Literary Fiction

Summer Symphony Release Day!

October 1, 2014 By Brandon Leave a Comment

Today Summer Symphony is available from all online retailers.

Martin Zoric had vivid dreams of fatherhood, of a small hand pressed to his, of pink dresses and girlish laughter. Then his wife had a stillbirth and his world fell apart.

He listened to the unwanted apologies, stood by his wife as was expected of him, and kept his façade strong and firm for the entire world to see.

But does he have the strength let go and really grieve?

When Ren Wakahisa landed in Croatia he was hoping to escape the cultural pressures put on him to conform. His family wanted him to forsake love for duty. They viewed his happiness as secondary to familial prosperity.

Does he have the courage to be who he wants to be? Or, will he yield to their wishes?

Summer Symphony is the story of how two men find their answers and what they learn about strength, and grace, and the endurance of love.

ORDER from Amazon, Smashwords, Kobo, (BN is coming).

Also of note:

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Month. I didn’t realize this when we set the publication date, but it seems apt that parents are raising awareness instead of living in silence. Click the link to learn more.

October is also Queer Romance Month, and there are a lot of activities going on around the internet.

Meet me at Shira’s

September 29, 2014 By Brandon Leave a Comment

I’m over on Shira Anthony’s blog talking about The Power of Music and how it relates to my new novel, Summer Symphony.

We all have a story about a particular piece of music, or a memory which is triggered when we hear that song. Stop by and share your thoughts.

Summer Symphony is available for pre-order from Amazon, iTunes and Smashwords.

A Father’s Grief

September 1, 2014 By Brandon Leave a Comment

There’s a stigma in many cultures about how men are supposed to grieve. This stigma is no more conspicuous than when it comes to a father’s grief over a child lost to miscarriage or stillbirth.

Common sentiments concerning male grief are age-old and deeply ingrained across many societies: Public tears are not condoned, and if they are permitted, it is only in the quietest moments of solitude, and then, only in the short-term. Grief should not interfere with work, with family, with supporting the spouse in her grief. Public displays of grief are unmanly.

Too often these outdated sentiments are based on the assumption that a father’s grief cannot be compared to the mother’s. The emotional attachment created through pregnancy with a mother and her child cannot be disputed. There is a physical bond which occurs prior to a child entering the world and only a mother can know what that feels like. [Read more…] about A Father’s Grief

Pre-Order Summer Symphony

August 21, 2014 By Brandon Leave a Comment

It’s my pleasure to finally announce that Summer Symphony is available for pre-order from Amazon. This has been a long and difficult road into a subject that hits men and women in their core: the loss of a child.

In essence, this book is a love story, but it is also a challenge to the misinformed perception that men do not grieve when a child is lost through miscarriage, or in this case, a stillbirth. The sheer lack of information I found during the research phase of this book only attested to how pervasive this viewpoint is. It is my hope that readers will find a reality within this book that they may not have considered before, and that they gain an understanding that men do grieve, even when they try to hide it behind the facade required of them by society.

Pre-Order from Amazon

Martin Zoric had vivid dreams of fatherhood, of a small hand pressed to his, of pink dresses and girlish laughter. Then his wife had a stillbirth and his world fell apart.

He listened to the unwanted apologies, stood by his wife as was expected of him, and kept his façade strong and firm for the entire world to see.

But does he have the strength let go and really grieve?

Does he have the courage to be who he wants to be? Or, will he yield to their wishes?

Summer Symphony is the story of how two men find their answers and what they learn about strength, and grace, and the endurance of love.