Leta Blake's Blog, page 43
November 18, 2014
10 Free Paperback Copies of This Charming Man by Ajax Bell #gay #seattle #1990s
“Ten paperback copies of this warm, funny story that captures perfectly a club hopping young man in 1990s Seattle trying to turn his life around after he falls for a cosmopolitan older man who lives in a different world.This Charming Man is an adult contemporary gay lit story, with a strong love story and elements of a coming-of-age story.”
Run, don’t walk to win a copy of Ajax Bell’s wonderful new book!
WILL SEATTLE MAKE A MAN OF HIM YET?
It’s 1991 and Steven Frazier has danced away half a decade in the Seattle club scene with his beautiful-but-poisonous best friend, Adrian.
Two glittering princes against the world, too high above life to care about what they might be missing. But everything changes when a chance meeting with older—not to mention handsome—businessman John Pieters, reveals a cosmopolitan world and possible futures Steven’s never considered.
Flashy club clothes won’t impress John, this charming man who knows so much about many things. Motivated by fantasies inspired by his crush on John, can Steven finally fight Adrian’s sick hold?
As he steps out into the larger world, supported by new friends, Steven must prove to John—and to himself—that he’s not a hedonistic rhinestone club kid, but a true diamond in the rough.
November 17, 2014
Smoky Mountain Dreams by Leta Blake AVAILABLE NOW #gay #mmromance
My next book, Smoky Mountain Dreams, has been a wonderful journey for me and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to write the stories of Jesse and Christopher. I’d like to thank my friend Alice Springs for loving the book first and for encouraging me to finish it. I hope readers love it even half as much as Alice did from the start!
Sometimes holding on means letting go After giving up on his career as a country singer in Nashville, Christopher Ryder is happy enough performing at the Smoky Mountain Dreams theme park in Tennessee. But while his beloved Gran loves him the way he is, Christopher feels painfully invisible to everyone else. Even when he’s center stage he aches for someone to see the real him.
Bisexual Jesse Birch has no room in his life for dating. Raising two kids and fighting with family after a tragic accident took his children’s mother, he doesn’t want more than an occasional hook-up. He sure as hell doesn’t want to fall hard for his favorite local singer, but when Christopher walks into his jewelry studio, Jesse hears a new song in his heart.
Smoky Mountain Dreams is available now at:
AMAZON
B&N
SMASHWORDS
iTUNES
SCRIBD
OYSTER
And will soon be available at KOBO.
November 16, 2014
Lots of stuff happening on Goodreads this month for me
Cool update from Amelia Gormley! :D
Originally posted on The fiction of Amelia C. Gormley:
This is sort of an exciting month at Goodreads where my books are concerned.
First of all, STRAIN has been selected as one of the Book of the Month discussion books for the Goodreads BDSM group. So if you’ve read it (or if it’s on your TBR pile) and you want to discuss with others head on over there and check it out.
Second, it’s just over a month until PLAYER VS. PLAYER comes out. As such, a couple ratings have already hit Goodreads from people who got the paperback at GRL2014 in Chicago (or Amazon.) If you’re a reviewer, PvP is available at NetGalley, and you can also pre-order at Riptide or Amazon. With all the current upheaval in gaming culture, PvP is particularly topical right now, so if you particularly have an interest in issues of misogyny and homophobia in gaming and geek…
View original 1,172 more words
November 12, 2014
Cover Reveal: Smoky Mountain Dreams by Leta Blake #gay #mmromance #amreading
I am so thrilled to present the cover for my next book Smoky Mountain Dreams. This gorgeous cover is the creation of Dar Albert at Wicked Smart Designs and I think she has once again outdone herself!
Smoky Mountain Dreams will be released to the wild on November 18, 2014. It’s a story that I started about four years ago and then set aside in favor of working on some other books. My dear friend Alice Springs, who had read the initial 20% of the first draft, asked out of the blue last spring when I was going to finish this book because, “I’ve never read a gay romance like that one and I loved it so much.” Cue me pulling up the unfinished manuscript, reading it over, and deciding, “You know what, friend? I think now is your time.” And so it is. Thank you, Alice, for reminding me to love this book. You’re the best.
Sometimes holding on means letting go
Christopher Ryder and Jesse Birch are two men hanging on to the past. While Christopher has let go of his failure as a country singer in Nashville, he’s still trying to please his narrow-minded, non-accepting family. His beloved Gran loves him the way he is, but Christopher feels painfully invisible to everyone else. He’s happy enough performing at the Smoky Mountain Dreams theme park in Tennessee, but even when Christopher is center stage he aches for someone to see the real him.
