Love and Bravery: Hardcore Acts of Courage by Suanne Laqueur
From the award-winning author of The Fish Tales and the Venery series comes sixteen short stories that are smart and softly hardcore.
If a novel is a banquet, Laqueur’s anthology is a tapas course. Literal love bites that that focus on isolated moments in time. Microfiction that captures the middle of the action without worrying much where things started or where they’ll end up. Each vignette touches on the notion of bravery. Because love is always worth the risk.
From a joyful retiree in Bali to a terrified journalist in Syria, Laqueur explores erotic courage. A blind date in Manhattan. A secret crush in Canada. An ancient aphrodisiac in St. Lucia. A Brazilian street block during Carnavale. A box seat at the Paris Opera. A train ride with a lover, or a stranger. A swim with dolphins. A challenge accepted.
How far will you go for your heart’s desire? How passionate a chance will you take?
Description
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A former professional dancer and teacher, Suanne Laqueur went from choreographing music to choreographing words. Her work has been described as "Therapy Fiction," "Emotionally Intelligent Romance" and "Contemporary Train Wreck."
Laqueur's novel An Exaltation of Larks was the Grand Prize winner in the 2017 Writer's Digest Awards. Her debut novel The Man I Love won a gold medal in the 2015 Readers' Favorite Book Awards and was named Best Debut in the Feathered Quill Book Awards. Her follow-up novel, Give Me Your Answer True, was also a gold medal winner at the 2016 RFBA.
Laqueur graduated from Alfred University with a double major in dance and theater. She taught at the Carol Bierman School of Ballet Arts in Croton-on-Hudson for ten years. An avid reader, cook and gardener, she started her blog EatsReadsThinks in 2010.
Suanne lives in Westchester County, New York with her husband and two children.
What inspired you to write your book?
I write one of two ways: gargantuan, epic novels spanning decades and generations with multiple themes and intricately-woven plots. Or I write little isolated moments in time, capturing the middle of the action without worrying much where things started or where they’ll end up.
This little book is the latter. A collection of love bites, if you will. Most of these can’t be called stories because they lack a proper arc. Some are anonymous, some are named. They all touch on the notion of bravery. Because love is always worth the risk.
Enjoy with courage.
Here is a short sample from the book:
He smiled, suffused with forgiving affection, and he put his palm on her face, running his thumb along her cheekbone, curling his fingertips under her jaw. She turned her mouth into his palm, then her eyes turned wicked and she closed her lips around his thumb.
At the touch of her tongue he felt a stirring below the belt and raised his eyebrows at her. She flicked her gaze to the closed box door, back to him, and in a rustle of silk and tulle she slid off her seat and was on her knees beside his chair.
“Stop,” he said, with stop being the furthest thing from his mind.
“Shh.”
“You’re insane,” he whispered slowly, keeping his arms crossed but taking his ankle off its perch and letting her move in closer.
“I believe I owe you for the tickets.” Her fingers were at his belt buckle, undoing him. He swallowed and ran a hand down the curve of her neck, out over her bare shoulders. Surreptitiously he turned his head this way and that. Nobody sat above them, and the high partitions blocked the next box from view. Only the people on the other side of the ring might have a clue what was going on, but they seemed transfixed by the performance. Nobody was looking.
“Is there a lock on that door?” he asked with the last vestiges of rational thought he could drum up.
“Doubt it,” she whispered, unzipping him, reaching into his pants. And then she had him in her hands, he was fully hard and completely turned on and…
Fuck it.
He exhaled softly, closed his eyes and let his head tilt back—fuck everything—and she was down on him in the dark of the Paris Opera during a performance and his life (yes) was complete.
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