Before I forget, I'd like to say that I'll be announcing the winners of both blog hops on Wednesday. And if would like to see a little more of Lucifer, he's at Nephy's blog, bedeviling her! Although I don't hear her complaining lol
Turbulence is set in the
Bermuda Triangle, a stretch of the Atlantic off the east coast of Florida.
Since my main character is a pilot, I decided to look into flight lessons for
my research. Not that I wanted to actually learn to fly a plane, but that I
thought it would be valuable to have the experience of being in a cockpit,
hearing the terminology, and just getting a general feel for things.
Flight lessons are more
affordable than you’d expect! I called a local aviation school thinking I’d
need to make an appointment and wait weeks, but they said, “How about
tomorrow?” I then booked the appointment before I could talk myself out of it.
The strange thing is, I
took away a lot more from that lesson than a knowledge of how to taxi, take
off, steer, and land. And heaven knows, I was so terrified as these things were
happening, it’s all a bit of a blur. I got to walk around parts of the airport
I’ve never been in before. And I got to observe what types of people teach
aviation. And what types of guys are trying for their pilots’ licenses. And by
guys, I do mean men. I was the only woman there.
I wasn’t uncomfortable,
exactly. Actually, the first thing they asked me when I walked in was, “Are you
here for the exam?” and I thought, “Tee hee, they think I know how to fly a
plane!” But the general atmosphere of the flight school definitely informed my
portrayal of the world a gay pilot has to navigate.
Let’s put it this way. One
of the students had two cans of chaw with him. When one can isn’t absurdly
macho enough….
Of course the actual
experience of performing the pre-flight check, feeling the yoke in my hands as
we took off, and staring at the runway on my approach was a heck of a lot
richer than anything I could glean from a flight manual.
I hope my sense of
adventure in undertaking this series comes through in the writing. Turbulence
is tense and funny, satisfying and surprising.
Author and artist Jordan
Castillo Price is the owner of JCP Books LLC. She writes paranormal, horror,
and thriller novels from her isolated and occasionally creepy home in rural
Wisconsin. Jordan is best known as the author of the PsyCop series, an
unfolding tale of paranormal mystery and suspense starring Victor Bayne, a gay
medium who's plagued by ghostly visitations. Also check out her new
series, Mnevermind, where memories are made...one client at a time.
Find the Turbulence
Collection ebooks at JCP Books, Amazon and B&N, and the paperback at
Amazon.
Blurb
The foundation of
superstition is ignorance. First Officer Paul Cronin has no use for magical
thinking—he’s a logical guy, a skeptic who only believes what he can see. When
a new assignment on Flight 511 takes him directly through the legendary Bermuda
Triangle, he’s not concerned about losing his aircraft to supernatural forces.
He’s busy trying to hook up with handsome flight attendant Dallas.
Dallas seems eager to
oblige at the airport, but his ardor cools quickly when he finds out he and
Paul are now on the same crew. Then the turbulence hits, and Paul soon
discovers there’s more to the Bermuda Triangle than made-for-TV movies.
While trying to decipher
his cryptic predecessor’s notes and guide Flight 511 around the Triangle
phenomenon, Paul attempts to piece together a relationship with Dallas. It
seems that forces—both paranormal and mundane—are stacked against them. Can
Paul navigate a successful course through the turbulence while he finds a way
into Dallas’ heart?
Excerpt
It was day four of Dallas
Turner’s weekly ordeal. Flight 511 ran like clockwork, Monday afternoon through
Friday morning, Fort Lauderdale to Bermuda and back again, and Dallas managed
the passengers of that flight with the precision of a drill sergeant and the
sensitivity of a burn unit nurse. Now it was Thursday, and the final trip to
close out the week was just about to get underway. With his whole weekend spread
out before him, Dallas could pretend the creep of anxiety he felt across the
back of his neck and in the pit of his belly was nothing but a mild curiosity
as to which pizzeria he’d order in from when he got back home Friday, and what
might be new and exciting on pay-per-view.
