Phetra H. Novak

NOrdic tales that will
​seduce you.

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  • Caddo Norse Novels
    • Haven's Revenge
    • Fated Future
  • Love of the Game Series
    • The Train Station
    • Love of the Game, Book One
  • Silent Terrorism Series
    • Silent Terrorism: Saudi Arabia
  • Stand Alone Books
    • Ocean of Tears - Never too late
    • My name is Ayla
    • A Summer's Day: Shakespearean Anthology with a Twist
    • Finding Home
  • Work in progress...
    • Planned Books
  • Blog: Seduce me with Words

4/27/2016

Trailer: Finding Home by Phetra H. Novak

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Finding Home a book about finding yourself and the one place that you can truly call home! 


​
Blurb:

Luca is a first-year med student at the University of Gothenburg. He is following in his father’s footsteps, something he’d been programmed to do all his life. He lives a sheltered and still life, with no real friends. Luca would love to change that but doesn’t know how, since he always feels so odd around other people, like he doesn’t quite fit in. There’s so much inside him that wants out, like wanting to become a veterinarian more than a doctor. And the fact that he likes boys and not girls. But he doesn’t tell anyone about that—not even himself.
In comes Kai, an American cowboy in Gothenburg. He’s doing his thesis overseas to broaden his horizons before he does what he has always wanted to do, which is to go back home and run the family ranch. He just happens to see Luca one day leaving class and can’t stop watching the shy guy as he waded his way through the crowd with quick, silent steps, and his head down to avoid eye contact with anyone. For weeks Kai watches him from a distance, trying to figure out how to approach him.
Had he known that spilled coffee and slippery, awkward book bags would have gotten him close to the guy, he might have physically bumped into him a long time ago.
Finding Home is a book with star-crossed lovers meeting and the evil mind of the wicked witch in the west threatening to crush young love’s every dream.


Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/h6vwzlg
All Romance: http://tinyurl.com/opl83nt
Trailer by Hans M. Hirschi.

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3/28/2016

The Swede: The Darker Side of Finding Home

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We all have a purpose when writing no matter if it is fact or fiction, but whatever it is we write or for whom, it is all about making people feel and to stir up emotions of some kind. I can honestly say that I take it as a huge compliment if someone tells me they hate Luca's father, from Finding Home or Anthony or the Colonel from Haven's Revenge, because no matter if we are trying to stir a lot or a little, make people feel anger or happiness, love or hate, thought or simple the pleasure of letting the reader read something that makes them sigh contently and feel blissful. It is all about causing and getting a reaction.   

I don’t know about you, but when I start a project I always have this image in my head, or several as it may, about what the finished product will look like. There’s always some higher purpose than to simply entertain, it doesn’t have to be extraordinary in any way, it can be as simple as taking anything Shakespeare and use it as a base for writing a short novelette for an anthology to celebrate Shakespeare’s 400th birthday, to making a grand very in your face political statement like I'm trying to do in Silent Terrorism.
With Finding Home it was about proving a point mainly to Swedes that we don't live in this glorified and liberal society that we think, that we should be grateful about all the good things we have, yes, but that there is still a lot of work to be done. Luca, he was with me for a long time before telling his story, and he represents what is real about Sweden today for a lot of people. Anyone knowing anything about Swedes and Sweden might call me deranged or a flat out liar, which is perfectly okay. But in my world, though it means that they don’t quite get it, or can’t see Sweden for what it really is, which is a melting pot of many different nationalities and ethnicities which doesn't allow us all to live with the same liberties. You might wonder what I mean by that, and that is simple or maybe not...

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Fadime, was shot to death by her father in 2002 because he though she had dishonoring him for living to much like a westerner. 
We have Swedes, especially teenagers and young adults, that are forced to live in two worlds, Swedes who at home are forced to live under their parent’s rules which are of course from their own upbringing, most likely in from another culture with different social views on what is right and wrong, expectations and so on and so forth. Obviously being from another country doesn't have to entail that but it is a stated and proven fact that this is the case for many young Swedes today. 

Their parents expect one thing from them, all based on religious and social beliefs from being brought up in another country where men are men, women are women, LGBT is non-existent and abnormal, women cover their hair and faces, men don’t cry, children are beaten into submission, and you marry the man/woman your parents tell you to marry. In 2016, there are children and teenagers of Sweden that are forced to live through the fear of honor killings (which still happens in this country way too often), we have boys who had family members thrown acid in their face for dishonoring them, we had girls who have been sexually mutilated at home in their own bathtubs because in the country their parents are from girl's genitals are dirty, both boy but mostly girls are forced to marry someone they don’t want to marry, and this all still happens because we as a nation refuse to touch upon the subjects for real and bring them up to the surface because lord beholds you might be accused of being a racist. (And for those who want to shove statistics in my face about how many millions of Swedish kronor our government spend on anti violence each year, save it money isn’t worth two shits if we don’t verbally agree that a problem exist and is real, and actively DO something about it.)


