Rick R. Reed's Blog, page 98

My Valentine to You: A FREE Signed Copy of ON THE EDGE

My collection, On the Edge from Amber Allure (the LGBT imprint of Amber Quill Press) is perfect for Valentine's Day...and I want to give you a copy! On the Edge is all about romance, love, and, of course, lust. This book is especially for you if you're one of those people who just doesn't cotton to the idea of an e-book and prefers the look, smell, and experience of a real print book. On the Edge collects eight of my stories that were previously only available in electronic format before into a lovely paperback. Check out the descriptions of each story below (titles are hyperlinked so you can go to their original publisher page, where you can read excerpts, see reviews, and a more detailed synopsis).
To win a FREE, autographed copy of On the Edge, all you need to do is the following:

1. Leave a comment below, say something Valentine-related, if you feel so inspired.
2. Be sure to leave an e-mail address so I can get in touch if you're a winner.
3. Bonus points for reposting news of this contest/release on your Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace, group, blog, or other social network. Even more bonus points if you click on the link at the right to subscribe by e-mail to this blog.

I'll announce the winner by end of day, February 15.

That's it. Good luck! And if you can't wait to see if you've won, you can get your copy of On the Edge from Amazon here.

Synopsis
In Rick R. Reed's haunting, mesmerizing, suspenseful, and romantic world, his gay male characters live on the edge, often literally as well as figuratively. In this new collection, you'll take a wild ride with some of literature's most unforgettable characters. Along the way, you'll be moved—to tears, to laughter, to uneasiness, and sometimes, to arousal. As Bette Davis once said, "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night."

Previously available only in electronic format, these eight stories of Gay Erotica and Romance have now been combined for a paperback edition! Included are the tales...

Superstar 
A story about promises made, promises broken, and dreams unfulfilled. Yet ultimately, it's about realizing that love can come along when one least expects it—and in the unlikeliest of places.

Through The Closet Door 
A tale that brings to painful life the consequences of coming out of the closet when you're married. Gregory's mask is slipping, pulled down by the allure of a handsome neighbor and the demands of a desire that only gets louder the more he tries to quiet it.

Riding The El At Midnight 
When the gorgeous and twisted Mark boards a northbound el train, he is looking for love in all the wrong places. Finding Julio aboard that same train, Mark thinks, is the answer to his dreams. But are his dreams nightmares?

Fugue 
Slip into the dungeon playroom of a master and his boy. But in the boy's mind, a dream state takes him places the master could not imagine...places where the established order turns upside down.

Incubus 
Two men, one predator, and a violent crime equal a journey into hellish nightmare territory. This tale merges horror with a tragic love story and the result is...chilling.

Man-Amorphosis 
I awoke one morning from uneasy dreams to find my penis had transformed itself into a vagina... Thus begins the story of a very unusual day...

No Place Like Home 
Trannies and Psychos and Bears...oh my! Burl discovers—in a hilariously bizarre quest—that there really is no place like home.

Pottery Peter 
One long hot summer. Three gorgeous men. And a burning triangle set down in the middle of a factory filled with sweaty men with bulging biceps.

Pole Dancer Reminds Reader of Character from TRICKS

A reader recently sent me the link to the video below and said it reminded her of Arliss, my main character in TRICKS. Arliss is an exotic dancer in a gay bar in Chicago and there are some similarities. I only regret I didn't have this video around for inspiration when I was writing the book.

FREE For Your Kindle: Admit One: My Life in Film

From time to time, I make note here of great books that are available for a limited time in the Kindle store for FREE. This one really caught my eye because I too was a little boy fascinated by film...although the course of my life did not go quite the same as Emmett James did. Click here or on the image at left to purchase.

Synopsis
Set in Croydon, South London, in the 1980s, Admit One details how self-deprecating writer Emmett James escaped from the pains of adolescence by going to the cinema. Through wry wit and observation, the writer reflects, obsesses, and rages about film and its correlation to our pasts. Life soon imitates art, and the narrator finds that his true calling is in transcendence from one side of the screen to the other. He decides to leave England for the only place where he can realize his dream of becoming an actor--Hollywood.

We follow the narrator on his numerous adventures: as he jumps from forgery to pornography to crashing the Academy Awards under the alias of a nominated writer. All the while, the films that inspired each tale contextualize this humorous collection of stories. The narrator ultimately provides a unique insight into the fascinating industry of film, eventually himself stumbling into the biggest box-office grossing film of all time.

Notable New Release: MY SEXY VALENTINE By Ike Rose and others

Thanks for letting me visit your Blog, Rick, to talk a bit about my first real release as an author in the new Anthology, My Sexy Valentine , released in e-book version last week by Sizzler Editions.

My story, "My Valentine Prince", an m/m erotic historic Romance set in 1975-1977 appears with another m/m Romance by Michael Mandrake featuring a rock star with Ausperger's Syndrome ; Em Petrova's mixed ménage romance with five horny Frenchmen helping a dumped bride forget her ex-fiance; and Daisy Harris's hilarious comedic straight romance featuring our old friend Cupid as a jaded modern punk with a quota to fill. All the stories center around that "special day" for love.

