Cardeno C.'s Blog, page 57

Re-Release by Felice Stevens

I'm thrilled that A Walk through Fire, the first book in my Through Hell and Back series is now available for pre-order! Ash and Drew remain two of my favorite characters and the additional scenes only add to the depth of their often frustrating but ultimately loving relationship. Asher Davis might be one of the most complicated men I've ever written but what is simple is the fact that he loves Drew and was willing to change his life for him, by opening his heart.
I hope you enjoy their story!
Pre-order here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M7XB1EF 

Ask Andrew - My TBR Pile - Andrew Grey

Hey Andrew

What's on the top of your to be read pile?

Happy Reading Dawn

Dear Dawn

Oh boy that's a harder question that I'd like to admit to.  I don't get as much chance to read as I'd like to.  However I know I'll be reading Clare London's Romancing the Wrong Twin soon because I have the Dreamspun Desires subscription and I'm enjoying the stories.  (Just so you know I have Poppy's Secret in the subscription coming mid February)  Poppy Dennison wanted a secret baby book...  So I made sure her name was in it.  :)

I will be readying Mary Calmes's  When the Dust Settles.  I loved the others in the series, so I have to read that one.  I also have a copy of Isabelle Peterson's Unexpected Dreams that she was kind enough to pass on to me and I'll be starting that very soon.   And of course I'll be grabbing Renae Kaye's upcoming title in the Loving Jay series.  I always ready Ba's cowboy stories.  I just adore them. 

Other than that, when I get time to read, I'll probably look for something that catches my eye.  The writing is coming pretty furiously right now, but when that eases up, I'll read quite a bit and catch up on a lot of stories, especially as the weather gets cooler.

Hugs and love
Andrew

Ask Andrew is your chance to ask questions of a gay romance author.  The questions can be about the writing process in general, writing sex scenes, gay men, sex, characters in romance, characters having sex... okay you probably get the picture.    I promise to answer your questions as frankly and with as much humor as I possibly can.

So if you have a question, please send it to andrewgreybooks@comcast.net.  This is different from my usual email so your questions don't get lost.  I will answer one question a week.

Please remember this is meant to be all in fun.  (I was going to say good, clean fun, but who wants that.)    So send me your questions and let's see what mischief we can get into.

Visit Andrew on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/andrewgreybooks  and you can join Andrew's fan group All The Way With Andrew Grey.

Follow him on Twitter:  @andrewgreybooks

Thanksgiving appetizers and contest winners from Sean, BA, Julia and Kiernan

Hi y'all!

Happy November!

This month we want to do recipes! So this week it's appetizers.

What's y'all's favorite holiday appetizer?

Here's Sean Michael's

Bacon-wrapped Chicken Bites

(recipe from Paula Deen)

Ingredients

1 (1 lb) package sliced bacon

1 1/4 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breast, (about 4)

2/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

2 tablespoons chili powder

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°. Cut chicken breasts into 1-inch cubes. Cut each bacon slice into thirds. Wrap each chicken cube with bacon and secure with a wooden pick (i usually don't bother with the toothpick and they stay wrapped without it). Stir together brown sugar and chili powder. Dredge wrapped chicken in mixture. Coat a rack and broiler pan with non-stick cooking spray. Place chicken on rack in broiler pan. Bake at 350° for 30 to 35 minutes or until bacon is crisp.

It makes a lot, so feel free to cut the recipe in half.

Here's Julia Talbot's

Dad's Relish Plate

Every year at Thanksgiving, my mother would get my dad out of her way by sitting him down at the dining table to make a relish plate. When I did my first holiday meal with my wife, way back when, I told her dad would do the relish plate. She looked at what he produced and blinked. A lot. Then she pulled out two big trays and filled one with pickles and olives and one with veggies and ranch dip. Relish plate, meet relish tray.

Ever since then we've done both.

Ingredients:

Radishes, cut into roses. `2 per person (not kidding)

Gherkins. 3 per person

black olives. 3 per person who eat them, which was me and mom

jellied cranberry sauce from a can

celery ribs stuff with Kraft Old English cheese

cheddar cheese cut into little logs

Method:

use Grandma's deviled egg plate, or some other weird and wonderful china thing, and put cranberry sauce in the middle. Then arrange the rest in an artful pattern around the jelly goo. Voila. Enjoy the oohs and ahhs of guests.

