Erica Pike's Blog, page 10

Cover Reveal! Black Hurricane

I have a treat for you today! I'm revealing my cover for Black Hurricane (Boston Boys #3) made by the incredibly talented Zathyn Priest. 
This is Dean McQueen, the leader singer of the rock band Black Hurricane. He's back in Boston after reaching an international stardom and wants Jazz (his high school sweetheart) back after nine years apart. Jazz, however, would love nothing better than to see Dean choke on his own vomit - Jimmy Hendrix style.
So, when's the story coming out? I'm guessing (without promising) August or September. I just sent the third edits to my editor and the next step is line edits. 

The Future of the College Fun and Gays Series

Some of you may have heard that No Boundaries Press is closing down and may wonder what happens to the books they had published. The authors are getting their rights back and we're free to do what we want with them. I've contacted a different publisher about republishing, but if that doesn't work out I'm self-publishing. 
The stories won't be available for sale for a (hopefully short) while, but I'll work hard on getting them all up again as quickly as I can (including Cold Hands that hasn't been published yet).

New! Midnight Muffins (Castor Springs #2)

Woohoo! Kevin and Liam are back. Midnight Muffins is up on the M/M Romance group on Goodreads. It will be available on their download site soon, but I'll set it up on ARe and Amazon as soon as I can. 
If you intend to read Half-Baked Promises (Castor Springs #1) before this one, please download the second edition as some changes were made. 

HAHAT Winners

I want to thank everyone who stopped by my blog during the HAHAT 2013. Thank you for all the comments ^.^ I'm sorry I couldn't reply, I was swamped in HAHAT behind-the-scenes business. 
I used Random.com to choose the three winners who get to choose an ebook from my list. The winners are:

Harper KingsleyLena GreyH.B.
Congrats! 

Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia: Holocaust

Most people have heard of the Holocaust that took place under Nazi German rule between 1933-1945. Millions of people were brutally killed by guns, gas chambers, and concentration camps. Most were Jews, but there were also other groups that ended up in those camps. The lesser talked about were the estimated 100,000 homosexuals (mostly men) who were arrested, over half of which were sentenced to the camps or simply murdered. Like the Jews and all other groups, the homosexuals were forced to wear a triangle. Theirs was pink. I doubt it's a coincidence that the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia's symbol is a pink triangle with an exclamation mark in the middle:


Take action against homophobic and transphobic discrimination!

Taking action is exactly what May 17th is all about. You can help by posting about homophobic and transphobic discrimination, reading about it, donating to LGBT charity organizations, and just get the word out there. Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia is the effort of nearly 180 writers, publishers, reviewers, and cover designers to spread the word and to try to get our readers active during the day and for ten days thereafter. Please stop by and read our messages. A prize will be given at each stop.
Back to the topic: a holocaust is a thing of the past, right? Wrong. LGBT people in all countries (even in tolerant Iceland, although it's not very frequent or visible) have to face homophobic and transphobic discrimination. In some countries, they are killed, either by officials or the public.

There are many, many countries that imprison people for their sexuality. One such country is Uganda, but they want to take things further. They have been on the verge of a homosexual and transsexual holocaust twice now, trying to push through the "Kill the Gays Bill". Politicians want all homosexual and trans* people imprisoned, and everyone who helps them in any way (this includes their landlord for renting them a roof over their heads). They want the public to point out who's gay or even displaying homosexual/transsexual behavior. If this bill ever goes through, one must make certain never to touch an individual of the same gender for too long or they run the risk of being accused of being same-sex oriented, and thereby thrown in jail or hanged. If this bill goes through, it will be a modern-day holocaust.

Currently, the bill's been put on hold, but if you ever see it prop up again (it's on the agenda for 2013), I beg you to sign petitions against it and do whatever you can to stop it. Every little bit helps. 
In honor of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, I'm donating $50 to Icebreakers Uganda, and will make it my choice of future donations when I have more money. If you have money to spare, this is a great cause. Frank Mugisha and his people have been working hard to stand up for LGBTI rights, but it's like swimming upstream with all the public and political prejudice in Uganda. They need all the backing they can get.

Now, if you leave a comment below along with your email address, you may have a chance to win a book from my backlist. I will use Random.org to choose, announce and contact 3 winners on May 28th.

Thanks for stopping by!

Welcome, Brother: Want it?

I'm joining two announcements under one post.

Welcome, Brother receive its first blog review from Hearts on Fire Reviews - a site that has reviewed all of the College Fun and Gays books - and it received a smashing 4.25 hearts!
Here's an excerpt of their review:
"The book may have a lighter feel at times, due to Kyler, but it also deals with some very heavy issues and some terrible happenings.  Aaron?  I wanted to cry.  Liu?  I wanted to cry more.  

