I can’t believe it’s Tuesday already! ! Today is the second to last day of our World Naked Gardening Day guest posts. If you didn’t have a chance to learn about A.L. Lester’s story yesterday or K.L. Noone’s story on Sunday, make sure to check them out.
Today I’m excited to have my long-time friend Holly Day (aka Ofelia Gränd) here to tell us about her contribution to our World Naked Gardening Day group project.
We’re extremely happy to have you, Holly!
Hello everyone! Thank you, Amy, for letting me drop by today. A few days ago, Perfect Rows was published. It's my contribution to the celebrations of World Naked Gardening Day. Last year, A.L. Lester had the idea that we should celebrate World Naked Gardening Day by writing a story each, and it sounded like a fun thing to do, so Nell Iris, K.L. Noone, my lovely hostess Amy Spector, me, and Ally Lester, of course, did.
Perfect Rows is about Grayson who has inherited his grandmother's cottage-style house with a lovely kitchen garden, Victorian-inspired. The only problem is that when Grayson's great grandfather purchased the property, he built two houses on it, one on each end of the kitchen garden. Grayson's grandmother lived in one of the houses, and her sister lived in the other. It was all fine until the two women left this earth, and Grayson had to share the garden with Camden.
The biggest conflict Grayson and Camden have is about what purpose the garden should have. Grayson wants to grow vegetables, and he has a permaculture approach to it all - which basically is to mimic nature with crop diversity and natural productivity. Camden, on the other hand, wants flowers growing in perfect rows.
I love to garden, I'm not very good at it, but I enjoy it. When I grew up, my grandmother had a rather big kitchen garden. She lived in the city, so we're not talking loads of acres, but she hardly had any lawn. Instead, she grew flowers and vegetables everywhere. My mum often muttered about how unorganised it all was - it wasn't.
My husband and I lived with my grandmother when she'd grown old and no longer could take care of the garden. She was mourning her loss of ability, and we did our best to keep it as she wanted it to be, and it was NOT unorganised. What annoyed my mother was that if there suddenly grew a tomato plant among the beans, my grandmother allowed it to grow there. To my mum, this was a plant growing in the wrong place. To my grandmother, it was a bonus plant. She saved all flowers peeking up between the lettuce plants, and if there was dill by the zucchinis, then there was dill by the zucchinis.
I'm like my grandmother. Grayson is like my grandmother. Camden is like my mother LOL
Perfect Rows
Blurb: Everything would've been perfect if Grayson Dawe hadn't been forced to share his garden with Camden Hensley. Grayson has everything he needs in life - a job, friends, a house he loves, and a garden. He wants to grow enough vegetables to cover his needs over the summer, and he has a plan for how to achieve it.
Camden Hensley loves his garden. He loves beautiful flowers in perfect rows, sweet scents and buzzing bees, but his neighbor, Grayson, messes everything up. He mixes vegetables with flowers in the growing beds and is incapable of placing plants in straight lines. And when Cam pulls out the plants growing in the wrong place, Grayson snarls at him.
Grayson doesn't want to fight with Camden, but he's completely unreasonable. Cam only wants Grayson to stop creating chaos and to grow flowers instead of vegetables. Neither of them is willing to back down, and days in the garden usually end in shouting matches, at least until Grayson realizes he can shut Cam up by kissing him. But will they ever be able to agree about what plants should grow where?
Contemporary Gay Romance: 16,427 words
Buy links: JMS Books • Amazon • books2read.com/PerfectRows
Excerpt: His great grandfather had bought the land, built the houses, and then given it all to his two daughters. They’d raised their families there, sharing space and resources. When his great-aunt had died, his uncle had sold her house, and they’d struck some weird deal with his grandmother so they still shared the garden. It had been much easier if they’d divided the property, then Grayson wouldn’t have to share a garden with Camden fucking Hensley. Annoying little shit.
Grayson had moved in last spring after Granny had passed away, and they’d gotten off on the wrong foot right from the start. He had plans for the garden, Cam had plans for the garden, but they weren’t the same plans.
Camden wanted flowers, wanted the garden to look pretty and to have everything in perfect rows. Grayson wanted food and didn’t give a shit about how it looked.
