New Release: Colt's Obsession, HC Brown

H.C. Brown has done it again!  A new release! For lovers of hot M/M Romance, H.C.'s books are right on target.  Be sure and grab a copy.  You won't be disappointed!

Colt's Obsession

Buy link: http://www.lsbooks.com/colt-s-obsession-p764.php

Time travel, mistaken identity, and intrigue will keep you reading H.C. Brown’s newest romance novel. Can two men, one a modern American hunk, the other living in the past, literally, come together to find a place, and more importantly, a time where love and happiness triumph? Colt’s Obsession is an explosive, must read.

Excerpt:
Colt’s Obsession

H. C. Brown


Chapter 1

Colt Daniels lifted his bidder’s card. “Thirty thousand.”

“The bid is thirty thousand pounds. Come now, ladies and gentlemen, this portrait of Lord Alexander Swift by Benjamin West is dated 1775 and is in extraordinarily fine condition.” The auctioneer at Sotheby’s surveyed the silent crowd with a critical gaze.

Taking a casual pose, Colt flicked his gaze to the opposing bidder. The man in the slick Italian business suit met his gaze with a slow smile. Colt lifted his chin and stared at the painting. From the moment he had laid eyes on the portrait of the handsome young man in the Sotheby’s catalogue, he had wanted to buy the painting. Lord Alexander Swift’s troubled gaze held a distant loneliness, as if reaching out to Colt across the centuries.

A strange twist of fate had brought him to London in the form of an inheritance on his thirtieth birthday. A distant relative had bequeathed him the townhouse once owned by Lord Swift in Berkeley Square. The will came with explicit instructions on renovation and repair of the old building. Over the past year, he had restored the house to its former glory and now required this painting to complete the task. During the years Lord Swift had owned the property, the painting had hung at the top of the stairs, facing the front door. For some unexplained reason, Colt had a compelling desire to finish the house by restoring the painting to its original position, in time for the anniversary of Alexander’s death on June fourth.

“Forty thousand.” The man in the suit lifted his bidder’s card.

Colt sighed. With his fortune to back him and the prestige of being the owner of some of the most famous galleries around the world, he rarely had people bid against him for very long. They should know better. If Colt Daniels wanted a painting, Colt Daniels would go to any price to secure a purchase. He cleared his throat. “Seventy thousand pounds.” He shot the opposing bidder a cold stare.

After the usual pause, the hammer came down and Colt moved to the clerk to settle the account. “Have it shipped to 42 Berkeley Square, Mayfair.” He turned and strolled back to the painting to gaze at Alexander.

Warmth pooled around Colt’s heart. He touched the man’s pale cheeks, tracing a finger over the long, blond curls, tied back in a queue. The young man appeared to be about eighteen in the portrait, slight of build with delicate features, yet Colt’s research revealed West had completed the portrait on Swift’s twenty-fifth birthday, the day he had inherited great wealth and lands from his father. Colt rubbed his chin. One would think His Lordship should be overjoyed on such an occasion, and yet Alexander’s blue gaze followed him with heart-wrenching sadness.

“West has captured the essence of his subject, don’t you think?”

Colt turned to see Business Suit gazing at him with a friendly smile. “Essence?”

“My name is Jake Williams. You may have heard of me?” replied Business Suit in a cultured Boston accent.

“Can’t say that I have, sorry.”

“Ah—so you don’t know about the letters.” Jake Williams inclined his head toward the portrait. “The love letters between Alexander and the Honorable David Fitzhugh. In a time when the crime of sodomy held the death penalty, to write love letters to a man … my God, can you imagine the implications?”

Colt straightened his shoulders. “You have these letters?”

“I most certainly do! Copies of the original documents are in my book, The Gay Lords.” Jake took a card from his jacket and gave it to Colt. “I know you’re restoring Alexander’s house; perhaps we could meet over lunch and I’ll give you the details I didn’t put into print.”

In truth, Colt craved information about Alexander. Living in the young lord’s house and seeing each room as if through Alexander’s eyes, Swift had become his obsession. With a laugh, he met Jake’s hazel eyes. “I’m free now.”

“Great, how about having lunch at The Square? It’s a great restaurant.” Jake smiled. “We can walk from here.”

“Sure.” Colt followed him out of the foyer into the busy street, and they turned in the direction of Bruton Street. “So how did you come by the letters?”

“I bought them, along with a few other sundry items, at an auction—in Boston, of all places.” Jake fell into step beside Colt. “At first I thought they were written by a woman until I researched the names. Most of them begin with ‘my love’ or ‘my dearest’, so until I took note of the addressee … well, what a bombshell.”

“How did the letters end up in the States?”

“I believe, due to the anti-sodomite movement at the time, Fitzhugh took flight to America.” Jake sighed. “Of course, there is no proof he fled England under suspicion of sodomy. Nothing I researched points to him having a gay lover during his life. I do know he joined the colonists in the War of Independence and died in Boston in 1790.” He stopped outside a bookstore. “Look, I’ll grab a copy of my book. You must see the portrait of David Fitzhugh.”

Colt stared into the shop window, his gaze not focusing on any item. His mind reeled. Even in this enlightened world, homophobia caused misery and distrust. He reflected on his own youth. Sure, he had taken his share of beatings from the local thugs, but now at six-five and built like a linebacker, no one crossed him. On the contrary, the beatings and the snide remarks had made him more resolute to succeed in everything he did. He respected love in all forms. Gay, straight—who the fuck cared as long as that wonderful connection happened between two consenting adults? He almost felt sorry for people who could not see love if it hit them smack in the face. So many refused to recognize or understand that the sweet love between two men, or women for that matter, held the same deep emotion as straight love. Anger welled from deep inside fueled by the oppression he knew Alexander would have endured during his life. Those twisted sons-of-bitches would not have understood how cruel they were to deny the freedom to express love without prejudice.

In Alexander’s time, for a gentleman to touch a man’s arm or cast a suggestive look could lead to prosecution for sodomy, a hanging offense. God knows, in those days they used the sodomy accusation to destroy many people’s lives.

“You gotta see this.” Jake thrust a book into Colt’s hand. “Kinda spooky, don’t you think?”

