Racheline Maltese's Blog, page 10

Starling’s back!

Starling (Love in Los Angeles Book 1) was the first novel we wrote together. Now, three years later, we’re re-publishing it. It’s been freshly edited and has a gorgeous new cover, and is finally the book we always wanted it to be.

It’ll be out on Valentine’s Day 2017, but you can preorder it now.

Hollywood’s newest star, 21-year-old J. Alex Cook never wanted to be famous, he just wanted to get out of Indiana. When he hooks up with Paul, a writer on a hit TV show, Alex is thrown into a web of relationships involving friends, lovers, and everything in between.

Forced to figure out what it means to live — and love — in the public eye, Alex’s quest to find his own happily ever after will make you believe love is possible… even in Los Angeles.

(Please note: There are currently Starling paperbacks listed on Amazon. These have not been revised, and we have not received contracted royalties for them from our publisher. We will have paperbacks of the new edition above available on Amazon and with other retailers when the ebook releases. But, if you’d like a paperback of the original edition, please visit our new online shop at https://squareup.com/store/Avian30)

Tremontaine 2.8: A Rushing of Wings

Writing and editing on season 2 of Tremontaine wrapped the same day as my episode of the season (“A Rushing of Wings,” written with Paul Witcover) went live. Our episode features a road trip, a highwayman, a rescue attempt, and a creepy bird — as you do.

In a city that never was, sex, scandal, and swordplay combine in a melodrama of manners that takes readers to a world inspired by Elizabethan London, 18th century Paris, and 1980s New York City. Sexuality is fluid, politics is everything, and outcasts are the tastemakers. Intrigue is afoot when a Duchess, a scholar, a swordswoman, and a genius, are brought together by long-buried lies and truths that cannot be denied.

Season 2 of Tremontaine began October 19, but there’s still plenty of time to catch up on season 1 or subscribe to season 2.

Written by: Ellen Kushner, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Joel Derfner, Racheline Maltese, Paul Witcover, Tessa Gratton, and Mary Anne Mohanraj.

Find out more at https://www.serialbox.com/serials/556fb8faada6e270f8e264d5 or grab “A Rushing of Wings” directly from Amazon (or tons of other distributors).

Meanwhile, the print edition of season 1 is coming May 2017!

Re-release news: Off-Kilter and Sample & Hold

We’ve continuing our re-release adventures thanks to our rights return from Torquere (need details on why that happened, please check Writer Beware)

“Off-Kilter” is our sweet (no cursing, no sex, some kissing) M/M (with an F/F b-plot) Scottish dance story! It’s just $.99 on Amazon and we’ll be adding it to more distributors soon.

Meanwhile, “Sample & Hold” is an M/M first-time story set

on the eve of young musicians greatest triumph. It’s definitely not sweet, so if you’re looking for a hotter short read, that’s your best pick. You can pre-order it now for $.99 and it will be delivered to your device on January 3, 2017. We’ll be adding it to more distributors soon.

Stay tuned, we’ll have more re- and new-release details coming soon!

On recent U.S. events

It’s been an absurdly long week around here, the election and its ramifications being a major, but non-exclusive, component of that. Right now, we’re both working hard on the things we need to do to protect ourselves, our families, our friends, and our work in this new and very uncertain America.

We’re also still writing. Because stories matter often in ways that are impossible to predict. We also believe that saving ourselves means remaining ourselves. Here, that comes with words.

If you want more political views, advice, or anger from us, you can follow @racheline_m on Twitter, and stay tuned for Erin’s wiggling about re: public existence.

In the meantime, we encourage you to do what you have to for you and yours and to take time to sleep, eat, drink water, and experience joy.

Tremontaine at Lady Jane’s Salon in NYC

I am a late addition to this Monday’s Lady Jane’s Salon lineup! I’ll be joining K.M. Jackson and Suleikha Snyder as Ellen Kushner and I read from Tremontaine.

 

November 7, 2016

7-9pm at Madame X

94 West Houston Street, New York, NY 10012-2529

Admission is $5, which goes to charity

In a city that never was, sex, scandal, and swordplay combine in a melodrama of manners that takes readers to a world inspired by Elizabethan London, 18th century Paris, and 1980s New York City. Sexuality is fluid, politics is everything, and outcasts are the tastemakers. Intrigue is afoot when a Duchess, a scholar, a swordswoman, and a genius, are brought together by long-buried lies and truths that cannot be denied.

Season 2 of Tremontaine begins October 19! Catch up on season 1 now, or subscribe to season 2.

Written by: Ellen Kushner, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Joel Derfner, Racheline Maltese, Paul Witcover, Tessa Gratton, and Mary Anne Mohanraj.

