal in his belly. And then he thought of Chen, of how living in the gutter didn’t have to turn a man into an animal. He was still better than this ATU asshole, even if the guy would never know it.
And hell. That face. The kid had the face of an angel. It seemed like the sort of face that would haunt him, if he let it. If he did anything to deserve to be haunted.
The catwalk groaned and swayed, and for a second Ace was sure he could hear the rivets popping out of the wall. He needed to get back to the ground, fast. And he probably needed to get this ATU guy down too. There was no use pretending he was cold-blooded enough to leave him to die when the walkway collapsed. Not when he’d climbed all the way back up here to save him.
A part of him wished he were that uncaring. A part of him was certain he’d regret this later. He’d always been a slow learner, his father had said, but he’d said it proudly. Like the time Ace had stood up to the bigger kids picking on the girl who couldn’t walk properly and had gotten the shit kicked out of him for it, then went and did the same thing the next week. Yeah, always a slow learner.
Ace stared down at the guy. Still unmoving but still breathing. Good. But he was carrying so much gear. How much of the guy’s weight was actually his? Getting down the ladder was going to be interesting.
“Okay,” he said, crouching over him. He lifted a shaking hand to the guy’s utility belt. “Shit. Okay.”
He half expected the guy’s eyes to snap open or to feel a sudden iron grip around his wrist, but the guy only frowned a little and sighed as Ace unclipped the heavy belt. He dropped it over the edge of the walkway with relief. He didn’t know what some of this stuff was, but he was damn sure he didn’t need the guy waking up and reaching for it.
Body armor next. The vest thing was heavy. He unfastened the straps and lifted it over the guy’s head. It took both hands to move it. Felt like it had metal plates or something reinforcing the fabric. Underneath, the guy was wearing a form-hugging black shirt. He raised an eyebrow. Not as delicate as Ace had thought. Still narrow, still slight, but toned. He’d have to be if he carried around this much weight and could still run and fight, Ace supposed. He stared at the thin band of exposed flesh around the guy’s abdomen, where he’d hauled the shirt up in the process of getting the vest off. Soft, flawless skin lay over hard muscle. Not a kid at all.
“Okay,” he said. “Here’s where it gets interesting. You ever heard the story about the frog and the scorpion?”
The guy was still out.
Ace told it to him anyway, or at least what he remembered of it.
“There’s this scorpion,” he said, kneeling over the guy and grabbing his arms. Ace hauled him upright and leaned his weight over one shoulder. He wondered if he could actually lift him. “And he needs to cross the river to get home to his children.”
He didn’t remember if the thing about the children was right or not. Maybe he was thinking of the ladybug, whose house was on fire and whose children had gone. His mom had told him a lot of stories when he was a kid, and he regretted the way they were all mixed up in his head now. He’d tried telling some of them to Chen’s mob, but he could never remember the endings. Except . . . happily. Most of them ended happily. Not the frog and the scorpion, though.
“Anyway . . .” He hefted the guy up into what almost passed as a fireman’s carry and clamped his left arm around the guy’s legs. Gripped the ladder tightly with his right hand and said a silent prayer. “The scorpion asks the frog to carry it across the river. The frog says no, because she’s afraid the scorpion will sting her. The scorpion promises he won’t, because, if he did, he’d drown, as well. So the frog agrees and off they go.”
The ladder squealed as he stepped onto it.
Oh fuck fuck fuck.
The guy groaned.
Ace climbed down a rung. His arms were already killing him. “So, about halfway across the river, the frog feels the scorpion sting her. And she asks him why, because now they’re both going to die. And the scorpion says, ‘It’s in my nature.’ Then they both die.” He grunted as he took another step toward the ground. “It’s not much of a story, I know, but since I’m the frog in it, I really, really fucking hope you’re not the scorpion.”
He didn’t know if the guy was awake or not. He was afraid he was. He thought he’d felt him tense. Thought that the sound of his breathing had changed into something more ragged, spiked with awareness.
He didn’t look down. Just kept moving slowly, trying his best to ignore the wrenching pain in his shoulders and arms. “So just let me get us down, okay? Just let me get us down.”
It felt like an eternity before his boots hit the concrete floor. Civilizations could have risen and fallen in the time it took to get there, and he was so relieved to be able to lower the ATU guy onto the floor. Maybe it was his relief that flooded his fear but whatever it was, for a moment he was distracted, and a moment was all it took.
He was on his knees, easing the guy off him, when the guy brought his right leg up sharply. Ace, expecting to be kneed somewhere, recoiled. Too late. The guy had the collar of Ace’s shirt twisted in his left hand and a knife in his right.
He pressed the blade up against Ace’s throat. His eyes were the color of dark amber. “All right, we’re down. Now comes the sting.”
For more excerpt click here: http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/tin-man (just click the excerpt tab)
About Lisa & Heidi
Lisa Henry
Lisa likes to tell stories, mostly with hot guys and happily ever afters.
Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She doesn’t know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects she’s too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other half plotting her escape.
She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school systems early in life. She studied History and English, neither of them very thoroughly.
She shares her house with too many cats, a green tree frog that swims in the toilet, and as many possums as can break in every night. This is not how she imagined life as a grown-up.
Connect with Lisa:
Blog: lisahenryonline.blogspot.com
Twitter: @lisahenryonline
Goodreads: goodreads.com/LisaHenry
Heidi Belleau
Heidi Belleau was born and raised in small town New Brunswick, Canada. She now lives in the rugged oil-patch frontier of Northern BC with her husband, an Irish ex-pat whose long work hours in the trades leave her plenty of quiet time to write.