Luca represents the struggle that a lot of Swedish teens have to go through today, to live a double life, one demanded by their parents and then one demanded by the rest of society, but none of their own. They have to go out into the everyday world where everyone else live to go to work and go to school and fake another identity, because how do you explain to your fifteen-year-old girlfriends that you spent Easter, back in whatever country your parents come from, with a man twenty years your senior, getting married or lay in bed in agony because in the culture your parents come from the girl parts of your body is dirty and should be sown together. You don’t, instead you stay quiet because no one ever said or did anything all those other times when there was a girl or a boy on the news who gone through the same thing. Society (politicians) always stick their head in the sand and pretend to not to see to afraid to be accused of being a racist than dealing with the real issue and taking a stand.
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Hope, thoughtfulness and fight is what keep American's changing for the better, not hate! 
If Luca is the symbolism of what is ugly with Sweden what does Kai stand for? Kai stands for what is good about the United States. As Swedes, and as many Europeans do, many see Americans as religious fanatics who run their country with religion, hate anyone who isn’t religious, straight and white. These days when we have men in power, like Trump, it doesn’t really help the US win any pointers with the European people because that is all media wants us to see. But after living in the States for many years, I know there’s so much more to American culture than McDonald’s and what we see on TV is so colored by media and politics and is so far from the whole truth it's scary. ​
American’s are generally speaking one of the most good-hearted, helpful and including people I’ve ever met. I’ve lived some of my best years in the US and that including living through 9/11, and working at an American airport during that horrific event. In my entire life, I have never experienced anything quite as surrealistic and terrifying before or after, but I’ve also never been part of anything that after the fact been as inspiring and left me with the feeling of "we will get through this". In crisis American’s come together, if you are there and living there you are American and you belong, there’s no "go home where you come from", there’s no excluding because you are not a citizen.

Kai stands for what to me is America the Beautiful, pride in one’s heritage, pride in one’s family, one’s self, that you stand up and fight for what you believe in, that you help out thy neighbor even if he might be a tad odd, you thrive to see your children grow up and become the best them they can become even if it is the opposite of what you would do or want. The good about the US is the epiphany of Kai.

There’s a lot of good things about Sweden, and Swedes, I love my country, just as much as there are things that are rotten about the US and which drives me absolutely batshit crazy. But my point for doing what I do, and in this particular case is to show and to prove that no culture is perfect and we can’t let ourselves be so blinded by what is good that what is till there to be dealt with disappears from our sight. Nor can we let ourselves become so colored by what is bad about a place or a people that we can’t appreciate what is good and that the knowledge they have to share is still something we can take part of and learn from. We can still learn from those who have a long way to go because seldom to never is something black or white and no matter what we never stop learning and why not learn from other people’s mistakes so we don't have to make them too?

Finding Home, a contemporary romance in all its glory, set out to entertain and maybe even make you sniffle a bit, but that also carry a darker hidden message if you like. Nothing is as good as it seems and nothing is as bad as it first appears, and know that it takes a wise man to learn from the mistakes of others and it takes an even wiser man to know that when pointing a finger you always have three fingers pointing back at you. 

And don't worry if you think this is it, just you wait til I let you in on the symbolism and hidden messages that are in Haven’s Revenge and the Caddo Norse Novels. As for Silent Terrorism, it won’t need an explanation, because that entire series is a rock solid political statement no one can ignore.

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12/12/2015

Finding Home. Excerpt. 

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    It's only 5 days left until the release of Finding Home. Kai's and Luca's story has been long time coming, It is the first attempt to a book I ever sat down and tried to write.
     It's what the "English language" call a coming of age story, a line of words I don't really understand. I know what they mean but they don't make any sense at all to me. But this is what the story is. 
    What I loved most with writing this story was that it is centered in my home town, Gothenburg. It was a lot of fun to know ever crook and corner when I pictured Kai and Luca doing town.  Gothenburg is located on the west coast of Sweden and is this large city with small city charm, also called Little London. 
    It is what you would call a walking city, the best way of enjoying it to it's fullness is to just walk and then walk some more. Even when you're in the heart of the city you will find it to be like no other big city because it feels small, intimate and cosy with cafés and pubs all over the city. There are a larger shopping mall but mostly you have the indivudual shops along the streets. 
    So, in five days, two days after Lucia a national holiday where we celebrate the dark haired girl with lights in her hair Finding Home will be available for you on Amazon and All Romance. 

