Author Interview with Blake Allwood

Facing the past is never fun, especially when it involves seeing the man you still love. When their lives are once again intertwined, is a second chance possible?

Ash once stabbed his heart when he broke up with him, who cares if it was high school, pain is still pain. And speaking of pain, this broken foot has done nothing but keep him stuck in Crawford City.

Ash is now the town doctor after his dad retired, which means when the incredibly handsome and totally pissed off Todd comes in, Ash is the only person in town who can treat him.

Like it or not, when Ash and Todd’s dads drop a major bomb on them, the two men are forced to deal with one another.

Will they find a way around teenage misunderstandings and bad choices to rekindle a love that’s never stopped boiling, or will their pride forever keep them apart?

NOTE: A Long Road Home is a low-heat (no explicit sex scenes,) sweet, high drama romance.

Blake Allwood stops by on his travels to chat with PRG readers, writers, and his fans about what inspires him to write (spoiler alert!), marketing challenges, and what he is the most passionate about.

1. You write under your pen names, Blake Allwood, and Adam J. Ridley. Could you explain the benefit and drawback of writing under a pen name?

So far, I haven’t found any drawbacks to using a pen name. Originally, I decided to write under a pen name because my real name is so common it made sense to do so. I added Adam J. Ridley after running a survey in my newsletter asking if my readers would be willing to read fantasy and science fiction if I began writing in that genre. They made it rather clear they didn’t like that idea. Therefore, I created Adam J. Ridley to eliminate confusion among my readers.

I chuckled as I wrote that, because the one thing I’ve learned about my romance readers is that they are very committed to their genre, and I absolutely love them for it.

2. You and your husband have been travelling around the country in an RV. What’s that like? Is there some place you’d like to visit that you haven’t yet? Or is there a place you find yourself returning to often?

We absolutely love our RV lifestyle. What a lot of people don’t know about me is that for many years we were foster parents. For anyone who has children, they know there is little that keeps you tied down more than kids. When your children have special needs and are dealing with trauma, that’s even more the case.

Once our children moved out, we decided it was time to run away from home and even after nearly six years on the road, we’ve not looked back. We love the freedom this lifestyle affords us.

After leaving the Midwest, we headed West and have toured almost every state west of the Mississippi. Our most preferred haunts are Washington, Oregon, and Arizona. We do hope to get to the East coast sometime soon though. I’d love to spend time in New England especially.

3. Where do you find the inspiration for your stories? Do you look for inspiration or does it come to you in a more organic way?

Oh, inspiration for me can come from anywhere. A dream, a conversation, a location I’ve visited that had an impact on me. My latest crazy plot bunny, the thing we call book ideas, came to me while sitting at an afternoon concert. The singer was a very talented guy who’d performed in one of the talent shows on television. I won’t say much more than that because that story very well could become a novel in the near future.

4. What are you most passionate about?

Wow, that’s quite a question and one I’ve honestly been asking myself a lot lately. As a younger man I was passionate about a lot of things. My career, my family, friends, church, hobbies like urban farming… As I’ve grown older, it’s almost as if those passions, although still important to me, have become less passion and more just a part of who I am.

As I said, I’m still exploring this, but certainly, I love writing. When a story works its way out of me, it’s almost cathartic. It’s also healing, almost like therapy in some ways. I know that’s getting much deeper than you were probably asking for, but I didn’t want to just sound cliché. Right now, writing really is my most obvious passion. I’m sure as I slip through this phase in my life, there will be other passions, but for right now… writing is definitely the big one.

5. What has been the most challenging aspect of being an author? How did you incorporate it or overcome it to become a successful writer?

Hands down the most difficult aspect of being an author is marketing my work. It’s interesting because I have quite a lot of experience in business and have even mentored entrepreneurs in the past, and I’ve advised them repeatedly about how important it is to know your market, and make sure you are giving them what they want.

Being an author is the first time I’ve participated in a kind of artform. Now that I have, I can honestly say, I have struggled with knowing how to balance my writing as a business while continuing to honor it as an artform.

How do I incorporate marketing into my life? I guess I’m taking my own advice and biting the bullet and just moving forward. I have an amazing team who works with me now. All these people have different jobs helping me get the books out there and then marketing them once they are. Without that team of experts, I’m almost sure I’d still be a starving, languishing artist.

EXCERPT FROM FAMILY HOME:

I got to the doctor’s office and crawled out of the pickup and up the ramp. When I hopped up to the receptionist window, I asked, “Is Doc available?”

“Do you have an appointment?”

The pain in my foot was excruciating, and I ended up taking it out on the woman behind the counter.

“Of course, I don’t have an appointment, Clara Sue. I didn’t know I was gonna fall off the damned roof till it happened!”

“Well, Todd, don’t get your panties in a wad. We ask everyone that.”

Frustrated I turned around, “I’m gonna go sit in the waiting room. When Doc is ready, come get me!”

