Racheline Maltese's Blog, page 15

Back in Brooklyn

After a number of misadventures in Europe (a debutante ball sponsored by the bakery industry in Vienna; a quest to meet Canada’s hottie Prime Minister at the World Economic Forum in Davos; a night stranded in Munich trying to get to Milan; and my war with London’s District Line while saying in room number 007 at a hotel in Bayswater), I am back in the States — jet-lagged and desperately trying to catch up while Erin continues to valiantly hold down the literary fort.

But we do have some news for you:

Snare, our New York as vampire prison island novella, will be out from Torquere Press on June 22, 2016.

Season 2 of Tremontaine is underway from the writing and production side, and you’ll be able to get your hands on that this fall. Related news is also forthcoming.

The Art of Three, our MMF poly triad novel set in London, Dublin, and a small town on the coast of Spain, is first-draft complete and we are now working on the second draft. We think it’s in pretty good shape, and look forward to getting that out into the next phase of the process soon.

I did also want to mention, since many of our works are fairly erotic, The Art of Three isn’t. Some of our characters work out their issues through sex, but Jamie, Callum, and Nerea — the central characters of this book — don’t center their communication problems and successes in the bedroom so we haven’t centered our writing there this time around. We also really wanted to write a poly novel that was accessible to all readers regardless of where they draw the line with heat level in their reading.

If you want to keep track of all our pending projects, don’t forget you can see a quasi-complete list here: http://avian30.com/books/in-progress/.

WRAFTAS nominations

The delightful folks over at WROTE are hosting a series of awards (the WRAFTAS) related to author appearances on their podcast and have nominated Erin and I for several, for which we are both thankful and amused!

You can get more information (and vote when applicable) at WROTE’s Facebook Group and at their Soundcloud post. The WROTE team tells us the specific award names will be announced during their podcast ceremony at the end of this month.

Free Read: Alex Learns to Rock Climb

Liam can never take him anywhere.
Originally published in our June 2015 newsletter

Alex hates network parties.  Everyone has to pretend they’re like some sort of reward, but they’re really just another dumb — and time consuming — marketing thing he has to be a part of. If he were farther down the food chain, like the PA he should still be, and lucky enough to score an invite, he’d be a lot more enthused.  The free food and drink situation is epic even if the carts with the multiple flavors of artisanal popcorn are sort of weird and excessive.

“Please tell me we don’t have to stay long,” Alex says through his teeth as he and Paul smile for a staff photographer. He feels guilty for his misery, because Paul should, absolutely, be taking this opportunity to network.

“We don’t have to do anything,” Paul says.  “In fact, you can even leave early if you want.”

“I can, but it’s more fun if you come with.”

“Well, you try to have fun; I’ll try to be bored, and maybe we’ll sync up,” Paul says.

Alex elbows him half-heartedly.  Paul’s the only one who can tease him like this, but he’s still not entirely sure he likes it.

“Oh, hey, climbing wall,” Alex says at the exact same moment Paul points out that one of the popcorn carts has some in a sickly pink color that’s supposed to be guava.  Alex can’t escape fast enough.

Read More

Free Read: Alex and Gemma in L.A.

Originally published in our May 2015 newsletter. To stay up to date with Avian30 news and bonus content, sign up for our newsletter here!

Takes place before the beginning of Starling (Love in Los Angeles Book 1)

Over many emails and Skype calls Gemma gathered the impression that Alex is athletic, far too brilliant for his tiny hometown, and relentlessly determined to get out of said hometown. It turns out that in person Alex is tiny, disarmingly sly, and completely useless.  To the extent that it doesn’t make Gemma want to beat her head into the uneven door jam of their terrible new apartment they pay for in cash, she finds it kind of endearing.  But mostly Alex is a disaster.

It’s not just that he doesn’t have a bank account or understand why she’s so insistent that he open one.  It’s that he doesn’t know how to do anything.  Gemma has to show him how to use public transit because she’d like to go out and get a drink with him somewhere that isn’t their sketchtastic neighborhood, and it’s not like either of them can afford to take a cab.

