Amanda Young's Blog, page 15
October 13, 2014
October 12, 2014
October 10, 2014
Friday Five: Douglas Black
Hi all! This week’s guest for Friday Five is author Douglas Black. Thanks for joining us this week, Douglas.
So, Douglas, what kind of books do you read for fun?
I spend a terrifying amount of time on my Kindle.
Easily fifty percent of what’s on there are MM erotic romances. Partly, that’s because I like to know what’s going on in the genre I write in, but really it’s got more to do with me being a massive fan of a great number of MM authors. I always have my eyes peeled for a new release by people like James Lear or Josh Lanyon. Their work can never come out quickly enough for me!
The rest of the space is taken up with crime fiction or political/satirical works. I’m obsessed with ‘Tartan Noir’ (if you don’t know what that is, I urge you to look it up!) A real favourite ¬– one I can read over and over again – is Not The End Of The World by Christopher Brookmyre, although anything he writes is fine by me!
What’s the one thing you can’t live without?
You’d think given what I just said about my Kindle, I’d pick that, but the truthful answer is my phone (I’ve got the Kindle app on there!).
I’m fortunate to have a number of genuinely amazing friends ¬– the type that would do more than just help you get rid of a body – but unfortunately they’ve decided to fling themselves all over the world. Without my phone, and all the different apps that I use to stay in touch with them, I’d be a very lonely Douglas!
If a genie granted you three wishes, what would they be?
Tough one. I’m going to go for world peace, an end to all hunger, and a self-cleaning kitchen.
What is best writing advice you can give?
“Write.” I know how rubbish that sounds, but really it’s the only advice anyone can give. You’ll discover a process that works for you in time, but until then just keeping filling in the blank page with words. First drafts are usually hideous, but the more material you cram into them, the happier you’ll be when rewrite time comes around!
Can you share a little about your current release with us?
(Available October 14 from Loose Id)
Port In A Storm follows Alex, a young university graduate, working a dead-end job to avoid joining the family law firm like his father wants. Jake is a perpetual traveller, handsome and worldly with his fair share of emotional baggage and an attitude towards life that Alex adores.
With Jake’s itchy feet making it impossible for the man to stay in one place for too long, their relationship starts out as a series of hook-ups in unlikely places – an airport sleeping POD, a caravan in Bamburgh, a Venetian townhouse – but soon these brief meetings aren’t enough and that leaves Alex with a new problem to worry about.
It seems no one has ever been able to tame the wandering man, so if Alex wants Jake it looks like it’s going to cost him. Alex is going to have to decide what price he is willing to pay to be happy, before Jake and Alex’s family’s patience runs out.
Author Biography
Douglas Black was born and raised in bonnie Scotland. An archaeologist by trade, Douglas started writing MM erotica as a means of avoiding starvation at university before returning to the genre in 2012.
Welcome to your fantasy.
Author Links
Blog
http://douglasblackerotica.wordpress.com
Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Douglas-Black/e/B00A93HUHO/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1406885803&sr=8-1
Facebook Author Page
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Douglas-Black/1632968396841732?ref=hl&ref_type=bookmark
Twitter
@DBlackErotica
October 9, 2014
Guest Post: Whitley Gray
Five Things About Whitley Gray
Since we’re well into fall, I thought it might be enlightening to reveal a few autumn-related items you might not know about me.
1) The Denver Broncos is my favorite football team. In Colorado, supporting the blue and orange is the way we roll. There have been a lot of lean seasons, but it’s looking good so far.
2) Right now I’m reading Gone Girl. I’ve been meaning to read it for a long time, but haven’t gotten it out of my to be read pile until the movie was set to come out. I decided I wanted to read the book before seeing the October premiere (I’m a fan of reading the book before the movie, if there is a book).
3) Brach’s Mellowcreme pumpkins are my favorite candy this time of year. Because these are only around for a limited time, I tend to indulge as long as they’re available.
4) I don’t care for seasonal drinks like the Pumpkin Spice Latte or hot chocolate or hot apple cider. Pretty much coffee year-round. Once in a while a latte, but mostly black coffee.
5) As of this fall, I’ve had six books out. My latest is Crash Pad, which is a summer story. Here’s the blurb.
