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Here Be Dragons
It's hate at first sight when out and proud Jeremiah Rogers first meets his temporary work partner, Sterling Johansen – in the middle of telling a homophobic joke. Jeremiah was supposed to be on vacation, cruising the Caribbean with 3,000 other gay men, but at the last minute he'd been sent to the mid-west office to help out in a crisis. He didn't want to be there, and he wasn't looking forward to spending eight brutally hot summer weeks stuck with Sterling Johansen, driving all over the mid-west. As Jeremiah contends with being there against his will, the heat, a myriad of problem work sites, Sterling's fickle moods, driving hundreds of miles between every job, and the daily threat of Mother Nature, every day he wants to throw in the towel. But he hangs in there, determined to finish the assignment, get the hell out of these, and make his boss pay for pulling his much-deserved vacation out from under him at the very last possible second. But when disaster strikes, everything is thrown up into the air once again, this time literally, giving Jeremiah new insight into what makes Sterling tick.
185 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2021
3 people are currently reading
15 people want to read
About the author
Michael Murphy
25 books126 followersWho am I? One of these days I need to decided what I want to be when I grow up.
I am a middle-aged man, born in the far reaches of upstate New York - parts that give the word "rural" meaning. Now I live in Washington, DC.
When one of those milestone birthdays hit me and scared the crap out of me, I realized there were more years behind me than there were in front of me. My mortality hit me like someone dropping a load of bricks on me.
With that realization, I constructed a bucket list of things I absolutely had to do in the years (hopefully many) that I have left. Writing a book was one of them and was near the top.
My biggest influences when growing up were my two grandmothers. Both were ferociously strong women who were widowed way too young and had to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives and try to put them back together again. And they did! They were incredible women and I adored them both.
These women loved to read and to tell stories, so it just always seemed a natural thing for me to want to do the same. One Christmas when I had a break from work for a few days I had an idea - just a simple single flash of an idea. I sat down at my computer and typed out the one sentence idea. And then I thought for a moment. And then I started typing again - and like magic this story started to pour out of me. I was amazed, in awe, floored by what was happening.
It was like the characters were coming to life and telling their story and I was just tagging along for the ride. I typed as fast as my fingers would fly across the keys (one of the 17 jobs I had while I was going to college was typist, so I'm a pretty fast typist). I couldn't wait to see what happened next. It was the most amazing experience I think I've ever had. Okay, maybe not THE most amazing, but it ranks right up there near the top.
My boyfriend finally came to me a couple of days into this,sat down, looked so serious, and asked, "Are you mad at me?" I assured him that no, I was not mad; I had just been kidnapped by my two characters who refused to let me go. He sort of believed me. When I handed him a printout of the entire book he really believed me, although he wasn't all that thrilled about the book. What can I say, he is a biomedical scientist who primarily reads non-fiction. The fact that I got him to read any fiction was a huge step.
I sent my finished book to Dreamspinner Press. Much to my shock and surprise they accepted it. Out of the hundreds of unsolicited manuscripts that they receive every year they only accept a tiny fraction from new, unknown authors - and I was part of that tiny fraction.
When I got the news I was riding on the subway to work one morning. I screamed and hugged the man sitting next to me - I don't have a clue who he was and I'm sure I scared the crap out of him, even though I tried to explain why I was so happy. When I got to work, a co-worker joined me in doing a happy dance.
Once I started writing the spirit of my departed grandmothers started taking over and story after story started to come out. Dreamspinner and Harmony Ink Press have published a total of eight books so far, with the next one due out in a few weeks. Three additional books are under contract, scheduled to appear in the months ahead.
When I'm not writing, I'm editing and proofing, proofing and editing. When not doing that I work for a small organization in downtown DC located a few hundred yards from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. My work is primarily IT project management which can be thrilling and at other times drive me to distraction.
All in all, I'd rather be writing. If people keep buying my books in the same way they have I might actually be able to consider that as an option. Oh, please! Oh, please! Oh, please!
I am a middle-aged man, born in the far reaches of upstate New York - parts that give the word "rural" meaning. Now I live in Washington, DC.
