Book and Author Spotlight: Sightlines by Santino Hassell

Sightlines
(The Community #3)
by Santino Hassell
Release Date: October 9, 2017

About Sightlines
Chase Payne is a walking contradiction. He's the most powerful psychic in the Community, but the least respected. He's the son of the Community's founder, but with his tattoo sleeves and abrasive attitude, he's nothing like his charismatic family. No one knows what to make of him, which is how he wound up locked in a cell on the Farm yet again. But this time, the only man he's ever loved is there too.

Elijah Estrella was used to being the sassy sidekick who fooled around with Chase for fun. But that was before he realized the Community wasn't the haven he'd believed in and Chase was the only person who'd ever truly tried to protect him. Now they're surrounded by people who want to turn them against their friends, and the only way out is to pretend the brainwashing works.

With Chase playing the role of a tyrant's second-in-command, and Elijah acting like Chase's mindless sex toy, they risk everything by plotting a daring escape. In the end, it’s only their psychic abilities, fueled by their growing love for each other, that will allow them to take the Community down once and for all.


Read my five-plus-starred review of Sightlines.

Add Sightlines on Goodreads.

Purchase Links
Riptide Publishing


An Excerpt from Sightlines
“Are you ready?” Richard asked.

“For?”

The door opened, and Chase’s hands tightened into fists.

Frick and Frack, dressed in tactical gear as they’d been since the “invasion,” dragged Elijah in by his arms. He was barefoot and wearing nothing but a thin white T-shirt and a pair of compression shorts, even though the outside temperature was frigid. There was a bandage on his arm from where he’d been shot, but it was clear the two fuckers handling him hadn’t been using the best of care.

His lip was swollen, half his face was bruised, deep-bronze skin dull and slightly ashen, and he sank to the plush carpet despite them making a weak attempt to toss him in an armchair. Elijah landed awkwardly on his side and hissed out a breath, cradling his arm.

He was breathing so hard and shaking so violently, that he didn’t even seem to register who else was in the room.

A flash of anger shot through Chase too quickly for him to mask. He could tell the moment Richard felt it, which proved something Chase had been suspecting for the past several months. Since he’d made the desperate decision to reach out to Nate.

His own feelings for Elijah made him weak.

He schooled his face, gathered all the fragments of his asshole armor, and sneered down at Elijah. “Look what you did to yourself,” he managed to spit out. “You should have never gone with those idiots.”

Elijah looked up, squinting through the pain. His big dark eyes widened slightly upon seeing Chase, but they quickly flicked to Richard and back again.

“Chase . . .”

Elijah struggled to push himself up. Judging from his mobility, Chase was willing to bet the gunshot had thankfully been a flesh wound, but it didn’t stop his body from tensing with the need to go to him. He wanted to help Elijah up, pull him close, and tell him roughly, while burying his face in all that wavy glossy hair, what an idiot he was. But instead Chase held himself still and forced himself to look at Richard for direction.

“Sit down,” Richard said. “We’re all going to have a chat.”

Chase sat on the edge of the bed. Obedience made him ragey, but he’d already gone off too much about Jasper to get away with giving any more attitude to Richard. His loyalty wasn’t believable if he spent the entire time talking shit to everyone.

“And you . . .” Richard’s gaze grew distinctly chillier once aimed at Elijah. “You hold still.”

The two guards started to drag Elijah to his feet, but he twisted away, sneering at them. “I can do it myself. I guess it’s a good thing you have shitty fucking aim.”

The male sibling tensed, his own expression creasing in a scowl. His sister gave a minute shake of her head. Then she glanced at Richard. He didn’t say anything, but there was something in his demeanor they read as a warning because neither of them lashed out at Elijah.

Chase suspected they were the type who would let their new roles as head guards get to their heads, unlike Six. But apparently, Six had been Ex-Comm all along, so maybe this was how all staff at the Farm got once they realized the people being held for “realignment” were nothing more than prisoners waiting their turn to be brainwashed. If someone was a fucking monster, it probably wasn’t hard to stop seeing people as people once their free will was stripped away.

Chase would love to get the two guards in a room alone. Psychic powers neutered or not, he’d been in enough fights to fuck him up a pair of dead-eyed psy kids.

“You’re probably wondering why you’re here, Elijah,” Richard said once Elijah was sitting upright. “Why you’re being held in the silo. Why you can’t go home . . .”

“I know why.” Elijah tossed his disheveled hair out of his face. Even sweaty, battered, and clearly in pain, he had a way with a condescending bitch stare. “Because I know what you’re doing. What the Community is really about.”

“And what’s it about, Elijah?” Richard asked, crossing one leg at the knee. “Enlighten us.”


About The Community series
What lies beneath the surface of the world you thought you knew?

