Christmas is the time for giving, and Totally Bound and Pride Publishing are running a fabulous giveaway to celebrate the release of all the books in the We Three Kings collection. (That, of course, includes Temporary Angel, my reverse menage romance about a woman who adopts the persona of her burlesque dancing best friend, and the three hot men who come into her life over a very memorable Christmas.)
The prize is a $50 First for Romance gift card, which you can spend on enough ebooks to see you into the New Year and beyond, and entering couldn’t be easier. Simply click on the cover image below to go to the Raffelcopter giveaway.
And you can pick up a copy of Temporary Angel at First For Romance, Amazon US or Amazon UK. Good luck with the competition and happy reading!
Yes, I know it’s still too early to be talking about Christmas – I mean, we’ve only just enjoyed the fabulous fireworks displays celebrating the demise of Guy Fawkes – but if you’re looking for a hot festive read, may I suggest Temporary Angel?
Part of the Totally Bound/Pride Publishing We Three Kings seasonal collection, Temporary Angel is a tale of deception, desire and one demure gal living our her naughtiest fantasies with a trio of very hot lovers. When Jess’s best friend Hannah, better known as burlesque dancer Angel Golightly, suffers a mishap that lands her in hospital, Jess takes the opportunity to take on a job in Hannah’s place. She finds herself at a very intimate Christmas party, performing for three of the most gorgeous men she’s ever met – Daniel, Ray, and Etienne. Together, they form an intense connection, but what will the men do if they discover Angel isn’t really who she claims to be?
Temporary Angel is released on December 7th, and is available to pre-order now from First For Romance. Now, pass the eggnog – maybe Christmas is closer than I thought…
Everyone has a sexy secret – and if it ever came to light, there’d be a scandal. At least, that’s the premise behind Scandalous, the new anthology from SinCyr Publishing, edited by the one and only Zak Jane Keir. The book features stories from a range of top authors including Kristan X, Sprocket J. Rydyr, Jordan Monroe, Eve Ray, Louise Kane, Elliot Sawyer, Dilo Keith, Colton Aalto, Zak Jane Keir, Allison Armstrong, and Ralph Greco, Jr. and my good self, and it’s released on November 20th.
However, sneak peeks from the stories are currently being revealed as each author gets the spotlight on the SinCyr Publishing blog, and today it’s my turn. So if you want to know more about Bring Me A Stranger Home, the tale of a couple who get all kinds of thrills from inviting a random and very willing third party to join in their games of domination and submission, then check out the blog here.
Want to know more – well, here’s a teaser for you:
My guest at the Naughty Corner today is Nic Starr. Hi, Nic! Thanks for stopping by as you celebrate the release of your new book, Sea of Love.
Thanks so much for having me. It’s great to be here. I’m excited about the release of Sea of Love and happy for the opportunity to tell you more about it.
Nic Starr
First off, can you tell us how Sea of Love came about.
It all started with an idea a group of authors had about setting a series of stories on a cruise ship. Unfortunately, the group project didn’t come to be, but the seed had been planted. I loved the idea of the cruise boat setting and thought combining it with a reality TV show would be a lot of fun.
How much research was involved in writing the book?
Nic: To be honest, I made it easy on myself. Firstly, I’ve been on a number of cruises and this one is a Hawaii to Sydney cruise, something I did back in 2018. It was fun to review the old itinerary and take a walk down memory lane with all the videos and photos that I took on that trip. Secondly, I knew I was writing this book (yes, it’s taken that long to complete it LOL) so I’d kept the cruise daily ‘newspaper’ that was left in our cabin each day so I could see all the ship’s activities. However, I did jump on the internet and to check out all the locations and I did research on TV show production.
Do you have a favourite character—Harry or Evan?
I have a soft spot for both guys. They are similar in a lot of ways; both of them really care about other people’s feelings and go out of their way to support their friends. In Harry’s case, way too much! He is guilted into accompanying his horrible ex-boyfriend on the cruise. Lucky for him because he reunited with Evan, but I wanted to give him a good shake for allowing himself to be put into the situation in the first place.
Tell us a bit about what you are working on next.
This may be a bit of a surprise for those who know my writing, but I’m working on a paranormal romance! As I usually write sweet contemporary romance, it’s been fun to try my hand at a something a little different. I’m also co-writing this book with another author and that’s been a lovely refreshing change to my usual process. The book will most likely be released in early 2022.
The cruise of a lifetime. A reality TV show about romance. Falling in love is inevitable.
Evan Williams is the type of guy to stick by his friends, especially when they’ve been hurt and need a favour. And if that favour involves the cruise of a lifetime, then how can he say no? Even when it means pretending to be a devoted boyfriend to Amber and having their fake relationship play out on a reality TV show for all the world to see.
Realising his boyfriend is a conceited jerk and dumping him doesn’t stop Harry Bishop from winding up as one half of a supposedly loved-up couple on the Sea of Love TV show. And if that’s not bad enough, he’s faced with temptation in the form of Evan, the perfect blend of boy-next-door-meets-sexy-stud he once crushed on. It’s going to be a long two weeks.
Two weeks of competitions, challenges, and confrontations. They’re here to take out the Sea of Love title—just not with each other—and there can only be one winner. But it turns out that true love isn’t about winning a contest; the real prize comes when you follow your heart.
Sea of Love is a feel-good romance featuring hidden attraction, fake relationships, and friends-to-lovers.
Nic Starr lives in Australia where she tries to squeeze as much into her busy life as possible. Balancing the demands of a corporate career with raising a family and writing can be challenging but she wouldn’t give it up for the world.
Always a reader, the lure of m/m romance was strong and she devoured hundreds of wonderful m/m romance books before eventually realising she had some stories of her own that needed to be told!
When not writing or reading, she loves to spend time with her family–an understanding husband and two beautiful daughters–and is often found indulging in her love of cooking and planning her dream home in the country.
This giveaway is to celebrate the release of Sea of Love. Up for grabs is a set of five gay romance ebooks—Wild Card, Lies & Deception, More Than A Superstar, Rustic Melody, and Fragile Heart—by Nic Starr.
Fernando Inglesias is the typical Premier League League footballer, with a flash lifestyle and a girlfriend who’s famous for starring in a reality TV show. But Fernando has a huge secret – he’s gay, and he knows that coming out would change everything for him. So he keeps his man-on-man encounters swift and anonymous, until he meets Joshua on a trip to a gay club on the island of Ibiza. The two make an instant connection and the sex is unforgettable, but Joshua has reasons for distrusting closeted men, and finding out Fernando’s real identity changes everything…
Tomorrow’s Hero is Book 2 in the Success series, about the complicated lives of men in the celebrity spotlight, and while there’s a loose connection to the first book in the series, Never Too Famous, you really don’t need to have read that book to enjoy this one. You also don’t need to know anything about football as the storyline barely touches on the sport, which would be a disappointment for a huge fan of the game like myself if Tomorrow’s Hero hadn’t been such an engaging read. Thom Collins’ real strength lies in picking apart the celebrity culture that’s sprung up around the stars of reality TV shows, and how someone can have a hugely glamorous life that’s built on little more than Botox and fillers. In this book, he also has a dig at the kind of ultra-buff male action hero who’s stringing out those roles rather longer than he should, in the shape of Joshua’s father, Jason Drake.
There are reasons why there’s currently no openly gay player in English professional football, and Collins explores some of them, giving plausible reasons why Fernando has created an alter ego, Juan Carlos, for his same-sex adventures. It helps to create believable conflict between Fernando and Joshua and leaves you hoping that Joshua can overcome being lied to by Fernando and they get the happy ending they deserve.
By turns funny and tender, and with sex scenes hotter than the Balearic sunshine, Tomorrow’s Hero will have you eagerly looking forward to more books in this deliciously bitchy series.
Tomorrow’s Hero is available from First For Romance, Amazon US and Amazon UK. I was given a copy of the book by Lucy Felthouse at Writer Marketing Services in return for an honest review.
You know I can’t resist posting a cute lion picture, and World Lion Day gives me the perfect excuse. Please enjoy this pair doing what cats of all kinds do best – snoozing…
How adorable is this?
And there’s plenty of good news to celebrate on the lion front. A while ago I blogged about the lions at the Artis Zoo in Amsterdam being forced to relocate to France because the money wasn’t available to renovate their habitat. Well, according to Het Parool, a wealthy benefactor has come forward with enough cash to keep the animals in situ. It’s nice to know there are some generous lion fans out there.
And if you prefer your lions to come in shifter form and you haven’t sampled my Lionhearts MM romance series from Pride Publishing, then the fact the first book in the series, The Pride of Amsterdam, is on offer for £1.99 may tempt you. It’s available from Amazon UK and Amazon US, and it will transport you to a world where someone wants to remove the lions from Amsterdam – permanently and with extreme violence… Will the shifters prevail? Ah, you’ll have to read the book to find out!
Even if you have the biggest TBR pile in the world, it’s always hard to resist stocking up on a new title or two whenever a sale comes along. And to mark Read An E-book Week, Tirgearr Publishing is throwing one of their excellent Smashwords sales. This means all Tirgearr titles priced above 99c are available at half price until March 13th. If you haven’t read it already (and why not), you can get your hands on my historical romance novella, One Knight In Muiden, part of the City Knights series for this bargain price. If you love handsome knights and tales of innocent deception that turn into something more complicated, this is the one for you. To find the book on Smashwords, click on the link below, and don’t forget to use the code EBW50 when you check out. And keep reading those e-books!
I’m very happy to have authors Ryan Taylor and Joshua Harwood here today. Their new holiday-hockey romance, Nice Catching You, has just been released. Ryan and Josh are not only co-authors, but they’re married in real life. Let’s get right into things, guys. Why do you write, and when did you start?
RYAN: We began writing our first book, No Brief Affair, in mid-2017, after we got home from our honeymoon. Our love story was and is a beautiful thing, and we were so incredibly proud of what we had. We wanted to honor and celebrate it. A lot of our own story is in that book.
JOSH: That’s right. There’s a lot of fiction in there, but much of it is either true or closely related to real events.
Is that true of all your books?
RYAN: Only in the sense that we can’t write without putting something of ourselves into the characters. I’m not sure any author can to be honest.
JOSH: There’s more true or somewhat-true material in Legally Bound simply because it’s the continuation of No Brief Affair.
Let’s move to the new book, Nice Catching You. What is it about?
JOSH: Nice Catching You tells the story of two lonely young men, Nick and Jacob, who find each other. Nick is a nationally known college hockey star who’s never found his way out of the closet. Jacob is a law student at Nick’s university. He’s been out for a long time but had no luck with love.
RYAN: Since Nick is a celebrity, it doesn’t take long for word of the romance to spread. Once it does, some people go nuts. National news reporters flood the college, the university administration freaks out, fans are all over the place, and Nick’s team and coaches are split in their responses.
JOSH: That’s the book’s conflict, and the story is about how Nick and Jacob deal with it. We always have happy endings, so it isn’t a question of whether the guys will get one, but how.
You’ve said the book deals with the issue of homophobia in sports. Can you explain that?
RYAN: I think the better way to say it is that Nice Catching You shines a light on the issue. There’s homophobia in organized sports, for sure. But there are also many decent, open people who support a person’s right to live an authentic life.
JOSH: People who realize that the sex of the person a player loves has nothing to do with their ability or value as a player.
RYAN: There’s never been an openly gay player for an NHL team while he was actively playing, but that’s going to change, probably soon. There are already openly gay players in college and junior hockey, and they’re outstanding.
JOSH: The smart people who run professional hockey teams aren’t going to exclude some of the best players out there simply because they’re gay.
If there are already gay college and junior players, what is the point of your story?
RYAN: Look, we’re sitting here talking about how there actually are openly gay players now. It’s something worth commenting about. Recently, a top junior hockey player came out, and it was big news. It’s still an unusual, controversial thing.
JOSH: Nice Catching You is timely and relevant because a player’s being gay is big news, and people are divided about whether it’s “right for the sport.”
RYAN: Josh and I look forward to the day when a player is no more newsworthy for being gay than for being straight.
That sounds great. What would you say to people who ask why they should read NiceCatching You?
RYAN: It’s a beautiful love story involving a great sport. The book is cute, funny, and full of hope.
JOSH: There’s a serious side, but it’s a happy book. After the year we’ve all had, people need something to help them believe it’s possible to overcome difficult situations.
RYAN: If you want something to give you lots of feels, and to bring the holiday season alive with its promise of hope and good tidings, Nice Catching You is the book to read.
One last very important question. Is there any actual hockey in the book?
RYAN: Get out of here! There’s great hockey in the book.
JOSH: Nick is the top college hockey star in the country. What kind of book wouldn’t have him playing the game?
RYAN: Read it and see. You’ll love the action!
Sounds awesome to me. I can’t wait to read it. Thanks for being with us, guys, and good luck with the book. It’s Nice Catching You: A Holiday Love Story.
Interview by Jerome Clark
Nice Catching You is available at Amazon for Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and in paperback.
What happens when the No. 1 college hockey star in the country falls in love—with a man?
Nick Johnson, a top prospect for a pro hockey team, has a secret: he’s gay. Tired of living in the closet for the sport he loves, he sees no way out.
Jacob Meyer’s string of bad boyfriends left him cynical about love. Instead, he focuses on his studies as a third-year law student. With a new job waiting for him, he’s eager to graduate and move on.
On a school-sponsored trip, Nick and Jacob meet in a most unexpected way. When Nick tells Jacob his secret, they decide to hang out, just as friends. But their attraction is too strong to ignore, and they soon begin dating.
Since Nick is a big man on campus, it doesn’t take long for people to notice his attachment to Jacob. All hell breaks loose when the relationship gets out. As the national media descends, university officials try to figure out how to solve their “problem.” Their efforts divide Nick’s team, inflame fans, and put Nick and Jacob’s futures in jeopardy. Will the men be able to survive a plot to destroy them without derailing both their careers?
Nice Catching You is an out-for-you romance featuring a lot of love, exciting hockey, and a beautiful holiday. There’s also plenty of steam and a very happy ending.
Excerpt
JACOB
Sunday, December 4
I haven’t been on many buses, but I was starting to think I might die on this one. The snow began falling before we left Whiteface Mountain early in the afternoon, not unusual for one of the top ski resorts in the Northeast. We were due in Syracuse before six, and I hoped the weather didn’t delay us much. The last week of classes would start the next day, and I had work to do.
The snow was coming down hard, and by the time we reached I-87, I could see very little out the window. Many of the cars had pulled over to the side, and others were creeping along with their hazards flashing. Our bus joined the traffic and immediately began slipping all over the road.
With fifty-odd college students on the trip, there had been a lot of noise when we left the resort, but nerves had soon taken over, and people were mostly quiet now. I sat alone, three rows from the back of the bus, trying to read a case for Federal Courts. With only one more semester of law school to go, I needed to do well. A big firm in Boston offered me a job right before Thanksgiving, contingent on my maintaining a 3.8 GPA. Pulling a C in Fed Courts would bring me slightly under the requirement. Although I had high hopes for a job in DC, I couldn’t risk losing the Boston offer.
Between the bus sliding in the snow and the constant chatter from the guys in the seat behind me, I couldn’t concentrate at all. They were hockey players, and they kept up a conversation about the game, other players, cars, and whatever else dumb undergrad jocks talk about. They were the only people behind me except for their friend, who was passed out on a seat in the back.
Whoa! The rear end of the bus lurched violently into the left lane. I tried to grab something to hold onto, but I was already airborne by the time I dropped the heavy casebook. Hands grabbed my shoulders but didn’t slow my momentum. Dreading the impact with the seat across the aisle, I screwed my eyes shut and held my breath. All at once, something stopped me. Rather, someone stopped me, and that someone had brawny arms and a hard body. He’d caught me in midair.
“You all right?”
“What?” On my back in the man’s arms, facing the top of the bus, I couldn’t see much. I turned my head, trying to find out who had hold of me.
“Everything okay?”
I craned my neck in the other direction just as he leaned over, and it was—shit!—one of the hockey guys who’d been sitting behind me. I’d seen him over the weekend with his buddies, at least one of whom had laughed at me the whole time. Now they’d laugh even harder, and I’d be known as the skinny little runt who couldn’t even stay in his seat—the twit who had to be rescued by a real man.
Ryan Taylor and Joshua Harwood met in law school and were married in 2017. They live in a suburb of Washington, DC, and share their home with a big, cuddly German shepherd. Ryan and Josh enjoy travel, friends, and advocating for causes dear to their hearts. Ryan also loves to swim, and Josh likes to putter in the garden whenever he can. The romance they were so lucky to find with each other inspires their stories about love between out and proud men.
Ryan and Joshua are offering one lucky reader the chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card. You can enter via the Rafflecopter page – just click here. Good luck!
This tour was organised by Indigo Marketing and Design
It’s the spookiest time of year, and that means lots of delicious ghost stories to enjoy. Two of the themes I love writing about most are the paranormal and rock bands, and in The Ghost of You, I had the chance to do both (and borrow a title from My Chemical Romance, because they kind of deserve it…)
Good evening, horror lovers…
The Ghost of You follows what happens to Casey when his lover, rock star and recovering alcoholic Fisher Kelty dies from an overdose of booze and pills. The press think it was suicide, the coroner rules it an accidental death, and Casey tries to pick up the remnants of his life. But when strange things start happening to him, is Fisher trying to get back in touch with him, and if so, why?
Here’s an extract from the story that will hopefully give you chills of the nicest kind
Stepping under the steamy spray, I couldn’t help but let out a deep sigh of contentment. I reached for the bottle of shower gel, poured a generous amount into my palm and rubbed the creamy lather over my skin. The heady scent of lavender and chamomile, designed to relax and soothe, filled the little shower stall, and the steady pulse of the water beat down on me, like dozens of fingers gently massaging my scalp and back.
I relaxed into the sensation as it grew more intense, resting my palms against the tiled wall. It really felt as if someone were kneading the muscles in my shoulders, using their thumbs to ease out the knots of tension that had built while I’d hunched over the racks in Boardwalk Sounds, sorting the recently acquired albums.
“Mmm, that feels so good,” I murmured to no one in particular, overcome with the temptation to reach down and grab hold of my cock. Go on, a seductive voice in my head whispered, do it. You need this. How long is it since you jerked yourself off?
I let my hand drop to the base of my shaft and skim lightly along its length. Pleasure rippled through my belly and my knees went weak as I gave myself over to stroking and caressing myself. I closed my eyes and lifted my head, letting the hot spray trickle down my face and neck.
It had to be my imagination, but I swore I felt the press of a body against mine. The phantom touch moved lower, gliding down the planes of my lower back and coming to rest on my ass cheeks before digging in hard. I gasped in shock and stopped playing with myself. No imagining things now. The hard length of a cock nestled between my butt cheeks and something—or someone—had squeezed my ass.
When I glanced behind me, for the briefest moment I caught a glimpse of Fisher, hair wet, broad chest bare and so insubstantial I saw all the way through it to the clear glass door of the shower stall. Then he disappeared, and so did his grip on my ass.
Shocked, I shut off the water and leaped out of the shower. As I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around me, my cock stood up hard, proof of how turned-on I’d been—still was, if I were honest.
There’s no such thing as ghosts, I told myself as my hard-on wilted and my heart rate slowed to something approaching normal. And if even if they did exist, they’d roam the halls of ruined castles, or spooky old Gothic mansions, not this modern, glass-fronted home overlooking the beach. But try as I might to make myself believe otherwise, in my heart I knew I’d been up close and personal with a specter bearing Fisher’s face.
It seems every day of the year is dedicated to commemorating some unique, quirky or bizarre event – whether that’s officially going caroling, talking like a pirate or being Ed Balls – and today just happens to be World Lion Day. Founded by the Big Cat Rescue organisation, it aims to pay tribute to the beautiful and majestic lion while raising awareness of the threats posed by poachers, disease and everything else that has led to them being placed on the endangered species list.
As you might know from reading my books, the Lionhearts MM shifter romance series in particular, I adore lions (and pretty much all big cats), so to mark World Lion Day, here’s a couple of gorgeous shots of the animals for you:
Photo by Iva Villi from FreeImages
Photo by Marcos Roberto Silva from FreeImages
The Lionhearts series is available as two box sets from the First For Romance bookstore – find out more about Part One and Part Two here. And keep loving those lions!
The (Really) Naughty Corner 