Release Blitz: Heartscape: Garrett Leigh
Heartscape
Garrett Leigh
Release Date: March 22, 2021
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Vino & Veritas: https://hearteyespress.com/wotn#/vino-and-veritas/
From award-winning author Garrett Leigh comes a gorgeous new romance in the True North world! Think: great food, burly men and good times. Beards are optional but encouraged.
I’m not the obvious choice to run Burlington’s coolest wine bar—quiet, brooding, clueless about tannin content, and always one wrong turn away from another downward spiral.
But no one seems to mind that I'm a wreck. Besides me. I just focus on getting through each shift until the night a beautiful stranger appears, looking as lost and damaged as I feel.
When a mutual friend calls in a favor, the sexy newcomer winds up crashing on my couch. I don't know if it's his melodic Cornish accent, or his ocean blue eyes, or the rock-hard body with the mysterious scars, but I get the feeling whatever happened to him runs far deeper than those wounds.
Having Jax in my home makes my chest warm. Makes me shiver. Makes me want more. But I've got a pile of baggage and I don't want to be a burden on anyone let alone a man who seems to have enough demons of his own.
Our chemistry is off the charts. His arms feel like home. The last thing I want is to screw this up. Is it wrong to hope we can heal each other? Or will one of us die trying?
HEARTSCAPE is a heartfelt MM friends-to-lovers romance in the True North world, with a brooding bartender, a rugged outdoorsman, sweet angst and lots of Shipley cider. Triggers: contains mentions of depression, suicidal ideation and PTSD recovery.
I was excited about Tanner's story after meeting him in Roommate and Featherbed. It was hinted that he had been through some bad stuff. And yeah, Tanner is a man who has struggled and continues to do so.
Tanner now runs the wine bar at Vino and Veritas. He got the job through the recommendation of a friend even though his career experience was in other areas like search and rescue and wildlife trails. But due to his experiences, he now has deep wounds, guilt, agitation, fear, PTSD, and nightmares. He is a bit grouchy and his demons seem to chase him, but he has been trying to start over and do better.
Jax is an outgoing, rugged, wildlife photographer that has suddenly become displaced from the hostel he was staying at. His friend, Eve knows Tanner so asks Tanner to let him use his couch. He has his own painful past involving several different situations. But he is now making a new life for himself and trying to make his own choices. But he is stuck in a hard place relying on the help of a virtual stranger.
But something about Jax calls to Tanner's kind and caring heart under that grumpy exterior. These two never expected to find a connection, attachment, or help with the other's loneliness. They are both broken heroes with complex emotions, internal struggles, hidden pain, and demons. But the longer they are around each other, the more they begin to gradually trust, be vulnerable, share, learn to accept, and try to truly live and function. But it is not an easy process and there are no easy fixes.
It is a slow burn, opposites-attract, intense, angsty, emotional, and inspiring story of facing the past, finding hope, healing, and trying to move forward. The side characters and their complicated and tragic pasts add more depth to the story. I really felt for these guys as they tried to navigate something new while avoiding pitfalls and trying to leave their baggage behind. There are some serious situations they have been through and are currently dealing with. They cannot fix each other, but they can support and help lead the other to want to have a better life and future.
Jax kisses me. In my wildest dreams I’m expecting it, but it still catches me off guard. His lips are soft, but demanding, and there’s nothing I don’t want to give him.
So I kiss him back.
I slide my hands under his layers of winter clothing and pull him close, and we kiss and kiss and kiss as if it isn’t the first time we’ve done it.
His lips feel like home.
His soft touch dances along my jaw.
I want to kiss him forever, but we run out of air.
Startled, I draw back and instantly find myself lost in Jax’s blazing stare. His gaze usually calms me—it really is like the deepest, bluest ocean. But right now, his eyes are stormy and hot. I want to dive back in headfirst, and for once what I want makes sense.
And it’s right here. I don’t need words. I stand, cup a hand around the back of his neck, and kiss him again. Jax makes another low sound, and the fact that he’s spent the night in my bed to babysit me stops mattering. Shadows fade. Heat draws us ever closer, and it’s easy to pretend we spent all night doing this. I can’t contemplate that it has to end.
But it does end.
Jax pulls back with a rueful smile, cheeks flushed, breathing hard. “I have to go. I promised Jerry I wouldn’t be late again.”
The mention of Jerry jars something in my brain enough to form a sentence that has nothing to do with how fast my heart is beating. “How did last night go?”
“Okay, I think.” Jax steps away. “Dude talked so much I stopped listening, but the apartment was all right. I can move in whenever I want.”
I should be happy for him. I am happy for him. He didn’t deserve to lose all his things in the hostel fire, and it sucks he had to take help from a stranger when he needed so badly to depend on himself. But I’m still dazed from his kiss. I say the first thing that comes into my head. Raw. No filter. “I’m gonna miss you.”
He gives me a soft grin. “I’ll miss you too.”
Then he leaves, and the reality that it might be the last time we do this hits me like a train. Jerry’s buddy’s apartment is probably outside of the city, closer to where Jax needs to be for his work. It isn’t a million miles away—nothing in Vermont ever is—but it’s not waking up to find Jax in my bed. It’s not drinking his weird tea together or eating dinner on the couch with him. It’s not opening my eyes every morning to feel the comforting hum of his presence.
It’s not being there to let him know, every day, that he fucking matters.
So tell him now.
I lurch from my bed and snag a T-shirt from the clean laundry pile I haven’t even thought about putting away. My shoes are by the front door. I stamp into them and fish my keys from the dish. Then I make a run for it down the stairs and out into the morning gloom.
The sidewalk is icy from the plummeting temperatures that are starting to move in from the mountains. But I’m a Vermonter; I know how to handle that shit. I dash to the parking lot where Jax is waiting for Jerry, his broad back to me as he contemplates the ground.
I grab his arm. “You don’t have to leave.”
Garrett Leigh
Garrett Leigh is an award-winning British writer and book designer.
Garrett's debut novel, Slide, won Best Bisexual Debut at the 2014 Rainbow Book Awards, and her polyamorous novel, Misfits was a finalist in the 2016 LAMBDA awards.
When not writing, Garrett can generally be found procrastinating on Twitter, cooking up a storm, or sitting on her behind doing as little as possible, all the while shouting at her menagerie of children and animals and attempting to tame her unruly and wonderful FOX.
Garrett is also an award winning cover artist, taking the silver medal at the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards in 2016. She designs for various publishing houses and independent authors at blackjazzdesign.com, and co-owns the specialist stock site moonstockphotography.com with photographer Dan Burgess.
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