Blog Tour Stop including Excerpt, Character Interview, Review & Giveaway - Behr Facts by Pat Henshaw ~ BFD Book Blog

Author Name: Pat Henshaw

Book Name: Behr Facts

Series: Foothills Pride

Book: Three

Release Date: October 28, 2015

Blurb:

Big, burly CEO Abe Behr is dismayed to discover someone—possibly a family member—is stealing from Behr Construction, which primarily employs Behr relatives. Abe takes the unprecedented step of hiring an outsider, likeable CPA Jeff Mason, to go over the books and help find the culprit. They are drawn to each other as they talk to workers, including Abe’s two younger brothers and their shifty cousin.

Since he has sacrificed romance all his life to build the business, Abe’s surprised by his feelings for the handsome Jeff. He’s even more shocked when they are confronted by bigotry in the Sierra Nevada foothills community, which is being inundated by gays moving from the San Francisco area. As he and Jeff get closer, Abe must come to grips with coming out to a family and community that aren’t very tolerant. Fortunately, being the head Behr helps him find his footing and grab onto love when it bites him.

Pages or Words: 90 pages

Categories: Contemporary, Fiction, Gay Fiction, M/M Romance, Romance

Excerpt:

“You ever come up the bank to sit under my tree? Looks like a much more comfortable place to fish. Not as rocky at any rate.” Jeff took a drink of his beer as I again scrambled to keep up. “My dad called it the Fishing Tree. He seemed to think fish congregated off the shore there.”

We sat in silence. It was my turn to talk. I’m pretty good in business situations. Not so much in social ones. At social events, mostly I hold up walls. Shake hands. Grunt a lot. Let others carry the conversational load.

Lorraine set our meals in front of us. The full burger with everything for him. The grilled mountain trout and steamed vegetables for me.

“You do a lot of fishing?” I managed after a long silence.

“Not really.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “My dad said fishing couldn’t be taught. He said it was something intuitive. I never had any idea what I was doing. So I never saw any use in fishing. I never saw any fish either.”

Again, silence as I processed and caught up. “It’s not rocket science. You figure out what kind of fish you want. Where it lives. Lure it to you. Then catch it.”

He looked skeptical and almost self-conscious. “It can’t be so easy,” he said with a little laugh.

“Why not?”

“What about the different rods, lures, tackle, stuff?” He looked so serious, as if I were missing the point. As if I didn’t understand. He was right. I didn’t.

“Look. You can catch fish with your bare hands. If you want to. The extra stuff is just extra stuff.”

“If you say so.” He shook his head, a smile still on his lips. “Have you ever caught a fish with your bare hands?”

I lifted my hands and looked down at the mess that were my paws. Calluses, nicks, cuts, punctures, blunt fingers, the bandage now off the one with the splinter. These were the hands of a man who’d framed houses as a tall, rangy preteen and had lived in construction ever since. Could I catch a fish with my bare hands?

“Yeah. All it takes is absolute stillness and patience.” I sighed. “Not a whole lot of people have both together. Somebody once told me it’s all about Zen.” Somebody else said the only reason I could do it was because I was too stupid to know it was impossible.

“Zen.” His tone said he was surprised I knew such a word.

“You know, like the Eastern religion,” I answered. “Though why we still call it Eastern is beyond me. It’s really Far West, not Far East to us.” I was grumbling and rambling. Avoiding for some reason.

He rattled me. Nobody ever rattled me. I’m Abe Behr, the big Behr.

He was studying me as intently as I was him. He appeared too beautiful, too perfect, too unscarred. I just hoped his accountant skills were as perfect as he looked.

“What kind of fish you want to catch?” I asked. Staring at him wasted our time.

He pointed his fork to my plate. “How about that? It’s good, right?”

“Trout,” I agreed. “Lots of different kinds of trout.”

He looked like he’d never eaten any in his life.

“This is trout from our lake. Have a bite.”

He’d finished his burger but didn’t make a move on my fish. His expression was split between wanting to dig in and reluctance to do so.

