Spotlight-Excerpt & Giveaway: A BEACH FAR AWAY by BL Maxwell

A Beach Far Away 

Author and Publisher: BL Maxwell

Cover Artist: BL Maxwell 

Release Date: July 30, 2022

Genre: Contemporary M/M Romance

Tropes: Friends to lovers, instalove, vacation romance, meet cute

Themes:  Starting over, finding true love

Heat Rating: 3 flames

Length: 31,000 words

It is a standalone book and does not end on a cliffhanger.

Goodreads

Buy Links - Available in Kindle Unlimited

Universal Link  |  Amazon US  |  Amazon UK

Falling in love wasn’t on the itinerary

Blurb

Ryan Stone can’t wait to put his toes in the sand at the famous Bondi Beach. When he arrives after a flight that was far too long, and having not slept or eaten, all he can do is stare out at the beautiful expanse of white sand and blue ocean in awe. And when a blond guy asks him to play footy, he agrees, even if he doesn’t know for sure what that is.

Ollie Hughes thinks a day at the beach is just what he needs to take his mind off work. When he sees the cute but rumpled guy sitting by himself in the sand, he’s drawn to him. The more time they spend together, the less he wants the day to end. They end up spending a few days together, those few days turn into weeks, and neither is ready for their time together to end.

A lot of chemistry, and a little bit of luck make for an interesting day at the beach that both men are reluctant to end. Time and distance could be their biggest obstacle, but maybe some things are just meant to be. #meetcute #vacationromance #mmromance

Excerpt 

Slipping my shoes and socks off, I carried them with me to the water’s edge. The water was warmer than it was on our side of the planet, but the last time I’d been to the ocean had been near Eureka. The water was never warm there. I walked out enough for the water to hit near my knee.

“Oi, mate. You don’t want to be going out there. It’s a wicked rip. Pull you right out without warning and you’ll end up across the ditch in New Zealand.” A very tanned, very blond guy about my age, wearing an aqua and dark blue shirt with Lifeguard emblazoned on his chest, crossed his arms and planted his feet.

“It’s okay, I’m not going out far. I just wanted to see how warm it was.”

“If I had a dollar for every time I’d heard that, I’d be a rich man. Most that have said it, are now about fifty meters offshore.”

My head whipped in the direction he’d indicated, before he burst out in laughter.

“Just messin’ with ya. But seriously, don’t go out past your knees. Everyone thinks they can handle it, but it’ll drag you out before you can get your feet under you.” He stood and waited for me to walk out of the water and waved when I relented and walked back over to the grassy area.

Leaning my head back I let the heat of the sun warm my skin as my feet dried off. The sound of the ocean and children playing on the beach were all I could hear right now. The long flight started to weigh on me, and I knew if I kept my eyes closed much longer, I’d be asleep. I still needed to find a place to stay so I slipped my shoes on and walked toward the other end of the beach.

People were everywhere, and dogs, and cars, and even what looked like a group of lifeguard trainees. “Hey, you up for some footy?” a guy with long, curly blond hair that hung in soft waves around his face asked as he jogged closer.

“Footy?”

I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant.

“Yeah, we can just toss it around.” He threw the football up and caught it with a grin.

“Sure.” I stood and followed him down to where the sand had been raked smooth. People were gathered around the area, but most were at the edges of the immaculate sand. I set my backpack down on the edge and followed him. Noticing he was barefoot, I hurried back to take my shoes off.

As soon as I was on the sand again, he tossed the ball to me and turned to run. I threw it back and he made an amazing diving catch. We both laughed as he dusted off sand before tossing it back to me. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Ryan, what’s yours?”

“Ollie, Ollie Hughes.” He caught the ball and did some weird jumping throwing thing that looked funny as hell but did the job.

I caught it and before I could toss it back, he was running at me. At first, I didn’t realize what he was doing but then he tackled me. We rolled around laughing until I was able to get away and run farther down the beach. When he got up and started to come at me, I threw the ball to him and turned to chase him down. Both of us laughed as we crashed together onto the sand and wrestled around to get the ball.

