Category: excerpts

FREE Excerpts Women Who Love to Love Gay Romance; Miss Richfield in Philly

Women Who Love to Love GR Release Day

Update: Link to Smashwords  and here’s one for Allromanceebooks.com Link

 
Today is the release day of my recent anthology, The Women Who Love to Love Gay Romance. When I began this project last January and put out the call for submissions I knew it wouldn’t be a fast book to release. In other words, I wanted to take my time, gather the right stories and authors, and put together a book that will hopefully be entertaining and interesting for everyone. Each story has a strong plot, and each one is markedly different from the other. I’ve already written several posts about the book as things have cropped up since January, and here’s a link to most of them.
 
In celebration of the release day for The Women Who Love to Love Gay Romance, I’d like to post a few excerpts from some of the stories. I still don’t have a link yet to Amazon because it takes a while for the book to go live. But I will update when I get one very soon.
 
From Changing Curses by Li Blaine
By the time she turned sixteen, new carts buckled and broke the instant she placed her hand on them. By eighteen, each and every horse she mounted stumbled and became lame. At twenty-three, the weather found her and dried the fields. Crops withered during the harvest and streams flooded during the winter. The village was near starvation when Ilya finally set off alone. The sandy mountains of the outland became her home. Food was scarce and weight fell from her bones but still she lived. For years, she watched from the dusty hillside as life returned to the community, knowing she’d been to blame for what they had suffered.
 
 
From The Facilitator by Tilly Hunter 
 
I work from home, drawing up designs for fancy dress costumes for a movie merchandising company. Jake is staying at my apartment temporarily while he looks for a new place. But the way things are going, he’ll be moving in with his fella Will before long. I’ll miss the company, but I’ll be glad to stop hiding my romance books. I don’t know why I hide them, really. I’m sure I wouldn’t if they were straight-up erotica, but they’re not. Generally they’re kinky man-on-man smut; sometimes with fangs.
 
 
From The Courage to Jump by Oleander Plume
 
Lucy Larson was the pen name of one Brenda Suggins, age thirty, graduate of Merck County Community College, with a certificate in interior design. Which wasn’t even worth the paper it was printed on since the closest thing she ever came to an interior design job was working in the drapery department at Sears. Instead, Brenda was a bank clerk by day and the secret writer of gay erotica by night. Her latest series, Brothers of the Crescent Moon, was very popular among young gay men, but lately, even more of her readers were heterosexual females. Reading about the exploits of two hot, long haired, muscular werewolves really got some women hot. The latest book in the series was highly anticipated and had already sold two thousand copies in pre-sales.
Lucy started writing erotica for fun, then at the urging of an old boyfriend (who later turned out to be gay) she sent one of her short stories to a publisher and her career took off from there. Of course only Lucy’s publisher and her old boyfriend knew about her secret life. She kept it well hidden from friends and relatives. She couldn’t even imagine the reaction she would get from her mother if she knew she was writing about gay sex. No, she could imagine and it was pretty ugly.
 
 

Miss Richfield in Philly

When I saw this on my local Philadelphia news channel last night I figured I would share with links. For those who don’t know who Miss Richfield is, he’s a well known female impersonator I first saw about twelve or thirteen years ago in Provincetown at the Crown and Anchor, and I’ve been following his act ever since. I don’t typically follow that sort of thing unless it’s something I think is really good. And for me that sort of entertainment is only good when it’s done with camp, satire, and is so over the top you know you’re not supposed to take it seriously. All you’re supposed to do is have fun watching it. It really is an art.

In any event, there’s a new TV commercial out where Miss Richfield is marketing toward the LGBT community to visit Philadelphia. The first time Miss Richfield did this was in 2004.

“Ten years ago, Philadelphia was proud to officially ‘come out’ as a gay-friendly destination when we invited LGBT travelers to visit,” said Meryl Levitz, president and CEO of GPTMC. “With our new commercial, we’re going beyond our history roots and reiterating our invitation, celebrating both the city’s evolution into a premier destination and the LGBT community’s progress over the last decade.”

In the new 30-second spot, titled “Miss Richfield’s Selfie Tour of Philadelphia,” the flamboyant Miss Richfield 1981 embarks on a Philadelphia tour, visiting landmarks all over the city while snapping photos of herself-and some new buff friends-along the way. While wearing her red-white-and-blue, she starts at Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell; runs the Rocky steps yelling “Yo, Adrian!” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; admires the views along the Schuylkill River; dines alfresco over food and wine; dances at a crowded nightclub; and finally, collapses onto a hotel room bed.
You can read more here. And this is a web site for Miss Richfield on Word Press. We live between New York and Philly and know both cities fairly well. There’s really a lot to do in Philly, and it’s always been gay friendly for those who are single, those who are couples, and those who would like to be a couple.  

New Beginnings: The Jersey Boy Story…Tim Tebow Cancels Speach at Anti-Gay Church

Before I get into the main part of this post, I wanted to mention that Tim Tebow canceled the speech he was supposed to be giving at an anti-gay church in Texas. I posted about it before, here, and this is from SportingNews.

Tim Tebow is calling an audible and canceling his appearance at the First Baptist Church of Dallas, home of controversial reverend Robert Jeffress.

Tebow’s decision to speak at the megachurch in Jeffress’ presence was questioned by many, most notably CBS Sports’ Gregg Doyel, because of the reverend’s history of anti-Muslin, anti-Jewish, anti-Mormon and anti-gay platforms.

Of course when Tebow announces he’s going to give a speech at an anti-gay church it’s plastered all over the Internet in bold headlines. When he cancels the speech, it’s posted way in the back where no one can see it. Interesting how the press plays the gay card as often as they play the race card.

New Beginnings; New Publisher; New Book Coming Out Soon

One of the reasons I haven’t indie published anything this year…so far…is because I signed with a new publisher to write a full length novel about gay vampires who live in New Jersey and work in organized crime. I know that sounds a little Soprano-ish, however, the focus on this book was on the younger generation of vampires, not the older ones.

I wanted to ad a touch of new adult along with paranormal, and of course erotica. Even though the main characters are gay vamps and they are over 100 years old, they still look and act like any other new adult out there. And, I was born in Newark, NJ, raised in NJ, spent my summers in Lake Hopatcong, NJ, and went to Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison Campus, in NJ. So I think that qualifies me to write about New Jersey, and a good deal of what I wrote it based on things I saw and experienced myself.

In my book the characters face a lot of the same things human new adults face as well. One of which is figuring out what to do as a career choice, and in their case it’s going into the “family” business of organized crime. I can’t post any details at this point because a lot of the details are still up in the air. For example, I might use a pen name this time because it’s a different genre. But if I do, I will not keep that pen name a secret and I will disclose it. The only reason I would use one would be for search engines, and to keep this book away from my other books that are not paranormal. But as I said, no decision has been made on that yet.

The publisher is also someone new, and I’ll post more about them when I have more details. I hate to post anything until everything is set in writing. The only reason I posted these comments is because the book has been submitted and it’s ready to go.

Here’s a short excerpt and book description. Right now it’s tentatively titled: The Jersey Boys

When organized crime meets the underworld of the living dead, it creates endless possibilities for intrigue and passion. Combine that with a traditional old vampire clan from Sicily trying to mainstream with humans in northern New Jersey as business people, and it winds up becoming an adventure into darkness of epic proportions.

Anton Pagano is from an old Sicilian vampire clan that migrated to New Jersey in the late 1800’s. He lives in a mansion in northern New Jersey with his mom and dad, and he’s never had to worry about anything other than his wardrobe, his latest new car, and the secret love affair he’s been having for years with another vampire in his clan. At a glance, he looks and sounds just like anyone else between the ages of twenty-one and thirty years old.

But when Anton’s dad, the head of their clan, decides it’s time for Anton and his vampire cousin, Digger, to get into the family business, Anton’s not all the excited about it. Until he meets a sweet young human man named Leo on his first night at work. They wind up spending the rest of the night together, and then things get even more complicated when they bring Anton’s secret vampire lover into the picture a few weeks later.

After a bloody battle with werewolves, and the beginning of what Anton predicts will be an all-out war between two vampire clans in New Jersey, Anton and his secret vampire lover decide it’s time to consider turning Leo into a vampire so all three of them can be together for eternity. But thanks to fate, nothing is as simple as it looks, and they wind up doing the one thing they ever wanted to do to Leo as a last resort.
 
Excerpt:  

            On the way down to the parking lot, they punched each other and joked around in the elevator. If anyone had seen them they would have thought they were a couple of college kids without a care in the world. When they reached the parking lot, Digger pulled a set of keys from his pocket and held them up high. He jiggled them and said, “Let’s take my car.”

       This was news to Anton. “When did you get a car?” Uncle Sonny had taken away his last car because he’d been caught driving ninety miles an hour on the wrong side of the Garden State Parkway.  


      “My dad got it for me,” Digger said. “It’s a brand new Cadillac CTS.”

            Anton glared and said, “Then what the fuck am I doing here? Why didn’t you just pick me up?”

        Digger looked up at him with a seductive sideways glance and smiled. “I thought we’d have some fun when you got here. I didn’t know you’d be all serious. You’re the only reason I’m living here, so there’s a place for us to go. I hate this fucking place.”

            He couldn’t get mad at him no matter how hard he tried. Digger could make most people crazy to the point of distraction. He was prone to nasty one-liners that put people in their places, he would insult anyone without thinking twice, and he would bounce and move so fast sometimes it looked as though his battery had been overcharged.
 
        But even the worst things he did made Anton smile. So he put his hand on Digger’s back, shoved him forward, and said, “After work I’ll come back here. I’ll call them and tell them I’m bunking with you because I’m tired.” This wasn’t unusual. And his mom and dad would never even think they were having sex together. They’d shared the same coffin many times over the years and no one gave it a second thought, not even Dino and that little bastard could sniff out trouble for miles away.

           

Matt Bomer on The New Normal; New Release: The Wall Street Shark; FREE Excerpt

As I posted earlier this month, actor Matt Bomer of “White Collar” fame and “Fifty Shades of Grey” is he gonna get the part of Christian fame, guest starred last night on TV’s “The New Normal.” And it was not only a great show, it added another layer of what I think is an important reality when it comes to gay relationships in a general sense. And I don’t like to generalize anything.

I know I’ve been back and forth about TNN. But I keep watching it and I haven’t formed a complete opinion yet, and I’m not sure I will. I ultimately decided to stop taking things so seriously, just watch a nice TV show with gay people, and take it for what it’s worth: entertainment. And sometimes that’s all it should be about.

On the other hand, I witness a lot of fresh boiling hells, so to speak, in publishing when it comes to gay men and gay relationships. I see some new authors who are so eager to promote and push absolute drek I’ve reached to point of total dismissal. In other words, if it looks like the author is full of shit, I don’t bother anymore. Thankfully, it all balances out and I see a lot of great authors who don’t do this with their LGBT books. Unfortunately, those great authors don’t get nearly as much publicity or attention for their great books as the fakers because they don’t know how to work the crowd as well with a great line of bullshit. It’s hard to watch sometimes on social media.

But I didn’t get that last night with TNN. The character Bomer plays is fairly typical of more than a few gay men I know. And I don’t mean stereotypical either. There’s a difference. He’s the ex-boyfriend of Monty, and he returns to Monty’s life after two years as a changed man. He’s tired of the way he’s been living and he wants to settle down and have kids. You can read more here.

I’d also like to add the use of parody was done well in the episode I saw last night. I would imagine a lot of straight people watching wouldn’t get the parody. I think you have to be gay, or very close to gay people, to understand it. From the jokes about adoption to the character of the doctor who is the saddest sack of gay flesh to hit a TV screen in years, it worked. Or course, as I said, the key word is parody, but I actually know someone just like the doctor…the perpetual middle aged gay man seeking love and never finding it. And the fact that they want to fix Bomer up with him isn’t all that unusual. One of the worst stereotypes I see in gay fiction these days has more to do with two ultra hot gay men falling in love than gay men with a few fundamental flaws. But that’s another post.

The sub-plot in last night’s show worked, too. I’m getting a little tired of the bully trope…gay or straight. I’ve seen it done so many times I don’t really pay that much attention to it anymore. I know bullying is wrong. I hate bullies and bullying. I don’t like bullies anymore than the next guy. But when it reaches the point of saturation, and those who start writing about it are only writing about it because it’s so popular, maybe it’s time to find another trope du jour. In any event, it was handled in a realistic way last night on TNN. I’ve been in the same position with nieces and nephews myself and I’ve given them all the wrong advice…in spite of my good intentions.

Someone told me that TNN has been canceled. I didn’t see that myself, so I’m not sure if it’s true. But after last night’s show, I hope they give it at least another season. I’d like to see where a new storyline with Bomer might go.

Release Day: The Wall Street Shark

Update: Purchase link at allromanceebooks.com

This is the next book in the bad boy billionaire series I’ve been writing for Ravenous Romance. It was an eight book deal for me, and I’ve been loving every minute of writing about bad boys…rakes…that are as wicked as they are irresistible. This one is titled, “The Wall Street Shark,” and the one after that is, “The Vegas Shark.” What’s been happening with each book as I write it is that I’m finding different ways to balance out the good guy and the bad guy. It’s been a strange process for me, and it’s something that’s never happened before. As I move on to each new book in the series, I find the next character…who is totally different from the characters in previous books…moving forward and gaining a new insight about his circumstances and why he’s attracted to bad boys. I hope one day they release these books in a package just for this reason alone. I didn’t start out to do this intentionally, but that’s what’s been happening and I find it fascinating. Maybe it’s just my own self-actualization with regard to bad boys. I’ve always had a weakness for them and I’ve been able to relate to every character I’ve written so far who has been screwed over by a bad boy. And even while I’m writing it I’m loving the bad boy more than the nice guy.

In any event, I’m going to update with links to where “The Wall Street Shark” can be purchased. I’ve been told there’s technical difficulty with the web site and I don’t want to post any links now until I’m certain. But it will be released today, and I’ll post more in the future.

Free Unpublished, Raw Excerpt Before Edits:

“Did you see that girl?” Kenny asked Evan.

“No, who are you talking about? What girl?” Evan hadn’t been paying attention to anything except getting through the afternoon without going into a bar for a drink. It was Saturday afternoon, they’d gone out shopping because Kenny needed a new coat, and Evan hadn’t heard from Jeffery in two days. This wasn’t unusual, not completely. It happened sometimes when Jeffery was busy working on something important. Evan knew he was concentrating on the social media venture because the stock hadn’t been doing well since it had gone public.

Kenny grabbed his dad’s arm and pulled him closer so he could whisper. “There are a couple of people over there near the corner and one of the girls gave me a look. She’s like really hot, dad.”

When Evan turned to look, Kenny grabbed his arm and said, “Don’t be so obvious. I don’t want her to know I noticed.”

Evan smiled. “Okay, I won’t look. Let’s get something to eat. You must be starved.” They were standing outside a small restaurant in the West Village. Evan wasn’t hungry at all; he rarely ate lunch. But he knew his growing teenage son could eat two lunches a day and still be hungry.

When they entered the restaurant, the head waiter told them he’d have a table ready in a moment. On Saturday afternoons in the West Village, Evan knew they were lucky to get any table anywhere because there were so many tourists from New Jersey and Connecticut. He’d completely dismissed the girl Kenny had been talking about a minute earlier until Kenny grabbed is arm again and started to whisper.

“Don’t look, but they are coming in here,” Kenny said.

Evan remained still, terrified to move his head in any direction. “Who are you talking about now? Who’s coming in here?”

“The hot girl with the other two people,” Kenny said. “You have to do me a favor.”

Evan’s head went up. “What kind of favor?”

Kenny did not answer him. Before Evan had a chance to ask another question, the three people Kenny had been talking about stepped into the restaurant and stood behind them. Evan took a quick glance and saw a nice-looking young woman with long blond hair, another young woman with brown hair, and a tall young man wearing a brown leather sport jacket. He didn’t think any of them were all that special. And they looked overly prepped, trying hard to be cool, as if they’d just hopped off a bus from New Jersey.

While Kenny stood there sending furtive glances to the young blond woman, the head waiter returned and said, “We have your table.” Then looked over Kenny’s shoulder and spoke to the tall guy in the brown leather sport jacket standing behind Evan. “I’m afraid there won’t be any more tables for at least a half hour. We’re extremely busy today.”

Without missing a beat, Kenny interjected in a move that reminded Evan of Jeffery when he wanted something he thought was important. Kenny said, “How big is our table? Can you seat five there?”
Evan’s jaw fell. He had no idea what his son was doing.

The head waiter said, “I’m sure we can. No problem.”

Kenny turned to the young blond woman and said, “You’re welcome to join us. My brother and I don’t mind.”

Evan grabbed Kenny’s arm and squeezed it hard. He glared at him and said, “Your brother?”

The blond girl asked, “Are you sure there’s room?”

Kenny sent Evan a look and smiled at the blond girl. “Yeah, man. We have plenty of room.”

Evan rolled his eyes. He knew words like man and dude were interchangeable nowadays. It was evident that Kenny wanted Evan to pretend they were brothers so he could get to know the young blond woman. So Evan shrugged and said, “That’s fine. But we can’t stay long. We have that party to go to later tonight.” Although this was not something Evan would ever have thought of doing, he found it amusing to see how eager his son was to get to know this young woman. He figured it wouldn’t hurt to play along for a little while. He would simply sit quietly and observe the younger people.

The head waiter escorted them to the back of the small narrow restaurant. On the way, Evan leaned into Kenny and said, “I’m going to get even with you, you little shit.” He wasn’t really angry. Evan didn’t want to bruise his ego just when he was beginning to explore his own sexuality. They’d already had the dad/son talk about the facts of life and Evan knew Kenny wasn’t shy about anything. Even though Evan had explained there were benefits to abstaining from sex and waiting for the right person to come along, hoping his son wouldn’t start having sex too soon, he knew in reality not many young people paid attention to this advice. In fact, they’d been ignoring this same advice since the beginning of time.

Before they sat down, Kenny said, “I’m Kenny and this is my older brother, Evan.”

The blonde said, “I’m Candy.” She gestured to her two friends. “This is Lorraine and Grayson. We’re students at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey and we’re hanging out in the city for the day.”

Kenny flashed a huge smiled and squared his shoulders. “We go to NYU. We live downtown in Alphabet City.”

In a deadpan tone, Evan sighed and said, “I’m older than my brother. I’m in grad school.”

Before they sat down, Grayson stepped up to Evan and pulled out his chair. This set the tone for the duration of the meal and Evan had never been so uncomfortable in his life. He soon learned he wouldn’t be able to sit quietly and observe. While Candy and Kenny talked about school, Lorraine giggled and she tried to flirt with Kenny, too. Both young women seemed so interested in Kenny, and Kenny seemed so interested in them, everyone forgot about Grayson and Evan sitting at the back of the table. No one even heard Grayson lean over and ask, “How long have you been out? I just came out last year, dude.”

Evan gulped and said, “I’ve been out for a while.” On the one hand, he admired the way Grayson seemed to so comfortable talking about being openly gay, but on the other he felt creepy sitting there with a guy in his first year of college. But more than that, he wondered how Grayson had been able to tell he was gay. Most of the time no one knew, at least not at first. These younger kids nowadays seemed to have extra hidden radar or something.

That Cowboy in the Window…New Announcement Coming Soon

Before I get into a new short I’ve been working on for Loveyoudivine.com, I’d like to drop a hint that there’s going to be something new over at loveyoudivine.com very soon. I can’t talk about it now. But I will on August 3rd. With all the drama slithering around the Internet this month, it’s nice to see something positive for a change.

I don’t have an image yet for my upcoming release, THAT COWBOY IN THE WINDOW, but I do have a blurb and here’s a short excerpt. It’s something I don’t normally write about…gender-bending…but I’ve been reading John Iriving’s newest novel, which not only gets into gender-bending but also bi-sexuality and I’ve been taking it all in, so to speak. It’s interesting to see a well known mainstream novelist like Irving get into a theme like this. This story of mine, however, wasn’t influenced by Irving.

I wrote my story story a long time ago and never did anything with it. The original title was “Bananas Foster,” which I decided to change with this release because it sounded too contrived.

Burb:

This is the unusual gender-bending story of Paige living as a woman by night and a harmless effeminate man named Paul by day. Though her best friend knows the truth about her, no one else does, especially not the handsome young straight guy in the cowboy hat who lives in the apartment across the alley and likes to watch her undress every night. She’s always been able to pass without working too hard, but never felt complete as a woman. But when she finally decides to get the exaggerated breast augmentation she’s always dreamed about, her life changes in ways she never expected. Although it’s not the kind of happily-ever-after ending found in most romance stories, it is the kind of emotional happy ending in modern romance that begins on the inside where it counts the most.

Excerpt:

Before Paige found a really good set of fake boobs, people assumed she was just another flat-chested lanky woman with a nice smile. There were no obvious telltale signs. Even her hands had a small, delicate appeal most real women would have killed for.

She kept her hair long and blonde and parted dead center. It fell perfectly straight and stopped at the middle of her back. Her small frame never gave her away. Although average in height…some would have considered slightly tall for a girl…she practically lived on lettuce and carrots to maintain a small waist. But she compensated for this one minor drawback in height with small features, large blue eyes with long natural lashes, and a perfect button nose. She’d never needed hormones or surgical procedures to cross-dress and pass as a real woman; just lipstick and earrings and a cute short dress did wonders.

As a child, strangers would say isn’t she a pretty little girl…such long, silky eyelashes and glorious high cheekbones, and the sweetest smile they’d ever seen. When corrected by her frowning father, they would gasp and assume apologetic expressions with their palms pressed to their open mouths. You couldn’t blame them, they would say. It wasn’t their fault she was such a pretty little boy.

If nothing else, she deserved credit for one thing: she knew she looked like a little girl and she liked it when they thought she was a pretty one. Most little boys would have cringed and either slipped into a shell of embarrassment or a defensive rage. But not Paige…or Paul as she was called back then. Sometimes, if her father wasn’t around when they thought she was a girl, she’d even dip, curtsy, and thank them herself.

Once, when her father caught her smiling too much at a handsome young waiter in a restaurant he took her to a barber shop the next day and had all her blond baby curls cut off. It wasn’t the waiter’s fault. He just smiled back and said, “What a cute little girl. She’s gonna break a lot of hearts someday.” It wasn’t really her fault either. The waiter was cute and she would have loved to sit on his lap and stare at his beautiful lips. She was only about five years old and too young to realize there was something wrong with this.

Her hair finally grew back and she refused to ever go to that barber shop again. She even told her father she’d stab him in his sleep if he ever shaved her head again. She was lucky enough to have had a mother who stood by her side, which eventually left her father turning his back in a hapless daze, as if he realized he may as well finally face facts. Deep down, he must have known that his little Paul would never play baseball, football, or basketball. How could he not know this when on her seventh birthday her grandmother asked her, “What would you like to be when you grow up?” and she replied, “A pretty girl with lots of boyfriends.”

Her grandmother gasped and looked up at the ceiling. Her father dropped his spoon on the floor and blinked. He mother changed the subject and cut the birthday cake. Though her mother didn’t encourage her, she didn’t discourage her either.

Christmas Release Excerpt: The Computer Tutor

Here’s an excerpt from my new Christmas release, THE COMPUTER TUTOR.
I don’t have an exact release date yet, but I’ll post when I find out.

This excerpt is from the final draft, in PDF format, which I’ve been going over for mistakes all weekend.

The Computer Tutor
When I phoned my mom a week before
Christmas Eve and told her I was looking forward
to spending the holidays with the family, I
honestly meant it this year. For the first time
since I could remember, I was smiling at the
thought of going back to Asshat, USA for a few
days. Though I was still waiting for my real adult
life to begin, I knew my young adult life in
Asshat was over for good.
After years of hard work, I’d finally graduated
and landed my first authentic-paying position as
a veterinarian in an emergency clinic the previous
August, and I hadn’t been back home since
The Computer Tutor
2
Easter. I’d grown up in a small town about four
hours northwest of Philadelphia. In high school,
a group of us had nicknamed the little town,
Asshat, USA and it stuck with me all these years.
In Philadelphia, I’d shared a dingy college
apartment near University City with various guys
for almost seven years, including a full-time lover.
I wasn’t one of those students who went home
every weekend. I only went when it was absolutely
necessary.
Ever since I left home for college, going back
to Asshat for the Christmas holidays always filled
me with anxiety and made me feel trapped. It was
as if that little town was a magnet, and it was
sucking me back with a force too hard to resist. I
experienced nightmares two days before I left
Philadelphia. My heart raced at the thought of
being locked in Asshat forever, working alongside
my dad in his small veterinary practice, waiting
to die a long, slow death.
Landing my new job at the twenty-four hour
emergency clinic had helped dissipate my fears.
Now, I had my own studio apartment in
Philadelphia, a few bucks in my pocket for the
Ryan Field
3
first time in my life, and I was going back home
as an adult, not a needy student.
This realization made a huge difference,
knowing that you’re completely self-sufficient and
no one can tell you what to do anymore. Though
you’re not a complete adult yet, you’re on your
way. When you know you’re going home for just
a visit and nothing more, your childhood bedroom
starts to take on an endearing, nostalgic appeal
instead of a depressing, confined look that
tightens your chest and makes you want to heave
chunks.
Mom and Dad can’t even suggest what you
should do with your life in a nice way anymore…
because they love you so much. Your life becomes
none of their business. I knew my dad would have
loved to have me come home and take over his
small practice. My mom would have loved me to
marry a local girl, settle down, and provide her
with a litter of grandchildren.
The trouble is that wasn’t me. In high school,
when I was supposed to be dating a cheerleader,
I was usually parked on a dark country road with
another guy on the football team. I won’t even

Well Hung By The Chimney

Below is an excerpt from my novella, The Christmas Gift, in WELL HUNG BY THE CHIMNEY. I don’t think this excerpt has been published before, and I like to give readers a larger sample of what they might be thinking of buying. I gave the publisher’s link this time, but you can also find it on amazon, allromaneebooks, and fictionwise. I recommend these because this is where I usually by my own books and don’t have any problems.

This excerpt is from a scene in the book where the two main characters are about to travel to Florida to spend Thanksgiving with the one main character’s ex-wife and daughter.

They weren’t going to Southern Florida. Verna lived near her mother and father’s retirement community, in small town near the Georgia border called Calhoun, and they would have had plenty of time to relax if they’d spent the night at a hotel. But Lance had an almost military attitude about travel and organization and sticking to schedules, thanks to his training with the state police. The only problem was Nathan wasn’t used to punching a clock and following a schedule of any kind. As far as he was concerned, normal people were supposed to be coming home at two in the morning, not waking up.

So he slogged out of bed and rubbed his eyes. When he switched on the bathroom lights, Lance shouted from the kitchen. “Good, you’re awake. I made coffee and I’m going down to start loading the car.”

Nathan scratched his balls and yawned. “Okay,” he said, trying to lift his voice and sound pleasant. “I’m just going to take a quick shower and get dressed.” He’d packed his bags the night before, on Lance’s recommendation. Lance said it would be easier than packing in the morning. He’d been right, too. Nathan was so groggy he had trouble pointing his dick toward the toilet bowl. If he’d waited to pack in this condition, he wouldn’t have known what he was shoving into the suitcase.

And hour later, they were on the road and heading south in Lance’s Ford Explorer. At first, Nathan sipped his coffee from a stainless steel container and tried to make conversation. It was too dark to watch the scenery pass by and the only music they could find on the radio was either country western or rap. So Nathan gave up on the radio and told Lance he’d been thinking about opening a doughnut shop instead of a cookie shop. He said he was worried cookies might not sell as well as doughnuts, and he didn’t want this to be one of those bored housewife businesses where they didn’t care whether they made money or not. Nathan needed this business to create an income, and there were no doughnut shops at all in Martha Falls. It was a quirky little down in some respects. But in a good way. Unlike so many other flatly landscaped towns along strips of road in the south, Martha Falls frowned upon letting corporate chain stores into the area. If Nathan had heard it once, he’d heard it a million times from people who either lived in or visited Martha Falls: “Boy I wish there was a Dunkin Doughnut or a Krispy Kreme around here.”

Lance just nodded and listened, focusing on the road. He was one of those relaxed drivers who sat all the way back, with his legs spread and only one hand on the wheel. But he rarely took his eyes off the road for a second.

“I could even do a line of specialty coffees to go along with the doughnuts,” Nathan said, as they passed a long truck with a yellow and blue sign that read, “Mountain Sunshine,” wondering what exactly Mountain Sunshine was.

“I thought you loved to bake cookies,” Lance said.

“I do,” Nathan said. “But I want to make money, too. And as far as I can see it, Martha Falls could use a doughnut shop more than a gourmet cookie shop. It’s a simple town, with simple people. I want something that’s community oriented and something people need, not something I personally love.”

A Reader’s Question about GAY PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

This morning I found a question about GAY PRIDE AND PREJUDICE in an e-mail from one of my readers named Shirlene. It was a good question, and one that I’ve been worried about myself. And though a certain online romance book reviewer doesn’t think it’s important for authors to post their intentions in blog posts (she’d rather the author made their intentions clear in the book itself so she can decide for herself), readers do seem to think it’s important to know exactly what a book is about before they make the purchase. So I’d like to clarify a few things for Shirlene, and for other readers who might be wondering about GAY PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.

First, I’d never even try to go up against the original Pride and Prejudice. It’s the penultimate romance as far as I’m concerned, and to try to top anything so perfect would be both insane and impossible. But I did want to write a book about gay pride, same sex marriage, social classes, and how prejudice affects the lgbt community as a whole, and also how it is handled within the lgbt community.

Shirlene wanted to know if she needed to read the original Pride and Prejudice to understand the storyline in GAY PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. And the answer is no, because this isn’t a sequel to the original book and it’s not fanfic. My book is set in the present, in South Beach, FL, and there’s nothing historical about it. I don’t write historicals, and rarely read them, mainly because they aren’t my thing. And I hate to think of readers wondering about a book before they purchase it…no matter what our favorite dedicated online romance reviewer thinks about authors posting about their books on their blogs (smile).

Below is an unpublished excerpt from GAY PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. I hope it shows this is not a historical and that the only thing that resembles the original Pride and Prejudice are certain aspects of the theme regarding marriage and social class.

“Why is the marriage thing so important to you?” A hint of frustration floated through his voice.

“Because it is,” Tristan said. “It’s what I’ve always wanted, even before same-sex marriage became a hot political topic. When I was a child, I’d listen to my uncle’s friends talk about their relationships. If they were in permanent monogamous relationships, they always said they were married. They even referred to their partners as their husbands, or wives if they were women. I didn’t even know they were using these words loosely until I was about ten years old. I thought they really were married. They lived like all the straight married couples I’d ever known. And then, when I found out that gay men and women couldn’t get legally married, when my uncle explained the cold hard facts of life to his little gay nephew, I was so devastated I tore up all the wedding magazines I’d been saving for years.

“As I got older and legalized same-sex marriage became an issue within the lgbt community, I started to realize that I deserved to fall in love and get married just as much as heterosexual couples deserved it. And I made a decision a long time ago that I wouldn’t settle for less. Call it pride; call it being stubborn. But I won’t settle for less.”