Colt gazed at the glossy illustration. A trickle of ice slid down his spine. The portrait of the Honorable David Fitzhugh depicted a tall, muscular man with dark, flowing hair—and the royal blue eyes that stared back at him were his own.

Contest! Storm Grant - Few Are Chosen (Riptide Publishing)

Read Widely and Well

Penguin’s Book Country website—a place where authors seeking publication can post bits of their books—has a nifty map showing all the genres they think are out there. According to them, I write Comic Fantasy. Huh. Who knew?

And when I click on the little button for Comic Fantasy, it does feature authors who have influenced my writing over the years: Christopher Moore, Sir Terry Pratchett, Piers Antony, etc.

My latest book, FEW ARE CHOSEN, features two young “Chosen Ones” sent to slay a rogue demon. At first they clash, but then find they work well together.  And then they discover they do other things well together. First kill, first kiss, first time. It’s funny, but also poignant; it will take you back to your own awkward first time.

Genre-wise, it’s m/m, humor, urban fantasy, YA and also interracial. A little something for everyone. And since it falls into five different genres or sub-genres, it’s a good thing I read outside my genre.

At a recent meeting of my RWA chapter, one of the speakers asked the room of about 60 attendees if they read outside the romance genre. I raised my hand and looked around, shocked, at the small percentage of other hands up in the room.

Then she asked if people read outside their chosen romantic SUB-genre, such as paranormal romance, romantic suspense, contemporary. Again, few hands went up.

I understand that it’s important for an author to familiarize herself with her chosen genre—even to immerse herself when writing. But one should also read outside that genre—you never know what you could be writing next. Or where your next ideas and influences will come from.

Me? I read across genres looking for humor. I can’t wait for the next Discworld (Terry Pratchett) or

Stephanie Plum (Janet Evanovich) novels to come out. I love Mary Janice Davidson’s Queen Betsey series, and anything by Christopher Moore.

Oddly, since I got the e-reader, I've read more mainstream books than ebooks.

So how ‘bout you? Do you tend to read widely outside a chosen genre? Do you read any m/m that strikes your fancy, from historical to paranormal? Or exclusively within one category? Do you then also read m/f or ménage?

What were the last few books you read?

Storm Grant (also writing as Gina X. Grant)

Email / Website / Blog / Twitter / Facebook / Goodreads

---------------

BLURB:

FEW ARE CHOSEN by Storm Grant

Sparks fly between virgin teenage demon hunters when the Chosen One turns out to be… the Chosen Two?

Apprentice warrior Blake St. Blake is the Chosen One, raised by an ancient order to defend the world against evil. Well, maybe not the whole world, but at least his neighborhood in downtown Detroit.

When a dreaded reflux demon is sighted in a local cemetery, Blake is sent off to his very first battle, armed with his sword, his super-senses, his black leather duster, and a few well-rehearsed one-liners.

But another Chosen One gets in Blake’s way—an apprentice wizard named Shadow. While the boys argue about who’s the more chosen of the two, the demon escapes.

Blake wants to be angry, but it turns out he and Shadow have a lot in common. Besides, Shadow’s pretty cute, and Blake can’t help but think that the wizard’s skills (and hands and lips and other bits) might make the perfect complement to his. Blake and Shadow are brave enough to challenge the reflux demon in a second battle, but will they have the courage to tell each other how they feel?

Title Details

Publisher: Riptide Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-937551-22-3

eBook release: Feb 20 2012

eBook formats: pdf, mobi, html, epub

Word count: ~12,000

Page count: ~40

Heat Wave: On-screen, mildly explicit love scenes

Type: Standalone

eBook   $2.99  

Contest:

Play The Name Game for FEW IS CHOSEN and win a copy of ALL THREE of these entertaining books from Storm Grant’s backlist: Gym Dandy, Shift Happens, and Tart and Soul. (Two full-length novels and a novella!)

1. What is Shadow’s real first name? ___  ___  ___  ___

2. What is Shadow’s mentor’s first name? ___  ___  ___  ___  ___

3. What is the name of the Order that raised and trained Blake? The Order of the ___  ___  ___  ___

How to enter: DO NOT POST YOUR ANSWERS! Instead, to qualify:

1. Email your answers to the three questions, above, to storm.grant@gmail.com.

2.  Then post a comment to this blog stating that you’ve emailed your entry.

You may enter once for each stop on the blog tour, thereby increasing your chances of being the grand prize winner!

One grand prize winner will be selected March 5^th.

Blog tour, details here.

Anne Brooks - The Heart’s Greater Silence Comment to Win

Yes, you read right!  The details are the bottom of the post.  

And now, with great pleasure, I give you Anne Brooks.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Heart’s Greater Silence started out a few years ago with the first scene floating round my head trying to find somewhere to settle. All I can see is a man, mid twenties or so, walking down a dark street in the shadows of London. I don’t know who he is, or where he’s going to. He’s alone. He’s bitter about what’s happened with the bloke he’s just left. The bloke he’s supposed to be with. I think he might be smoking and I don’t know his name yet.

If he does light up, it doesn’t last for long as the rain makes the cigarette go out, and he throws it away, treading it underfoot. Whatever’s happened, he thinks it’s typical and he deserves it. He walks down the shadow of the street and I follow him, uncertain how close I can get, then he turns the corner and he’s gone.

At this point there are three choices I can make: I can keep at his heels and find out where he’s going and if he’ll take me with him; or I can walk away, file the experience as interesting while it lasted but not worth further commitment; or I can file it away for mulling over and bringing out again.

Sometimes, however, the character makes the choice for me. This was one of those occasions. I didn’t even know his name, though I did know I couldn’t completely follow him right then – there were too many things going on in my life at the time, too many books to write or stories to edit. But the nameless man was too strong to be forgotten. So I filed him away for remembering and thinking about to see if he fit in with any of my other projects or if he deserved his own story.

I even at one time thought he might be Michael, the gay hooker and artist from my thriller, A Dangerous Man. But although they were similar in lots of ways, the circumstances and the feel of the walking man simply felt different.

It was only years later when I was trying to think of a story I could submit to Riptide Publishing that the man I’d imagined came back to me again. This time I knew he wasn’t someone from another of my stories. This time I knew his story was his own and I could discover both his name and his character by using the themes that had recently become important to me: religion; faith; love; and obsession.