“Just taste it,” I growled. “It won’t bite.”

His eyes snapped up to meet mine. His puzzled stare asked if the stupid bear had deliberately made a joke or not. Then he gave a happy, hearty laugh, and his fork raided my fish.

“So? What do you think?” I asked after he swallowed.

“I think you made a great joke,” he said with twinkling eyes. “And the trout is delicious. Is this why you threw your catch back? Did you know you’d get it cooked perfectly here at the cafe?”

“Naw. I was stalking the pie. Fish was a bonus.”

“They have good pie here?”

“Wait and see.”

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Behr Facts by Pat Henshaw
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

i really liked the first 2 stories in this series. i was all set to love this one – i love a big grumpy bear that calms under the support of a mild-mannered man. unfortunately, this story left me wanting a bit. i really think there needs to be more to it. a lot of what i wanted to read about was glossed over – especially abe and jeff’s relationship development. abe went from thinking he was asexual to developing feelings, both emotional and sexual, for jeff and we just didn’t get to see that. that could have been pretty epic if explored. i also thought there was too much emphasis on the bigotry…it seemed like overkill. i get that it’s happening but it’s been a recurring theme in each book and i’d like to see something different.

i think i’d like jeff and abe but we just didn’t get to know them too well. their character development was pretty much completely missing. we got their background but i didn’t feel like i knew either of them.

overall, i thought this story was too underdeveloped for me to love as much as the other two stories.

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Character Interview with Jeff from Behr Facts by Pat Henshaw

Q: What did you want to be when you were a kid?

A: A skydiver until I fell out of a tree and broke my arm. I spent a lot of time afterward sitting on the sidelines while my friends played, and I started doing math puzzles to keep busy. I had it all figured out that if I’d fallen slower, I wouldn’t have broken my arm, but I couldn’t figure out how to carry a parachute around with me all the time in case of emergency. So I decided it would be more fun solving hard math problems than falling out of airplanes and possibly breaking another arm.

Q: What do you value the most in your friends?

A: Loyalty. When I came out, I had a bunch of friends, but only a handful realized that I hadn’t changed and was the same guy before I told them as I was afterward. The loyalty of the ones who accepted me was invaluable to me.

Q: What is your favorite song?

A: Can’t you guess? It’s “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. In fact, some of my friends actually call me “Happy” or “Hap.”

Q: If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

A: How easily I trust and believe people. I open myself up to a lot of ridicule and ugly jokes, and I know it’s my own fault. It’s one of the things I admire in Abe. He’s open but not too open when he meets a person, so he’s rarely surprised or disappointed by them. Me? I’m surprised all the time, and disappointed too many times to count.

Q: What word or phrase do you overuse?

A: Probably “okay.” I pretty easy to get along with, so if I’m not planning where we’re going to go for fun—which I do quite a bit—then I’m agreeing to it. I’m an “okay” kind of guy.

Meet the author:

Pat Henshaw, author of the Foothills Pride Stories, was born and raised in Nebraska and promptly left the cold and snow after college, living at various times in Texas, Colorado, Northern Virginia, and Northern California. Pat enjoys travel, having visited Mexico, Canada, Europe, Nicaragua, Thailand, and Egypt, and Europe, including a cruise down the Danube.

Now retired, Pat has spent her life surrounded by words: Teaching English composition at the junior college level; writing book reviews for newspapers, magazines, and websites; helping students find information as a librarian; and promoting PBS television programs.

Her triumphs are raising two incredible daughters who daily amaze her with their power and compassion. Fortunately, her supportive husband keeps her grounded in reality when she threatens to drift away while writing fiction.

Where to find the author:

Website: http://patbooked.blogspot.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pat.henshaw.10

Twitter: https://twitter.com/phenshaw

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Pat-Henshaw/e/B00BPDEDEA/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1436131610&sr=8-1

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/pathenshaw/

Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/redesigningmax

Email: [email protected]

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6998437.Pat_Henshaw

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press