Unfortunately, it takes them very little time to discover that nowhere will serve them that isn’t in their sketchtastic neighborhood.

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Now announcing Free Reads!

If you for some reason have been poking around the site recently, you may have have noticed that we’ve updated our books pages. Our newest addition is a Free Reads section, which you can get to from the ‘Books and More’ menu up at the top of the site. This section is going to be home to a lot of bonus content and extras from all of our books. And now, we’re going to begin publishing back-dated exclusive stories from our newsletters. These stories won’t be published on the blog until about three months after they go out in a newsletter, so if you don’t want to wait that long, you can always sign up for our newsletter here.

And now, our first free read, from way back in April 2015. Happy reading (and to those of you on the US East Coast – happy Snowzilla!)

The Fourth Estate Pilot Party. Liam has a plan. Sort of.

Set prior to Starling (LiLA Book 1)

The pilot wrap party is long and ridiculous.  Victor doesn’t let masses of people into his home often, but these events are an exception — tradition and luck and thank you all at once.

Invariably, people stay over.  Someone passes out drunk in a lounger not too close to the pool.  Someone else takes a couch, and will hopefully vacate before the rest of the house wakes in the morning.  The guest bedrooms exist for a reason.  And when Victor retreats upstairs to his own room…

There usually isn’t someone in it.  But Liam has been making eyes at him all night, and now they’re apparently going to have to have this conversation, which is more unappealing for the fact that it is late, and Victor is tired, and he hates other people in his bedroom.

Read more

Happy New Year and the State of the Union

Sorry, political puns. It’s that time of year.

We hope you all had a happy and healthy new year! Erin and I were both travelling — her, back and forth to Rochester for the holidays and a wedding, and me from New York to Ohio to Florida for the same. On Saturday I leave for a month in Europe for my day job, including some research trips elsewhere in Europe.

Meanwhile, we have the following news to report:

The paperback of Starling is on sale for 65% off. That’s right, you can get the nice shiny trade paperback for less than the cost of a mass market edition. This is one of those random Amazon sale situations and we don’t know how long it will last. http://www.amazon.com/Starling-Love-Angeles-Racheline-Maltese/dp/1610408055

Next, we expect to have a specific release date for Snare, our melancholy gay romance about an alternate New York City that was founded as a vampire prison island, Real Soon Now. Until we announce that, just consider it mid-2016 for this novella.

Tremontaine continues to tick along, with episode 10 due out this week. Since it’s a done thing in SF/F circles to note what you’ve written that is award eligible during the season, each individual episode is eligible in the Novelette category of the Hugos if you’re a voting member of the convention (I’m not sure what, if anything, the whole season as a single entity is eligible for). I also have to note that Heather Hogan is not only a fan, she even made a Glee joke in a recent review of it; those of you that know how Erin and I started working together, or just how often Hogan and I have agreed (and disagreed!) on Glee will probably be as tickled as me!

A Queen from the North, our contemporary royal romance about a world where the rivalries between the houses of York and Lancaster were never resolved by the War of the Roses, is in the submission process and we hope to have news about it sometime this quarter.

Currently, we’re working on something – an MMF poly-triad romance with a 48-year old heroine, a lot of farce, and a couple of pregnancies – set in London and Spain. It doesn’t even have a working title yet! I recently put out a call on Twitter, and got some great leads I need to follow up with, but I’ll repeat this query here — if you know anything about supportive housing for people with Downs Syndrome in Ireland, please send up a flair. One of the heroes in this story has a sister with a job, a boyfriend, and Downs and we need to get some logistics right.

What’s after all that?  Well, Cardinal, which some of you got a peak at in the most recent edition of our monthly newsletter; an M/F romance about two publishing industry executives on a 30-day romp through Italy; and a couple of unrelated to each other very queer spy novels (is there any other kind?). And no, we haven’t forgotten about Love’s Labours! We do have book three in progress, but are currently strategizing some timing and other issues around it, in part to make sure we can offer you a paperback collection of those novellas (if you’ve read Midsummer and or Twelfth Night, please leave a review on Amazon, that helps expand our options!)

