Stripped Clean
Ellis Carrington
Carlos O'Shea is stuck. He knocked up a girl in college after a night of too much drinking and then married her to be honorable. With little money, fewer options, and no degree, he winds up cleaning the floors in a small town gentlemen's club and thinking desperate thoughts about the handsome owner that'll lead to nothing but trouble.
Greg Moorehouse only invested in a nudie bar to help his best buddy out of a financial crisis. Now his drug-dealing ex-boyfriend, his reverend father, and a parade of surgically-enhanced DDs are driving him insane. But what's really stripped him of all good sense is his growing obsession with his married employee, Carlos.
They circle each other in a push-pull of misunderstandings and growing attraction. Carlos needs to get his boss out of his head, and Greg can’t abide cheaters and married men. So what are a strip club owner and the guy who cleans going to do with their undeniable desires?
Please note: This is an adult gay romance, for mature readers only. Contains explicit love-making between two hot-blooded men, angsty dark moments, and cupcake-baking exotic dancers.
Hey everyone! Welcome to Wednesday!! Today I have author Ellis Carrington by to do a guest spot about cheating!! It can definitely be a very controversial subject for a lot of readers! Check it out, see what she has to say. Weigh in with your opinion! And don't forget to enter the giveaway at the bottom for your chance to win a copy of Stripped Clean! Thanks for coming by!
*Liz
The Drama of Cheating in Romance
Hey everyone! First I wanted to say a huge thank you to Liz for allowing me to guest post today, and for having such a sexy blog! ;)
I felt saucy this morning so I decided to go with a slightly controversial topic for today’s post: cheating.
I know this comes up in mainstream romance once in awhile, but it seems like a real biggie in the genre of gay romance, and I see it more and more as the genre grows. It’s a reality of life that a guy might say, not realize (or not acknowledge) that he’s into men until he’s already in a committed relationship with a woman. In a genre that digs it’s gay for you and related tropes, this makes for a plethora of emotionally intense story premise possibilities. And yes, there’s an ideal solution to said situation that involves patiently waiting until the married guy isn’t anymore, but life isn’t always pretty or perfect.
Personally? I don’t always mind books with cheating. It makes for good drama, and I’m an angst girl. So long as the ending is happy, go ahead and rip my heart out a little. And nothing throws in story complications like a little “Till death do us part.”
I remember reading Sue Brown’s “Nothing Ever Happens” when I was newer to gay romance and finding it to be a really tragic and lovely story. A man struggling to chose between the man he truly loves and the family he believes he should be faithful to, well that’s just something you can feel for. I couldn’t help but root for him to get a happy ending. Jacob Flores’s “3” is a ménage story that stems from cheating that I also enjoyed. The happy ending worked for me. These stories wouldn’t be what they were if the authors had tried to play it safe and leave the married men out of the equation.
I do understand why people find cheating distasteful in romance, and if that’s your moral or personal stance then I respect your belief one-hundred percent. I suppose my thought is this: Characters are supposed to be flawed. If they don’t screw up, if they’re too perfect, they’ll be flat and boring. If they’re not villains or assholes, maybe we can understand and forgive them their indiscretions. It’s up to the author to justify their behavior of course, but that’s another story.
When I wrote STRIPPED CLEAN, I faced the same decision about cheating: I started the story with Carlos married and then started to wonder if maybe I should back off. Maybe he should be separated, or newly divorced. But the story wouldn’t have been the same, and the conflict would have been gone. I believed wholeheartedly that Carlos and Greg are good characters with good hearts and that in the end their love would win the day in spite of that additional challenge.
I hope you agree.
Happy reading,
Find Ellis Online!
Romance requires a hopeful ending and that is why Ellis Carrington is driven to write it. She loves to create original stories that are gritty, witty, and a little unexpected, just like the heroes who inhabit them. Her guyscome in both human and non-human form because spirit guides and vampires deserve love too. Her favorite things are great friends, great music, and books that make her laugh and cry like there’s no tomorrow.
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