Today I am so pleased to welcome Layla Dorine to Joyfully Jay. Layla has come to share an exclusive excerpt from her latest release, Gypsy’s Rogue. Please join me in giving her a big welcome!

 

Excerpt

“Were you wanting a few of those birds?” a lean man in a blue shirt and overalls asked, as he stepped up to the other side of the pen.

“Yes, please,” Gypsy remarked. “Four actually, a Tom and some hens.”

Picking them up, the man made quick work of sorting out the males from females, before doing a quick count of the remaining birds.

“Tell you what, I’ll throw in a forth hen for free if you’d like her. I’ve got too many hens here at the moment.”

“That would be wonderful, thank you,” Gypsy replied, as Rogue glanced down at the cage he carried and back at the birds.

“I think we need a bigger cage,” he suggested.

“Least it’s not a bigger boat,” Gypsy shot back, giggling.

“I’ll run back to the truck and get one,” Rogue offered.

“Forget it, you’ll get lost in this place if we leave you to your own devices,” added George. “That or have another unfortunate encounter with a guinea fowl.”

“Nope, only one I’ve had an unfortunate encounter with today has been you.”

“Ha, ha,” remarked George, before heading back in the direction of the truck. By the time he returned, the money for the turkeys had changed hands and Gypsy and Rogue found themselves the new owners of a flock of young turkeys.

“What’s wrong? You look like you just swallowed a lemon?” George asked Gypsy as he set the cage down beside the pen.

“He’s named them.”

“What? Why?”

“To make it easier to call them when we want to feed them,” Rogue admitted.

The man in the overalls snickered but had the good graces to cover it up with a series of coughs, which was more than George and Gypsy managed to do, as the pair howled with laughter, prompting a series of gobbles from the turkeys, who’d fled to the other side of the pen, fortunately, cordoned off from the rest of the flock.

“What?”

“Dude, you don’t name the food.”


Blurb

Growing up with a strictly religious father in a house with little joy, or love, left Grady Stoltz eager to get out. At the first opportunity that presented itself, they left home with a young man who swept them off their feet, used their preferred pronouns, and accepted that they were gender fluid and wished to shed the name Grady and all of the constraints of their former life. Dubbed Gypsy, they never expected to return to that farm or the rural community they’d been raised in, but life took some unexpected turns, and they found themselves returning four years later. A little older, a little wiser, and the new owner of a house full of memories and regrets.

Cleaning the place up is only the first step towards deciding if they wish to sell it, or if they wish to stay and try and make a life for themselves in a place they’ve never felt as if they belonged. Haunted by the memories of the father who could never accept them, the mother they lost at a young age, and their own shortcomings and failures, they are in a very dark place when Rogue arrives.

Charismatic when performing in front of an audience, yet shy and vulnerable when faced with the prospect of being alone in a crowd, Rogue seeks shelter with Gypsy on their middle of nowhere farm, hoping for a new beginning and a chance to see if the tiny spark that had flared between them once before, can be kindled into a roaring flame.

Two battered souls, one tattered farmhouse, an old dog, a cranky chicken, several misspoken words, and one crazed ex-husband combine in an explosive combination of truth, lust, dreams, and vengeance. Will the force of it tear Gypsy and Rogue apart, or will it leave them closer than they ever dared to hope?

Buy Links For Gypsy’s Rogue:


Bio

LAYLA DORINE lives among the sprawling prairies of Midwestern America, in a house with more cats than people. She loves hiking, fishing, swimming, martial arts, camping out, photography, cooking, and dabbling with several artistic mediums. In addition, she loves to travel and visit museums, historic, and haunted places, caves, monuments, national parks and quirk spots.

Layla got hooked on writing as a child, starting with poetry and then branching out, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Hard times, troubled times, the lives of her characters are never easy, but then what life is? The story is in the struggle, the journey, the triumphs and the falls. She writes about artists, musicians, loners, drifters, dreamers, hippies, bikers, truckers, hunters and all the other folks that she’s met and fallen in love with over the years. Sometimes she writes urban romance and sometimes its aliens crash landing near a roadside bar. When she isn’t writing, or wandering somewhere outdoors, she can often be found curled up with a good book and a kitty on her lap.

Layla Dorine can be found at:

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