It is my pleasure to share a guest post by the creative Aidee Ladnier who relates...
1. The main characters of Wolf Around The Corner are named Tom
and Frank because I was rebelling against cool and popular names at the time. I wanted two guys that were
really different from the norm, with incongruously normal names. Tom is a
glamorous actor from New York City. Frank is a werewolf.
2. The first scene written in Wolf Around The Corner was the “meet cute”. The first image I saw in my mind was Frank crouched naked in the azaleas as the most gorgeous man he’d ever seen stopped to talk to him. In fact, I posted a small snippet of the scene on Facebook the day after I wrote it.
3. Although I live in a big city now, I grew up in a small town. Similar to the fictional Waycroft Falls, my hometown has a weird statue commemorating a bug infestation, a unique festival once a year devoted to chickens, and a main street sprinkled with historic buildings and shops—including my favorite used bookstore.
4. Wolf Around The Corner has a Pinterest board! I make boards for most of my stories to get a sense of the characters and cement ideas about the setting in my head. If you’re interested in seeing the board and the images that inspired the story, you can find it here: https://www.pinterest.com/aideelad/wolf-around-the-corner/.
5. During research for Wolf Around The Corner, I learned that the Argentine Tango was practiced openly between men. In Buenos Aires in the 1800s, there were more men than women in the immigrant population. To practice dancing, men danced with other men to ensure that when they finally got a chance to dance with a woman, they did it correctly. From this all male Tango history, the Queer Tango movement arose which embraces the lack of heteronormative roles within the dance.
6. Wolf Around The Corner is dedicated to two amazing director/actors that I met in college. I’ve seen their work both on stage and behind the scenes. They were both generous with their time and answers when I began asking them questions in preparation for this novel. And they didn’t laugh once when I asked whether the director could also be the bartender at the opening reception.
7. The idea for a performance space above a bookshop came from two sources. The first is a local theater situated on the top floor of one of my favorite antique stores. I always end up shopping before the show! The second is the Whaley House in San Diego. The house which was a family home, was also a general store, a courtroom, and a theater. In 1868, Thomas Whaley converted a family bedroom into a theater that held 150 people. I saw the tiny theater on a trip to San Diego and ever since I’ve wanted to convert a fictional building to do the same.
8. The story of the Loathly Lady is the fairy tale that the book is really about. Although the play within Wolf Around The Corner is Beauty and the Beast, the real conflict and resolution is pure Arthurian legend. I first heard the Loathly Lady story in college, in one of the hardest and most entertaining classes that I took there—Chaucer—in the original Middle English. In fact, my classmates and I discussed making a t-shirt that said, “I survived Ms. Braswell’s Chaucer class” just to commemorate its ending. In the Loathly Lady, the beast is a woman. She doesn’t kidnap the object of her affection, but does get him to marry her. And then she reveals that she’s not always an ugly old hag. She can be a beautiful young woman for eight hours of every day. So she asks him—does he want a beautiful wife during the day when he’s showing her off to his fellow knights? Or would he rather have a beautiful bedmate when they are alone together in their private rooms? This decision gets at the heart of what all those beasts in all the stories want—acceptance.
Thanks
so much for having me on your blog today!
About Wolf Around the Corner:
Frank’s family taught him that his wolf was dangerous, unwanted. Now his best friend’s brother wants him in bed and on stage. But giving into his wolf’s need for love could risk the quiet life Frank has created for himself—and his heart.
Settled in the small town of Waycroft Falls, Frank is content to be a lone wolf among the white picket fences and dollar book bins until he finds himself sniffing his best friend’s brother. Tom smells like hot apple pie and his Broadway smile has Frank lolling his tongue. But when the visiting actor learns Frank’s secret and plies him with hot kisses to get him to star in his play, Frank can’t help but wonder if Tom is only acting.
Tom ran away from family obligations to be a Broadway star. If he could make it there, he could make it anywhere…but he didn’t. Trudging home to Waycroft Falls to open his sister’s new performance space brings him face to face with a werewolf—a werewolf that would be perfect for Tom’s shoestring production of Beauty and the Beast. Staying in Tiny Town USA would be worth it if he can somehow convince the sexy wolf to expose his furry condition on stage and howl privately in Tom’s bed.
