Release Blitz + Giveaway: Resolutions for an Arbitrary Holiday by Nell Iris

Author Nell Iris and Gay Book Promotions host a New Year's release blitz for New Year's romance, Resolutions for an Arbitrary Holiday! Find out more about the new release from JMS Books and enter in the giveaway where five people win their choice from the author's back list!

RELEASE BLITZ

Book Title: Resolutions for an Arbitrary Holiday

Author: Nell Iris

Publisher: JMS Books 

Cover Artist: Written Ink Designs 

Release Date: December 30, 2020

Genre/s: Contemporary, holiday M/M Romance

Trope/s: Meet cute

Themes: Being true to yourself, New Year’s Eve, holiday

Heat Rating:  1 flame

Length: 20 849  words

It is a standalone story.

  Add on Goodreads

Buy Links 

JMS Books  |  Amazon US  |  Amazon UK 

B&N  |  Kobo  |   Apple Books

 

Two strangers, a twisted ankle, an ancient stone ship, and a New Year’s Eve they’ll never forget

  

Blurb

Petter sneaks out of the New Year’s party he didn’t want to go to and treks to an old burial site he’s dying to see. Alone. Without telling anyone on a freezing December night. Without cell service…a huge problem when he twists his ankle.

Someone passes by Isak’s house on the path leasing to the stone ship. When the person never returns, Isak worries and sets off to investigate. What he finds is Petter, a pack of sparklers, and an instant connection.

Under a starry sky, they learn they have a lot in common. Will the attraction burn hot and fizzle out like the fireworks going off over their heads when they return to the real world? Or will it deepen, grow, and turn into something real? Something everlasting like the stone ship?



Excerpt

“Did you come here to ring in the new year?” He nods toward the bottle still positioned between my legs.

“Yeah. I’ve always wanted to visit this place and since I was dragged to the village, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I even brought sparklers.” I pull them out of my pocket, holding them up for him to see.

“Bubbly and sparklers by the stone ship. Sounds like the perfect New Year’s celebration to me.”

I stare at him. He sounds serious enough, not like he’s mocking me. And he doesn’t know me, so he won’t know what buttons to push to get me to agree to do shit I don’t want to, like my friend Jonas, who’s the sole reason for me being here. “You can’t be alone on New Year’s Eve, Petter. Only losers and people with no friends stay home alone on holidays. Besides, you don’t want Maja to think you’re not her friend, do you?” Bastard played me and used his girlfriend to get me to agree, knowing how much I like her. More than him, most days.

But this guy, this stranger, seems honest. “You really mean that?”

“I do.” He grabs the bottle and takes a swig, his face scrunching up in a grimace.

“Yeah, I know,” I snicker. “It’s vile. Serves me right for grabbing someone’s bubbly from the fridge before heading up here.”

“I’m not a wine expert, but that was…”

“…too sweet,” we say simultaneously.

He nods. “Exactly.”

I smile.

“Listen. What do you say we ring in the new year a bit early? New Year’s is just an arbitrary mark of the passage of time invented by humans anyway, so who says we can’t do it now? Light some sparklers, tell each other our resolutions. Try not to barf as we drink more of this.” He holds up the bottle. “Then I can help you down. Call a doctor if you need one. Or take you back to your friends if you prefer. I assume you’re at the Andersson house for the party?”

I raise an eyebrow. “How did you know?”

“It’s a teeny tiny village. Everyone knows what’s going on in their neighbors’ houses.”

“Really? That can’t be good?”

“It has its downsides, that’s for sure. But I’m mostly fine with it.”

“Okaaaay.” Because surely, he doesn’t mean the neighbors know everything? Not what other people have in their nightstands and stuff? Ew.

“So what do you say?” He nudges his knee against my leg.

“Sure. I approve of the plan.”

Isak removes his gloves and holds out his hand. “Let me light the sparklers. Did you bring a lighter?”

“Yeah, hang on.” I dig into my pocket without taking off my mittens—my fingers are pretty cold—until I find it. “Here you go.”

“Awesome. Are you the kind of person who makes resolutions?”

“Usually not.” I accept the lit sparkler he holds out to me. I’ve loved these things since I was a little kid, even more than fireworks, and up here, in the howling wind with a sky full of stars above my head, in the company of a kind stranger and huge ancient stones, they’re more beautiful than ever.

“But this year is different?”

“Yeah. I’m doing some…significant changes in my life this coming year, so I thought ‘why not?’ It can’t hurt, right? Even if I agree with you about the arbitrariness of this so-called holiday.”

“You do?”

“Sure. It’s not a thing we celebrate because of some natural phenomenon, like the solstice. It’s just to mark that the Earth has done another lap around the sun. I mean, that’s great and all, but why do we need to celebrate it?”

Isak’s face lights up in a wide grin. “Yes! This is what I always say when people complain because I refuse to embrace the spirit of the holiday.”

I return his smile. “Exactly!”

“I’ll drink to that.”

About the Author 

Nell Iris is a romantic at heart who believes everyone deserves a happy ending. She’s a bona fide bookworm (learned to read long before she started school), wouldn’t dream of going anywhere without something to read (not even the ladies room), loves music (and singing along at the top of her voice but she’s no Celine Dion), and is a real Star Trek nerd (Make it so). She loves words, bullet journals, poetry, wine, coffee-flavored kisses, and fika (a Swedish cultural thing involving coffee and pastry!)

Nell believes passionately in equality for all regardless of race, gender or sexuality, and wants to make the world a better, less hateful, place.

Nell is a bisexual Swedish woman married to the love of her life, a proud mama of a grown daughter, and is approaching 50 faster than she’d like. She lives in the south of Sweden where she spends her days thinking up stories about people falling in love. After dreaming about being a writer for most of her life, she finally was in a place where she could pursue her dream and released her first book in 2017.

Nell Iris writes gay romance, prefers sweet over angsty, short over long, and quirky characters over alpha males.

   

Author Links

Blog/Website  |  Facebook Author Page  |  Facebook Profile

Twitter: @nellirisauthor  |  Instagram: @nell_iris  |  Goodreads

QueeRomance Ink   |  BookBub

 

 

Giveaway 

Enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway for a chance to win

a choice of one of five ebook copies from Nell's backlist

a Rafflecopter giveaway

  

Hosted by Gay Book Promotions

 

Follow the tour and check out the other blog posts and reviews here

Blog Tour + Giveaway: Limits and Stakes (Suite of Harte’s #3) by Jacqueline Grey

 

Happy New Year! Wishing you a happy and healthy new year to all!

 

It's the final day of the Limits and Stakes (Suite of Harte’s #3) blog tour! Check out author Jacqueline Grey and IndiGo Marketing's tour stop today which features more information on the erotic romance. Plus, the author shares where the writing magic happens and also hosts a $10 NineStar Press credit giveaway! Good luck!

Title: Limits and Stakes

Series: Suit of Harte's, Book Three

Author: Jacqueline Grey

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 12/21/2020

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 32500

Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, BDSM, Gay, Erotic Romance, Contemporary, Exhibitionism, Bondage, Sensation Play, Professor/Student

Add to Goodreads

                                                  

Description

Professor Danny Stone doesn’t date students. Though the university does not forbid such relationships, he’d rather be safe than sorry, but with his sparkling blue eyes and silky blond hair, Christopher Owen is a temptation begging him to break the rules. He already bent them when he kissed Chris over winter break.

Spring break will be different. Danny’s plan is to spend the week at a BDSM club a few towns over. Playing with a sub or two who have no connection to his university will do him a world of good, and he can put Chris out of his mind.

But when the first sub that catches his eye turns out to be Christopher, Danny’s willpower is put to the ultimate test. Chris is brand new to the scene and feels safest with Danny. Will Danny be able to introduce him to the wonders of BDSM without crossing too many lines? Or will fate pull them together and show them sometimes rules are destined to be broken?

Author Visit

Thank you so much for having me here today.

As I was working on Limits and Stakes and now that I am now turning my focus to writing new things, I have been finding it more and more important to have a space in my house to be creative, a space that brings me joy by stepping inside it. Given the state of the world, I think that is something we all need. It is so important for all of us to have somewhere we can go to disconnect from stress and focus on things we enjoy. For me, one of those places has become my office.

I’ve been working from home for years, but due to lack of space, my “office” was a desk in the living/dining room. This wasn’t the best of locations since I was living with my mother at the time and there were days I would easily have my attention pulled away from my work by the sound of Gordon Ramsay yelling from the other end of the room. Circumstances have changed, and I now have an office in the old guest room (which has been relocated downstairs). When creating this space, I decided to fill it with things that I love, things that bring me joy just to see them. For me, that means loading it up with a bunch of geekery. Let me take you on a tour and show you where I write.

 

First, we have the door. Just in case you were wondering what this room was dedicated to, Kurose and Shirotani from the manga Ten Count can give you a clue. There is a lot of Ten Count in my office, which you can see as we move to the desk.

 

The framed pictures, acrylic charms and the square Shikishi boards are all Ten Count. The other geeky things you see hanging about are: a small file folder from Hitorijime my Hero (If you are looking for a wonderfully sweet gay romance anime you should totally check this one out.), manjuu plushes from a Chinese BL novel series called Mo Du (they’re the hanging ball looking things with animal ears and they squeak), fan art I commissioned of my favorite characters from Kamen Rider Faiz, and bean plushes from one of my favorite Chinese BL novel series, Guardian (the little balls on the wooden shelf unit. These don’t squeak.) Even my computer background is from a Thai BL called Why RU.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, not only is everything in the room geeky, it’s all related to gay romance (which makes for a lovely atmosphere during my day job, but it also means I need to make sure my background is blurred on video conference calls. LOL). Seeing these things every day puts a smile on my face, especially when things are stressful.

Not everything is geeky décor though. The wooden shelf unit you see in the picture is something I picked up from a garage sale a long time ago and it ended up being perfect to hold my files of book ideas. Although I do put a lot of my brainstorming on my computer, I still feel the need to work with paper sometimes. A lot of that paperwork is in the colorful holders you see on the shelves. Each one is a series idea. So is the chart on the cork board. (That chart is the series I want to work on next. 😊)

There are more series ideas things on the other side of the room, so let’s go there next.

Remember when I said that I need to blur my background while conducting video meetings? This would be why. Welcome to the wall behind my desk. These photos from left to right are Ten Count, Yuri on Ice, and Sekaiichi Hatsukoi (otherwise known as The World's Greatest First Love).

In addition to the pictures are two very important things. The first and most important being the cat condo. One of my cats is always in my office with me whenever I am there, and since I spend a lot of time working, I wanted to give him a place he could be comfortable while keeping me company. It also allows him to look out the window when the shade is open. (It will come as no surprise to fellow cat lovers that most of the time he’s sleeping in a cardboard box next to my desk or taking up the space between my keyboard and monitors.) The second important thing is the bookcase. On the shelves are binders holding more series ideas or book bibles for things I’m working on. In fact, that purple binder without a label is Ghost House. There rest are series ideas that I hope to bring to you one day. As you can see, there are a bunch of them.

And that’s it. Welcome to my writing space. I had so much fun putting this room together that I took the geek decor idea and spread it throughout the rest of my house. There’s something to enjoy in every room, but that’s a tour for another day. In the meantime, I will stay here and work on creating new things for you to read. And if you’re looking for a book to help you disconnect and destress, you can check out Limits and Stakes and the rest of the Suit of Harte’s series.

Excerpt

Limits and Stakes

Jacqueline Grey © 2020 

All Rights Reserved

It was spring break, and Daniel Stone was enjoying a full week of student-free days. Dressed head-to-toe in tight black leather and itching to play, Daniel entered the Lock & Key. The club wasn’t as big as the one he’d been a member of before moving to Georgia, and membership wasn’t as exclusive, but it was well-recommended, and the staff kept an eye out for the patrons. Most of the members seemed to be well-versed in the lifestyle as well, enough to give him the confidence that, if he were to play with someone, they would at least know what they were doing or say something if they didn’t.

The club was a sufficient distance from where he worked, so he didn’t have to worry about being spotted as a familiar face outside of the scene. A BDSM club in a college town was not where a professor wanted to be found, no matter how liberal the residents claimed to be. A five-hour drive and the expense of a hotel room for the week was a worthy price for freedom.

He ordered a bottle of water and scanned the crowd for potential company. A small group of men caught his eye. Two of the three he disregarded immediately, but the third, a lean blond in the skimpiest pair of leather shorts he’d ever seen, held his attention. He was unable to tear his gaze from all that pale skin or the way the leather hugged his perfectly round bottom.

The boy was obviously new to the scene. There was uncertainty in his movements, but he was doing his best to keep up the conversation. Daniel had full confidence the young man would succeed. Anyone brave enough to go out in public in shorts like those could hold a simple conversation.

When the group moved toward the bar, Daniel finally saw the young man’s face. He froze in surprise. Of the students crowding Georgia State University campus, he now faced the one he’d wanted to avoid the most, the one he wanted to forget. Against his better judgment, he intercepted the group.

“Chris,” he said.

Chris Owen looked up at him, startled. His eyes widened in recognition, and his mouth fell open.

“Pr—” He stopped himself just in time. “Mr. Stone.”

Relief flooded through Daniel. He preferred to keep his daily life separate from the club and was glad it would remain that way.

“You know this kid?” asked one of the men. He stood too close to Chris for Daniel’s liking.

“Yes.” Daniel resisted the impulse to claim anything more. He had no right to claim anything, but his instincts wouldn’t let him back down completely. “My apologies for the interruption. I wasn’t aware Chris planned to be here today.”

The stranger scrutinized the young man, paying particular attention to his neck. “He’s not marked.”

“I’m instructing him,” Daniel said. Well, he had been. For half a semester, he’d tutored Chris in advanced calc, but that had changed after winter break. Either way, the details didn’t apply here. He clutched at straws with half-truths, but he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to know why Chris was there and what he had in mind. He wanted to keep the boy safe.

He wanted to keep him.

No. He’s a student. You promised him two months ago nothing would happen between the two of you, and now you’re trying to put a collar on him? Get a grip, Stone!

“Of course, he’s free to choose who he goes with,” Daniel added, attempting to pull himself out of the hole he’d been digging.

The other man looked at Chris expectantly. Chris flickered his eyes back and forth between them, seemingly lost on how to answer. Daniel put a hand on his shoulder.

“You can continue to the bar as you were, or you can take a tour of the club with me. Which do you want to do? There is no wrong choice.”

“I…” Chris’s gaze locked on Daniel’s. “I…” He swallowed. “I want to go with you.”

There was a tsk from behind Chris, but Daniel ignored it. He also did his best to ignore the sense of triumph running through him.

“Follow me,” he said and headed toward the bar.

“I thought we were going for a tour.”

“One step at a time, boy.” Daniel ordered another water, then scanned the room for somewhere to sit. When the bartender put the drink on the counter, Daniel left it for Chris to pick up and led the way toward the table he’d found. He was glad to hear the crinkle of plastic as Chris followed. The seating he’d chosen had a semblance of privacy. Daniel took the chair against the wall and gestured for Chris to take the other.

“Now, I take it this is what you meant about trying new things over spring break?” he asked.

The boy flushed red. “I… Yes. I’ve always wanted to come here and finally worked up the courage to do it.”

“You did more than that.” Daniel dropped a pointed glance in the direction of Chris’s shorts.

The color in Chris’s face deepened. “You’re not gonna tell anyone, are you?”

“I believe a person’s private life is their own business.”

“Thanks.”

Daniel took a sip of his water. After a moment, Chris did the same. Daniel caught himself staring when Chris licked his lips. He’d kissed that mouth.

The small details of that moment were forever embedded in his mind. One evening during winter break, they’d come across each other outside the math building on campus. He couldn’t recall why they’d lingered. All he remembered was huddling in his coat against the winter chill and then not caring about the weather as he became entranced by the puffs of air dancing between them as they spoke, the rosy color on Chris’s cheeks, and the sparkle in his clear blue eyes. There had been silence all around them when the conversation had hit a lull and a pull, an irresistible urge that had driven him to kiss a student. Granted, Chris was a grad student and not in any of Daniel’s classes, but Daniel had been his tutor at the time. Even if he hadn’t, Chris was still a student at the college where Daniel worked, and that wasn’t something Daniel was comfortable with. Recklessness led to trouble, and so he’d pulled away. Yet here was that face again, looking at him so openly as if the kiss had never happened and Daniel hadn’t ruined an innocent student-teacher relationship.

He mentally shook himself from his reverie. “Did you have anything in mind when you came here tonight, or was getting through the door the main goal?”

Chris’s blush deepened. “That seemed to be a big enough goal to start with.”

“Now that you’ve accomplished it, what do you plan to do next?”

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

Jacqueline Grey currently lives on an island on the east coast of the United States. She spends her time outside her day job juggling her many interests which include reading, writing and drinking tea. She loves M/M romance, usually focusing on stories that include BDSM themes to one degree or another.

Jacqueline has always been driven by characters. She loves a good plot, but it’s the characters that pull her into a story. She loves romance and believes everyone has a right to be happy. She enjoys seeing her characters find that happiness for themselves.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest

Tour Schedule

12/28 Bayou Book Junkie

12/29 My Fiction Nook

12/30 Love Bytes

12/31 Two Chicks Obsessed

1/1 Boy Meets Boy Reviews

Giveaway

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Release Blitz + Giveaway: Extra Time (The District Line #4) by C F White

Happy New Year's Eve! We wish a happy, healthy and safe new year!

Author C.F. White and Gay Book Promotions host today's release blitz for Extra Time (The District Line #4)! Check out the the latest from the popular series and enter in the giveaway to win your own eBook copy of Fade to Blank (London Lies #1)!

RELEASE BLITZ

Book Title: Extra Time (The District Line #4)

Author: C F White

Publisher: Self-published 

Cover Artist: KAM Design 

Release Date: December 29, 2020

Genre/s: Contemporary M/M Romance 

Trope/s: Sports/Rocker, established celebrity couple, family

Theme: Final Happy Ever After 

Heat Rating: 4 flames 

Length: 50 000 words/217 pages

It is not a standalone story.

This is an add-on final short novel to complete the District Line series. 

The District Line consists of: Kick Off, Break Through, Come Back. 

All books are available on KU, paperback and audio. And in a KU boxset. 

Goodreads

 

Buy Links

Universal Link  |   Amazon US  |   Amazon UK  

 

When it’s time, it’s time.

  

Blurb

Professional footballer Jay Ruttman and rock superstar Sebastian Saunders are back.

Used to the press, used to the public interest, and used to being just the two of them, they’ve forged a life juggling their high-profile careers with their low-key relationship. And it’s working. Mostly.

There are only two things left hanging that could elevate their contentment to perfection—marriage and a child.

Six years since bridgegate, and Jay’s spectacular proposal on the Millennium Bridge, the bill has now passed for legal same-sex marriage. It looks like they might be able to finally tie the knot, and the pitter patter of tiny feet isn’t as far flung an idea as it might have first seemed.

Until Jay has his first call up to play for the national team and must, once again, decide what’s more important—family or football.



Excerpt

The short-lived peace broke when Seb announced through a wistful exhalation, “I want to have your babies.”

Jay slammed back against the wall, his head hitting hard, solid plaster. He’d feel that in the morning. “You what?”

“Let’s have babies, Champ. Let’s have little Jays running after their little footballs and little me’s rocking out on the guitar. Well, I’ll start him on the ukulele because, little hands. But by three I’ll expect to upgrade.”

“Babe—”

“I know what you’re going to say. No womb. But, penguins, baby, look at the fucking penguins! We could do that. We could so do that.”

“Steal an egg?” Jay ran a hand over his brow.

Davies wriggled onto his side, the pillow sliding to the floor and an elongated grunt grazed his throat. Jay ignored him to await what Seb was going to declare next.

“We get given one.” Seb’s grin could be felt two hundred miles away and down the telecom system, only mildly preventing the need for Jay to kick the bloke in the next bed to him. “And we know our very own bitch whore!”

“We do?”

“Ann. Let’s steal her eggs and borrow her oven to cook them in.”

“I don’t—”

“She’s agreed. I already rang her.”

“So much for talking to me first before doing anything rash.”

“I didn’t impregnate her,” Seb declared in a mockingly accusatory tone. “That would be considered brash. Anyway, think on it. We’ll talk tomorrow. My programmes just started.”

“Enjoy the gay dogs.”

“Oh no, not that. I went back to porn. Although, I could probably search that on this site. Puppy play.”

“Night, Seb.”

“Night, Daddy. I love you.” Seb cut off the phone before Jay could retaliate with anything.

He wouldn’t have known what to say anyway. That was some head fuck. Babies. Seb wanted babies. With him. And plural. Yes, he’d mentioned it before, but he’d thought the bloke was flapping his lips like he always did. This was serious.

And if he’d already spoken to Ann…

He then noticed there was an unseen text that had come through during that conversation. He clicked on it.

Yes, you can have my eggs and borrow my oven. Love you. A

“Fuckin’ ‘ell!” Jay threw his phone on the bedside table and it landed with a loud thud.

Davies flung his eyes open. “Oi, Rutters,” he growled and tossed one of the pillows across the room. It slapped Jay in the face, waking him up from his momentary paralysis. “Some of us are tryin’ a sleep ‘ere, yeah? Keep the fucking noise down.”

Jay didn’t retaliate. He was too gobsmacked. Seb’s out of left field tackle had kicked him right in the gut and that was an illegal move. Little Sebs? Could he handle little Sebs? He couldn’t handle the big one most of the time.

Still, the thought tugged a smile from his lips as he slunk under the covers, closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep to the sound of snoring.

About the Author

Brought up in a relatively small town in Hertfordshire, C F White managed to do what most other residents try to do and fail—leave.

Studying at a West London university, she realised there was a whole city out there waiting to be discovered, so, much like Dick Whittington before her, she never made it back home and still endlessly search for the streets paved with gold, slowly coming to the realisation they’re mostly paved with chewing gum. And the odd bit of graffiti. And those little circles of yellow spray paint where the council point out the pot holes to someone who is supposedly meant to fix them instead of staring at them vacantly whilst holding a polystyrene cup of watered-down coffee.

Eventually she moved West to East along that vast District Line and settled for pie and mash, cockles and winkles and a bit of Knees Up Mother Brown to live in the East End of London; securing a job and creating a life, a home and a family.

After her second son was born with a rare disability, C F White’s life changed and it brought pen back to and paper after having written stories as a child but never had the confidence to show them to the world. Now, having embarked on this writing journey, C F White can’t stop. 

So strap in, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. 

 

Author Links

Twitter @CFWhiteUK  |  Facebook  |  Blog

Instagram  |  Newsletter Sign-up

 

Giveaway 

 Enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway for a chance to win

a Fade to Blank (London Lies #1) ebook.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

 

Hosted by Gay Book Promotions

 

Follow the tour and check out the other blog posts and reviews here

Blog Tour: Author Jeffrey Buchanan historical novels

 

Author Jeffrey Buchanan and Gay Book Promotions visit today with a blog tour tour promoting three of the author's historical novels, Sucking Feijoas, The Smile of the Dispossessed and Pansies' Revenge! Read more today to find out about the three different stories!

BLOG TOUR

for

Three historical novels by Jeffrey Buchanan

💜Sucking Feijoas 💜The Smile of the Dispossessed 💜Pansies’ Revenge 

💜Sucking Feijoas 💜The Smile of the Dispossessed 💜Pansies’ Revenge 

 

BOOK 1

Book Title: Sucking Feijoas

Author: Jeffrey Buchanan

Length: 283 pages

Release Date: June 24, 2020

Genre: Gay Historical novel,  LGBTQI Literary / Historical Fiction

Themes: gay liberation, coming out

It is a standalone story.

Goodreads

 

Buy links

Universal Link  |  Amazon US  |  Amazon UK 

 

 

Blurb

George thinks he’s a real man…until he is seduced by an American serviceman on duty in New Zealand during WW2.

Neddy, the son of Lebanese migrants, marries a peasant girl in an attempt to overcome his attraction to men.

Garth, an intellectual, working-class Catholic boy, escapes to Mexico but eventually returns to reveal a painful secret.

Set in New Zealand, Lebanon and Mexico between 1942 and 1986, SUCKING FEIJOAS follows the lives of gay men and how, with ingenuity, courage and love, they managed their lives – despite the odds. Now in its third edition, this deeply engaging story about sexuality, class, race and the culture wars that surrounded them, is as relevant as ever. SUCKING FEIJOAS is riveting storytelling, gay history, empowering.



Excerpt

George was ecstatic that the party was going to be held in what he now referred to as his apartment. ‘Flat’ was definitely out as a term of reference to his abode now that he had such wonderful and sophisticated friends as Garth Griffin and Neddy Berdawni. He looked around his living room, a haven of peace and loveliness, which would soon be the scene of the wild party he’d planned in honour of the passing of the Homosexual Law Reform Bill.

‘All’erta! All’erta!Abb’etta zingara! he sang in a falsetto accompaniment to the opera blasting from his stereo. ‘All’erta.’ He lifted the needle from the record and put it back a few grooves so that he could again hear the soprano rejoicing in his favourite refrain from Il Trovatore. ‘All’erta! All’ertd! Abb’etta zingara!’

Food was displayed on the Formica table in his kitchen. It looked glorious, the madeira cake and the stuffed mushrooms. But best of all was that fabulous Arabic concoction with the name he had the same difficulty in pronouncing as the frantic refrains from the opera.

‘All’erta!’ he sang as he sniffed Neddy’s hummus. ‘Amazing,’ he said, ‘it feels so good to be able to sing opera without thinking it might get me arrested. Us poor, poor queens, for so many centuries denied our pleasures!’

On the wall in front of him was a picture of Mount Taranaki, which he stared at as he reached into a cupboard for the bottle of sherry. The huge, handsome flanks of that monstrous mountain. So many decades of admiring it. So many tortures endured in its presence, each like the ice axes that climbers stuck in the flanks of that wily old mountain.

‘And there you still are.’ He saluted the mountain. ‘And me too,’ he said as he downed a mouthful of the deliciously sickly sherry. ‘Still alert, still surviving.’

He bent over the table and stuck his finger in the delicious dip he’d come to adore since Neddy had first made it for him. ‘Hmmmm, hmmiss, homos, oh something or other,’ he said in a pickled hiss. He licked his finger with the creamy substance smeared over it and closed his eyes in satisfaction.

 

BOOK 2

Book Title: The Smile of the Dispossessed

Author: Jeffrey Buchanan

Length: 313 pages

Release Date: March 19, 2020

Genre/s: Gay historical romance

Themes: LGBTQ refugees

It is a standalone story.

Goodreads

 

Buy Links

Universal link  |  Website  |  Book Depository

 

 

Blurb

"The Smile of the Dispossessed" is a love story and a political thriller set in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia and Indonesia. The novel tells the story of Fadhi and Adam who flee Baghad in the final days of the Saddam Hussien regime when they are 'outed' as being gay and accused of being enemies of the state. Despite having been lovers for many years, under the pressures of being refugees, they separate and go their own ways, both men hoping to find freedom in a country that will accept them for who they are. "The Smile of the Dispossessed" demonstrates the enduring requirement to maintain faith in humanity and the power of love.



Excerpt

The music had changed again from disco to house and that beat was what Adam wanted, the newness of it, the complete modernity, the throb of what was the latest from Ibiza and Paris.

“You will not defeat me,” he said. He took the last swig from his bottle and went by himself to the dance floor. In his tight white tee shirt and blue jeans and white sneakers with his hair cut short and three days of beard, he knew he was the centre of attraction as he moved his body to the steady beat.

“I’m the handsome Arab,” he thought. “I’m the male they all want.” In the soap opera the music would now be reaching a crescendo as the main character found himself powerful and showed the world that when you are strong you get what you want and not what you de-serve. For a while in Baghdad there had been a fabulous Brazilian soap played on national television but the dancing and the partying had been too much for the authorities and it was eventually banned. Adam felt as if he had reached Sao Paulo now and that he was in it at last, that thing he wanted so much, that space he deserved. It was the vacuum left by the Brazilians, it was the magazine where the Paris models looked glamorous and led a life of luxury and fun. And at that moment on the dance floor he knew what his life was: he was a handsome and slightly crazy Palestinian and people desired him for that. Dancing there he saw his persona and was satisfied. The soaps were life and life was the soaps. He was in the midst of this felicitous conundrum when the blond squeezed amongst the dancers and started moving rhythmically next to him.

The blond had powder blue eyes, the colour of tropical oceans. His smile was as easy as his movements on the dance floor. They didn’t speak. There was no need to as they danced through two sets of the music. It was just like the soaps had ordered. A new sequel had begun and the audience was being led into it willingly and with abandon. The first thing the blond said to Adam sounded as if it had been scripted in a studio, the writers working in participation for the exact line of introduction: “I thought about you all day and all night.”

 

BOOK 3

Book Title: Pansies’ Revenge

Author: Jeffrey Buchanan

Length:  305 pages

Release Date: April 22, 2020

Genre/s: LGBTQI Historical / Literary fiction

Literary novel about the LGBTQI community set in Wellington, New Zealand in 1918 during the Spanish Flu.

It is a standalone story.

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Blurb

A vibrant, entertaining, often darkly Gothic story is filled with passion, love, pathos, farce and humour. Pansies’ Revenge lays bare the political, social and cultural fabric of New Zealand society at a pivotal time in the nation’s history. Set in 1918 the novel explores what it was like to resist political oppression and at the same time, face a global pandemic.

It is late 1918 and in Wellington, New Zealand, four years of world war and the ravages of the Spanish flu are taking their toll on the inhabitants.

All are not for King and Country. The members of the Te Aro book club: queer, feminist, bohemian, disgruntled, are accused of sedition for reading Crime and Punishment and drawing from it the roots of the problems facing the world. The more intently they read, the more the crazed characters of the book appear to manifest themselves in Wellington.

Intrigues deepen: Cecil and Sybil Meatyard, who work the crowds to a frenzy of patriotism in the streets of Wellington for the New Zealand Women’s Anti-German League, disappear. Their diatribes about war shirkers, spies and Pansies have upset a lot of people. The sinister Crawford Denton, detective and sensualist, follows the case. A 1918 MeToo Movement begins as the influenza pandemic takes hold.

This vibrant, entertaining, often darkly Gothic story is filled with passion, love, pathos, farce and humour. Pansies’ Revenge lays bare the political, social and cultural fabric of New Zealand society at a pivotal time in the nation’s history.



Excerpt

Chapter One

Alexander Powderham, fortyish, handsome, bohemian, limped his way up Cuba Street. His left leg, having been crippled from infantile paralysis, was supported by a steel brace. He was dependent also on canes, of which he had an impressive collection, and on this occasion, he was using one intricately carved by Aroha Raharuhi, his longtime lover.

The air was unseasonably warm for mid-September Wellington, which heightened the smell rising from the mounds of horse ordure left from the morning’s military parade. Outside the Duchess Tea Rooms, Alexander paused and rested on his good leg while he adjusted his recently tailored jacket, smoothing down the Irish linen with his hands, delighting in its texture and colour of golden flax. Then he adjusted his silk tie, cream coloured with charcoal flecks, loosening the knot a little at the undone top button to ensure that rakish look, which was one of casual elegance. The white, Egyptian cotton shirt had also been crafted especially for him by the clothiers Munster & Munster who, through four years of war, had survived patriotic vandalism by hanging a large sign across their shop windows, WE ARE NOT HUNS: WE SUPPORT KING AND COUNTRY. Alexander’s chocolate brown, wide-brimmed hat with a duck’s feather poking from the green woven band was also avant-garde, of a high-quality felt and based on a design he had seen in a fashion weekly from London.

About the Author 

Jeffrey Buchanan was born in Wellington, New Zealand, to a Lebanese - New Zealand family. For thirty years, including a decade with the United Nations, he worked in multiple countries in education, the promotion of human rights, gender equality and the empowerment of women. He was based for several years in the Middle East. For his Doctorate, he researched the structural, cultural and ideological components of Islamic education. Now he follows the warm weather with his husband Stuart, reads and writes fiction, and daydreams.

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Release Blitz + Giveaway: Kelpie Blue (Out of Underhill #1) by Mell Eight

Author Mell Eight and IndiGo Marketing host today's release blitz for fantasy romance, Kelpie Blue (Out of Underhill #1)! Enjoy Kelpies? Find out more and enter in the $10 NineStar Press credit giveaway!

Title: Kelpie Blue

Series: Out of Underhill, Book One

Author: Mell Eight

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 01/04/2021

Heat Level: 2 - Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 49500

Genre: Paranormal, LGBTQIA+, disability, fairies/faes, magic users, shape-shifter, fantasy, romance

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Description

When a beautiful blue horse asks Rin to go for a swim, Rin doesn’t realize how much his life is about to change. Blue is unlike anyone else Rin has ever met, and the magic of the fae, and of this particular kelpie, is wondrous, but deadly. Rin learns too late he might be in for a swim he won’t survive.

Excerpt

Kelpie Blue
Mell Eight © 2020
All Rights Reserved

Mama was a cowboy. Okay, technically she was a cowgirl, but that’s beside the point. She grew up in the South, with a capital S. Her childhood was full of Bible-thumping, cattle, and hay. There wasn’t much room for school, especially since she was a girl. Her job was to help around the farmhouse, milk the cows, get married, and have a brood of kids who would grow up to work the farm too.

But, like I said, Mama was a cowboy. She wore pants and rode horses. She skipped church to nurse a sick calf. She could milk the damned cows, cook, and clean, but she didn’t have to like it. Her parents tried to set her straight, but Mama would sneak out to play with the colts in the paddock instead of sewing with her girlfriends. She would go out to the movies or even drive to a club in the neighboring city with friends who had never heard that girls only ever wore full skirts.

There were girls like Mama who cropped up in farm families from time to time, and the general consensus was she’d grow out of it soon. It was childhood rebellion, and it would fade.

Then I appeared. No, not like magic—poof, suddenly there was a baby in Mama’s arms. At first, her Sunday dresses were a bit too tight, and then her jeans wouldn’t button. Babies were fine in the South, so long as there was a husband to go along with them. Mama didn’t even have a man offering to court her, let alone a boyfriend or a fiancé. She had met a drifter, someone who came with the cows from Texas and was gone a few days later. There were men who thought Mama was beautiful despite her prickly personality and the baby growing inside, and they offered for her hand, thinking she couldn’t say no. Her parents were relieved—they could cover up the baby mistake with a quick wedding—but Mama always said no.

Her parents turned her out. Mama said she thought they were planning to set up a wedding anyway, so when she crawled back to them in desperation, they could tuck her firmly under their thumbs and end her rebellion forever. Instead, Mama hopped on the first train heading north and never looked back.

She worked as a waitress, saving every dime, until labor pains made her supervisor call an ambulance. Her tips were huge that day, enough that when she got out of the hospital, she could finally afford to buy an old farm left unoccupied for the last decade. The forest on part of the land was haunted, the locals told her, and people kept disappearing. No one would buy it; the bank practically gave it away to Mama for free.

I was a quiet baby, so her supervisor let her keep me behind the counter when she returned to work. Her money mostly went to diapers, but every once in a while she’d call in a contractor. The barn got fixed up first. The fences around the massive home paddock were next. She put a new roof on the farmhouse and replaced some rotting wood around the foundation. Eventually, she bought two retired racehorses.

The horses themselves weren’t anything special. They hadn’t won stakes races, and their thoroughbred pedigree wasn’t anything to laud, but they were good-looking horses all the same. Mama knew horses, and when she got some foals out of them, she taught the babies how to run.

Mama’s horses won stakes races. She cut her hours at the restaurant to spend more time training her colts and fillies. She bought more pedigree horses and built a second paddock so the stud stallions wouldn’t fight over their mares. She was eventually able to build a third paddock solely for training.

I was ten years old at that point, and Mama had an amazing reputation as a trainer and breeder. Owners would bring their thoroughbreds to her for training. She quit her job at the restaurant and built a second barn with an indoor training ring. The barn was so large she could run the horses inside in bad weather. I was glad because it meant I didn’t have to clear the snow from the paddocks in the winter.

I was almost fourteen when it all ended. We were driving home from the racetrack with two horses in the trailer behind our truck. Mama never saw the drunk driver who hit us. He came whipping around a curve in the road, well over the double yellow line. When I woke up, I was in the hospital. Mama was in the bed next to me.

The weight of the horses in the trailer had saved our lives. We hadn’t gone over the ridge, and our car hadn’t flipped because the trailer had prevented it. Mama had broken ribs and a broken hip. I had severe compound fractures in my legs. The drunk driver was dead.

I turned fourteen in the hospital. Mama traveled between the farm and the hospital for weeks after she was released. It was almost a year before she could properly sit a horse, but she never had the strength in her legs to control a bucking yearling like she used to. Me, I was lucky I could even stand.

I had braces for my legs and crutches for my arms. I couldn’t carry hay or oats to a horse, let alone ride them. Mama had been teaching me everything she knew, but now it was all she could do to take care of her own horses and me.

The trainers and their thoroughbreds went away as did the money from Mama’s colts and fillies winning stakes races every racing season. Mama got rehired at the restaurant, so we could keep the few horses she still owned. I was home with my schoolwork and nothing else to do with my time. I was way behind in school, so Mama was trying to homeschool me and catch me up with my grade. She hadn’t finished high school, but she insisted I would.

I was bored as anything and very depressed about my life. I was relearning to walk with the pins in my legs and with the crutches. My only escape during the day was struggling through a walk down one of the flat riding paths. Back when I could ride a horse down those paths, I wasn’t allowed to go into the woods or near the lake. Those were Mama’s rules, and I was supposed to follow them or she’d ground me. But the lake was so serene as I limped toward it, and I needed a break anyway.

That was when I met Blue, the crazy horse reading over my shoulder who doesn’t know how to respect a private diary. Of course, he tried to kill me then. I think now might be my turn to return the favor.

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NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

When Mell Eight was in high school, she discovered dragons. Beautiful, wondrous creatures that took her on epic adventures both to faraway lands and on journeys of the heart. Mell wanted to create dragons of her own, so she put pen to paper. Mell Eight is now known for her own soaring dragons, as well as for other wonderful characters dancing across the pages of her books. While she mostly writes paranormal or fantasy stories, she has been seen exploring the real world once or twice.

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Review: A Christmas Break by Annabelle Jacobs

Christmas is a time for giving, not lusting after your brother’s best mate.

Finn has never had the Christmas of his dreams, and this year isn’t shaping up to be much better. Then he rents his spare room out to Jasper, and life begins to look up.

Laid-back Jasper is nothing like Finn expects. He’s hot, sweet, and easy to talk to. Finn could easily fall for him. But, he’s his brother’s best friend. He’s off limits, and Finn would never break that sacred rule…right?

Jasper has carried a torch for his best mate’s brother for years. Living with him sparks an old flame to light, and the more time they spend together, the brighter it burns. Finn is gorgeous and kind. He’s everything Jasper has ever wanted.

But he’s also scarred by old wounds and reluctant to let his guard down again. Friendship blooms, and for a short while, it’s enough. But the fire between them is undeniable. Finn can fight it as much as he likes.

He won’t win.

Garnering automatic points, this entails one of my favorite tropes - falling for your best friend’s brother!

This starts out with Finn, who has just gotten out of a bad relationship. He’s understandably emotionally battered and needs help paying the rent on his new place. When his brother Cole, suggests bff Jasper, Finn’s not too sure that’s such a great idea.

Of course, the attraction is immediate. Of course, these two hit it off quickly despite both being hesitant to rock the boat by acting on their lusty feelings. However, as always, close quarters make it very hard to resist the comfort and camaraderie they find in each other as time goes on.

Beware Finn putting up all sorts of excuses - the age difference (which is a mere 5 years), the unequal footing as he’s Jasper’s landlord, not to mention he’s still rebounding from his ex boyfriend. Jasper for sure wants to play and wouldn’t mind more, but he has his own life to patch up in terms of his fractured family dynamics and deciding on what he wants to be when he grows up.

Thankfully, this is easy reading. There’s hardly any angst, and I so appreciated that brother Cole, was not a jerk about them possibly getting together as is often seen in this particular trope. Jacobs excels at the storytelling with spot on UST and the smexy was nothing to sneeze at.

Release Blitz + Giveaway: Settling the Score (CalPac Crew #4) by C. Koehler

Author C. Koehler and IndiGo Marketing host today's blitz for new release, Settling the Score (CalPac Crew #4)! Read more and enter in the $10 NineStar Press credit giveaway! 

Title: Settling the Score

Series: CalPac Crew, Book Four

Author: C. Koehler

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 12/28/2020

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 103900

Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, Contemporary, romance, family-drama, gay, bisexual, medical student, property developer, corporate intrigue, instant family

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Description

Stuart Cochrane and Philip Sundstrom are very busy men. Stuart, freshly graduated from California Pacific, works as much as he can to save money for medical school. Philip, now in charge of the family home-construction company, works long hours to save the company from his father’s blunders and back-stabbing cronies. A chance encounter brings them together and the attraction is fierce and instant. While neither has time for a relationship, they can’t keep away from each other.

When the National Team recruits Stuart to cox, only Philip understands that Stuart’s sick of rowing and wants nothing more than to start medical school. When Philip’s board of directors plots to remove him from his own company, Stuart helps him scheme and strategize. Despite their emotional and sexual chemistry, Stuart’s hang-ups about money and rich people doom their fledgling relationship. But after a personal tragedy, Stuart must overcome his prejudices and accept Philip’s help. Can Philip set aside his broken heart to help Stuart in his hour of greatest need and, dare he hope, a family?

Excerpt

Settling the Score
C. Koehler © 2020
All Rights Reserved

The waiter held Philip’s eye a moment too long. Philip knew what that meant and flushed from the starched collar of his shirt all the way up to the gelled magnificence of his golden bangs. Left to its own devices, his hair flopped down to cover his eyes, and right then, Philip kind of wished it could. Instead, he’d styled his hair like he always did, parting it on the left and then the bulk of the bangs were up up and away! in a truly stupendous flight of fancy that was probably on the wrong side of metrosexual for a corporate CEO. When he was by himself, he played the game, but c’mon, dude. He was here with his girlfriend. What kind of trash did he think Philip was? It meant he had to cut the waiter. The cut direct wasn’t his style, but Philip felt like he didn’t have a choice. Angie was his priority.

“The waiter’s certainly attentive this evening,” Angie commented.

Philip cocked one eyebrow. “Sweetheart, did you get a good look at yourself? You’re stunning.”

“You think so?” she said, smiling sweetly. “Thank you, Philip. It’s always nice to be noticed.”

“I always notice you,” he said, smiling back. He raised his wine glass in a salute. “Notice and appreciate.”

Angie touched her glass to his in an almost-silent toast. “Charmer. Half the time I feel upstaged by you. Is that a new suit? You look amazing.” Then she glanced at the waiter. “I get the feeling I’m not the only one who thinks your tailor is a god among men.”

“Boy, you buy one new sport suit—”

“A week,” Angie interrupted, her eyes merry. She was enjoying herself.

“—one new suit, and people accuse you of being a dandy.” Philip sighed theatrically. “Memo to self: return the ascot and waistcoat ASAP,” he said in a stage whisper.

They shared a quiet laugh. Philip reached across the table to caress her cheek, and Angie leaned into his touch. Her beauty struck him once again, and that evening, she’d gone all out, every bit his match in an ivory satin gown with the back down to here and her auburn hair done with seed pearls as it cascaded down her back. She even wore a simple cameo around her neck, an antique Wedgwood piece he’d given her for Valentine’s Day the year before. Then he noticed she’d mounted it on a mauve ribbon that clashed horribly with her auburn hair. What on earth had she been thinking? He’d given it to her on a cream ribbon for a reason—

Dinner arrived and Philip dropped his hand.

He tried to ignore the argument going in his mind about the colors, but it was hard. He’d always had an overdeveloped sense of aesthetics, and at times growing up with Brad and Randall had been nothing but torment. Builders’ houses were always one of two types: ramshackle and about to fall over, or palatial monuments to every architectural innovation and new concept to show up in the design rags. The Sundstrom home was one of the latter type, if poorly decorated, and no sooner had he shoved Randall off stage and into the hands of the police than he called in the cavalry to remove the worst of his father’s excesses and atrocities. Gone were the putti pissing into fountains and faux-antique tapestries and superfluous televisions, and there were no more—Philip jerked his thoughts back to the here and now. He sat across the table from a beautiful woman at a posh restaurant. His aesthetic hang-ups could wait.

Philip genuinely enjoyed Angie’s company. They might not live together—yet—but they certainly spent a lot of time in each other’s company, mostly at her condo. She found his house “creepy, like a funeral home,” even with Randall out of there and every room but his mother’s old sitting room and her library redone. Not that he blamed her—it was large and foreboding, and maybe it was time to sell it. When he’d called to invite her out to dinner earlier in the week, she’d been overjoyed, even more so than usual. It made him wonder if he weren’t missing something, but a thorough search of his day planner by both himself and Suresh revealed nothing.

After gnawing his guts out for a while, he’d finally given up, and when it came time to pick her up, he gave in and let himself enjoy the evening. “Are you ready to go home?”

“Yes, I think so,” Angie said. Was that a tightening around her eyes?

Philip signaled the waiter, who promptly brought him the check. When Philip put a black Amex card down, the man’s eyes widened. It would have been comical, but Philip found it hard to believe no one at this restaurant had ever seen American Express’s Centurion Card before.

“Here you are, Mr. Sundstrom,” the waiter said when he returned, placing the receipt before Philip and then departing. Philip signed it, including a generous tip.

Philip held Angie’s chair for her and then waited patiently while she wrapped her shawl around her shoulders. As they walked out of the restaurant, Philip smiled at their waiter. “Thank you. We had a lovely evening.”

But it was only as they waited for his car to be brought around that he noticed the waiter had written a number—presumably his—on the back of the credit card slip, but lightly and in pencil so it didn’t show from the front. Classy. Philip crumpled it up and threw it in the trash.

“They’re staring at you out here too,” Angie whispered.

Philip blushed. “I think you mean they’re looking at you.”

“Some of them, maybe.” She laughed. “A few, the straight ones.”

But they weren’t all straight, he could tell that right off the bat. Sorry, boys. He played, but never when he was in a committed relationship.

“Remind me not to come back here. This is very embarrassing.”

She hooked her arm on his. “I think it’s hilarious, and you blush very prettily.”

“Great.” He rolled his eyes.

It made him uncomfortable, that regard, even if he understood it. Thanks to the last year at SunHo, he knew how to project an air of authority, and a lot of people found that attractive. It wasn’t quite a matter of “do the opposite of Randall.” After all, his father had run SunHo with an air of power, but in Philip’s estimation, that power was based on fear. Employees in SunHo’s corporate offices had feared for their jobs, at least when Randall stomped and blustered. But authority? That was something different. Philip knew when he spoke, he would be listened to. He might be young for a CEO, but by and large, he was respected. He wasn’t sure Randall could’ve said that, or even appreciated the difference.

In his early thirties, Philip was young, fit, and, based on the evidence at dinner, handsome; he was very well situated financially, and the waiter and valets could tell that from the credit card and his car. He loved his Merc, a sleek sports car, the six-figure kind with the spoiler to prevent it from taking flight. At least he assumed that’s why they stared. Or maybe he had spinach stuck between his teeth, he thought ruefully, the perils of being a vegetarian there to keep him humble.

They drove back to Angie’s condo in silence, insulated from the sounds of the city by the Merc, but what, Philip wondered, isolated them from each other? He bore responsibility for that, the lion’s share, at least. He felt bad for neglecting Angie in favor of SunHo. It wasn’t that he preferred SunHo per se, but it seemed so much more immediate to him. More…real, he realized guiltily, but that’s not how he wanted his life to be. Angie always understood—or acted as if she did. She got that he’d taken over the family business, even if she didn’t know the particulars of how that had come about. As far as he was concerned, she didn’t need to either.

But simply because Philip had chosen this life, it didn’t stand to reason that Angie was happy with it. He knew she’d prefer to be living the high life, preferably in San Francisco. Angie cared for him, so no gold digger, she, but he didn’t fool himself on that score either. She enjoyed the life his money afforded them. Buying Brad out a few years ago might’ve set him back, but SunHo grew and expanded, despite the recession and building slowdown. Philip was loaded, and Angie knew it.

He glanced over at Angie as he drove, her face turned away from him, inscrutable in the passing lights. He knew what he wanted from the next step in life, but was it what Angie wanted?

Unable to decipher his uncharacteristically enigmatic girlfriend, Philip retreated into his thoughts, pretending he was in the cockpit of a spaceship instead of a luxury car, because damn, the onboard computer was almost that complicated. He liked Mercedes for the same reason he liked Macs. They both embodied high performance and elegant design and didn’t bother him with a lot of irritating details. Sure, BMW made amazing cars, but they always seemed to want his input on some matter or other, and he got enough of that at work. As for PCs, Philip was sure there was an elegant and highly functional one somewhere, he’d just never heard of it. But really, they’d gone from a charming dinner together full of conversation and laughter to him retreating into his imagination. Again. He’d been doing that more and more lately.

If he were to be honest with himself, it couldn’t be a good sign, but they looked good together, and she was someone to hold on cold, dark nights. Angie was someone to cling to when he’d spent too much time reading the Existentialists and felt too alone in an uncaring universe. But was that really a reason to stay in a relationship with someone? On the whole, Philip reasoned, there were worse ones, but it would only be fair if she felt the same way, and he knew for a fact she had no patience for what she called his “navel-gazing.” This raised the question of why on Earth he was with someone who so easily dismissed his interests and the things he valued. On the other hand, he didn’t remember his parents sharing that many interests. So many puzzles.

The keypad at the entrance to the parking lot under Angie’s condo tower saved Philip from further omphaloskepsis. After he parked in her designated guest space and opened the door for her, Angie again laughed and flirted in the elevator.

“Dinner was great, but tomorrow night I want to go clubbing in the city,” she said, moving in close, breathing in his ear, hand roaming south of his belt.

“What’re you doing?” Philip gasped at the sudden assault.

“What does it feel like I’m doing?”

He looked down at her, amazed at her audacity. “Groping me. What if someone comes in?”

“Then I stop.”

 Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

Christopher Koehler always wanted to write, but it wasn’t until his grad school years that he realized writing was how he wanted to spend his life. Long something of a hothouse flower, he’s been lucky to be surrounded by people who encouraged that, especially his long-suffering husband of twenty-nine years and counting.

He loves many genres of fiction and nonfiction, but he’s especially fond of romances, because it’s in them that human emotions and relations, at least most of the ones fit to be discussed publicly, are laid bare.

While writing is his passion and his life, when he’s not doing that, he’s a househusband, at-home dad, and oarsman with a slightly disturbing interest in manners and the other ways people behave badly.

Christopher is approaching the tenth anniversary of publication and has been fortunate to be recognized for his writing, including by the American Library Association, which named Poz a 2016 Recommended Title, and an Honorable Mention for “Transformation,” in Innovation, Volume 6 of Queer Sci Fi’s Flash Fiction Anthology.

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