Kim Fielding's Blog, page 63

I'm in a mood

I'm in a mood. Bear with me.

I received a box from Dreamspinner Press today. At first I though the postal service had managed to detour it through a war zone because it looked like this:

  Then I touched the box and realized no, not a war, a flood. The cardboard was still pretty soggy.

Fortunately, someone at DSP did a fantastic job wrapping the contents in plastic, because this is what was inside:

Yay! My print copies of The Tin Box! And they arrived unscathed.

Later today, I saw an ad for this scarf. Why bother knitting when you can just drape the entire skein of yarn around your neck?

Now can I complain about money? My older daughter began high school a little over a month ago. In that time, we've been asked to dole out money for 1. A tennis team trip to an amusement park, 2. A tennis uniform, 3. A tennis T-shirt, 4. A tennis servathon, 5. A choir T-shirt, 6. A yearbook, 7. A student ID card, 8. A mandatory PE uniform. For the younger kid, who's in 5th grade, we've been limited thus far to a field trip, a yearbook, and a cookie dough/wrapping paper fundraiser.

We're lucky--we can afford all this crap. But what about families that can't?

And finally, can I vent about colleagues at the day job who get pissed off at other colleagues but won't tell them directly, and instead expect me to act as mediator?

I feel much better now. Hey! Look at the beautiful book!


PS--Did you enter the giveaway yet? Did you catch my post over on Tali Spencer's blog, or my interview at Garrett Leigh's?

GIVEAWAY!

My newest novel (my 8th novel!) releases today!

 The Tin Box is a contemporary romance. Here's the blurb:

William Lyon's past forced him to become someone he isn't. Conflicted and unable to maintain the charade, he separates from his wife and takes a job as caretaker at a former mental hospital. Jelley’s Valley State Insane Asylum was the largest mental hospital in California for well over a century, but it now stands empty. William thinks the decrepit institution is the perfect place to finish his dissertation and wait for his divorce to become final. In town, William meets Colby Anderson, who minds the local store and post office. Unlike William, Colby is cute, upbeat, and flamboyantly out. Although initially put off by Colby’s mannerisms, William comes to value their new friendship, and even accepts Colby's offer to ease him into the world of gay sex.

William’s self-image begins to change when he discovers a tin box, hidden in an asylum wall since the 1940s. It contains letters secretly written by Bill, a patient who was sent to the asylum for being homosexual. The letters hit close to home, and William comes to care about Bill and his fate. With Colby’s help, he hopes the words written seventy years ago will give him courage to be his true self.

I am especially proud of this book. And I fell so much in love with William and Colby that I was really sad when I'd finished writing. This was a little surprising, because William's really not all that loveable at the beginning of the story. As Colby so tactfully points out, "We just need to work a little on your social skills. Loosen you up a little. ’Cause Will, my man, you’ve got a stick so far up your ass you must be tasting it."

I hope you'll fall in love too.

To celebrate, let's do a giveaway!

To enter, simply leave a comment below with your email addy.Follow me on Twitter (@KFieldingWrites) and/or like me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/KFieldingWrites) and those will count as extra entries (just tell me your Twitter and/or FB name in your comment here).I will randomly choose a winner for a free e-copy of The Tin Box.If more than 20 people enter, I'll give away another copy.If more than 50 people enter (I'm dreaming big!) I'll also give away a print copy of The Tin Box plus an e-copy of Buried Bones plus an e-copy of my November novella release Housekeeping, all to one lucky winner. So spread the word!Winner(s) will be chosen at noon PDT on September 27.

Inspiration Post #19: Omaha Beach

My novella Violet's Present is a time travel piece about a modern Californian who makes a connection with a distant relative who died on June 6, 1944: D-Day. This is the photo that inspired the story:

I don't know anything about this young man who died that day. But he must have had a family, and I kept thinking about how, as he lay dead on that beach, his loved ones were going about their lives in Michigan or Tennessee or Idaho, not knowing. And I also thought about the sorrow of a young man traveling so far from home, only to end up alone and face down on Omaha Beach. It's still painful for me just to look at.

My story was also inspired by photos of the survivors. Look into the faces of these men and imagine how war changed them forever.





For more WWI heartbreak, read this letter.

Violet's Present includes a scene that was extremely difficult to write. But one of the benefits of being a writer is that a writer can change history, at least within the confines of her story. So that's what I did.

Next week: The asylum

Stasis now available in audiobook!

As always, I'm donating all my royalties from this trilogy to Doctors Without Borders.