BA Tortuga

Sausage Balls, which are a staple of the Texas holiday, and all the boys' favorite

Ingredients

1 lb bulk sausage

1 lb cheddar cheese shredded

1 to 1 1/2 c Bisquick (we use gluten free but either works)

Directions

1 Heat oven to 350ºF. Nix together cheese and sausage. Add 1 cup Bisquick and mix together by hand. If the mix is not quite dry enough to cling together but not be wet, gradually add more mix until consistency is achieved. Roll into balls and place, spaced, on an ungreased baking sheet. Do not use Pam or parchment or foil. Bake 20 to 30 minutes until crisp and lightly browned.

Kiernan broccoli stuffing casserole for Thanksgiving.

2 pounds fresh broccoli florets

2 eggs, beaten

1 onion, chopped

1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup

1/2 cup mayonnaise

10 ounces dry bread stuffing mix

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.

2. Cook broccoli in a large pot of salted boiling water until just slightly tender. Drain.

3. In a large bowl, combine eggs, onion, mushroom soup and mayonnaise.

4. Place a layer of broccoli in the prepared baking dish. Pour mayonnaise sauce over broccoli. Spread stuffing mix over the sauce. Drizzle butter or margarine over all and top with shredded cheese.

5. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes.

6. Top with layer of whole cranberry sauce.

In other news, congrats to Eliwrites, who won the 10.00 Amazon GC! email me at Juliatalbot at gmail.com with the email address!

XXOO

Sean’s website is http://www.seanmichaelwrites.com

Julia’s is http://www.juliatalbot.com BA’s is http://www.batortuga.com

Kiernan's is www.KiernanKelly.com

Facebook:

Sean -- https://www.facebook.com/SeanMichaelW...

Julia -- https://www.facebook.com/juliatalbota...

BA -- https://www.facebook.com/batortuga

Kiernan -- https://www.facebook.com/kiernan.kelly

Labels by Cardeno C.

Labels are a funny thing. Not haha funny, but interesting funny.
Sometimes they seem silly. Like label on packing material that tells us not to eat it or the label on a hot coffee that warns us it’s hot. But I assume that if the label is there, someone at some point needed it so I shrug and move on.
Sometimes it seems meaningless. Like the label on food that says it’s gluten free. I never gave that any thought until my nephew was diagnosed with Celiac. Now I scan boxes and bags for that label like a hawk.
Sometimes it matters to us deeply for reasons we can’t always fully articulate but nevertheless strongly feel. For example, I’m Jewish. That’s a label I was born with, choose to keep, and feel all the way to my bones. Should it matter? I don’t know, but to me, it very much does.
Sometimes the same label matters not a lick in one situation but matters a whole lot in another based solely on a person’s perception or life experience. For example, a woman whose gender matches her body at birth may not think much of using the bathroom marked “men” when there’s a long line around the corner for the “women’s” room. But a woman whose gender doesn’t match her body at birth could be terrified every time she steps into the “women’s” room or the “men’s” room, depending on how she looks at that time.
Sometimes labels are a shorthand way of summarizing something that isn’t easily put into words or a way of explaining something quickly. A friend of mine (who now has a great relationship with his family), struggled for many, many years after he came out because they didn’t accept him. He was an adult by then, no longer living at home or even in the same state so it wasn’t an issue of safety or financial need. The issue was that he told them he was gay and they didn’t believe him. “How do you know?” they asked. “Maybe you haven’t met the right woman yet?” they suggested. “Can’t you just try?” they pleaded.
His family couldn’t understand that the label he was sharing wasn’t going to fade in the wash. They couldn’t understand how much he had struggled to finally claim it for himself or how terrifying it was for him to wear it on the outside and show it to them. And they couldn’t understand how much it hurt when they didn’t accept him, which is exactly what those types of questions, suggestions, and pleas do – they demonstrate a lack of acceptance of what someone is saying when he uses that label.
I mentioned my nephew with Celiac. The disease, as I understand it, can impact people differently and his particular impact is that ingesting gluten, even in small quantities, can fundamentally harm his body and his developing brain. His condition is extremely serious. There are many people who don’t have Celiac or another disorder but choose not to eat gluten in order to keep off weight. I know a lot of people like that and they’re doing what’s best for them, which is great. What does this have to do with labels?

