Happy Thanksgiving Week! The holiday season is official upon us. I intend to eat until my pants are uncomfortably tight and then sleep the afternoon away. I love this season of food. I don't care all that much about the presents, but the food? Bring it on!
So with the season of giving (and food) in mind, this week I'd like to welcome D. A. Cairns to my blog with his new release, Love Sick, Love. He will be GIVING AWAY: one digital copy of this new book to one lucky commentor, so be sure to say hello and welcome David to my blog.
Title: Love Sick Love
Author: D. A. Cairns
ISBN: 978-1-62420-340-4
Genre: Family Life / Marriage & Divorce
Excerpt Heat Level: 1
Book Heat Level: 4 (contains a scene of rape)
Buy at: Amazon, Barnes and Noble
TAGLINE
Lovesick is a brutally honest and confronting story of love, sexual obsession and hope.
BLURB
Angus has battled an obsession with sex throughout his adult life. Although outwardly a model husband and father with a respectable life and a well-paying job, he has a shameful secret life which he has become highly skilled at hiding.
Cassy is married to Angus and has no idea about his secret life. In fact, with her own worries she has been pulling away from him, emotionally and physically which is making his behaviour worse. Although she does not know it, Cassy is fanning the flames of an inferno which threatens to destroy their marriage.
Lovesickness: the eternal bane of humanity, the inescapable affliction which we simultaneously crave and fear. For Angus and Cassy, already in the thirteenth year of their marriage, the painful journey to true happiness has only just began.
Lovesick is a brutally honest and confronting story of love, sexual obsession and hope.
EXCERPT
She seems agitated, and although I know she is a nervy, jittery type of character, I sense heightened tension on this occasion and naturally so. I feel it too. She’s watching me furtively as I return to her with a schooner of beer in my hand. I offer it to her, and she smiles. Her actions are quick but indecisive. As I settle, I detect reticence.
“Is everything okay?” I ask. “Is this spot all right?”
Her nodding head juxtaposes her words. “Maybe over there is better.”
As she scurries to the other side of the room, I follow, exploding with anticipation. She sits in one chair, then moves before I can join her, and I’m just about to sit down when she moves again.
“Are we playing musical chairs?”
The meaning of the question, and its allusion to childhood games eludes her, and by the time I have settled she’s moved again and is now sitting on a stool directly in front of me. Our knees almost touch, and she leans forward, wide eyed as though she has something exciting to say. I wait, but she retracts, averts her eyes, then quickly glances back to me.
“Talk to me,” I say. “What’s on your mind?”
I study her face and note her blemishes and the lines which quietly assert her maturity. She’s in her late thirties, thirty-eight maybe, but she looks younger. Her expression changes rapidly through numerous emotional displays, but I can’t read anything except uncertainty. She wants to speak, but either won’t or can’t.
“I want to be with you. You like me too, so there is nothing to stop us,” I say.
“Except you are married.”
There is no conviction in her tone. No reproach. It is a statement of fact, which is perhaps not as meaningless to her as it is to me.
“Okay,” I say, cautiously. I’m convinced if I play this right, I can seduce her and make her my secret lover. There is an element of moral ambivalence. “Let me explain why I am chasing you when I’m married.”
She looks away, and sips her beer. I have nearly finished, while her glass is nearly full. My head and heart are also beyond capacity, verging on chaotic inundation. I’m going to justify my adulterous intentions, or at least attempt to.
“My wife and I have been married for twenty years, and we’re friends. We get on well most of the time, but our marriage is really more like a business arrangement. We both work and have little time together. Time we do have is taken up with shopping, and cleaning and visiting, or arguing about money or our children. She’s unwell. Mentally. She’s been diagnosed with depression, but I think she’s bi polar as well. We’re often at odds over little things. She tends to be very negative and critical. She’s miserable actually, and at lot of the time she makes me miserable.”
With the painful realization I’m slandering the woman I love—or perhaps once loved— and have committed to spending the rest of my life with, I pause and take a mouthful of beer. Lying too, with frightening ease. Cassy isn’t sick and we haven’t been married for twenty years; not even close. Chao-xing’s watching me intently, fascinated I suspect. I don’t want to speak ill of my wife. Actually, I don’t want to talk about her at all, but some of this is necessary so Chao-xing will understand where I’m coming from, and not think badly of me. Adultery is a bad thing to do, but I’m not a bad person. I blame circumstances. Years of neglect and sexual frustration. I blame my wife though I would never say that out loud. I don’t want to blame her but am less inclined to blame myself. The uncomfortable truth is I can’t help myself. I’m out of control, but rationalization is a better option than accepting the facts.
“I need some fun and excitement and I need sex.”
Chao-xing is typically unruffled by my directness, but she moves seats again, shifting to my right where she reclines as though tired. She’s staring at me, examining me, interrogating me with her eyes.
AUTHOR BIO
Heavy metal lover and cricket tragic, D.A. Cairns lives in Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory, where he works as an English language teacher and writes stories in his very limited spare time. He has had over fifty short stories published (but who’s counting, right?) He blogs at Square Pegs http://dacairns.blogspot.com.au and has authored four novels, Devolution, Loathe Your Neighbor, Ashmore Grief, and A Muddy Red River which is also available from Rogue Phoenix Press.
KEYWORDS
love sick love, lovesickness, sexual addiction, obsession, divorce
SOCIAL LIINKS
Twitter handle: @da_cairns
Sounds rough (as a wife) but intriguing, and very well written. Congrats on your publication.
ReplyDeleteCarrieBoo, could you please send your email address to Christine at roguephoenixpress@roguephoenixpress.com
DeleteWe'd like to give you a digital copy of Love Sick Love.
Thank you for visiting Courtney's blog and for taking the time to comment.
Thank you for hosting.
ReplyDeleteThank you Courtney. I appreciate your help in promoting LSL. I'm really proud of it and I hope it will touch many readers.
ReplyDelete