Holiday Home Hotel by Lou Sylvre Book Tour and Giveaway :)
The
Holiday Home Hotel
by
Lou Sylvre
Genre:
M/M Supernatural Romance
Daren
Novak and Gunny Schuler have known each other since freshmen days at
the University of Washington, where they'd started a romance Daren
assumed would last. But at the start of winter break, Gunny bowed to
the dictates of his lifelong religion and his overbearing father and
left UW never to return.
After
a failed marriage, Gunny built a quiet life embracing his gay
identity, and left his North Dakota home, his marriage, and his
father's business for a forestry and teaching career in Oregon.
Meanwhile, Daren has built up his own life around managing a unique
holiday venue, the Holiday Home Hotel, and performing for the guests
in drag as "Dare."
A
decade has passed since they last saw each other, but now winter’s
harsh weather brings them face to face—helped along by a minor
goddess and powerful forest spirit. Too much hurt might lie between
them now to fix things, but interfering supernatural beings are
determined to force them to try.
Being a wild man but
keeping it secret was like walking a tightrope without a balance bar.
The danger filled Gunny with quiet but insistent exhilaration. By the time
Halloween rolled around, conservative, respectable, reserved Gunner
Schiller from North Dakota had gained a reputation as a partier. He’d
even had sex with women on two occasions at parties. He didn’t
really remember much about that. The memory lapse might have been
about booze, but truthfully he hadn’t been all that drunk either
time, so he thought it was mostly because the act itself hadn’t
been as memorable as he’d expected. The idea of sex excited him,
but honestly, the women’s bodies and efforts just didn’t. Oh
well, he’d thought after the second try, you live and learn. Halloween night was to be one big mobile party. Gunny had bowed to
popular opinion and decided he wouldn’t be any more damned to hell
than he already was if he dressed up, so he decided to go all out and
be Satan for an evening. Tall, lithe, Daren would go as Cher, wearing
a close copy of one of her signature racy outfits. Gunny was all for
that idea, and he told himself that was because he’d heard
music-major Daren sing Cher songs at Karaoke, and he did it
beautifully—the costume just made sense. They were joined by
a pair of their more raucous acquaintances—Johnny Langdon dressed
as the Lord of the Hunt, and his brother Benny, who refused to dress
up at all with the exception of donning suspenders and pretending to
smoke a stogie all night. Together they started the evening at a
Karaoke bar within walking distance from their home base. They
ordered drinks with their fake ID and maybe the costumes helped them
get away with it. But it was early in the evening, and Daren’s
first turn at the mike came up before he or Gunny—who still tried
to pace himself in an effort to reduce guilt over the sin of
drunkenness—hadn’t had more than a sip. Oddly, Daren seemed more
self-conscious singing “Love is the Groove” than Gunny remembered
him being the last time he’d done the Karaoke thing. Looking
like Cher—and Gunny had to admit Daren, in many ways, pulled that
off quite well—evidently made him self-conscious about singing
like her. Although, honestly, Daren didn’t sing like Cher. He sang
like Daren, his voice tenor but enriched with overtones from all the
registers, his style strong like Cher’s but, to Gunny’s inexpert
but attentive ear, perhaps differently nuanced. Gunny hadn’t
really known a lot about Cher until he’d started rooming with
Daren, who called the pop goddess his patron saint. In his new,
wild-with-reservations life, Cher’s music seemed to fit right in
with the parties and booze and pot, all of which swirled around a
central core of Daren. Gunny knew Daren was at the heart of his
changes, the centrifuge that had sent everything whirling, and that
was okay. He figured he’d give himself a year to spin to the
outside, and then settle back down—no doubt without Daren in his
life. Meanwhile he gave himself over. That Halloween
night, when Daren came off the Karaoke stage after “Love is the
Groove” looking down and maybe even embarrassed, Gunny had been
mystified by his own need to comfort him. He’d been schooled all
his life to think a man’s emotions were his own problem, and he had
no reason to believe—or sense—that Daren wouldn’t be just fine
once he manned-up. But he’d finished a hard drink by then, and that
might have been why he even noticed Daren might need comfort. Not
knowing the best way to go about such a not-so-macho thing, he
ordered shots all around and challenged Daren to keep up with him. Daren didn’t try
to do that, but he did drink, and he did loosen up, and by the time
his second turn for Karaoke came up, he was a lot more relaxed.
Relaxed enough—or drunk enough—to trip on the top step of the
stage. He recovered with a giggle, though and stood at the mic,
gazing out at the audience with sultry eyes before launching into
“Taxi Taxi.” Daren’s performance seemed loose and tight in all
the right places and it mesmerized Gunny. As he walked back to
the table where his friends sat waiting, with applause for his
performance echoing in his ears, Daren felt power coursing through
his veins. He was high on it as he’d never been before, and the
feeling so far surpassed the booze that Gunny had tried to get him
drunk on that he didn’t even want to sit back down. He needed to
move. “Let’s go,” he
said, looking at Jimmy but oh-so-aware of Gunny’s hungry look.
