Publisher's Synopsis
Some years ago, during Sunday Mass at St. Francis, Bryce noticed a fine young man of similar age sitting in a pew, hands raised in supplication as a shaft of sunlight illuminated him. His angelic visage stirred butterflies in Bryce's stomach, and he began to feel a little dizzy. They crossed paths after Mass, in the social hall, and soon enough had bonded. When the boys were not at school or at wrestling practice, they were hunting squirrels in the woods behind Isaac's house, learning how to throw knives, or up in the San Francisco mountains outside Flagstaff, snow skiing. They spent so much time together, glued at the shoulders as Isaac's mother would say, that it displeased his parents. You see, Bryce's working-class family did not meet their social standards. Thus, the story begins. Bryce and Isaac face their first major challenge at the cusp of adulthood with the revelation that they are in love. Their love would be tested early on. Isaac's parents sent him to study pre-law at a Jesuit university in California, and Bryce, not having the means to attend university, joined the army. He trained, received his jump wings and green beret, and was deployed to Iraq, assigned to the British base, Camp Bravo, in Basra, as a sniper. There, he got an upup-closend very personal introduction to warfare, as Isaac was at school, dating. Upon fulfilling his military service commitment, cynical and suffering from PTSD, Bryce returns home. Seeking a way forward, he succeeds in securing a limited business arrangement, and employs Isaac (and wife), launching a free-lance security firm. Homeland Security contracts their firm, Trinity Security, to assassinate a mass murderer in the Philippines. Job completed, they receive a considerable payment, nd begin fleshing out the firm. Bryce and Isaac's personal experiences with homophobia inspire a commitment to equal opportunity hiring. They advertise Trinity Security as an equal opportunity employer, hiring qualified individuals whose backgrounds cry out for justice. Dillon Baxter, a black former Marine who lost an eye at the hands of fellow servicemen, Binta Nguyen, a Vietnam War refugee beleaguered by racism, Casandra Bayard, a psychiatric RN and daughter of a civil rights icon reaches out to a nursing friend, Jeri Kleinfeld, and to others and they find their way to Trinity Security to form the nucleus of the business. Bryce is offered a further business contract of indefinite duration by Colonel Frederick Abernathy, a director at Homeland Security, which leads to additional lucrative assignments. Bryce puts his heart and soul into expanding Trinity Security, building a compound in Calaveras County, which serves both as the business headquarters and, also as a home for the employees whom Bryce treats like family. As Calaveras House begins taking shape, he travels to Ventura to undergo intensive multi-engine, IFR, VSTOL, and seaplane pilot training care of Colonel Abernathy. Bryce and Isaac sustain an affectionate connection, yet neither of them intends to dishonor Isaac's marriage, a problem without a solution, or so they thought. Then tragedy strikes at the end of Soldier Boy that sets the men free to reestablish a loving, intimate bond. Pride of Lions, the second volume in the series, The Adventures of Bryce Tyconnel, is written as a standalone novel. However, it is suggested that for maximum enjoyment, you begin at the beginning, with the 2013 Lambda Literary Foundation Erotic Romance finalist, Soldier Boy.