So I started with that scene where he’s walking away from a man, someone he knows and cares for, and began to write the story of where, or who, he might be going towards. It was strange, but for the first time I can remember I started to write without knowing his name. And it didn’t matter. I knew he’d tell me when he was good and ready.

And he did. In a conversation with the man he was walking towards with all that overwhelming desire and reluctance in his blood, he finally tells me, and I know then there’ll be more to discover. Far more than one story can convey.

His name is Mark.

Okay everyone, 

Here are the guidelines from Anne about this blog tour.

She has one contest per stop - with the prize being a backlist ebook giveaway for one commenter.

She  also has a cumulative competition throughout the blog tour involving answering 3 questions from HGS - with the prize being 3 backlist ebooks for one commenter from the tour as a whole. The questions are

• (a) What item of his trade is Richard wearing when Mark sees him in church? 
• (b) When Craig discovers Mark and Richard together, what does he do just before leaving? 
• (c) What action does Mark take at the end of the story?

Also one signed cover flat and magnet for one commenter per stop - with this NOT being the winner of Item 1 (see above)

One gift certificate to be drawn at the end of the tour - with this NOT being the winner of Item 2 (see above).

LvZ - Amber Green - Dead Kitties Don't Purr

Next installment of the Lesbian versus Zombies Romances from Noble Romance!  My good friend, Amber Green's awesome book, Dead Kitties Don't Purr, is out TODAY!

Comment to win a free LvZ tee shirt!!!

Leave your email and we will send a shirt to one lucky winner. 

 
People who take their shots and do as they're told have nothing to fear. Right? Right.

The Rabies Z epidemic began and ended in Miami this past summer, didn't it? And that guy my daddy saw at the Jacksonville airport last week was just having an epileptic fit. No cause for alarm. Epilepsy always causes an eighteen-hour hazmat shutdown at a major airport.

So while my twin tours to flog her newest album, here I am, Camie Invisible, parked at this nice, safe college—as far as I can get from the infection and still pay in-state tuition. Only now, my studies have become focused on the fascinating Risa Ruiz. And she has eyes for me.





Purchase Link:  https://www.nobleromance.com/Books/388/Dead-Kitties-Don%27t-Purr


Amber's Website:  www.shapeshiftersinlust.com


Isn't this the purrfect time for the zombies to show up?

Ava March– My True Love Gave to Me

A while back, in the back of my mind, where the muse runs amuck, I toyed with the idea of writing a book with young lovers. I wanted to explore the purity and intensity of emotion that comes with first love and that accompanying complete devastation when everything goes to hell. Sasha and Thomas popped into my head. Sasha, confident in his desires and head-over-heels in love with Thomas. And Thomas, unable to resist Sasha, yet very conflicted about his desires for him. A situation poised to blow up in Sasha’s face. I also knew the guys would reconnect years later once Thomas had come to terms with his desires and realized he loves Sasha. I was so enamored with the characters I did something I don’t do often – I immediately started their book. And shortly into it, hit a wall.

You see, I’m a muller. Oh, and a plotter. It takes many, many months (usually over a year) to go from idea to starting a book. During that time in between, the details work themselves out, chapters plot themselves, the characters become fully formed, etc. I know exactly how a book will go, how each scene will play out, when I start chapter 1. But as I soon found out with My True Love Gave to Me, I started it too early. I hadn’t figured out enough to fill a book. So it got shelved and I moved onto writing other stories. Likely Thomas and Sasha would have stayed shelved indefinitely, stuck in stuck, if not for a call from my agent with an opportunity to be part of Carina’s holiday anthology.

I swear, a light bulb went off above my head. Everything clicked, all the missing details, the missing scenes, filled themselves in. The holidays – when people celebrate the season with those they love. The significance of the timing when everything hits the fan and then later, when Thomas returns to England for Sasha, and how that timing affects Sasha’s feelings about the holidays. The theme of family, love, home, and forgiveness of the season. I was also in the process of pulling together the proposal for the Brook Street trilogy, and right there, I had the secondary characters that had been lacking in the idea for My True Love Gave to Me.

I love those moments when everything clicks. Where the picture comes into full, perfect focus. It’s frustrating as all get out when something gets stuck, but I’ve found that trying to use a big old pry bar doesn’t work. Patience is what works. Thomas and Sasha were meant to be a holiday story. Trying to rush them got me nowhere. I needed to hold onto my patience and wait for that perfect moment when everything would click into place. Just as Thomas needed to hold onto his patience in My True Love Gave to Me. The reward, earning Sasha’s forgiveness and love, was definitely well worth it for Thomas.

Blurb:

Alexander Norton loathes the festive season. The revelry of the ton is a reminder of Christmas four years ago, when his first love, Thomas Bennett, broke his heart and fled to New York without a word. So when he encounters Thomas at a holiday ball, Alexander is determined not to let on how much he still hurts.

Thomas has returned for one reason only: Alexander. Having finally come to terms with his forbidden desires, he will do whatever he must to convince Alexander to give their love another chance. But instead of the happy, carefree man Thomas once knew, Alexander is now hard and cynical. Saddened to know he's to blame for the man's bitterness, Thomas resolves to reignite the passion he knows lies hidden behind the wall of disdain...


Excerpt – a glimpse of young love…before it all hits the fan:

Thomas gave his greatcoat a tug to straighten it. “How did the cards treat you?” he asked, every trace of hesitation gone and as casual as could be, as if Alexander wasn’t on the verge of tackling him right there, the butler standing guard at the front door be damned.

“Didn’t leave behind any vowels.”

“That’s good to hear.”

A frown threatened to pull his lips. “No need to sound surprised. Or relieved. I can hold my own in a game of cards.”

“Didn’t mean to imply you couldn’t. Just…” Thomas shrugged.

“I know. You don’t much care for cards. But as far as vices go, it’s not that bad of one.” Most every man in London gambled, to the point where it was an expected way to pass the hours. Given that Thomas always did what was expected of him, one would think he would have no qualms at all joining him at the card tables. But rather than allow Thomas’s disapproval to dampen his spirits, he threw the man a smile. “You could do with a bit of vice yourself, Bennett.”

