RELEASE BLITZ, EXCERPT, GIVEAWAY & REVIEW - So Far Away by Nell Iris

 RELEASE BLITZ

Book Title: So Far Away

Author: Nell Iris

Publisher: JMS Books LLC

Cover Artist: Written Ink Designs

Release Date: May 1, 2021

Genre: Contemporary M/M Romance

Trope: Established couple

Themes: Illness, separation, pandemic (inspired by Covid, but not Covid)

Heat Rating: 4 flames     

Length: 14 567 words

It is a standalone story.

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Buy Links

JMS Books  |   Amazon US  |   Amazon UK 

So Close, Yet so Far Away

Engaged couple Zakarias and Julian are convinced nothing can separate them…until a global pandemic hits. Zakarias catches the virus with mild symptoms and isolates in the couple’s guest house. The few meters dividing them might as well be the moon as he watches Julian, an ICU nurse, work himself to the bone, unable to support him the way he needs. Frustration and worry build as the weeks pass. Will Zakarias be declared healthy before Julian burns out? 

My Rating - 4.5 Stars!

It's no surprise that Nell Iris' So Far Away is fabulous. Nell is definitely the queen of short romances. 

Zak and Julian are dealing with being separated during a pandemic due to quarantine. This is definitely something so many of us can appreciate right now. 

This read has all the feels. The story focuses on the men and all their reactions and feelings while dealing with their separation.

It's sweet. It's tender. And it's so darn relatable, as one's in quarantine and sick, the other dealing with treating those with the virus.

I enjoy the men together and the way they interact and deal with everything. The way they reevaluate their lives during this time is heartwarming. 

This is not about Covid-19 per say. The author announces it as a random pandemic. Not sure if that makes a difference to anyone, as it will be a long time before we stop thinking about Covid-19 while reading this book. If ever. 

So Far Away is a great choice when you're in the mood for a short story. Nell Iris does a stellar job depicting a beautiful and thoughtful relationship.

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When we’d just bought it, we spent many long evenings making plans and discussing options. We’d share a bottle of wine and make long lists of things we wanted, things we deemed necessary in what was going to be our forever home. The lists started outrageously—a wine cellar bigger than the actual house with an employee who turns the bottles? Really, Zakarias?—but distilled into a few reasonable items. So Julian’s dream of the biggest bathroom in the northern hemisphere—a Bath Palace, Zakarias, not a bathroom—complete with a pool, a jacuzzi, a sauna, and every other imaginable luxury, turned into a more feasible sized room with a fancy walk-in shower and a separate bathtub with jets—both of them big enough to accommodate the two of us. It also has a heated floor and double sinks. And my favorite feature; the tiny lights over the bathtub, sprinkled in the ceiling like a starry sky. 

We both love the house; it’s our sanctuary. Every design element is chosen for comfort and to make it feel like a real home. Like someplace we can be ourselves. Someplace we can grow old together.

There are things left to do on the house before we’re happy with it, and we still spend evenings on the couch, sipping wine and making lists. Evenings that more often than not turn into heavy make-out sessions on the couch, with clothes being torn off and strewn about. Evenings that end with us panting in a sticky mess and blissed-out grins on our faces, but without deciding what to do with whatever room we’re considering remodeling at the time. “The discussion is half the fun,” he’ll say with sparkling eyes, and my mouth agrees, while I’m thinking the discussion is all the fun, because I could live in a tiny shack in the forest and be happy as long as he lived there with me.

But this house…it’s not just a house, it’s a home. Our home and I miss it.

I miss coming home from work and finding Julian sprawled on the couch in only his underwear, watching some horrid reality show or other on the big screen TV. I miss waking up early on weekends and preparing luxury breakfasts for him, miss how the scent of freshly baked bread never fails to wake him and lure him out of bed. I miss the adorable sight of him stumbling into the kitchen, bleary-eyed, hair in disarray with pillow creases on his cheek and dried drool on his chin. I miss how he beelines for me like a heat-seeking missile and winds himself around me, burying his face in my neck, snaking his arms around me, and tapping three times over my heart. 

His family came up with that code when he was little; his younger sister was born with a genetic developmental disorder and never learned to speak, so three taps to the heart meant “I love you.” She died when she was only five, but the family keeps her memory alive with that gesture. It was how Julian told me he loved me for the first time. I didn’t understand it at the time, but when he told me the story, I realized he’d been telling me he loved me long before the words were spoken out loud. 