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Excerpt from Finding Home: 

“You having fun?” Kai’s voice spoke low in his ear. It was heavy and graveled like he’d just woken up, making Luca frown, turning his head to look at him. What he saw in Kai’s eyes couldn’t be mistaken for anything else but lust. Not even by a novice like him. Luca pulled in a deep shuddering breath, unable to let go of the hot stare.
Unable to speak he nodded. Kai smiled, as if he could see the affect he had on Luca and loved every moment of it.
“What has you thinking so hard, darlin’?”
Oh, my God, did he just call me darlin’. Luca bit his lip to stifle a groan. Fuck him. He swallowed hard, eyeing Kai as he fantasized about him in his cowboy hat, boots, and the same tight jeans he was wearing now. Shit! He was getting excited. He had to stop. He felt the hot prickle as a blush crept up his neck and spread onto his face.
“Oh, now I really want to know what you’re thinking.” Kai let go of his hand, slipping his arm around his waist and pulling him closer, guiding him to a bench in a small cove of the castle wall overlooking the ocean.
The pressure of Kai’s hand on his hip wasn’t harsh but the affect it had on him was like he’d been gripping him hard, hard enough to leave a mark. Luca squirmed, a soft whimper slipping from his mouth. His prick was pushing hard against the zipper of his jeans, the intensity of the moment. The vivid images of Kai all geared up in his mind, together with his emotions running haywire, and he might just come from listening to Kai speak.
“Oh, God,” he whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut, sitting down abruptly on the bench. He reached down, grabbing himself through his jeans, squeezing hard, trying to stave off his impending orgasm. What the hell was wrong with him? Didn’t he have any self-control? A soft chuckle made him open one eye and peer suspiciously at Kai.
“You think this is funny?” He heard the hurt in his voice and couldn’t help it. Luca didn’t like Kai laughing at him.
“Oh, darlin’.”
He gasped at the endearment, there it was again. It really got to him. The endearment itself, and the way it sounded spilling from Kai’s mouth with that twang. It was like being touched.
Kai sat by his side leaning into Luca, one arm around his shoulders, and the other lifted his chin, to tip his face so they were looking at each other.
“I wasn’t laughing at you but if you could see yourself right now…” He didn’t say anything else. Instead, his eyes roamed over him, drinking him in and making Luca’s pulse beat heavily in his ears.
“How do I look?” Luca swallowed and whispered, unable to look away.
“Like pure sex,” Kai said instantly, smiling. “You make me hard.”
Luca watched as Kai’s fingers circled the wrist of his hand in his lap, bringing it over and discreetly cupping the hard bulge in his jeans. 


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10/31/2015

Cover reveal: Finding Home

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Finding Home ~~ Coming this December.
Blurb and Cover
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Luka is a first year med student at the University of Gothenburg. He is following in his father’s footsteps, something he’d been programmed to do all his life. He lives a sheltered and still life, with no real friends. Luca would love to change that but doesn’t know how, since he always feels so odd around other people, like he doesn’t quite fit in. There’s so much inside him that wants out, like wanting to become a veterinarian more than a doctor. And the fact that he likes boys and not girls. But he doesn’t tell anyone about that—not even himself.

In comes Kai, an American cowboy in Gothenburg. He’s doing his thesis overseas to broadens his horizons before he does what he has always wanted to do, which is to go back home and run the family ranch. He just happens to see Luca one day leaving class and can’t stop watching the shy guy as he waded his way through the crowd with quick, silent steps, and his head down to avoid eye contact with anyone. For weeks Kai watches him from a distance, trying to figure out how to approach him.
Had he known that spilled coffee and slippery, awkward book bags would have gotten him close to the guy, he might have physically bumped into him a long time ago.

Finding Home is a book with star-crossed lovers meeting and the evil of the wicked witch in the west threatening to crush young love’s every dream!



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    About Phetra 

    Dreamer, Writer, Reader and Metal Head.

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  • Home
    • About the Author
    • Contact
  • Caddo Norse Novels
    • Haven's Revenge
    • Fated Future
  • Love of the Game Series
    • The Train Station
    • Love of the Game, Book One
  • Silent Terrorism Series
    • Silent Terrorism: Saudi Arabia
  • Stand Alone Books
    • Ocean of Tears - Never too late
    • My name is Ayla
    • A Summer's Day: Shakespearean Anthology with a Twist
    • Finding Home
  • Work in progress...
    • Planned Books
  • Blog: Seduce me with Words