Nell Iris's Blog, page 20

Goodbye February

In my family, February is The Birthday Month. My husband’s birthday is on the 21st and my daughter’s on the 24th, and this year they turned 50 and 27. So while February is still winter here up north, still dark and dreary, still too cold, my focus is on other, more pleasant things. I also like the whole only-28-days thing February’s got going on, so even if it’s cold, it’s at least short, right?

All in all, February was a good month, and we were unusually busy. So for once, I’ve taken pictu...

Guest Post: Writing Historical Romance (The Quid Pro Quo) by A.L. Lester

Hello there everyone! Thank you so much to Nell for letting me drop in today. I popped in during the autumn to talk about The Quid Pro Quo when it came out  and I have a bit more about it here for you today! It’s the second in the Bradfield trilogy (although it will stand alone) and is set a few months after the end ofThe Fog of War. 

It stars ex-army nurse Walter Kennett and Simon Frost, a detective who comes to Bradfield to investigate a murder. It’s a gay, historical, paranormal, roman...

New Release Spotlight: The Drunken Dog by Ofelia Gränd

Hello everyone! Thank you, Nell, for allowing me to steal a spot on your blog again. Yesterday, The Drunken Dog was released, and it’s a short paranormal gay romance story that I wrote for JMS Books’ Sugar or Spice call.

It’s a call for short stories that had either something to do with sugar or something to do with spice. I picked spice. Otis, one of my main characters, finds Zev’s, my other main character, scent spicy and gets a bit obsessed with it.

As I am here guesting the queen of sh...

New Release Spotlight: The Wingman by Holly Day

My dear friend Holly Day is visiting today, talking about her brand new release The Wingman. She brought an excellent excerpt, so excellent I’m gonna have to read this book even though one of the MCs doesn’t want a boyfriend! (You’ll get it soon, I promise! )

Hello, everyone! Thank you, Nell, for letting me swing by again. I’m here today to chat about my 14th release in the same number of months. This time around, we’re celebrating National Wingman Day, which is observed annually on Febr...

New Release Spotlight: The Spice of Life by Ellie Thomas

Thank you so much to the lovely Nell Iris for having me as your guest today! (You’re very welcome, it’s always a delight to have you!) I’m Ellie Thomas, and I write Gay Historical Romance. In this blog, I’m chatting about The Spice of Life which is my story for a Valentine’s Sugar or Spice submissions call for JMS Books.

After lurking around the 18th century for a few stories, I thought it timely to return to the reign of Elizabeth I. My other Tudor tale, Stage Struck, is set in the world of ...

Release Day: Secrets on a Train

Wohoo, today is release day for Secrets on a Train, my short, sugary (as in real sugar, not fluffy sweetness), flirty, meet-cute story about two strangers who meet in a silent car on the train on their daily commute to work. How do you even flirt with someone when you’re not allowed to talk and deliver your best line (along the lines of How you doin?)?

It turns out that as long as you have pen and paper, you’re fine. Take Runar and Valentin’s word for it.

It’s the fountain pens that c...

Goodbye January

Do you remember how miserable I was in December? Well, January wasn’t much better. Well, sure, I finally shook off the cold/flu/whatever it was that ailed me in December that wasn’t covid. But instead, everyone else caught the plague which was a whole other level of stressful. But let’s hope that’s over and done with now that January is over. And not everything that happened in January was bad. In fact, it started in the best possible way…

…because the first (long) weekend of January, my...

Kindle Unlimited Refill

If you remember, I told you back in August that a whole bunch of my books had become available in the Kindle Unlimited program. The good thing is that my fabulous publisher JMS Books has an agreement with an aggregator that makes it possible to make our books available through the KU program, while still publishing them wide. Best of both worlds, so to speak.

And now with the new year, I thought a refill was in order, so I asked JMS Books to enroll all my books published in 2020 into the KU ...

Secrets on a Train – available for pre-order

Now that I have an Evil Day Job (it’s only evil because it steals writing time from me, other than that, it’s perfectly fine ) I commute to work. My husband drives me to the train station, and I take the train from there to Helsingborg, where my office is located. I spend 35-ish minutes on the train, and most of the time, I sit here:

This four-seater is located in the silent compartment on the train, and most of the time, it’s free when I board the train, so I can snag it before everyon...

Sunday Book Recommendation

I barely read any holiday books last year unless you count a few holiday themed fanfic stories, because most of what I read in December was Snarry (Harry Potter + Severus Snape) fanfiction. When I’m sick, I want to read (or watch) something familiar, so I wasn’t ready for something new.

I still bought a few books, though, and one of them, Dreidels & Do-Overs by Kim Fielding, caught my attention a couple days back and I decided to try it. And I really loved it.

As Caleb took the book, thei...