He got a grip on it and bolted away from me as a few people near us clapped. “Oh, I see how it is now,” I yelled and gave chase. He ran around other people that were sitting either in a chair or on a towel, and the ones standing tried to move out of the way.

Finally, when he got to an open area, he turned around and stopped with the ball tucked under his arm. “How long are you here for?”

“How do you know I’m not from here?” I asked.

About the Author 

BL Maxwell grew up in a small town listening to her grandfather spin tales about his childhood. Later she became an avid reader and after a certain vampire series she became obsessed with fanfiction. She soon discovered Slash fanfiction and later discovered the MM genre and was hooked. 

Author Links 

https://smart.bio/blmaxwellwriter/

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Memorial Day Weekend Sanibel Trip 2013

Just a heads up, many pics in this post :-)

You may remember last year for Memorial Day weekend I headed over to Sanibel Island, FL for some beach time with my mom.  This year, did the same thing except my brother also joined us (due to various reasons none of our spouses could make the trip).  I got out of work early from my “day” job on Friday so I made sure my bags were already packed so I could just toss them in the car and go.  

Mom had gotten the same condo unit we were in last year at Sanibel Arms West again and my brother already had dinner going when I arrived (thanks Ran, it was yummy!).  Went for a walk on the beach after dinner and a little relaxing while the sun went down.  

Lots of people had been writing things in the sand...one person had even drawn a HUGE floorplan of a house (you could tell by the things he drew in the rooms like furniture and appliances).  It was low tide and there were plenty of shells, though I only wound up picking up one--tiny, but it’s a stunner:

I was exhausted after a busy week at work (prepping for our annual open enrollment for benefits) so once the sun went down I crashed on the couch to relax and catch up on email and other computer stuff.  I wound up sleeping about 9 hours straight that night so I missed the sunrise Saturday morning, but I really needed the rest.  We went off the island Saturday to do some outlet shopping and have lunch.  Once we came back we stopped at a popular ice cream shop on the island called Pinocchio’s (located of course inside Geppetto’s market) where I came across their totally YUMMY “Dirty Sand Dollar” flavor.  Couldn’t pass it up--caramel, malted milk balls and chocolate chunks in a vanilla-based ice cream, sooooo good!  Oh, and every creation they serve comes topped with an animal cracker :-)

Yummy!

Got to bed at a decent hour so was able to catch the sunrise Sunday morning:

Sunrise to the left

Moonset to the right

And got two fun pics of me and mom on the beach (sadly, my brother had to leave that morning since he had to get back to do prep work for his cafe for the following week):

With the sunrise behind us...

Came across some more fund sand stuff:

Highlight of the morning?  Dolphins!  They were swimming in really close to shore (probably for the little bait fish that swim close in), I took these pics without the zoom from right at the water line:

It was nice to see many people running/jogging/powerwalking on the beach.  Me?  No.  This mini-vacation was for me to relax, relax, relax.  No work, no exercise, no nothing-I even forgot to bring a book to read so just sat in my comfy chair under my canopy tent (which I put up all by myself) and watched the water and the people...and the dolphins of course.  No thinking, no stressing.  Perfect.

After seven hours on the beach (!) we relaxed in the condo before heading out to dinner at Jacaranda.  I had gotten a $25 certificate from restaurant.com before the trip so we had a really great meal for a great price:

Mmm...filet medallions...

The only downside to Sunday?  Since I had put my tent up and wasn’t planning on being out in the direct sun, I didn’t put any sunscreen on my legs.  Normally they almost never burn, never tan-really, even as pale as I am, don’t know why...I mean, it takes me ages to even get a sock tan when race training.  You can probably see where this is heading, right?  Well, my tent isn’t a heavy canvas, it’s a more airy, breathable fabric...and apparently doesn’t block the sun’s rays very well as this is what I wound up with:

No lectures necessary, I already know.  It’s much better now, though I’m dreading the peeling part.  And even though the pic of the tent I posted shows the sun getting under it, that pic was from early morning when the sun was coming from the side-didn't take long for it to get high enough so the tent was casting shade on my legs.  So remember folks, even if you’re going to be under a tent, PUT THE SUNSCREEN ON.  Seriously.

