COVER REVEAL: HONESTLY (Feathered Tartan 3) by V.J. Allison

Hi everyone! The cover for Honestly (Feathered Tartan 3) has finally been revealed in V.J.’s VIP Lounge, so it’s time to show it off publicly.

#excerpt #LGBTROMANCE #LGBT #NovaScotia

Cover art by Martine Jardin of Extasy Books.

She did a smash up job with it, I’m so happy with this cover. Dana and Avery love books, so it fits the story perfectly!

We have a publication date – August 19, 2022. Happy birthday to me! I’m hosting a Release Party/Birthday Takeover bash that day in V.J.’s VIP Lounge, same rules apply as the Summer Takeover Bash in there, which will be happening on July 8^th.

You can find Honestly on Extasy Books’ website here: https://www.extasybooks.com/Honestly

Honestly

(Feathered Tartan 3)

Love knows no boundaries.

Needing an escape from her grandfather’s outdated and patriarchal views on a woman’s proper place, Dana Campbell flees to her cousin’s cottage on the Nova Scotian coast for some uninterrupted reflection. A trust fund and a prominent name isn’t her idea of happiness, especially if it’s tied to her grandfather’s archaic ideals of marriage. After a failed engagement to a gold-digging fraud, Dana just wants a quiet place where she can evaluate her life, and wonder whether she can ever be open about her closeted pansexuality.
A trans man who has faced hatred, Avery D’Eon is happy being inconspicuous. A bad divorce and a family who shuns him make him wary of being in any kind of a romantic relationship. Despite making life altering choices about his body, as well as finding his tribe in the form of his employee, he still battles a sense of emptiness. His world is tossed off kilter by a vivacious and sultry woman sauntering into his store. One look into her beautiful brown eyes, and Avery sees the missing link in his life – someone to love and cherish.
Despite denying their attraction, Avery and Dana find what they need in a hurricane of desire.
But a tragedy close to home forces Dana to make a life-shattering choice – her wealthy family or the man she adores.

Excerpt:

Dana turned on the webcam on her laptop and let out a happy chirp. “Sybil! It’s so good to see you.”

Her best friend and cousin-in-law giggled with delight, her brown eyes sparkling across the internet. “Hey Dee, you look awesome. The air out there must agree with you.” Her soft voice was lined with happiness.

It sent a zap of homesickness through Dana’s heart. Langdon, Alberta was about four thousand, five hundred kilometres west of Nova Scotia—more than two thousand, eight hundred miles—but the distance closed completely via the webcam chat in their favorite meetings site. Although she missed Sybil and Joshua horribly, Dana knew moving to the east coast had been right for her.

Especially now that she was seeing an extremely special man who lived here.

To her right, Avery sat on the couch, just out of sight of the webcam. He looked apprehensive, like he was about to do some public speaking fully naked. Although the mental image it brought forth appealed to her, she suspected he’d be way too shy to go out without a shirt on, let alone nude in front of a bunch of people. Hell, she hadn’t seen much of his body yet, even after having some fun in his shop office that morning.

She was hoping to change that later tonight.

Her cousin Joshua appeared on the screen next to his wife, his dark eyes dancing with mischief. “Ah, if it isn’t the kid of the bunch…”

Dana let out a long sigh and flipped her cousin the finger over the webcam. “I’m four thousand klicks away, and the first thing you say to me is an insult. So fucking typical, Kitchi.” Unlike Ewan, Joshua didn’t mind being called by his Siksika name.

Ewan, who was sitting to her left on the long sofa, let out a loud snort. He and Marti had arrived home just in time to put Isaiah to bed and have some downtime with Dana and Avery, before Dana got a text from Sybil, wanting to see her on the webcam. Dana had quickly agreed. She could tell Sybil her news.

Dana turned to him and flipped him the same rude gesture she had given Joshua. “Shut your yap, Keme, or I’ll sic your wife on you…”

Marti, on Ewan’s other side, chuckled. She shot her husband an evil grin.

Ewan’s eyes narrowed to thin slits. “Fuck off,” he muttered and leaned back in his seat with a mock glare. “You’re damn lucky Isaiah is in bed right now, else you’d be changing his next filthy diaper.”

“Why, so she can mash it into your face?” Joshua asked, his devilish grin and laughter echoing out of the speakers. He flipped his long, black ponytail over his shoulder and draped an arm around Sybil’s shoulders.

On Dana’s screen, she leaned into his side with a pained grin. “Gross, but I wouldn’t put it past our Dee to do it.” Another giggle escaped her throat. “I’m really happy I managed to get you on here. Marti told me you’ve been on the go since your feet hit the Scotian soil. What have you been up to?”

A shiver of apprehension climbed Dana’s spine. What would her bestie and her other cousin turned brother think about her falling for a man within a month of meeting him? Hell, she wasn’t sure what she’d think if the roles had been reversed, and it was Sybil announcing this crazy thing happening to her instead.

She let out a long breath. “You know I’ve been learning about our traditions and Siksikai’powahsin.”

“Yeah, and it’s awesome how you’re sticking it to the old man,” Joshua said with a guffaw, his eyes gleaming even more devilishly.

Ewan snorted. “She’s doing great. Dana knows enough now to understand me when I start cussing.”

“She can understand it, but is still learning how to speak it,” Marti added and rubbed her tummy.