We’ll also be attending a number of book fairs and other events this year, which we’ll announce soon.

So what’s up with you?

Unlikable Advent Day 11: Ki Brightly

Ava Pajari

I don’t really like people, except Rolly. He’s been my best friend forever. And okay, maybe his jackass brothers.

They’re all right.

And Tom and Meaghan are okay.

Sometimes.

But, yeah, I don’t like people. If I’m around people too much I start getting this itchy feeling between my shoulder blades. I know I’m about to do something to piss everyone off and I don’t necessarily want to, but …there it is.

I guess I don’t try too hard to stop it.

Like this one time, when Rolly and I were in high school? There we were, sitting at the back of class at our black tables with the Bunsen burners in the middle and I’m thinkin’ about maybe lighting one, because god, chemistry is just fucking boring, and I’m trying to be good because I’m this close…like…a whisker… from getting expelled and my leg starts shaking up and down while Mr. Pratt drones on and on and on about covalent bonds. I start thinking about mating because Greg told us last night he diddled this girl and I’m not sure if I believe him or not, and then I just sort of find myself lighting up the burner anyway, lighting a piece of paper on fire for shits and giggles. Mr. Pratt’s writing shit on the board and I drop it on my notebook when I burn my fingers—then there’s just fire. The sprinklers go off. We all run out, of course, and everything is great for about twenty minutes. Wet fun times. Then I’m getting yelled at by the principle and the vice principle and the fucking secretary (why she cared I don’t know) and Mr. Pratt… and Rolly’s all: “Oh, no. I did it,” because he’s my best friend, after all, and he knows how close I am to getting into so much trouble my mother locks me in the basement to never see the light of day again.

I watched him walk into in school suspension for an entire week after that, my gut clenched.

I mean, I already knew, but after that I really knew that we’re for life friends. Till the end of times friends.

He would die for me.

Problem is, stuff like that just never stopped happening. I would get shit ideas and Rolly would come with me, help me, until finally, one day it landed him in so much trouble even his brothers and I couldn’t’ do shit about it.

He got kicked out of the pack; I didn’t.

I’m sure no one would believe me, but I cried real tears over that shit.

That’s the problem: I’ve been acting this way for so long everyone just thinks that’s me. Shit stirrer. Trouble maker. But I don’t want that to be me forever, and Rolls always saw that. He’s a fucking friend.

And Yulian, his mate, isn’t half bad either.

And for some reason Valeska, my sort of boyfriend, maybe, sees that same thing in me. Treats me like a lady. Maybe someday I’ll be with him, maybe I won’t, but it’s nice that someone out there, other than my best friend, doesn’t think I’m a total lost cause.

If you’re curious about how I got here, living in Ripley, New York sharing an apartment with some of my pack that relocated from Erie, Pennsylvania, rather than rotting in the ground somewhere, you should check out The Shape of Honey.

I’ll spoil it a little for you though. I’m okay thanks to Rolly and Yulian, and I guess maybe Tom and the Witten Brothers, but mostly Rolly.

He’s the best wolf I know.

Book Blurb:

The Shape of Honey by Ki Brightly

Yulian Volkov is an entrepreneur and lone werewolf who hates the city. At a pack meeting, he learns the only member he’s attracted to is being expelled for crimes unspecified. Yulian strikes a deal with the pack leader to allow Rolly Witten to live on his farm and work in his Meadery. Although enjoying handsome Rolly’s company, Yulian must tread carefully, since Rolly doesn’t trust him and the pack doesn’t acknowledge homosexuality exists. Meanwhile, Yulian stealthily courts Rolly by teaching him the value of his wolf side.

Rolly, who’s known he was gay since he was a teen, has accepted a life of solitude—and a life of crime. He has no desire to relocate. Yet Yulian’s trust in his ability to do honest work builds his confidence. As life is settling well for them, Rolly learns a friend from his old pack had a crush on him, and he’s torn between returning his friend’s feelings or pursuing the budding relationship with Yulian. But that’s not their worst problem. Assassins are trying to take out both wolves, and they need to figure out who wants them dead or all the trust and happiness they’re building together won’t matter.