He strolled along the garden bed, smiling at a small tomato plant sticking up in the middle of the radishes. There was another one right in the middle of the pak choi he’d planted. He assumed they came from the compost. He composted everything he possibly could, and last year he’d had volunteer potatoes that had to have come from the compost. They’d grown right in the middle of the strawberries and had driven Camden mad.
He loved getting bonus potatoes, but the biggest joy was watching Cam glare at the plant every time he walked past it.
Grayson would have to do his best to protect the stray tomatoes, it was free food, and nature didn’t grow in strict lines.
Cam would pull them out if he got the chance.
Grayson glared at Camden’s house again. A light shone in the kitchen, and his stomach rumbled as he pictured Cam cooking in there.
He needed food, and he needed a shower. Abandoning the tomato plants, he headed for the door. He stopped by the raised bed closest to his house and plucked some lettuce and carefully pulled a couple of turnips from the soil. He wasn’t a big fan of turnips, but since he was challenging himself not to buy any vegetables, he needed early and fast-growing kinds, and turnips, sadly, fit the bill. Roasted turnips weren’t bad, and he’d thawed some chicken to go with them.
Peeling, rinsing, and chopping, he soon had the food in the oven and rushed into the bathroom for a quick shower. The day melted away with the suds running down his body, and he groaned as he rolled his head to loosen his tense neck muscles. He’d been painting ceilings all day and looking up for hours on end caused strain.
Turning off the water, he stepped out of the shower stall and grabbed a towel. He dried his face and looked into the misty mirror, unable to see anything. Reaching over to the window, he pushed it open. The cool air wrapping around him made him shiver and right as he was about to step away from the window, he spotted movement in the garden. Camden.
His fair hair shone in the dark as he squatted and— Grayson cursed as he pulled something from the garden bed. Oh, hell no!
The bathroom door banged against the wall as he pushed it open. He ran down the stairs, crossed the kitchen, and yanked the door open. His bare feet hit the gravel path between the raised beds, but he couldn’t let the pain of the small stones digging into his feet stop him.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The towel caught in one of the rosebushes. Grayson yanked, but when it didn’t come loose, he dropped it. “Leave those tomatoes be!”
Camden stood, his eyes wide and his mouth open as he looked Grayson up and down. “Grayson.” His voice wasn’t more than a whisper, and Grayson noted he looked a little disheveled—Cam never looked disheveled. He was a suit and tie kind of person. His hair always cut at a perfect length and his hands always clean. Long slim fingers with neatly cut nails. Grayson spent more time secretly watching those hands than any sane person should.
“Don’t kill the volunteer plants.”
Camden frowned. “The what?”
“The self-sown plants, don’t touch them.”
Camden stared at him. “Aren’t you… erm… cold?”
Heat climbed Grayson’s face, but he hoped it was too dark for Cam to notice. “Don’t kill the plants.”
“It was in the wrong place.”
“There is no wrong place. If it’s there, it’s because nature wants it there, so leave it be.”
“Nature wants—”
“Put it back.”
Camden’s back stiffened. “I will not put it back.” He twisted his fingers and snapped the plant.
Grayson growled, curling his hands into fists and taking deep breaths. “It could’ve given us plenty of tomatoes.”
“It was in the wrong place.”
“There is no wrong place!”
About Holly Day
According to Holly Day, no day should go by uncelebrated and all of them deserve a story. If she’ll have the time to write them remains to be seen. She lives in rural Sweden with a husband, four children, more pets than most, and wouldn’t last a day without coffee.
Holly gets up at the crack of dawn most days of the week to write gay romance stories. She believes in equality in fiction and in real life. Diversity matters. Representation matters. Visibility matters. We can change the world one story at the time.
Connect with Holly on social media:
Website • Facebook • Twitter • Pinterest • BookBub • Goodreads • Newsletter
Thank you, Holly for stopping by today and sharing your new release! ❤️
And make sure to check back in tomorrow when Nell Iris stops by to tell us all about Strike a Pose, her contribution to our World Naked Gardening story project.
You can also learn about all the books that are part of this project in one place by clicking on the image below.
