SERIES BLOG TOUR: More Heat Than The Sun by John Wiltshire ~ Book 8: His Fateful Heap of Days OUT NOW ~ (Excerpt)
Series Blog Tour & Excerpt:
More Heat Than The Sun Series
By John Wiltshire
Book 8: His Fateful Heap of Days
Out Now
Released February 26th
“Into his fateful heap of days the soul of man is cast.”
Only a few months from his fiftieth year, Nikolas is feeling a distinct wobble in his formidable certainties. Aleksey Primakov appears to have become irrelevant. All he needs, therefore, is to be dragged into an adventure with Devon’s answer to the three musketeers. How many times can he tell Ben and his moronic friends that a mutilated body buried on Dartmoor has nothing to do with them? But not only does this desecration slowly become their business, it cuts to the heart of the life they have created together. It’s just as well, perhaps, that generals never do actually retire…
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Excerpt from His Fateful Heap of Days:
“You are staring at me, yet again, Benjamin.”
Ben smiled and turned to look out at the dark March night. “Stop being so beautiful then.”
Nikolas huffed and muttered, “You seem to find it quite easy to ignore all this perfection when it suits you.”
Ben sighed at this pointed reminder of his infidelity. He understood what he’d been doing, but he allowed that it might be difficult for others to get it quite so easily. If you hadn’t heard that voice, how could you know?
But Ben knew Nikolas well enough to realise that if his infidelity with God really still bothered him, he wouldn’t mention it. That Nikolas made a frequent joke about such things only told Ben that something else was at the heart of the trouble between them.
Radulf suddenly decided that silent, blind glaring wasn’t doing it at all. He rose from his reproachful hunch and came to Nikolas’s side, dropping one large, heavy paw into his lap. Nikolas ignored the gesture, but after a moment said, “I think I’ll give him a last walk before it gets too dark.”
Ben smiled sadly. He never understood the silent communication between his two damaged companions, but he knew it went on.
Lack of understanding seemed to be a feature of his life at the moment.
But then he’d learnt this all by himself, hadn’t he? Maybe the next time someone called for him to join them, even God, he would make more effort to remember that he was already claimed, and that such summons must remain unheeded. Loving Nikolas Mikkelsen, after all, was an all-consuming pastime. A man should only ever have one God. Such apostasy leaves a void, and another had stepped in to fill it.
Once more, Ben gave himself a mental shake. Nikolas was here with him. It was enough.
During their long relationship, Ben had experienced moments when he’d thought life could not improve in any way, that things seemed so ideal they should be held in abeyance, a miniature, perfect existence suspended under glass.
Recently he’d come to wonder whether he’d been seeing it all wrong. Their lives more resembled a roller coaster. All he’d occasionally enjoyed were the brief pauses when it halted at the top of a long, painful rise. One pure instance of relief that the grind and pull were over, that now they could just stop and savour the view.
But roller coaster moments of still calm had deceitful provenances.
Ben knew only too well what came after those pauses for breath.
So, rather than acknowledging those tiny clock-ticks of perfection and thinking that all was secure in their lives, he’d started accepting them now as merely respites. Welcome—appreciate them while he could—but don’t let go the fucking handrail for a moment.
He sighed and suggested, “Let’s climb the tor.”
Nikolas nodded and glanced at the puppy, but he was asleep, for once, and so did not get roused for this last exercise of the day.
Go back to were is all began…
Book 1: Love Is A Stranger
Loving a total stranger can be very hard work sometimes.
How do you love someone who exists entirely in the shadows?
How do you love a man who describes himself as dead?
How do you get that ghost to love you back?
Ex-SAS soldier Ben Rider falls in love with his enigmatic married boss Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen, but Nikolas is living a lie. A lie so profound that when the shadows are lifted, Ben realises he’s in love with a very dangerous stranger. Ben has to choose between Nikolas and safety, but sometimes danger comes in a very seductive package.
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Book 2: Conscious Decisions of the Heart
Ben Rider and Nikolas Mikkelsen learn that danger comes in all shapes and sizes and often in places you least expect it. Nikolas’s dark past calls to him, inexorably dragging him back into its seductive embrace.
