It's Friday! We're back! Ellie's back! More Regency goodness! We're back with the young men of the Twelve Letters series in Gentlemen's Agreement, and I ramble on about marriages of the period :D

Gentlemen's Agreement
(sequel to Coming of Age)
by Ellie Thomas

Amazon
Books2Read
JMS Publishing

The group of Regency men who meet each Thursday at The Golden Lion in London’s St James’ find their lives become increasingly intertwined during the early autumn of 1815. Now the long wars with France are finally over, Jo Everett and Captain Ben Harding are heavily involved with their charity to assist injured ex-servicemen, as well as encountering personal complications. 
​
Ben’s romantic interest Edward Stephens remains a hundred miles away in Wiltshire, and although Jo and his true love Daniel Walters are in the same city, they are no closer to fulfilling their dream of sharing a home. Reformed brat Percy Havilland has a deluge of relatives and increasingly convoluted family problems to deal with in his new Chelsea abode, distracting him from his older partner Nathan Brooks. 

As the gentlemen juggle their feelings and duties, Ben’s former commanding officer involves them in capturing a spy ring that has inveigled the most exclusive ranks of high society. Their remit is to help foil Napoleon's restoration as Emperor of France before he reaches the remote island of St. Helena and permanent exile.

Can this motley group of Regency men attain their happy ever after with their chosen partners? And as the nefarious treachery plays out in the select ballrooms of Mayfair, might Percy save the day by flirting for England?

About Ellie:

Ellie Thomas lives by the sea. She comes from a teaching background and goes for long seaside walks where she daydreams about history. She is a voracious reader especially about anything historical. She mainly writes historical gay romance.

Ellie also writes historical erotic romance as L. E. Thomas.
 
Website: https://elliethomasromance.wordpress.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elliethomasauthor/
Twitter: @e_thomas_author
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19835510.Ellie_Thomas

Friday has arrived! This week, I'm reading to you from Ashton K. Rose's new paranormal, Australian gothic, The Southern Magicks. Poly, all the queer, librarian MC! :D Come have a listen:

The Southern Magicks
The Southern Magicks #1
by Ashton K. Rose

Buy Links

How do you prove your innocence when you don’t even remember whether you did it or not?
 
After a demon attack reveals Dexter’s secret – that his Gran taught him magic – the twenty-three-year-old librarian is forced to work for the local magical law enforcement agency in order to prove his loyalty, and hopefully save his grandmother from execution.
 
However, when someone tries to frame him for crimes he doesn’t remember committing, Dexter realizes he’ll have to start an investigation of his own. Joined by his beloved husband Eli, their best friend June, and his journalist cousin Kat, he desperately tries to prove his innocence…which is kind of difficult when gaps in his memory make him doubt everything he thinks he knows about himself.
 
The race against time begins. Can Dexter and his team uncover the criminals weaving the web of guilt around him before it’s too late, or is he going to lose everything and everyone he cares about?
​

About Ashton:

Ashton K. Rose (They/Them) is a Queer author who writes Australian paranormal, urban fantasy and mystery fiction filled with LGBTQIA+ characters.
 
Ashton currently lives in sunny Queensland able to enjoy the best of the Australian bush and beach. Ashton spent their first fourteen years being raised on a remote farm shaped around the remains of an old mining town. Surrounded by the skeletons of past lives and their matching ghost stories, Ashton developed a love for fantasy, horror, and dark fairy tales from a young age.
 
Carrying a love of ghost stories into adulthood Ashton started writing novels about magic, vampires and ghosts. Ashton decided to set The Southern Magicks in a world heavily inspired by the backdrop of the Australia bush/beach and the speculative fiction Ashton has consumed over a lifetime.
 
Author Website: https://www.geekaflame.com/
Author Facebook (Author Page): https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086363208232
Author Twitter: https://twitter.com/Geek_Aflame
Author Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geek_aflame/
Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21982765.Ashton_K_Rose
Author Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/ashtonkrose

It's time for the PRG awards and there are tons of fun authors nominated this year! Voting begins January 29 on the Paranormal Romance Guild site. :)

I had a nice surprise and received notification that I have some things in the nominations - yay!

LGBT/SCI-FI/FANTASY/PARANORMAL

Rarely Pure and Never Simple

​LGBT/ROMANCE/FANTASY/FUTURISTIC/SCI-FI/ACTION ADVENTURE
​
From the Noblest Motives – Angel Martinez

LGBT/ROMANCE/FANTASY/FUTURISTIC/SCI-FI/ACTION ADVENTURE

Ryld’s Shadows – Angel Martinez & Bellora Quinn

Happy Friday! This week, I have an excerpt for you from everyone's favorite vegan werewolf, Kyle, in Karenna Colcroft's latest, Hummus on Rye! Come have a listen :)

Hummus On Rye
Real Werewolves Don't Eat Meat
by Karenna Colcroft

​Amazon

A six-year-old human child, who recently moved with his single father into the heart of the Boston North Pack’s territory, is missing–and Alpha Tobias Rogan has been framed for kidnapping the boy. Meanwhile, a new pack member with a traumatic past has drawn Saul Hughes, the rogue Alpha with a grudge against Tobias, to Boston.
 
Kyle Slidell, Tobias’s mate, spots Saul and realizes he must be behind the child’s kidnapping. But Saul has retained his powers and uses them to erase his presence from the minds of all of the other Boston wolves. Only Kyle, with his unusual immunity to compulsion, is able to remember seeing the rogue.
 
To protect his mate and save the little boy, Kyle will violate shifter law and ignore direct orders from the ruler of the Northeast Region werewolves. But will he survive the fallout?
​

About Karenna:

Karenna Colcroft lives just north of Boston, Massachusetts, and has been in love with the city since childhood, though she has yet to encounter any werewolves, vampires, or other paranormal beings in her travels. At least none that she knows of. Though since in her non-writing life, under another name, she offers services as a channel and energy healing practitioner, it could be said that she herself is a paranormal being. The jury’s still out on that.
 
Karenna is a polyamorous, nonbinary human who splits time between the home she shares with her husband and the one she shares with her committed partner. She also has two adult children and a bonus son, three grandchildren, and two and a half cats. (Half in terms of time the cat lives with her, not in terms of the cat itself…)
 
Author Website: https://karennacolcroft.com
Author Facebook (Personal): https://www.facebook.com/riverlightbearer/
Author Facebook (Author Page): https://www.facebook.com/KarennaColcroft
Author QueeRomance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/karenna-colcroft/
 

New year, new Reading Day! :D This week, the lovely Layla Dorine has brought us an excerpt from her new contemporary polyam - A Murder for Crow! Retired MMA fighter moves to Vermont for some quiet... 

​Come have a listen!

A Murder For Crow
Crow's Murder #1
by Layla Dorine

Kindle Unlimited

Retiring from the sport he loved had never been part of Crow’s five-year plan. Unfortunately, the head injuries he’s amassed over years of Mixed Martial arts fighting have left him little choice but to throw in the towel and begin a new, shaky road towards…what? He’s got no clue, that’s for sure. In fact, the only thing he’s certain of is that living a few short blocks from the gym is not the way to put the sport behind him, not when he still hasn’t told any of his friends or training partners exactly why it is he suddenly decided to hang up his gloves.

Moving is the only option that comes to mind, and what better place to retreat to than the beauty of the Vermont wilderness he loved visiting in his younger days. After all, he still has family there, and it’s far removed from the sport he’s struggling to walk away from.
 
Speaking of walking away. Ever since he found proof of his late husband’s infidelity, Jaylon’s been wishing the man had abandoned him long before his illness stole his life. At least then he wouldn’t be torn between fury and mourning, wondering what he’d done to drive away the man he’d loved. He’s way too old to be starting over, or at least, that’s what he tells himself before Crowley “Crow” Davies pulls up to the cabin Jaylon was renting out, beautiful hitchhiker in tow.
 
Now he’s got one eye on Crow and one on Owen, a budding new dynamic forming between them, but will it all come crashing down when Crow’s best friend, Jesse, shows up, looking to reconnect. A former fighter who left the sport two years before, he’s been friends with benefits with Crowley since before either stepped foot in a cage to fight. The chemistry between the sheets is smokin’ hot, but there’s always been something missing, something the two never could put their fingers on.
 
Can the inclusion of Owen and Jaylon provide the pieces they’ve always needed, or will someone find themselves left out in the cold?

About Layla:

LAYLA DORINE lives among the sprawling prairies of Midwestern America, in a house with more cats than people. She loves hiking, fishing, swimming, martial arts, camping out, photography, cooking, and she traveling to visit museums, historic, and haunted places.

Layla got hooked on writing as a child and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Hard times, troubled times, the lives of her characters are never easy, but then what life is? The story is in the struggle, the journey, the triumphs and the falls. She writes about artists, musicians, loners, drifters, dreamers, hippies, bikers, truckers, hunters and all the other folks that she’s met and fallen in love with over the years. Sometimes she writes urban romance and sometimes its aliens crash landing near a roadside bar. When she isn’t writing, or wandering somewhere outdoors, she can often be found curled up with a good book and a kitty on her lap.

Layla Dorine can be found at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LaylaDorine13
Twitter: https://twitter.com/layladorine
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/layladorine/
Tumblr: https://layladorine.tumblr.com/
Author Website: layladorine13.wix.com/layladorineauthor
Author on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9814124.Layla_Dorine
 

Editor is taking a look at the Shadow story over break - doesn't seem to be a lot of work to be done, but we shall see. In the midst of this, the issue of the actual title came up again.

Shadow Run, the original title, is out of the question.

Shadows' Hunt, picked by readers from my poll of possible options in the FB group, unfortunately, also runs into issues of discoverability because of existing franchises/products, and has the additional "what part of speech did you intend?" problem. Confusion is not the goal here.

Editor made the editor face. I could see it through the chat. And said, you want a different title. Brain churned for a bit, I threw a couple of things out as possibilities, but we've settled on:

Shadow Marked

Yay! More news on the novelization coming soon. :D

Hello and Happy Holidays! This week, Ellie Thomas joins us with a timely excerpt for the season - A Christmas Engagement. A lovely m/m Regency to snuggle up with by the fire or space heater or electric blanket! Come have a listen :)

A Christmas Engagement
by Ellie Thomas

JMS Books
Amazon
Books2Read

In 1805, Charles Denham’s comfortable life in Regency London with his long-term partner Avery Mallory is disrupted by the sudden death of his father. As the heir to a modest country estate in Gloucestershire, Charles returns home to care for his bereaved family and take up his new responsibilities.

Overwhelmed with grief, rather than leaning on Avery, Charles rejects his love and becomes fixed on the idea of taking a wife for reasons of family duty alone. With this plan in mind, during early winter, he travels the short distance to Bath only to find that Avery and his family have already arrived at the resort.
​
Will Charles follow through with his ill-conceived plan for a hasty betrothal by Christmas? Or will he come to his senses and resume his relationship with the nicest man in England? 

About Ellie:

Ellie Thomas lives by the sea. She comes from a teaching background and goes for long seaside walks where she daydreams about history. She is a voracious reader especially about anything historical. She mainly writes historical gay romance.

Ellie also writes historical erotic romance as L. E. Thomas.
 
Website: https://elliethomasromance.wordpress.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elliethomasauthor/
Twitter: @e_thomas_author
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19835510.Ellie_Thomas
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/ellie-thomas

Happy Holidays Friday, everyone! This week, I have a space opera treat for you - the new offering in M.D. Grimm's Saga of the Bold People series, Resistance. Aliens, bi characters, poly romance, more aliens! Come have a listen :)

Resistance
​Saga of the Bold People 3
by M.D. Grimm

Universal Buy Link

Can a retired assassin be the savior his people need?
 
How does a former assassin save his fellow humans from extinction? By allying them with mrrogs of course!
 
But that’s easier said than done as humans are understandably distrustful and suspicious of sescurei, the official species of the InterGalactic community. Leopold must convince them that Mastrodai’s offer of alliance isn’t a trick, which means diplomacy, patience, and tenacity. Times like this make him grateful that he has two strong mates to lean on. And when it comes to understanding his own people, he’d be wise to follow Alex’s lead.
 
Alex has been too long away from her family and is thrilled to see them again. But with reunions come old pressures, old doubts, and old wounds. She must negotiate who she was with who she is, while helping her mates and her colony come together with the shared goal of freedom.
 
Mastrodai, meanwhile, finds himself in the minority for the first time in his life, and the constant hostility has him doubting the wisdom of their choices. But he’s devoted to his human mates and determined to see things through no matter the discomfort… or danger.
 
Not everyone wants what Leopold and his mates have to give, and he needs to break through the resistance humans have built up after generations of degradation, humiliation, and fear. He must win his people’s trust, solve the riddle of his parents’ rings, and navigate the new complexities of his love life.
 
Being an assassin was so much easier.
​

About M.D.:

M.D. Grimm has wanted to write stories since second grade (kind of young to make life decisions, but whatever) and nothing has changed since then (well, plenty of things actually, but not that!). Thankfully, she has indulgent parents who let her dream, but also made sure she understood she’d need a steady job to pay the bills (they never let her forget it!). After graduating from the University of Oregon and majoring in English, (let’s be honest: useless degree, what else was she going to do with it?) she started on her writing career and couldn’t be happier. Working by day and writing by night (or any spare time she can carve out), she enjoys embarking on romantic quests and daring adventures (living vicariously, you could say) and creating characters that always triumph against the villain, (or else what’s the point?) finding their soul mate in the process.
 
Author Website: https://www.mdgrimmwrites.com
Author Facebook (Personal): https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001710645622
Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4574220.M_D_GrimmAuthor
Liminal Fiction (LimFic.com): https://www.limfic.com/mbm-book-author/m-d-grimm/
Author QueeRomance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/m-d-grimm/
Author Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/M.D.-Grimm/e/B00I0KZMY6/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

A lot of authors do their year in review around this time with the general theme of "I felt like I didn't accomplish much, but, wow, look at all the things I did!" 

I would like to do that sort of wrap up, but, hmmm... I really didn't accomplish much. It's sort of a year that wasn't in many respects. Not all doom and gloom, though! There were some things!

My serialized fantasy Shadow Run (now Shadows' Hunt) wrapped up in June. Thirty-eight episodes and an epilogue - I hope to get Zie, Davitts and Essenin out in the world in novel form in 2023.

This was, I realized to my own rather enormous shock, my first serious high fantasy. I've written so much urban fantasy, but the only other high fantasy was fantasy humor. Huh. Odd that.

The fourth AURA novel came out in March - urban fantasy written with the lovely Bellora Quinn. So much fun to return to this world - I'd missed everyone, especially Kai. Yes, yes, I know he's not everyone's favorite, but he's mine. :D

Ryld's Shadows is in ebook, paperback, and we hope to see audio from the publisher coming up!

Most of my efforts went into the Variant Configurations series - and some of this was, indeed, difficult. The first book, Rarely Pure and Never Simple, needed serious, substantial rewrites and additions requiring the entire re-ordering of the plot, adjusting of character focus, and the whole ending was tossed out the window and rewritten.

Also, a beautiful new cover by the amazing Natasha Snow. :)

And finally, the second Variant Configurations book, From The Noblest Motives. The book that took ten years to write. To be accurate, I wrote the first chapter, hated it, and put it in the drawer for ten years. It took rewriting the first book to realize why I hated that first chapter and why I had to start over with an entirely different idea and direction. Hooray!

OK, so 2022 wasn't a year of lots of things. But there were some things! On to 2023. Yeesh. I'm still stuck in 2020 somewhere.

Hello, Friday! This week, I'm reading to you from Stephen J. Wolf's new fantasy, Kershin the Fire Mage. Uncontrolled magic anyone? Come have a listen :D

Kershin the Fire Mage
by Stephen J. Wolf

Amazon
Books2Read

How do you control a power you hate?
 
Kershin's attempts at a normal life have always been fruitless, but now he's sure he'll be cursed forever. After shunning his fire magic for years, he's now forced to either tame it himself or be tamed by a persistent mage hunter. The harder he tries, the worse the situation gets, and as he's hunted across the land, he leaves destruction in his wake.
 
Hessia has been scarred by a fire mage before, but she's determined to never be helpless again. On her mission to tame the destructive fire mage, she faces trials that shake her to her core. Trials that test her mettle, threaten her beliefs, and decimate the villages she's trying to protect. Will she fall prey to her own hunt?
 
The fire takes. The fire consumes. The fire kills.
 
These two know that very well. As they clash, they discover that the threats they face may be greater than either of them imagined.
​

About Stephen:

Stephen J. Wolf is a science teacher with a PhD in science education and a penchant for fantasy books, movies, and video games. Growing up, he loved learning how things worked. When he saw Mr. Wizard's World for the first time, he knew then that science was his place to be. From learning about how fireworks light up with different colors to understanding the mechanics of an acid-base reaction, chemistry and physics became his passion.
 
Stephen started writing in eighth grade when his English teacher challenged the class to craft three different scenes. One scene focused on a person. A second highlighted a location. And the third detailed an object. In the moment of the quick-fire writing prompts, Wolf linked all three tasks together and created his first short story. The following year he created his first novel, then expanded it to a trilogy, growing as a writer along the way.
 
Stephen lives in New York with his husband, Kevin, and their cats, Merlin and Monty.
 
Author Website: https://red-jade.com/
Author Facebook (Personal): https://www.facebook.com/firemages
Author Facebook (Author Page): https://www.facebook.com/StephenJWolfAuthor
Author Twitter: https://twitter.com/firemagekershin
Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/260634.Stephen_J_Wolf
Author Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Wolf/e/B017AVKJHU