The Q - Book Tour and Giveaway

The Q
by Rick R. Reed
Genre: LGBTQ Romance 

Step out for a Saturday night at The Q—the small town gay bar in Appalachia where the locals congregate. Whose secret love is revealed? What long-term relationship comes to a crossroad? What revelations come to light? The DJ mixes a soundtrack to inspire dancing, drinking, singing, and falling in (or out) of love.

This pivotal Saturday night at The Q is one its regulars will never forget. Lives irrevocably change. Laugh, shed a tear, and root for folks you’ll come to love and remember long after the last page.


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​Prologue
The Quench Room


First, no one ever called it the Quench Room. To its patrons, it was just the Q. Most of them weren’t even aware of its proper name. You wouldn’t find it on a sign or in neon. Many—gay, straight, and otherwise inclined—were certain the Q stood for Queer. Some saw it as an affirming name, reclaimed from those who’d hurl it to wound. Others whispered it, snickering, rolling eyes.
Second, unless you knew what you were looking for, you’d drive right by the Q, not thinking its sad, nondescript exterior housed much of anything. Lonely and forgotten on a stretch of country road, the Q lay just outside the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it town of Hopewell, West Virginia. Housed in a squat, gray cinderblock building, the Q had no front door—patrons entered through a chipped red-painted back door off the gravel parking lot in the back. The single window out front, long and rectangular, was black tinted so passersby couldn’t see inside. For those who came to the Q on the down low, the tinted glass provided a measure of privacy and security.
The Q’s nearest neighbors were an auto-body shop called, charmingly, Gomer’s, and, down the road just a bit, a no-name bait and tackle shop, open only in summers, for those fishing on the nearby Ohio River.
The Q didn’t look like a place where people celebrated.
It didn’t appear to be an establishment where people hooked up, hoping for a raunchy one-night stand or dreaming of a lifetime commitment—and everything in between. A casual glance would never inspire the idea that the Q was a place for socializing, dancing, and drinking.
No one, driving by, would have imagined that this one-story building, rising up out of a weed-choked gravel lot, was the origin of so many love affairs, failed, and, sometimes, rarely, successful. Who would want to meet their beloved in such a sad, little shack? Why, it didn’t even possess a tin roof…rusted.
And yet, the Q was the gathering spot for this little rural area’s LGBTQ+ folks, especially those not inspired enough to make their way up the river to the bright lights and fancy bars of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, for a lot of the Q’s patrons, might as well have existed on another planet.
The Q was open only on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, although Saturday was the busiest. Then, the parking lot was crowded with pickup trucks and the hulks of various sedans, coupes, and compacts, mostly older and none even remotely close to luxury vehicles. On Saturday nights, only the early birds got parking spots in the lot. If you showed up later, you parked alongside the road and prayed you didn’t get sideswiped while inside, imbibing and hoping, perhaps, for a special love connection.
Windows down, people driving by on a Saturday night might hear strains of muffled music coming out—thumping bass, 1980s disco tunes going way back to Sylvester and Prince and right up to Lady Gaga and Beyonce, popular line dances, and even some hardcore rock and roll from the likes of ZZ Top, Aerosmith, and maybe even Iron Maiden.
The Q’s patrons traveled from the little towns scattered throughout this poor area in the foothills of the Appalachians. They came from upriver in Pennsylvania, across the river in Ohio, and, of course, from right here in the northern panhandle of West Virginia. Driving along potholed roads in dusky dusk or navy-blue twilights, you might spy the golden eyes of a fox peeking out from underbrush lining either side of the road.
When you arrived at the Q, though, and stepped through its red-doored portal of a Saturday night, the contrast was almost startling. What, outside, was grim and depressing, became magical inside. Voices murmuring, ice clinking in glasses, fairy lights above the big mirror behind the bar, the crack of pool balls, laughter, and maybe, Gloria Gaynor optimistically telling the world she would survive.
And somehow, you knew you would too.
If only for a few hours.

Real Men. True Love.

Rick R. Reed draws inspiration from the lives of gay men to craft stories that quicken the heartbeat, engage emotions, and keep the pages turning. Although he dabbles in horror, dark suspense, and comedy, his attention always returns to the power of love. He’s the award-winning and bestselling author of more than fifty works of published fiction and is forever at work on yet another book. Lambda Literary has called him: “A writer that doesn’t disappoint…” You can find him at www.rickrreedreality.blogspot.com. Rick lives in Palm Springs, CA with his beloved husband.


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RICK R. REED INTERVIEWS HIMSELF AND IS NOT ASHAMED OF IT


Interviewer: How did you start your writing career?