The story may have bittersweet aspects but it isn’t a sad one.  Yes, there’s homophobia and violence on the parts of some, but there’s also hope and love, both romantic and friend types.  Much more important, yes."


I'd also like to say that I met one of their reviewers at GayRomLit last year. I'd spoken to her in emails and talked about how it feels weird to me to say that I have "fans" (because I'm just me), so I always say "people who like to read my books" instead. Well, this reviewer presented me with homemade pin that says: People Who Like to Read Erica Pike Girl in the cutest pink letters. I don't think she knows just how much that flattered me. I think I was too stunned to say anything but "Wow, thank you". I hope I get to meet her in Atlanta this year (seek me out if you'll be there, please!).

Okay, second piece of info: Emily had a birthday this month (congrats!) and it just happened to be my birthday month as well. To celebrate, I'm giving away a copy of Welcome, Brother on her blog. Just stop by and leave a comment and your email address (on her site, not here, though you're always welcome to comment here ^.^)

Amazon Excludes Erotica

We're being censored (again). This time by Amazon (again). This article explains it better, but basically what they've done is remove all books marked as erotic from their search engine on the main page. You'll have to type in the exact name of the book to find it, or go into the Kindle section first and then type it in*.
Look, I get that parents don't want their kids to wander off on Amazon and discover erotic content, even though Amazon has already removed the most lewd titles and covers. I'm not even going to go into the whole 'parents are responsible for what their kids see on the internet' thing - we all know that teens will find it if they're looking for it even if the parents are watching (which makes what Amazon is doing pretty pointless). I'm just going to size up a couple of things:
Believe it or not, I used to read outside the m/m scope. I loved YA books - paranormal, mostly. I also read some adults books in the sense that they were non-erotic, but written for adults. One such book was Dexter. 
I loved Dexter on TV, so I thought I'd try the book. I wasn't disappointed. He was as lovingly psychotic as he is on TV. The only reason I didn't continue with the books was because I discovered m/m shortly thereafter. 
Point one: It's okay for kids to stumble upon books that describe murder as a glorious thing, but it's not okay for them to catch a glimpse of erotic titles.
Earlier this year, a friend convinced me to read a non-m/m YA book. It was a zombie book called Ashes. People who have read my blog know I love post-apoc books, so I was all for it. It was a good book and I was firmly immersed. However, the blood, gore, bone-gnawing, and horror made me shudder more than once. And this is supposed to be for teens!
Point two: It's okay for kids to read splatter books, but heaven forbid they see erotic titles on Amazon!
Come on now, Amazon. You can't just pick and choose!
Now, out of curiosity, I typed in "Grade-A-Sex" (for my story Grade-A-Sex Deal) from the main page and you know what I got? A bunch of sex-education books: What's the Big Secret?: Talking about Sex with Girls and Boys and How You Are Changing: For Boys Ages 10-12 and Parents (Learning About Sex), for example. Nice.
*Apparently this search engine restriction is only supposed to restrict the search from the main page. I tested this and here's what happened: I went under Kindle Store - Kindle ebooks and typed in "Grade-A-Sex". I got nothing. I then went under Kindle Store - Kindle eBooks - Fiction and typed in my search words and found my book on page 3 while all the titles listed before it didn't have all of those search words in their titles. I had to go all the way under Kindle Store - Kindle eBooks - Fiction - Erotica for Grade-A-Sex Deal to show up on the first page, but even then it's the beneath two other books that don't have "Grade" and "Sex" in their titles. Um, yeah, this censorship doesn't only apply to the main page.
One last thing, check out these covers: 

Oh yeah, those are fine by Amazon. They would've scared the crap out of me as a kid (still kind of do). But apparently it's socially acceptable for kids to stumble upon these covers but not on an artful nude.
Oh wait... Here are a couple of nudes that pop up on the first page on Kindle Store - Kindle eBooks "Nude":

Okay...but these are for some kind of art thing. But hey, what's this then on the same first page?

Amazon, you confuse me. Why does this get to go on the first page but not my Grade-A-Sex Deal?

Now that I'm checking, another one of mine that is marked as "erotic" (why-oh-why don't you have an "erotic romance" category?) called Hot Hands doesn't show up on the Kindle Store - Kindle eBooks first page either.