Secrets and lies have twisted an underground community founded by psychics escaping persecution. Blackmail, sex, and social climbing in the name of power has created an irreparable rift.

In the eyes of the founders, there are two sides: loyalists and everyone else. Surely no one would emerge from their tightly woven webs. And they certainly wouldn’t sow the seeds of rebellion within the heart of the Community’s only queer night club.

Now an outcast, a scion, and a runaway are leading a revolution to save not only the men they love, but the entire Community.


Learn more about The Community series on Riptide Publishing.


Read the first two novels in The Community:



My Reviews
Insight | Oversight

Goodreads
Insight | Oversight

Insight Purchase Links
Riptide Publishing
Amazon | B&N | iBooks | Kobo | Smashwords

Oversight Purchase Links
Riptide Publishing
Amazon | B&N | iBooks | Kobo | Smashwords


A Guest Post from Santino Hassell
Personal Rebellion

The Community trilogy, from Insight to Oversight and now in the last book Sightlines, is all about rebellion. Three brothers come together despite their vast differences to take on a Community that swore to protect them and instead tried to turn them into mindless psychic soldiers. The series started with discovery and is ending with the characters coming together in a ragtag group to overthrow the Community’s leader.

But that’s overt rebellion. There are plenty of personal rebellions in The Community as well. In book 1, Nate has to overcome his trust issues and insecurity to travel across the country and investigate twin’s murder in NYC. In book 2, Holden has to rebel against his principles, and his family, to face the reality of the Community’s darkness. And finally in book 3, Chase has to push against the insecurity and resentment that once guarded his heart so he can learn to trust his brothers and the man he loves.

For me, those personal rebellions are the most interesting kind. A rebellion where it comes down to good versus evil is always exciting, especially if the ‘evil’ is nuanced, but someone fighting against themselves really helps you to dig into their psyche. You figure out what makes them tick, what from their past has really had an effect on their present state of mind, and what internal barriers are holding them back.

My own personal rebellions have centered around career choices. Do I want to write what’s expected of me, or do I want to branch out and spread my wings? Do I do promo the way I’m told to do promo, or do I choose my own path? Most recently, and more personally, I’ve had to make hard choices about my career. I’ve had to ask myself whether I can sustain working a full-time day job while writing on a full-time basis, and whether I can cope with the reality that I may eventually have to make a choice. This is big for me, because every instinct I have tells me to hold on to what’s stable and safe. Which of these jobs is a sure bet?

Rebelling against that instinct is terrifying. I’m not facing off with evil while falling in love like Nate, Holden, and Chase, but two parts of myself—the workaholic and the creative—are basically warring with each other. I still don’t know where the chips will fall, but having to sort through all those possibilities, and the feelings that come with them, has helped me to learn a lot about myself. And I think that’s partially why digging into characters in the same way is so telling.

The characters in The Community go through a lot within the trilogy, and their lives turn upside down. However, it’s their internal struggles that drive their character development, and their character development impacts how they interact with the overall plot. In their cases, they will get their HEA. It’s guaranteed. For my own personal rebellion? Well, that’s still up in the air.


Thank you to Santino Hassell for the wonderfully insightful guest postmy favorite by any author to date—and to Kelly Miller for facilitating and carrot, erm, bacon-dangling.




About Santino Hassell
Santino Hassell was raised by a conservative family but grew up to be a smart-mouthed, school cutting grunge kid, a transient twenty-something, and eventually transformed into a grumpy introvert and unlikely romance author with an affinity for baseball caps. His novels are heavily influenced by the gritty, urban landscape of New York City, and his desire to write relationships fueled by intensity and passion.

He’s been a finalist in both the Bisexual Book Awards and the EPIC Awards, and was nominated for a prestigious RITA award in 2017. His work has been featured in BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, Washington Post, RT Magazine, and Cosmopolitan Magazine


Connect with Santino


Giveaway
To celebrate the release of Sightlines, one lucky winner will receive a $15 Riptide credit! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on October 14, 2017. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info! 


Follow the Sightlines blog tour.


Comments

  1. Thanks for the excerpt and insight into the books!
    jlshannon74 at gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for the excerpts and post about the series.
    humhumbum AT yahoo DOT com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Congrats, Santino, and thanks for sharing. Oh my those personal choices. I decided early to pursue my "purpose in life" but had to figure that out. Thus there's organizational psych, training & development, and I feel good about "helping make the workplace better." I wish you the best in your journey. -
    TheWrote [at] aol [dot] com

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for the excerpt & post!
    legacylandisa at gmail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  5. I enjoy this series so very much, most especially the last one. Congratulations for the book release!

    amie_07(at)yahoo(dot)com

    ReplyDelete

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