Flesh Market - blog tour

BLOG TOUR

Author Name: Kate Lowell

 

Book Name: Flesh Market

 

Release Date: November 10, 2015

Blurb:

 

Special Agent Leo Gale is up a creek. A year and a half of deep cover is about to go up in flames. He needs help – something, someone to salvage the operation and save the lives of untold numbers of trafficked teenagers. 

But he wasn’t expecting the partner they sent, or his own gut-punch of a response to the man.

Julian worked hard for that FBI Honors Internship. It was supposed to be a foot in the door. He’d never expected it to catapult him into the middle of a major undercover operation. Yet here he is, sleeping on a filthy mattress and using every trick in the book to avoid torture—and worse. He’s never felt so scared, or so alive, in his entire life, and he’s not sure if it’s the danger, or Leo, that’s making his heart race.

There’s no time to think about it, though. The operation is heating up, and Leo and Julian are running out of time and options. As choices become more difficult, they must find a way to take the traffickers down, or risk becoming just another set of organs for sale.

 

Pages or Words: 75,000 words (pre-edits).

 

Categories: Contemporary, Crime Fiction, Fiction, Gay Fiction, M/M Romance, Romance, Thriller

 

Excerpt:

Inside the bathroom, DeGraff peered behind the door and moved an OUT OF SERVICE FOR CLEANING sign from the back to the front.

Julian was at the sink at the far end of the room, staring into the mirror with water dripping off his face. DeGraff stepped into one of the stalls, and Leo went to wash his hands at one of the other sinks. Julian glanced up at him, then tore off some paper towel and wiped his face dry. He tossed the towel in the overflowing garbage can and slunk past Leo with all the angsty self-consciousness of a hormonal teenager.

Leo wished he had time to appreciate the performance, but he had a job to do. As Julian passed him, Leo spun and grabbed him from behind, pinning Julian’s arms to his side and covering his mouth. Julian made a startled noise, muffled by Leo’s hand, and began to thrash. He kicked Leo painfully in the shin, but by then DeGraff was out of the stall and had jabbed his syringe into Julian’s shoulder. Leo fought the young man down to the floor while DeGraff stood watch by the bathroom door. Five tense minutes later, Julian was completely spaced out, limp as a rag in Leo’s arms.

 

Buy the book:

 

  http://www.loose-id.com/bodies-and-souls-1-flesh-market.html

 

Meet the author:

 

Kate lives on the east coast of Canada, in an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. She has one horse now, who still has medical issues, and three cats, all of which still have mental issues. She still refuses to get a dog, because who knows what would be wrong with it?

 

Kate loves to read and write. She also likes playing with computers and is going back to school to do a programming degree, just for giggles. Or the opportunity to take over the world. (Oh, who are we kidding? Think of all the work that would mean.) She also likes pictures of pretty men and keeps many of them on her computer. (The pictures, not the men.) She would dearly love a cabana boy to mow her lawn and maybe rub her shoulders after a long day of making men fall in love with each other, then cackling evilly and raining frustration and danger on them.

 

Where to find the author:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008313548018

Twitter: @Kate_Lowell

Website: www.katelowell.com

 

 

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7132484.Kate_Lowell

Publisher: Loose ID

Cover Artist: April Martinez

Rafflecopter Prize: E-book copy of one of the recommended reads Kate used in her research for Flesh Market.

https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/7d5bb789593/

Special post from author 💕

Hi, I’m Kate Lowell! Thanks for joining me on the Flesh Market tour, or what I’ve come to call “The blog tour that will forever make you question your view of the world around you”. I know it did that for me. Tons of research that went into this book. So many books, so many articles, and over the course of the tour, I’m going to share some of that research, and some of my sources with you. (Please be gentle—it was extremely difficult to condense all that info down to a reasonable sized blog post for each topic. I could have gone on ad nauseum—and honestly, some of the reading was nauseating.) One lucky winner will get to choose any one book from the ones I’ve highlighted through the tour, and I’ll send it to them. (Caveat: I won’t necessarily send the cheapest version of a book, but I do need to keep my pocketbook in mind. And some books may only be available used, or in electronic format. We’ll talk when you win.  )

Post 8 – Domestic Slavery

Less visible slaves in our society are people, usually from another country—Central or South America, India, etc. They generally come to North America with a job waiting for them, though this doesn’t happen every time. What does happen, in each of these cases of domestic slavery, is that the job advertised does not match the one they end up in.

Most people expect that, when they hire someone to clean their home, look after the children, or cook, that this person will be paid a fair wage, and will be treated with the respect due to all human beings. But occasionally—and it happens most often with workers from out of county—this is the exact opposite of what really occurs.  

In most cases, all official documents are taken from them as soon as they get to their new home. They are told that without those documents they cannot prove they are in the country legally (and it is significantly harder without them). Then, they are forced to work excessively long hours, up to eighteen and twenty hours per day. They may be beaten or sexually assaulted, and have no recourse. If they are paid, it’s a fraction of what they were promised. They may never be allowed to leave the house. If they do, they know not to tell anyone what is happening. Fear of being sent back to their country of origin stills their tongues. Their captors tell them stories that make the authorities in North America hard to trust. They threaten the slaves’ families, they threaten the slaves themselves.

In Flesh Market, Consuela is one of these invisible slaves. I’m not sure how she ended up trapped in that situation, but given DeGraff’s way of doing business, she obviously has reason to be afraid of what he’d do if she tried to escape.

Recommended Reads: The Slave Next Door by Kevin Bales http://www.amazon.com/Slave-Next-Door-Trafficking-Slavery-ebook/dp/B005T5O7DW/ref=mt_kindle?_encoding=UTF8&me=

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/arlington-texas-couple-sentenced-enslaving-nigerian-woman-more-eight-years

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=3190006&page=1