I straighten my spine. Shake my head at my moment of weakness before marching back to the guesthouse and pulling a sweater over my head. I pour out the cold forgotten contents of my mug and pour fresh, steaming coffee into it. 

Then I sit, take a sip, and breathe. 

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Nell Iris is a romantic at heart who believes everyone deserves a happy ending. She’s a bona fide bookworm (learned to read long before she started school), wouldn’t dream of going anywhere without something to read (not even the ladies room), loves music (and singing along at the top of her voice but she’s no Celine Dion), and is a real Star Trek nerd (Make it so). She loves words, bullet journals, poetry, wine, coffee-flavored kisses, and fika (a Swedish cultural thing involving coffee and pastry!)

Nell believes passionately in equality for all regardless of race, gender or sexuality, and wants to make the world a better, less hateful, place.

Nell is a bisexual Swedish woman married to the love of her life, a proud mama of a grown daughter, and is approaching 50 faster than she’d like. She lives in the south of Sweden where she spends her days thinking up stories about people falling in love. After dreaming about being a writer for most of her life, she finally was in a place where she could pursue her dream and released her first book in 2017.

Nell Iris writes gay romance, prefers sweet over angsty, short over long, and quirky characters over alpha males. 

Author Links

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Giveaway 

Enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway for a chance to win

a choice of one of three ebooks from Nell's backlist

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Hosted by Gay Book Promotions

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WOMEN'S FICTION - When the World Stood Still by Kate Eastham

Amazon Link   - Available in KU  

Goodreads Link

The nurses were putting in twelve-hour shifts now, day and night. Emily felt broken inside, dried out, not even capable of tears. They were short-staffed after a softly spoken Irish nurse, who’d only been with them for four days, had died from the deadly flu and two more had fallen ill. And more patients were coming in every hour, though the hospital beds were already full…

1918. Twenty-year-old Emily Burdon has been training as a nurse in London, learning on the job as she tends to patients from the crowded poorhouses that ring the hospital as well as wounded soldiers returning from the war. She pours her heart into her nursing while she waits for happier times – peace in Europe and the return of her childhood sweetheart Lewis from the Western Front.

But when the deadly Spanish Flu arrives in London on the heels of the war, Emily’s faith and courage are put to the test. All around her men and women in the prime of their lives are wasting away, and until a cure is found there is nothing for Emily and her colleagues to do except make them comfortable, treat them as best they can… and, eventually, ease the pain of their passing.

But then Lewis catches the deadly flu himself on his way back home, just as a new doctor is transferred to head up Emily’s ward. From the distant land of Prince Edward Island in Canada, Dr James Cantor is the first of a generations-old farming family to have left the island, and wartime London feels a long way away from the rugged beauty of his homeland. But despite their differences, he and Emily find common ground in their passion for helping patients and stopping the spread of the disease. But with life forever changed around her and Lewis’ future hanging by a thread, can Emily survive the most terrible epidemic in the history with her life – and heart – intact?

A heartbreaking historical novel based on true history – emotional and unforgettable. Perfect for fans of Jean Grainger, The Beantown Girls and Diney Costeloe.

My Rating - 5 Stars!

When the World Stood Still is a powerful historical romance by Kate Eastham. 

This book would be riveting at any time. But with the world currently at the hands of the Covid-19 pandemic, this is even more harrowing. 

This is a tale that follows Emily as she trains to be a nurse and is suddenly thrown into the middle of the Spanish Flu epidemic. 

She knows the pain and loss of war, and now she experiences the suffering and death from the pandemic. 

It's a fascinating insight as to how things might have been handled at the time. They certainly didn't have the instant news we have, nor the cutting end scientific resources. 

Reading of the flu, from Emily's eyes, is hard to handle. And on top of all of that, she has to deal with her fiancee returning home from war injured, and the aftermath of seeing him again. Her love life and her career goals are not easy, as one would expect. 

When the World Stood Still is a romance set against the backdrop of tragedy. Kate Eastham creates a vivid picture of the times and all that surrounded the nurses and doctors at the time. And somehow brings Emily a happy ending despite it all. It's definitely a worthwhile read.