What an amazing week! I had a birthday, a new release, my last week at real life work until the new year and the kids are all finished up at school as of today!

2023 has been my busiest year yet, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. I hope wherever you are in the world you can find something today that makes you smile.

Let’s welcome Beck Grey to the blog today!

Books are fueled by coffee

Beck's Amazon Home Page

Author Bio

Beck is a non-binary writer of sweet, sexy, LGBTQ+ happily ever afters. Why? Because everyone deserves all the happy! They live in the Northeastern United States with their two adorable dogs. Weekdays are spent working their day job, but nights and weekends are devoted to writing stories involving hot characters, favorite tropes, and happy endings. Any additional time includes reading, laughing with friends, drinking red wine, and playing D&D. If there’s cake involved at any point, it’s a win!

Beck’s Quirky Questions

Holly: If you could be an animal for a day what would it be and why?

BECK GREY: My dogs. They’re spoiled, incredibly loved, well taken care of, and they’re pretty darned cute.

Holly: Does writing exhaust you or energize you?

BECK GREY: It depends. If I’m writing dialogue it almost always energizes me. Or if I’m creating new characters, that’s very energizing. Writing scenes, plotting, those things are exhausting. That’s probably why my stories are character heavy and there’s not much plot past the romance. But I don’t claim to write anything more profound or involved. Nor am I embarrassed by that. I write what I love to read.

Holly: What’s your writing process like?

BECK GREY: I usually think about a trope, or a unique situation I want to write about. Sometimes I’ll pick a character type I want to write, like my gentle giant, Erik Osouf, in Choose Me. Then I’ll try to figure out who he’d be paired with, and what unique situation would fit those characters to make the story interesting. So I gave Jules Evans severe social anxiety. Then I think about the situations where whatever unique character point I’ve picked would be challenging for the MCs, and start plotting scenes. Jules has to go to work and speak in front of his peers, or he gets a new boss, etc. So then I have some direction for brainstorming “What ifs”. I do a lot of bouncing ideas off of my writer group, talking the story to death before I actually start writing it. I jot down the plot points and then just start writing. But the process almost always starts with a unique character I want to write.

Holly: What’s your most annoying habit?

BECK GREY: OMG it’s talking over people when we’re having a conversation. I get so excited and think of something I want to say and it just comes out of my mouth. It doesn’t help that it was how everyone conversed in my house growing up. I think it might be a little nature AND nurture. I try not to do it anymore. I’m not always successful at it, though.

Holly: What’s on top of your fridge?

BECK GREY: Nothing. There’s only about an inch of space between the top of my refrigerator and the bottom of the cupboard. But in that cupboard is a bunch of baking and cake decorating paraphernalia. I have a habit of obsessing about hobbies and going hard, buying a lot of gadgets or supplies to do those hobbies. I get really into it for an extended period (months or years) so I get my money out of each hobby, but then I eventually move on to the next obsession and am left with “stuff”.

Holly: What’s your favorite thing to do to relax?

BECK GREY: Oh, wow. It really depends on what definition of relaxed we’re going for.

Physical relaxation when I’m tense means getting a massage. I love massages and I’m a firm believer in self-care for health and wellbeing. So I don’t feel guilty about getting frequent massages.

Mental relaxation when I’m burned out usually involves getting out all of my paint and brushes and spending hours painting little 28mm high figurines for Dungeons and Dragons. It allows me to shut the wording part of my brain off and use the visual part of my brain to be creative. It’s actually very meditative.

Holly: Explain your book terribly in a few words. (For example two men meet and hate each other, until they don’t)

BECK GREY: LOL, okay. um…

Two guys fake fake-date

Holly: Where did your inspiration come from for your MCs?

BECK GREY: Creating characters is my favorite part of writing. I adore creating characters! And I usually go way overboard doing it. They have backstories, and favorite colors, and foods, and I know what subjects they liked and didn’t like in school, and if they had pets, what kind of pets, what the pet’s name was… Most of the info never makes it into any books. But I know it in case I need it! It almost always makes writing the characters, especially dialogue, so much easier.

The inspiration for the MCs in Heal Me came from a few places.

I created Jocelin as a handsome, accented, successful guy so Quinn MacDougall could have doubts about himself and pursuing a relationship with Tadhg, in their book, Embrace Me. But I had such fun writing him, that he kept showing up in other scenes and other books in my series, and eventually he had to have his own book.

Gunnar was created because I needed an ignition point for the Osouf Family dysfunction, which plays or will play into all three Osouf brothers’ books.

I love writing about characters with unique circumstances. It can be anything that is not “typically” part of a mainstream romance. I’ve written a Deaf main character, a main character with extreme social anxiety, a main character with a gender expression that isn’t on the binary, and in Heal Me I write about Gunnar, who has PTSD. It definitely informs who he is, and it changed the trajectory of his life. I try to bring a new perspective to my stories, and hopefully the reader learns something about a situation they aren’t familiar with, finding empathy maybe they didn’t have before. Or if they happen to see themselves in the main character, I hope they find the portrayal accurate. Representation matters, and seeing yourself in books is validating and necessary.

As a side note, if I write about something that isn’t my own lived experience, I definitely do my research and utilize sensitivity readers.

Heal Me

Blurb:

❤️Low-medium angst

🧡MM romance

💛Fake boyfriends

💚Past trauma

💙Sister’s best friend

💜Acceptance

Jocelin:

What do you do when your boss’s pushy nephew repeatedly asks you out and won’t take no for an answer? You create a fake boyfriend. One who works a lot, so he never comes to office functions or meets you for lunch. It works well until le salaud calls my bluff.