Because so many people want gluten free food when they’re not allergic to gluten, people who prepare food can be lax about it. Maybe they don’t switch out those gloves from when they were making the regular bread sandwich or maybe they use the same serving spoon to scoop the gluten free pasta salad and the regular pasta salad. And for the people who don’t have a severe allergy, maybe it doesn’t matter. But to someone like my nephew, that cross-contamination matters a lot.
When people who don’t have Celiac or aren’t actually allergic to gluten usurp that label (seems like it’s happening more and more lately), they can create real harm to people who actually do have that allergy. “This is for a child with Celiac,” my sister says every time she orders. “It’s not a diet thing, he is very allergic.” And then she mumbles to me, “I don’t know why people without an allergy can’t just say they prefer no gluten instead of saying they’re allergic. Because of them, nobody believes me when I order.”
So … labels. My friend who came out to his family as gay isn’t going to suddenly meet the right woman and marry her. How do I know? Because he said he is gay, words have meaning, and when someone tells me their label, I believe them. And my nephew with Celiac isn’t going to suddenly eat a regular pizza and be fine. How do I know? Because that’s what the word Celiac means and he has it.

Can someone order a meal and say they have a gluten allergy even when what they have is a chosen diet? Of course they can. People can say anything they want. But when they put that label on their order—when they choose a word with an existing meaning to identify something different—they confuse and diminish that meaning. And that meaning matters a whole lot to a little boy who just wants to grow. Just like the meaning of another label matters a whole lot to my friend who just wanted his family to accept him.

CC
www.cardenoc.com

An Introduction, by Christa Tomlinson

Hello, everyone! I'm Christa and I'm the newest member of Cafe Risque. I'm so excited to join this group of amazing authors. I'll get started by introducing myself.

I've been reading romance since I was a preteen. Actually, I was probably reading them before I should have been. My big sister used to let me read hers, but would make me promise not to read the spicy parts. I always promised, but ended up reading them anyway. Ooops!

I started reading m/m when I discovered e-books around 2005 or so. Katie Anderson and Evangeline Anderson were some of my first m/m reads. And I started writing m/m after I made a foray into writing wrestling fan fiction. Yep, you read that right. I'm a big fan of professional wrestling. I've even started a series set in that world. Showing Him the Ropes is the first book in Champions of Desire. I totally nerded out and fell in love writing Chance and Devin's story. You should check it out.

But for the most part, I'm still learning my way in this wonderful world of m/m romance. I have lots of plot bunnies and thoughts on the genre and I can't wait to share them all with you.

Thanks for reading!

Christa

GRL Recap by Felice Stevens

Last week I attended my second GRL (Gay Romance Literature) convention. Almost 400 of us descended—for want of a better word—on the Westin in Kansas City to talk about our love for gay romance books. There was dining at fabulous BBQ restaurants, huge cinnamon rolls pancakes and maybe (just MAYBE) a few margaritas and glasses of Prosecco were consumed. 

What struck me this year as it did the last was the absolute devotion both readers and authors have for this genre. People travel from all over the world to come for four days to sit and talk about gay romance. How awesome is that? Pictures and videos were taken and books, Kindle covers, and programs were signed and while readers were excited to meet authors, I personally was so excited to meet some of the people I'd only known through a computer screen. And yes, I was also thrilled to meet authors whose books I have loved from when I first started reading gay romance.

And don't forget the swag. There were buttons, bookmarks, chocolate, pens, mini handcuffs, rainbow bracelets, chocolate, lip balm, magnets, chocolate.....  It all made my little swaggy heart happy.

The coordinators of the event do their ultimate best to create a safe space for everyone and they succeeded. I strongly urge everyone to try and come as either a reader or author. You can be as social as you choose and I know all I saw was smiles. 

Oh and the margaritas are not mandatory but do help.

JUMPSTART is here by Riley Hart

The last book (novella) in the Crossroads series it finally here. It's such a bittersweet feeling. I like the feeling of accomplishment. I love knowing that I gave all of these characters their happily ever afters. I'm proud of each book...but I will also miss them. When I think about it, the missing is sort of good. I think it's better to miss them, than to overdo it. Than to want to hang on so much, I'm writing stories that don't need to be written. That's always the place I try to find in my writing. I want people satisfied. I want to feel satisfied in a series but I don't want to hang on longer than I should.