  Just Released - 
   Cherry Hill Publishing

     http://www.CherryHillPublishing.com/Bookstore
Stasis - Book 1 of the Ennek TrilogyKim Fielding Praesidium is the most prosperous city-state in the world, due not only to its location at the mouth of a great bay, but also to its strict laws, stringently enforced. Ordinary criminals become bond-slaves, but the Wizard places traitors in Stasis, a dreamless frozen state. Ennek is the Chief's younger son. He has grown up without much of a purpose, a man who cannot fulfill his true desires and who skates on the edge of the law. But he is also haunted by the plight of one man, a prisoner for whom Stasis appears to be a truly horrible fate. If Ennek is to save that prisoner, he must explore Praesidium's deepest secrets as well as his own.Kim Fielding lives in California and travels as often as she can manage. A professor by day, at night she rushes into a phone booth to change into her author costume (which involves comfy clothes instead of Spandex and is, sadly, lacking a cape). Her superpowers include the ability to write nearly anywhere, often while simultaneously doling out homework assistance to her children. She has written numerous novels, novellas, and short stories in various genres. Her favorite word to describe herself is "eclectic" and she finally got that third tattoo.  Kim donates all of the royalties from her novels Stasis, Flux and Equipoise to Doctors Without Borders. Robert J. Sciglimpaglia Jr. is an accomplished actor, voice over artist and practicing attorney.  As an actor, he has appeared in off-Broadway productions, and on national television in programs on the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, PBS and the Bio Channel, among others. He has also appeared in several films in various roles.  As a voice actor, Robert has appeared in and voiced commercials and industrials for countless large companies, as well as the narrator of several audio books. You may best recognize Rob as the “Dad” from the Chevy commercial “Happy Grad,” which aired during the 2012 Super Bowl. Available for the Cherrybook
 
Cherrybook audio titles come pre-loaded on microSD cards, which are easily inserted into a slot on the player. Loading and changing titles is as simple as popping the old card out and the new card in. See the Cherrybook at our Online Bookstore:  http://www.CherryHillPublishing.com/Bookstorehttp://www.CherryHillPublishing.com

Many coming attractions

Summer was a little quiet for me, release-wise (although Buried Bones came out, plus the freebies The Gig and Treasure). I'm about to make up for that quiet summer with a very busy fall! I'm really excited about all my upcoming releases. Here's a rundown!

The Tin Box comes out September 20. You can preorder now. The blurb:

William Lyon's past forced him to become someone he isn't. Conflicted and unable to maintain the charade, he separates from his wife and takes a job as caretaker at a former mental hospital. Jelley’s Valley State Insane Asylum was the largest mental hospital in California for well over a century, but it now stands empty. William thinks the decrepit institution is the perfect place to finish his dissertation and wait for his divorce to become final. In town, William meets Colby Anderson, who minds the local store and post office. Unlike William, Colby is cute, upbeat, and flamboyantly out. Although initially put off by Colby’s mannerisms, William comes to value their new friendship, and even accepts Colby's offer to ease him into the world of gay sex.

William’s self-image begins to change when he discovers a tin box, hidden in an asylum wall since the 1940s. It contains letters secretly written by Bill, a patient who was sent to the asylum for being homosexual. The letters hit close to home, and William comes to care about Bill and his fate. With Colby’s help, he hopes the words written seventy years ago will give him courage to be his true self.

Also next week, audiobooks of my Ennek trilogy will be released. If you haven't read the trilogy already, it's a dark fantasy set in an alternate universe. I donate all my royalties from this trilogy to Doctors Without Borders, so if you buy, your money's going to a great cause. The audio publisher is Cherry Hill. Print and Kindle versions will continue to be available at Amazon.




I'll have a short story called "The Clockwork Heart" in the Steamed Up anthology. It comes out October 21 and should be available soon for preorder. The blurb:

Dante Winter makes a living repairing broken things. Socially awkward and rejected by his father over his too-fanciful work, he’s alone in the world. Dante's life changes when he finds a badly damaged male golem, a lifelike automaton created for service and pleasure. He does his best to fix the golem, whom he names Talon, and comes to find that the creature is very human—perhaps more human than Dante. But when Talon tempts him with something more than friendship, Dante must decide whether a clockwork heart is capable of love.

In November, "Housekeeping" will release. It's a light contemporary novella about aguy named Nicky, who loses his job, his home, and his boyfriend all in one day.

And in December, I'll have a holiday short called "Alaska". It's part of Dreamspinner Press's holiday package, which means you can buy the whole thing and get a story a day in December, or buy my story by itself. "Alaska" is a fairly angsty contemporary.

Will that be enough to keep us busy for a while?

Inspiration Post #18: L'Angelo

In my novel Venetian Masks, Jeff spends some time sightseeing in Venice. I was lucky enough to spend a week in Venice a couple of years ago. Despite the vast number of tourists, it's a beautiful city, unlike any other place in the world. It's full of unique pleasures: getting lost (but never too lost), riding the vaporetto, listening to the gondoliers' calls.


One place I enjoyed visiting in Venice was the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Because if you are fabulously wealthy and have a lot of amazing artist friends, you can buy a villa on the Grand Canal and fill it with 20th century masterpieces. Jeff visits there too.

One of the pieces of art that catches Jeff's eye is a statue by Marino Marini, entitled L'angelo della città (The Angel of the City). Interestingly, the piece was meant to reflect the artist's despair (read here). I think that guy on the horse looks pretty happy, actually.