Physician Remy Marshall has two loves: Emergency Medicine and running. Work doesn’t leave much time to meet guys, and most seem more interested in his bank account than him. With a week off to train for a marathon, Remy plans to make the most of his precious vacation. The last thing he needs is a distraction.
Jamie Sutton is new to the area. He hopes to make a fresh start after leaving an abusive relationship with an orthopedic surgeon. He’s got a new job as a massage therapist and wants to meet some nice guys. Against his better judgment, Jamie decides the best way to meet a cute rollerblader he’s seen in the park is on wheels.
With attention on his watch and not where he’s going, Remy crashes into Jamie and fractures the first-time rollerblader’s ankle. Jamie has no one to help him after the injury; Remy proposes Jamie stay with him. Jamie is reluctant, but it’s a better option than staying with the odd guy in the neighboring motel room. As the two get acquainted, Jamie’s past comes calling. Remy discovers the prize he really wants isn’t a medal in a marathon, but the man right in front of him.
BUY: http://www.loose-id.com/crash-pads.html#product_tabs_description
October 7, 2014
Google Play
Good News! All of my titles, both the published and the self-published (with the exception of the Tempestuous stories), are now available on Google Play.
You can find them all right here:
https://play.google.com/store/books/author?id=Amanda+Young
Tuesday 10: Ten Outstanding Zombie Novels
Hi Guys! It’s a new month. My favorite month. For the next four weeks the Tuesday 10 list is going to celebrate all things horror. Horror movies. Horror novels. All the things that go bump bumpity bump in the night.
This week I’m sharing what I consider to be ten outstanding zombie novels.
Less Than Human by Tim Meyer
Across the East Coast, the dead are rising. Cities are overrun with them, decaying corpses with an insatiable hunger for human meat…
When Ben Ackerman finds himself in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, he can only think about saving his son, Jake. Unfortunately for Ben, Jake lives with his mother, about two-hundred miles away. The morning it all goes down, Ben embarks on a journey to rescue his son from this grave new world. However, there are worse things than zombies patrolling the New Jersey border…
Meet the Barker Brothers. Three fun-loving country boys with a love for guns, fried chicken, and their mother. After running into Ben and his small band of travelers, the Barker Brothers offer their hospitality, a room and food for as long as they need. Only, there’s an undisclosed price to pay, and it might just cost Ben and his friends their lives…
Until the End of the World by Sarah Lyons Fleming
Cassie Forrest isn’t surprised to learn that the day she’s decided to get her life together is also the day the world ends. After all, she’s been on a self-imposed losing streak since her survivalist parents died: she’s stopped painting, broken off her engagement to Adrian and dated a real jerk. Rectifying her mistakes has to wait, however, because Cassie and her friends have just enough time to escape Brooklyn for her parents’ cabin before Bornavirus LX turns them into zombies, too.
This is difficult enough, but Cassie’s tag along ex-boyfriend and her friend’s bratty sister have a knack for making everything, even the apocalypse, more unpleasant. When the two attract a threat as deadly as the undead to their safe haven, Cassie’s forced to see how far she’ll go to protect those she loves. And it’s a lot farther than she’d anticipated. This, coupled with Adrian’s distant voice on Safe Zone Radio and, of course, the living dead, threaten to put Cassie right back into the funk she just dragged herself out of.
Survival’s great and all, especially when you have leather armor, good friends and home-brewed beer, but there’s something Cassie must do besides survive: tell Adrian she still loves him. And to do that, Cassie has to find faith that she’s stronger than she thinks, she’s still a crack shot and true love never dies.
Waking Up Dead by Emma Shortt
You know your life has hit rock bottom when you’re living off cooked rats and showering once every few months—if you’re lucky. But for Jackson Hart things are about to get a whole lot worse. When her best friend, Tye, disappears hunting for food, kick-ass Jackson’s ‘head south to safety’ plan looks like it’s dead before it’s even begun. But then she meets ex-mechanic Luke Granger, who takes her to his bunker, feeds her with non-rat based food, and offers her protection against the zombie hordes—not that she needs it. She knows how to use a machete and isn’t afraid to.
Jackson might have been tempted to stay in the city with her rescuer. Food, shampoo and the possibility of finally getting laid, what more could she ask for? But the flesh eaters are getting smarter and when the bunker is compromised, Jackson and Luke have no choice but to make the journey south.