Sybil clapped her hands in delight and laughed, her black, shoulder-length locks bouncing around her face. “It’s about fucking time. I’m sick of hearing you bitch about not understanding your dumb cousins when they speak our nation’s language, Dee.”

Dana blew a raspberry at her best friend. “Like you don’t whine about it, too?”

“We do it to drive you and Sybbie nuts,” Joshua muttered and leaned away from his wife.

She slapped his arm and laughed again. “Aha, the true motive is out,” she said around a chortle.

Ewan, Marti and Avery snickered, too. Dana flipped Ewan the finger again and leaned to her right, just enough to make her shoulder brush Avery’s.

She glanced at him and noticed he was grinning and shaking with laughter. A rush of calm ran through her. If Avery was laughing at their joking around, he was comfortable enough to formally meet the other two most important people in her life.

She smiled lovingly. “Something else happened,” she whispered, pride evident even to her own ears. “Something really amazing.”

Sybil cocked her head to the right, blinking her large eyes. Joshua crinkled his nose, and he frowned, marring his jaw-dropping good looks a little.

“Did you sell another picture?” Joshua asked. Like Ewan and Marti, he and Sybil were two of her biggest cheerleaders, and loved her photographs. The characteristic lopsided Campbell grin spread across his face.

“Which one was it?” Sybil asked, her voice high with delight.

Ewan snorted. Dana elbowed him in the ribs. A second later, she felt his arm hit hers.

“Cut it out, you two,” he muttered, his glare flipping back and forth between Dana and Marti.

Obviously, his wife had scolded him, too, in her own way. Dana resisted the urge to punch Ewan’s arm. He hadn’t stopped teasing her about Avery since the moment Dana mumbled something about visiting the shop again, just the other day.

He was going to pay for his joking, and she was going to get Sybil and Marti to help. She just had to plot how to get him in a way that would shut him up for a while.

Dana let out a long breath and gave Avery a nod. “Um, no. It’s something else. Something I wasn’t expecting to happen. Ever.” She bit her lip, suddenly feeling shy again. She had no problems introducing her previous male partners to her family, why was she suddenly feeling so weird about introducing Avery?

With an inward sigh, Dana realized it was because she hadn’t truly loved the others.

She was in love with Avery, so deep in love with him that the thought of losing him made her sick.

Now she understood why Ewan went down the suicidal road he did after Marti left him in the dust without an explanation years ago, and why Sybil and Joshua hated being apart. Like them, she was a goner for a person she never expected to be with, let alone fall for.

She shoved the thoughts and her misgivings aside when she felt Ewan’s arm bump hers. He normally did that when he suspected she wasn’t feeling confident, and he was trying to boost her mood. She gave him a quick smile of thanks and let out another long breath. She may as well get it over with.

She only hoped they liked Avery as much as Ewan and Marti seemed to.

“Syb, Joshua, I met someone,” she blurted and felt her cheeks heating up.

Sybil’s eyes widened and she grinned. “What’s her name?”

Ewan leaned away from Dana, shaking in silent laughter. Dana gave him another, harder elbow in the ribs and shook her head with a grimace, never breaking eye contact with the webcam.

She bit her lip and dug at a cuticle with her right thumb. “Um, his name is Avery D’Eon, and he’s Acadian. He runs a shop in Granville Ferry called Not Too Shabby Books.” She turned to him and nodded.

Avery, who had been mostly silent until then, draped an arm around her shoulders and leaned in so he could smile and wave at Joshua and Sybil. “Allô,” he said with a sheepish grin.

He looked so fucking yummy, in Dana’s opinion, with his hair a bit mussed and his cheeks slightly pink. He kissed her temple and gave her a side hug. Joy spread through her entire system.

On the computer screen, Dana could see Sybil’s jaw almost bouncing off of the floor, and Joshua’s wide eyes. She gave them a shit-eating grin.

Ewan let out a loud chortle. Like Dana, he had suspected the other Campbell couple were going to be shocked. Dana had sworn off men after that loser Doyle had tried ripping her off, and now here she was dating another man.

Dana felt her face burning in bewilderment. She hated eating her words.

She flipped her ponytail over her shoulder, making sure it smacked Ewan’s arm. She leaned into Avery’s side and grinned up at him happily, conveying her joy of being his woman.

“Fuck me,” Joshua muttered with a grin. “That’s the best news we’ve had about you yet, shithead.”

“Seriously? That is so fucking awesome! How long have you two been together?” Sybil squealed and bounced happily in her seat.

“A couple of weeks,” Dana answered and felt her ears turning hot.

“It’s closer to month, mon couer,” Avery added with a loving smile.

Sybil leaned forward and grinned again. “It’s great to meet you Avery!” she chirped with a wave. “This is so wonderful. I can’t believe you finally met someone, Dee.”

Dana lifted her brows in surprise. Normally Sybil shied away from someone new. Hell, it had taken Dana a week to get her bestie to say hello to anyone that first week of Kindergarten, and she was still ultra-bashful, even more than Marti had been the first time Dana had met her.

Maybe Sybil was picking up just how much Avery meant to her? Dana hoped so. She wanted Avery to be included in their group, like they had included Marti after she and Ewan eloped two years ago.

Dana leaned into Avery’s side and put her hand on his leg, feeling the muscles beneath the denim and savoring the feel of him sitting next to her—the man she adored, and wanted to be with for life.

How strange that notion felt, but she was willing to give it a whirl, for real this time.