Maggie Blackbird

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

For this week’s edition of Book Hooks, I give you a teaser from Two Princes, the first book in the When We Were Young series, a young adult, LGBTQ+ contemporary romance. Make sure and check out other book hooks from participating authors here.

To win over the chief’s haughty son, a drug-dealing punk from a dysfunctional family must risk the only two things he has:  his reputation and freedom.

Blurb:  Billy Redsky, a rebellious punk who loves art and nature, is saddled with a welfare-leeching, alcoholic mother and criminal older brother who are the joke of their Ojibway community.  Sick and tired of being perceived as a loser, Billy deals drugs for his older brother to earn quick money.  He hopes if he buys a dirt bike, he’ll finally impress the chief’s popular and aloof son, René Oshawee.

When the two are forced to serve detention together, a friendship begins to bloom, but much to Billy’s frustration, René keeps putting him on ice.  To make his biggest dream come true if he finally wants to call René his own, Billy must make a huge decision that could cost him everything.

Genre(s):  Multicultural Romance, M/M Contemporary Romance, LGBTQ+, Young Adult.
Heat Rating: Level 2
Publication Date:  June 12, 2020
Publisher:  eXtasy Books

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For the last year he’d sold ten joints a day. With the measly cut he was getting from his shit-ass older brother for peddling the dickhead’s weed, Billy would be wearing dentures and bunking at the senior’s building by the time he got to buy the dirt bike he’d been drooling over at Moe’s Motorcycles.

Maybe he could find a job. He shoved aside the empty beer bottles and overflowing ashtray on the coffee table and snatched the reserve’s bi-weekly newsletter peeking out from beneath the mess. He flipped through the stapled pages.

This was useless. As if anyone would hire him. He was a Redsky. Mom and Hoyt—with their drinking, drugging, letting the house go to shit, monthly gimme money ‘cause I’m too fucking lazy to work welfare checks, stints in jail—had done everything and anything to trash the family name.

There wasn’t even one job anyway. He tossed aside the newsletter and stood. At least Mom’s boyfriend kept the fridge stocked with lunchmeat that Billy had made two sandwiches from.

He slid his sketchpad and charcoal pencils into his backpack. Then he adjusted the Canadian flag pin on the lapel of his jean jacket from right side up to upside down so those in the know understood he had weed for sale.

There were messes on the living room and kitchen floors he had to step over. Eight o’clock. The school bus would arrive any second. He shouldn’t have screwed around while rolling those ten joints earlier.

Mom’s light snores carried from her bedroom adjacent to the utility room. Billy lifted his middle finger. He kicked open the utility room door, and it banged against the wall. Good. The noise might wake the lazy lush.

Mom’s purse sat on the washer. He reached inside, dug out her wallet, and helped himself to a five-dollar bill.

He left the house to a shining sun and a clear blue sky. Neither matched the gray cloud seeming to hover above his head.

CHECK OUT OTHER BOOK HOOKS HERE FROM PARTICIPATING AUTHORS