Author Spotlight: A.D. Ellis

Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work.

Today: Escape into addictive, sexy, emotional M/M romance. A.D. Ellis is an Indiana girl, born and raised. She spends much of her time in central Indiana as an instructional coach/teacher in the inner city of Indianapolis, being a mom to two amazing teens, and wondering how she and her husband of over two decades haven’t driven each other insane yet. A lot of her time is also devoted to phone call avoidance and her hatred of cooking. She loves chocolate, hot tea, sweet wine with friends, pizza, and naps along with reading and writing romance. These loves don’t leave much time for housework, much to the chagrin of her husband. Who would pick cleaning the house over a nap or a good book? She uses any extra time to increase her fluency in sarcasm. A.D. uses she/they pronouns.

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Thanks so much, A.D., for joining me!

J. Scott Coatsworth: Do you use a pseudonym? If so, why? If not, why not?

A.D. Ellis: I do use a pseudonym. The reason is because I’m a teacher, and students/their families don’t need to know everything about me. So, I opted for a pen name. Additionally, I live in a small-ish town where my children go to school, and I don’t need any of their friends or those friends’ parents Googling me. J

JSC: Do you ever base your characters on real people? If so, what are the pitfalls you’ve run into doing so? 

ADE: I have before, although usually a character is a combination of people. The book I based almost every character on people in my real life (with artistic liberties, of course) is Kade & Cameron. The only pitfall is that I truly hope the people I based the characters on never decide to start reading LGBTQ+ Romance J In my defense, the “villain” in the story was based on someone I really thought would be out of my life fairly shortly (and I dramatized much of her story in the book).  Instead, we’ve had a major plot twist, and I actually mostly like her now. Kade & Cameron is a definite example of truth being stranger than fiction.

JSC: Are you a full-time or part-time writer? How does that affect your writing?

ADE: I’m a full-time educator and full-time parent, but I’m lucky in that I get to write in my free time. I’ve been in education for 26 years. My kids are now 19 and 17. This affects my writing when I’m too exhausted to write, or my calendar doesn’t offer extra time to write, or my brain is on overload and I have to take a break. But I do get a bit of extra writing time on breaks from school. Now that my kids are older, it’s easier to find those slots of time that work for writing.

JSC: How did you choose the topic for Cake & Cocktails? 

ADE: This book was actually the book I thought of first for this series, but I knew I wanted to do it second. The title comes from something that actually happened in my email inbox, but I’ll let readers figure that part out themselves. One of the main characters in Cake & Cocktails, Henry, was a much-loved side character in the first book, Peaches & Cream. I knew from the beginning that Henry had to get his own happily ever after. 

JSC: What was the weirdest thing you had to Google for your “The Men of Haven Grove” series ? 

ADE: For this series I spent a lot of time Googling peaches, peach trees, peach orchards, peach recipes, peach drinks, complementary flavors with peach, drinks that go with different flavors. Other than all things peaches, I don’t think my Googling got too weird.

JSC: Were you a voracious reader as a child? 

ADE: I was! My mom read to my brother and I daily. My friends used to want to stay the night just so my mom would read to us. I was reading my mom’s Trixie Belden and the Hardy Boys books probably in elementary school. I devoured The Baby-Sitter’s Club and Sweet Valley High. Beverly Cleary was one of my all-time favorites, and I think I’ve read almost everything she wrote either for myself, my students, or my kids. My love of romance definitely came about by sneaking my mom’s romance novels from her reading basket when she wasn’t looking when I was a teen.

JSC: What other artistic pursuits (if any) do you indulge in apart from writing? 

ADE: I enjoy crocheting. I’m not a master, and complicated patterns aren’t my thing, but it’s fun to watch something come together. I also love houseplants all year long and hanging baskets of plants/flowers on my porch in the summer. I recently put bird feeders outside my kitchen window, and I enjoy watching the birds come to eat.

JSC: What action would your name be if it were a verb? 

ADE: It’s probably a toss-up between “Overthinking” and “Napping”. 

JSC: What’s your drink of choice? 

ADE: Tea, always. If I get iced tea, I want it unsweetened. Hot tea I prefer sweet. I also drink water throughout the day.

JSC: What are you working on now, and what’s coming out next? Tell us about it!

ADE: My latest release was Cake & Cocktails. At the time of this interview, I’m unsure when the third book will release, but it is titled Snacks & Jockstraps, and it will be the final book in The Men of Haven Grove. Currently, I’m writing some anthology novelettes, and then I’ll be diving into Snacks & Jockstraps. It’s the story of Casey Joe and his love interest (no spoilers!). Casey Joe is a character who plays a prominent role in Peaches & Cream and Cake & Cocktails, so I think readers will be thrilled to see him get his happily ever after.

Like most authors, I have a list a mile long of what comes next after this current project. I’ll likely work on getting a Christmas story put together because I don’t work well if I know I only have a short time to write something. Then I’ll take a look at my notes and figure out which project I want to jump into next.

Thanks so much for having me!

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And now for A.D.s latest book: Peaches & Cream:

Peaches & Cream is a steamy, age-gap, friends-to-lovers M/M romance between a jack-of-all-trades and his dad’s best friend.

Hudson’s past left him with some baggage, but he’s happy in the small town of Haven Grove with his family and a variety of jobs to keep him busy. Not willing to touch a relationship with a ten-foot pole, Hudson sticks to quick, easy hookups.

Lance left his hometown eight years ago to take care of unavoidable responsibilities. He’s back home now and he knows himself a lot better than when he left. Hookups aren’t really his thing, but sometimes a guy has to do what he has to do.
Hudson and Lance have a long history together.

Can they overcome the messy obstacles and look forward to a long future together as well? Or will they be forced to give up on the unexpected spark smoldering between them and stick with being just friends?