He received an arch of a dark brow. “I have plenty of that—” Thomas lowered his voice, “—thanks to you, Sasha.”
Alexander’s breath caught. He briefly closed his eyes in an effort to rein in the sudden surge of lust, to keep it hidden from view.

Absolutely wasted effort.

And damnation, Thomas had deliberately added the Sasha to torment him. Thomas well knew what effect it would have on him. After Alexander mentioned his grandmother was from Russia, Thomas had started calling him Sasha…when they were alone, of course. Thomas was the only person who referred to him that way. He was Alexander to his family, Norton to his acquaintances, and Sasha to Thomas. A name owned solely by the man he loved. A name that seemed designed to be whispered in a heated rush against his lips.

A cool draft of air swept into the entrance hall as the butler opened the front door. “Mr. Norton, your carriage.”
It was all he could do not to dart out the door. His father’s black town carriage stood at the ready at the foot of the stone steps. Another one of their hostess’s footmen had the door already open. Rather than immediately enter, he paused to give the direction to the driver then followed Thomas inside, settling on the black leather bench opposite him.

The door snapped shut.

“Why are we going to Drury Lane Theatre?” Thomas asked.

“We aren’t.” He closed the shade on the window in the narrow door, cloaking the interior in almost full darkness. “I needed to give the driver a direction and it will do as good as any.”
The carriage lurched forward.

“But—?”

Alexander pounced on Thomas, cutting off his words.

Knees straddling muscular thighs and with his hands cupping that strong jaw, he pressed his lips to Thomas’s. Greedy and impatient, he flicked his tongue against the seam of Thomas’s lips.

With a groan, Thomas opened his mouth. A silken tongue brushed his own.

Hot and intense, sensation washed over him, filling his chest, his heart, his soul. A moan shook his throat.

By God, it was only like this with Thomas. No other had ever come close to rousing these feelings within him. Making his pulse pound through his veins and need claw desperately at his throat. This was where he belonged. With Thomas. In the man’s arms.

Links:

My True Love Gave to Me: Carina Press http://ebooks.carinapress.com/6EAAF2CB-6F0B-47C9-A079-B6B66A1AC2BA/10/134/en/ContentDetails.htm?ID=82082B89-BC09-46C1-AB7B-AAE34F1604A7

My True Love Gave to Me: Amazon Kindle http://www.amazon.com/My-True-Love-Gave-ebook/dp/B005Z1C2X2/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_10

My True Love Gave to Me: Barnes & Noble Nook http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/my-true-love-gave-to-me-ava-march/1106954529?ean=9781426892820&itm=10&usri=ava%2bmarch

Men Under the Mistletoe Holiday Anthology – Carina Press http://ebooks.carinapress.com/6EAAF2CB-6F0B-47C9-A079-B6B66A1AC2BA/10/134/en/ContentDetails.htm?ID=93C5B397-AE8D-441F-B471-AA3F267F77C6

Author Bio:

Ava March is an author of smoking hot M/M historical erotic romances. She loves writing in the Regency time period, where proper decorum is of the utmost importance, but where anything can happen behind closed doors.

She is published with Loose Id, Carina Press, Amber Quill Press, and Samhain Publishing.

Please visit her on the web at www.AvaMarch.com. She can also be found at www.avamarch.blogspot.com , www.facebook.com/avamarchbooks/ and www.twitter.com/ava_march .

Heidi Cullinan and The Seventh Veil

The story of how I came to write the Etsey books is actually congruent to my journey to writing m/m. I started The Seventh Veil as a short Regency romance called Miss Elliott’s Indiscretion, and yes, it was het. I was also pregnant at the time, and I delivered before I finished, so edits and revisions took place when I had the time, which was to say, rarely. Over the years the story followed my evolution through a sometimes too-rigorous study of craft, and so I kept retooling the story, trying to make it better. It slipped into the paranormal, eventually lost its historical setting and jumped headfirst into fantasy, and yet it still didn’t seem right.

In the meantime, I’d written another story, a contemporary, where a gay secondary character had taken over and claimed the main conflict line, including an out and in-your-face romance. I was in love. Writing that story was like coming home, and I realized pretty quickly on it was because I was writing about gay men. Buoyed by that idea, I turned back to my paranormal morass and said, what if that was the same story here? What if Charles was the main character, and what if he was gay? Except as I looked at him, really looked at him, I thought, no, he’s bisexual. And it was as if, once I truly saw him, the story knew how to move.

When I first wrote The Seventh Veil, even in its current incarnation, I thought it was a single book. I didn’t know who Timothy and Charles really were. I had no idea the layers I’d put into this cake. And then when I got to the end which wasn’t an end but the beginning of a longer, more complicated story, I sat back on my heels and stared for a long, long time. I felt like I’d fought my way to the bottom of a treasure chest only to discover a trap door into a huge cavern. On the one hand, how wonderful! On the other hand, holy shit, this is going to be a lot of work.

The Etsey series is a lot of work. I won’t lie. High fantasy is hard — I want it to be accessible and real. I want it to be fun. I want it to be sexy, because that’s what I do. A series like this isn’t a network of single stories but a long, long arc of many stories. The challenge is to keep it from getting too complicated to follow but to also keep it changing and interesting.

The current book, The Pirate’s Game, is the third installment and is one I’ve waited eagerly to write for a long, long time. That is probably why it’s given me more fits than anything else and has reduced me to literal tears and made me, for the first time ever, have to move a publication date because I couldn’t get it done on time. It challenges me, it pushes me, and it won’t let me off easy. The payoff for meeting that challenge has been amazing and very fun. I mean, how can it not be? Pirates. Vicious mermaids. Epic battles, role reversals, twists, turns, and, um, PIRATES.

I’ve said before, and it’s true, that the Etsey series is kind of my Lord of the Rings. It’s big, it’s crazy, it’s epic, and it wraps up a lot of things I love to talk about in one story. It also makes me grow as a writer like nothing else I’ve ever done.

I hope you check out the Etsey series yourself. You can read excerpts, watch trailers, and more at the website www.etseynovels.com. And if you’re feeling lucky, leave a comment on this post to win a chance for all three of the current novels in a format of your choice.