Oh, right, because those above are marked as "Arts and Photography" and not "Erotic"... 
Edited to add: I typed in "Fifty" on the Amazon main page and Fifty Shades of Grey popped up before I could type in more. I don't know if it was marked as erotica before and now they've changed it, but despite how it's listed now, it is definitely an erotica. Here's how it is on Amazon now:


Books > Literature & Fiction > Women's Fiction > Contemporary Women
Books > Romance > Contemporary

So whoever said that Fifty Shades of Grey couldn't be accessed from Amazon's main page after the changes was wrong (or they were right at the time).

On a side note, I'm seriously thinking about asking my publisher to remove the erotica label if it's okay to label Fifty Shades of Grey as a romance. All my stories are love stories and the sex scenes aren't more erotic than the ones in Fifty Shades (less flowery, perhaps) - you can read small lines and excerpts from Fifty Shades' sex scenes here, but here are a couple of lines:

"“You’re so deliciously wet. God, I want you.” He thrusts his finger inside me, and I cry out as he does it again and again. He palms my clitoris, and I cry out once more."

“I’m going to fuck you now, Miss Steele,” he murmurs as he positions the head of his erection at the entrance of my sex. “Hard,” he whispers, and he slams into me."

"“Aargh!” I cry as I feel a weird pinching sensation deep inside me as he rips through my virginity."

"“Open your mouth,” he commands and thrusts his thumb in my mouth. My eyes fly open, blinking wildly.
“See how you taste,” he breathes against my ear. “Suck me, baby.”"

 Highly erotic, wouldn't you say? ^.^ Even Anastasia thinks so:

"I taste the saltiness on his thumb and the faint metallic tang of blood. Holy fuck. This is wrong, but holy hell is it erotic."

I'm not writing this as an if-they-can-I-can-too. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy and how publishers will start to falsely label books on Amazon now. Also,  if Amazon won't hide 50 Shades from their main page - it being a very popular book that's widely known for its eroticism - they're being even more hypocritical, discriminating against books with lesser profiles.

Bottle Extreme?

The people who have read my Boston Boys books will understand why I not only find this video sexy as hell, but also so, soooo cool ^.^ 
Thanks Z. Allora for pointing it out to me.

