I know, I know. This book has been out for what? A decade? And me a fantasy reader from way back in the beyond, so whats taken me so long to read this series? But I am reading it, at last, and I’m enjoying it.

It isn’t epic fantasy in the tradition of Tolkien. More like…Robin Hood, maybe? Seregil, one of the main characters, is your basic swashbuckler/master of disguise. I know. Those two should be mutually exclusive, but somehow, in this book, anyway, they are not. I’m around a quarter of the way into the book and am finding this character delicately balanced on the knife edge of selfish indifference and paternally overprotective as of his young and clueless apprentice, Alec, whom iveheard is supposed to be his love interest eventually. But I’ve also been told to be patient on that.

We all know that’s one of my strongest traits…so not!

And Alec. What is there to say about Alec? He’s just stepped over the threshold of manhood. Barely. Seventeen, I think he told Seregil was his age, and newly orphaned (can he be an orphan if he’s practically a man?) so he’s a man-child of exceedingly naive proportions, and they, he follows Seregil around with nary a twinge of doubt or contemplation over the ‘bard’s’ many disguises, his skill with weapons or ability to bust them both out of a torture dungeon and be away before dawn. And at the same time, the kid can shoot a bow, skin a rabbit, ride a horse, sing, track, guide and do any number of things with confidence and skill. Do I sound tongue in cheek? I might be, a little bit.

I don’t dislike these characters. Don’t think that. I like them both as long as I remember to embrace their epic, bigger-than-life qualities. It’s been a long time since I read a fantasy novel, i tend to forget, at times, I’m not reading one of my many contemporary paranormal or real world gay love stories. The characters are meant to be competent, intelligent people with the ability to learn and develop necessary skills for survival. They don’t have to be tragically flawed just because that’s what seems to have become the norm in the books I often read lately. They are allowed to be completely capable men who don’t balk when asked to step outside their comfort zone.

Still. The author in me who loves to torture her own characters would like to see one of them stumble and fall on his face. Just once. Promise I won’t laugh….much…..

But don’t let my assessment steer you away. Remember, this is just my opinion of a book I’m still reading, and despite my remarks about the characters seeming perfection, I do like both men and I’m enjoying the read quite a bit.

Let’s talk about free reads, serials and authors who love their readers so much they give this shit away. And not just any old shit, either. I’m talking about the good stuff.

First up, brave and dedicated solo writer and artist, Zathyn Preist is offering a vampire serial for your reading enjoyment.

The Blurb
My name is Matthew Mitchell. I’m a vampire slayer. My return to Nottingham wasn’t to recapture memories of youth. It was to put an end to the choke hold rogue Amara half-breeds put on that part of England. My husband, Dean Sutton, and I arrived determined to track down Amdis, the leader of the rogues, and kill him. Chances were, if I had to put up with Dean for much longer, I’d want to kill him, too.

The noble purebred Amara’s were long gone. Dairy pages, supposedly written by legendary Emrys Amara, were fraudulent. That was what I believed. Nothing could convince me otherwise. A teenage vampire couldn’t survive without his family. Emrys was sixteen when turned by the equally as legendary Mihangel Amara. That’s if he’d ever existed at all.

The only good vampire is a dead vampire. Another thing I fervently believed. As my marriage crumbled around me, I found myself drawn into the arms of another. Dean’s taunts haunted me: He’s not centuries old, Matthew, he’s been sixteen for centuries. He’ll always be sixteen. You’re sick for fantasising about a child.

Lost, lonely, and orphaned, Emrys Amara made me vow to send him to God in return for killing Amdis. He then stole my heart completely, changed my fate, and changed my life. This is our story. It’s a story of destiny, of profound love, of hope, and the rebirth of the greatest vampire clan in history.

Sounds like great stuff. This one, I haven’t had a chance to really get into, yet, but I’ve been folioing his art adventures, and I can say, without doubt, he’s putting a lot of work into this baby. If it resembles his other writing in any way, shape or form, it’ll be well worth the time.

Boxer Falls
a daytime drama
This is an offering headed up by authors Damon Suede, Ellis Carrington and Poppy Dennison, and will be featuring guest authors from time to time, and is posted weekly on the Goodreads M/M group for everyone’s reading enjoyment.

The Blurb

Boxer Falls is a weekly homoerotic soap opera being posted at the M/M Romance Group at Goodreads. Episodes are written as serialized, interconnected short stories about the ongoing adventures of the residents of a Berkshires resort town with a queer reputation.

Join Ellis Carrington, Poppy Dennison, and Damon Suede along with a host of your favorite gay romance scribes as they cut loose with suds and studs in abundance.

And certainly not to be left out is our own Lords of Aether! The past week was Stephanie Hetch’s turn at the helm, and we get to meet Silas and Byron. These two boys, well, young men, have a world of communication issues and now, trouble in the form of Byron’s missing parents. Drop by and read this latest installment. I guarantee you’ll not be disappointed in the latest developments.

And of course, over at our own Lords Of Aether Lex is up again this week with a mystery man kidnaping one of our heroes and, well, being mysterious. Incarceration.
Nash is in a spot, and it remains to be seen if he can get himself out, or if Jack will come to the rescue…..

Things I found on the web

Now, I think it behooves me to point out the RWA fiasco in which a few judges feeling “uncomfortable” reading gay romance means a whole chapter, and by extention, the RWA itself gets to disciminate and feel ok about it. Well. Screwballs. I think it sucks. But plenty of other authors have said it better that I, and here are their posts.

Stephanie Hetch talks about how it affects her and her son. Heidi Cullinan tells us about the difficulty she has as Chapter President of the Rainbow Writers under the RWA swallowing this decision. I can’t really be any more elloquant than these two ladies, and I have emailed the Contest co-ordinator to ask why this change has occurred. If I get a response, I’ll let you all know.

In the mean time, on a much more positive note, David Gaider from Bioware, a gaming software development company, has this to say to a “straight male gamer” about his discomfort at not being catered to by the developers of Dragon Age 2 : “And the person who says that the only way to please them is to restrict options for others is, if you ask me, the one who deserves it least. And that’s my opinion, expressed as politely as possible.”

You really need to read this article on No More Lost about the situation in which “straight Male Gamer’s” character received a flirtatious advance from another male character, his complaint on the forums, and Gaider’s response to him. I’m not a heavy gamer, though I used to be, and in fact one of my fav games was Bioware’s Neverwinter Nights, back in the day, but I don’t think you have to be a gamer to agree: this is awesome of the company to make a stand and point out just because straight male privilege exists doesn’t mean it should be perpetuated. Kudos, Bioware!

rious….

After filing charges that put his abusive ex-Dom behind bars, Jesse Turbul relocates  across the country, hoping to escape his past—but, of course, it’s never that easy. When Jesse meets third-year law student Aadon at the library where he works, their mutual attraction is instant and obvious.

Despite the sparks, they just can’t seem to make it work. Aadon is mired in guilt over his inability to help his older brother, damaged by events far too similar to to Jesse’s past. Jesse is stuck in his own desperate wish to forget the painful shadow that continues to threaten him and any hope of a happy future.

The only way to move forward is for Jesse to acknowledge he’s broken and for Aadon to accept he can’t make him better.

Excerpt: Jesse watched his date for a while, waiting for the blond head to lift. Only when Mike came to the table a few minutes later did Aadon look up. He glanced at Jesse, turned to Mike and placed his order, waited until Jesse had ordered and Mike had left before quietly excusing himself from the table.

Jesse waited a long time, much longer than it would take for Aadon to use the facilities, before following him.

The heavy restroom door swung open on silent hinges, and the peculiar smell of a bathroom trying too hard not to smell like a bathroom engulfed him. Jesse drew in a silent breath and stepped inside.

Aadon leaned on the counter by the sinks, his back to the mirror.

“I’m sorry.” Jesse tried to make the apology light, tried to see into Aadon’s shrouded eyes.

Finally, Aadon looked at him. “Why?”

“I got a little defensive.” He held up his hand, finger and thumb an inch apart, sheepish smile on his face.

Aadon stifled a groan. How could he be so fiery one minute, and this…adorable the next and not know how crazy it made him? He pushed himself off the sink and closed his hand around Jesse’s fingers, closing the space and kissing the fingertips. “Maybe that’s the point. As long as you feel you have to defend yourself around me, I have to be careful.” He closed his eyes, kept his lips pressed to his warm fingers.

God this was hard. He wasn’t doing Jesse any good, wanting him this bad, knowing he couldn’t—shouldn’t—and knowing he wouldn’t be able to resist much longer. He shouldn’t still even be with him. It was too much. He just wasn’t what Jesse needed.

Jesse felt the churning sensation in the pit of his stomach even before Aadon spoke again and yanked his hand free, mouth open, ready to fill the void before Aadon could speak. Before he could say what Jesse knew he was about to say. He was too slow.

Aadon took his face in both hands, tilting it up and looking into his eyes. “As long as I have to be that careful, this can’t work.”

“But—”

“Because I don’t want to be careful, Jesse,” Aadon went on, overriding his faint protest, passing a thumb over Jesse’s lips and backing him up against

“Then don’t.” The words warbled out past Jesse’s pulse fluttering in his throat. He swallowed hard. “Don’t be careful.” Aadon’s toned body pressed his against the cold metal. The rush of fear and excitement mingled, and he knew he’d lost the ability to tell which was which. He didn’t know if he cared.

“If I’m not, I could do more damage than Anthony ever did.” Aadon’s palm caressed his cheek, his fingers slid into Jesse’s hair, and he kissed; a light strike of his lips and tongue, there and gone too quickly to capture, but expertly bringing him back down to where he could almost breathe normally. The rush faded, and Jesse wanted it back.

He gripped the front of Aadon’s shirt, preventing him from moving away. “You’re not anything like Anthony, and I’m not who I was then.” He never would have demanded Anthony answer his desire like this. Kissing Aadon firmly, not hard or angry, just without compromise, Jesse closed his eyes, willed the other man to understand. He needed this so desperately. Needed to know he was wanted, desired. Needed to know Aadon could look on him as a man and not a shattered thing.<

A soft groan welled in Aadon’s throat and spilled out into Jesse’s kiss.

Jesse couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and his fingers tightened to fists

Today is the day my story, just one among the offerings of a host of other authors (including one of my very favorite big-time authors,  Lynn Flewelling, who wrote the Nightrunner series) , goes live, at 2:30 Easterm.

Not a Whore, by Jaime Samms: Purple tinsel and roses and a kiss under the New Years ball might be romantic, but are they enough for Ansell to give up his independence to please his lover?

Check out the index of stories available from, OMG, a host of amazing authors giving it up for free!!!

ANd on the Otherwise note, my latest novel (and wow, it’s been so long since I got to celebrate a new release, I almost forget the drill!!!) Better comes out at Dreamspinner Press tomorrow!!!

The Blurb: After filing charges that put his abusive ex-Dom behind bars, Jesse Turbul relocates  across the country, hoping to escape his past—but, of course, it’s never that easy. When Jesse meets third-year law student Aadon at the library where he works, their mutual attraction is instant and obvious.

Despite the sparks, they just can’t seem to make it work. Aadon is mired in guilt over his inability to help his older brother, damaged by events far too similar to to Jesse’s past. Jesse is stuck in his own desperate wish to forget the painful shadow that continues to threaten him and any hope of a happy future.

The only way to move forward is for Jesse to acknowledge he’s broken and for Aadon to accept he can’t make him better.

If you ask me, the loveliest thing about this movie is that no one pretends they don’t know fans will be slashing these two all over the place. And yet, to the average viewer, it’s just another bromance. Well, if by bromance, you mean the the kind where everything blows up, everyone gets shot at least once, and there are giant fish hooks and man on man waltzing. If you mean that kind of bromance.

So did I like it? well of course! Witty, fun, fascinating, especially listening to hubs beside me analyzing all the genius manipulating I was too busy watching the for Meaningful Gazes to notice. Oh! And the visual of where steampuk started. Yeah. That was pretty cool, too. And totally Dionne hate the actual female love interests, either. Always love a good female role where the girl kicks ass and shoots a few baddies to boot. Even the genteel wife shot off a few zingers. no shrinking violet, she.

Hats off to another great, entertaining movie. I may not be terribly hard to please in this department, but hey, I wasn’t in that theater alone, and hubs didn’t complain. Must have been enough explosions to go around

INTERESTING THINGS I CAME ACROSS ON THE WEB

On Kristen Lamb’s blog, and article on why tradiotional advertising won’t sell your book. It made a lot of sense to me, and it might to you, too. Go read the post here.

NEWS FROM FRIENDS

Most of you have probably heard about Love Romances Cafe’s yearly Best of Awards. I have a few highlights for you here:

2011 LRC’s “Best of” Awards Nominee List

Best Paranormal/Fantasy Book

Andrea Speed-Pretty Monsters

Haven’t read it yet, but I’ve heard really, really good things…

> Best Book of 2011
TJ Klune-Bear, Otter and the Kid
Rick R. Reed-Caregiver
Two more books in my TBR pile that I’ve heard are fantastic….

Best GBLT Book
Damon Suede-Hot Head

No secret who I’d vote for in this category Hot Head remains my favorite book of the year.

Best Contemporary Book
Damon Suede-Hot Head
Johnny Miles-Learning to Samba
ZA Maxfield-The Book of Daniel
The first two I’ve read, and that’s a tough call for me. I loved them both…and I’ve yet to read The Book of Daniel, but again, I hear wonderful things and I have yet to meet a Z.A. Maxfield book I didn’t like…

Best Historical Romance Book
Best BDSM Book
Best Mystery/Romantic Suspense/Thriller Book

I haven’t read any of the books in these categories, so I really don’t have an opinion, but good luck to all the nominees!

Best Author of 2011

Damon Suede
Andrew Grey
Ethan Day
Johnny Miles
Tara Lain

Just a few nominees I’ll be rooting for. Besides being terrific authors, they are all wonderful people I’ve had the distinct pleasure of meeting face to face….

> Best GBLT Author 2011
Andrew Grey
SJD Peterson
Margie Church
Xavier Axelson
Amber Kell
Jambrea Jo Jones
Kim Dare
Serena Yates
Carol Lynne
Bailey Bradford
TJ Klune
Mary Calmes
Sue Brown
Lynn Hagen
Stormy Glenn
Joyee Flynn
Chris Quinton
Brannon Black
Johnny Miles
ZA Maxfield

Well…that’s the whole list of nominees, and yeah. Good luck choosing just one….

Best Cover of 2011
Damon Suede-Hot Head always one of my favs, and odd, since I don’t usually go for naked torso….

Best Cover Artist
Reese Dante…does beautiful work
Dawné Dominique…not afraid to capture the kink
Valerie Tibbs….wonderful to work with
Anne Cain….what can I say? Love her work, loved working with her, brief ass it was. She did a wonderful job! (I’ll show y’all in a sec)
Jet Mykles….talk about multi talent!

Best e-Publisher 2011
Dreamspinner Press…professional and awesome
Riptide Publishing…new and exciting
Samhain Publishing…tried and true
Loose Id Publishing…have yet to read a Loose Id book I didn’t enjoy
Total E-Bound Publishing…like family.

There is more. Much more. Go check out Dawn Roberto’s blog for the full list!

And as promised, the Anne Cain cover for my upcoming release, Better, to show why she’s one of my cover artist heroes. Check her DeviantArt page if you need further proof

I’m not entirely sure why I chose this book as the first book I read from Riptide Publishing. It seemed like a good idea at the time?

It’s making me…squeamish. It isn’t even very long and I’m finding I have to read it small doses at a time because I’m not liking the situation or, in a strange way, the main character. But still, I feel for him and his predicament. I’m kinda pissed at him for how things are turning out for his friend, but the details on the sale page promise me a HFN ending, so I shall soldier on.

And in fact, I don’t want to turn anyone off this book. Just because I’m having difficulty with it doesn’t mean everyone will. Some of my very favorite books, like The Slayer’s Apprentice by Zathyn Priest and the Last Harold Mage Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey, I had this same visceral reaction to. It isn’t a bad reaction, necessarily. Its a strong one. One that can’t be ignored. One that comes when the book is well written, engaging and demanding. That’s strong writing, strong editing, and commitment by the author. It demands commitment from the reader, and you definitely have to be prepared to give this book your attention, whether you like it or not.

For me, whether I like the book or not, I suspect will strongly hinge on the ending. If that is as strongly written as the rest, not a cop out, and not gratuitous, then I suspect despite my squeamishness thus far, I will not only like it, but probably re-read it some day. As a writer myself, I can’t ask for more than to touch a reader so deeply they want to read the same thing over again.

Never has that been more the case than with me. When I first started looking towards publication in 2009, Dreamspinner was brand new and I had a wish to publish with them, but not the guts to actually submit anything. It took me until last year…well, this year, for a few days still, I guess, to take the chance and pitch my oddball story, Angel Requiem to them through the Yahoo loop, Publishingtrove.

Understand, I had already racked up a half dozen rejections for the story, and so wasn’t really expecting much. I convinced myself I was doing this on a lark, to practice the art of pitching a story. Imagine my wildly beating heart when Elizabeth emailed me and told me she wanted to publish it. I was over the moon.

I’ve since had a couple more short stories accepted there, and just a few months ago, Elizabeth said yes to my first Dreamspinner novel, another story I’ve worked hard on and that has grown to be very important to me because it deals with some very painful subject matter. To have it in the hands of the Dreamspinner team was a wonderful relief.

Another secret (sort of. I guess it wasn’t really a secret at all) wish of mine has always been to have an Anne Cain cover, and now, that dream, too, has come to pass.

And it is beautiful and perfect. Once again, a dream come true, just like Elizabeth envisioned when she started out.

After filing charges that put his abusive ex-Dom behind bars, Jesse Turbul relocates across the country, hoping to escape his past—but, of course, it’s never that easy. When Jesse meets third-year law student Aadon at the library where he works, their mutual attraction is instant and obvious.

Despite the sparks, they just can’t seem to make it work. Aadon is mired in guilt over his inability to help his older brother, damaged by events far too similar to to Jesse’s past. Jesse is stuck in his own desperate wish to forget the painful shadow that continues to threaten him and any hope of a happy future.

The only way to move forward is for Jesse to acknowledge he’s broken and for Aadon to accept he can’t make him better.

It was a good book. I heard many people say they cried. It takes a lot to make me cry, and I admit, I was sad. It leaves me wondering if, had I read it myself and the voices in my head as I read were my own, I might have felt the trauma more deeply. As it was, one thing I was not in love with was the odd voice the reader used to portray Caine. To my ear, he sounded a little too goofy, and I had a hard time taking him seriously.

But I did enjoy the book, and I will definitely read the other two in the series, so thank you, Mary, for a great read.

Belinda McBride is doing weekly giveaways on her blog! Every Sunday in December, she’s giving out something with the lovely “Dance” image that she commissioned from the talented PL Nunn. (One of my all time favorite anime artists!!!!) If you read ‘When I Fall,’ you’ll recognize the scene. (I haven’t yet, but now I’m going to have to!!!)

Haven’t seen the art? You can check it out and enter to win something at her blog

Also, she just received the release date for ‘Gift of the Maggie.’ It’ll be a bonus release over at MLR Press for their holiday shorts and is scheduled for December 23.

And in case you still need more from Belinda, she has a revamped version of her “Don’t Read in the Closet” short story from Goodreads available here, called Free To Fly.