Wolf Around The Corner, a paranormal semi-finalist in Passionate Ink’s 2017 Sexy Scribbles Contest, is a full-length fairytale romance with a side of wolf shifter. If you like your romance with gorgeous men, humor, and small town magic, you’ll love Wolf Around the Corner! Buy your copy now and settle in to watch the drama unfold!
Genre: M/M Paranormal Shifter Contemporary
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Excerpt:
The first thing he always
did was take a large lungful of air. It reoriented him to the outside. His
animal cataloged the smells—car exhaust, grass, tree pollen, and wait, a mouse
skittering in the Dumpster out back. Frank’s urge to run built. He circled the
apartments, looking for the storm drain near the landscaping wall. Inside him,
his animal wiggled in excitement at the prospect of being freed. Frank shucked
his clothes behind the wall and tucked them into the shelter of the pipe, out
of view. Then he shifted, his hands lengthening, hair sprouting, and muzzle
growing. His point of view shortened, now three feet from the ground as he
blinked through the eyes of his wolflike animal. Frank couldn’t stand still any
longer. He sprang into the woods.
Frank ran, crashing through
the underbrush and into the darkening shelter of the trees. He leaped over a
shrub, felt the give of a sapling as he plowed through the brushwood. The
animals and birds quieted at his loud, headlong dash, knowing he wasn’t of the
forest, only disguised and playing at being a creature of the wood.
His paws skidded on a pile
of old leaves. Frank almost lost his balance as he skipped up and over a fallen
log. Around him, the scents of the forest all pushed in on him. Here a whiff of
mold, there an astringent sniff of decay, everywhere the menthol of evergreen
sap and wild herbs growing scattered on the forest floor.
Dry twigs snapped beneath
his paws. His tongue lolled from his mouth, the fresh taste of the woods
painting the back of his throat. The sun dipped below the horizon, the sky
inking the tops of the trees. And Frank ran on until his limbs stopped, shaky
and trembling. He collapsed onto a blanket of pine needles and leaves, moss and
fungi cradling him as he panted.
As he caught his breath,
the sounds of the woods lapped back around him. Insects and birds first. A
harsh caw from a crow shrieked a hundred yards to his right. The chirp of a
cricket sawed a few feet away. The rat-a-tat of a woodpecker echoed above. And
the still of twilight calmed him.
When he’d rested enough
that his legs would support him again, Frank began the slow jog back to the
apartments, letting his nose guide him through the darkening visibility of the
woods. He could smell Mrs. Reynolds’s nighttime cocoa, and Mr. Reynolds’s
liniment that stank of capsaicin. The lighted windows of the apartment building
led him the last few feet, and he scurried up to the storm drain.
But his clothes weren’t
there.
The sky darkened into
night.
Frank knew Mrs. Anderson
was out, but he could try to get the elderly Reynolds couple to buzz him
inside. And hope they didn’t ask why he was naked trotting up the stairs.
Or he could stay in wolf
form without a tag, which meant a night outside running from animal control
and/or dodging every human that would mistake him for a stray dog.
Or wait, a third option.
There was an oak that almost reached the ledge of his apartment window on the
second floor. He never bothered to lock the window. Frank shifted back to human
and sprinted across the yard.
He leaped for the lower
boughs of the tree, grunting as the bark dug into the flesh of his palms. Frank
swung himself up to straddle a branch, regretting it as the rough wood scraped
his thighs. He crouched in the tree, awkwardly trying to shield his more delicate
parts from the smaller whiplike twigs. He skirted around the trunk, grimacing
as a low branch brushed a little too close to his groin. There. He was now on
the side that faced the apartment house.
Frank balanced upright, his
arms pinwheeling until he caught another branch higher up to steady himself.
The leaves around him shivered on their stalks, the rustling loud. Please don’t
let Mrs. Reynolds look out her window.