 I'd sort of love to own a sculpture like this. It'd look great in my front yard. My 11-year-old daughter was too embarrassed to even look at it, while my 8-year-old didn't care because she was too preoccupied with wanting to sit on the throne.


Next week: D-Day

Please welcome Posy Roberts!

It's common to have moments in life when you ponder, "What if I had a second chance with (insert name here)?" Not that I truly want one because I'm happily married. But thoughts like that sometimes spontaneously come after looking old photos or yearbooks. I've thought about that friend in college with the gorgeous red hair and blue eyes that I never took the chance to kiss when I should have.
Sometimes people fall in love at the wrong time. It's like all the stars align but in three weeks you’re leaving to tour the world or moving across the country. Or maybe you were too young to settle down for the rest of your life and felt you needed to go out and explore. Or go to college. Or like me with that gorgeous redhead, at the time I was dating the man I thought I was going to marry.
Those feelings of “What if?” are what inspired Spark, book one of my North Star Trilogy . Hugo Thorson and Kevin Magnus were deeply in love in high school, but then they both left for college. The inevitable happened and they lost contact. Years later they meet on a random lake two hours from where they both actually live and they still feel that intense attraction years later. It's also at a time that both are free to date. Hugo has been single for a year, and Kevin asked his wife for a divorce eleven months prior.
Here's an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Sparkjust as Hugo and Kevin are reunited. You can read Chapter 1 here 
Kevin laughed deep and warm in his chest and stopped walking, pulling Hugo to a stop with him. “God, Hugo. I missed you. You always did know what to say to make me feel better. How the heck did we ever lose track of each other after everything we discovered together?”Hugo shrugged, not knowing how to answer after their gradual drift from talking on a regular basis during their first month in college to nothing by the time winter break came. Hugo’s mom and sister had moved to the Twin Cities mere months after Hugo left for college, and that certainly hadn’t helped matters. But it was more, he realized.“We just had different lives, I think,” Hugo said with a shrug. “We went our separate ways after I said good-bye to you in your driveway.”“I still regret not kissing you that day. I should have just said ‘screw it’ and kissed you like I wanted to, even if my dad was right there.”Hugo looked up the few inches to meet Kevin’s gray eyes and tried to smile, but it probably came across more as sadness than a smile. He couldn’t believe Kevin still thought of that day too. He wondered if Kevin’s mind ever drifted to the kiss in the wooded meadow when he was bored in a meeting or like Hugo’s had that very afternoon in the car. Slowly, he felt the corner of his mouth turn into something akin to flirty, and he asked, “Oh?”“Yes,” Kevin said as his warm thumb trailed across Hugo’s jaw toward his chin. “I’ve thought about that day a lot, about our last kiss and how I wish it never would’ve ended. Damn the rain. Would you mind if I showed you how I’ve always imagined that moment in the driveway would’ve happened? Or are you with someone?”“No. I mean, yes, you can show me,” Hugo stammered, his heart beating hard against his chest.Kevin’s smile lit up his face, and he looked so young just then, the careworn lines that had appeared between his brows while talking about his father smoothing.“Okay, so maybe this isn’t exactly like I would have said things back then, but this is how I wish I would’ve done it. Ready?”Hugo nodded and licked his lips, drawing Kevin’s attention to his mouth.“So pretend we’re standing next to my open trunk,” Kevin directed as he led Hugo near the tail end of a car parked in a driveway close to the roadside. Kevin tilted his head left and right, shaking his hands out loosely next to his body as if trying to get into character.“Hugo,” he started, somehow pulling youthful nervousness into his voice, “we should plan on getting together in a few weeks.”“Sure,” Hugo answered, ready to play along with the conversation he barely remembered. He recalled the feelings he’d had, though: excitement about leaving Austin but sadness about leaving Kevin. “I can get a ride down to St. Peter, or you can come up to Minneapolis. It’s not that far.”That drive never ended up happening for either of them because Hugo auditioned for a play in the U’s theater department and got a lead role as a freshman, something unheard of. He had no time to get together on weekends because he had homework to do and lines to memorize and blocking to learn and sets to help build.“Seventy miles or so.”That’s where Hugo vaguely remembered Kevin’s dad clapping his big hands and telling Kevin he’d better hit the road. Now there was just the sound of far-off waves and traffic from the highway on the other side of the trees peppered with exploding fireworks.“I’d love that,” Hugo said, regretful he hadn’t taken the time to find a ride and just go. “I’ll make it happen,” he promised, and he wished he’d kept it.Kevin looked at Hugo with such intensity; even in the darkness surrounding them, Hugo could see how blown Kevin’s pupils were.“It’ll happen this time,” Kevin whispered against Hugo’s mouth, lazily closing his eyes as he spoke.Hugo tasted Kevin’s breath on his tongue, remembering it, even with the faint scent of lemon lingering. A silvery thread of his memory seemed to actually weave this moment to the moments in his past, pushing Hugo back into that world, filling him with all those emotions he had for Kevin when they were just boys. Kevin was the only man Hugo had really and truly been in love with. He was the ruler every single boyfriend since had to unwittingly measure himself against. And none, not a single one, had ever gotten anywhere near.Hugo took in a quick breath and pushed forward, capturing Kevin’s mouth with his own as his fingers threaded through thick blond waves and shorter razor-cut strands; his hands landed on Kevin’s neck. Hugo thumbed over Kevin’s ears, allowing the pads of his fingers to tease the fine hair along his earlobes.They fused their mouths, opening and closing with lips caressing, teeth nipping, and tongues pushing against each other in an attempt to taste the familiarity that was new again.Kevin trailed his hands down Hugo’s back, kneading his fingers against Hugo’s ass once he got there, then pulling them closer. Hugo felt Kevin starting to firm up beneath the thin material of his shorts, and he wanted so badly to thrust. He barely restrained himself.They stood on a darkened road and kissed how they both wished they would have years ago, giving to each other more than they took away. But by doing it that way, Hugo felt more content than he had in years.“Come back to my place?” Kevin panted against Hugo’s temple. “Please, Hugh?”Hugo nodded as he tried to catch his breath and then nodded again.
Incidentally, I got to write about that redhead in my trilogy. She's Erin, Kevin's wife. So even if I didn't get to kiss her in real life, I got to write about how intelligent, kind, and beautiful she was to me. That's as close to a second chance I'll ever get with her, but the nice thing about writing her into fiction is that I won't be disappointed by reality. Thankfully, Kevin and Hugo weren't disappointed with each other.