Find out more at https://www.serialbox.com/serials/556fb8faada6e270f8e264d5

12 Free Romances — because we all need a break!

While we hope that everyone in the U.S. will remember to vote, we know you absolutely need a break from the current political bleakness.

With that in mind, we’ve teamed with 12 other romance authors to offer free books through Instafreebie from now through November 10. All of these titles will be available for free during this time and represent different genres, heat levels, pairings and more. A definite something for everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

Each book has a separate link for its free download and will open a new tab in your browser.

1. Tell Me a Story by Tamara Lush

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/9nxaA

2. Seventh Inning Heat by Lyssa Kay Adams

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/iJjGu

3. Somewhere Warm by G.G. Andrew

http://www.instafreebie.com/free/Q0YAn

4. Blackberries in the Morning By Rebecca Brooks

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/PkymC

5. A Heartless Design by Elizabeth Cole

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/JCAMI

6. My Ex From Hell by Tellulah Darling

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/t4Pk0

7. A Matter of Trust by Kat Faitour

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/S6Oln

8. Finding Hope by Stacy Finz

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/RIVkW

9. Pleasure Pairing Guide by Thien-Kim Lam/Bawdy Bookworms

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/Y6IrG

10. The Hart and the Hound by Racheline Maltese and Erin McRae

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/swqdr

11. Caveman by A.C. Rose

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/UlPxx

12. Hearts and Flours by Jennifer Sable

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/KqrDc

13. The Girl Who Wouldn’t Grow Up by Rachel

https://www.instafreebie.com/free/H0O1n

Apparently, I have to be outraged on the Internet today

Today, this appeared on the Internet: https://caferisque.blogspot.com/2016/10/labels-by-cardeno-c.html

E(dited)T(o)A(dd): The author has apologized on the original post to commenters and has stated that the way they (and I) took the post was, thankfully, the opposite of their intent. I am choosing to leave this post up, because hey, the fact that I had the words in the first place highlights just how much lack of precision on these two issues can cause harm and confusion. 

Hi! I’m bisexual and I have celiac disease.  Sometimes, both of those things make moving through the world a little strange or a little difficult. But not usually in combination. And then today happened.

First, celiac disease is not an allergy. It’s an autoimmune disease wherein the body destroys parts of its apparatus in response to ingesting gluten. This destruction leads to both rapid onset symptoms (which vary from person to person, but can include severe intestinal distress, migraines, ataxia, aphasia, and internal bleeding) and increased risk in the long-term of things like epilepsy and cancer. Basically, it’s really, really important for celiacs not to eat any gluten.

Celiacs aren’t the only people who can’t eat gluten or gluten containing grains, however. I fenced with a woman who had an anaphylaxis response to wheat. I have several friends with gluten-intolerances that cause a range of discomforts. Some people avoid gluten because of health benefits that are real or imagined for them.

Now, I love food, and I love to eat out, and I do this even though I have celiac disease. And when I go to restaurants that are not specifically framed as celiac-aware, I often say I have an allergy and will get very ill if I eat any wheat. Why? Because people have heard of allergies. Not everyone has heard of celiac disease. If the server has time and inclination I’m happy to provide more info, but NYC is fast, and I don’t need the world to crawl to a standstill to eat safely most of the time.

This doesn’t make me a liar. It makes me expedient. I am also not required to disclose the details of my medical condition to a restaurant beyond what they need to know.

Next, bisexuality. That means I’m attracted to two or more genders. I use the word bisexual for myself. I also use the word queer because I like it and fought for it and earned it and it covers my sexuality and my gender. I also use the word gay, because I’m old, and sometimes I like the one word for all of us. Similarly, lesbian. That’s what people see when I walk down the street, considering I’ve been partnered to a woman for a decade. Basically, you never need to know more than any of those labels and none of those labels suggest duplicity when used by me or anyone else.

For me to respond effectively to the offending blog post, I’d have to be clear on its point, which I’m not. Is queerness a disease? Is being bisexual a form a lying? Are people required to fully disclose their entire sexual history and get approval from others before claiming a label? Is bisexuality the worst because you don’t want women contaminating your M/M books? Legit, I couldn’t figure it out.

I just know I was born in 1972, came of age as queer in the age of AIDS in New York City, the child of parents who were professional artists.

So you do not, where I can hear or see you, compare any form of queerness to a disease. I was a child who stood in doorways and watched people like me die.

And I also know that I was born in 1972, a point at which celiac disease was little recognized in the U.S. I spent my childhood, my teen years, and my 20s ill. Skinny, sickly, villified, wasting away and being told it must be because of something I was doing (like that whole being bisexual thing). I received 17 diagnoses that turned out not to be correct until, at 33, we finally figured out I had celiac disease, because when the doctor said “maybe it’s cancer” and “let’s take out your gallblader and see what happens” I was done, and did the research to save my own damn health.

