Joy Lynn Fielding's Blog, page 11

Blog tour and gift certificate giveaway: ‘An Impossible Mate’

So, this is something a little different for me – my first blog tour, which is a review tour for An Impossible Mate. There are five stops on the tour, and once it’s completed, one commenter will be drawn at random to win a $15 Amazon gift certificate or B&N eGift card (winner’s choice).

So please, do drop in on any of the blogs which are so generously participating in the tour to see what they thought of the book and get your name into the draw!

November 20: Books on Silver Wings

November 27: Sharing Links and Wisdom

December 4: The Fuzzy, Fluffy World of Chris T. Kat

December 11: Dalene’s Book Reviews

December 11: Long and Short Reviews

Strength of the Pack #3: Red Moon Rising

I’ve pleased to share that I’ve just signed the contract for the third book in the Strength of the Pack series, Red Moon Rising. It’s due to be released in February next year.

I came so close to calling this series the Argent series, but eventually decided against it because while that strand of shifter mythology is key to what happens in the books, I felt it might give the impression, wrongly, that the whole series revolves around one character. As the books are getting written and the relationships between pack members, old and new, are developing, it’s becoming clear to me that I made the right decision. No wolf is an island, and all that. Especially not this lot.

And also a random but adorable picture, because I am totally not spending time when I should be writing looking at photographs:

My burgeoning love affair with wolves (from a very safe distance)

Before I started reading about wolves for my Strength of the Pack series, my knowledge of them was gleaned entirely from multiple readings of White Fang as a child (and by multiple readings, I mean somewhere in the region of thirty. I loved that book).

Having spent far longer of late than I should reading about wolves’ behaviour, communication, body language and pack structure, not to mention watching videos of adult wolves playing with one another and with little fuzzy cubs, I am fast falling in love with these fascinating, complicated and toothy creatures.

One or two things I stumbled across in my reading I found particularly interesting, though to anyone with a knowledge of wolves already, they are undoubtedly very old news.

Wolves can hear as far as six miles away in the forest and ten miles in the open.
They have practically no body heat loss through their fur (snow will not melt on a wolf’s coat).
How dominant wolves sometimes adopt a submissive role when playing with members of the pack.
The extent to which all adult members of the pack play with the cubs. Seriously. Go to YouTube and look. You’ll lose hours of your life, but it’ll put a smile on your face.

Black Wolves (aka the perils of research)

I’ve just been reading about a recent study which discovered that black wolves’ coat colouring derives from the historical mating of wild grey wolves with black dogs.

I found that to be interesting in a fairly abstract way, but that’s all. Until I read this quote from Robert Wayne, one of the academics involves in the study:

“It [the black coat] must have adaptive value that we don’t yet understand. It could be camouflage, or strengthening the immune system to combat pathogens, or it could reflect a preference to mate with individuals of a different coat color.”

So a certain dark-coloured wolf (yes, I’m talking about you, Karl) is now bugging me about his preferences when it comes to a mate. Damn it. So much for my carefully planned story.

Back to the drawing board. Or the blank word processing document….

I should be mowing the lawn but…

Instead I am enjoying the dual excitement of release day for An Impossible Mate and the fact that A Gilded Cage has just received a wonderful 5 Sweet Pea review from Becky Condit at Mrs Condit & Friends Read Books. Simply log in below the review to be eligible to win a copy of the book.

“When things suddenly turn dangerous and even deadly I not only couldn’t put the book down, I couldn’t read fast enough! What a thriller. Besides the exhilaration of the chase, the sex is unrestrained and the use of toys is quite inventive for the period.”


Jack and his toys…  He has a fertile mind!

A Liar’s Moon

I’ve just signed the contract for A Liar’s Moon, the sequel to An Impossible Mate which comes out next month. And I promise that the next book in the series, which I’m currently working on, has a title that doesn’t start with an article!

How to upset your dog in one easy lesson

Listen to different types of wolf howls, again and again, all in the name of research, and only notice after about half an hour that the faithful old Lab is no longer curled up safely snoozing in his basket but is instead stalking around, eyes practically popping out of his head. Oops. Lots of cuddles and a venison ear later, he seems to have forgiven me. I never had these problems when researching the best types of Regency furniture for Our Heroes to have sex on.

Speaking of whom, Carnevalehas received another lovely review, this time from Becky Condit at Mrs Condit and Friends Read Books, who has awarded it 5 Sweet Peas. I’m truly delighted that people are enjoying Perry and Jack’s adventures.

A 5 star review for ‘Carnevale’

Some days are better than others, as a minor character in one of my favourite Blake’s 7 episodes was fond of saying. Today I woke up to a lovely surprise – a really wonderful review of Carnevale from Susan MacNicol on The Romance Reviews website.

“There is a lot to choose from in the book to please even the most discerning of readers who enjoy this genre. Sexy scenes of ménage, sexual toy play, orgies, burgeoning emotional development and angst as these two men find out what they actually mean to each other, all set in the wonderful backdrop of Venice. ….

Beautifully written in the period, this is an ornate tapestry weaving story of men falling in love, of realizing their humanity and their frailties and their strengths. This is a definite recommended read and I can’t wait to read the next in Jack and Perry’s story.”

Luckily, the next part of their story, A Gilded Cage, is already available! There is one more book to come in this series, to give Perry and Jack their ultimate happy ever after, but I’m taking a little break from the formalities of eighteenth century Venice to explore a somewhat dysfunctional shifter pack in modern day Colorado.

Carnevale is available from Siren-BookStrand here. A Gilded Cage is available here.

Release day for A Gilded Cage

I’m not sure where the summer is going, but somehow the release day for A Gilded Cage is already here!

Set once more in 1790s Venice, with its licentious Carnevale and gorgeous clothes and masks, the book is a sequel to Carnevale (though either book may be read as a stand-alone). A Gilded Cage is available from Siren-BookStrand here, with a 10% discount until 28th August.

The coffee house to which Perry takes Gilbert is based on Caffe Florian, partly because it was in the right place at the right time, partly because I longed to use a place frequented by such men as Casanova and Byron, but mainly because I couldn’t resist tormenting Gilbert by having ladies present in a coffee shop. The horror! Although it didn’t look quite like this when Perry and Gilbert visited, I find the interior sumptuous:

 

Venice – gay history

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post for the excellent series about gay history on the Manlove Authors website. With Carnevale, the first in my Venetian series, being published tomorrow, it occurs to me it might be a good idea to link to the post which gives some background about the history of gay sex and the law in Venice.

While I’m afraid the write-up I’ve done is a little dry, I hope people find the facts as interesting as I did when doing the research. I also love the picture that accompanies the article. My heroes don’t wear anything quite so elaborate (which has nothing to do with the fact they wear precisely nothing for much of the book!), but the pictured masks and hats are beautiful.