Using the taller branch as
a guide, Frank placed one bare foot in front of the other and inched away from
the security of the trunk. The limb beneath his feet shook as his weight tested
its strength. He slid a foot farther out on the branch. It dipped, the leaves
at the tip brushing against the side of his window. Just a few feet more.
An ominous crack sounded
beneath him, and Frank froze. The branch popped again. It wouldn’t hold. He
could make a jump for it. Frank swallowed hard. He should make a jump for it.
Frank jumped. And missed
the house, falling into the azalea bushes.
Just as his hunky new
neighbor from across the hall walked out of the apartment building and down the
front steps.
Frank had seen Tom in the
hall that morning, carrying boxes. Trying to be neighborly, Frank had
introduced himself and offered to help. Tom had turned Frank down but flashed
the whitest, most even teeth at him. Frank had seen nothing whiter outside of a
movie theater big screen. They’d exchanged pleasantries, commented on the
weather, and then gone their separate ways. Or rather, that was what Frank
wished had happened. What went down was:
“Need help?” Frank barely
got the words out when his new neighbor turned in the doorway. Frank froze.
God, the man was gorgeous.
“Naw, man. I got it.” Tom
shifted the box in his arms to hold out his hand. “I’m Tom Davidson.”
Frank wiped a clammy hand
on his jeans and shook Tom’s hand. “Hot.” And Frank knew his mouth had
disclosed the exact thing his brain was thinking. Idiot. Who said that to a guy
he’d just met? A guy like Tom already knew he was hot.
Tom tilted his head as if
he hadn’t heard Frank right. “Yeah. The temperatures are a little warm for this
time of year.”
Frank didn’t dare correct
him and kept his mouth shut, afraid he’d say something worse.
“Okay, well then, see you
around, Frank.” Tom chuckled and continued into his apartment.
Meanwhile Frank beat it
down the stairs, unsure how he managed not to walk into traffic as his mind ran
over the exchange fail again and again.
So yeah. That was the less
than stellar first impression he’d given Tom this morning. And now Frank
followed that up by hunkering down naked in the azalea bushes.
“Are you okay?” The gleam
from the safety light caught Tom’s dark gold hair as he tilted his head to peer
over the shrubs. The shadows sank into his chiseled cheekbones. He looked like
a brooding movie star ready to sweep a celluloid damsel off her feet.
Too bad Frank was a naked
man trying to keep from exposing himself. Frank crouched down farther, making
himself as small as possible, hoping the azalea’s pink blooms would distract
Tom from looking at his hairy backside.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” Tom leaned
closer. “Are you… Do you have any clothes on?”
Frank racked his brain for
some reason he’d be naked and hiding in the bushes. “Um, I, uh, just got out of
the shower, and I leaned too far out my window.”
“Oh my God. Did you fall
from that height?” Tom glanced up to the second floor, to Frank’s closed window
and then back down. “Do you need an ambulance?”
Frank sighed. This
conversation was only getting worse. Cupping his hands over his privates, Frank
rose from behind the bushes.
“I’m okay. Just need to get
back inside. I have a hidden key if you can get me past the front security
door.”
Tom’s eyes widened when
Frank stood. Frank winced, sure he looked like one long scrape covered in
leaves. He blew at the hair in his eyes. A twig dangled, caught in an auburn
strand, but Frank was unwilling to expose himself to yank it out.
“Sure. Sure.” Tom fumbled
for his key and opened the door. Frank half hopped over the acorns and chestnut
burrs to slide past Tom. Tom wrinkled his nose as Frank passed. Good old wet
dog smell. It always clung to him after a run in the woods.
Frank took the stairs two
at a time to escape.
After a shower and
shave—why did going furry always lead to needing a shave? The rest of his hair
receded. Why didn’t his beard?—Frank spent thirty minutes in front of his
bathroom mirror, trying to psych himself up to knock on Tom’s door and invite
him over the next day for coffee or to watch football. He scratched behind an
ear, feeling the healing scab from a graze he’d gotten when he’d fallen into
the azalea bushes. Staring at his reflection, he tried to look earnest and
approachable. He could do this. He had game.
