Vampire Rising
Larry Benjamin
Release date: Summer 2015
Quickie
interview:
Best moment of your school career?
The day I walked into Hill House (at the University of
Pennsylvania), looked up the stairs, and fell in love with the boy who would be
the center of my universe for the next decade.
What kind of shifter would you be?
A panther—sleek and dark and fast.
Twinks or Bears?
Bears
Blurb:
It’s
the mid twenty-first century. Anti-Semitism, racism, sexism and homophobia have
been consigned to the dustbin of history. The world is run by “the state,” and
Christian zealots, whose chief governing tools are fear and oppression. It’s a
wonderful time to be alive—unless you’re a Vampire. Vampires are despised, and
feared, and subjected to discrimination and unspeakable violence.
Considered
undead, unholy, without basic human rights, Gatsby Calloway lives on the
fringes of society, avoiding humanity. Until he meets Barnabas, a young
encaustic painter.
When
Barnabas is mortally wounded during an anti-Vampire attack, Gatsby must forget
everything he has known, and learn to trust.
Categories: Fantasy, Gay Fiction, M/M Romance, Urban
Fantasy
Pages:
67 pages
Publisher: Beaten Track Publishing
Cover Artist: Natasha Snow
“This
here coming up is the stop for Chicksand Street,” the bus driver called out.
Barnabas
stood and walked to the front of the bus. He peered out the windshield into the
dark, then looked at the driver. “The schedule said you stopped at Chicksand
Street,” Barnabas said.
“Not
after dark I don’t,” the driver shot back. “This here is as far as I’m going
tonight!”
Barnabas
shrugged and moved to the door. The Mexican woman he’d noticed earlier touched
his arm. As he turned to her, she drew a silver crucifix attached to rosary
beads from around her neck and, muttering a prayer in Spanish, pressed it into
his hands. He closed his hand around the offering still warm from her bosom and
said, “Thank you.”
The
bus slowed and the driver said, “This here road, about a mile on, becomes
Chicksand Street.” He opened the door, barely stopping long enough for Barnabas
to disembark. As soon as his feet touched the curb, the driver closed the door
and sped away as fast as the bus’ ancient diesel engine would allow. As the bus
passed him he saw the passengers with their foreheads and palms pressed against
the windows, their eyes wide, and their mouths forming tiny “O”s of fright.
Sales Link
About Larry Benjamin:
Bronx-born wordsmith, Larry Benjamin considers himself
less a writer than an artist whose chosen medium is the written word rather
than clay or paint or bronze. His debut novel, the gay romance What Binds Us
was released by Carina Press in March 2012. His second book, Damaged Angels, a
collection of short stories, is a 2013 Rainbow Award Runner-Up in the Gay
Contemporary General Fiction category. His third book, Unbroken, was a 2014
Lambda Literary finalist, and a 2014 IPPY (Independent Publishers Book Award)
Gold medalist.
He lives in Philadelphia with his husband and their two
dogs.
Where to find Mr. Benjamin:
Cover Reveal date: June 3, 2015
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And now for the fun part! Because honestly...who doesn't
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win!?!?!?
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Prize: 3 books from Larry’s backlist.
Unbroken
My parents, unable to change me, had
instead, silenced me. When they’d stilled my hands, they’d taken my words, made
me lower my voice to a whisper. Later I remained silent in defense, refusing to
acknowledge the hateful words: Brainiac. Sissy. Antiman. Faggot.
Lincoln
de Chabert’s life is pretty unremarkable until he comes home from kindergarten
and announces he will marry his best friend, Orlando, when he grows up. His parents spring into immediate action,
determined to fix him―his father takes
him to baseball games and the movie “Patton”―igniting an epic battle of wills as Lincoln is determined
to remain himself, and marry whom he chooses, at all costs.
What Binds Us
When 17 year old Thomas Edward meets the
man of his dreams, he assumes they'll be together forever. When their
relationship ends abruptly, he learns that sometimes it's in an ending that we
find our beginning.
At 17
Thomas-Edward escapes southern New Jersey and the tyranny of his parents love
thinking he is ready for his life to begin, thinking he is ready for
anything. Anything quickly arrives in
the form of one Donovan Dion “Dondi” Whyte, his freshman roommate at the
University of Pennsylvania. Dondi, who is like no one he has ever met before,
in his own words: “Dondi became my guide, my Virgil, on my personal odyssey of
self-discovery.”
Dondi
introduces Thomas him into “a looking-glass world in which everything was
familiar yet larger, more exquisite, more precious than anything he had ever
known.” Dondi is stunningly wealthy, sophisticated, passionate,
urbane—everything Thomas has dreamed of loving.
They fall in love but the relationship fails. They remain uneasy
friends. Their fragile relationship is threatened when Thomas falls in love
with Matthew, Dondi’s younger brother.
Damaged Angels
Damaged
Angels is the first collection of short fiction by Larry Benjamin. The 13
stories in this collection give voice to the invisible, the damaged: the drug
addicts and hustlers, the mentally ill, the confused, and the men who fall in
love with them, all of them bravely trying to make a place for themselves in
the world of unbroken men. Their worlds are sometimes the mean streets of
decaying cities, sometimes the great beyond and, once, the earth itself. Often
dark, always evocative and lyrical, these stories delve into the lives of men clearly
less-than-perfect and explore love in the context of disease and oncoming death
as in "The Cross," drug addiction, as in "The Seduction of the
Angel Gabriel," and mental illness in "2 Rivers." These stories
explore the possibility that less-than-perfect is sometimes perfect.
Thank you to the amazing Pride Promotions for
bringing us so many terrific books that dare us to fall in love with the
person, not the gender!
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