Author bio:

Ki Brightly is an author of short and lengthy erotic and romantic (and sometimes both) fiction.

Ki’s hobbies include painting, cooking, eating, and exercising (because of the cooking and eating). Ki is also an established beach bum during the late spring and summer months, which tends to cut into writing time. Occasionally, breaks are taken from the writing process to go to a day job and have snuggles with the husband and kiddos.

Endlessly curious, Ki enjoys reading a variety of books in every genre imaginable, but has been devouring urban fantasy and science fiction of late.

Ki Brightly’s Blog | Twitter | Facebook  | Tumblr | Goodreads | Gmail

Unlikable Advent Day 9: Rebecca Brooks

When I heard Racheline and Erin had this awesome Advent idea, I knew exactly which unlikeable character of mine needed to have her voice heard. Chris from How to Fall is an Australian woman traveling the world with her long-term boyfriend. But although they have plans to return to Australia and get married once their adventure is up, Chris’s travels lead her down a very different path.

Here’s the truth: Chris is brash, bossy, and not a great listener. She tends to takes charge, which can leave others feeling pushed around. She’s not too popular with the hero and heroine, who wind up having to pick up the pieces she’s left behind. Yes, I made Chris this way intentionally. She has to be someone we don’t mind jettisoning by the end.

But when I started introducing my characters online and sharing tidbits from Chris’s point of view, I suddenly had a Chris Revelation. Because for all this woman’s flaws, she’s also got a pretty awesome side. She knows what she wants, and she goes after it. She’s a thrill seeker, an adventurer, and even though she’s never going to be the polite girl next door, why should she be? She’s too busy living her life to care whether you like her or not.

Chris is in a relationship that’s not working for her, and she doesn’t stay in it just because she’s expected to, or she made a promise what she would, or because she can’t bear hurting the one she’s with. She realizes she needs something different from her life, something her current boyfriend can’t provide, and so she rips the bandaid off. I think if we got to hear Chris’s version of events, we’d understand how tough that decision was, and how much it pained her. I also think we’d hear how much better she—and her ex-boyfriend—are as a result.

This unlikeable character teaches the hero and heroine of How to Fall how to take life by the balls and never compromise who they are. I think that’s a pretty good lesson. I also think we can’t hate on others for breaking a few hearts. It’s the risk we take when we fall in love.

Blurb:

One week of adventure might just lead to love…

Julia Evans has always put others ahead of herself—her high school math students, her troubled best friend, and her ex. But with New Year’s approaching, she buys a round trip ticket to Brazil. For one week, she can put her needs first. She can meet a stranger in the hotel pool at midnight and dance all night on the beach.

Screenwriter Blake Williams has to keep moving before Oz’s latest scandal catches up to him. But the dark-haired beauty with a backpack and an adventurous streak is messing with his plans. He can’t seem to walk away from her. But secrets have a way of coming out, and when the week is up, Julia and Blake will have to decide if they’re jumping into the biggest adventure of all or playing it safe.

Bio:

Rebecca Brooks lives in New York City in an apartment filled with books. She received a PhD in English but decided it was more fun to write books than write about them. She has backpacked alone through India and Brazil, traveled by cargo boat down the Amazon River, climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, explored ice caves in Peru, trekked to the source of the Ganges, and sunbathed in Burma, but she always likes coming home to a cold beer and her hot husband in the Bronx. Her books are about independent women who leave their old lives behind in order to try something new—and find the passion, excitement, and purpose they didn’t even know they’d been missing.

website: rebeccabrooksromance.com

Facebook: facebook.com/rebeccabrooksromance

Twitter: twitter.com/beccabooks

Instagram: instagram.com/rebeccabrooksromance

Google+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/+RebeccaBrooksRomance/posts

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27262413-how-to-fall

Excerpt: entangledpublishing.com/how-to-fall

Unlikable Advent Day 8: Rick Reed

What Makes Bobby of Raining Men Tick?