In their small-town high school, Hugo and Kevin became closeted lovers who kept their secret even from parents. Hugo didn’t want to disappoint his terminally ill father, and Kevin’s controlling father would never tolerate a bisexual son. When college took them in different directions, they promised to reunite, but that didn’t happen for seventeen years.By the time they meet again, Hugo has become an out-and-proud actor and director who occasionally performs in drag—a secret that has cost him in past relationships. Kevin, still closeted, has followed his father’s path and now, in the shadow of divorce, is striving to be a better father to his own children. When Hugo and Kevin meet by chance at a party, the spark of attraction reignites, as does their genuine friendship. Rekindling a romance may mean Hugo must compromise the openness he values, but Kevin will need a patient partner as he adapts to living outside the closet. With such different lifestyles, the odds seem stacked against them, and Hugo fears that if his secret comes to light, it may drive Kevin away completely.

 Posy Roberts lives in the land of 10,000 lakes (plus a few thousand more). But even with more shoreline than California, Florida, and Hawaii combined, Minnesota has snow—lots of it—and the six months of winter makes us “hearty folk,” or so the locals say. The rest of the year is heat and humidity with a little bit of cool weather we call spring and autumn, which lasts about a week.
She loves a clean house, even if she can’t keep up with her daughter’s messes, and prefers foods that are enriched with meat, noodles, and cheese, or as we call it in Minnesota, hotdish. She also loves people, even though she has to spend considerable amounts of time away from them after helping to solve their interpersonal problems at her day job.
Posy is married to a wonderful man who makes sure she eats while she documents the lives of her characters. She also has a remarkable daughter who helps her come up with character names. When she’s not writing, she enjoys karaoke, hiking, and singing spontaneously about the mundane, just to make normal seem more interesting.
Read more at http://posyroberts.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/posyroberts11
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PosyRoberts

Inspiration Post #17: Old photos

I've always loved going through old family photos. That's what inspired my story Violet's Present , in which the photo of a long-gone relative quite literally sends Matt back in time.

Because photos can send us back, can't they? Like this one of me, circa 1983:
I remember that shirt. It was stylin'. I remember sitting at the kitchen table reading the Sunday paper--something I rarely have time for nowadays.

From the same era:

That's me, all dolled up for shudder my first job. I can still remember the smell of hot grease in polyester.

This one's only about 11 years old. I possess 10,000 pictures of my older daughter smiling like this. Nowadays she hides her face or scowls. I remember too, how much she loved those Snow White shoes. She wanted to wear them everywhere and she was devastated when she outgrew them.


Photos can take us to times and places we've never been, like this one:


That's my husband, long before I met him.

And these next two go way back, because this is my grandmother. That means the one on the left is nearly 100 years old.


And here's my dad, who was adorable.

Old photos are so much fun!

Next week: L'Angelo

Please welcome Garrett Leigh!

