A Decade of Visions by Cameron Ramses - Book Tour + Giveaway
A Decade of Visions
by Cameron Ramses
Genre:
Historical LGBT Romance
Historical LGBT Romance
Born to a single mother in Dust Bowl-era Nebraska, Roy Manger learns to
deny his true self from an early age. The rural Midwest is no place
for a boy who wears girls’ clothes for fun—let alone for one who
suffers gruesome hallucinations. It is only when he leaves home that
he can embrace his true identity, spending his days as Roy and his
nights as Raina, working as an escort in a ritzy Chicago bordello.
But after a run-in with the law, Roy is torn between extremes: to
live as a man or as a woman; to ignore his grief or struggle to
accept it; to suppress his visions or seek to understand them. With
the support of Woodrow, a convict with a murky past, Roy will have to
come to terms with the fact that, in life, all of the greatest joys
must come from within—and the greatest dangers, too.
deny his true self from an early age. The rural Midwest is no place
for a boy who wears girls’ clothes for fun—let alone for one who
suffers gruesome hallucinations. It is only when he leaves home that
he can embrace his true identity, spending his days as Roy and his
nights as Raina, working as an escort in a ritzy Chicago bordello.
But after a run-in with the law, Roy is torn between extremes: to
live as a man or as a woman; to ignore his grief or struggle to
accept it; to suppress his visions or seek to understand them. With
the support of Woodrow, a convict with a murky past, Roy will have to
come to terms with the fact that, in life, all of the greatest joys
must come from within—and the greatest dangers, too.
A Decade of Visions contains adult content suitable for mature readers
only. There are also instances of graphic gore and period typical homophobia.
only. There are also instances of graphic gore and period typical homophobia.
Roy had been staring at the
corner for nearly an hour. He was waiting for someone to come by and post bail.
But Hattie’s motto was always this: if you got yourself into a mess, it was your
job to get yourself out. Who bailed out who was always a matter of exchange.
If Roy couldn’t take his
medicine, then he would have to stay awake all night until the dead man was
driven away by the sun. If he looked away for even a moment, those dead fingers
would clutch around his neck, and the dirt-caked face would bend forward to
chew the flesh off his cheeks. So he stared.
Though frozen, Roy’s body
worked on. His bladder filled with the wine from dinner, and his stomach grew
bored with the shrimp salad and demanded something more. Two hours earlier, as
the police had approached the door of the Pineapple, he knew he had two
choices. The first was to change into some boy clothes, and the second was to
eat a quick plate of cornbread. The former won out over the latter by a narrow
margin.
The drunkard vomited into the
bucket between his knees.
As if the sound had ended the
homeless man’s bout of blindness, that hoary head whipped its chin down to
reveal his eyes: one staring milky and unfocused from beyond the grave, while
the other gaped, a bloody hole where a bullet had entered, done its gruesome
business, and left. The socket streamed with blood, red rivulets thick with
curded pus and vitreous humor. The teeth were black and yellow and the saliva dripped
over the lips and gathered on his shirt-front. Roy let in a slow gasp and tried
to regulate his heart and continued to stare at the corner. And the homeless
cyclops, the victim of some wanton violence, stared back.
Roy began to cry.
The cyclops’s hands, thick
with cold and toil, twitched. Slowly his limb grew strong, lifting up from the
elbow until, when the forearm was parallel to the floor, the hand itself
raised, straightening the arrow of his index finger until it pointed straight
at Roy in judgment.
He could not quiet his sobs.
His chest heaved, a haywire machine.
Hungry, the cyclops stretched
until it pointed with the whole arm. The tip of the finger seemed to reach
halfway across the room.
The drunkard retched again
while Roy was moaning. Weeping. It had never been this bad before. It had never
gotten so close. When he had seen this same apparition at the steakhouse, it
had kept its back to him. If he had known it would return, he would have
sacrificed his eyes to any sharp object within reach—the fork for the shrimp,
the tweezers in his bathroom, Mr. Deer’s fingers. Roy’s sight blurred, causing
the image of the cyclops to balloon to twice its natural size. He screamed.
“You shut the fuck up.”
Without thinking, Roy snapped his head to the left, where the head of the
blanket-bundle was sticking out now, bringing to mind a dirty turtle. Catching
his mistake, Roy immediately looked back at the corner and was surprised to see
nothing. As his heart slowed down and his muscles relaxed, he flipped his head
between the dreaded opposite corner and the corner to his left where, after a
moment, he was able to distinguish the features of a young Black man staring at
him.
After a moment of eye contact,
the head turned back to the wall and Roy said, “Thank you.”
The muffled bundle muttered,
“Thank you…”
Roy sat back, relief washing
over him like bathwater.
“…for shutting the fuck up.”
Cameron Ramses is an American writer living in France. Most days he can be
found sitting upright and feeling appalled. In addition to writing,
he also runs a French pastry Instagram. Follow him: brioche_boy
found sitting upright and feeling appalled. In addition to writing,
he also runs a French pastry Instagram. Follow him: brioche_boy
Follow the tour HERE for exclusive excerpts, guest posts and a giveaway!
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