At
the Margins of Madness:
A
Tale of Power and Love
By
Lisabet Sarai
MM
Paranormal erotic romance (Five flames)
Approximately
47,000 words,
170 pages
HEA
ending
ISBN:
9781005435004
ASIN:
B09QQG683R
Keywords/Hashtags
#Paranormal
#PsychicTalents #MMRomance #GayRomance #Sorcerer #Witch #Ritual
#Telepathy #Precognition #Worcester #QuabbinValley #AgeGapRomance
#Schizophrenia
Tag
Line
Both
power and love can lead to madness
Blurb
Nineteen
year old Kyle sees visions of disasters, visions that tear his world
apart. Everyone assumes that he is schizophrenic, but Rob, the cop
who picks him up off the street, knows better.
Rob's
own experience has taught him that psychic powers are real, and
potentially devastating. Since his telepathic sister's brutal murder,
Rob wants nothing to do with "gifted" individuals like
Kyle. Yet he can't deny his attraction to the beautiful, tortured
young man – an attraction that appears to be mutual.
When
a brilliant, sadistic practitioner of the black arts lures Kyle into
his clutches, Rob faces the possibility that once again he may lose
the person he loves most to the forces of darkness.
Note:
This novel was previously published by Totally Bound under the title
Necessary
Madness.
It has been revised and reformatted for this edition.
Excerpt
– Rated PG
“Kitchen’s
here, with the door out to the back porch. Only one bathroom, I’m
afraid. Here’s the guest room—your room. The closet’s empty;
you’re welcome to put your stuff in there.”
Rob
led Kyle through his apartment, fussing and clucking like a mother
hen. He wondered for the hundredth time whether this was a mistake.
The guy was just so damned beautiful. Rob could hardly bear to be
close to him. Driving the few miles from St. Vincent’s to his
building, Rob had tried to pay attention to the road, but he couldn’t
help sneaking sidelong glances at the mysterious, sensual face of his
companion. Kyle seemed to be brooding. Maybe he had his doubts, too.
“What
stuff?” Kyle spread his arms, a half-smile on his plump lips.
“Everything I own is on my back.”
“I’ll
take you over to Greendale Mall so you can pick up some new clothes.
Loan you some cash until you get on your feet.”
“What
makes you think I’ll ever ‘get on my feet’, Sergeant Murphy?”
“Rob.
Please.”
“Okay,
Rob.” Kyle stared at the mostly bare maple outside the guest room
window, before turning back to confront him. “Why should anything
be different now?” Rob heard the bitterness in his voice. “I have
a disease, and I don’t mean the ulcer. I’m cursed. I see terrible
things, and I can’t stop them. It’s getting worse all the time.
There are only two possibilities. Either I’ll kill myself, or I’ll
truly go insane.”
Rob
suppressed the urge to take the man in his arms. Instead, he settled
for an avuncular pat on the shoulder. “It’s only your
imagination, Kyle. Your mind playing tricks on you. Once you
understand that, maybe you can suppress the visions. Or control
them.”
Kyle
sank down onto the bed. His dark eyes burnt under exquisitely arched
brows. “My imagination? You know that’s not true.”
Rob
lowered himself onto the desk chair. He wished that he were somewhere
else. He wanted to help Kyle, but he really didn’t like where the
conversation was going.
“What
else could it be? These spells—they’re like seizures. Storms of
random activity in your brain that make you see things. I was there
at the hospital, remember, when it hit you yesterday. You were
completely out of touch, yelling about the brake, the gas tank,
groaning and crying. You were delusional.”
“It
was a crash,” Kyle intoned. “At least five cars. Glass
everywhere. The screech of rubber, the stink of leaking gasoline, and
then the explosion and the smell of charred flesh… Check the
papers, Rob. Call the police station. If it hasn’t happened yet, it
will soon.”
“You
really believe that your hallucinations foretell the future?” Rob
remembered the night he’d picked Kyle up, the narrowly averted
catastrophe at the address Kyle had seen.
“I
only wish that they didn’t. All I ever see is violence and pain.”
Kyle buried his face in his hands.
Rob
moved to the bed, next to his guest, and put his arm around the
denim-clad shoulders. He couldn’t help himself. “Look, that’s
crazy. This isn’t some kind of horror movie. This is real life.
There’s a rational explanation for everything.” He was trying to
convince himself as much as Kyle. He didn’t want anything more to
do with psychic abilities. Never again.
Kyle
skewered him with a dark stare, hurt and angry. “You don’t know
what you’re talking about. I thought that you wanted to help me.”