Thanks to Jadette for hosting me! Happy reading, everyone.

***

Heidi has always loved a good love story, provided it has a happy ending. She enjoys writing across many genres but loves above all to write happy, romantic endings for LGBT characters because there just aren’t enough of those stories out there.  When she isn’t writing, Heidi enjoys knitting, reading, movies, TV shows on DVD, and all kinds of music.  She has a husband, a daughter, and too many cats.

Find out more at  www.heidicullinan.com, follow her on Twitter, or sign up for her newsletter.

Mary Calmes and the 53k word picture

First off, I want to thank Jadette for having me on her blog. I appreciate it so much and the opportunity to talk about inspiration. Sometimes it all starts with an image. I saw this picture titled Our Path on Dan Skinner’s site a year ago. And I was instantly struck by how much the tall cowboy with the hat looked like Rand Holloway, my rancher from Timing, and how much the smaller, blonder man resembled Stefan Joss. I commented on Dan’s account at deviantART (http://cerberuseros.deviantart.com/) and thought that was the end of it.

It wasn’t the end of it.

Things settle in your brain, in your subconscious, and the more I thought about it the more I started to wonder if Timing was complete. I had never planned to write a sequel to it. I figured that I left them, Stef and Rand, with their HEA so why revisit? But that picture got my plot bunnies all stirred up and the harder I tried to push them away the more persistent they became until lo and behold, I had a dragon. Amy Lane wrote a poem called The Dragon In My Blood (http://writerslane.blogspot.com/2009/04/dragon-in-my-blood.html) that really resonated with me. I feel, as she does, that the dragon sits between the ventricles in my heart and when it roars, like a muse on crack, I write because if I don’t, and I know it sounds dramatic, I’ll get eaten alive.

My husband can always tell if I haven’t written all day when he gets home from work. He’ll squint at me and ask what I wrote and when I say nothing, zilch, nada, not a word; he’ll nod because yeah, he figured. If everything that was in my brain got out, I’m sort of empty and ready to focus on something else. If I didn’t, then there are voices and ideas and pictures and words cluttering up my mind and nothing else happens. And there are real world concerns, dinner for family, homework, activities for the kids, just stuff that as a mother, I do, but if I haven’t written, I do them in a sort of zombie fog because I am not engaged. I’m in my head. Characters are there and because they are, I’m not. So, it’s best if my writing gets done so I can be wife and mommy and not just out to lunch.

So there was this picture of Rand and Stef on Dan’s site that was now burned into my brain and the dragon was riding me to start even as I was really trying to finish Bulletproof. But there was nothing I could do. I worry that I need to have better sticktoitiveness but again, it’s the damn dragon. I kept going back to the picture and thinking about Stefan Joss. I re-read Timing and was struck by what Rand had done for Stef, his faith and love but what had Stef done for him, really, except move? Rand was the one who had to come out, he was the one brave enough to be the man he wanted to be, but what was Stef’s part? As I looked at the picture, I wondered about them and then the story began to take shape. The thing is you never know what will bring on a plot bunny and especially when one of these cute fluffy creatures will morph into a dragon. I am grateful though because from that photo, After the Sunset came to be. And I was ecstatic when I got to have the picture for the cover of the novella.

http://marycalmesbooks.blogspot.com/

After the Sunset 

 “Stef.”

I lifted my eyes, and he caught me in his blue gaze.

“Put your head down.”

I stretched out, laid my head on his bicep, and slid my denim clad leg over his thigh.

He grunted. “You know, I know why you don‘t wanna use the joint checking account.”

And just like that, we were back to our earlier discussion.

I was quiet because I didn‘t want to fight. I had worked all my life, depended on no one but myself for anything. My stepfather had thrown me out when I was fourteen. My mother had stood there and watched, slamming the door in my face. When I had pounded on the door to be let back in, it was thrown open and the beating had commenced. And while I had no worry that Rand would ever physically hurt me, there was still the possibility that if he ever got tired of me, learned to hate me, that I could be put out of my home. I could never allow that to happen to me again. Money was my security net, money I made myself.

“Hello?”

“Rand, I don‘t wanna talk about ––”

“I won‘t ever tell you to pack your things and go, Stef.”

He knew me so well, knew all the fears that rode me.

“I swear it.”

“Rand––”

“I won‘t.”

“Just––”

“Believe me. Believe in me. Stefan… please.”

God, the man knew I doubted him, doubted his love, the depth of it, the forever of it, and still he loved me.

“I know you love me, and I know you wanna be here, and I know you still worry.”

Shit.

“Look at me.”

I rolled my head sideways, and we were eye to eye, only inches separating us. It was very intimate; there was no hiding that close.

“If you want, I can take my name off the joint account, and it can just be yours, and that way you‘ll know it can never be taken from you. I‘ll still put money in it, but I won‘t touch it at all. Would that be better?”

“That‘s what‘s called being kept, Rand, and no… that would not be better in the least.”

“Fuck,” he grumbled. “I don‘t mean it like––”

“I know how you meant it,” I assured him. “It‘s a very generous offer.”

“Christ, now you‘re making it sound dirty,” he groaned, and I sat up as he moved his hands, raking them through his thick hair.

“Very generous for a guy like me.” I smiled, turning to look down at him, waggling my eyebrows. “A man with my background.”

“Stefan.” He warned me.

“A guy from the wrong side of the tracks.”

“It ain‘t funny.”

“It‘s a little funny,” I chuckled.

“You don‘t… you ain‘t hearin‘ me,” he said, and my laughter died in my throat when his voice cracked. He sat up beside me, crossing his legs so his left knee bumped me. “For a long time, all the guys would go home at night to their wives and their children and lit-up houses that smelled like food and got to hear all the good and all the bad that happened that day. I used to go home, and there weren‘t none of that.”

“Rand,” I began, putting my hand on his knee.

“Lemme finish,” he said gently, taking my hand, sliding his fingers between mine, pressing my palm against him. “After you came, though, suddenly I‘m just as excited to go home as everybody else. I open my front door and the music is on, and the lights are on, and the place smells amazing, and goddamn, Stef, even when I was married before, it wasn‘t like that. Even if you‘re runnin‘ late and I get in first, just you walkin‘ in the house makes it feel different. And I get it, ya know? You‘re it, you‘re my home.”

