Tour Stop & Guest Post: Homebird by Amy Lane

Imaginary Places

By Amy Lane

So, last year, for his fiftieth birthday, Mate went on a trip to Germany with his friends.

Why didn’t I go with him?

Well, lots of reasons.

The first was that he was heading for the beer tents in Oktoberfest, and I am not a fan of beer. The second was that he was running around with his uber-fit friends, and I am slow and not quite as portable, and I have a fondness for cabs when Mate really liked walking for miles and miles and taking public transportation.

But even that wasn’t a deal breaker.

What was a deal breaker—for me, at least—was that the trip was only five days long.

I like to take my time in a place.

I like to visit places for hours. I like to sit and listen to street noises during quiet hours. I like to get familiar with the best places for coffee, the best for pizza, the best for ice cream.

I don’t move very fast, partly because it takes me a minute to absorb information. I like to know where I am.

I’ve waited my whole life to go to Europe—I really didn’t want to spend two days in transit and three and a half running around in circles. I mean, I spent that much on Manhattan Island—wasn’t nearly enough. And this was a twelve hour plane ride, not a seven hour one.

But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t interested as hell. I followed Mate and his friends on their adventure to Andechs Abbey, to the beer tents, to the carnival rides. I followed them to Nymphenburg, to see the castle, and through the streets of an exotic city, with lots of culture and tradition and music and laughter.

I immersed myself in their stories and wished I was a drinker of beer, just for five days, because might have found a way to be on that trip too.

I’m not the first reader to find my way to different worlds in stories—and this time I was lucky. My husband and his friends brought their stories to me, and I made them my own. I took their experiences, the people they met, the way they laugh at themselves, and I created a story just about their time in Germany.

Well, about two strangers who took their trip.

Fiction’s a beautiful thing. Last year, my husband took a trip to Germany.

This year, I took you all along for the ride.

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Title: Homebird by Amy Lane
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Genre: Contemporary, Gay, Romance
Length: 200 pages/Word Count: 61,139

Summary:

Crispin Henry isn’t an adventurer. He learned early on that the world is a frightening place and that home is rare and precious. If his friends didn’t drag him to sports games and ill-advised trips to Vegas, he wouldn’t get out at all—and his trip to Munich for Oktoberfest is no exception. But it’s there that he meets Luka Gabriel, and he learns to take a chance.

Luka is a free-spirited world traveler, working at Oktoberfest to feed his enchantment with new places and new people. His only possessions fit in his backpack, and he depends on the kindness of strangers for a place to sleep. Crispin should know better—but he takes Luka’s hand anyway, and together they turn three nights in Munich into the relationship neither of them has been brave enough to risk—and neither can let go of.

When Luka turns up on Crispin’s doorstep before the holiday season, Crispin takes him in on hope alone. Yes, he knows the odds are good Luka will flutter out of his life again and leave him bereft, but isn’t it worth it to see if Luka is a homebird after all?

Add to Goodreads.

Purchase Links: Dreamspinner Press * Amazon

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Author Bio

Amy Lane lives in a crumbling crapmansion with a couple of growing children, a passel of furbabies, and a bemused spouse. She’s been nominated for a RITA, has won honorable mention for an Indiefab, and has a couple of Rainbow Awards to her name. She also has too damned much yarn, a penchant for action-adventure movies, and a need to know that somewhere in all the pain is a story of Wuv, Twu Wuv, which she continues to believe in to this day! She writes fantasy, urban fantasy, and gay romance–and if you accidentally make eye contact, she’ll bore you to tears with why those three genres go together. She’ll also tell you that sacrifices, large and small, are worth the urge to write.

Author Links: Website * Facebook Group * Twitter * Newsletter * Goodreads