When one of those milestone birthdays hit me and scared the crap out of me, I realized there were more years behind me than there were in front of me. My mortality hit me like someone dropping a load of bricks on me.
With that realization, I constructed a bucket list of things I absolutely had to do in the years (hopefully many) that I have left. Writing a book was one of them and was near the top.
My biggest influences when growing up were my two grandmothers. Both were ferociously strong women who were widowed way too young and had to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives and try to put them back together again. And they did! They were incredible women and I adored them both.
These women loved to read and to tell stories, so it just always seemed a natural thing for me to want to do the same. One Christmas when I had a break from work for a few days I had an idea - just a simple single flash of an idea. I sat down at my computer and typed out the one sentence idea. And then I thought for a moment. And then I started typing again - and like magic this story started to pour out of me. I was amazed, in awe, floored by what was happening.
It was like the characters were coming to life and telling their story and I was just tagging along for the ride. I typed as fast as my fingers would fly across the keys (one of the 17 jobs I had while I was going to college was typist, so I'm a pretty fast typist). I couldn't wait to see what happened next. It was the most amazing experience I think I've ever had. Okay, maybe not THE most amazing, but it ranks right up there near the top.
My boyfriend finally came to me a couple of days into this,sat down, looked so serious, and asked, "Are you mad at me?" I assured him that no, I was not mad; I had just been kidnapped by my two characters who refused to let me go. He sort of believed me. When I handed him a printout of the entire book he really believed me, although he wasn't all that thrilled about the book. What can I say, he is a biomedical scientist who primarily reads non-fiction. The fact that I got him to read any fiction was a huge step.
I sent my finished book to Dreamspinner Press. Much to my shock and surprise they accepted it. Out of the hundreds of unsolicited manuscripts that they receive every year they only accept a tiny fraction from new, unknown authors - and I was part of that tiny fraction.
When I got the news I was riding on the subway to work one morning. I screamed and hugged the man sitting next to me - I don't have a clue who he was and I'm sure I scared the crap out of him, even though I tried to explain why I was so happy. When I got to work, a co-worker joined me in doing a happy dance.
Once I started writing the spirit of my departed grandmothers started taking over and story after story started to come out. Dreamspinner and Harmony Ink Press have published a total of eight books so far, with the next one due out in a few weeks. Three additional books are under contract, scheduled to appear in the months ahead.
When I'm not writing, I'm editing and proofing, proofing and editing. When not doing that I work for a small organization in downtown DC located a few hundred yards from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. My work is primarily IT project management which can be thrilling and at other times drive me to distraction.
All in all, I'd rather be writing. If people keep buying my books in the same way they have I might actually be able to consider that as an option. Oh, please! Oh, please! Oh, please!
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 22, 2021
Jeremiah was in a hateful mood as his boss had just pulled his vacation so he could go "west young man," in order to help the company out in a bad time. Sterling, well, he was his partner, but some homophobic remarks later and the relationship was already a bust. How do two men get through this anger to find the real men underneath. Homophobic religious parents and a preacher who is on a campaign to do his share to destroy all that is gay hold Sterling back. Will Jeremiah help him find the man behind the walls Sterling has built up around himself to shield him from this gay destruction? Will the wild weather in the midwest destroy the two men before they find each other? A story of dragons that in the old world was the metaphorical name for the monsters that lived on the edge of the world waiting to destroy those brave enough to explore. Will these dragons get the the two men or they find the love they are seeking in each other?
June 4, 2021
I enjoyed this book a lot, yeah it's a little ott with the drama specially at the end but the fast love felt good in and I really enjoyed both characters, towards the end all the pack thing felt a little strange but it was good, for sure I'm gonna read this again and recommend it to my friends thats the reason for the fifth star
June 17, 2021
Didn't like Jeremiah, half the time he read as stuck up and the other half as a bit predatory. I understand the plot starts with him being inconvenienced, but the amount of moaning he does...
June 22, 2021
Well, the word dragons in the title sure was used as click bait.
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June 28, 2021Entahlah ini cerita tentang apa juga ga ngerti.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews