Lilah Suzanne's Blog, page 9
November 26, 2017
Halfway Home: Lilah Suzanne Talks Pet Adoption During the Holidays at Joyfully Jay
Here’s a real love at first sight story: Amid a cacophony of dogs barking and lights flashing, our eyes met. Mine, lit multi-color by a string of Christmas lights, his brown and bulging and beseeching. He sat beneath a Christmas tree, like a present. It was fate. He came home a few days before Christmas, his name is Tank, and we’ve been together for almost seven Christmases now. Tank is a Chihuahua-Jack Russel mix who loves to bark and everything and has a chip on his shoulder bigger than he is. Which isn’t hard, because he weighs twelve pounds, but still. Tank was bound for a shelter before he came home with me.
Enter to win a free multi-format eBook of If the Fates Allow or a $25 IP Gift Card on Rafflecopter.
Pre-order If the Fates Allow during our holiday sale November 24-27 and save 20% off the cover price!
Important addition to this post:
He was really feeling this tutu
Thanks to Joyfully Jay for letting me stop by and talk pet adoption!
November 14, 2017
"Five charming, heartfelt, delightful tales bound to bring holiday cheer."
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Kirkus Reviews on If the Fates Allow anthology
If the Fates Allow is currently available for pre-order from the IP WebStore and select online retailers. Order the print book direct from IP, and get the eBook on Thanksgiving—one week before release day!
(via interludepress)
October 31, 2017
interludepress:24-HOUR HALLOWEEN SALE! Save 50% on all ebooks...
October 24, 2017
Cosplay With IP and Win!
We’re looking for a few good Halloween costume ideas. We have a lot of characters to draw from—and we want your ideas, drawings, aesthetics or even pictures of costumes inspired by IP and Duet characters! A mermaid? A diner chef? A shapeshifting super hero? A drag queen wrestler? Share your inspiration and win discounts and credit at the IP Web Store. Here’s how to play:
Base a costume on any IP character, and share it with us on Twitter using the hashtag #CosplayWithIP. It can be a drawing, a description, an aesthetic post or a photo of a costume you come up with. Post it by 8pm ET on October 30th.
Every entrant will receive a 25% discount at the IP Web Store, and one winner selected by our authors will receive a $25 gift card for the IP Web Store. Winner to be announced on Halloween.
October 20, 2017
interludepress:Stop by our booth at the Vegas Book Festival this...
Stop by our booth at the Vegas Book Festival this Saturday and meet authors @authorcblee, @stoneyboboney and @erinfinnegan!
October 11, 2017
penehenson:
This December I’m part of a queer holiday anthology...
This December I’m part of a queer holiday anthology IF THE FATES ALLOW.
These are short stories about love and friendship, rebuilding yourself and finding something new. There are puppies and horses, libraries and school gyms, diners and tequila bars. There are men in love with men and women in love with women. And everyone finds community.
Authored by @lilahsuzanne @lynncharlesnet @erinfinnegan @killianbrewer and me and published by @interludepress
October 4, 2017
Now Available for Pre-Order: “If the Fates Allow: An LGBTQ Holiday Anthology”
During the holidays, anything is possible—a second chance, a promised future, an unexpected romance, a rekindled love, or a healed heart. Authors Killian B. Brewer, Pene Henson, Erin Finnegan, Lilah Suzanne, and Lynn Charles share their stories about the magic of the season.
Gracious Living Magazine Says It Must Be a Live Tree by Killian B. Brewer
Determined to make his first Christmas with his new boyfriend magazine-perfect, Marcus seeks the advice of lovable busy bodies, the Do-Nothings Club. When he learns that his boyfriend, Hank, may have ordered a ring, Marcus’ attempts to transform his home into a winter wonderland get out of hand.
True North by Pene Henson
Shay Allen returns to her hometown in Montana for the holidays with her best friend Devon with the intent to return home to L.A. by New Year’s Eve. Instead, the weather traps them in the small town, but the there’s a bright spot: her old crush Milla is still in town.
Last Call at the Casa Blanca Bar & Grille by Erin Finnegan
As the one-year anniversary of his lover’s death rolls around on Christmas, Jack Volarde finds himself at their old haunt—a bar called the Casa Blanca, where a new bartender helps him open up about loss, and see brightness in a future that had grown dim.
Halfway Home by Lilah Suzanne
Avery Puckett has begun to wonder if her life has become joyless. One night, fate intervenes in the form of a scraggly dog shivering and alone in a parking lot. Avery takes him to a nearby shelter called Halfway Home where she meets bright and beautiful Grace, who is determined to save the world one stray at a time.
Shelved by Lynn Charles
When library clerk Karina Ness meets a new patron, lonely business owner, Wesley Lloyd, she puts her own love life on hold and begins a holiday matchmaking mission to connect Wes with her uncle Tony.
Price: $16.99 print / $6.99 multi-format ebook
Release Date: December 1, 2017
Details: Trade paperback, 6"x9"
Pages/Words: 246 // 70,800
ISBN: 978-1-945053-47-4 print // 978-1-945053-48-1 eBook
US/Canada: If you purchase the print edition of If the Fates Allow before December 1, 2017 from the IP Web Store, you will automatically receive the multi-format eBook for free with your order.
International: Order the print edition by February 1, 2018 from your favorite book retailer and receive free multi-format eBook by submitting a copy of your receipt to contact@interludepress.com.
About the authors:
Killian B. Brewer lives in his life-long home of Georgia with his partner and their dog. He has written poetry and short fiction since he was knee-high to a grasshopper. Brewer earned a BA in English and does not use this degree in his job in the banking industry. He has a love of greasy diner food that borders on obsessive. Lunch with the Do-Nothings at the Tammy Dinette was published in January, 2017. His debut novel, The Rules of Ever After, is available from Duet Books, the young adult imprint of Interlude Press.
Pene Henson has gone from British boarding schools to New York City law firms. She now lives in Sydney, Australia, where she is an intellectual property lawyer and published poet who is deeply immersed in the city’s LGBTQIA community. She spends her spare time enjoying the outdoors and gazing at the ocean with her gorgeous wife and two unexpectedly exceptional sons. Her first novel Into the Blue (Interlude Press, 2016) received a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Romance. Her second novel, Storm Season, was published by Interlude Press in 2017.
Erin Finnegan is a former journalist and a winemaker who lives in the foothills outside Los Angeles. Her novel Luchador was named one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2016, and along with her 2014 debut novel, Sotto Voce, received both a Foreword Reviews INDIES Book of the Year award and a PW starred review.
Lilah Suzanne has been writing actively since the sixth grade, when a literary magazine published her essay about an uncle who lost his life to AIDS. A freelance writer from North Carolina, she spends most of her time behind a computer screen, but on the rare occasion she ventures outside she enjoys museums, libraries, live concerts, and quiet walks in the woods. Lilah is the author of the Interlude Press books Spice, Pivot and Slip, and the Amazon bestselling Spotlight series: Broken Records, Burning Tracks and Blended Notes.
Lynn Charles’ love of writing dates to her childhood, when thoughts, dreams, frustrations, and joys poured onto the pages of journals and diaries. She lives in Central Ohio with her husband and adult children where a blind dog and his guardian cat rule the roost. When she’s not writing, Lynn can be found planning a trip to New York or strolling its streets daydreaming about retirement. Her novel Black Dust (2016) was named a finalist for a Foreword Reviews INDIES Book of the Year award. Her other novels include Beneath the Stars (2017) and Chef’s Table (2014).
Cover design by C.B. Messer.
Find it on Goodreads.
Hey so I’m pretty excited about being in this!
Just a little
September 29, 2017
"Fortitude Smashed is the first and only book I have ever read for review that I re-read and took..."
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Jude Sierra review of Fortitude Smashed by Taylor Brooke
Fortitude Smashed is now available from your favorite book retailers, including: the IP Web Store, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, Book Depository, and Indiebound.
(via interludepress)
September 24, 2017
September 22, 2017
Player 2
A Blended Notes short story
Somewhere in the middle of seventh grade, Grady notices girls noticing him.
His voice has gotten deeper recently, his shoulders broadening. He’s grown taller than most boys his age, but not all of them. Normal tall, not freakishly tall. At home, Grady scrutinizes his face in the bathroom mirror, rubs his fingertips across barely-there wisps of blond facial hair. Memaw says he’s very handsome, but of course she has to say that. Still, she may be on to something.
At the parties he suddenly finds himself invited to, Grady ends up in closets and kitchen pantries and far off dark corners with girls who look right past him at school. He lives in a trailer park and gets in trouble all the time and wears clothes from Goodwill, so he’ll always only ever be a social outcast. Yet making out with him has become some sort of teenage girl rebellion merit badge. Getting drunk and fooling around with Grady Dawson at a party: check. He doesn’t mind, only he does actually.
It’s not just girls who notice his looks now, as it turns out. Kyle Maloney lives in his neighborhood, has a Playstation, a dad that isn’t around, and a mom that works two jobs. Sometimes they’ll steal cheap beer from the gas station down the street before they hang out at Kyle’s house, but today they only managed to lift a cigarette from his mom’s purse before she left for her night job. They play Crash Bandicoot and pass the Virginia Slim between them until Grady announces, “This is game is stupid.”
“You just think that ‘cuz you suck,” Kyle responds without any heat, cigarette dangling from his lips. He switches it out for a racing game then asks, “You hooked up with Maddie H?”
Grady takes his time selecting a car, switching through all the options three times before replying with feigned ignorance, “She the one with red hair?” Like he doesn’t know who Maddie H is, like she isn’t one of the most popular girls in school.
“No, brown,” Kyle says. “Pick somethin’ Grady, damn.”
Grady selects a car. “Oh yeah. Yeah, I did.”
“Nice,” Kyle says. He works his jaw like he’s about to say something else but can’t bring himself to, like Grady does when he gets called on in class and sort of wants to answer but doesn’t want to get called on again for knowing the answers even more.
They race through several tracks and finish the cigarette and Grady is getting restless and annoyed, itching to do something stupid. His Memaw will come looking for him soon and he can’t stand being in that trailer with Grandaddy as sick as he is, like they’re both just waiting around for him to die. Maybe Kyle will let him stay the night again.
“Would you ever like—“ Kyle blurts suddenly. “Do that stuff with a guy? Like, just to mess around.”
For a second, Grady is sure that Kyle knows. He knows somehow that Grady likes boys in the same way he likes girls and he knows all the stuff that Grady thinks about alone in his bed and all the stuff he’s looked up on the computer. But it’s Kyle who looks panicked; avoiding eye contact with his cheeks bright red. His hands are tightly gripping the game controllers and shaking so much that he keeps running his car off the track and into the sidewalls.
Grady licks his lips. What if it’s a trap? What if Kyle just wants to humiliate him? Grady scoots closer and waits to see if Kyle scoots away. When he doesn’t Grady asks, “Can I sleep over?”
“Wha— I guess—“ Kyle fumbles. Grady takes a chance and presses his knee against Kyle’s knee, then puts his hand there, too. Kyle swallows, turns to face Grady and whispers, “Okay, yeah.”
He pauses the game.
You can purchase Blended Notes and the rest of the Spotlight Series here
This short story originally appeared on Joyfully Jay.
