BLOG TOUR with GUEST POST, EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT and GIVEAWAY: Jeff Adams of 'Somewhere on Mackinac&

Title: Somewhere on Mackinac

Series: States of Love

Author: Jeff Adams

Release Date: May 3, 2017

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

Cover Artist: Alexandria Corza

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Length: 113 Pages

Tags: Gay; M/M

About Somewhere on Mackinac

How far would you go for the man of your dreams?

Now that he’s single, Chicago businessman Jordan Monroe can finally take his long-desired trip to Mackinac Island for the Somewhere In Time fan celebration weekend. On the first day, Jordan finds himself attracted to Miles Colter, a handsome local stable owner who is giving horseback tours of film locations.

Jordan is surprised and charmed that Miles pursues him. When Jordan learns the stable is in trouble, he wants to help despite Miles’s resistance. As their relationship grows personally and professionally, Jordan dreads the issues that face them—an ex who won’t let him go, the complications of a long-distance relationship, and a secret he knows he shouldn’t be keeping.

Can Jordan and Miles find a way to forge a love as timeless as the romance in their favorite film?

States of Love: Stories of romance that span every corner of the United States.

Thanks to Kimmers for hosting this stop on the Somewhere on Mackinac blog tour. Make sure to check out below for an exclusive excerpt as well as a Rafflecopter where you’ll have the chance to win a free copy of the ebook.

Mackinac Island, Michigan was the first place I thought of when I saw the States of Love series submissions call from Dreamspinner. States of Love is all about creating romance in unique places or situations in each state. Few places are as unique as Mackinac. Plus there was the added attraction of using the 1980 movie Somewhere in Time, a time travel/romance starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, to help bring the guys together.

Much of Somewhere in Time was filmed on Mackinac. The film starts off in Chicago with playwright Richard Collier at the opening of his new play. During the party, an elderly woman comes up to him, presses a pocket watch into his hand and says “Come back to me.” This leads Richard on a search to find out who she is. Years later, facing writer’s block he travels to the Grand Hotel and becomes enthralled by the picture of a woman there. He soon learns she’s the famous turn of the center actress Elise McKenna and that she’s the one that visited him at his play opening. Without giving too much away, I’ll say that he figures out a way to time travel back to 1912 to meet her and an unfortunate accident pulls them apart again, which is why she’d come to him that night in the theater.

I admit, it sounds a little hokey, but over the years this has become one of my favorite romantic films.

In my book, it’s also a favorite film of Chicago businessman Jordan Monroe and he heads to Mackinac Island for a Somewhere in Time fan celebration weekend, which is held at the Grand Hotel. This is a real event, which takes place each October, and has attracted the film’s stars and filmmakers over the years. It’s a trip Jordan has wanted to make and been deterred by a boyfriend who is now his ex. There’s finally no reason for him not to go.

Miles Colter runs his family’s stable. Given there’s no cars on the island (except when you watch the film—cars were allowed to be used in a couple scenes), his stable is a location for locales to board horses, as well as where tourists can take them out for rides. His staff also runs carriages on the island. Back in ’79 when the film was shooting, his father was among the people who helped the film crew get their equipment around the island via carriage. He shot pictures too, including some of Miles with “Superman.”

I had a great time blending my fictional characters into the reality of the island, the making of the film and the fan weekend. It gave Jordan and Miles so many things to do as Miles showed off his home to the visitor while they also enjoyed some events from the fan weekend.

Somewhere in Time is also the lens through which Jordan, at times, considers what he’s getting into with Miles. Attempting a long distance relationship is something he’d never considered, but it’s put into perspective when looking at the film and knowing that Richard traveled across decades to find Elise. Sure, it’s not the most realistic way to think about love, but sometimes romance clouds your judgement.

The excerpt below is a scene from early in the book as Miles is leading a horseback tour of locations where the movie was shot. Miles encouraged him to join the tour the previous afternoon when Jordan was a passenger in his carriage.

I hope you enjoy the excerpt as well as the book. Check out the Rafflecopter below as well for your chance to win an ebook copy of your own. Lastly, if you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. I’ll check back over the next few days to leave a response.

“Much of the movie was shot on the Grand Hotel’s grounds,” Miles began as we headed away from the main building. “But, we’re going to get started at a place that everyone thinks is on the grounds, but isn’t.”