Welcome, Brother: Excerpt

Excerpt from Welcome, Brother:
It’s a Friday night and the first Brotherhood private party – no outsiders allowed – will be held on the ground floor. I’m nervous as hell, not knowing what to expect. Will they make us do something?The house is already pumping with a beat from downstairs and I can hear muffled voices and laughter coming from the hallway. I’m ready to go in tight black jeans and green t-shirt, but I’m still delaying my trip to join the others. Instead, I flip through some random book on my bed. It probably won’t be long before Liu comes knocking on the door.As if on cue, the door is opened, but instead of Liu, Hunter steps in. He casts me a casual smile and closes the door.“You’re not going?” he asks as he walks to his side of the room and pulls the white t-shirt over his head. Those lovely muscles I’ve been salivating over for the past week stretch and bunch under the beautifully tanned skin. “Uh, yeah. I was going in a minute,” I say and avert my eyes when he looks at me. Hunter crumbles up the t-shirt and tosses it in a basket, eyes on me as he walks to his dresser. “Were you waiting for me?”Yes.“No,” I say, with a dangerous stirring in my pants. I casually cover it with the book. “Or maybe. I don’t really know anyone except for you and Liu.”Hunter stops with a black button-up shirt in his hands. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I should’ve introduced you to everyone by now. I’ll fix that tonight.”Instead of an answer, I just give him a quivering smile. Five minutes later, we’re being swallowed by the sea of guys at the foot of the stairs. I recognize a couple of the initiates standing huddled by a wall while others are mingling or being introduced by their masters. Some Brothers seem very hands-on, touching while talking, though it doesn’t seem to be sexual. It still looks weird to me, as I’m not used to being a part of a group of guys and would’ve thought touching was a taboo. At least, the guys back in high school didn’t seem okay with too much touching. A punch in the shoulder, a little bit of roughhousing, and those athlete pats on the butt maybe, but I never saw them hugging, resting a hand on each other’s chests or even holding hands. Here, no one seems to care or even notice. A light touch to the small of my back sends swirling heat to my stomach. Hunter smiles at me and steers me through the crowd, introducing me to so many guys that I forget most of their names. They seem pretty cool. Just regular guys who joke around and laugh. Some of them make me fidget under assessing looks, but others just take one glance, offer me beer and try to involve me in whatever they’re doing. Hunter takes his time, not leaving me alone for a moment, and that’s when I realize that this party is probably some sort of vassal-master thing to make the initiates feel welcome. It’s a tad disappointing as Hunter’s spending time with me because he has to, not because he wants to.“Kyler, Hunter,” Liu calls from the doorway to the lounge. “We’re playing a game.”Hunter grabs my hand and pulls me through the throng of boys. His skin is dry and soft and makes me so nervous I can hardly feel the touch. When we’re in the lounge, a bunch of guys sit on the couches, chairs, and some on the floor. A space is cleared for Hunter on a three-seater that’s already seating five guys, and I sit squished in a stuffed chair next to a grinning Liu. “What are we playing?” asks Hunter from opposite me.“I Never,” says a round boy I think is named Danny or Dale. “Everybody know it?” he asks, looking at me and the other two vassals in the group. I’m the only one who shakes his head.“I say something like ‘I never got a speeding ticket’”-a bunch of guys snicker and take a sip of their beers-“and those who have got speeding tickets take a swig of beer while the others don’t. Then the next person comes up with something. It’s a neat game to get to know you newbies.”“Okay,” I say, nursing my still untouched can of beer between my hands. “I never went camping,” the guy next to Danny (or Dale) says. I don’t bring the can to my lips, because I’ve never gone camping. Hunter and a whole lot of other guys take a sip. Liu doesn’t.“I never masturbated,” says the next guy, which causes a round of laughter as everyone takes a swig – me, with a flushed face, included.“I never kissed a guy,” says the next one.I freeze up, but glance around when some guys take a drink while some don’t. It surprises the hell out of me that they’d admit it, just like that. Hunter, I notice, doesn’t take a drink and neither do I since I’ve never been kissed. Damn, he’s straight. Well, I didn’t really think he wasn’t. Or maybe he’s never been kissed either.“I never kissed a girl,” says the next guy, and again there’s a mix of some drinking and some not. Hunter, eyeing me, takes a sip. I look down at my can and trace my finger along the rim. Damn…“I never saw RoboCop,” says the guy next to Hunter. Most of the guys take a drink while I don’t. I was never into futuristic robot movies.“I never wore high heels,” says Hunter, earning himself some laughter – mostly from guys who take a drink. “Does it count when you’re a toddler?” one of the vassals asks. When Hunter nods, I take a drink. Hey, I was two and mom managed to snap a picture as evidence.We continue and I learn that Hunter played basketball, ate Captain Crunch, and went skinny dipping while he never went to Sunday school, had a pet, or stole money. Liu was guilty of the last offence.For the past four I Never’s, I’d been dreading my turn. I never wanted a boyfriend, would be a nice way to see if Hunter’s one of those who likes guys but has only kissed girls. Or maybe likes both girls and boys. I seem to be clinging to some fruitless fantasy. Who’s to say he’d even want me if he was gay?“I never… went… um, fishing,” I sputter lamely. I don’t even know where it came from. Hunter smiles at me as he takes a drink while Liu and I don’t. Looks like Liu’s family is about as big on the outdoors as mom and I are.“I never played with dolls,” says Liu and takes a sip.I grudgingly take a drink along with a few others. Like I said, I’ve really only had female friends. Liu and I are well beyond tipsy when the game is over. Hunter seems to hold alcohol better, because he took more drinks than I did. Liu drags us off to the kitchen to get cold beers.“You never kissed anyone?” asks Hunter from behind me as we walk.“Does mom count?” I ask, glad he can’t see the blush on my face.Hunter chuckles. “Just figured that someone like you would’ve been popular with girls.”“I was,” I say while we push through the doorway. “As a friend.”I always got to play the dad, or the baby, or the groom as a kid. Then I got to listen to boyfriend troubles and gush about guys with my friends as a teen. I knew there were girls who had crushes on me, but I made myself unavailable by hanging out with my friends all the time. Friends who knew about me, but never told anyone. By the ninth grade, though, most kids probably suspected.“Boys, then?” he continues as we stop. Liu opens the fridge to dig out some cold beers while I stand with my back to the counter, facing Hunter but not really looking at him.

Release Day! Welcome, Brother, by Erica Pike: Sweet & Sexy Fraternity Story

I was off by four days! I thought this title wasn't supposed to release until the 27th, but it was released today ^.^ Without further ado, I present Welcome, Brother :

When arts student Kyler Morris applies for membership to The Nova Britannia Brotherhood, he's immediately floored by their intimidating leader, Hunter Kingsley. Fellow arts student Hunter, however, isn't the bad-ass he's made out to be and takes Kyler under his wing. 
While Kyler struggles to keep his crush under control and his sexuality hidden from the Brothers, Hunter battles daemons of his own in the form of two Brothers who aren't playing by the rules.
Available at No Boundaries Press, All Romance eBooks and Amazon. Will be available at other outlets soon :)
Excerpt can be found here.