So that’s how I find myself at a client event, practically begging a handsome stranger to play said boyfriend. Only after I calm down do I realize le bel homme in the bespoke suit is no stranger at all. He’s my best friend’s brother, and mon Dieu, he cleans up well!

When Gunnar volunteers to keep up the ruse beyond one night, of course, I say yes. I’m no fool. But fake love can have very real consequences…

Gunnar:

Being accosted by the attractive, if slightly flustered, Jocelin Allard before I even make it out of the parking lot isn’t how I expect to start my evening. But pretending to be his boyfriend for a few hours seems like a harmless way to liven up an otherwise painful social event.

And as far as dates go, fake or otherwise, I could do a lot worse. He’s smart, gorgeous, and has a sexy accent. Plus, my sister would kill me if I left her bestie hanging.

When the evening goes shockingly well, almost effortlessly, our relationship turns real, and for a while, it’s total bliss. Until I unintentionally take a wrecking ball to my life. Again.

Heal Me is a low-medium angst, MM fake boyfriend, sister’s best friend, contemporary romance about bad decisions, past trauma, and loving someone including their flaws. It contains no cheating, and a guaranteed HEA.

Buy Yours Today

Excerpt

I step out of the hired car and button my suit coat, then head for the front doors of Jupiter Winery. As planned, I stopped at my apartment to shower and change into a fresh suit. This is a party, which requires a whole different clothing vibe. And now, I’m here, fashionably late, ready to show my support for Gary. I’ve just reached the top of the steps when someone grabs my arm. I turn to find Victor Knobb standing at my elbow, wearing a rumpled gray suit, with his hair pulled up into a messy top knot. He smiles in a way I assume he thinks is charming, and I curse myself for not spotting him sooner. “Good evening, Jocelin. What a coincidence we showed up at the exact same time.”

If I know anything about Victor, it’s that, like his aunt, nothing he does is a coincidence. I smile cooly. “Yes. What luck.” More likely, he’s been lying in wait, ready to pounce the moment I arrived.

He looks behind me, then smirks. “No boyfriend tonight?”

Putain. “If he can get away from work, he’ll be here.”

The self-satisfied smirk on Victor’s face clearly telegraphs his prediction. He reaches for the door. “While we wait, why don’t you let me buy you a drink?”

Calling on the manners my mother drummed into me, I keep my smile in place while extracting my arm from his grasp. “This is a Gary Atkinson event. Hibernian Press pulls out all the stops for him, so it’s an open bar.” I’d have thought Victoria would have clued him in on that. Speaking of… I look around but don’t see her. “Are you here alone?” Only when his eyes darken do I realize my words might be misconstrued as interest, and I hurry to mitigate the damage. “I wasn’t aware you were on the guest list.”

His smugness only intensifies, and I want to smack the look from his face. “Aunt Victoria insisted I come since I’ll be working with Blake soon.” There is so much wrong with his sentence that I could scream. Instead, I swallow my annoyance and let it pass until I speak with Alistair. He was in meetings all afternoon and unavailable to anyone. At least Victoria hasn’t spoken to him yet, either. Victor opens the door and waves me in. “Anyway, let’s go get that drink.”

As I’m about to politely tell him hell will freeze over before I willingly have a drink with him, the unmistakable roar of a Harley Davidson cuts through the air. We both turn to watch the bike come into view. The rider pulls up to the valet podium, exchanges a few words with the valet, then pulls away, parking in a designated motorcycle spot. He cuts the engine and swings his leg over the seat, pulling off his helmet as he stands, and my mouth goes dry.

Gunnar Osouf is a ridiculously gorgeous man, with ridiculously large, well, everything. As he walks toward us, my entire body perks up. His thick, dark hair, which had been artfully messy this afternoon, is now shorter on the sides, with longer layers on top. He drags his fingers through the low pompadour, puffing it up a bit where it had been squashed by his helmet. His facial hair is now neatly trimmed, revealing plump lips and perfect white teeth. And my god, the incredibly expensive navy wool bespoke suit he’s wearing accentuates his broad shoulders, chest, and narrow waist perfectly. Next to me, Victor, in his off-the-rack finery, growls.

Before he can say anything, I hurry down the steps to Gunnar. “There you are, mon chéri. I was afraid you wouldn’t make it.”

Confused, Gunnar reaches into his pocket and pulls out a lovely light blue silk tie. “Jocelin, were we—”

I gently pluck the silk from his hand, cutting him off mid-sentence. “Let me help you with that. We both know you’ll only butcher the knot.” Gunnar doesn’t say a word, but plays along, his eyes sparkling with mischief. I drape the tie around his neck and flip up his collar, keeping my voice low. “I know it’s presumptuous, but I really could use your help. The person at the door is someone I work with and…” My voice trails off as I try to find a succinct way of explaining the situation.

“Is he bothering you?” Gunnar’s tone is quietly menacing, almost a growl, and I quickly glance up. His expression is murderous as he glares at Victor.

I quickly tie an Eldredge knot, fold down his shirt collar, and smooth my hands along his chest. “Yes and no.” That brings his attention back to me. “He’s mostly innocuous but persistent. He keeps asking me out, and I keep declining, but his aunt is a partner in my firm—the woman you saw earlier today—so I have to tread carefully.” So far, Gunnar seems on board, but this next part is where I could lose him. “He has been so persistent, I may have told him I have a boyfriend. Incredibly, said boyfriend never makes it to any office functions, so Victor keeps trying.”

Gunnar’s face goes blank, and he takes a step back. “Oh. He couldn’t make it tonight?”

With a snort, I step forward and put my hands on his chest again, feeling Victor’s eyes boring a hole in my back. “Gunnar, I don’t actually have a boyfriend. I made him up.” With a deep inhale, I look him in the eyes and rip off the bandage. “I was hoping you’d play that role.”