We headed out and went north on the western side of the island, along the road I’d seen when I was on the ferry. The hotel stayed to our right and a boardwalk was to the left. It was only a few minutes before I got goose bumps as we approached a small grove of trees just past the end of the boardwalk.

I recognized the place immediately. It was where Richard and Elise met beside the unique heart-shaped tree. Everyone excitedly chattered around me, and for the first time in the trip, I felt alone. I was the only one on this tour who wasn’t with someone else, so I had no one to share this moment with. All of this was making me emotional. It might be sappy to get worked up over a tree two actors had stood in front of nearly four decades ago, but I couldn’t help it.

We stopped and dismounted to get closer for pictures. I couldn’t imagine doing what Richard had done in the movie—approaching a stranger, and introducing himself. It was ballsy putting yourself out there like that. Propriety dictated that she rebuff him. Their first meeting wouldn’t be their last.

A marker, which was set into a boulder, declared this as the meeting spot from the movie. I cleared my head of the romantic fantasy I was having and pulled my phone from my jacket. I snapped a selfie before Miles came up and offered to take a couple of shots from farther away.

“Smile, Jordan. You can’t stand in this spot and look all gloomy.”

I couldn’t be near Miles and not be affected by his energy. I didn’t even have to put on a fake smile because his presence wouldn’t allow it.

“That’s better,” he said.

I grabbed some close-up shots of the marker as well as the lake beyond the trees before he called everyone together.

“If you’ll pass your phones and cameras over, we’ll get pictures of the entire group around the marker. Get in close and stay in place until we snap one for everybody.”

We did as we were asked, and once I had my phone back, I went to Buttercup and managed to get in the saddle in a single, unaided try. Luckily, I quelled a victory yell.

“Would you mind snapping a picture of me up here?” I asked Caleb, and he reached up to take my phone. “No one’s going to believe I actually did this without proof.”

He silently stood back and snapped from a few different angles.

“There you go.” He handed the camera back with a smile. “Everything you need to show off your time with Buttercup.”

We were out for almost ninety minutes, and I learned a lot about how the movie was shot on the island. Miles had a fun mix of stories—many that could only come from someone whose family lived here during the filming. The island was more beautiful than I’d imagined with its classic architecture in town and the natural beauty all around. From what Miles said, regulations on the island made sure that there was little change.

“You’re doing pretty good.” Miles settled Wildfire in next to Buttercup as we rode back to the stables. “Enjoying yourself?”

I hadn’t expected him to drop out of the lead position. I gripped the reins tighter, while trying to make sure I wasn’t sending the wrong signals to Buttercup. A runaway horse would create the wrong impression.

“I am. Your stories are great and riding a horse is more fun than I thought it would be.”

“Well, you’re on one of the best. Buttercup’s just about as amenable as they come. Isn’t that right, girl?” He leaned over to stoke her neck and she neighed, clearly agreeing with him.

I decided to talk about safe topics, so I asked about one of the stories he’d told earlier in the tour.

“Your story about watching Superman in the same row of the theater as Christopher Reeve was awesome. Do you seriously remember that?”

“I do. I was four so it’s on the edge of my memory, but yeah. He was a nice guy to the island kids. In the scrapbook my dad made, there’s a picture he took of me in a Superman T-shirt next to Christopher. He was kneeling down so he was on my level and it looks like I’m about to take off to fly.”

“That’s awesome,” I said. “A helluva memory, and to have a picture on top of it.”

“I wish I’d agreed to show Dad’s pictures this year for the convention.” Miles furrowed his brow. “I think you’d enjoy them.”

Miles’s pull on me was fierce, and I forced down my desire to ask him to get together to see them. We held each other’s gaze too long as the horses kept going along the trail.

“I think I would.” That was as close to asking him as I could get.

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Meet the Author

Jeff’s written stories since he was in middle school and became a gay romance writer in 2009 when his first short stories were published.

Jeff lives in rural Northern California with his husband of twenty years, Will. Some of his favorite things include the musicals Rent and title of show, the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins hockey teams, and the reality TV competition So You Think You Can Dance. If forced to pick his favorite book it would be a tie between Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and David Levithan’s Every Day.