I've begun chronicling my adventures of "transitioning" from a talented amateur writer with a fan base of around 90 on the NIFTY archives to a paid writer on my own Blog at http://ikerose.blogspot.com/, so I won't go into that part of my life, except to say that it's been an adventure.

I suspect that all writers get asked the same question that I keep getting asked by my fans, and now by a few Bloggers who have asked me to be a guest: "Where do you get your ideas from?"

Well, they told us in school: "Write about what you know…"

So I do.

Fans of my NIFTY stories have noticed that almost all of my stories take place between 1965 and 1985, the period of my own slow coming out process and early gay sexual adventures. As a product of a working-class family, I tend to focus on blue-collar men struggling with coming out during that period. I'm basically writing abut my life, or how I wish it'd been.

"My Valentine Prince" falls into that category: the story if a working-class biker-hunk with a college education who struggles with his internal homophobia to come out, and then with class prejudice to raise in his chosen career. He is searching for "Prince Charming", and thinks he found him until Valentine's Day, when he finds himself having to choose between two men he loves; he one he thought he'd never see again, and the one he'd been dating for a year.

I won't tell you which one he picks. You'll have to buy the book to find out, but you can read an excerpt and a bonus cut scene on my website.

I stay in that time period because I've been in a monogamous relationship for twenty-nine years, and since we're both homebodies, I really have no clear picture of the contemporary gay scene. However, I find that young gay men today have very little idea of what it was like back then, so I find myself an historical romance writer by inclination.

Thanks again for having me as a guest, Rick.

(My stories on the Nifty Archives, a free erotica story website, can be found under my accidental pen-name there, Oldtimer25 at http://www.nifty.org/nifty/frauthors.html)

A Message from a Reader

Really, kids, notes like this truly make what I do worthwhile. It's not about the recognition or the royalties or even the pleasure of holding a printed book in your hands with your name on the cover, it's really all about making this kind of one-on-one connection with the heart and mind of a reader.

Melissa Bradley, a wonderful author in her own right (see her links below), took the time to send me this message after she read my e-book Moving Toward the Light .

Hi Rick,

I wanted to take some time and let you know what I thought about your story, Moving Toward The Light.

Words cannot begin to express how much this story invaded my mind. I was overwhelmed by the raw brutality, the tremendous grief and the harsh realism. You took me to a place that was shocking, that made me angry and sad all at once, but I could not stop reading. So many times I wanted to click the document closed and say that was it. I felt like a coward, but deep down I knew if you could write this, then I could certainly be brave enough to follow you on this dark journey. Jimmy made it all better, though, the angel who slew the beasts. How I wanted to kill those men right along with him. I loved how you made their deaths sufficiently horrifying and gruesome, appropriate for their crime. At the end I wanted to take Miranda home with me. This is one of the most powerful, provocative and unforgettable stories I have ever read.

You have an astounding gift for creating the most unique, complex characters that reside within the reader's mind and heart long after we've finished the tale. And you take us to seamy worlds that we choose to ignore because they make us uncomfortable. You make your readers think and that's the mark of a truly excellent writer. It's no wonder you have your own keeper folder on my computer.

Hope you are having a great week,
Melissa

Melissa Bradley
Blog
MAXIE BRISCOE:WEREWOLF 

Buy Moving Toward the Light for Kindle; other e-book formats.

Thumbs Up for TRICKS from Joyfully Reviewed

This review for my stripper-bar-set romance, TRICKS, from Joyfully Reviewed, made me smile.

The reviewer, Cassie, said, in part:

"Rick Reed can always be counted on to provide an unusual, suspenseful twist to his romances, and Tricks is definitely no exception. By turns gritty, sweet, and suspenseful, Tricks is a real page-turner..."

Read the whole review here.

Pick up your copy here.

Sample 60 Saturday: ORIENTATION

Every Saturday, until I run out of books--or decide to go to page 70--I will present an excerpt, page 60, from one of my books. No matter what it says--funny, filthy, scary, dumb, or tantalizing--you'll get it here.

And I'd love to hear what you think. Leave a comment below and let me know if this made you want to read more.

Let's continue the chronological tour with my reincarnation love story, Orientation. This is the book that took home the award for best GLBT Novel of 2008 from the EPIC Awards and is about a unique relationship between a gay man and the lesbian he saves from suicide (who may or may not be his reincarnated lover, who died from AIDS during the early 1980s).

Synopsis
Christmas, 1983: A young man, Robert, tends to his soul mate, Keith, who is dying from AIDS. Robert tries valiantly to make this a special Christmas for his lover, but loses the fight late Christmas night.

Christmas, 2007: Robert ventures out late Christmas night and finds a young girl about to fling herself into the unforgiving waters of Lake Michigan. He rescues her, and the two form a bond forged from an odd feeling they share of familiarity, and even love. Neither understands it, since Jess is a lesbian and Robert has never been attracted to women. But there's more...Jess begins having strange dreams, reliving key moments she couldn't know about in Keith and Robert's life and courtship. Robert and Jess begin to wonder if their inexplicable feelings might be rooted in something much more mystical than a savior/victim relationship.

