Release Blitz + Giveaway: Criminal by Proxy by S.E. Smyth

 

Title:  Criminal by Proxy

Author: S.E. Smyth

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: 10/25/2022

Heat Level: 2 - Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 75700

Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, Coming out, college, criminals, dark, doctors, enemies/rivals to lovers, established couple, friends to lovers, gender-bending, hurt/comfort, illness/disease, in the closet, law enforcement, lawyers, medical personnel, mental illness, over 40, prison, private detective, reunited, revenge, road trip, security guards, soulmates, tear-jerker, therapist, UST

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Description

Christine is on the hunt to find out more about her great aunt, Rose, hoping to decipher their severed relationship and the murder Rose committed, for which June is in prison. With a stroke leaving Rose incapacitated, it’s a rush against time to find the truth.

Things are doubly complicated when Christine’s girlfriend Terrie is accused of assaulting someone. Nervous about what she might do next, Christine and her friends avoid Terrie. With everything at stake, Christine must stick to the cold hard facts, reminding herself not to let her emotions get in the way.

Christine must evaluate everything happening in her life. The weight of the events buried by her aunt so many years before and the shame of the actions of the love of her life rest squarely on her. If the eyes of the law are always 20/20, how do love, emotion, and insecurities distort fact?

Excerpt

Criminal by Proxy
SE Smyth © 2022
All Rights Reserved

Dear Rose

“I loved her… That’s what I tell myself at least,” June uttered. Her exertion, her plea, resonated. “I told her that…yelled across the courtroom…in 1968, the day I went to prison, and I’ve said it a thousand times since.”

June had been a psychiatrist years ago, but Christine was the one listening now, decades later.

Christine was pretending to be a law student to get information, clarity on historical facts about the actions of her great-aunt Rose from the time she was in a mental hospital in the late 1950s. Her aunt, who was in her seventies, was not in Christine’s direct blood line but rather the child of her grandmother’s sister. She’d lived with Christine’s aunts and uncles and family from a young age, nonetheless. Christine had gathered scattered details in bits and pieces all her life. Every other family holiday or so, some new bit of information would surface. But she never asked. It was something everyone quietly avoided to begin with.

June had been Rose’s psychiatrist at one point while she was in a mental hospital. Sometime after she was released, she’d moved in with June, and they had developed a relationship. Rose had ended up shooting and killing a man, but Christine was confused about the chain of events and who was to blame. June was in prison, and Rose had been free since 1972.

Several letters followed the initial blunt hello letter to June. In those, they discussed basic things Christine got wrong and developed a loose friendship. After about four letters, Christine suggested a meeting. June recommended an interview room since she was a student, and Christine went about finding out if it was possible.

In an act of indiscretion, she set up an appointment to see the infamous June, someone she had recently found out to be Aunt Rose’s ex-lover. This interview, her time in the room with a prisoner who held a life sentence, was dedicated to asking questions to elucidate events from decades ago, that her aunt Rose never discussed.

Christine attempted to gauge if June was telling the truth. She needed to know if the legal decision was warranted. She was sure if she listened very carefully, she could figure out if June actually did love Aunt Rose and if the correct decision had been made in the courtroom in 1968. All this, Christine attempted to assess with a conversation. She would have an answer by the end of the conversation. It was her only objective.

June wasn’t the same person she had been years ago—when June had loved Aunt Rose and Aunt Rose had presumably loved her. That fact stuck out. Christine’s initial assessment was any flame June still held for Aunt Rose was one-sided.

June only half faced her, sitting sideways on the chair, the corner of which stuck out between her legs. June glanced over her shoulder. She held a waning seventy years in her limbs, but she still glowed with energy. Christine didn’t mind she threw a sneer down across her nose. Christine pried and chipped at information at first, but the conversation soon flowed more smoothly.

Christine had first heard about June from her great-aunt, who kicked up old memories and dropped them right away. Christine let her get away with her excuses—she didn’t remember. June was her aunt’s ex-lover. She mentioned she was in prison. That was everything her aunt would tell her. Christine had found out June was labeled a criminal by the media. She was a prisoner with a life sentence. Aunt Rose had fired the gun, but they’d given the slot in prison to June. Christine imagined her day, filled with bitter resentment for her free ex-lover. The lover who didn’t contact her. There had to be bad blood. Christine eyed her goal at this point—information. She needed to know what had happened. Christine was interrogating her, asking her to relive it for a law school report, what she thought about the case so many years later. Unfairly picking at issues June wasn’t ready to answer, she continued the questions.

June went on, describing everything in bits and pieces. She would pause and continue, restart with irrelevant comments, diverting the conversation. “It was different all that time ago. All the hoopla over something agreed to be truth. If someone thought you were a lesbian and if they caught you, arms were up in the air—sirens roared. It was a travesty, and something was done about it.” June continued on about the past, how people thought of her and talked about her.

She spoke about the past as if events weren’t real, as if life were a story she was reading to children, the grim side of a fairy tale. Off and on, June would shift, indicating her tongue had taken her too far. She shouldn’t have let the full story go. Her knowledge was an out-of-body reflection, too real. The trauma showed through.

Christine’s life of rumors, her life, seemed trivial. Three close friends gossiped about Christine and the woman she’d slept with last summer, Amy. Her friends told her to move on, but she wouldn’t let the friendship go. They said, “She’ll mess you up.” It was still the same shameful behavior: whispered gossip, stern talks, and scandalous goings-on. Her reality was different from June’s in that Christine didn’t have the same amount to lose. Nothing was a malicious, life-ruining assault.

“We were taking risks. Real risks. Higher stakes than today. I didn’t want to change the world or loosen people’s opinions. I wanted love. She gave me that. So, what else was I supposed to do?” June said. She grabbed at short tufts of hair at the base of her head.

“What people were doing was so important. I don’t want to say it wasn’t. We had love, and we wanted to keep it. We fought that battle every day from our apartment, from our place of work. In a way, very quietly, but we fought. We certainly didn’t change the minds of the world when the murder happened. We acknowledged how strong our love was before the murder. It was so well bonded that I still love her now, after all these years.” Her words softened and rounded as she spoke again about her love. She dipped her head as if the frown that extended cheek to cheek were pulling it down.

Wrinkles emerged in the corners of June’s eyes as Christine tapped her pencil. Christine stopped to cease any errant irritation. When Christine tried to bring June back and force her to be present, talk about the case, June’s vocal qualities changed.

The soft voice June spoke with when talking about the past and love disappeared into one of an aged woman when she spoke about what was going on in her life now. “You see. They all believe me in here now. I love her. My friends in prison. It’s okay to be gay, even though it definitely wasn’t when they locked me up.”

Christine sat stiffly as a board in the chair listening to June, catching every word. As she performed the gesture, she committed to brushing off immature and unserious actions, those not indicative of a law student. She was already in a precarious balance with June, a relaxed new friend facing a studious law student—both skeptical of masked lies, strangers in an unfamiliar room. Christine’s great-aunt Rose was dying. Who was this woman she kept speaking of?

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NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

S.E. Smyth is a versatile author putting words into the world. The stories she tells are never exactly how they happened. Elusive as she proclaims she is, you can usually find her nose buried in primary sources plotting a story. Despite persisting historical references, she wholeheartedly believes she lives in the present.

She resides in a smaller sort of town in Pennsylvania, carries heavy things for her wife, rubs cat bellies, and can often be seen taking brisk walks. The household is certain there is something odd going on. She and her wife travel when the air is right looking for antique stores, bike trails, and the perfect beach. S.E. rises unnecessarily early and usually falls asleep by 9 p.m.

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Release Blitz + Giveaway: Beyond the Ruby River (Immortal Jewels #3) by Lee Colgin

Author Lee Colgin and Gay Book Promotions celebrate the release of paranormal, Beyond the Ruby River (Immortal Jewels #3)! Find out more and enter in the giveaway for a chance to win: a $10 Amazon gift card, a direct-to-kindle copy of Beneath the Opal Arc, and a direct-to-kindle copy of Across the Sapphire Sea!

RELEASE BLITZ

Book Title: Beyond the Ruby River 

Author:  Lee Colgin

Publisher:  Colgin Enterprise

Cover Artist:  Natasha Snow

Release Date: June 17, 2021

Genres: M/M Historical Romance, M/M Paranormal/Fantasy Romance,

Tropes:  Mixed species, second chance romance 

Themes:  Longing, betrayal, forgiveness, grief, reunion

Heat Rating: 4 flames

Length: 72 000 words/ 260 pages   

It’s the third in a series but can be read as a standalone.

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Buy Links - Available on Kindle Unlimited

Amazon US  |  Amazon UK 

When an incubus half-breed falls for a mortal Egyptian man, will their love span centuries or are they destined to pine for each other for all eternity?

Blurb  

In Ancient Egypt when the pharaohs ruled the banks of the Nile, Mahu led a simple, if somewhat melancholy, life. Making papyrus filled his days. His needs were provided for, but deep in his soul, Mahu longed for companionship.

Dakarai, born of a demon mother and a human father, craved independence. A young incubus constantly in the shadows of his full-blooded siblings, Daka set out for a new city and a life of his own. 

While a starving Daka roams the streets hunting for a meal, the sight of a beautiful man walking alone stops him in his tracks. The handsome stranger is just what he needs to quench his spiraling thirst.

But Mahu turns out to be more than Daka bargained for, and his heart falls for the lonely man.

What betrayal shatters their foundation, can Daka and Mahu find their way back to each other, or is each soul destined to long for the other for all eternity?

Beyond the Ruby River is an MM Paranormal Romance featuring a steamy love story, a second chance romance, and the mysteries of an ancient world. This is book three of a series and can be read as a standalone with its own HEA and satisfying conclusion.

Excerpt

Dakarai 

Hunger stirred deep in Daka’s core, an emptiness with claws and teeth demanding to be filled. It was his first night in Naukratis, and already he wondered if he’d

made a mistake abandoning the safe cocoon of his family. Though eager for a taste of independence, Daka’s nerves flut‐ tered with unease as he stalked the unfamiliar streets.

With only a warm sea breeze for company, Daka let loose his extra sense, the one that would lead him to a meal. Entering the wide market square, he cast his gaze over dozens of stalls, their colorful awnings muted in the evening light. Laborers celerated the end of a day’s work with beer, bread, and conversa‐ tion. Street vendors peddled their offerings. Naukratis smelled of fresh spiced fish, baking bread, and candied nuts—all of which appealed to him, but none that would quench this particular hunger.

What Daka needed would be found past the town’s main market, perhaps down a side street or along a narrow alley. Inhaling through his nose, sorting the myriad array of scents, he searched for the alluring aroma of pleasure. A brothel would suit perfectly.

Daka’s intuition guided him forward, but before he could cut south to chase the divine smell of arousal around the corner, his gaze landed on an elegant man and refused to budge. His eyes possessed a will of their own, such was the man’s appeal.

He was taller than Daka’s average height, long of limb with wide shoulders and perfect posture. He wore cornflower blue linen, belted at his narrow waist, skirt hanging to a svelte pair of thighs. Dark onyx tresses hung past his chin, straight and prob‐ ably silken to the touch. Daka couldn’t be sure of the texture at this distance and it was suddenly of the utmost importance to find out.

Though brothel workers would make for an easier target, Daka veered off course to pursue the handsome man instead. To seduce him and touch his lovely hair for himself. He followed through the square—dodging people and slinking amongst the crowd, stealthy as a cat and just as light on his feet—until he was no more than ten paces from his quarry.

This close, Daka could pick up the scent lingering in the man’s wake. Earthen and woody, like the papyrus that grew in the marshy lands nearby. He inhaled greedily. What would he smell like aroused? Daka had to know.

The man left the busy center of town, turned west, and continued between rows of mud brick houses, his pace steady as a pulsing heart. He had the stride of a man to a purpose. Daka’s curiosity grew with each step. Instead of catching up to begin the seduction, Daka shoved his appetite aside in favor of learning the man’s destination.

They walked for another quarter hour until the chirps of bugs overtook the noise from town and houses gave way to farmland. Daka spotted the neat rows of tumuli leading to an ancient mastaba, and their endpoint became clear.

The man had led him to the final resting place of Naukratis’ dead.

Well-maintained burial mounds, with funerary gardens throughout, lined the landscape. Daka hung back so as not to be noticed or to disturb this man in his grief. The perfect posture he’d noted earlier began to sag, shoulders drooping forward, head bowed as he knelt by a triad of graves. He sat back on his heels, long thighs stretched thin, the blue linen of his skirt revealing smooth bronzed skin.

Daka could not help his appetite, inappropriate as it may be, though he would strive to contain it. This man was in no mood for the sort of amorous encounter an incubus like himself fed on. He needed a warm, familial embrace, not the frenzied release Daka itched to provide.

He slunk back into the shadows to watch from under a sweet-smelling date palm. The man sat with the dead. Daka sat by himself, wondering who the man had lost.

Daka’s family possessed immortality. At least, his mother and siblings did. His father was human, but Daka had never met him. As a half-blooded demon, he’d staked claim to immortality but not to all the gifts that came with it. His powers of sway and persuasion were paltry in comparison to his full-blooded brethren. Unable to bend people to his will, Daka could only nudge. He might never develop the skill of astral projection. But he would live forever, a feat which seemed unfathomable at only twenty-two years into eternity.

The man bent over the graves had a decade or so on Daka in age, perhaps more. Maybe thirty-five or forty, Daka couldn’t tell. A man in his prime but worn around the edges with the melancholy that loss thrusts upon the living.

About the Author 

Lee Colgin has loved vampires since she read Dracula on a hot, sunny beach at 13 years old. She lives in North Carolina with lots of dogs and her husband. No, he's not a vampire, but she loves him anyway. Lee likes to workout so she can eat the maximum amount of cookies with her pizza. Ask her how much she can bench press.

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a $10 Amazon gift card

a direct-to-kindle copy of Beneath the Opal Arc

and a direct-to-kindle copy of Across the Sapphire Sea

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Release Blitz + Giveaway: Altered Tides (The Galactic Captains #5) by Harry F. Rey

Author Harry F. Rey and IndiGo Marketing host today's blitz for the latest in science fiction series, Altered Tides (The Galactic Captains #5)! Find out more and enter in the $10 NineStar Press credit giveaway! 

Title: Altered Tides

Series: The Galactic Captains, Book Five

Author: Harry F. Rey

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 03/01/2021

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 72600

Genre: Science Fiction, LGBTQIA+, Action/adventure, aliens, dark, M/M romance, #ownvoices, pirates, reunited, royalty, sci-fi/futuristic, space, folklore, gods, intercultural, interspecies, merman, war of worlds, religious extremism

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Description

A malfunctioning STAR drive strands Captain Ales in a new galaxy. Trapped on a dry, dusty red moon where the rains fall only once every forty years, the restless population barely survives on a teardrop ration of water. Now, the rains are years overdue, and the ruling clerics view Ales as a savior—or a devil. Just as Ales and the She-King’s brother discover a secret the clerics have been hiding for far too long, this world is invaded and torn apart from a most unlikely source.

The blue moon is a world covered in water—water that flows over to the red moon as rain every forty years, thereby drying up the domain of King Sarlord. He’s finally had enough and gathers an army to sail into the sky on the waterspout, land on the red moon, and defeat the god who steals his ocean. His son, Prince Malar, will do anything to avoid staying behind, but even he gets much more than he bargained for when the world as he knows it is swept away on altered tides.

Excerpt

Altered Tides
Harry F. Rey © 2021
All Rights Reserved

The girl lifted her eyes over the dry, dusty horizon bathed in a sandy haze. She blinked through the pain, through the dryness, as she always did. On the shore of an ancient seabed, the girl kicked clumps of dust heaped on the ground like forgotten eggs that had never hatched. They fell apart with barely a touch. There was no water to hold the dust together. No rain fell to fill the sea nor waves to break against the shoreline.

She’d last had water two nights ago. Her father gave her and her four sisters their one allotted teardrop of stale, salty liquid. Two for the baby; although even her mother, Sanhelda, said it was a waste. The baby would not live till the rains came—if they ever did.

Out here by the cliffs along the empty shore, she could at least get away from the cries of thirst that haunted the village throughout the baking days and stuffy nights. Their settlement was not a wealthy one. They lived far from the city with its water vats. Although her father’s brother had returned from the city a few nights before with the news even those had run dry. Rations had fallen to one teardrop per day. Hoarders went without. Soldiers patrolled the dusty streets, but they couldn’t prevent the nightly gatherings outside the palace of the She-King. The people were thirsty, and they were starting to blame the drought on her.

The girl knew this was nonsense. The king did not control the rains. According to the clerics, the goddess Aquina sent the rain from the blue moon in the sky. Although her mother, always a practical woman, said the rains came when their world was perfectly aligned with the blue moon. The king didn’t control the movement of stars and moons, the girl knew that much, nor was the gender of the King stopping the clouds from forming and the rains from filling up the cenotes, the water pits and boreholes, despite what most people now thought.

The girl bent over and scooped a clump of dust from the ground. Gazing into the hazy sky, she rubbed the dust into her cracked lips, soothing the broken skin. The girl wondered what she would do if she were king. She’d never wondered that before she knew a woman had taken the throne.

The rains came once in forty years. The entire system of life on these dusty plains depended on this climactic event. When it did rain, the water filled the vats and boreholes, every drop saved and stored and rationed because everyone knew the water had to last another forty years. Whatever was wasted evaporated in the stifling heat. Whatever was used disappeared into the dusty ground the clerics expressly forbade any person to dig into. Disobeying the clerics meant going a week or more without a teardrop to drink.

The clerics spoke with the gods and calculated each family’s allowance of bottles. Families planned the children they could have and the crops they could grow with the aqua supply front of mind. Donating a little bit extra to the clerics was never a bad idea, though. If the gods pronounced, speaking through a cleric of course, that a person was destined to die before the blue moon rose again in the night sky, the water rations of the condemned individual would be cut to nothing. There was no water to waste on the dying.

It had happened to the girl’s uncle a few years back. He’d had an argument with their local cleric over something obscure that old men passed their time by squabbling over—the price of beets, perhaps. But the cleric won the argument by foretelling her uncle’s sudden death within the month. The family fretted; his wife and children terrified their provider would have a sudden accident. They drastically cut their own rations to keep him alive and at home, even as their crops rotted in the field. Eventually, after much scrambling and scraping and late night discussions on how much the wider family could afford to spend, they managed to sell off a valuable young calf at market in the city in exchange for a bottle of fermented beet wine. The cleric dutifully accepted the sacrifice to the gods, and after returning one night from the sacred temple, his lips stained red and speech slurred from the beet wine, had pronounced to an anxious family that he had interceded with the gods on their behalf, and her uncle would not fall foul to an accident after all. His rations were restored, although their crops went to ruin and the calf they had been counting on to provide milk for three new babies had been sold off for tender meat, but at least her uncle would live. Could live, indeed, now he had water to drink. Such were the petty tyrannies of life under the clerics.

But life was not all terrible. In the thirty-ninth year, a great celebration was held in advance of the coming rains in the fortieth year. A diligent population suffering from a generation of thirst had their rations increased. The clerics and their influential friends would feast and crack open vintage bottles of beet wine as soon the rains would come and replenish their cisterns and water bores.

That had been two parched years ago.

The old king refused to believe anything was wrong and ordered the populace to continue swigging and feasting because the rains could not be far off, the clerics had assured him. That king was dead, and his daughter now sat on the clay throne.

The girl couldn’t believe people could be so shortsighted as to blame someone who was only trying to do her best. The She-King diligently slashed the rations of the clerics and soldiers down to the same as the general populace: one teardrop per day. She’d banned all travel and commerce to prevent thirst, and called on all pregnancies to be prevented while the world remained dry.

Otherwise, there was little else that could be said or done except to gather each night and stare into the clear black sky and pray for it to darken with clouds.

Standing on the bone-dry shore, the girl could only hope. In the distance, something caught her eye. A fiery flash in the sky blazed a trail of false clouds across the blue moon rising from the horizon. She blinked away the haze in her vision, not understanding what she saw, and took a step closer to the edge of the empty sea.

Whatever it was sliced through the dusty atmosphere and left a trail of smoke in its wake. Was this rain? She did not know what rain was meant to look like, but from the stories her parents and grandparents had told her, this didn’t seem like rain.

The dusty rocks underfoot dislodged and crumbled down the cliff edge, and she held back a bare foot in caution. Yet something drew her forward. She needed to know what this fiery thing shining like a metal star was. Had their god Calini returned? Perhaps he had come from the blue moon after forging a peace with the goddesses Aquina and Terrina, and ending this long drought. The gods were fighting, so the clerics had quickly explained as to the reason why the rains refused to fall, and they must all be diligent in their prayers and listen to the men lest the evil goddesses seep into their minds and turn them wicked.

The girl glanced back at the open plain, but there was no one else around. Not in the heat of the day, at least. Biting her broken lip and tasting dust, she decided to climb down the short distance and make her way toward the streak in the sky, tumbling ever closer to the ground.

By the time she got close to the bottom, the bright shiny streak had nearly disappeared from view. As her foot landed onto the cracked ground, a shudder rumbled through the rock. Or even through the very world.

The girl peered forward, tracing the rock line of the other side of the sea shore, looking for lumps or sites of impact. Then she saw it, a plume of dark black smoke snaking into the hazy sky. It looked to be just beyond the cliff edge. Glancing back once more, the girl wondered what to do. What would the She-King do? Would she rush back to the village and alert the sleeping elders? They would just bring more people from the city to come and investigate, priests and soldiers, people who would need to drink.

She could ignore it and turn back now. Pretend like nothing had happened. But her curiosity would never forgive her. And that was a coward’s way out. The She-King would never ignore a mystery such as this.

Suddenly her throat did not seem so dry. Her vision cleared with a flush of cleansing tears, and a spurt of energy rushed through her muscles like she’d just swigged a whole bottle dry. Without trepidation, without fear, the girl put one foot forward on the scarred and empty seabed and walked toward the mystery beyond.

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Meet the Author

Harry F. Rey is an author and lover of gay themed stories with a powerful punch with influences ranging from Alan Hollinghurst to Isaac Asimov to George R.R. Martin. He loves all things sci-fi and supernatural, and always with a gay twist. Harry is originally from the UK but lives in Jerusalem, Israel with his husband.

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Release Blitz + Giveaway: #SlidingIntoMyDMs by Nell Iris

Enjoy friends to lovers romances? Check out author Nell Iris and Gay Book Promotions release blitz for JMS Books' #SlidingIntoMyDMs! Read more and enter in the eBook giveaway from the author's back list! (5 winners)

RELEASE BLITZ

Book Title: #SlidingIntoMyDMs

Author: Nell Iris

Publisher: JMS Books 

Cover Artist: Written Ink Designs

Release Date: February 17, 2021

Genre: Contemporary M/M Romance

Trope: Friends-to-lovers

Themes: Bisexual character, 40+ characters, old friends reconnecting

Heat Rating: 3 flames  

Length:  21 998 words

It is a standalone story.

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Buy Links

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It all started with a DM on Instagram

 

Blurb

“Hi. I heard you’ve been sick.”

Eddy Pennington is recovering from a severe bout of pneumonia when an old acquaintance, Moss, sends him a message on social media. They haven’t spoken in years, but Eddy is pleasantly surprised. He always liked Moss even if they were never close friends.

Moss Fanning has no ulterior motive with his message: all he wants is wish Eddy a speedy recovery. He got over the crush he used to have on Eddy a long time ago.

They reconnect easily and have even more in common now. And when they meet in person, the attraction is instant. Will an innocent, well-meaning message on social media lead to something more? Something deeper? Something…everlasting?



Excerpt

I bump my shoulder against his. “You are fucking perfect, Moss Fanning.”

His hand brushes against mine, sending a shower of sparks up my arm. “Nah.”

“Don’t fight me on this. You don’t want to upset a poor, sick man.”

Moss chuckles. “No indeed.”

We continue a while in silence before he speaks again. “If you think I’m perfect, I guess that increases the chances of you considering this a date.” It’s a calm statement, casually put out in the universe, and I like that he shows no hesitation.

So I hook my pinkie with his. “I guess it does.”

“Good.”

Huh. I guess I’m on a date. My belly does a happy flip.

After a few more steps spent in silence, he slips his entire hand into mine. His rough palm sends a wave of happiness up my arm, coiling itself around my soul. Our shoulders brush and intensify the emotion.

I had no idea a simple walk could be so intense.

“Did you have a hard time finding work here?” I try to keep my tone casual, not wanting to betray what holding his hand does to me, not wanting to draw attention to the easy way a slow walk slipped into a date. I like the ease; I hate complicated and games and playing hard to get. I hated it in my twenties, and I hate it even more now.

“No. I come highly recommended. I’m a damned good carpenter.”

“All the more reason to take you to Anne and Rosa.”

He laughs. “You just want me for my skills, is that it?”

“Nu-uh.”

“Then what?”

I stop on the path and make a show out of checking him out, slowly letting my gaze travel from his face, down his chest and rounded belly, lingering on his thighs—I have a thing for thick thighs—and then reversing course until I meet his gaze.

Moss shakes his head with a fond smile and tugs my hand to get me moving again. “You’re not well enough for any of that.”

“Nope. But I’m getting better.”

“I’m glad. We can revisit that discussion when you’re capable of walking faster than a quarter of a mile an hour.”

“Hey!”

He laughs at my indignation, and Balderik joins in the fun by letting out a playful ruff.

I squeeze his hand. “In all seriousness, I like you for your no-nonsense attitude. It’s very attractive.”

“Thank you.” His husky voice reverberates up my arm. “I appreciate you saying that. Not everyone likes blunt honesty, but I knew you could take it before, so I took a chance you still can.”

“Oh, I can.”

“Good.”

All too soon we reach the end of the trail, and we’re back where we started by Moss’ SUV. Another car has parked in the clearing while we were walking, but there’s no trace of the owners. The daylight is fading fast and so is my energy, and no matter how much I’d like to be able to continue our walk forever, I have to admit defeat.

Moss opens the car door for me and helps me inside. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“What for?”

“You weren’t ready for such a long walk.”

I take his hand again, a shudder racing up my arm when his palm rasps against mine. “I was. I admit I’m tired and I’ll probably fall asleep in the shower later, but this walk helped heal my soul and that’s important, too.”

“Yeah, sure. But—”

“Don’t feel bad. Please. Just drive me home and promise we’ll come back here soon. Promise my weakness didn’t scare you off.”

He brushes his thumb over the back of my hand. “I promise.”

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

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Twitter: @nellirisauthor  |  Instagram: @nell_iris  |  Goodreads

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Release Blitz + Giveaway: Sky Full of Mysteries by Rick R. Reed

Join author Rick R. Reed & IndiGo Promotions in celebrating the release of Sky Full of Mysteries. Find out more about this contemporary romance, read an excerpt & enter in the giveaway for a $10 Ninestar Press credit giveaway!

Title: Sky Full of Mysteries

Author: Rick R. Reed

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: January 27, 2020

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 76700

Genre: Contemporary SciFi, LGBT, MM Romance, aliens, amnesia, reunited, tear-jerker, time travel, writer

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Synopsis

What if your first love was abducted and presumed dead—but then returned twenty years later?

That’s the dilemma Cole Weston faces. Now happily married to Tommy D’Amico, he’s suddenly thrown into a surreal world when his first love, Rory Schneidmiller, unexpectedly reappears.

Rory has no memory of those years. For him, it’s as though only a day or two has passed. He still loves Cole with the passion unique to young first love.

But Cole has so many questions: where has Rory been and what happened to him two decades ago when he disappeared without a trace? He has never forgotten Rory, but Tommy has been his rock, by his side since Rory disappeared.

Cole is forced to choose between an idealized and passionate first love and the comfort of a long-term marriage. How does one make a decision like that? The answers might lie among the stars…

Excerpt

Sky Full of Mysteries
Rick R. Reed © 2020
All Rights Reserved

After they made love, they were polar opposites in how they reacted.

Cole, barely minutes after coming, would be asleep, mouth open and snoring, body lax. A baby who’d just been fed. Rory looked down on him as he sat perched with his back against the headboard. Despite—or maybe because of—the spittle that ran out of one side of Cole’s mouth, he felt a shock of warmth go through him as he gazed at Cole, wondering how he’d gotten so lucky. Although Rory was a few years younger, he was a nerd with glasses. He wasn’t bad-looking; he just wasn’t all that noticeable in a crowd. How had he snared a guy like Cole, with his perfect runner’s build, his dark brown wavy hair, and the perpetual five-o’clock shadow that accentuated, rather than hid, the angular planes of his face and his sharp jawline. Rory snickered in the darkness at Cole as a snore erupted from him, almost loud enough to shake the glass in their bedroom window.

It was always like this—maniac in the sack until he came, and then it was lights-out for Cole, as though he’d been drugged.

Rory, on the other hand, always felt energized, pumped up, alive, as if he should hop from the bed, go outside, and run a mile or three. Or make a meal. Or write the great American novel. Or catalog his collection of books alphabetically, and then by genre.

Tonight was no different. They’d just moved into the one-bedroom apartment in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood. The neighborhood, the Windy City’s farthest east and north before heading into suburbia, afforded them a chance to live by Lake Michigan without the higher rents they’d encounter closer to downtown.

They were young and in love, and cohabitating was a first for both of them. Rory felt they were already having their happy-ever-after moment.

The apartment was a find—a vintage courtyard building east of Sheridan Road on Fargo Avenue. Their unit’s bedroom faced Lake Michigan, which was only a few steps away from their front door. A lake view, high ceilings, crown molding, formal dining room with a built-in hutch, huge living room with working fireplace, and an original bathroom with an enormous claw-foot tub were just a few of the amenities they were delighted to find—all for the “steal” monthly rent of only five hundred dollars.

The apartment, which would eventually be filled to bursting with a hodgepodge of furniture and belongings, ranging from family antiques supplied by Cole to Lost in Space action figures from Rory, was now a scene of chaos with moving boxes everywhere, almost none of them unpacked.

They’d spent the whole day moving and were exhausted when they were finished. Even though it was August, by the time they were done dragging the boxes out of their U-Haul truck, through their building’s courtyard, and then up to the tenth floor via the rickety but thank-heaven-reliable elevator, the skies above the lake had gone dark. They ordered stuffed spinach pizza from Giordano’s, just south of them on Sheridan, and feasted on it, melted mozzarella on their chins, on a couple of beach towels they found at the top of one of the boxes.

And of course, Rory being twenty-three and Cole twenty-six, with their blossoming love all of six months old, they did find the time and the energy to make love, once on the beach towels and once in their bed. Rory knew there’d be more of the same come morning’s first light.

Ah, sweet youth.

But getting back to postcoital bliss, Rory now found himself feeling restless as he lay beside the snoring Cole. The moon was nearly full and they’d yet to put up blinds, so it shined in the bedroom window, casting the room in a kind of silvery opalescence. Rory thought the boxes and the furniture—Cole’s oak sleigh bed and Rory’s pair of maple tallboy dressers, plus an overstuffed chair they’d found in an alley just before moving—all had a kind of grayish aspect to them, almost unreal, as if he were observing his own bedroom as a scene from a black-and-white movie. Maybe something noir…with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. Rory smiled and turned away from Cole. Just a half hour or so earlier, with the overhead light fixture shining down on them, Rory thought the movie would have been a porno, with himself cast as the insatiable bottom.

He chuckled to himself.

He tried to relax, doing an old exercise he’d learned from his mom. Starting with his feet, he’d wiggle, tense, and then allow that body part to go slack to relax. He worked his way up his whole body, wiggling, tensing, and relaxing as he went, until he reached his head.

And—sigh—he was still wide-awake.

Behind him, though, as if he had eyes in the back of his head, he noticed something odd.

It was like there was suddenly a waxing and waning of light.

Rory turned and looked toward the uncovered window. He couldn’t quite see the moon, but it seemed like it was brightening and darkening, brightening, then darkening…

But the whole of this August day, it had been clear, with nary a cloud in the sky. Rory wondered if a cloud bank had moved in, obscuring the moon and then revealing it as the wind pushed it away. He could see this in his mind’s eye but couldn’t quite believe it.

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Meet the Author

Real Men. True Love.

Rick R. Reed draws inspiration from the lives of gay men to craft stories that quicken the heartbeat, engage emotions, and keep the pages turning. Although he dabbles in horror, dark suspense, and comedy, his attention always returns to the power of love. He’s the award-winning and bestselling author of more than fifty works of published fiction and is forever at work on yet another book. Lambda Literary has called him: “A writer that doesn’t disappoint…” You can find him at www.rickrreed.com or www.rickrreedreality.blogspot.com. Rick lives in Palm Springs, CA with his beloved husband and their fierce Chihuahua/Shiba Inu mix.

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Release Blitz + Giveaway: Ablaze (Wavesongs #3) by Elvira Bell

Join author Elvira Bell and IndiGo Marketing in the party for the latest release, Ablaze (Wavesongs #3)! Discover more about the final book from the pirate romance series and enter in the giveaway for eBook of Astray (Wavesongs #1)!

Title: Ablaze

Series: Wavesongs #3

Author: Elvira Bell

Publisher: Elvira Bell

Release Date: December 8, 2019

Heat Level: 4 - Lots of Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: approx. 94K words

Genre: Romance, Historical, Pirates

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Synopsis

The final book in the Wavesongs series!

Nick Andrews has returned to the Caribbean—but the world he remembers has changed for the worse. Despite the dangers, he needs to find a way to get to Corona. All he can think of is to reunite there with the love of his life.

Meanwhile, Tom is watching his every move. Tom, who has turned cold and demanding, and is desperate for Nick to love him.

One night things get out of hand, and something happens between them. Something unforgivable.

Content note: This book contains non-gratuitous depictions of torture, slavery, and sexual abuse.

Please note that the books in the Wavesongs series should be read in chronological order!

Excerpt

Tom is sullen and quiet as he gets ready for bed. His chamber is at the corner of the house, three times as spacious as Nick’s room next door, and far away from O’Connell, whose quarters are next to the kitchen and dining hall. There’s fresh water by the washstand, clean bed linens, and a mirror on the wall—but Tom complains about the mosquitoes, the humidity, and the house’s size.

“Just one floor, like a house for poor people… and nothing is beautiful here, nothing! How am I supposed to live like this?” He lies down in bed, curling up before giving Nick a hard look. “But you think it’s all fine, don’t you?”

“No.” From what he’s seen so far, Harrow Hall is not a good place. That whip in Buckley’s hand… “Why would I think that?”

Tom turns over. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m tired. Please, leave me alone now.”

Nick goes into his own chamber. His body is sore, exhausted, but once he’s in bed he finds it hard to sleep. From the other part of the house comes the sound of voices, laughter. O’Connell and his men sampling their own rum, probably.

There is nothing to like about this place, but Nick won’t stay long. He’ll take the first opportunity to leave.

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Meet the Author

 

Elvira Bell lives in Sweden and spends most of her time writing, reading or watching movies. Her weaknesses include, but are not limited to: vintage jazz, musicals, kittens, oversized tea cups, men in suits, the 18th century, and anything sparkly.

Elvira writes m/m fiction with a touch of romance and has a penchant for historical settings. She adores all things gothic and will put her characters through hell from time to time because she just loves watching them suffer. It makes the happy endings so much sweeter, after all.

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Release Blitz + Giveaway: The Christmas Oaks by V.L. Locey

The Christmas Oaks is officially out! Join author V.L. Locey and Signal Boost Promotions in the celebrating the holiday romance and enter in the back list eBook giveaway!

Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK | KOBO | Nook | Apple | Universal Link

Cover Design: Designs By Sloan

Blurb 

Can the magic of Christmas, and the soft voice of a man who has seen too much, show Bryan a future where anything is possible?



Bryan Graham is shocked to find he’s inherited a hunting cabin in north-central Pennsylvania. From his grandfather of all people; a stubborn man who went out of his way to make Bryan’s childhood miserable. He’d vowed never to go back to the small, rural community of Kutter’s Summit, not that he didn’t have fond memories of the place. It’s just that he’d rather be celebrating a quiet Christmas back in Nashville with his cat and his contracts. 

A couple of weeks of hunting, cleaning, and handyman work, and he can hopefully put the place up for sale and move on with his life. He never expected to find his childhood friend Parson Greer living in the cabin. Parson is no longer a boy, but a handsome, wary man consumed by the demons of a faraway desert war. When a rekindled friendship shifts into something deeper, Bryan finds himself lost in emotions that a workaholic like him has never made time to experience before.

USA Today Bestselling Author V.L. Locey – Penning LGBT hockey romance that skates into sinful pleasures.



V.L. Locey loves worn jeans, yoga, belly laughs, walking, reading and writing lusty tales, Greek mythology, Torchwood and Dr. Who, the New York Rangers, comic books, and coffee. (Not necessarily in that order.) She shares her life with her husband, her daughter, one dog, two cats, a pair of geese, far too many chickens, and two steers.



When not writing spicy romances, she enjoys spending her day with her menagerie in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with a cup of fresh java in one hand and a steamy romance novel in the other.

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Release Blitz + Giveaway: A Town Called Noelle by M.K. Hardy

Get into the holiday spirit with new holiday romance release, A Town Called Noelle! Authors M.K. Hardy and IndiGo Marketing are here to celebrate with today's blitz and a $10 NineStar Press credit giveaway!

Title: A Town Called Noelle

Author: MK Hardy

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: December 2, 2019

Heat Level: 2 - Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 30200

Genre: Contemporary, LGBT, contemporary, seasonal, Christmas, lesbian, enemies to lovers, slow burn, small town, snowed in, bakery, funeral

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Synopsis

Just a few days before Christmas, high-flying city exec Brooke Hawkins is forced to return to her small home town due to the death of her mother, who she hasn’t spoken to since she left for college over a decade before. The town, Noelle, is as full of the Christmas spirit as its name suggests. Brooke is more of the “Bah, Humbug” persuasion. She has a funeral to attend, property to sell, and she wants to do it and leave—preferably before December 25th. Unfortunately, the weather and the pace of small-town life both conspire to keep her right where she is.

Small-town baker Holly Jackson gets a nasty shock when she receives the news, just days before Christmas, that her little shop is about to be sold from under her by her late landlady’s estranged daughter. In the years since her husband died in a tragic accident, she and her daughter Maya have been getting by, healing and rebuilding. Holly was beginning to really enjoy life again. She doesn’t plan to let some woman she hasn’t seen since high school come in and ruin everything.

When Holly and Brooke cross paths, sparks fly—and not in a good way. Brooke is determined to sell up and get out of town—and outrun her bad memories in the process. Holly is determined to make her business work. When an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, can the spirit of Noelle change minds… and melt hearts?

Excerpt

A Town Called Noelle
MK Hardy © 2019
All Rights Reserved

Nine Days Till Christmas
“Goddammnit, where’s the friggin’ windshield wipers on this–oh, finally.”

Brooke sighed in relief as the automatic wipers came on just in time to swipe the sudden veil of snow off the windshield, allowing her to see the long, empty road ahead of her. The forecast had cautioned there might be scattered snow showers, but this had come out of nowhere, turning the onerous drive into a slightly more nerve-racking prospect.

She barely drove any more in the city, and the rental car was an unfamiliar make, with buttons and toggles and a slick GPS system she hadn’t even bothered to turn on. There was only one road where she was going, and she knew it well.

Noelle, Michigan, was the sort of place known only to those who lived there—or those who’d left. One of those lower peninsula towns far enough north to feel isolated, and not close enough to any Great Lakes to be of interest to anybody.

The first hour on the road had been fine, a relatively clear run. Now it was getting dark the temperature had dropped like a stone, and Brooke regretted not paying the extra to fly into Traverse City instead of Grand Rapids. It wasn’t like her, really, to sacrifice time and effort to save money, but this time, for this trip, she hadn’t been able to keep her mother’s voice out of her head.

“I’m not paying an arm and a leg to fly into that glorified back yard just to save an hour’s drive!”

Still, it would be fine. She’d seen snowploughs parked in rest stops she’d passed, and her destination was a straight shot up the road. She resisted the urge to drive a little faster; the sooner she got there, the sooner she could leave.

A dark object loomed ahead. Almost too late, Brooke noticed it was stationary, pulling sharply to the side to miss it. A car horn screamed as she slid back into her own lane just in time to miss a vehicle coming the other way. The snow was coming down properly now, and people were clearly getting stupid. Including you. Eyes on the road.

Brooke pulled into Noelle at five minutes to eleven. She could barely see for the swirling snow but even if she could’ve she knew there wouldn’t be much there—a few shops, a stop sign at the town’s only four-way intersection, tidy sidewalks rapidly being covered in a thick blanket of white. Carefully she steered down one of the side streets where she had once ridden her bike, chased by jeering bullies. Now it was home to a B and B she hoped was still open to late check-ins.

Nearly every house on this street and every other she’d driven down was lit up. In Noelle, people took “the season” seriously. Even back when Brooke was a kid folks didn’t much care what precisely you were celebrating, but there was an expectation that one way or another you would double your bills in December turning your house and yard into an electrical fire hazard.

She pulled up outside Lakeview Guest House (the name was an outright lie) to find herself greeted by a twinkling facade adorned not just with the obligatory string of coloured lights along the eaves but a large Santa Claus waving merrily from the wall.

“Wow. Talk about tacky,” she muttered, throwing on her parking brake and then pulling her coat collar up and opening the door. Snow swirled around her as she emerged from the car and retrieved her suitcase from the trunk; there was enough blanketing the ground to make rolling the case up the front path a physical impossibility. Instead she lugged it with her as she tried to avoid any patches of black ice that might be lurking underneath—the last thing she needed right now was a twisted ankle.

She remembered the late hour only a split second after she’d pressed the doorbell. A loud “ho, ho, ho!” rang through the house’s interior. Brooke winced. Not the best first impression. Still, the inside porch light came on almost right away, so at least she hadn’t woken her host. Only most of the guests, probably. A few moments later an older woman wearing a navy housecoat opened the door.

“You must be Ms Hawkins.” Brooke, still cringing from the doorbell moment, found herself momentarily lost for words, but the woman simply reached to take her case from her unresisting grip. “C’mon, we’re letting the weather in.”

The woman led her not to any sort of reception, but rather through to the dimly lit kitchen at the back of the house. The table lamp and book at the breakfast bar pointed to the landlady’s previous location, but now she put the case down by the door and moved over to the coffee maker. “Hot chocolate? Herbal tea? You’ll want something after that drive…”

“Some bourbon?” Brooke said wryly, reaching up to ruffle the snow out of her tousled bob.

Her host’s response was a chuckle. “Hot chocolate, then,” she said, pressing the relevant button on the machine, which was an automated multi-function affair. In moments, it poured no doubt underheated and watery brown liquid into the waiting mug. Perhaps she spotted Brooke’s expression, as she hastened to reassure her. “There’ll be proper fresh-brewed coffee in the morning,” she said. “I keep this around for emergencies. And workmen.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve been described as an emergency,” Brooke said as she accepted the mug, wrapping her hands around it. It might not’ve had any booze in, but it was still welcome after a long drive, and she let the silence stretch out as she sipped, looking around herself with idle interest. The inside of the house was no less festive than the outside, with obviously handmade snowflakes adorning the kitchen cabinet doors.

“That weather’s certainly an emergency—it’s come down fast out there. Expect we’ll be snowed in for days.”

This got her attention. “Snowed in? But I saw the snowploughs out just a couple of hours ago—they’ll have the streets cleared by morning, surely.”

“Running to stand still if you ask me—you wait and see. I know a proper blizzard when I see one and this snow’s settling in for the long haul.”

Just my luck. Outwardly Brooke managed a bland smile. “I guess we’ll see. The municipal building will still be open though, right? They wouldn’t close just because of a little snow.”

“Oh, I expect so, as long as the power’s on.”

Purchase

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Meet the Author

MK Hardy is the pen name for two geeky women living and writing together in Scotland. They’ve been writing partners for eleven years and life partners for nine. When they’re not typing frantically at one another they like to walk the dogs, cuddle the cats, drink cocktails and play boardgames.

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