Ofelia Gränd's Blog, page 21

Wrap-Up Wednesday | June

I’ve had a good reading month. Not in the way that I’ve read loads and loads, but what I’ve read, I’ve really enjoyed.

Catching Orion by Sloane Kennedy 

I’ll start with my least favourite of the month – that does not mean I didn’t like it! I wanted something short, and this is short, and it sounded cute. It was cute, though a bit too insta-love for my taste. Still, it kept me entertained.

***PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED AS PART OF AN ANTHOLOGY***

This SHORT STORY (15k words) was previously published as ...

Read Around the Rainbow | Do You Set Your Stories in the Place You Live?

It’s Read Around the Rainbow Time! I missed last month, but we do the RAtR posts on the last Friday of every month. The last Friday of June just happens to be Midsummer Eve, which is a big thing in Sweden. Only Christmas beats it

But we’re not here to talk about pickled herring, dancing around the maypole, or drinking nubbe (shot of vodka). This month’s question is:

Do you set your books in the place you live or have lived in?

One of the first stories I ever wrote (long since pulled), I wrote ...

Cover Reveal | Keep it Down!

We have a cover for Keep it Down!!! It feels like forever since I had a new cover to show off. I was meant to have written stories for both the Hugs or Kisses and the Night or Day calls, but I messed up on the Hugs of Kisses. Or messed up is the wrong word. I like what I have so far, but I exceeded the upper word limit, so it won’t be a Hugs or Kisses story.

As soon as I’ve made it through my July deadlines, I’ll see if I can get back to it, and maybe if things go well, we can have an autumn rel...

#WhatToReadWednesday | Books with Cats

June is National Adopt A Cat Month, so I thought we’d do some cats. At first, I drew a blank and could only come up with my own books despite knowing there are cats in so many stories I’ve read. Then more and more titles started to pop up.

Which is your favourite book with a cat?

Hard Tail by J.L. Merrow

The first kitty to come to mind was Wolverine, an awesome cat. I’m not up to date on all my J.L. Merrow books, but of those I’ve read, there are cats in most of them, and they’re definitely wor...

Guest Post | Between Hurt and Comfort By Alexa Piper

Today, Alexa Piper is back on the blog. It’s always nice with returning guests, don’t you think? Welcome, Alexa!

How can you move forward and toward something you want when everything in your life is darkness and pain? That is one of the questions Will, one of my main characters in Witch Wolf, is asking himself.

When I first wrote about Will, I didn’t know much about the character, but I knew he was hiding a lot of pain behind attitude. Figuring out what had made him this way drove me to write...

Guest Post | A Drop of Moonshine by Holly Day

Hello, everyone! I’m here as Holly today. A few days ago, A Drop of Moonshine was released. It was supposed to be a quick story I wrote to celebrate National Moonshine Day, which is observed on June 5th. It didn’t turn out that way.
What I ended up with is a 51k long dark, dystopic story.

Sid is a potato farmer who makes moonshine on the side to make ends meet. He does his best to keep his head down and not get noticed, but when the people running the black market start losing customers to Sid...

Update | Running Out of Time

“One part at a time, one day at a time, we can accomplish any goal we set for ourselves.”

— Karen Casey

Update time!!! I have no idea what I’m doing. I haven’t even drawn up June in my bullet journal yet, which means, in my mind, it hasn’t really started.

I’m still chasing deadlines. When I planned my year, I told my lovely writing buddies that I didn’t want to be sitting in June and July and panic over the three deadlines I have given myself in July. I would have to make sure to write at le...

Guest Post | Held Close to My Heart by Ellie Thomas

The lovely Ellie Thomas is back on the blog! She’s here to talk about her new story, Held Close to My Heart. Welcome, Ellie!

Thank you so much Ofelia, for having me as your guest again today! I’m Ellie Thomas, and I write Gay Historical Romance. In this blog, I’m chatting about Held Close to my Heart, my story for the June Hugs or Kisses submissions call for JMS Books.

Apart from a brief trip back to Elizabethan London for the Spice of Life in February and a look at the 1930s Gay Scene for Lo...

Giveaway | June

Are you feeling friendly?? In June last year, Holly released Just to Breathe which was written for Best Friend Day. Friends to lovers is not a trope I write often. I don’t read it all that often either. It’s not that I have anything against it. It simply doesn’t happen often.

This month, we’re all about friends, though. Or today, today we’re all about friends LOL. 

Unless I have forgotten some story, I only have one friends to lovers tale – Kisses and Cabins. It’s a short story, and it was incl...

Wrap-Up Wednesday | May

Time to wrap up the month! I’m chasing deadlines, so there hasn’t been a lot of time for reading, but I’ve read a few books. Let’s dive in, shall we!

Warning! Deep Water by A.L. Lester 

This was part of the World Naked Gardening Day collaboration we did at the beginning of this month. I meant to read them all but time slipped away from me. I enjoyed Warning! Deep Water by A.L. Lester a lot. It’s a gentle tale set in a post-WWII time in a nursery. 

It’s 1947. George is going through the motions,...