A Guest Blog by Rick R. Reed

Bobby Nelson, who first appeared in my novel, Chaser , was probably one of my most hated characters (if you don’t count the serial killers and other monsters who populate some of my earlier work). He was self-centered, vain, duplicitous and he tried to steal his best friend’s boyfriend. Who could possibly like him?

Me. I liked him because I knew him and knew that underneath all that bad stuff beat the heart of a very lonely man, one who was so hungry for love and so blind to his own faults that the possibility of his ever finding real human connection (beyond the sexual) was well-nigh impossible. In one of Bobby’s first visits to a therapist in Raining Men, Bobby confesses: “I just wanted to be loved.”

More than any other character that I’ve written, Bobby called out to me, demanding that his story be written. See, Bobby wasn’t a villain, not really. At heart, he was, like most of us, a damaged soul who needed some healing and self-realization before he could get what he sought—love. I seldom write sequels, but Bobby’s story kept crying out to me, just so I could convince readers that a despicable character could be redeemed, that a character you might actually hate in one book, you could come to love in another. From reader comments and reviews so far, I think I succeeded.

I had a chance to talk with Bobby just the other day. Here’s what he had to say.

 

Rick: So Bobby, how did you like Raining Men? Did you feel it portrayed you accurately?

Bobby: Yeah, I guess it did. But man, did you have to go into so much detail about the nasty stuff I got up to in places like bathhouses? I mean, come on, that shit is embarrassing!

Rick: Yes, Bobby, I kind of did have to go into that stuff because, in order to show your redemption, I had to show you hitting bottom. I think I also showed you eventually came to understand why you engaged in so much meaningless and sometimes even degrading sex—and rose above it.

Bobby: That’s the good part. But the best part was meeting [Bobby’s response deleted to avoid spoilers]. He changed my life, you know? He really got me.

Rick: You finally found love?

Bobby: You got that right. I spent way too many years singing that country western song, “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places.”

Rick: You did indeed. But you know now that it wasn’t just about the places, but about who you were when you were looking?

Bobby: Yes, Camille [Camille D’Amico is Bobby’s therapist].

Rick: You know, I did write about you hitting bottom, especially one scene in particular where you take on all comers (as it were) at a local bathhouse, but I put it in juxtaposition to someone very special coming into your life that day, a little fella who maybe was the beginning to you healing and learning how to love.

Bobby: Was that a question?

Rick: Okay! How is Johnny Wadd?

Bobby: You were talking about my so-ugly-he’s-cute Chihuahua that I rescued from behind a Dumpster. Johnny is doing well, but I’m doing even better, thanks to having him in my life to care for. It’s amazing how something that only weighs about 4 pounds can have such a HUGE impact on someone’s life.

Rick: Any parting message you’d like readers to take with them after reading your story in Raining Men?

Bobby: Oh yes—that happy-ever-afters are entirely possible. If a reformed reprobate and slut like me can find true happiness and a soul mate, anyone can.

 

 

BLURB

The character you loved to hate in Chaser becomes the character you will simply

love in Raining Men

It’s been raining men for most of Bobby Nelson’s adult life. Normally, he wouldn’t have it any other way, but lately something’s missing. Now, he wants the deluge to slow to a single special drop. But is it even possible for Bobby to find “the one” after endless years of hooking up?

When Bobby’s father passes away, Bobby finally examines his rocky relationship with the man and how it might have contributed to his inability to find the love he yearns for. Guided by a sexy therapist, a Sex Addicts Anonymous group, a well-endowed Chihuahua named Johnny Wadd, and Bobby’s own cache of memories, Bobby takes a spiritual, sexual, and emotional journey to discover that life’s most satisfactory love connections lie in quality, not quantity. And when he’s ready to love not only himself but someone else, sex and love fit, at last, into one perfect package.