The
unease was so negligible, in fact, that it vanished entirely when he stepped
into the crew lounge restroom and found a tasty white man bending over the sink
in a pilot’s jacket and a pair of briefs.
“Ever
heard of gravity?” Dallas teased. “Even coffee’s got to abide by its laws.”
The
pilot’s head snapped up and he met Dallas’ eyes in the mirror. He blushed, pink
on porcelain. “No coffee. I, uh…had a run-in with a brake line.”
And
even better…judging by the lilt in his voice, the pilot in his drawers was gay.
Contrary to popular belief, male flight attendants were not all big, flaming queens—though Dallas
had served shoulder to shoulder with his share of gay FAs. Gay pilots, though?
Not as many in the rotation as Dallas might have liked.
He
treated himself to a longer look at the pantsless pilot. First Officer’s
stripes on his jacket. Slim. Glasses. Clean-shaven. Rusty brown hair tousled
with a bit of product. But the blush? That was the clincher. Adorable. Dallas
had only dated a handful of white men, but their appeal wasn’t lost on him.
It was
a lot harder to make a black man blush like that.
He
parked his rollerbag beneath the hand dryer, sashayed up to the sink, and
pinched a feel of the trouser’s fabric. “Wool and hydraulic grease, hm?” He met
the pilot’s eyes again—still in the mirror, since the mirror seemed to make the
fact that one of them was clothed and the other in his underwear okay. And
since it allowed Dallas to be more flirty than he would have dared otherwise.
His flirtiness was not lost on the gay pilot, whose smile went slightly coy.
Good to know some things you never lose the hang of. “A scrub in the sink won’t
get that out for you, baby. You need a good dry cleaner. I can recommend a
local business…what did you say your name was?”
“Paul.”
“Dallas—that’d
be me, not the city. I know a place, here, in Fort Lauderdale, not
Dallas-the-city. If you’re going to be here long enough to use it.”
Paul
dropped the pants leg he’d been scrubbing with a frustrated humph. “I have no idea. Right now my
flight’s grounded, but Scheduling hasn’t cleared me to go back home, so it
might only be delayed.”
Time
enough for a quickie.
Prior
to joining the crew of Flight 511, Dallas would have acted on that impulse. But
that was before he was forced to confront The Meaning of Life head-on. Besides,
Paul didn’t strike Dallas as the type of lay who would press for something so
quick n’ nasty…although given the way his gaze kept wandering back to Dallas’
reflection, he probably wouldn’t refuse the offer. Tempting. But not the best
idea. What good was a set schedule, anyway, if you didn’t take advantage of it
and actually try to get to know someone instead of just sucking him off in the
toilet stall? “Where’s home for First Officer Paul?”
“DC…when
I’m there. I keep a crash pad in Boston, too.”
Major
hubs, unlike Fort Lauderdale. Flight crew tended to get involved in a transient
sort of way, but with the set schedule of Flight 511…well, a man could dream.
Couldn’t he? Dallas was just about to ask Paul for his card when another idea
entirely occurred to him. “I take it from the fact that you’re standing here at
this sink that you’re on your last pair of pants. What are you, a thirty-two?
Just so happens, Mr. Dallas Turner flies prepared.” Exactly like the rest of
Flight 511’s crew, right up to the weight limit, since you never knew what you
might end up needing.
“I
couldn’t take your—”
“Oh,
but I insist.” Dallas whisked a pair of black AVA uniform slacks out of his
rollerbag in the blink of an eye, then held them up with his pinkies extended,
and said, “Besides, I’d be crushed if I thought you didn’t want to get in my
pants.”
Thanks for stopping by, Jordan!
Until next time, take care!
♥ Julie
Until next time, take care!
♥ Julie
This sounds definitely interesting and intriguing. I'm looking forward to read it!
ReplyDeleteWelcome to virtual St. Louis, kinda! Thanks for writing Turbulence. It's so utterly unique, and has wonderful, luminous super covers. Such a treat!
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