Inspirations, influences and six ominous wordsI've been thinking about this blog post for a while, and by chance during that time I've come across a few articles and blogs about what inspires other writers to write.
I've studied them avidly (in between string at my computer screen and procrastinating, you do see) and there seem to be a few recurring factors: travel, music, family, and just to be awkward, I'm gonna throw in one of my own…FOOD!
I'm going to talk about food last because I have a feeling once I get started on that I'll never shut up, and I'm going to nix travel because, to be honest, I never venture far from my home on the northern fringe of London to have anything interesting to say. I'd love to visit an exotic country, soak it all in, and come home and write a steamy, edgy novel inspired by the sandy beaches and sultry seas. But it ain't never gonna happen. 
Instead, I'd like to witter about those odd flashes of genius that come to us in the strangest of places. You know, those weird moments when a whole book is inspired by a single sentence. My upcoming novel with Dreamspinner Press is a good example of this. I was in the shower one day when six ominous words popped into my steam clouded brain: he rarely let me fuck him. I couldn't get the phrase out of my head for days, and a few months later, Slide was complete. Off the top of my head, I can't even remember if the phrase made it into the finished book, but those words still haunt me. 
Music.Now this is a doubled edged sword for me. Without it, I very much doubt I'd ever finish a book, but on the flip side, I can't write a word if I actually have it playing. At least, not music with lyrics. Classical music, film soundtracks in particular, work much better for me. Recently, I've found myself tapping out a contemporary London based novel with the Gladiator score roaring in my ears. Weird, but hey, I never said I was normal.
I also find that it helps to kinda fine tune my playlist to the general tone of whatever I'm writing. The Roads series is based in Chicago, and the main protagonists are pretty young, cool and edgy. Ash is a tattooist and an artist, and Pete, his wonderful, stubbly paramedic lover, is covered in his ink. When I was writing them, I listened to a lot of urban music…dark drum and bass, and dubstep. Being a Brit chick, most of it was London based, but it helped. Or, at the very least, let me think I was cool for a while.
At the beginning of the year I wrote a novel that was far more earthy. In Only Love, a wounded veteran is paired with a vegetarian carpenter. The book was mainly set at a cabin by a lake in Oregon. For this book I listened to a lot of acoustic guitar music. Jose Gonzales and Ben Howard. Bon Iver and Mumford and Sons. I'm such a cliché.
Family:Totally. Just not my own, and I think that's because, like everyone with a relatively stable background, I consider my family to be pretty dull and mundane. Instead, I tend to look to others for inspiration. I have a wonderful gal pal of Irish origin who was my inspiration for Pete's mother Maggie in the Roads series. Maggie is Italian, warm and completely crazy. Just like my friend, I couldn't just make her up.
Food, glorious FOOD! Is there a better inspiration? For me? Probably not. My life revolves around food, at home and out at work. I've worked in restaurants and kitchens my whole life and food plays a central role to my family life. I'm a pretty lousy housewife, and a mediocre mother, but I do at least feed my brood good, home cooked food and rarely a meal goes by when I'm not plotting a way to combine stuffing my face with my addiction to a good meaty romance. 
It has been almost too easy to weave this into my work. In the Roadsseries, Pete doesn’t cook at all, and Ash only rarely, but they bond over a shared love of real Chicago deep dish, and their relationship with Pete's mother revolves around her hearty, soulful peasant food. In Only Love, my wounded war vet Jed is newly diagnosed with a chronic stomach disorder on top of his recovery from some horrific injuries. Enter Max, his hippy, vegetarian roommate who, without even knowing it, organically cooks his way into Jed's heart. Even my porn star boys in Bullet, my upcoming Loose ID novella, bond over some homemade Mexican food. 
It gets everywhere, you see. I just can't help myself, and my current project is my most indulgent yet. Gypsy Rain began life as a sweet little tale of a Cornish fudge maker and his mysterious gypsy lover, but the sequel has since moved to a gritty, volatile London kitchen. I'm having a whale of a time with this book, embracing both my chef roots and my inner angst whore. Life is good :-)
So yeah, that's my take on some of the most common inspirations, but of course, the greatest inspiration you can have is yourself…your own emotions and experiences, and while I've certainly never been a shy Texan tattoo artist, or an enigmatic brooding war vet, I still put a lot of myself into each and every character, and I don't think that will ever change.

About Garrett Leigh
Hmm, where to start? Garrett lives in a small commuter town just north of London with her husband, two kids, a dog with half a brain, and a cat with a chip on her shoulder. She's 29, and now she's reached that milestone, she intends to stay there for the foreseeable future.Garrett has been writing just about her whole life, but it's been about three years since she decided to take it seriously. It got to the stage where she had to give the men in her head a voice, or have herself committed. 
Angst. She can't write a word without it. She's tried, she really has, but her protagonists will always, always,be tortured, crippled, broken, and deeply flawed. Throw in a tale of enduring true love, some stubbly facial hair and a bunch of tattoos, and you've got yourself a Garrett special.
Garrett is a contracted author at Dreamspinner Press, Loose ID and Extasy books. She also self publishes from time to time at Black Jazz Press. 
Garrett is a freelance cover artist at Dreamspinner Press and Loose ID, and she does her very best to produce all her own cover art. The covers you will see below are all hers. She goes indie style as well for those who self-publish, just drop her a line at blackjazzdesign@gmail.com For book enquiries contact garrettleighbooks@gmail.comLinks and Social Mediahttp://garrettleigh.com/https://twitter.com/Garrett_Leighhttp://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5893561.Garrett_Leigh
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Garrett-Leigh/484336074987986https://www.facebook.com/garrettleighbooks