I looked away because I was nothing. I was an orphan, and he had a home and a family and a ranch and everyone counting on him, and I was just… how could Rand want to build on me? How was I a foundation for anything?

“Hey.”

I turned back, slowly, taking a breath.

His hand went to my cheek, his thumb sliding over my bottom lip, and I saw the warmth infuse his eyes, saw them darken, soften, because he was looking at me.

“You don‘t really know what you did today, so I‘m gonna tell you.”

I nodded because my voice was gone.

“When you told me that you weren‘t gonna look for a job in Dallas, I knew for sure you wanted to stay with me and have a home.”

My focus became breathing.

“I mean, before that, when you were runnin‘ back and forth, doin‘ all that driving, well, maybe you were tryin‘ to keep one foot in your old life and one in your new one, ya know?”

I did know and that was exactly what I had been doing.

“I saw you needin‘ air. Saw you gettin‘ all panicky ‘cause your life was fallin‘ into place around you. The happier you got, the more you started fittin‘ in and gettin‘ comfortable, the more you started pacin‘ like an animal that was caged up. You were snappin‘ at everyone, ready to bite and scratch to get away, and sick that you had to. I ain‘t never seen a man who so wanted to belong and who was scared to, all at the same time. It makes me tired just watchin‘ you wrestle with yourself.”

I cleared my throat. “So I‘m a crazy person who––”

“Just… hush. You showed me how it was gonna be ‘cause when it was time to decide, you chose me and the ranch and your life here.”

He narrowed his eyes, and as he squinted, I saw how red-rimmed they were. I had no idea that anything I could ever do would touch him so deeply.

“It‘s why I can barely keep my hands off you. That‘s why I attacked you in your office today, ‘cause it‘s your office. It‘s where you‘re fixin‘ to be because of me.”

I finally understood. To Rand, until he physically saw the reality of my new job, he had not let himself believe it. To me, the space, my cubicle at the community college, was a dump. To Rand, it represented me putting down roots.

“You told me that you wanted to belong to me, and today I believe it.”

I looked away from him because my eyes filled and my vision blurred with hot tears.

“Along with workin‘ there at the college, I still want you to oversee the Grillmaster account, you hear?”

I nodded.

“And if it don‘t work out for you at the school, you can just do that, all right?”

But how would that work?

“Are you afraid of how it will look to everyone if you work at the ranch?”

That was some of it, I would admit to that. “People will think I‘m sponging off you,” I said to the creek instead of Rand.

“But you‘ll know different.”

“I just can‘t be a ––”

“Soon no one will wonder why you‘re on the ranch, once we have kids.”

Wait. Kids?

What? “What?” I asked breathlessly, my head swiveling around to look at him. God, when had I missed him planning his whole life with me in it?

“You‘ll have to stay home and take care of them.”

Even though he had said kids before, in the past, all I had ever heard was child. But I processed the word that time. Kids. As in plural. As in more than one. As in them.

When had he decided that he wanted to have children with me? “I have no idea what you‘re even talking about right now. You ––”

“I wanted you to practice takin‘ care of me so you‘ll be ready to take care of your children, and I was so scared that you wouldn‘t. I was thinkin‘ just maybe you were ready to leave me, but then you took this job so you could keep on seein‘ me and cookin‘ for me and––”

“I am not your wife!” I yelled at him. “And I won‘t be made to take on the role of––”

“I know that, but you have to get ready to take care of your children!”

My children?

“You‘re gonna be the one who picks ‘em up from school every day. You‘ll be the one who helps ‘em with their homework and watches them wash up and makes their dinner. I‘ll be the one who plays with ‘em and watches TV and talks to ‘em at the dinner table. I‘ll be their father, and you‘ll be––”

“Oh God.‖ I couldn‘t breathe.

“I asked Charlotte if she would be inclined to help us start our family, and she said she‘d help ‘cause she always wanted to have babies with you anyhow.”

Jesus Christ, the man was planning on putting me into a Norman Rockwell painting. “Rand––”

“No! I will not discuss this with you. The time to talk is over and done. When you asked me if I wanted you and I said yes, I started planning my whole life right then. When you lost your job, you decided to only look as far as Lubbock for a new one so you could come home every night to me. That tells me all I need to know, Stef.”

Running was easy; staying was hard.

“I ain‘t tryin‘ to take anything from you, least of all your freedom.”

“I know,” I told him as he pulled me close. I ended up lying between his legs, my back curled into his chest, his arms draped across my collarbone.

“I drive you nuts, huh?”

“You make me fuckin‘ crazy.”

“I‘m sorry.” I snickered because I wasn‘t at all. He had to deal with me, thorns and all.

“No, you ain‘t.”

“Rand––”

“I love you.”

I turned and looked at him over my shoulder.

“Don‘t ever leave me. I won‘t recover, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” He exhaled, like he had been holding his breath. “Christ, you‘re a giant pain in the ass.”

There could be no argument. 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Links:

After the Sunset

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=55_191&products_id=2478

Dan Skinner

http://cerberuseros.deviantart.com/

Amy Lane

http://writerslane.blogspot.com/2009/04/dragon-in-my-blood.html

Mary Calmes

http://marycalmesbooks.blogspot.com/

Fae Sutherland

Thanks so much for having me on your blog today, Jadette! Blue-Eyed Soul is actually a collaboration between myself and my life partner.  Chelsea and I have written together for our own fun for years, and dabbled once with collaborating on a book.  Since that one book (His Every Breath, 2010 Ellora’s Cave), though, we hadn’t really considered collaborating professionally again, as life got in the way as it tends to do.

Then she and I started talking about how we wanted to move back to Massachusetts eventually, where she’s from and where I lived as a child in the Berkshires. And as we sat around one night waxing poetic to each other about the awesome idea of moving to a small New England town where we would no doubt cuddle in front of the crackling fire (despite neither of us knowing how to work a fireplace) and take sleigh-rides in the snow (even though she hates the cold like poison), an idea began to bounce around my head. About a small Berkshires town and two apparent opposites who had a lot more in common than they thought. A musician and a high school music teacher.  A single father and an international pop star.  Oil and water – my favorite types of couples.  But Nano was coming up in a couple months, I was knee deep in self-editing my next solo book - so I didn’t say anything and figured maybe I could use the idea myself down the road when I had time.