“Hey, I know you don’t know
many people in town, and I’m a loser, but would you like to spend time with
me?” Frank made a face at himself. Probably shouldn’t label yourself as a
loser.
“Yo, you want to watch
football? No, how about basketball? Baseball? No? What about Mexican
wrestlers?” Oh God, what if Tom doesn’t like sports?
“I ordered two large pizzas
by mistake tonight, and I could use some help, or I’ll be gorging on pepperoni
for a week.”
Lame. Frank’s own gaunt
features stared back at him from the mirror. Who was he kidding? He’d always be
the guy who lost the genetic lottery and ended up with the family curse.
Galen’s syndrome was rare,
only affecting about one in 2,000, but well-known enough that most people had
at least heard of it. The Greek surgeon Galen had coined the word lycanthropy
to explain the shape-shifting curse that traveled down through a family tree.
Like most recessive gene disorders, it only manifested when two genes were
passed down to a child, leading early scholars to think the afflicted had been
re-cursed or spared for a generation due to divine providence. It was only with
modern medicine that curses were found to be attached to DNA, breaking and
molding chromosomes like magical radiation. But despite better understanding of
the disorder, the stigma remained, not helped by the occasional local television
feature linking the disorder to werewolf mythology.
All Frank knew was the
recessive curse gene made him even more different from his family. He’d already
been pushing it when he came out as gay. Turning into a wolf at sixteen had
been…well, more than his father and stepmother could handle. She wanted to
protect the kids, she told him. He loved his half siblings, didn’t he? It
wasn’t safe to have a wild animal around children.
It had gutted him. They
turned him out of his own home. He’d been angry. He’d done something stupid,
lashing out, snapping at his sister Robbie. It still hurt, remembering the
tears on his baby sister’s face, her eyes wide and scared. Of him. It was then
he knew his stepmother had been right. Dangerous animals didn’t belong in a family.
So he’d left, traveling all the way across the state until he landed in
Waycroft Falls. It had been hard that first year. There were a lot of adult
things he still hadn’t figured out.
Like how to ask out a guy
who he hadn’t known his whole life. Moving from one small town to another had
been a bad idea. Frank bonked his head against the mirror, gazing down into the
white porcelain sink. He rubbed at a stray hair that clung to the side.
But on the plus side, small
towns meant he rarely needed a car. And he could shift and run if he needed. He
should take his clothes with him.
Buy Links:
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About the Author:
Aidee Ladnier, an award-winning author of speculative fiction, believes that adventure is around every corner. In pursuit of new experiences she's worked as a magician’s assistant, been a beauty pageant contestant, ridden in hot air balloons, produced independent movies, hiked up a volcano, and is a proud citizen scientist. A lover of genre fiction, Aidee's perfect romance has a little science fiction, fantasy, mystery, or the paranormal thrown in to add a zing.
Social Links:
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My review for Reading Alley:
4 out of 5 stars
Wolf Around The Corner by Aidee Ladnier is a paranormal
m/m romance story that features a not-quite-successful New York actor who comes
back to the small town of Waycroft Falls to help his sister start her new
business. He has a spark with one of her employees and convinces the man to
perform in a version of “Beauty and the Beast.” It turns out he really can
morph into a beast. Perfect for the play, not so great for his assimilation
into the close-knit small town.
I enjoy the way this author turns common themes on end and
provides a unique way of looking at things. There is an intriguing explanation
for the ability of certain humans to shift into wolves with the twist of ascribing
the talent to a curse. I was drawn to both main characters, each of whom has to
deal with society’s perceptions and the difficulty of maintaining a façade for
the world, and the delightful parallel between the play being performed and the
events taking place in real life kept me invested in the story.
This is a great twist on a beloved fairy tale and a nice
blend of science and fantasy. I have only read a few stories written by this
talented author, but each one has impressed me with her imagination and talent
for creating a compelling tale and I look forward to reading even more of her
titles.
A copy of this title was provided to me for review