As the two move toward and pull away from each other, Ethan, Robert's younger lover, plots the unthinkable. His crystal meth-addled mind becomes convinced there's only one way to save himself, and that is through Robert's destruction. Christmas 2007 spirals downward to a shattering climax in which both love and lives hang in the balance.

There's a murder attempt...salvation...redemption...

And a new love is born.

Page 60:
And if he could just get there, he could get back in touch with himself again, maybe even write about his experiences and become another Augusten Burroughs. Wouldn't that be ironic? Robert seemed to attract the literary types! And Ethan had always wanted to write.

But he knew that once he finished rehab (if he even could), he would not come back to Robert. He would not even come back to Chicago. Too much temptation here. He would be back on the phone with Tony within days, maybe hours. He knew himself that well. To resist temptation, he needed to remove himself completely from it.

He stood and realized he needed to money and lots of it. Suddenly, the answer to all of his problems surfaced in the image of dollar signs. He wondered how much longer Robert would be gone.

Ethan hurried to the front door and pulled the chain lock across it. This way, he would at least have some warning should Robert come home before he was done looking around in his office. He was sure Robert kept financial statements and stuff like that in his desk file drawer, lower left-hand side. He had never been interested enough to look before, never caring about Robert's net worth, as long as he paid Ethan's American Express bill at the end of each month and doled out hundred dollar bills whenever Ethan asked.

Ethan didn't know anything about Robert's assets, or how liquid they could be. He didn't know yet what he would need to do to lay his hand on a sizable chunk of money without Robert knowing, at least not until he was gone and hidden away in a rehab facility. But once he knew how much could be withdrawn at once, he could begin to formulate a plan.

Did he hate to do this to Robert? He was too exhausted to feel remorse. He told himself, over and over, the old saw: desperate times call for desperate measures. It was rationalization enough to go into the den off the living room and stoop to the file drawer of Robert's desk. It was locked, but that was easy enough to remedy: three or four minutes of fiddling around with a bent paper clip and the lock sprung open.

And as the drawer opened, Ethan saw before him the keys to his redemption. Robert's financial records, including holdings, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, tax reports, and more were all neatly cataloged in hanging green folders, labeled with dates and account numbers. This was going to be a cinch! At least finding the information would not pose a major problem. Armed with information, he could figure out a way to get to the funds he needed.

He was just beginning to rifle through the files when two folders near the back caught his eye. One was labeled "Last Will and Testament" and the other, simply, "Insurance."

Ethan pulled both folders out and sat down on the floor with them.

BUY Orientation.

BASHED Recommended by the American Library Association

Just got wind of this brand-new review of my hate-crime thriller, Bashed. The GLBT Roundtable of the American Library Association gave it a highly favorable review and recommended the book for public libraries.

In part, the review said: "A gripping thriller told from multiple points of view, Bashed delivers what readers have come to expect from Rick R. Reed: a violent and emotionally wrenching tale of realistic horror. The story is told by three characters: two perpetrators of a horrifying hate crime, and the man who survived the attack...The violence is graphic, as is the sex, but neither is gratuitous..."

Read the whole review here.

Buy Bashed.
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Happy Birthday to Untreed Reads! Win a FREE Copy of CRIME SCENE

All month long, new e-book publisher on the block, Untreed Reads, is celebrating its first anniversary.

In honor of the occasion, I am giving away a free copy of my bestselling e-book short with them, CRIME SCENE. Simply leave a comment below (with your e-mail address) and I will pick a winner from all comments. Untreed Reads will send you the e-book. About CRIME SCENE : After discovering a photograph in a book of a little girl killed by her own mother, a woman becomes preoccupied wondering how anyone could kill their own child. One hot summer day the answer becomes all too violently clear. A short psychological thriller...

January 29 marked the day Untreed Reads launched their first title. That was How to Eat Fruit by the wonderful Anne Brooke. Now, 365 days later (or so), Untreed Reads has more than 100 titles from both new and established authors and in a wide variety of genres. They went from only having their titles for sale at Smashwords to being distributed around the world.

February is a month-long celebration of Untreed Read's anniversary.
Beginning February 1st, all titles will be on sale at 25% off at all of the following retailers through February 28th (in addition to The Untreed Reads Store):

1PlaceForRomance.com
AllRomanceEbooks.com
Amazon.com/AmazonUK.com
CoffeeTimeRomance.com
OmniLit.com
RainbowEbooks.com
The Sony Reader Bookstore

The following titles will be offered for free. These titles started us off, and are a birthday gift to our readers:

How to Eat Fruit by Anne Brooke
The Zagzagel Diaries: Forsaken by Bryl R. Tyne
Roads Through Amelia: The Beast and the Forgotten Tribesman by Joshua Calkins-Treworgy

The free titles are not available at all of the vendors listed above, but will be free wherever they are carried.

Gotta Love Those Pulp Covers

Goodness! It's my biography! But seriously, I've never been to Fire Island, where this literary masterpiece is set, although I did have those same tan lines...