Daren didn’t know what that look really meant, but he liked
it, and he thought he might have just made a discovery about himself
that had been a long time coming. Or maybe several
discoveries, all because he liked that look. A lot. He liked knowing
he’d affected Gunny by his drag Karaoke—by his look and his voice
and his walk, all of which were different from, but somehow part of,
everyday Daren. He liked that it made him want to get up next to
Gunny and move, and he loved the feeling—the certainty—that Gunny
would want that too. And that particular desire was all about sex. I’m gay, he
thought. He laughed a little
because how the hell had he not known that? Although… maybe he had.
And then, biting his full, red-painted bottom lip and wiggling his
ass a bit just for the joy of it, he thought it again. I’m
fucking gay…And that’s
fabulous! The rest of the
festivities that night went by in a blur. Daren sang at a couple of
parties, played a racy board game, and yes, drank too much, all the
while getting close to Gunny whenever he could. He never got quite so
drunk that he wasn’t in control, but perhaps, he admitted, he was a
little past the point of good sense, because he knew Gunny was
basically an innocent—or at least a naïve soul. Gunny was
drunker than was strictly healthy, and right then Daren had some
power over him. For a while, he enjoyed playing him like a fish on
the line. But when they’d
left the last party, said goodbye to Ronnie and Jimmy outside their
residence hall, and walked halfway back to their dorm in a steady,
cool rain, Daren sobered and he didn’t feel like toying with
Gunny anymore. He wondered for a moment if Gunny really did want him,
but then he realized wondering that was a little dishonest. He could
see Gunny’s desire, feel it. He could damn well smell it.
But then he asked himself a more honest question. Would Gunny want
him with his clothes off the same way he did when he was in drag? Because if the
answer was no, then Daren didn’t want to want Gunny. 
Lou Sylvre loves romance with all its ups and downs, and she likes to conjure it into books. The sweethearts on her pages are men who end up loving each other, and sometimes saving each other from unspeakable danger. It’s all pretty crazy and very sexy. As if you'd want to know more, she’ll happily tell you that she is a proudly bisexual woman, a mother, grandmother, lover of languages, and cat-herder. She works closely with lead cat and writing assistant, the (male) Queen of Budapest, Boudreau St. Clair. She is the author of the six well-loved books of the Vasquez and James Series and holiday favorites, Falling Snow on Snow and The Holiday Home Hotel. She teamed up with Kiwi author Anne Barwell to write Sunset at Pencarrow, an adventurous tale of New Zealand romance.
Hi! I’m Lou
Sylvre, grateful to our hosts for the opportunity to share with you
my 2018 holiday story. I love music as well as books, and it’s not
uncommon for my characters to be musical men.
In The Holiday
Home Hotel, Daren Slovak is a gay man who might wear flannel
shirts and jeans when working around his hotel, lounging by the fire
in his small private home, or playing fetch with his dog, Lelia, in
the surrounding forest. But at night when the dance floor in the
lounge is lit for a loving mood, he performs as Dare—decked out in
delicious drag. Back in his college days, his lover Gunny Schiller
had described his luscious voice as “almost female but
ever-so-male,” and “smooth yet throaty.”
Dare’s idol has
always been Cher, and over the course of the story, he sings her
songs of heartbreak, and hope. But he also sings about Christmas and
Kwanzaa, the winter outside and spring and the changing seasons,
and—of course—longing and love.
I’ve put together
a playlist of all the songs in The Holiday Home Hotel. Enjoy
them through the YouTube links if any strike a chord with you, and I
hope you’ll read the novella—one of the brightest love stories
I’ve ever written—and find out how the music weaves into the
words as Daren and Gunny get a second chance at love.
_____________________
Playlist in Order of
Appearance
Cher:
“If I Could Turn
Back Time” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsKbwR7WXN4
“Love is the
Groove” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cXpkBpv9Ps
“Taxi Taxi”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxfq5izXJKI
“All or Nothing”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FPrSIzGTZ0
Nat King Cole:
“The Christmas
Song” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w04NBhVkmS0
Steve Miller
Band:
“Winter Time”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M3ZtxlrZOg
Lovely Hoffman
“A Kwanzaa Song”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg2T3zRfIRc
Sweet Honey in
the Rock
“Seven Principles”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2MkzucINLs
Billie Holiday:
“Some Other
Spring” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nwRPeKJhyc
Sarah McLachlan:
“Song for a Winter
Night” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV4F2yfEt9o
Dells:
“Oh What a Night”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOrb7py-cgo
Tina Turner:
“What’s Love Got
to Do With It” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGpFcHTxjZs
Cher:
“Believe”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_cILjrO23U
Two Door Cinema
Club:
“Changing of the
Seasons” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QzIVHdOCMc
Buffy St. Marie:
“Goodnight”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNGIiGplXdw
Benny:
“Never Apart”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0_l9ZOubA0
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