Guest Post: My Inspiration for Once a Marine by Cat Grant

Today I'm pleased to introduce the lovely Cat Grant to my blog. She's here as part of the Riptide Publishing blog tour where there are lots of prizes to be won - click here for the prizes. Today Cat is talking about where she got the idea for her recent Riptide release, Once a Marine, which I reviewed here. Over to you, Cat!

I’ve always held a great deal of respect for those men and women who’ve chosen to put on a uniform to defend their country. The dedication, the personal sacrifice… well, it’s not something I could ever envision myself doing, even when I was young enough – not to mention thin enough! – to sign up.

I’ve been wanting to write a story dealing with Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for awhile now, but I couldn’t see how to give it a happy ending until the policy was officially repealed last year. I knew I wanted it to be a story about personal sacrifice, with a main character who struggles to embrace his sexual identity after spending his entire life up to that point in the closet. I wanted to explore what happens when a warrior is sent home in disgrace, left to pick up the pieces of his shattered life alone.

A pretty daunting undertaking, since my family has no tradition of military service. Despite living near the Defense Language Institute and Naval Post-Graduate School here in Monterey, I couldn’t find a real, live Marine (gay or straight) who was willing to talk to me. So I had to do my research the hard way – in books.

I read Steven Zeeland’s The Masculine Marine and Military Trade (all about military men and men – and women – who chase after them), Rich Merritt’s Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star and Joseph Steffan’s Annapolis memoir, Honor Bound. But it was Rachel Maddow’s series of interviews with American servicemen and women facing discharge under DADT that proved most valuable to me. Putting faces with uniforms, hearing firsthand about the onerous burden of serving under DADT really hammered it all home for me. When Army Captain Jonathan Hopkins talked about his decision to put his personal life on hold until his stint was over, because it wouldn’t be fair to his partner to ask the man to go back in the closet for Hopkins’s sake, I knew I had the model for my Marine hero, Cole Hammond.

I can only hope I’ve done my story – and the sacrifice of so many valiant men and women – justice.

Here's the blurb:

Love is a battlefield.

Discharged under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, former Marine major Cole Hammond is struggling to find a new identity. But PTSD casts a pall on everything, and his hard-nosed, homophobic father can’t even bear to look him in the eye. To top it all off, he’s pretty sure he’s flunking out of law school.

Marc Sullivan is a kind, sensitive romance author-slash-waiter with a thing for men in uniform. Cole’s not wearing his anymore, but there’s no mistaking the warrior Marc meets in the diner one rainy afternoon. Cole’s sexy smile and Carolina drawl prove irresistible, but Marc’s played this game before, and he always loses. Once a Marine, always a Marine, and if there’s one thing Marc knows about such men, it’s that they all leave him in the end. It doesn’t help that Cole’s practically closeted in public, or that he refuses to seek treatment for his PTSD.

But like any good Marine, Cole’s willing to fight for what matters. And like the characters in Marc’s stories, he’s certain that if they try just hard enough, together they can find their own happily ever after.

You can read an excerpt and purchase Once a Marine right here.

Visit Cat here:
Email address: bittermint2007@gmail.com
Website
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Twitter: @CatGrant2009
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Thank you for that interesting insight into how Once a Marine came about, Cat!


Cat has very kindly offered up the choice of one of Allegro Vivace, Sonata Appassionata, The First Real Thing (Icon Men #1), Appearing Nightly (Icon Men #2), A Fool for You (Icon Men #3), or Entangled Trio as a prize for those who leave a comment on this post. You have until 11pm on Friday 23rd December and I shall announce the winners on Christmas Eve. Good luck!