Guest Post: Regret Me Not by Amy Lane

We’re so pleased to have author Amy Lane joining us today to usher in the month of December and to celebrate the upcoming release of her new Holiday Romance, Regret Me Not.

Welcome, Amy!

The Stories of Our Stories

The older you get, the more stories you have, and—hopefully—the more they say about you, personally, when you tell them.

Christmas is a particularly rich time for stories—between the mania, the shopping, the baking, the visiting, and the desperate hope that you won’t forget anyone, get the wrong present for anyone, or hurt anyone’s feelings, there’s this sort of emotional pressure that makes every Christmas story, every Christmas memory, sort of a heightened, shiny diamond composed of equal measure poignancy and laugh riot: A happy winter holiday is the ultimate peak of love so high, it transcends everyday mortal concerns about food and outstanding charges on your credit card. An unhappy winter holiday is the slough of despond.

It’s an unfair amount of pressure—and it results in more than the standard measure of laughter and tears. The guys in Regret Me Not both walk into their friendship—and then their romance—with their own stories in their suitcases, and as their relationship grows, along with the deadline of Christmas, when Pierce is supposed to return home, every story they tell comes with the weight of hope that this story will turn out all right.

Well, it’s a Christmas story—code Amy Lane yellow, which is a guaranteed happy ending—so you know it will turn out all right. And for my blog tour, I’d like to share Christmas stories both recent and very distant past. Some are happy, some are a little weepy, some have been told before on blogs, and some are (hopefully) new—or at least new to some of the readers out there, that would be lovely.

So for my first story, I’m going to go happy and light—and short, since my intro took up most of my space!

When I was a kid, my dad and stepmom bought, like, a zillion yards of red and white striped paper. We all got clothes for Christmas Eve from mom and dad, and in the morning, Santa showed up and redeemed the holiday somewhat. The fun thing was, Santa showed up with presents for Mom and Dad as well—and my parents were often surprised at the thoughtfulness of the other.

My Dad was particularly surprised one Christmas morning when he discovered Santa had left him an 80lb. bench vise behind the tree, wrapped and everything.

“Wow!” he said, excited. (He’s one of those men who is excited by tools the same way I’m excited by yarn.) “I can’t believe Santa knew what I wanted!” He looked at my stepmom with sincere admiration—she’s about 5’6”, and fairly strong but not freakishly so. “And I can’t believe Mrs. Clause got that thing under the tree.”

My stepmom rolled her eyes. “And Mrs. Clause can’t believe you fell asleep in front of the tree, with the DOG.”

My dad had the grace to be embarrassed. “I’m so sorry,” he said sincerely.

“The dog’s not,” she snapped—probably exhausted and caffeine deprived by this point too. “I swear the damned thing farted six times when, uh, Mrs. Clause was trying to put the stupid vise behind the stupid tree.”

Seriously—hats off to my stepmom, and well done. That’s working for your happy Christmas memory, and achievement unlocked!

So join me for more Christmas memories in the oncoming days—and definitely enjoy Pierce and Hal as the forge their own Christmas memories in Regret Me Not.

About the Book

Pierce Atwater used to think he was a knight in shining armor, but then his life fell to crap. Now he has no job, no wife, no life—and is so full of self-pity he can’t even be decent to the one family member he’s still speaking to. He heads for Florida, where he’s got a month to pull his head out of his ass before he ruins his little sister’s Christmas.

Harold Justice Lombard the Fifth is at his own crossroads—he can keep being Hal, massage therapist in training, flamboyant and irrepressible to the bones, or he can let his parents rule his life. Hal takes one look at Pierce and decides they’re fellow unicorns out to make the world a better place. Pierce can’t reject Hal’s overtures of friendship, in spite of his misgivings about being too old and too pissed off to make a good friend.

As they experience everything from existential Looney Tunes to eternal trips to Target, Pierce becomes more dependent on Hal’s optimism to get him through the day. When Hal starts getting him through the nights too, Pierce must look inside for the knight he used to be—before Christmas becomes a doomsday deadline of heartbreak instead of a celebration of love.

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About the Author

Amy Lane has two grown children, two half-grown children, two cats, and two Chi-who-whats at large. She lives in a crumbling crapmansion with most of the children and a bemused spouse. She also has too damned much yarn, a penchant for action adventure movies, and a need to know that somewhere in all the pain is a story of Wuv, Twu Wuv, which she continues to believe in to this day! She writes fantasy, urban fantasy, and gay romance–and if you accidentally make eye contact, she’ll bore you to tears with why those three genres go together. She’ll also tell you that sacrifices, large and small, are worth the urge to write.