Anyway, that's enough rambling for me. I hope you enjoy Christian and Beckett's story. I had so much fun writing it. The motocross part was my favorite. I definitely plan to write more motocross books in the future. Oh, and I made my husband a trainer :)





Buy from:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

iBooks

Kobo

Ask Andrew - The Negativity - Andrew Grey

Dear Andrew

How do you deal with negative comments to your books or even in your personal life from those that don't support LGBT equality? It seems like there's SO much hate in the world today.

Thx, Kendra

Dear Kendra

Comments about my books are relatively easy to deal with.  After all this time, I simply let them roll off my back.  I have to.  No matter what there will always be someone who doesn't like a story simply because it doesn't resonate with them and that's okay. It's part of what's great about stories, they touch people differently. 

Now for the more difficult part of your question.  It isn't easy being out and available and yes Dominic and I have been targets for hate a few times.  When it happens it can be frightening beyond belief.  But we're firm believers that you can't let the hate win.  And the best way to do that is to keep moving forward and to do your best to be happy. 

See hate needs darkness and quiet to fester and breed.  Its like mold.  But when you shine the light on it and call it out for what it is, hate tends to wither and die.  It may seem like there's a lot of hate in the world, but there is so much more goodness and happiness.   And I like to concentrate on that.  Its a good part of the reason I write what I do because love trumps hate.

Hugs and Love
Andrew

Ask Andrew is your chance to ask questions of a gay romance author.  The questions can be about the writing process in general, writing sex scenes, gay men, sex, characters in romance, characters having sex... okay you probably get the picture.    I promise to answer your questions as frankly and with as much humor as I possibly can.

So if you have a question, please send it to andrewgreybooks@comcast.net.  This is different from my usual email so your questions don't get lost.  I will answer one question a week.

Please remember this is meant to be all in fun.  (I was going to say good, clean fun, but who wants that.)    So send me your questions and let's see what mischief we can get into.

Visit Andrew on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/andrewgreybooks  and you can join Andrew's fan group All The Way With Andrew Grey.

Follow him on Twitter:  @andrewgreybooks

Happy Halloween and a contest from BA Julia Kiernan and Sean

happy Halloweenm, y'all! For some of us it's our favorite holiday! What's yours? Comment on this post (With whatever as long as it's polite) and we'll pick one random commentor to win a $10.00 Amazon GC! We'll draw a winner on Halloween and announce here next Tuesday!

XXOO

Julia

Sean’s website is http://www.seanmichaelwrites.com

Julia’s is http://www.juliatalbot.com BA’s is http://www.batortuga.com

Kiernan's is www.KiernanKelly.com

Facebook:

Sean -- https://www.facebook.com/SeanMichaelW...

Julia -- https://www.facebook.com/juliatalbota...

BA -- https://www.facebook.com/batortuga

Kiernan -- https://www.facebook.com/kiernan.kelly

Cover Reveal, The Straight Boyfriend by Renae Kaye

Okay!  The time has come to show you my new pretty!

I'm excited for the third book in the Loving You series - Aaron and Vinnie's story.  So without further ado:



Blurb:
Loving You: Book ThreeAaron Hall has never been able to remain faithful to a single woman, and for most of his life, he’s dated two women at once. Recently his girlfriend tracked him down and knocked on his door—and his live-in girlfriend answered. Now he has no girlfriend and a mortgage he can’t pay by himself.Vinnie Rosello needs to change his life—get a better job, stop drinking all his money away, find himself a serious boyfriend… and move out of his parents’ house. Aaron needs help with his expenses, so they become housemates.Even though Aaron harbors some misconceptions about gay men and Vinnie misses his large Italian family, both men find comfort in their friendship. It’s a good arrangement until everything between them changesVinnie falls in love with Aaron, and Aaron is shocked to realize he feels the same. There’s only one problem—he’s still straight. He’ll have to overcome his fear of labels in order to love the man who’s captured his heart.Release Date: 21 November 2016

I'm very proud that I've actually managed to get to a THIRD book in a series.  Now you guys just need to wait for #4 and #5 **wink**
The Straight Boyfriend is currently available for pre-order from Dreamspinner HERE (and at a discounted rate this weekend!)
How to contact Renae:
Email:  renaekaye@iinet.net.au
Website:  www.renaekaye.weebly.com
FB:  www.facebook.com/renae.kaye.9
Twitter:  @renaekkaye