While he goes on an errand of mercy to Russia, Ben travels to Denmark to learn Nikolas’s language. Convinced Russia’s vastness will swallow Nikolas, Ben doesn’t see the enemy much closer to home. Thinking he has lost Nikolas, Ben then makes a terrible decision that threatens to destroy everything they have together.
Focused on this very personal horror, bound by a new level of commitment, they have no idea that a greater threat is coming. And when it arrives, it changes everything—even the definition of commitment.
Warning: This story contains the violent death of a minor character and some graphic violence and gay sex.
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Book 3: The Bridge of Silver Wings
Nikolas and Ben discover that bonds aren’t forged with blood or scars, but in the hearts of men strong enough to love.
Siberia in winter isn’t a place for good men. There is nothing Nikolas won’t do to keep Ben alive. Nikolas has exorcised his demons, but when they end up stranded in Russia, the monster inside needs to be let loose. Ben discovers the truth of the adage, ‘be careful what you wish for’!
Home again, Nikolas then faces an enemy he can’t defeat: Ben Rider himself. Discovering a new family, Ben realizes he’s been living too long in the shadows cast by Nikolas’s all-consuming love. For the first time, life apart from Nikolas is possible.
Is Nikolas strong enough to let Ben go?
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Book 4: The Other Country
Nikolas is the sanest, straightest, person Ben knows, so can anyone tell him, why is he on a gay therapy course?
Nikolas Mikkelsen could make a very long list of unpleasant things he’s endured in his life. Then order it from ‘nearly killed me’ to ‘extremely horrific and don’t want to do again’. And what did it say about his forty-five years that being hit by a tsunami would be a considerable way down this list? But nothing, not torture, imprisonment, nor starvation has prepared him for what he now has to endure for Ben Rider’s sake-attendance on a residential, gay therapy course. At least he has a new contender for the top spot on his ‘my awful life’ list.
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Book 5: The Bruise-Black Sky
Released February 5th
It’s either a brave or a stupid person who threatens anything Nikolas Mikkelsen loves.
Ben usually overlooks Nikolas’s occasionally jarring dissonance. Not this time. A deep rift, a terrible lie, separates them. Eleven thousand miles from Nikolas, in New Zealand, it’s bitter winter as Ben films the tragic story of a post-apocalyptic gladiator, a victim of his own personal darkness. But on receiving a death threat, Ben suspects the truth of actor Oliver Whitestone’s suicide. Someone doesn’t want this movie made. It’s fortunate for Ben, therefore, that dissonance is a state of unrest, a longing for completion. As if Nikolas would stay at home in disgrace while Ben Rider-Mikkelsen becomes the target of a crazed stalker…
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Book 6: Death’s Ink-Black Shadow
Released February 12th
“Learn to love death’s ink-black shadow as much as you love the light of dawn.” Yeah? Well, Nikolas doesn’t do early mornings.
It takes a certain kind of courage to live as if favoured by the Gods, ignoring the ever-present ghosts of your past–or perhaps not bravery, but arrogance. And maybe not even that. Ben genuinely believes that the past is behind them—that they deserve to enjoy the life they have created. So it’s not hubris that leads him to overlook the signs that Nikolas does not share his faith, it’s love. But Nikolas knows something is coming. He can’t stop it; he can only decide how he will choose to face it. And without Ben’s support, he is entirely alone.
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Book 7: Enduring Night
Released February 19th
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. Nikolas has always liked art. You’d have thought that Ben and Nikolas would have learnt that their romantic holidays inevitably end up as disasters. A short break on the polar ice sees them trapped in a nightmare of murder and deceit. Neither of them, however, foresees the long-term impact that endless winter has on their relationship. They return with a metaphorical darkness that threatens everything they have created together. Desperate and fearing for Nikolas’s life, Ben makes a bargain with a surprising ally. For the first time, Nikolas meets an enemy more powerful than he is. But fortunately, not as sneaky…
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More Heat Than The Sun Series
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About John:
John Wiltshire is the pen name. The author was born in England, but she travelled widely whilst serving in the British Army, living in the States and Canada and Europe. She retired at the rank of Major, and finally settled in New Zealand.
To date the author has written 14 novels.
Connect with John:
http://johnwiltshire.co.nz
https://www.facebook.com/johnwiltshire.nz
Amazon Page | Goodreads
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