Out Now
BlurbCornish fudge maker Seb Wright is anticipating and dreading the upcoming tourist season with equal measure. The cash injection is more than welcome, the long hours in the sticky, vanilla scented kitchen less so.
A few days into the first tentative sparks of summer a shadowy Good Samaritan catches his eye. Vagrant Dex is a new face in town…a beautiful, sullen enigma, and yet with each busy day that passes, Seb finds himself becoming more and more attracted to the mysterious, young man.
A young man who seems destined to become the heartbeat of a summer he’ll never forget.ExcerptHe was on his third trip between the cottage and the shop when the heavens opened. Briefly, he couldn’t believe his rotten luck, until he spotted Dex shuffling up the street, once again soaked to the skin.
For a moment, he stared. The bruises on Dex’s face had faded to a dull shade of greenish yellow, and from a distance, they could hardly be seen.The image of him huddled in the doorway of the beachwear shop flashed into his mind, and he found himself suddenly, irrationally, angry.
Were they really still there? Really still in a place where Dex was hiding from a summer storm with nowhere to go? Still in a place where he went home to his comfortable bed every night with no clue where Dex laid his head?
Hell, no.
Something inside him snapped. He propped the heavy cooling slab he carried against a dry stone wall, pulled his hood up, and started down the road. Paying the rain no heed, Dex was walking with his eyes down,  so he didn’t notice Seb until he was practically on top of him.
“Come home with me.”
Dex raised his head, blinking in surprise. “What?”
“Come home with me. You can’t sleep out in this.”
“Says who?”
The defiance in his eyes broke Seb’s heart. Dex had never admitted that he had no place to call home, and it seemed he never would. “Says me,” he said shortly. “I’m working at home tonight, and you’re coming with me.”
Dex stared at him, his face inscrutable, and the silence stretched on and on, punctuated only by a brutal clap of thunder. “What do you want from me?”
Seb stepped closer and lightly touched the fading marks on Dex’s face. “I want you to be safe and dry, even if it’s only for one night. I can’t… fuck. I can’t leave you out here. Please don’t make me.”Buy links
Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gypsy-Rain-ebook/dp/B00DTJ0A7M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374482030&sr=8-1&keywords=Gypsy+RainARe https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-gypsyrain-1228805-149.html

Coming Soon


Slide is the first of the four part Roads series being released by Dreamspinner Press October 14th 2013 . On the same day its accompanying free short story, Marked, will be released too. They will be followed by Rare and Freed early spring 2014.BlurbDon’t look back. Don’t you ever look back…Shy tattoo artist Ash has a troubled past. Years of neglect, drug abuse, and life on the streets have taken their toll, and sometimes it seems the deep, unspoken bond with his lover is the only balm for wounds he doesn’t quite understand.Chicago paramedic Pete is warmth, love, and strength—things Ash never knew he could have, and never even knew he wanted until Pete showed him. But fate is a cruel, cruel mistress, and when nightmares collide with the present, theFour years later, Mik lives in the shadow of the Albanian mountains, trying to rebuild his life with what remains of his family. His grief for Isa weighs heavily on his young shoulders until one day a lone man appears in the forest. Is the broken stranger the love Mik believed was gone forever, or is he just a dream?****BulletPart of the Blue Boy Studio series, Bulletwill be released by Loose ID sometime this year. The details are still vague, but here is the working blurb.Blurb
Levi Ramone entered the gay porn market for one reason, and one reason only–he needed the cash to pay his momma's spiraling gambling debts.Seven years later, he's a veteran with a reputation as one of Blue Boy Studio's most ruthless tops, and when his boss suggests it's time for a change, he finds himself staring down the barrel of a gun.Figuratively speaking, at least.Enter Sonny Valentine, a go-go dancer at Blue's sister club, Silver's. Levi has secretly admired Sonny's beauty for years, but there's one problem–he can't stand Sonny and the feeling is entirely mutual. When Levi learns Sonny is to play the third part in a scene he considers his worst nightmare, he figures things can't get any worse.But when preparations for the scene from hell collide with tragic events in his personal life, he finds his fast growing, red hot attraction to Sonny the one thing left between him and a bullet.

Please welcome Lex Chase!

When Not Writing
Hello everyone! I’m Lex Chase and Kim let me drop by her blog today. A little about me is I am the creator of the Checkmate series for Dreamspinner Press with Pawn Takes Rook, the newly released sequel Pawn Takes Rook: Cashing the Reality Check, and coming in early 2014 the final installment Pawn Takes Rook: Conventional Love. The series follows the zany adventures of disgraced superhero Memphis Rook and his climb to redemption alongside his sidekick/boyfriend Hogarth Dawson.You can check it out over here! http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/index.php?cPath=913And don’t forget about the giveaway at the end of this post! :D
So, today I’m talking about what I do when I’m not writing. I’m always writing, and there are times it feels like my life revolves around my ass in my chair and my hands on the keys. I’m one of those people that can never not be doing something. I’m always productive in some way. It’s just who I am. Anderson Cooper who is the king of keeping busy once he’s like a shark that had to keep swimming to be able to breathe. A friend told him there’s a shark that can actually stop swimming to sleep.He didn’t believe it.And neither do I.So, here’s a rundown of what I do when I’m gasp not putting words to the page.
Organizing
It is said the chaos outside reflects the chaos inside. My head for a variety of reasons is a verychaotic place. Many times it looks like a bomb has gone off in my bedroom while my office is pristine. I have no idea what that says about me.My office doesn’t always stay perfect either. Often times when I’m deep in a project or projects pluralmy desk has an army of water bottles. Papers and post-its piled high. Pens scattered everywhere. Mail I’ve opened and put the document in one place, and left the torn envelope on my desk in another place. All because I was busy.I recently finished a novel and sent it off to my betas. The subject matter of the story was harrowing to get through to say the least and I felt extremely vulnerable handing it in to them. The next day, I took an internet sabbatical and dismantled my office then put it back together. I shucked shit. I found new places for things to live. The whole act is very soothing, and when you’re done you are soready for a nap!


Cook


I run a fitness blog called Bitter Little Pearl (http://bitterlittlepearl.com) where I share my adventures in Weight Watchers and share things I’ve learned and my progress. Overall, it’s a very supportive and open place for all walks of life.Part of Bitter Little Pearl is coming up with recipes to share. I’m no pro food blogger but I like to give people something approachable and easy to do. Real food for the real world.I have several recipe series I’m working on. One is the Pintrest Makeover Series where you see all those wonderful super-indulgent-super-bad-for-you recipes, and I’m converting them into Weight Watchers Friendly without sacrificing the taste or sense of indulgence. One I did was a cheese bun recipe here: http://nomadchronicle.com/blp/2013/05/18/recipe-i-can-has-cheezebunz/Another is the Comfort Food Series where I’ve been asking people what their go-to comfort foods are when they are emotional in either a celebratory or depressed mood. I’m always taking suggestions for that! And one of my proudest achievements for it was making a delicious diabetic friendly German chocolate cupcake. http://nomadchronicle.com/blp/2013/06/22/recipe-dads-delectable-diabetic-german-chocolate-cupcakes/One that I’m still researching is a series of recipes on Food Trucks. We don’t have very many in our town, but I am fascinated by them and the awesome stuff they make. I have a few cookbooks, so I’m looking into it.
Leave The House
This sounds like such a simple thing doesn’t it? Who doesn’t leave the house? I have a severe form of bipolar disorder, so the act of me going out in public is quite difficult.If it’s something I have an appointment for, or I’m scheduled to do something (like college classes), I’m fine because it’s a routine and I know what to expect. But going out just to go out? What is this deviltry you speak of?It sounds super silly, but I leave my house in small doses. In my head, I keep a mental list of “safe places” I can go that won’t be overwhelming or anxiety inducing.[[[PACIFIC RIM HERE]]] I can go to movies, but not on opening weekends much to the annoyance of my older brother that needsto see everything in IMAX 3D and needs to see it noooooooww! Protip: Go the followingThursday and the first showing of the day. That’s how I finally saw Pacific Rim and there were five other people in the theater. And it was AMAZING. Bookstores are always a good place to go on certain days when it isn’t too crowded. And Staples. God, how I love Staples. It’s like the Ikea of Office Supplies! Above all that?Target.I will go to Target and walk every goddamn aisle for no reason at all. I collect My Little Ponies and have since I was five, so one of them is always falling in my cart.
Crafting
When I have a break from writing, I’ll sit and make something. I’ve recently gotten back into drawing which is something I haven’t done in years and I’m currently designing stickers for GayRomLit. Or I’ll actually pull out the sewing stuff and hot glue gun and stitch something together.It’s very meditative to sit there and watch Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, then Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods, while having something take shape in your hands. I recently made a gift for my Mom out of a Fisher-Price toy cow for infants. We’re fans of the show Under the Dome based on Stephen King’s book, and one of the opening scenes features a cow being split in half when the dome comes down. We lose our crapevery time we see it. So I took the cow, did a little surgery to split him in half, and sew him up again with his new… modifications.I named him Lucky the Split Cow and I’ll gladly make more for others that want one for 20 bucks. :D




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GIVEAWAY TIME! One lucky winner for August, and one lucky winner for September will receive a set of Series 1 and Series 2 Checkmate buttons, a Lex Chase.com pen, and both Checkmate covers! August winners to be announced August 31st! September winners will be announced September 30th!
***                  ***                  ***Pawn Takes Rook: Cashing the Reality Check BlurbEven after eleven months of keeping the mean streets of Axis City safe, superduo Checkmate—Hogarth Dawson—and his boyfriend, Memphis Rook, still receive the cold shoulder from the Power Alliance. Undeterred, Hogarth brings his intense focus to bear on Rook, and after Hogarth makes an accidental marriage proposal, it becomes all too clear Rook isn’t quite at the same place. But before life gets awkward, duty calls.

