QSFer A.J. Demas has a new MM alt-historical romance out: The House of the Red Balconies.
Hylas has come to Tykanos to build an aqueduct. He has not come to enjoy the island’s main attraction: the six houses where the companions of Tykanos, courtesans both female and male, offer tea and elegant conversation. Yet he cannot ignore them as he finds himself renting a room in one of the tea houses and meeting his neighbour, the beautiful, chronically ill companion Zo.
Over breakfasts in Zo’s garden, the two men begin a friendship that transforms the isolation of their lives. But Hylas’s aqueduct project is threatened by bureaucratic delays, and Zo is pressured to secure a rich patron to help support his failing house. When they have begun to hope that they have found a home in each other, the world seems intent on forcing them apart.
Get It On Amazon | Publisher
Excerpt
A bird cawed on the mountain above them, a long, raucous sound, and the sleeper woke with a start. Suddenly in motion, sweeping back loose hair with a long-fingered hand, draperies shifting around a supple figure as he sat forward into the sunlight, he looked out at Hylas.
His narrow eyes were as black as his hair, their depths emphasized with smoky kohl. His skin was fawn-coloured under a dusting of paler powder, his cheekbones high and broad, his lips full. His eyebrows, perfect black slashes, rose unsmilingly.
“Were you looking for me?” he said.
“N-n-no.” How could he have been, when he hadn’t known such a person belonged to the waking world?
“Then … ” the young man prompted impatiently. He had a voice as dark as his eye-makeup, inflected by some accent that was a complete mystery to Hylas.
“I … was looking at the garden.”
The young man gave this explanation the unimpressed look it deserved. “How did you get in?” he asked.
“Through the … ” Hylas twisted to point vaguely behind him. Finally it occurred to him what detail was lacking here. “Through my apartment. I’m the new tenant.”
“You’re the new tenant. I see.”
He relaxed slightly, and only then did Hylas realize that his pose as he sat on the bed had been full of tension. He had, of course, been alarmed to wake up and find someone looking at him; he’d just done a good job of hiding it.
“I—I’m sorry, I—”
“Fortunate meeting,” the young man cut him off brusquely, with a little gesture that suggested this was a formulaic greeting. “I’m Zo.”
Author Bio
A.J. Demas is an ex-academic who formerly studied and taught medieval literature, and now writes romance set in a fictional world based on an entirely different era. She lives in Ontario, Canada, with her husband and cute daughter.