Buy Links for Raining Men

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Raining-Men-ebook/dp/B00D3XHMFW Dreamspinner (paperback): http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3873

Dreamspinner (ebook) http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3826

 

Rick R. Reed Biography

Rick R. Reed is all about exploring the romantic entanglements of gay men in contemporary, realistic settings. While his stories often contain elements of suspense, mystery and the paranormal, his focus ultimately returns to the power of love. He is the author of dozens of published novels, novellas, and short stories. He is a three-time EPIC eBook Award winner (for Caregiver, Orientation and The Blue Moon Cafe). Raining Men won the Rainbow Award for best gay contemporary general fiction in 2013. Lambda Literary Review has called him, “a writer that doesn’t disappoint.” Rick lives in Seattle with his husband and a very spoiled Boston terrier. He is forever “at work on another novel.”

Visit Rick’s website at http://www.rickrreed.com or follow his blog at http://rickrreedreality.blogspot.com/. You can also like Rick on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rickrreedbooks or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/rickrreed. Rick always enjoys hearing from readers and answers all e-mails personally. Send him a message at jimmyfels@gmail.com

 

 

 

Unlikable Advent Day 7: VL Locey

Today we’re thrilled to have one of our favorite return guests. VL Locey, here on the blog to talk about her not-to-easy-to-love-character Victor. (We apparently also have a soft spot for difficult characters named Victor!)

Ho-ho-ho! I’m so thrilled to be taking part in this most awesome of advent calendars! While most romance heroes are swell guys who ooze sweet and get nothing but great gifts from Santa, my boy Victor Kalinski would probably get a lump of coal. Actually, there is no probably about it. Santa would just not get. Goodness knows many readers can’t seem to get around his horribly acidic tongue, although Vic, who is also known as “The Venomous Pole”, is slowly winning people over.

In his first book, Two Man Advantage, Victor was abrasive, cutting and just a plain old tool. How he ever got lucky enough for Dan Arou to fall for him I do not know. Now that we’re on to Game Misconduct, the second book in a planned trilogy, some of his rougher edges are softening. But make no mistakes, Victor Kalinski will never be one of those men you sigh dreamily over. Nine times out of ten you’d want to thump him upside the head with a waffle iron.

But that’s the joy of Victor for me as the author. He says what everyone thinks with no reservations and no filters. If he thinks it Vic says it. Can he be insulting? Oh hell yeah! He’s trying to be. Does that put some readers off? For sure, but I’m not going to change him. Not everyone in life is a prince on a white charger. Some people are crass, rude, and prone to being jerks. And some heroes just need to mouth off as they grow. Writing Victor has been a blast and I wish he had more than one more book on the horizon. The world needs a wise-ass hockey player to set it straight!

*~*

Blurb:

This book is a sequel to Two Man Advantage



Life has been treating Victor Kalinski well, which is a surprise for the ginger-haired forward with the venomous tongue. His career is somewhat stable, at least for another season. His relationship with Cougars alternate captain Dan Arou is deepening, despite the fact that Daniel has yet to come out of the closet.



It’s typical Kalinski luck when a puck bunny he shared a drunken night with several months ago slaps him with a paternity suit. Despite the sizzling passion and painfully heartfelt connection between them, Dan doesn’t take the news well, and heads back to Canada alone.



If he wants to make things right and win back the man he loves, he has no choice but to swallow his pride—and nobody’s prouder than hot-headed, ego-driven Victor.

Reader Advisory: This story has graphic sexual language and scenes—no closed bedroom doors (or other rooms) here!



An adult male/male romance from Ellora’s Cave

Buy Links:

Ellora’s Cave |  Amazon |  B&N |  Kobo |  All Romance eBooks

Author Bio:

V.L. Locey loves worn jeans, yoga, belly laughs, reading and writing lusty tales, Greek mythology, the New York Rangers, comic books, and coffee. (Not necessarily in that order.) She shares her life with her husband, her daughter, two dogs, two cats, a flock of assorted domestic fowl, and three Jersey steers.

When not writing spicy romances, she enjoys spending her day with her menagerie in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with a cup of fresh java in hand. She can also be found online on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and GoodReads.

I love to meet new friends and fans! You can find me at-

Website |  Facebook |  Twitter |  Pinterest |  Goodreads |  My blog |  tsú