Maggie Blackbird

Book Hooks is a weekly meme hosted by Marketing for Romance Writers as part of the MFRW Authors Blog. Readers have the chance to jump from one author to another who share hooks from their current WIP (work in progress) or any previously published book.

For this week’s edition of Book Hooks, I give you a teaser from my recently released title Knight Moves, book three in the When We Were Young series.

BOOK THREE:  KNIGHT MOVES (Sequel to Toy Soldiers)

Although they’re torn apart, they still hold a piece of each other’s heart.

Blurb: After receiving his grade twelve diploma and marking his eighteenth birthday, René Oshawee cannot fight the temptation seventeen-year-old high school junior Billy Redsky blatantly offers now that what they share has become taboo.

When their secret romance is blown into the open, Billy’s foster parents send René to Toronto to complete the last of his schooling under the supervision of a family friend, leaving Billy behind at their Ojibway community.

Now Billy and René must make the biggest decision of their lives—fight for the true love they know they’ll never find with anyone else or go their separate ways.

Genre(s): Multicultural, m/m contemporary romance, LGBT, young adult, new adult.
Heat Rating: Level 2
Publication Date: April 16, 2021
Publisher: Devine Destinies

PURCHASE AT DEVINE DESTINIES

Billy couldn’t stop pacing his room. They were cooked. Burnt toast. For sure Daniel was going straight to The General and Colonel. He was probably on the phone right now.

Footsteps padded down the hall. They weren’t the familiar clomp of Daniel’s formidable gait but René’s smooth saunter. Billy dashed to his door and threw it open to René on the other side. There might as well have been a thundercloud above his head with pouring rain.

“He’s gonna tell your parents, isn’t he?” Billy managed to squeak out through the ball forming in his throat.

This couldn’t be happening. They were in love. Madly, deeply in love. They hadn’t fought after René had pulled the unthinkable last year. They’d been getting along perfectly. Naturally, what they’d shared had almost led to sex. That was what happened when two people were crazy about each other.

Regret and hopelessness loomed in René’s eyes. He reached out and drew Billy into his arms, smothering him with his familiar crisp, clean scent. Being blanketed in such a tender embrace was enough to expand the lump in Billy’s throat. He couldn’t stop the tears from welling up.

“Wh-why?” Releasing those words when he could barely speak was like trying to suck a boulder through a straw.

“You know why,” René whispered. He stroked Billy’s back and used his broad chin to nuzzle him.

“Wh-what’d he say?” But Billy had his answer already. He clutched René tighter.

“What I keep telling you. I’m eighteen. I’m a high school graduate. You’re fostering at my place. You don’t need to take advanced grade twelve algebra to figure this calculation.” Pure misery was in René’s limp reply.

Then if he didn’t want to see them come to an end, why not fight for them? Billy squirmed until he was free of René’s clinch. He set his palms on René’s biceps and bore down on his despondent gaze. “You’re eighteen. You can make your own—”

“No.” René shook his head. He trailed his finger down Billy’s cheek. “You know why we had to keep us a secret.”

Billy buried himself back in René’s arms. “Can’t you talk to him? Can’t you tell him to keep it quiet?”

“I can try talk to him, but I know already what he’s going to say, Billy.”

Be on the lookout for book four, Real Warriors, in the When We Were Young series, coming your way summer of 2021.

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