Luke and Jackson team up to find other humans in a road-trip romance for the ages. Travelling for thousands of miles with zombies shadowing their every move they must utilize every resource at their disposal…and then some. On the way, they discover that even if flesh eating zombies are knocking down their door, there’s always time for sex and maybe even for love.
Mort by Joseph Duncan
A genetically engineered bacteriophage mutates into a worldwide zombie plague, infecting people by the billions. Amid the chaos, weary survivors struggle to find a place of refuge, battling not just the revivified dead but their own demented fellow survivors. Meanwhile, stalking the inheritors of this blighted world is another mysterious group of creatures. Are they forces for good, as their angelic appearances seem to suggest, or just another predator, one that is far more insidious? Rodd Reduxxx is back with a new stand-alone novel, featuring ample doses of twisted humor, funny and unforgettable characters, and extreme horror. With 99% of the population turned into brain-eating zombies, the last warm-blooded human beings have suddenly become the most valuable food commodity on the planet.
Dead Tropics by Sue Edge
In the midst of a catastrophe the world has never seen before, one woman will stop at nothing to protect her family…. When miners release an ancient and deadly virus, Lori, a nurse, finds herself at ground zero of a deadly battle for survival. With time running out, can she find the strength to fight an ever-increasing enemy and save her family?
Double Dead by Chuck Wendig
Coburn’s been dead now for close to a century, but seeing as how he’s a vampire and all, it doesn’t much bother him. Or at least it didn’t, not until he awoke from a forced five-year slumber to discover that most of human civilization was now dead-but not dead like him, oh no.
See, Coburn likes blood. The rest of the walking dead, they like brains. He’s smart. Them, not so much. But they outnumber him by about a million to one. And the clotted blood of the walking dead cannot sustain him. Now he’s starving. And nocturnal. And more pissed-off than a bee-stung rattlesnake. The vampire not only has to find human survivors (with their sweet, sweet blood), but now he has to transition from predator to protector-after all, a man has to look after his food supply.
Rise Again by Ben Tripp
Forest Peak, California. Fourth of July. Sheriff Danielle Adelman, a troubled war veteran, thinks she has all the problems she can handle in this all-American town after her kid sister runs away from home. But when a disease-stricken horde of panicked refugees fleeing the fall of Los Angeles swarms her small mountain community, Danny realizes her problems have only just begun—starting with what might very well be the end of the world. Danny thought she had seen humanity at its worst in war-torn Iraq, but nothing could prepare her for the remorseless struggle to survive in a dying world being overrun by the reanimated dead and men turned monster. Obsessed with finding her missing sister against all odds, Danny’s epic and dangerous journey across the California desert will challenge her spirit . . . and bring her to the precipice of sanity itself. . . .
Day by Day Armageddon by J.L. Bourne
START INTERCEPT_ Sporadic news reports indicate chaos and violence spreading through U.S. cities. An unknown evil is sweeping the planet. The dead are rising to claim the Earth as the new dominant species in the food chain. _INTERCEPT COMPLETE
Survivor, In your hands is the handwritten journal depicting one man’s struggle for survival. Trapped in the midst of global disaster, he must make decisions; choices that ultimately mean life, or the eternal curse to walk as one of them. Enter if you will into his world. -The world of the undead.
Lakewood Memorial by Robert R. Best
The small town of Lakewood has been overrun by the walking dead. In a single night, the world has descended into a madness of biting teeth and a sickness that kills but does not kill.
Caught at the center of it is Angie Land, young single mother and nurse’s aide at Lakewood Memorial Hospital. She and a handful
of others are lucky enough to survive the initial assault, but how long will they last?
And more importantly to Angie, how long will her kids – waiting at home – survive?
Plague Zone by David Wellington
Welcome to the Plague Zone…
PLAGUE ZONE is a serial novel by David Wellington. It was originally published online, starting with chapter one on April 23rd, 2007, also known as International Pixel-Stained Techno-Peasant Day (and the author’s birthday, for that matter). For five months chapters were posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
The book is now complete, and can be read in its entirety at this site. To get started, please go to Chapter One, and meet Tim Kempfer, the toughest librarian in post-apocalypse Seattle.