There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to bisexual Jesse. He’s raising two kids and fighting with family after a tragic accident took his children’s mother. There’s no room in his life for dating, his kids are his priority, and he doesn’t want more than an occasional hook-up. He sure as hell doesn’t want to fall hard for his favorite local singer, but when Christopher walks into his jewelry studio, Jesse hears a new song in his heart. Find out more on Goodreads.
November 11, 2014
EXCLUSIVE COVER REVEAL: Fated by Indra Vaughn | Smut Book Club
After the quintessential gay romance novel The House on Hancock Hill, Indra Vaughn decided to dip her pen into a darker, more mysterious world. Be the first to take a look at the cover of book one in her new Shadow Mountain series.
via EXCLUSIVE COVER REVEAL: Fated by Indra Vaughn | Smut Book Club.
I absolutely love this series. I’ve had the pleasure of reading the first two books for this author and it just gets better and better. *bounces* Check it out.
November 8, 2014
The Dream of the 90s Is Alive in THIS CHARMING MAN by AJAX BELL #seattle #GenX #gayfiction @flickerjax
This Charming Man by Ajax Bell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This charming book is chock full of interesting, lovable, and, at times, hate-able characters. First is Steven, the narrator and main protag, who has come to adulthood but hasn’t really found his footing as an adult. For the past five years he’s been happily lost in that place familiar to most readers–somewhere between dependant adolescence and independent adulthood. Sure, he’s not living at home with his parents, but he’s holding a retail job during the day and clubbing the night away with his fascinating-but-cruel best friend, Adrian, most nights. He’s a typical Gen-Xer in that way, delaying adulthood and responsibilities, and prolonging the time between. Which, huh, speaking of Gen-Xers, he is one, since this this story is set in 1991. And that realization has given me a whole new spin/outlook on Steven. Basically, if you’re familiar with that Portlandia song “The Dream of the 90’s is alive in Portland”? Well, that’s the dream of the Gen-Xers, man, and Steven’s living the dream. [reference: http://youtu.be/TZt-pOc3moc]
But somewhere beneath his shiny, glittering night club life, he’s tiring of it all and he’s growing up, wanting to find something meaningful in his life, something beyond coffee shops, bumps of coke, and his retail job at a fashionable clothing shop. He’s wanting a career, a life, a true love, a home. And yet his current situation keeps sucking him back. It’s easy to stay the same and hard to change–especially when his best friend, whom Steven is half in love with, seems very invested in keeping him stunted.
Speaking of Adrian, he is a scene-stealer in the best way. He’s horrible and yet so compelling. If any reader has made it to adulthood without knowing (and being compelled by) someone like Adrian then you’re a lucky dog. I’ve certainly known enough Adrians in my time to feel both drawn to his flame and an intense world-weary disgust with him. It’s easy to see how he’s manipulated Steven into being his emotional prop through the last five years, and how Steven has been his eager toy.
Enter Steven’s motivation to change. One John Pieters, a charming older man (think Baby Boomer to Steven’s Gen-X) who has life experience and drive. He’s suffered through the 1980s horror of AIDS and clings with tight loyalty to his friends, demonstrating the kind of connection with his self-made family that Steven yearns for and doesn’t get with Adrian. He’s an adult in a way that Steven finds inspiring, arousing, and intimidating. Steven knows that a charming, handsome, older man must look at him and just see a wasteful club kid with nothing going for him.
While Steven does keep John in his mind as a motivator for the life changes he makes in the wake of meeting the man, it’s clear that Steven’s metamorphosis, his true coming-of-age, comes from within. John is the carrot that drives him, like a fantasy or a dream, but something so unattainable at first that it’s only as Steven begins the process of changing the he realizes that maybe it’s not so unattainable after all. At first his metamorphosis is about wanting to be the kind of man John would notice, but it isn’t long before the satisfaction of change motivates him on its own.
I don’t want to spoil too much, and a lot of the wonderfulness of this story is in the details and the way that Steven’s character (and every character of the book) is so relatable and yet so identifiable as being tied to the time (1990s) and place (Seattle). You’ll love Steven and want better for him, like a mother hen ghost, silently following him as a reader and rooting for him to make better choices and then cheering when he finally does.
Speaking of Seattle, the city during the 1990s is beautifully captured here and comes alive in the reader’s mind. While I was not in Seattle in the 1990s, myself, I’ve been given to understand from other readers that the scenes and places discussed are real and recognizable to people who were there.
This Charming Man is a charming, lovely read. There are no difficult hoops to jump through to get into the book. The writing itself is sharp and straightforward. I’ve read it twice and loved it both times, and both times found a deeper connection to the story and the characters.