Rob
tensed. Kyle was so close. The funk of his old sweat rose from the
worn jacket, along with a trace of disinfectant. Rob could see the
pulse beating in the boy’s pale temple. He felt his own blood rush
to his groin.
Kyle
trembled. His nostrils flared. His eyes gleamed. Rob felt the pull, a
magnet focused on his groin. It would be so easy to gather that taut
young body to his chest, to fasten his mouth on Kyle’s ripe lips,
to take control. But that wasn’t what the man needed. Kyle needed
responsible strength. Logic. Maturity. With a heroic effort, Rob
smothered his fantasies.
“I
do want to help. If I didn’t, do you think I would have taken you
in? I just want you to be realistic. To recognize that even when you
think you’re seeing future events, that’s a delusion.”
Kyle
wasn’t listening, not really. Rob could see him adjust his face,
hiding his emotions, shuttering those bright eyes, donning a false
smile. Putting on a mask. “Whatever you say, Rob. Maybe you’re
right. After all, most nut cases think their visions are real.”
“You’re
not a ‘nut case’, Kyle.”
“Are
you sure?” He giggled. “You can’t have it both ways, you know.
Either I’m prescient, or I’m insane.”
Online
excerpt (X-rated)
https://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2022/01/sizzling-sunday-new-mm-paranormal.html
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Guest Post
Valley
of Stories
Near
the center of Massachusetts, the huge, butterfly-shaped Quabbin
Reservoir practically divides the state in two. Constructed in the
nineteen thirties to satisfy the thirst of the Boston metropolitan
area, Quabbin figuratively divided the state as well, pitting the
rural inhabitants of the Swift River Valley against the city dwellers
in the state capitol. Four towns - Dana, Enfield, Greenwich and
Prescott - were drowned by Quabbin's advancing waters. The houses of
their inhabitants were dismantled and relocated on higher ground.
Bodies were exhumed from their graves and reburied elsewhere. Forests
were leveled in order to reduce the amount of degrading biological
material that would pollute the reservoir. The land that had belonged
to Dana and its unfortunate fellows was allocated to neighboring
towns. Communities which had prospered in the valley since the
seventeen hundreds ceased to exist.
Needless
to say, the Swift River Valley is haunted. Even if you don't know the
history, you can't escape the sense of mystery as you drive the
winding length of Route 202, which hugs the west end of the
reservoir. The evergreens that were planted to protect the watershed
have grown tall now, shadowing the road. The woods around the
man-made lake are home to bears, bald eagles, wildcats and perhaps
stranger, more secret beings. On the eastern shore, overgrown dirt
lanes meander through the village of Petersham, sending tentative
fingers toward the still water.
Ghosts
of the dispossessed inhabitants from the flooded towns still seem to
hover in the area. They're joined by older creatures from the earlier
times when the Algonkian natives fished in the Swift River, grew
their corn along the banks, and worshiped the spirits of the forest.
I'm
not the only individual to feel that the Swift River Valley is full
of supernatural stories. The movie version of Stephen King's
Dreamcatcher features the reservoir as a prominent plot element. The
cult horror author H.P. Lovecraft explicitly set his now-classic tale
"The Color Out of Space" in the valley before its flooding.
A variety of other authors and singers have been touched by the
mystery that seems to permeate the place.
My
MM paranormal romance At
the Margins of Madness
is partially set in the Quabbin Valley. The book revolves around
various psychic powers – precognition, telepathy and the like. I
used to live near Quabbin, and had friends in Petersham. It seemed
like a natural place for the home of a consulting witch who helps
individuals with psi talents to understand and control their
abilities.
About
Lisabet Sarai
Lisabet
Sarai became addicted to words at an early age. She began reading
when she was four. She wrote her first story at five years old and
her first poem at seven. Since
then, she has written plays, tutorials, scholarly articles, marketing
brochures, software specifications, self-help books, press releases,
a five-hundred page dissertation, and lots of erotica and erotic
romance – more than one hundred titles, and counting, in nearly
every sub-genre—paranormal, scifi, ménage, BDSM, GLBT, and more.
Regardless of the genre, every one of her stories illustrates her
motto: Imagination is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
You’ll
find information and excerpts from all Lisabet’s books on her
website (https://www.lisabetsarai.com/books.html),
along with more than fifty free stories and lots more. At her blog
Beyond Romance (https://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com),
she shares her philosophy and her news and hosts lots of other great
authors. She’s also on Goodreads,
Bookbub
and Twitter.
Join her VIP email list and get a free ebook, plus exclusive contents
and other benefits: https://btn.ymlp.com/xgjjhmhugmgh
