“Go ahead and start getting excited about this.” Katie, Back Porch Reader
“An amazing story that I couldn’t put down!” Jaime, Alpha Book Club
“Five freakin’ awesome stars. Wow, Leta, you have outdone yourself.” Jewel, My Fiction Nook
“I couldn’t put this book down. I absolutely loved it.” Tracy, Bayou Book Junkie
“What a book! It consumed me from start to finish.” Amy, Goodreads Librarian/Reader
***
Growing up gay isn’t easy. Growing up gay in Knoxville, Tennessee is even harder.
Eighteen-year-old Peter Mandel, a private school senior—class of 1991—is passionate about photography. Peter doesn’t have many friends, preferring to shoot pictures from behind the scenes to keep his homosexuality secret.
Enter Adam Algedi, a charming, worldly new guy who doesn’t do labels, but does want to do Peter. Hardly able to believe gorgeous Adam would want geeky, skinny him of all people, Peter’s swept away on a journey of first love and sexual discovery. But as their mutual web of lies spins tighter and tighter, can Peter find the confidence he needs to make the right choices? And will his crush on Daniel, a college acquaintance, open a new path?
Join Peter in the first book of this four-part coming of age series as he struggles to love and be loved, and grow into a gay man worthy of his own respect.
This new series by Leta Blake is gay fiction with romantic elements.
Book 1 of 4.
These books contain aspects of: New Adult fiction, ‘90s gay life, small city homosexual experiences, Southern biases, sexual exploration, romance, homophobia, bisexuality, and twisted-up young love. Oh, and a guaranteed happy ending for the main character by the end of Book 4.
What to expect from the ‘90s Coming of Age series by Leta Blake? Is this series for me?
Hello, readers! I’m thrilled to announce a new four book series to be released beginning in September 2016 and ending in April 2017.
Set in Knoxville, TN, during 1990-1992 and focusing on the life and loves of one character, Peter Mandel, this series has lived in my heart and mind for the last fourteen years. It’s finally ready to be released into the world and, let me tell you, this character is near and dear to me. I’ve long called him the character of my heart and so he will be forever.
I wanted to provide some clarity, though, on what you as a reader can expect from this group of books. There are a few things these books are not and many things that they are.
First, these books are NOT ROMANCE GENRE BOOKS. While I adore romance books and plan to write many more in my life, and while there is quite a lot of sex and romance within the storyline of the ‘90s Coming of Age series, it does not qualify for the romance label for several reasons.
Most importantly, it doesn’t hit the anticipated romance storytelling beats. In any given romance book, an individual reader can be relatively sure of a few certainties in terms of the story. While I guarantee no main character death, many other ‘rules’ of romance are not held to and therefore I can’t guarantee a reader a romance genre reading experience.
So what kind of book series is it then, Leta?
It most fits a Coming of Age description, hence the series title. Peter is young, only eighteen when we meet him, and on a journey of self-discovery. He wants to love and be loved, he wants to be true to himself, and he doesn’t always make good choices. In fact, if a bad choice can be made? Peter’s right there making it. But usually with the best of intentions, even if sometimes those intentions are selfish ones.
What can I expect from this series, then?
You can expect to find:
a cast of characters advance readers have called achingly real
new adult levels of sexual interactions
teenage angst and twisted love
a portrayal of the Knoxville, TN I remember from my late teens and early twenties
music references from the time period
an exploration of how the best intentions can lead to painful situations
so much more
I’m so excited (and slightly lightheaded) to finally be able to introduce you all to Peter. I’m hoping that this blog post will allow you to determine if these are books for you. I understand if they aren’t and I’m so grateful if they are.
It’s a journey. And Peter’s worth following on it (in my humble opinion) and I hope you come with us.
Thanks for your readership past, present, and into the future! You make this career possible and I can’t thank you enough.
Growing up gay isn’t easy. Growing up gay in Knoxville, Tennessee is even harder.
Eighteen-year-old Peter Mandel, a private school senior—class of 1990—is passionate about photography. Peter doesn’t have many friends, preferring to shoot pictures from behind the scenes to keep his homosexuality secret.
Enter Adam Algedi, a charming, worldly new guy who doesn’t do labels, but does want to do Peter. Hardly able to believe gorgeous Adam would want geeky, skinny him of all people, Peter’s swept away on a journey of first love and sexual discovery. But as their mutual web of lies spins tighter and tighter, can Peter find the confidence he needs to make the right choices? And will his crush on Daniel, a college acquaintance, open a new path?
Join Peter in the first of this four-part coming of age series as he struggles to love and be loved, and grow into a gay man worthy of his own respect.
This new series by Leta Blake is gay fiction with romantic elements.
Book 1 of 4.
Warning! These books contain aspects of: New Adult fiction, ‘90s gay life, small city homosexual experiences, Southern biases, sexual exploration, romance, homophobia, bisexuality, and twisted-up young love. Oh, and a guaranteed happy ending for the main character by the end of Book 4.
“This book had me reeling basically from the beginning. I couldn’t put it down. The tension and true love between these men left me hurting and yearning for them. There pain and hurt but also peace and hope and love. I just loved this book so much. Like I said these authors made magic with this story. It’s an absolute must read!”
“224 authors, review bloggers, and publishers have got together to offer something wonderful: a reward for people who do a little bit to give back to charity. Instead of spending $5 on a book in the next two weeks, give that $5 to an LGBT charity of your choice, tell us about it in the comments, and go into the draw to win a book from one of our participating donors. And because it’s not all about money, if you can’t make a donation then please take a moment to share a charity’s links and tell us about that instead.
Three fundraisers have been set up to counter the hateful effects of Indiana’s SB 101. #Pizza4Equality is aiming to match the money raised by *that* pizza parlor, with all donations going to Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors Fund. Another fundraiser is aiming to raise $100,000 for Indiana Youth Group. Finally, Planting Peace is trying to raise $100,000 to provide beds for homeless LGBT people.
Please consider giving to one of these deserving fundraisers, or any other LGBT charity anywhere in the world. We’re not telling you where you should donate your time and money, only asking that you do. The smallest things can make the biggest difference, and together, we can do something incredible.”
Find out more at Diverse Reader! You can register to win! So many authors! So many books! Let’s do something together for change!
I am so thrilled to present the cover for my next book Smoky Mountain Dreams. This gorgeous cover is the creation of Dar Albert at Wicked Smart Designs and I think she has once again outdone herself!
Smoky Mountain Dreams will be released to the wild on November 18, 2014. It’s a story that I started about four years ago and then set aside in favor of working on some other books. My dear friend Alice Springs, who had read the initial 20% of the first draft, asked out of the blue last spring when I was going to finish this book because, “I’ve never read a gay romance like that one and I loved it so much.” Cue me pulling up the unfinished manuscript, reading it over, and deciding, “You know what, friend? I think now is your time.” And so it is. Thank you, Alice, for reminding me to love this book. You’re the best.
Sometimes holding on means letting go Christopher Ryder and Jesse Birch are two men hanging on to the past. While Christopher has let go of his failure as a country singer in Nashville, he’s still trying to please his narrow-minded, non-accepting family. His beloved Gran loves him the way he is, but Christopher feels painfully invisible to everyone else. He’s happy enough performing at the Smoky Mountain Dreams theme park in Tennessee, but even when Christopher is center stage he aches for someone to see the real him. There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to bisexual Jesse. He’s raising two kids and fighting with family after a tragic accident took his children’s mother. There’s no room in his life for dating, his kids are his priority, and he doesn’t want more than an occasional hook-up. He sure as hell doesn’t want to fall hard for his favorite local singer, but when Christopher walks into his jewelry studio, Jesse hears a new song in his heart. Find out more on Goodreads.
I am finding myself absolutely fascinated by the reaction some readers have to certain things in The River Leith. I decided I’d blog about it, but I wanted to state upfront that I’m not arguing that these readers are wrong or that they shouldn’t feel as they do, I’m just explaining my own thinking and my own surprise.
BEYOND THIS POINT ARE SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS!! Read only if you are okay with being SPOILED!!
This quote just speaks volumes, doesn’t it? It reeks of misogyny. Read the whole article. It’s worth it.
I’m with this guy. Go fuck yourselves, homophobic misogynists.Training Season can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, ARe, and Smashwords. And also on iBooks. Unquestionably talented figure skater Matty Marcus is willing to sacrifice everything for his Olympic dream, but his lack of discipline cost him the gold once before. Now the pressure’s on. He needs a coach who can keep him in line, but top coaches don’t come cheap, and Matty can’t afford to stay in the game no matter how badly he wants to win. When a lucrative house-sitting gig brings him to rural Montana, Matty does his best to maintain his training regimen. Local residents turn out to be surprisingly tolerant of his flamboyant style, especially handsome young rancher Rob Lovely, who proves to be much more than a cowboy stereotype. Just as Matty requires a firm hand to perform his best on the ice, Rob shows him how strong he can be when he relinquishes control in the bedroom. With new-found self-assurance, he drives himself harder to go straight to the top. But competition has a timetable, and to achieve his Olympic dream, Matty will have to join his new coach in New York City, leaving Rob behind. Now he must face the ultimate test. Has he truly learned how to win—on and off the ice—during his training season?
I wanted to write about some of my deep thoughts on make-up and simply don’t have the brain power for it today. It’s all convoluted and involves all kinds of connected topics such as trans*women, the covering up of “blemishes” or scars, and my own experience with a changing face.
Aw, hell, let’s try for it anyway. Okay, here we go.
Basically, I wanted to talk about what’s real and what’s “not real” and ask us all to ponder some questions about that distinction. Let’s talk about me and my rosacea for a moment. A few months back, I realized that when I manage to successfully cover the redness up with make-up, I felt better about going out in public. I felt less ashamed to be seen and more secure. When I got stared at, I thought to myself, “Today they’re looking at me because they think I’m attractive, not because I look like a splotchy-faced clown.”
However, I also found myself dismissing these stares and any compliments on my appearance because I didn’t feel like it was “real”. I found myself thinking things like, “If they only knew how bad my skin really looks under this make-up, they wouldn’t be saying that.” So, that led me to wonder how make-up does or does not play into a trans*woman’s experience of feeling “real”. And what does it mean to women in general if they’re taught to feel most attractive by applying something foreign to the base version of the “real” them?
BUT those thoughts are a month or so old now and while they still apply, another experience has interceded and changed the flavor of them. In the last month, I’ve decided/realized a few important things:
a) due to her genes, my daughter is likely to have pretty severe acne in her teenage years. Her father had it and, physically, she is his mini-me. I realized that would be hard on her at that vulnerable time in her life, and in a massive, huge, wow-life-changing epiphany, I realized I didn’t want to model for her an obsession with my own skin. I didn’t want her to see me fretting about how it looked, or feeling ashamed of it, or complaining that I felt unattractive. Which, I’m ashamed to admit, she definitely has overheard many times in the past. I wanted to start modeling a behavior for her that makes it known that what her face looks like is so much less important than WHO SHE IS. So, I’ve stopped talking about my face. Ever.
b) I decided on a whim to not shave my legs again until the hair has entirely grown out. I realized that I’ll be forty this year and I’ve never really seen my body as it naturally looks because I’ve spent my entire life, since I was nine years old and started puberty early, shaving and making it out like my body is something that needs fixed.
When my eight year old started asking when she could shave and I found myself struggling to explain why she couldn’t yet and what exactly “you don’t need to” means (because who NEEDS to? we aren’t going to die if we don’t shave) I chose to do this “no more shaving” experiment. I’ll cop to the fact that I am still shaving my armpits because I don’t like how hair feels under there. I let it grow pretty long but it was bugging me, so I shaved it. My leg hair is not bugging me, though, so I’m going to keep letting it grow.
I might shave again when I’m done and I might not. It all depends on how I feel at that time and if it’s something that I want to do. I admit I’ll probably want to shave for bathing suit season. The social issues alone are something I’m not sure I want to deal with, but I’ll need to give that some thought, too.
c) By choosing to not talk about my face, or allow myself to even act like the rosacea is bothering me, and by choosing to let my body be natural in terms of the hair on my legs, I’ve discovered that I am much more interested in who I AM than in what I look like. And that realization has made me see how many years and how many hours I’ve lost being distracted with concerns about what I look like. I can’t fathom that men lose even a quarter as much time on that same question. The requirements for men are so much less time consuming and don’t boil down to these tiny nuances like the shape of their eyebrows or if their pubes are properly trimmed. When my husband wants to go swimming, he puts on a bathing suit and goes. When I want to go swimming, I have to tame a forest first. It’s exhausting and, frankly, makes me say no to swimming a lot more often than it makes me say yes.
Since I’ve stopped focusing on my rosacea and stopped shaving, my husband’s sexual interest in me doesn’t seem to have waned and may have even grown. Not because he gets off on hairy legs (which would be fine, but he doesn’t), but because I think I’m a lot less anxious and a lot more willing to just let it all go in the moment, which is, of course, a lot more fun all around. No more, “Sorry, I didn’t shave….” comments. Or turn-off conversations consisting of, “Why is my face so bad? I didn’t eat any corn. It’s so ugly.” Instead, it’s just me being me and me not apologizing for stupid shit like hairy legs.
So, yeah, so far it’s all been a big success and while I can’t say that I feel awesome about how I LOOK, what I can say is that I think about how I look a lot less, and that’s AWESOME.
If I have the inner strength not to shave and wear what I want…I have the strength and mental fortitude to do anything – L Kaur
Just think of the insults most prevalent in sports – male athletes berate each other by slinging words and phrases associated with femininity. From the elementary school playground to Madison Square Garden, men routinely call each other “sissy,” “wuss” and “pussy” or tell each other, “you throw (or run) like a girl.” Belittling a female athlete is to call her “butch,” “manly” or a “beast.” The Frozen Closet – Newsweek.
I think it’s important to look at the underlying message behind these insults. I don’t think they are actually all that similar for men and women. The first set of comments has a much more global impact. For a male to be called effeminate, told they are a pussy, or a sissy, or told that they do anything “like a girl” impacts their masculinity. And in our society/world masculinity is linked with value as a whole person. Calling a woman “butch” or “manly” or “beast” is insulting, because it says that they aren’t a woman. But the real message behind not being a woman is…you’re not sexually attractive or pretty. Or, basically, I wouldn’t want to fuck you.
So, the message to men who show any kind of perceived feminine quality is “you, as a whole person, fail to live up to masculine standards”. The message to girls is “you’re not fuckable/marriagable”. The message to gender non-conforming males is all encompassing. The message to gender non-conforming females is less so. The implication is that they can still be good at what they’re doing. They can still be an awesome athlete, still be smart, funny, etc, but they’re just not fuckable. (And in a world where women are told from infancy that the most important thing they can be is fuckable, that’s a big deal, don’t get me wrong!) But effeminate men are basically told that they are something so much “less than” they “should” be. And what is that less than thing? Something resembling the always-and-obviously unworthy female. Putting females of any stripe at the bottom of the totem pole and only of value if they’re sexually viable for the straight men of the world.
Who has it worse? It’s hard to say. A woman is immediately at an eternal disadvantage by virtue of her femaleness and the fact that being female isn’t valued. A man, assuming he can “butch up” enough to pass muster in the world, is going to be head and shoulders above any woman in the world (heterosexual or not) simply because he’s a man (gay or not). But a man who is being targeted as too effeminate has it pretty bad, too. But the reason it is so bad is because their masculinity is being questioned. And masculinity is the definition of power and prestige and privilege in the world. If women weren’t seen as such a terrible thing to be compared to, if softness, artistry, gracefulness wasn’t seen as “woman’s work”, and if the words that mean “woman” weren’t used as insults, then there wouldn’t be this problem at all. If the things that are perceived as feminine were valued in the world then exhibiting non-masculine behaviors wouldn’t be problematic at all in our society.
Regardless, I feel like the quality of the insults are different. One is reducing a person who could have full privileges of masculine humanity down closer to the level that women already occupy. And the other is an attempt to strip the already low-on-the-totem-pole woman of her sole power–sexual attraction. Interestingly, though, I see that as much less worrisome or problematic, because if a woman is stripped of that power, but allowed to take on more privilege because of being stripped of it (acknowledged as strong, athletic, smart, etc) then it might not be that terrible of an insult. It’s still sickening that our world mainly values women for how much straight men want to put their dicks in them, but being called “butch” or “beast” might actually free a woman up to become so much more than a sex object.
(Though so long as society, and this includes other women, mostly value females on their sexual viability, it’s bound to make a woman feel bad about herself. BUT–and this is a huge but–the fact is that’s not what’s important about women at all, and learning to love a body that is athletic or capable, despite not being the world’s ideal of sexy, is hugely valuable.)
On the other side of the issue, taking a man’s masculinity, wadding it up, and tossing it away due to a perception of femininity in his interests or behaviors, reduces him from a place of human male privilege he was born into, and that reinforces not only homophobia but misogyny as well. There doesn’t seem to be anything freeing for anyone in that. Well, I take that back. It could be freeing if the man in question chooses to step outside of society and to value the feminine in himself and in others.
I think I’m rambling now. My main point was that the two types of insults have different end results. One involves the whole of a person’s being, and the other targets sexual attraction because THAT is already deemed the only thing valuable about that person because she’s female. But they are not actually the same thing at all.
Training Season can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, ARe, and Smashwords. And also on iBooks. Unquestionably talented figure skater Matty Marcus is willing to sacrifice everything for his Olympic dream, but his lack of discipline cost him the gold once before. Now the pressure’s on. He needs a coach who can keep him in line, but top coaches don’t come cheap, and Matty can’t afford to stay in the game no matter how badly he wants to win. When a lucrative house-sitting gig brings him to rural Montana, Matty does his best to maintain his training regimen. Local residents turn out to be surprisingly tolerant of his flamboyant style, especially handsome young rancher Rob Lovely, who proves to be much more than a cowboy stereotype. Just as Matty requires a firm hand to perform his best on the ice, Rob shows him how strong he can be when he relinquishes control in the bedroom. With new-found self-assurance, he drives himself harder to go straight to the top. But competition has a timetable, and to achieve his Olympic dream, Matty will have to join his new coach in New York City, leaving Rob behind. Now he must face the ultimate test. Has he truly learned how to win—on and off the ice—during his training season?
This outlines how it works really well. In fact, you could build a villain from this outline, fellow authors. It’s sadly a very realistic starting point.
Leta Blake 