Booted-off female contestants of the romantic reality show Single and Super are being found in comas, and Checkmate needs to get to the bottom of it. As part of Rook’s plan, he cleans up his bad boy image and goes undercover as a bachelor looking for love among twenty-five frenzied women. Against Rook’s wishes, Hogarth sneaks onto the set as a cameraman to investigate the case on his own. With questions unanswered between them, emotions run high, distracting them and feeding a trap of their own making.
Where To Buy: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4100Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18243210-cashing-the-reality-checkCatch up on Checkmate #1, Pawn Takes Rook:http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3643
***                  ***                  ***Pawn Takes Rook: Cashing the Reality Check Excerpt“Move it, Garth!” Rook screamed and hopped down from the counter. He ducked as a smoking sea-green tentacle lashed forward through the kitchen window. The long, slimy appendage flailed blindly through the tiny kitchen and flopped over the scattered pots and pans. They clattered around the floor and bounced against the cabinets in head-splitting bongs and gongs. I thanked God Mr. Caruthers in the apartment below was now deaf as a post.I scrambled backward to the doorway of bedroom, and Rook followed, holding the Cheez Whiz and Aim-N-Flame at the ready.“Go, go, go,” he ordered, and I scurried as fast as the Nyan Cat through the vastness of space.“What the hell are you doing with the Cheez Whiz?” I yelled over the roar of the horrible elder god watching us through the windows.The creature’s shark-black eye peered through the window, and Rook took action as he spritzed Cheez Whiz toward the new target. I gasped when the cheesy not-really-a-dairy-product ignited like napalm. Rook, if anything, was stupidly resourceful.The putrid green creature teetered away from the window, clawing at his face, his great wings flapping and kicking up cyclones through the tightly packed apartment buildings. He swayed, left, right, forward, back, and I danced back through the door into my bedroom.“Rook, you might want to get down,” I helpfully suggested as he stood in the living room between me and the kitchen.Rook braced himself and planted his feet. He lifted the Cheez Whiz and Aim-N-Flame, ready to spritz the cheesy napalm of death.The elder god swayed toward my kitchen. You know when something is going to totally not work the way it’s supposed to? Yeah. This was one of those moments. I could see it play out in slow motion, like one of those car crashes they cinematically shoot at three hundred frames-per-second so you can see every agonizing, bone-breaking, glass-shattering moment. And then overlay it with a soundtrack like—I don’t know—some Limp Bizkit song that sounds like an angry cat in a blender that makes no sense with the artful scene of carnage.I craned my neck and peeked around Rook’s elbow. Brick by brick, and tile by tile, the creature crashed into my kitchen. Knocked out and drooling on my Nana’s shredded gingham wallpaper. Rook stood there like it was another day at the office, his long blond hair fluttering with each breath of the sleeping elder god.“Whoa…,” I said, blinking through the dust on my glasses. The monster sighed and the tentacles around his mouth flopped in the most unfortunate sounding snore. I glanced up at Rook. “The typical giant monster never took out half the apartment before…”Rook kept his grip on the Cheez Whiz and Aim-N-Flame, ready to strike again. “Think the landlord will notice?”I frowned and gestured to the creature. “How will the landlord not notice?” I asked. “Half the apartment’s gone. Look!” I said and nudged a splintered timber with my toe. “This is not as easy as just ignoring it and hoping it’ll magically go away.”Rook smirked and stooped to get a closer inspection of the monster. “You’re cute when you’re angry.”I stamped my foot and grunted. “Don’t you dare start that with me, Tiberius.” I growled.Rook perked up and pursed his lips. “Who told you my middle name is Tiberius?”I tossed a hand back toward the bedroom in hopes to indicate my Macbook somewhere in there. “Wikipedia,” I growled. “You should check it out. The Captain Chivalry fans have done a pretty good job of defacing it.”Rook waved a dismissive hand before poking the monster with the Aim-N-Flame. “And how’s he doing up on Ganymede Lunar Prison? I’m sure Rainbow Honeysuckle Jones is calling him a pretty-mouthed midget right now.”I crossed my arms and stared at the crater left by Rook’s frame in the wall. I counted to ten. And when I still didn’t feel better, I counted again. Nope. Still didn’t feel any better. I glared at Rook. “The fact remains there is a KO’ed elder god in the kitchen. The kitchen!”“It’ll be okay,” Rook said and offered one of those smiles that he knew would charm my pants off. And said smiles have indeed charmed my pants off a time or twenty. “We’ll fix it.”I tossed up my hands and frustration flooded through me. “With whatfictional Monopoly money? We can’t afford something like this.”Rook frowned, and his brows drew upward seeming to indicate concern. “Are we arguing? Because it seems like we’re arguing.”With such a simple question, my wrath melted away when it dawned on me Rook took on the demeanor of a swatted Doberman. I sighed. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” I said, then smiled. “We’ll figure out something.”***                  ***                  ***
You can find Lex on those Facebook and Twitter things at:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LXChase
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Lex_Chase
And her blog at http://lexchase.com.