I try not to post about myself or my books too often because I don’t want that to be what this blog is all about. In doing this, I often tend to neglect my own work and overcompensate with other things I hope people will find interesting. But I wanted to talk about an upcoming release tentatively titled, “The Ivy League Rake” that’s part of an eight book series concentrated in billionaire bad boys.
For those who don’t know what a rake is, this might help:
A rake, short for rakehell, is a historic term applied to a man who is habituated to immoral conduct, frequently a heartless womanizer. Often a rake was a prodigal who wasted his (usually inherited) fortune on gambling, wine, women and song, incurring lavish debts in the process. The rake was also frequently a man who seduced a young woman and impregnated her before leaving, often to her social or financial ruin.
I’ve been enjoying this series so far, mostly because I’ve never actually written a really bad, evil character before. In fact, the worst character I ever wrote about was in a Virgin Billionaire book when Luis meets his long lost identical twin brother, Gage. And even then Gage wasn’t a total rake because he turned out to be a nice guy by the end of the series. To me, a rake is everything above, including selfish, self-centered, arrogant in a clueless way, and painfully thoughtless to everyone else’s feelings and emotions. And yet there are still gay men who are not only attracted to them, but can’t wait to try and change them.
We all know rakes in real life, but it wasn’t always easy to follow the formula because when it’s applied to gay men in current times a lot of the old rake standards wouldn’t be believable now. In other words, what was considered “immoral conduct” over one hundred years ago would be considered standard today. So I had to get creative and come up with things that I thought would bother me if I were attracted to a modern day rake.
In the second book of this series, “The Wall Street Shark,” the rake is probably one of the most thoughtless, unfeeling people I’ve ever come across. All he cares about is making money, building exposure for himself, and sleeping with other men, including one that gets him involved in a public sex scandal. And the main character who’s been married to him for ten years still makes excuses for him and still hopes he can change him at the expense of his own emotional well-being. That’s an interesting part of the rake theme, to me. The one who isn’t the rake always feels this need to change the rake, as if he’s the only man in the world capable of doing this.
In any event, I’ll post more about rakes and about the series as I get closer to a publication date. Here’s the blurb for “The Ivy League Rake.”
Elroy Donahue, the spoiled heir to a billion dollar ice cream fortune, must get a degree from Harvard in order to gain control of the family fortune. Thankfully, what he lacks in academic skills he makes up for in looks, personality, and a deep seated desire to get what he wants no matter how he has to do it.
Then humble Kyle Sparrow comes along and changes everything. Kyle’s an excellent student, he’s grateful to be at Harvard on an academic scholarship, and he’s never been promiscuous. When Elroy discovers Kyle is his new roommate, he immediately begins to figure out ways to seduce him.
But Kyle isn’t like the other guys Elroy has known in the past. He wants love; he craves emotion. For the first time in his life, Elroy is not only rejected, he’s forced to examine his careless lifestyle and take responsibility for his actions. The harder he tries to do the right thing the more he fails.
Will Elroy’s thoughtless attitude discourage Kyle? Or will Kyle turn out to be the only man on the planet who can transform this billionaire bad boy into the man he knew he could always be?
Photo: Morguefile.com
Photo: Morguefile.com