Then Chelsea, who I am pretty sure has been reading my mind when I’m not paying attention, brought up the subject of maybe collaborating again. Well, why the hell not? Who cares about schedules already crammed to the gills? Not us! So I eagerly spilled about the idea I’d been toying with.  I’ve always loved the idea of small town romances, as well as fish out of water stories, and Blue-Eyed Soul combines everything I love into one wonderful package.

There’s the reticent hero who’s protective of not just his family and his heart, but also of his entire hometown. There’s the world-weary pop star who isn’t at all what anyone expects him to be and who just wants a little peace.  And there’s the town of Haven itself, with its myriad characters and odd ducks and just plain awesomeness.  It’s a little bit Gilmore Girls, a little bit It’s A Wonderful Life and a lot of just really great romance. Plus it gave me the chance to write about a gay couple with a child in the mix – because kids are left out of gay romances so often, but they’re very much a part of everyday life, for the GLBT as well as straights.

It was mad, insanely fun, pure giddy joy writing this book.  It was our own private Disneyworld, it was so much fun, and the result is something I’m so confident readers will love as much as we do.

To finish this tale off, I’m including the blurb as well as a brief scene from Blue-Eyed Soul.  It goes on sale January 8^th at Amber Quill Press and Chelsea and I hope you give it a shot.  We think you won’t regret taking a trip to Haven with our heroes. :)

Blurb:

International pop star Remey Dufresne just wants a break from it all. And the idyllic town of Haven, Massachusetts seems to be the perfect spot to reconnect with his small-town roots and recharge. He doesn’t expect special treatment from the people who live there, he just wants a haven of his own…what he doesn’t expect is to fall in love – with the town, with its people, and with the local high school music teacher and his precocious little girl.

Single father Aleksander Kelly is by no means impressed by Remey’s presence. In fact, he’s downright irritated. With the media frenzy invading his hometown and inconveniencing everyone, Aleks would rather Remey just go back to La-La land and leave them all alone. It’s a shame the guy’s so good-looking. And kind. And not at all the celebrity diva Aleks expected.

But the Hollywood machine never stops and fame isn’t something you can just hide from. There’s more than just their hearts on the line when Remey’s obligations and Aleks’s reservations collide.

Excerpt:

Aleks glanced down at his pie, then up to meet Remey’s gaze again. “So the spotlight might be dimming in a week or so. Think you can behave long enough to get rid of them?” Maybe his voice was a little suggestive. 

He had to admit there was a hell of a lot of appeal in the idea of the main protest he had against Remey being gone. If the media feeding frenzy was only temporary, maybe he wouldn’t mind getting to know the resident hot celebrity a little better. Maybe a lot better.

“Why, Aleksander? Are you suggesting there might be something in store for me if I do?” Remey bit his lip, blue eyes warming.

Aleks shot him a heated look. “There might be. If you’re interested.”

Remey’s brows shot up. “If I’m interested? You have no idea.” He glanced around, then leaned in, lowering his voice. “I’m definitely interested. If you hadn’t been sending ‘back off’ signals since the first time I laid eyes on you… Well, we could’ve broken in the brand-new couch in my living room. We still could.”

Aleks laughed. That was another thing he found surprising about Remey. How awkward he could be. It was adorable and, damn it, Aleks had always had a weakness for adorable boys. “Well, there goes all your mystique, Remey. Do you want to take a second to wrap a bow around yourself, too?” he teased.

Remey blushed and wrinkled his nose at Aleks. “Shut up. And maybe. If you’re lucky.”

Aleks snorted. “I think you pretty much just promised me I would be.”

The blush got brighter as Remey seemed to realize what he’d said and how he’d sounded. Remey covered his eyes with one hand. “Jesus. Allison is always telling me I need to develop a filter.” He peeked out between his fingers. “Sorry. Um…shit. Did I really offer to sex you on my couch, like, anytime?”

Aleks laughed, nodding. “You did, indeed. Don’t even think about changing your mind now. No take-backsies.”

They were both laughing pretty hard by then and drawing more than a few stares and finally Aleks reached over and squeezed Remey’s arm. “Shhh. Or we’ll start a scandal and the paparazzi will never leave.”

Bio:

Fae Sutherland has always dreamed of being a published author, starting her writing career off at age 11 with a series of stories so bad only a 6th grader could have written them. She has since progressed to more serious writing, though always keeping that dash of irreverence and fun (and a hell of a lot more heat!).

Fae is perhaps best known for her many books co-written with Marguerite Labbe. Between them they are the award-winning, bestselling authors of over a dozen published novels, novellas and short stories. Fae also writes with Chelsea James. Currently, Fae is focusing her writing on solo work.

When Fae's not working on new stories to make her readers sweat, she spends her time on website design, spending too much time on Twitter, and watching oodles of Food Network with her beloved life partner. If there's any time left over, it's spent snuggling the cat.

You can find out more at Fae’s website:  http://faesutherland.com and you can
follow her on Twitter @faesutherland, or on her blog at http://faesutherland.blogspot.com

Andrea Speed - Story Behind the Josh of the Damned series

I love throwing the fantastic and the mundane together, so putting the mouth of hell and a convenience store side by side seemed like a natural thing to do. I love writing horror, and I love writing comedy, but I have to admit that the task of putting them together can be daunting and very tricky. Still, I love the Evil Dead movies, especially two and three, where they really embraced the humor of the films (the first was, as Joe Bob Briggs -or was it Stephen King? - said, “Spam in a cabin”, i.e. a slaughter-fest), and the end of three, where we see a brief snippet of Ash back at his assistant manager job at the S-Mart, could be looked at as inspiration for the overall Josh of the Damned series. After all, what would happen if Ash had to keep juggling his demon killing “job” with his mundane day job?