Anyway, Monday dawned a bit cloudy so that made leaving to go back home to reality a bit easier.  It was a nice weekend spending time with my mom and brother, something I don’t do very often.  I’ll leave you with my favorite sand writing from the weekend (which I also texted to DH the night I took the pic):

What did you do to relax over the holiday weekend?

PS-Don't forget to hop over to my other blog, The Disney World Files...I'm doing a fun giveaway for a Vinylmation figure!  Please also share with friends and family-the giveaway goes until June 28th so you have plenty of time to enter (and many ways to get entries) and help me spread the word for my WDW blog :-)  I'll be giving away a Vinylmation figure once a month for the next couple of months!  Good luck!

Getting motivated for short races; A new adventure

So right now I only have two races on my schedule-the Tower of Terror 10 Miler at the end of September and the Disney Full Marathon in January.  If I was only training for the full, I wouldn’t need to start my “official” training plan until the last week of August.  With the 10-miler on the schedule, my plan started two weeks ago.  Now I will admit, I kinda stink at cross-training days...I always have (even though I KNOW those days will only help me overall).  I don’t mind yoga or upper body weights so much, it’s the lower body (meh) and core (UGH UGH UGH) that I’m not fond of.  But, I do usually stick pretty close to my mileage days, maybe with some flip-flops here and there--meaning flip-flopping miles with cross training days--when needed due to weather or work or life.

What gets me is my thinking about the 10-miler.  “Oh, it’s ONLY a 10-miler, no biggie”.  And so the motivation to actually DO the training is quite a bit lacking.  Well, at least the cross training part.I even look at the mileage days and think “Eh, just 2 miles today...whatever”.  After completing 9 half marathons and one full marathon, 10 miles just doesn’t seem like something to get excited over.  Is that crazy or what?  When I tell a non-runner friend/co-worker that I’m doing a 10-mile race, they can’t fathom going that far--but then again, neither could I when I first started out.

So the question now is, how to motivate for those shorter distances?  And how to motivate for cross-training in general?  I also train solo-both cross-training and mileage.  That makes it all too easy to blow off a day since I don’t have anyone in my face to be accountable to.  I’m not at all concerned about the full marathon portion of the training.  I actually enjoyed that last time (well, at least the mileage part...), though I still ran into the same motivation issue for the cross-training.  What’s a good way to motivate?  I was thinking of using a rewards system...has anyone ever tried that as a motivation tool for their training?

Okay, now on the the new adventure.  If you’ve been reading my blog for a bit, you probably know I am a Disney freak.  It is my favorite place in the USA to vacation, whether just for a quick weekend or something much longer.  I’m always looking to plan my next trip (often because there’s a Disney race going on!).  Because I love Disney so much...and just travel in general...I decided to work on becoming a Disney Vacation Planner.  After weeks (well, almost two months actually) of comparing host travel agencies, then choosing my agency and getting set up, I am now able to plan and book vacations-Disney or pretty much anywhere else you can think of!

I’ve set up my own Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MagicalMomentsVacationsbyCarraSaigh and today launched my very own website, www.enchanteddreamvacations.com.  Let me tell you, putting together a website is HARD work!  My brain was totally fried.  I did have lots of help from my techie DH (thanks honey!) without whom I’d have floundered around for ages.  I did teach myself some new tricks but am glad DH IS a techie because if he wasn’t I probably wouldn’t have attempted the website (or if I did I’d be working on it for months before it would be presentable).

Anyway, please take a look and tell me what you think.  I want to make sure the site is user-friendly and appreciate any and all feedback!  Oh, and if you need a vacation quote......  ;-) just let me know.  I’ll be adding a link of some kind here (or maybe a page, like my training calendar is a page and “My Races” is a page, etc) for anyone who may need vacation planning/booking assistance.

Looking forward to January and this again...

A non-Disney vacation? Blasphemy! But oh so relaxing...