I think Gen-Xers will especially identify with this story but it’s a great read for all lovers of gay fiction.
November 4, 2014
Seattle? Club Kid? Older Man? Fall In Love with This Charming Man by Ajax Bell #gay #amreading @flickerjax
WILL SEATTLE MAKE A MAN OF HIM YET?
It’s 1991 and Steven Frazier has danced away half a decade in the Seattle club scene with his beautiful-but-poisonous best friend, Adrian. Two glittering princes against the world, too high above life to care about what they might be missing.But everything changes when a chance meeting with older—not to mention handsome—businessman John Pieters, reveals a cosmopolitan world and possible futures Steven’s never considered.Flashy club clothes won’t impress John, this charming man who knows so much about many things. Motivated by fantasies inspired by his crush on John, can Steven finally fight Adrian’s sick hold?As he steps out into the larger world, supported by new friends, Steven must prove to John—and to himself—that he’s not a hedonistic rhinestone club kid, but a true diamond in the rough.
99 cents in November! Fan Fave Training Season by Leta Blake. #sale #99cents #gay
Just a reminder that Training Season is available for 99 cents through the end of November! Only at Amazon!
“Does Training Season by Leta Blake live up to all it’s crazy hype? IT SO DOES!” – Breann, Boy Meets Boy Reviews
“A tale told with such flair and tenderness, and with such insight into the two main characters that I will read it over and over again.” – Susan Mac Nicol, The Romance Review Site
“If you are looking something real with passion that leaps off the pages, read this book. Now. You will NOT be disappointed.” – Mama Kitty Reviews
“I am stunned. I am shocked. What did I just read? A wonderful story? A gorgeous tale of love, hope, loss, acceptance, forgiveness? All of the above? You bet your sweet ass.” – The Risque Redhead Reviews
“I loved it in pretty much every way it’s possible to love a book and its characters.” – Lisa, The Novel Approach
“I’m emotionally drained after finishing Training Season by Leta Blake! Nothing better than a story that keeps you thinking of the characters when you aren’t reading. And now that I’ve finished, I want to go back and reread it.”- Lady McNeill, Ms. Condit and Friends Read Books
“Highly recommended with 5+ glittery hearts and one unforgettable North Star!” – Wendy, Hearts On Fire Reviews
“I feel like I could talk about this book forever. It took me on an emotional journey that was really wonderful and I highly recommend it.” – Joyfully Jay, M/M Romance Reviews And More
“This book is the epitome of perfection.” – Yuki, Read Me to The End of the World
“A memorable story so sweetly told that it’s a real hardship when the story ends and you realise that even though Rob and Matty have their Happily Ever After, you don’t because you want to keep on reading!” – Susan Mac Nicol, The Romance Review Site
via Training Season – Kindle edition by Leta Blake. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com..
November 2, 2014
Jake Bass Phase? Colby Keller Phase? What? Boy Meets Boy #free #gay
I’m over at Boy Meets Boy to help them celebrate their anniversary with a free giveaway from my back catalog and discussions of porn stars! LOL!
“To enter to win an ebook copy of your choice from Leta Blake’s backlist, please leave a comment on this blog post and let us know 1 your name and a means of contacting you e.g., email, Twitter handle, link to Goodreads account, etc. and 2 What are your Desert Island Keepers?The giveaway is open until 10:00PM Pacific time on November 9th. Shortly thereafter, we will contact a winner whom we will select using a highly scientific “names in a hat” method or, you know, an internet randomizer. Please respond to the winning notification within 48 hours or we will choose another winner.”
via Boy Meets Boy Reviews: Anniversary Shenanigans: Author Visit and Giveaway: Leta Blake.
A Call for Help! #marketing #outsidethebox #fantasy finding an audience | @Darrah_Glass
“I didn’t set out to create something problematic, yet somehow I ended up with a very long story divided into four books with teenage main characters who have lots of graphic sex in a historical setting featuring a non-historical version of slavery as a prominent fantasy element.Despite their ages, it’s definitely not a YA book.
Despite the detailed 1900 setting, it’s not entirely historical because, hello, there are slaves. Because there are slaves, it’s a fantasy, but it’s certainly not classical fantasy with magic or dragons. And despite the presence of slaves, it’s not a BDSM story. All of these things are marketing problems.Of course, none of this seemed like it would be an issue while I was writing the books.”
via finding an audience | Darrah Glass.
Darrah is really hopeful she can strike up a dialogue with other authors who have successfully navigated the marketing of something that is quite outside any prescribed box. If you’ve got information or advice, click on through!