Luckily, there wasn’t anyone else there, so I was able to lift my injured leg up and prop it across the chairs beside me. I took my shoe and sock off and sure enough, the thing was turning purple and swelling. Damn, I must’ve broken it.

“Well, shit,” I whispered to myself just as Ashton Nash came into the room. “Hey, Todd, what’d you do there?” he asked.

Ashton Nash. I hadn’t laid eyes on the man in years. The sight of him squashed the pain and stirred up memories that spanned my childhood. We’d been best friends throughout school up until… well, until we weren’t. The thought of that, of what led up to my getting the hell out of this town so long ago, caused my stomach to churn. Or maybe that was just my throbbing foot, gut-punching me back to the present.

“What’s it look like, Ash? I messed up my foot. When’s your dad gonna be available?”

Ash looked at me funny, amusement showing on his face. “My dad retired, Todd. You didn’t know that?”

“No dammit! I didn’t know!” The pain and frustration of dealing with Ash was enough to unleash my inner asshole at full throttle.

“Let me take a look at that,” he said, making a move toward my bruised foot.

I instinctively pulled my foot away, “No, I prefer to have a doctor look at it. I think the damned thing’s broken.”

Clara Sue’s chuckle from her window drew my attention, and when I looked back up at Ash, he was smiling. He pointed to his name badge. “Doctor Nash, at your service.”

“How the hell did you become a doctor? You couldn’t even pass tenth-grade biology,” I said incredulously, unable to mask my growing frustration.

“Well, that was high school, and the reason I barely passed was because you were always hounding me to go swimmin’ in the river, or whatever, instead of studying.”

Through the deepening haze of pain radiating from my foot, I studied Ash. Long gone was the bright-eyed boy who’d awoken desires I’d never felt before, who’d given me my first kiss… and then ripped my heart out and stomped it into the ground.

In his place stood a man with sparkling eyes… A man who was too damned good looking for his own good… or mine for that matter.

Shaking off these thoughts I said, “Whatever… Still, I’d prefer to see your dad,” I said, the unease in my tone obvious to anyone within earshot, which no doubt still included Clara Sue.

“Todd, as I’ve already told you, Dad retired last year. I’m the only person here who can help. Everyone else is on vacation or at the homecoming parade.”

“You can’t treat me, Ash,” I whispered. “We were involved.”

“Why are you whispering? Everyone in town knows we were involved. You’re gonna have to see me, or go out of town. Want me to call you an ambulance?”

“Do you want a black eye?” I asked in all seriousness. “Damned if I’ll ever ride in one of those things, at least not while I’m awake.”

Ash chuckled. “Seriously, let me help you to the back and I’ll take a look. If it’s severe, and you don’t want me to treat you, I can have your dad drive you into Lebanon to see a different doctor.”

I gave him a dirty look, or at least I hoped it was. Unfortunately, I couldn’t be sure since the pain was taking its toll and that was probably the emotion etched on my face.

I stared at my foot a moment longer… I didn’t want Ash to treat me. I didn’t want anything to do with him. However, since I was unable to leave under my own power, and unwilling to be ambulanced out of town, the shithead had me over a barrel.

Just then, my dad burst into the waiting room. “What the hell happened to you?” he asked, full of what I could only assume was mock concern.

I didn’t respond. Instead, I stood, hopped out of Ash’s grip, and moved toward the exam rooms in the back.

“He did a number on his foot,” Ash told my dad.

“I thought there were rules against telling assholes personal information. What is it, HIPPO rules or something?” I gritted out through the pain.

Clara Sue giggled again, and I knew we were putting on quite a show. Fuck, if that isn’t going to be the entire town’s entertainment for a week.

“HIPAA, and when your dad can see for himself that it’s blown up like a freakin’ balloon, it’s not a violation.” Ash replied coolly.

Without another word, I hobbled into the room Ash’s dad, Doc, had always put me in when I’d visited him suffering with a cold or whatever.

Both men followed me, and Dad stood over my foot as Ash examined it.

“Can you move it?” Ash asked. I tried and even though it hurt like the dickens, I could indeed move it.

“Well, that’s good at least,” he said. “I’ll have Leslie set up an x-ray for you and then we’ll know for sure.”

Thank God Ash left the room, leaving just my father to deal with.

Blake Allwood was born in west Tennessee, then moved to Kansas City MO after earning a degree in Early Childhood Education. He met his husband Shaun in 1995 and they officially married in 2015, once gay marriage was legalized; although they still consider Valentines Day 1995 as their true “anniversary date”. Twenty-eight years later (2023), after fostering 12 children together, he and his husband sold their home, purchased an RV and began traveling the country with their two dogs.

Typically, Blake can be found relaxing in the RV or by the fire writing on his laptop while Denver, their Siberian Husky mix distracts Blake from writing by playing tug of war with Blake’s husband.

Buy Link for Family Home: A Sweet Contemporary Gay Romance: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BNYCV3DX