I am, at times, the king and queen of metaphors that get more than a little bit away from me. And I understand that there’s all this agita in parts of Romancelandia about bisexual characters lately. Write them; don’t write them; make them cis; make them trans; make them male, female, non-binary; put them in same-sex relationships, put them in different-sex relationships; make them monogamous; make them polyamorous; make them villains; make them heroes — I don’t actually care. And I don’t care why.

But I’m not a disease. And I’m not a lie. Not because of my gender. Not because of my sexuality. And not because of a disease I actually have.

New releases and sales!

Vampires!

We’ve re-released Snare, our weird off-the-grid, NYC as a vampire prison island M/M/M romance. Currently. it’s available in ebook only from Amazon (and a part of KU if you’re into that sort of thing).

You can grab it at https://www.amazon.com/Snare-Paranormal-Romance-ebook/dp/B01MA5O2RO

Shifters!

Meanwhile, we have also rereleased The Hart and the Hound, our deer-shifter/dog-shifter romance. That story is available ebook only at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Hart-Hound-Alpha-Shifter-Romance-ebook/dp/B01LWSPGRV ) and All Romance (https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-thehartandthehound-2155168-145.html) for now, but we expect to expand its availability to soon.

Changelings!

Meanwhile, All Romance is having a really big sale between now and the end of Halloween. That means you can get our best-selling theater romances about Shakespeare, skulls, and changelings for $2 each instead of $4 each (https://www.allromanceebooks.com/storeSearch.html?searchBy=series&qString=Love%26%23039%3Bs+Labours) P.S. this puts The Hart and the Hound on sale for just $.49 right now.

Chocolate! Math! and Swordsmen, oh my!

Season 2 of Tremontaine continues to rave reviews. This week Tessa Gratton debuts her first episode. When Micah and Joshua venture into Riverside, they accidentally rouse the interest of local criminals, forcing Kaab to come to their rescue. Meanwhile, a formal duel on the Hill brings Vincent Applethorpe to the covetous attention of both the Duchess Tremontaine and the Chartil ambassador, Reza.

The best/easiest way to experience content from Serial Box is to subscribe at the website, but new episodes are released each week at all your favorite places to by ebooks and audio (yes, it’s available in audio too!).

Don’t forget you can still grab S1 as an ebook or audio omnibus edition (no waiting each week for new episodes) or pick up a print copy from Simon & Schuster’s SAGA Press when it is released next year.

Please stay tuned (and subscribe to our newsletter) – we have a big mess of announcements coming over the next 30 days!

Tremontaine S2 launches!

It’s the first day of Tremontaine S1, with Ellen Kushner’s episode “Convocation.”

All eyes are on Duchess Diane Tremontaine at the Convocation, an annual soiree that opens the Council of Lords. With her mad husband exiled to the country, Diane is on the hunt for a new lover and better fortunes. But the path to power—and revenge—is never without obstacles.

Welcome to Tremontaine, where ambition, love affairs, and rivalries dance with deadly results. A Duchess whose beauty is matched only by her cunning; a handsome young scholar with more passion than sense; a foreigner in a playground of swordplay and secrets; and a mathematical genius whose discoveries herald revolution when games of politics begin, no one is safe. Keep your wit as sharp as your steel in this world where politics is everything and outcasts are the tastemakers.

As with last season, I’m producing and co-wrote an episode, this year with Paul Witcover.

Tremontaine is available in print and audio. It’s not a romance and not all the endings are happy (I describe this season as The Empire Strikes Back — it’s dark and we enjoyed hurting our characters), but it contains lots of romantic relationships of lots of varieties (M/F, F/F, M/M; also P.S. this season has a somewhat higher heat level than S1), and a diverse array of characters in terms of race, size, orientation, and disability.

Serial Box  | Amazon | B&N | Google Play

If you still need to catch up with season 1, it is still available at all those locations and will also be available in print in 2017 from Simon & Schuster’s SAGA Press.

Tremontaine Season 2 launches October 19!

That’s right…it’s back.

In a city that never was, sex, scandal, and swordplay combine in a melodrama of manners that takes readers to a world inspired by Elizabethan London, 18th century Paris, and 1980s New York City. Sexuality is fluid, politics is everything, and outcasts are the tastemakers. Intrigue is afoot when a Duchess, a scholar, a swordswoman, and a genius, are brought together by long-buried lies and truths that cannot be denied.

Season 2 of Tremontaine begins October 19! Catch up on season 1 now, or subscribe to season 2.

Written by: Ellen Kushner, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Joel Derfner, Racheline Maltese, Paul Witcover, Tessa Gratton, and Mary Anne Mohanraj.

Find out more at https://www.serialbox.com/serials/556fb8faada6e270f8e264d5