She has a degree in history from Simon Fraser University with a concentration in British and Irish studies; much of her work centred on popular culture, oral folklore, and sexuality, but she was known to perplex her professors with unironic papers on the historical roots of modern romance novel tropes. (Ask her about Highlanders!)
When not writing, you might catch her trying to explain British television to her newborn daughter or standing in line at the local coffee shop, waiting on her caramel macchiato.
Connect with Heidi:
Blog: www.heidibelleau.com
Twitter: @HeidiBelleau
Goodreads: goodreads.com/heidibelleau
Email: heidi.below.zero@gmail.com
Giveaway!
Win a $20 Riptide credit and an ecopy of Bliss, the first book set in this universe!
(Just leave a comment on this tour)
Remember to leave your email address in the body of the comments so we can contact you if you win!
(Entries close July 25, and contest is not restricted to US residents.)
Review
Title: Tin Man
Series: Bliss Universe
Author: Lisa Henry & Heidi Belleau
Genre: Dystopian, Alternative World, Science Fiction
Length: Novella (134pgs)
ISBN: 978-1-62649-328-5
Publisher: Riptide Publishing (20th July 2015)
Heat Level: Moderate – Explicit
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥ 3 – 3 ½ Hearts
Reviewer: Pixie
Blurb: Petty thief Ashoka “Ace” King knows better than to get in the way of Tophet’s Anti-Terrorist Unit. Rightfully feared in Tophet’s crime-ridden underbelly, a face-to-face encounter with an ATU is almost certainly a death sentence. But Ace has never been one to follow the rules.
Soren Lau might be an ATU rookie, but he’s not naive enough to believe everything his superiors tell him. Then again, he’s not stupid enough to disobey them, either. If he doesn’t shoot and kill as ordered, he might be next on their list.
But when Soren meets Ace, a moment’s hesitation is all it takes to put both their lives on the line. They don’t know each other, they don’t trust each other, and there’s no way in hell they can both walk away from this alive. But with suspicion and mortal danger mounting against both of them—and the forbidden attraction blazing between them—there’s nothing they can do but try.
Purchase Link: http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/tin-man
Review: This story is part of the Bliss Universe but can be read as a stand-alone. In Tophet it’s easy to become a crim; you speak out against the government you’re a crim, you go on strike you’re a crim, you do anything the government doesn’t like you’re a crim and once label a crim it’s impossible to get a job and you certainly won’t get help to feed your family from the government so the only way to survive is to commit petty crimes.
Ace has lived on the streets committing petty crimes to survive for several years; he dreams of a better life but knows there’s no way to gain it in Tophet. Going about his business one night his worst fears are realized when he gets stopped by the ATU, Tophet’s Anti-Terrorist Unit, he has one option… escape. But escaping from a determined ATU member is near impossible but Ace is going to give it his best shot, until his conscience kicks in and he finally gets to meet the man beneath the ATU gear.
Soren has only been in the ATU a short time but its long enough for doubts to kick in, on a routine stop he’s given the kill order and he hesitates, leading to a chase where his life is in a crims hands. Expecting the worse he’s surprised by the crim’s actions and now he could end up with his own side killing him and all because of the morality law.
This is a really good addition to the Bliss Universe, in Bliss we saw the utopia of Beulah and now in Tin Man we see the underbelly of a city, Tophet, rife with crime and oppression. Ace and Soren have had completely different lives; Ace has landed in the underbelly of the city due to circumstances forced on him by the Tophet government and their ridged laws. Ace knows the truth behind many of the so-called crims, they just want to live and not go hungry. Soren has had a good life in Tophet even if he’s had to hide a part of himself because it goes against the morality law, conscripted into the ATU he truly believes he is making a difference by bringing terrorists to justice; until a comment from one of his co-workers has doubt blossoming.
Ace and Soren have lust sparking between them; their first encounter is fraught with tension, danger and heat, their second encounter is forbidden and passionate and their third encounter is where it all changes for both of them. Their relationship is brief but very intense and what we see between them is just the beginning. We get to see the story from both their POV’s as their meeting changes both their lives, we also get to see how the government manipulates its own citizens with fear, how they manipulate the ATU to get rid of criminal elements and you can also see how some people would go along with it so the ATU’s sights don’t land on them.
I really enjoyed this story; both Ace and Soren are great characters who bring two separate viewpoints to the table before the truth finally dawns on one of them. The storyline is fantastic, a government who crush their citizens with strict cruel laws, who destroy any that oppose them and who twist the truth to suit themselves. And then you have two young men who meet and are from opposite sides, who somehow manage to breach the distance and circumstances between them to forge something new…, hope.
I recommend this to those who love dystopian settings, trying to survive, hope for something different, a passionate beginning to something more and the hope that two young men can change their circumstances so they have the chance for a future.
Check out the other blogs on the blog tour
July 20, 2015 – Cup o’ Porn
July 20, 2015 – Prism Book Alliance
July 20, 2015 – Natural Bri- Pursuits of Life
July 21, 2015 – GGR-Review
July 21, 2015 – Joyfully Jay
July 22, 2015 – MM Good Book Reviews
July 22, 2015 – Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents
July 22, 2015 – Love Bytes Reviews
July 23, 2015 – The Jeep Diva
July 23, 2015 – Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words
July 23, 2015 – Sinfully Sexy Books
July 24, 2015 – Rainbow Gold Reviews
July 24, 2015 – The Novel Approach
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Bliss Universe series, GLBT Alternative World, GLBT Dystopian, GLBT Science Fiction, Heidi Belleau, Lisa Henry, Pixie's Reviews, Riptide Publishing