October 6, 2014
October 3, 2014
Friday 5: Caitlyn Willows
Please welcome Caitlyn Willows to the blog today. Thanks for joining us, Caitlyn!
What kind of books do you read for fun?
I’d like to say I’m fairly open to any genre, but there are exceptions. I don’t read inspirational and, oddly, I don’t read erotic romance. I’m so enmeshed in erotic romance with my own writing (and freelance editing jobs) that I actually prefer to recharge by reading other genres for fun. My choices are all over the place—romance (historical, contemporary, paranormal, suspense), horror, adventure, fantasy, science fiction, young adult. Tell me a good story and I’m onboard. But…yeah, another but…for fiction I won’t read print books. I prefer ebooks. I read at bedtime and ebooks allow me to get nice and cozy in bed. To really “curl up” with a good book.
What’s the one thing you can’t live without?
One thing? You’re asking that of a person who packs “all her stuff” whenever I go on a trip? Oh please let me bore you with the details… Besides clothes for every single day, beauty regime items (the list grows the older I get), I also pack laptop, Kindle Fire, Kindle Paperwhite (just in case), papers, pens, pencils, notebooks and (in case I get bored—and I bore easy) an embroidery project. How sad is that? Sadly, my grandchildren are the same way—“We must have our things.” Oh baby, I know! Heck, if I could pack my Tempurpedic bed and pillow I do it. I have a laptop tote for purse and, boy, the things in there. One thing only? What time of day is it? Morning…coffee. Evening…wine. Oh dear, I do have problems. Hmm…one thing only. Let’s go with my Hori Hori gardening knife. I can do a lot with that sucker. I’m even told it would serve me well if there’s a zombie apocalypse.
If a genie granted you three wishes, what would they be?
I’ve watched X-Files. I know how tricky those genie wishes can be.
1. Health, prosperity, and long life for myself and family without conflict or burden or stress.
2. To take advantage of the good, positive opportunities life has to offer.
3. To maintain a positive attitude in this world awash with negativity.
What is best writing advice you can give?
Learn every single thing you can about this business—top to bottom and everything between. There is power in knowledge. Be informed. Don’t follow the herd. Find what works for you and run with it. Always be professional in everything you do. Trust your instincts, those that come from that quiet place inside you, not the ones that drive you insane. If your gut is telling you something, listen to it.
Can you share a little about your current release with us?
What’s better than one cowboy? Two! Released in March 2014, Lies That Bind is an erotic suspense about those two cowboys and the woman they love. This hot bdsm menage was awarded Book of the Month at BDSM Reviews. Here’s a little blurb:
After a year’s absence, Tessa returns to the Texas ranch and two cowboys she left when her life turned inside out. She’s here to bury a friend, cut her ties with this town, that’s all. That may be all that Tessa’s planning, but Rex and Tyler want their woman back and they’re not going to make it easy.
If one good man is hard to find, two are even harder to resist. Tessa’s determination to shut them can’t withstand the fire of their mingled passions. Pretty soon, the fire draws them back to each other. How can she leave when it feels so damned good tucked up nice and tight between them?
It’s not long before Tessa realizes she’d rather bend her pride to be with her men than live the hell of loneliness without them. Also not long before someone else starts threatening their new romance by killing anyone who’ll expose this town’s dirty laundry. Not long before Tessa’s secrets make her a target herself…
For buy links and excerpt, go to: http://www.caitlynwillows.com/excerptLiesThatBind.htm
Readers can learn about my other releases through my website: www.caitlynwillows.com.
October 1, 2014
Screwed gets a makeover
As many of you know, Amazon keeps changing their rules. One of the things they changed a while back is the amount of skin you can show on covers without being sent to the adult listing dungeon on their website.
I recently discovered one of my shorts, Screwed, had been tagged as adult and was no longer showing up in searches. So I gave the short a cover makeover.
Here’s the before and after:
September 30, 2014
Tuesday 10: Ten Popular Romance Plots
Hi Everyone. This week the Tuesday 10 is a list of the top 10 romance novel plots.
1. Friends to lovers
2. Soul mate/fate love
3. Love triangles
4. Second chances/Reunited lovers
5. Secret romance
6. First love
7. Strong hero/heroine
8. Secret Babies
9. Irresistible billionaire/millionaires
10. Sassy heroine
Bonus:
11. Royalty