Every now and then I go on vacation---to somewhere other than Disney World.  Shocker, right?  I wasn’t planning on doing anything over Memorial Day weekend but my mom asked if I wanted to join her at her favorite vacation spot so I decided to tag along.  I didn’t go far...just went over to the west coast to Sanibel Island.  I left after work on Friday (we got out around 1:30pm) and went home Monday afternoon.

When I was a kid our parents would take us over to Sanibel and Captiva Island every now and then.  Now, both my mom and my brother go over once or twice a year and stay at a condo place on the beach (gulf side) called Sanibel Arms West which is where we were for this trip.  We had a nice 2-bedroom/2-bath condo.  We weren’t right on the beach, but it was just on the other side of the little parking lot...like maybe 50 feet away.  Yeah, close enough for me.

Our building is in between these two that are right on the beach--see it back there?

Driving in to Sanibel is pretty nice, you get to drive over the causeway which is three bridges hopping little land areas.  The first bridge is pretty steep (I certainly wouldn’t want to see it during a race!) so it looks like you’re driving up into the sky...so steep you can’t even see the buildings on the other side.  The next two are mostly flat.  When I was driving over the second one, I was passed by a pelican flying along the side of the bridge going the opposite way.  Then onto the island and a couple of minutes later I’m pulling in to my home away from home for the holiday weekend.

Friday night I was just all tuckered out from a busy week so just relaxed in the condo.  My mom made us dinner (nice perk of having a condo instead of a hotel room, a kitchen so you don’t have to pay to eat out every meal) and I wound up falling asleep just after 10pm.  I got to sleep a little over 9 hours before finally getting up in the morning.  After some breakfast I grabbed a chair, my beach towel and book and headed across the walkway down to the beach.  No worries--I was smothered in sunscreen and didn’t turn pink at all.  A few hours on the beach reading in the morning until the temps started to soar (we got all the way up to 93 on Saturday), then out for some island shopping before heading to the Jacaranda Restaurant for dinner...with a restaurant.com gift certificate of course.  They had some amazing olive oil infused with garlic and rosemary to dip our bread in (along with parmesan cheese...yum!).  

Trail down to the beach

These little birdies were so cute running from the waves on their tiny birdie legs...

Now this is the life...

Storm coming in Saturday night after dinner...it was a doozy!

Shortly after getting back from dinner we had a crazy storm-torrential rain, wind and lots of thunder and lightning.  Had a great spot on our screened in patio to watch the show. Early to bed again so I could head back out to the beach early...can’t believe I was already out there by 7:45 or so on Sunday. This time I had an umbrella for shade and stayed on the beach until noon.

A good book, sun, sand, waves...ahhhh......

The birdies liked the beach too

Saw several people both Saturday and Sunday jogging on the beach, including some lady in a bikini and flip-flops jogging at a pretty good clip...IN FLIP-FLOPS.  Nuts.  One guy came by at about the same pace the marathon leaders passed by when I was working the water stop at the Disney marathon in 2010.  Me?  I had no desire to move any faster than a very...very...very leisurely stroll.  Maybe with another “very” in there.  I was even doing some shell-hunting.  For me, beach=relax.

Monday dawned a bit cloudy but I still went out to sit and read on the beach for a couple of hours before packing up to head back home.  It may sound boring to some of you--just sitting on the beach and reading for the whole holiday weekend, but for me it was pure relaxation.

If you’re looking for a nice place to have a beach vacation here in Florida, I highly recommend Sanibel.  One thing to know before going though--this is very much a shell beach.  There are tons of beautiful shells all over the place (including small conch shells--but PLEASE check first before just grabbing them up, many still have the animals inside.  Please put those back in the water and move on until you find an empty one!)...so you may want to bring water shoes or wear sandals to walk the beach in-ones you don’t mind walking in the water while wearing.  Right by the water’s edge is usually better, but right before and right after there are shells everywhere so it can be a bit ouchie on your feet.  Regardless, it’s still a fantastic place to relax.

Don’t forget to walk all the way down to the lighthouse...

Sanibel Arms West on Dwellable

Mini-vacation, pre-post

Thanks to my WONDERFUL mother, I spent this holiday weekend with her at Sanibel Island in a condo at the beach.  I'll post more in a day or two, but for now,  here's a couple of pics: