PROMO BLITZ – The Embrace of Evergreen by Rayne Hawthorne
One man who’s desperately holding on to the belief that love exists, and another who’s been hurt enough to give up on the idea completely. Both cling to hope no matter how dangerous that is.
Length: 340 pages (approx)
Series: Unexpected Love, book 2
Prior Reading: recommended
Genre: contemporary, slight paranormal elements
Tropes: found family, hurt comfort, slow burn, demi-rep, friends to lovers, caretaking
Trigger/Content Warnings: loss and grief
Ethan
I’ve been in love before. It’s a fact that I cling to with frighteningly intense desperation as I try to convince myself that I’m normal. Ok, so I’ve only been in love once, but I know that for at least one brief, shining moment, the world and everything in it felt like magic. I know love exists. I know it does, because when I’m lying in bed alone at night, I can still feel it. I know deep in my soul that I’m capable of love. I have to be.
I don’t know why I continue to subject my broken, hollowed out shell of a heart to the idea of falling in love again, but I don’t have it in me to quit just yet. I’ll give it one more try. One more attempt to build a real life for myself before giving up, because some part of me is still holding on to hope, no matter how dangerous that is.
Blue
Love and romance aren’t for me. When I was young and naïve I dreamed of them, just like everyone else I suppose. Then I fell in love, only to end up hurt. I fell in love again, only to get hurt again. Eventually, I learned my lesson. Love, romantic love at least, isn’t usually real, and when it is, it never lasts. Every time I’ve fallen it’s been fast and hard, and every time I’ve ended up patching the broken, tattered pieces of my body and soul back together on my own. Love and I just aren’t compatible.
So why can’t I stop watching the beautiful auburn-haired man that’s recently become a regular at the coffee shop? I know what the result of indulging this hormone induced fascination will be. I’ll end up hurt, and alone, and wondering yet again how something that once seemed so good could have gone so desperately wrong.
The Embrace of Evergreen is a 90000 word, MM, slow burn, contemporary romance filled with loss, found family, longing, forest hikes, glass blowing, sweet road trips with only one bed, friends to lovers, demi-rep, quirky best friends, and of course a HEA. There is also just the tiniest bit of unexplained magic that is deliberately open to reader interpretation.
https://geni.us/EvergreenTour
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Rayne writes emotionally charged, character-driven spicy queer stories.
After decades working in mental health, their goal is to tell queer adult love stories that include realistic, flawed characters who experience the same emotional obstacles and physical and mental health struggles that affect us all at times while offering the romance and happy endings we all long for.
insta @raynehawthornewrites
bluesky @raynehawthorne.bsky.social
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