Watson McQuade has big dreams, a spirit of adventure, and a craving for professional success that can't be nurtured in a small town. Fortunately for him, he also has a loving boyfriend who's been his best friend since junior high, who understands his dreams and encourages him to follow them.Having survived the deaths of his parents and grandmother, Embry Conrad, artist, coffee shop owner, small town boy, knows all about loss. Although a perfect day for Em starts with Wats in his bed, and ends exactly the same way, Em knows Watson's urge to experience life outside their little neck of the woods comes first, and he's willing to indulge Watson's dreams, because Watson always comes home. He learned the hard way that sometimes if you love something, you have to set it free.Although long distance relationships are hard, the reunions each time Wats returns to Turtle Neck Creek keep Em satisfied, until the day he realizes that a year has passed since Watson's last homecoming. Now it's time to make a choice-take time to fight for what he wants or set his lover free…forever. Somewhere in a small town in up-state New York are a librarian and a second grade teacher to whom I owe my life. That might be a touch dramatic, but it's nevertheless one hundred percent true.Because they taught me the joy of reading, of escaping into worlds crafted of words.Have you ever been nine years old and sure of nothing so much as that you don't belong? Looked at the world from behind glasses, and wondered why you don't fit?Then turn the page and see… there you are, running from Injun Joe in a dark graveyard; there you are fencing with Athos; there you are…beneath the deep blue sea- marveling at exotic creatures with Captain Nemo.I found myself between the pages of books, and that is why I write now, it's why I taught English and literature for so many years, and it's why my house contains more pounds of books than furniture.If I'd had my way, I'd have been a fencer…or a starship captain, or a lawyer, or a detective solving crimes. But instead, I am a writer, and that's the best thing in the world to be if you ask me, because as a writer, I can be all those things and more.If I hadn't learned to value the stories between the pages, who knows what would have happened? Certainly not college…teaching…or writing.
