This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Amanda Meuwissen will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to wee the other stops on the tour.
I am a lifelong geek and gamer, which I think had a huge impact on my love of fantasy and paranormal stories over the years, to the point that it’s very rare that I write anything strictly contemporary and tend to always have a little magic in my novels.
1997 was my introductory year to RPGs (role playing games) and what a year! That was when Metal Gear Solid, Diablo, Final Fantasy VII, and Xenogears all came out, which to this day are some of my favorite games and the ones I played the most—to say nothing of their lasting impact and popularity among gamers.
I don’t have as much time as I did when I was a kid, but there are certain titles I will always make time for – Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Star Wars, God of War, and anything new and exciting that has a fun element of character creation and choice to make a game your own.
No surprise coming from an author, right?
I remember how thrilled I was when Stars Wars: The Old Republic came out as someone who had enjoyed World of Warcraft once upon a time but wasn’t so much the mass raid, end game player. I wanted to be able to enjoy myself playing alone as well as be able to hop on with my husband and a few friends.
SWTOR answered that call with fully voiced characters and such engaging stories and gameplay to immerse myself in. I fully completed four main character runs from start to finish, and began many others besides, and had a blast with each one, making those characters my own both in appearance, choices, and romance.
Video games today are so different than when I played Mario Bros in my earliest days. Now, I can cinematically enjoy a story like the best book or movie, as well as be part of crafting some of my favorite stories the way I do when I take pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard more often). It’s invigorating and continues to inspire me and drive my creative process.
For anyone who thinks playing video games is a waste of time or a creativity killer, over 20 years later since my first RPG where I discovered how much story a game can have, I still give credit to many for why I love fantasy, as well as rich characters and plotlines, to the video games in my life.
In fact, there are a few inspirations from video games I might explore in future novels – like an idea spurred from Dragon Age: Origins about a male desire demon (since they were always shown female) that could make a wonderful original story on its own all because my husband had an idea and bounced it off me born from the sheer enjoyment of playing the game.
Fiction has many forms to enjoy, especially where fantasy and paranormal stories are concerned. Never count video games out.
Not even a Titan can always stand up to a God.
Malcom Cho is in over his head, wrapped up in a love affair with his superhero nemesis Zeus, who most people in Olympus City only know as Detective Danny Grant.
Lovesick Titans begins where Lovesick Gods left off, after a heist gone wrong that ended with a museum guard dead and Mal and Danny beaten and exhausted from their fight with the new threat in town, Cassidy Ludgate—Hades.
Unaware that Ludgate’s true motivation is revenge for the death of his father at Zeus’s hands, Mal wants only to keep Danny close, while Danny races to solve the cases surrounding Ludgate to stop him from whatever he has planned for them next.
What Mal doesn’t know is that Danny didn’t pursue him with the purest of intentions but sought to break his heart in retaliation for not being there when he needed him in the fight against Thanatos. Even though Danny no longer seeks that end, the lies between them loom like a shadow about to descend upon them both.
And Hades has only begun to toy with them…
Enjoy an Excerpt
Danny let Mal hold his hand in place on his arm, while his other hand strayed, drifting down to Mal’s hip and resting at the edge of one of his larger scars. Mal had many, from years of abuse and a hard way of living. Normally, when Danny touched one, he pushed on with confidence, but tonight, the raised scar tissue made him snap to his senses like he’d been in a trance.
“Sorry,” he said and pulled both hands away.
But Mal reached for them, hung onto them, and brought Danny’s hands back to his skin. “It’s okay. Broken bottle one night when Dad got drunk. Now I get to add another knife wound to the collection.” Mal smirked as he nodded at his bandaged arm.
Danny smiled with him, but it was a sad, shattered expression. He teased the tips of his fingers over the scar tissue. “Are all these really from…” With a startle, he tried to pull away again as if he’d said something he shouldn’t.
“My father?” Mal said, refusing to let him go. “Not all. Most though. Some are from prison. Some dumb mistakes. Fights like tonight. But most…yeah, they’re his.”
Taking Danny’s hand still resting on his hip, Mal drew it upwards, guiding it across his bare chest until he reached his shoulder and the faint circular scar tissue near his clavicle.
“Freezer burn. From his powers. Because I broke my leg when I was eight and I cried. He wanted to teach me a lesson. Teach me how to keep pain in and never let anyone see it. So he held the tip of a frozen finger there until it burned.”
Danny’s brow furrowed with indignant anger.
Mal trailed the hand lower to a particularly bad scar across his stomach—his worst and the one he remembered the clearest. “First knife wound. Caught me with a boy in my room. Would have killed him if I hadn’t stood in the way. I took the brunt of it. Let him run off. Never brought a boy home again, not ‘til Dad was gone. Brought a couple girls home,” he shrugged.
“Girls?” Danny asked with a touch of humored skepticism bleeding through his concern. He splayed his hand flat against Mal’s stomach, warm and intimate in his touch.
“Occasionally. Not as often.”
Danny nodded but his smile quickly faded, his eyes trained on the scar and the affectionate way he traced it with his fingers. “Sometimes…I think my dad hates me because…” he trailed and the motion of his hand slowed. “There’s something I never told you. About the night I killed Thanatos.”
The smile dropped from Mal’s lips as well as he waited for Danny to continue.
“He killed my mom.”
About the Author: 
Amanda Meuwissen has been writing and posting online for many years, including maintaining the website and blog for the software company Outsell. She is an avid writer and consumer of fiction through film, prose, and video games, and is the author of the paranormal romance trilogy The Incubus Saga and young adult novel Life as a Teenage Vampire. Amanda lives in Minneapolis, MN, with her husband, John, and their two cats.
Buy the book at Amazon.
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Thank you so much for taking time to bring to our attention another great read. I enjoy these tours and finding out about many terrific books.
Thanks for hosting!
Great excerpt! This sounds like an awesome read!
Thank you so much for hosting and to those of you who have stopped by so far. I think all of us fantasy/sci-fi readers are geeks at heart, and I enjoy sharing some of that passion.
I liked the excerpt, thank you.
Thanks for sharing!