Universal Buy Link | Amazon

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Excerpt

The familiar notification sound from ClickC*ck brought my phone to life on the bar. I picked it up and tapped out a reply as my brother, Henry, rolled his eyes.

“What?” I asked around a mouthful of burger. “I can multi-task,” I said with a grin as I ate my lunch on a break from work.

Henry’s bar—The Riggs Family Roadhouse—had been in our family for nearly forty years, and he did a great job running it. Good food, good beer, even better cocktails—Henry was a master mixologist—and a great, easy atmosphere. I helped a few shifts a week as I could and often found myself there on weekends as well.

Although, recently, with taking over The Juicy Peach, time hadn’t been as plentiful. The family’s peach orchard and general store needed some major revitalization. Little did any of us know that our uncle, Billy Riggs, had not only drunk himself to death, but he’d also nearly run the business into the ground with no hope of recovery. But the Riggs name meant something to me, and The Juicy Peach was where I’d spent my childhood and teen years, I wasn’t going to let it go without a fight.

I maybe wasn’t an expert, but I was smart and determined. I planned to give it a thousand percent and hope the peach orchard and little store pulled through. Both were cornerstones in the small Midwestern town of Haven Grove—as was The Roadhouse—and I wasn’t going down without a fight.

“You really need some damn app to find yourself a man?” Henry asked, his usual gruff personality alive and well. He was actually one of the best people you’d ever meet—loyal, hardworking, protective, and caring, a big softie if I was being honest—but my older brother, even with his soft voice and sparkling eyes, gave off a stay back, I’m a grump type vibe on even the best of days.

Smirking at him, I said, “Yeah, you’re doing a bang-up job without an app, huh? Got a date tonight? Last night?” I knew my brother hadn’t been involved with anyone in a very long time. He was stand-offish and kept everything close to his chest when it came to anyone other than family.

“Me and my right hand are doing just fine, thanks,” Henry groused, a flare of pink splashing his cheeks above his beard. “You really think you’re going to find something serious on that thing?”

I popped an onion ring in my mouth. “Ah, see, there’s the misconception.” I pointed to my phone. “ClickC*ck isn’t for anything serious. I don’t do serious. Quick and easy is all I’m looking for.”

Henry frowned. “I just don’t get that. Why put time and effort into something you know is just going to end?”

Shrugging, I finished off my burger, washing it down with a long swig of water. “Rather put minimal energy into something I know is going to end than my whole heart into something I want to last—only to have them walk away in the end.”

My brother shook his head. “They don’t all leave, Hudson,” he said quietly.

“She did,” I bit out. “Look, I’m not getting into this again. She left. Period. The one guy I tried to date in high school left. Everyone leaves. So, it’s easier to just do random hookups than try to date.” I waved my phone as I continued. “Haven Grove isn’t exactly a mecca of single, gay men, so I use this. It’s not your way and I respect that. Do me the favor of doing the same.”

Henry looked as if he wanted to say more, but he just grabbed a cloth and started wiping down the bar. It was an argument we had often. Our mother left when we were little. She and Dad got together very young and ended up having Henry when they were barely eighteen. My dad, Casey Joe, didn’t want to get married, but Missy talked him into it—she was convincing when she set her mind to it if the stories were to be believed. Two years after Henry, I came along. 

By the time she’d been a small-town mom of two boys for four years, Missy was done with it all. Done with being a mother, done with being married, done with the small town. She walked out on the three of us—not before causing some drama between Billy and Casey Joe which they never really got over—and we never heard a peep from her. 

At thirty-five and thirty-three, Henry and I both still held hurt and anger, but we dealt with it differently. I was hurt and just never got serious about anyone. If I didn’t want or expect them to stay, it didn’t hurt when they walked away.

Henry, on the other hand, did more of a shut himself off from everyone type thing. After Missy left, as Henry got older, he took on the role of looking after me and our dad—not that Dad expected him to, Henry had just always been a caretaker. So, he took care of his family and kept everyone else at a distance.

As my brother and I continued chatting, I checked my ClickC*ck messages. Henry refilled my water and took away my empty plate. 

“How are the trees?” he asked.

I glanced around the bar, not wanting to announce the possible demise of The Juicy Peach and the Riggs Family Orchard—both provided decent jobs in Haven Grove, and both were a huge part of the town. Seeing the place was pretty much empty, which was why I usually tried to take my lunch break later than the average Joe, I shrugged.

“From what I can gather, the bacterial spot was only on a handful of the trees. I had that guy from Georgia stop by on his way up to Wisconsin to visit his mother in the fall. He took a look at the whole farm and said it was a mild case and we’d caught it in time. Told me to use copper-based fungicide spray. Guess now, we just wait and see.”

“The blooms are damn nice,” Henry said, referring to the gorgeous pale pink flowers covering the entire orchard.

“Yeah, they should start to fall pretty soon and then we’ll see how the fruit comes on,” I said, glancing at the incoming message on my phone.

User54321: I’ll be in the area for a bit if you’re interested in meeting up. 

Me: Sure. 

The guy only had a half-face picture for his profile—along with some shots of his abs, thighs, and back—but the little thumbnail image showed a beard, and I was an absolute slut for beards. I had to admit, the days’ worth of back-and-forth messages we’d sent had me wondering about the guy. He had one of the most generic usernames possible and he sent fully punctuated and grammatically correct messages. Don’t get me wrong, I mostly did the same, but a lot of users texted in such shorthand and acronyms it was difficult to decipher at times. The bit of silver in his beard, and the fact he didn’t appear to subscribe to text-speak, made me think he was at least my age. Likely older.

And mmmmm, the thought of a bearded silver fox did delicious things to me.

I absolutely had every intention of meeting up with him.