Rick R. Reed: My love for writing began with a passion for stories that began when I was probably about four years old. I wrote my first short story when I was six, first play in fourth grade, and I kept my fifth grade classmates enthralled by reading to them aloud a serial novella I wrote about a young girl's kidnapping. My first publication came in 1991 with Obsessed in Dell's lauded horror line, Abyss. Penance quickly followed. Both books are still in print! Since then, I have been writing what I cared most about: gay themed fiction covering everything from love stories, to horror, to psychological suspense. To date, I have more more than forty books in print, with digital-only shorts and novellas doubling that number.


Interviewer: Tell me about your latest release.

RR: It’s The Q, releasing February 1, 2021 from NineStar Press (you can order it now at https://ninestarpress.com/product/the-q/). I think it’s one of my best books and also has the distinction of being the hardest to classify. It chronicles one night at a small town gay bar in the foothills of the Appalachians (which is where I grew up) where all the locals gather. Through the course of one revelatory night, a memorable cast of characters come forward to share their stories—there’s heartbreak, missed connections, falling in love, falling out of love, making tough decisions, the exposure of secrets…and a lot more.

BLURB

Step out for a Saturday night at The Q—the small town gay bar in Appalachia where the locals congregate. Whose secret love is revealed? What long-term relationship comes to a crossroad? What revelations come to light? The DJ mixes a soundtrack to inspire dancing, drinking, singing, and falling in (or out) of love.
This pivotal Saturday night at The Q is one its regulars will never forget. Lives irrevocably change. Laugh, shed a tear, and root for folks you’ll come to love and remember long after the last page.


Interviewer: Which book have you written has had the most impact on you, in the writing of it, and why?

RR: Other than The Q, I would say UNRAVELING (https://ninestarpress.com/product/unraveling/), because it’s based on my own coming out in the 1980s. It was painful to go back and revisit the pain of that time—plus it was the era when AIDS was a death sentence and that was always a dark cloud on the horizon.

BLURB
Randy Kay has the perfect life with his beautiful wife and adorable son. But Randy’s living a lie, untrue to himself and everyone who knows him. He’s gay.
Marriage and fatherhood, which he thought could change him, have failed. He doubts if anyone can love him for who he really is—especially himself.
With his wife’s blessing, he sets out to explore the gay world he’s hidden from all his life.
John Walsh, a paramedic with the Chicago Fire Department, is comfortable in his own skin as a gay man, yet he can never find someone who shares his desire to create a real relationship, a true family.
When Randy and John first spy each other in Chicago’s Boystown, all kinds of alarms go off—some of joy, others of deep-seated fear.
Randy and John must surmount multiple hurdles on the journey to a lasting, meaningful love. Will they succeed or will their chance at love go up in flames, destroyed by missed connections and a lack of self-acceptance?


Interviewer: What is your writing process?

RR: I aim for 1,000 words a day when I’m writing a book. I usually surpass that, but it’s a bar I know I can meet. I’m a morning person, so I like to work then with no music or other distractions (other than my dogs Kodi and Joaquin, who’re always behind me, sleeping, yet somehow inspiring). I can’t write for more than two or three hours because I know the quality would suffer.


Interviewer: What is the hardest part of the writing process to you?

RR: Getting started. I can find a million things to do other than just getting started on my creative work for the day. I learned procrastination at my mama’s knee.


Interviewer: What made you want to write romance, as a genre?

RR: I wanted to tell stories drawn from my life and people I knew. I wanted my romances to be marked by a genuine connection to real gay life, which is why I consider myself an #ownvoices writer.


Interviewer: If you had to pick a favorite book of yours, what would it be? Why would it be your favorite? (I know they are all your babies but let’s pretend you HAD to pick one.)

RR: I’d pick the ones that are drawn most closely from my own life and experience, because they’re closest to my heart. So, in no particular order: Caregiver, Blink, Unraveling, Raining Men, Legally Wed, and The Perils of Intimacy. And, of course, my latest, The Q.

Interviewer: What is next for you? What is your next book to be published and when? What are you writing next?

RR: I have three books coming out in 2021. The first is The Q, which we’ve already talked about. In May will come Wounded Air, which is an urban ghost story about a haunted Chicago apartment and the tragic tale behind it. In July, a retooled and revised edition of my vampire novel will be out, called Immortal Things. I’m also working right now on a new book which is like my novel The Man from Milwaukee, which was based on the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer. The new one is also based in true crime, but I make the story my own. It’s called Toxic, and it deals with a lost soul who’s trying to start over after being dumped and getting trapped in the snares of a con man.


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