A key difference is Josh is no demon killer, nor is he an assistant manager. He’s much lower on the totem pole, and as much as I hate to use the term “slacker”, that’s exactly what Josh is. He works a terrible job that he knows is a terrible job, but it doesn’t require much from him, and since he has no real ambition, that suits him just fine. I’m not sure what my inspiration for Josh is, beyond  simply wondering what an employed drifter might be like. Someone who really doesn’t want responsibility, but needs a check. That’s Josh, who may own a cactus, but certainly not a pet. He’s probably lucky to feed himself most of the time. Like a rock in a river, he’s happy to let life just flow past and over him, except the circumstances at his little crap job force him to become more engaged with the world. A weird world full of zombies and lizard people, but anything less probably wouldn’t have shaken him from his natural torpor. Of course I’ve known people like that, and I have my only tendencies that way as well, but Josh doesn’t like confrontation so much, while I don’t mind at all. 

Even when you don’t want to, life changes, and it forces you to change as well. In a way, that’s what the Josh of the Damned series is all about. Josh doesn’t really want to change, but life is going to make him change, in the strangest (and hopefully funniest) way possible.

Here’s the blurb for Pretty Monsters:

Josh knew the night shift at the Quik-Mart would be full of freaks and geeks—and that was before the hell portal opened in the parking lot. Still, he likes to think he can roll with things. Sure, the zombies make a mess sometimes, but at least they never reach for anything more threatening than frozen burritos.

Besides, it’s not all lizard-monsters and the walking dead. There’s also the mysterious hottie with the sly red lips and a taste for sweets.

Josh has had the hots for Hot Guy since the moment he laid eyes on him, and it seems Hot Guy might be sweet on Josh too. Now if only Josh could figure out whether that’s a good thing, a bad thing, or something in between. After all, with a hell vortex just a stone’s throw away, Josh has learned to take nothing at face value—even if it’s a very, very pretty face.

This title is #1 of the Josh of the Damned series.

If you’d like to read an excerpt and purchase Pretty Monsters, click here.

The second in the series, Peek-A-Boo, is available for pre-sale at Riptide Publishing.

More About Andrea:

Andrea Speed was born looking for trouble in some hot month without an R in it. While succeeding in finding Trouble, she has also been found by its twin brother, Clean Up, and is now on the run, wanted for the murder of a mop and a really cute, innocent bucket that was only one day away from retirement. (I was framed, I tell you - framed!) In her spare time, she arms lemurs in preparation for the upcoming war against the Mole Men. Viva la revolution!

Where you can find Andrea:

Email address: aspeed2@gmail.com

Website

Blog

Twitter

Facebook

Goodreads Page

Kari Gregg - Collared -- The Story Behind the Story

Collared -- The Story Behind the Story

I was raised in central West Virginia and I still go back several times each year to visit my family. Although my parents now live in the next county over (light years and entire universes away from my old stomping grounds), I still run into and hear from/about old friends occasionally. Collared came to be after I bumped into one of those friends. We'll call him Jack. That isn't his real name, but close enough.

Back in high school, Jack was brilliant. He was funny and fun to be around. A much heavier partier than I was (and I was no lightweight). We were bored kids stuck out in the country. We had to drive half an hour to get to a restaurant chain and another hour beyond that to see a movie. Of course we were going to get into trouble. And Jack was excellent at it. So good, in fact, that (like me) he managed to put his party on and maintain the high GPA that was his ticket out of the county and into civilization.

For Jack, though, the train derailed. Never use something that will end up using YOU, compadres. Jack got a powerful monkey on his back in college, dropped out, blew around the party-fest communes back home and finally settled in a shack deep in the woods -- deep enough to dissuade the cops from looking for his crops, if you see what I'm saying.

So anyway, I run into Jack many years (and several lifetimes later) and he's still the fun guy he always was, but wow, does he have a whole treasure trove of conspiracy theories. Really crazy stuff. I love the guy to death, though, and you know what? He's still brilliant. Nuckin futs, yeah, but brilliant. One of the many theories he'd cooked up was an elaborate scenario in which the government was doping the masses (that'd be you and me, pal) with hormones injected into our meat and bio-engineered crops. Whoa. Awesome.

But it got me to thinking...What if behavior could be modified by altering the food supply? What might that look like? How would we, as a society, respond? I thought about an old grade B horror flick in which animals went super-aggressive for some bizarre reason (scared the shit out of me as a 10yo) so I had an idea for what direction I'd go in (though dominance instead, not aggression of the homicidal bent). Then, weirdly enough, I thought about 911, how the horror and grief of that event provoked us (individually and nationally) to act impulsively and at times irrationally -- sometimes for the good and sometimes for the very, very bad.

From that soup of what if's, Collared was born. Everyone's brain chemistry is changing and that's causing us to act in extreme and (sometimes) irrational ways, both individually (for my characters) and as a nation (the political/legal environment). My heroes struggle with who they were, who they want to be and who they are becoming -- juxtaposed against the setting of a world in flux. Nothing makes sense, not how they feel, not how the new environment is coming into shape...It doesn't work. The world they live, breathe and move in does not work. It needs fixing and so do my characters. They're trying. They're fighting to adapt to the changes, to accept their new normal and to make that new normal better. They make mistakes. We, as a society, make mistakes too. But we never stop fighting to make life better. This is Connor's, Emmett's and David's story -- their struggle to find their balance, each other and a way to make a world gone mad work.

Here's the blurb:

Trans-Global IT director Connor Witt is a rare and prized anomaly: the aggression centers in his brain have been suppressed rather than stimulated by the mutated crops that so recently took over the world’s food supply. Bewildered by his physical changes and terrified of a world growing more and more predatory, Connor risks harassment and worse until Trans-Global CEO David Martin collars Connor to protect him against men like security consultant Emmett Drake. Men who stalk Connor as sweet, sexy prey. Men to whom the newly submissive Connor feels irresistibly drawn.

But David can’t be Connor’s master; David’s straight. He promises to find a worthy man, though. One willing to court and appreciate Connor as more than just some rich man’s toy.

While the world adapts to the biological disaster and new laws strip away Connor’s rights, David’s resolve to protect his boy slowly grows into something more. But can his new desires keep pace with Emmett’s determination to claim Connor?

One man offers safety; the other is a safer bet. Problem is, Connor’s never sure which is which. The one thing he does know? He wants them both.

Click the title to read an excerpt and purchase Collared.

Visit Kari's website for more information on all her work.