Curious About My Other Books? 30% Off Our Gay Fairy Tales Through End of January! #ARe #sale #ebook #gay #mmromance

This was a wonderful fairy tale, witty and whimsical, sexy and silly, surprisingly touching at times, laugh-out-loud funny at others, and when the plot really got rolling, a complete page-turner. — Amelia Gormley’s review

30% off at ARe through the end of January! Click through to buy!
Cursed as an infant with a lack of physical and emotional gravity, Prince Efrosin can’t keep his feet on the ground or his head out of the clouds. Laughing his way through life, he’s never been weighed down by love and lust.
Then one fateful day, his tenuous tie to the earth is severed and he blows away on the wind. He’s rescued by Dmitri, a handsome young woodsman who suffers from a mysterious curse of his own, and the two strangers are irresistibly drawn together. Experiencing sex and love for the first time, they dive into a delightfully sensual and passionate affair.
But the evil witch who cursed them is planning her ultimate revenge. Efrosin and Dmitri must fight to find their fairy tale ending and live happily ever after.

Beautifully told with heartwarming and likeable characters that really live and breathe off of the written page, Ascending Hearts is a story not to be missed! If you are a fan of fantasy/fairytale romances then this book is definitely one to be considered. — Gabbi’s review

Get 30% off at ARe through the end of January! Click through to buy!
Rumors of treasure have long sent fortune hunters clambering up a magic beanstalk to a mysterious castle in the clouds. Survivors told of an evil giant who guards the gold with savage strength. No sane man would dare risk the climb—but Jack has nothing left to lose. Shunned for his evil red hair and abandoned by his cruel lover, he’s desperate to escape his life.
Rion isn’t a giant, only a man bearing the burden of protecting his family’s legacy. It’s a lonely existence, but he’s duty bound. Then Jack appears, and Rion’s world changes. After a blazing confrontation, undeniable lust sparks. Isolated in the clouds, Jack and Rion give in to their desire and growing connection. Soon they must protect the treasure—and each other—from a new threat. And they have everything to lose.
A Romantica® erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

This is the best rendition of the 12 dancing princesses fairy tale I’ve read. It’s very suspenseful and the storytelling is beautiful. [I’ts a] great romance with interesting characters. This is a must read for fairy tale lovers and those that like a hero struggling to get his love returned. — Cynthia’s review

30% off at ARe through the end of January! Click through to buy!
There’s no greater mystery in the kingdom than how Prince Mateo’s sisters wear out their shoes each night while locked away in their chambers. Using old magic, Mateo discovers their secret and follows them through a portal to an enchanted world of fairies and lusty delights. Ópalo has waited years for his male human, and he knows Mateo is his destiny. Mateo soon succumbs to the pleasures of the flesh, but as their worlds collide, Ópalo has to risk everything to win his man forever.

Sexy Fairytales for Christmas! #Free Bundle of #Gay Fairy Tales! #mmromance #mmerotica

Keira and I are giving away ALL THREE of our fairy tales over at Long and Short Reviews as part of their Winter Blogfest! So, hop on over there for your chance to win the three hot, sexy, magical tales below! And, like the banner says, there’s going to be a prize on every post until December 27, so click around at the Long and Short Reviews site to see what all you might have a chance to win!

There’s no greater mystery in the kingdom than how Prince Mateo’s sisters wear out their shoes each night while locked away in their chambers. Using old magic, Mateo discovers their secret and follows them through a portal to an enchanted world of fairies and lusty delights.
Fairy Prince Ópalo has waited years for his male human mate, and he knows Mateo is his destiny. But convincing Mateo of that is another story altogether.
Mateo soon succumbs to the pleasures of the flesh, but as their two very different worlds collide, Ópalo has to risk everything to win his man forever. Inspired by The Twelve Dancing Princesses.

Cursed as an infant with a lack of physical and emotional gravity, Prince Efrosin can’t keep his feet on the ground or his head out of the clouds. Laughing his way through life, he’s never been weighed down by love and lust.
Then one fateful day, his tenuous tie to the earth is severed and he blows away on the wind. He’s rescued by Dmitri, a handsome young woodsman who suffers from a mysterious curse of his own, and the two strangers are irresistibly drawn together. Experiencing sex and love for the first time, they dive into a delightfully sensual and passionate affair.
But the evil witch who cursed them is planning her ultimate revenge. Efrosin and Dmitri must fight to find their fairy tale ending and live happily ever after.
Inspired by The Light Princess.

Rumors of treasure have long sent fortune hunters clambering up a magic beanstalk to a mysterious castle in the clouds. Survivors told of an evil giant who guards the gold with savage strength. No sane man would dare risk the climb—but Jack has nothing left to lose. Shunned for his evil red hair and abandoned by his cruel lover, he’s desperate to escape his life.
Rion isn’t a giant—only a man bearing the burden of protecting his family’s legacy. It’s a lonely existence, but he’s duty bound. Then Jack appears, and Rion’s world changes. After a blazing confrontation, an undeniable lust sparks. Isolated in the clouds, Jack and Rion give in to their lust and growing connection. Soon they must protect the treasure—and each other—from a new threat. And they have everything to lose. Inspired by Jack & the Beanstalk.

Tempting Tales 1 and 2! More Sexy Fairy Tales! #gay #fairytales

If you enjoyed Keira’s and my latest book, Love’s Nest, don’t forget to check out the other gay fairy tales we’ve written! 🙂

Click through to buy at Amazon!

Click through to buy at Amazon!

Twelve Dancing Princesses #nails #polish

Twelve Dancing Princesses inspired nails by fishing4beauty.

I love how many people are inspired in so many different ways by fairy tales. This could probably be a Fanworks Friday installment, but I decided to put it up separately.

From fishing4beauty’s website:

This challenge was basically to recreate a manicure of another participant. This was such a difficult challenge. The manicures were all so amazing and well executed that I was intimidated to recreate any of them. However, when I saw the manicure created for Day 4 (Lights, Camera, Action!) by The Polished Squirrel I new that this was the one I wanted to attempt. Stephanie was inspired by the classic fairy tale The Twelve Dancing Princesses.

The trees of silver, gold, and diamond are definitely one of my favorite aspects of the tale, so Keira and I kept that part of the story true to form in our retelling, Love’s Nest, despite the many other changes we made to the book.

Once Upon a Time: Exploring the Creative Life #fairytale #allegory

The other week, I was over at Skylar M. Cate’s blog talking about The Twelve Dancing Princesses talking about my and Keira Andrews’s new book, Love’s Nest, but also babbling about the allegory of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, and the creative life, and the door to a magic kingdom in our bedrooms, and I WASN’T EVEN DRUNK! Check it out!

Once Upon a Time: Exploring the Creative Life

We Need Worlds Free of Prejudice to Play In #trockadero #ballet #fairytales #mmromance #kindle

The beautiful swan.

In June, I was lucky enough to see the male ballet corps, Trockadero de Monte Carlo. To quote a YouTube user named MozartGirl1756: The Trocks are trying to tell the world that you don’t need to have giant sticks up your ass, noses up in the air and serious for it to be this to be wonderful art form. They’re all amazing and talented dancers who are doing what they love, doing it beautifully AND showing us that ballet isn’t a stuffy form of entertainment.

What I found most amazing about seeing them was how, yes, as you’ll hear in the videos below, there was always a bit of laughter and comedy, but there were also times when the audience would go so still and quiet, emotionally absorbed by the beautiful dancing and the story playing out before them.

Here is a beautiful video of Swan Lake as performed by Trockadero de Monte Carlo:

Another video:

Seeing them, I was reminded of the Chorus Line song, “At the Ballet”, because, yes, everyone is beautiful at the ballet, every prince must have his swan, and the fact that the dancers are male and covered in chest and armpit hair make them no less beautiful. It was a real treat and I’d like to thank my friend, Pun, for taking me to the show.

Today I’m OVER HERE talking more about Trockadero de Monte Carlo, ballets, and how fairy tales and certain other stories can provide us with a world free of difficult, realistic baggage so that we can explore emotional touchstones in a more open-minded, open-hearted way.

Wow, that sounds super wanky. Go read and let me know if it’s wanky as it sounds. LOL!

As a reminder, Love’s Nest is available on Amazon now. Barnes & Noble and Sony are coming soon! It’s also up on Goodreads where you can mark it as “wanna read” or rate it if you’ve read it already! Hooray!

Release Day! Wed, July 17!

Here we go, babies! Everyone who is always coming to this blog looking for “sex with fairies” (yes, I see you in my stats! 14 to 20 of you a day!) are in for a treat! The next book is about…dun, dun, dun! Fairies! And, yes, sex is had with the fairies! Whoot! 🙂

Cover by Dar Albert.

The blurb:

Part of the Tempting Tales series
There’s no greater mystery in the kingdom than how Prince Mateo’s sisters wear out their shoes each night while locked away in their chambers. Using old magic, Mateo discovers their secret and follows them through a portal to an enchanted world of fairies and lusty delights. Ópalo has waited years for his male human, and he knows Mateo is his destiny. Mateo soon succumbs to the pleasures of the flesh, but as their worlds collide, Ópalo has to risk everything to win his man forever.

A Romantica® male/male erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

This story is based on The Twelve Dancing Princesses, but has an entirely different feel, and not just because of the fact that it has two heroes. We have been notified that this upcoming Wednesday, July 17, will be the day, folks! So check back then to find out more!

The Inspiration

In the past, I’ve almost always been most inspired by music and I tend to write while listening to a specific playlist. When suffering from the occasional writer’s block, music has most often been the source of breaking the inspiration free again, providing me with solutions to the problems, and setting me off on another rush of creativity.

Recently, though, I’ve found another source of input very inspiring. Photographs. As most artists have been doing of late, I’ve started making Pinterest boards that correspond with my writing. It has become a huge source of inspiration for me, though, unlike music, the boards don’t seem to help me problem-solve, but merely help me visualize how I want to describe things and people, and to help establish the atmosphere and vibe of the story.

As an example, working on a recent fairy tale for our series, Tempting Tales with Ellora’s Cave, I found the following image incredibly inspirational, even if this castle and these swans don’t appear at all in the story. It was the magical, fairyland, unreal atmosphere that I wanted to capture.

I’ve got pin boards for Fairy Tales in general, boards for specific stories like Spanish Dancing Shoes and The Frog Prince, and boards for random and currently unplaceable inspiration.

From the Spanish Dancing Shoes board.

A potential future protagonist from the Inspiration board.

If this isn’t inspiring, I don’t know what is.

From the Frog Prince board.

Feel free to follow me at Pinterest and get a glimpse of the beautiful things I’m using to juice up my inspiration, or, heck, just for some pretty pictures.

Announcing a New Series and a New Book

I’m excited to be able to finally announce some very exciting (to me) news! Keira Andrews and I are co-writing a new series of books–Tempting Tales–for Ellora’s Cave. Last fall I did some editing work for Keira on her latest novel, The Chimera Affair, and we enjoyed working with each other so much that we decided to team up on a new line of erotic m/m novellas inspired by fairy and folk tales.

Our vision is that the original legends are a jumping-off point for stories that will take on a life of their own and not merely be the same tales with two male protagonists instead of princesses and damsels. Our tales will not be modernized, but in keeping with the fairy tale tone and style. Some will be whimsical and light, while others darker. All will feature smokin’ hot man sex and happily ever afters.

Just in case you were wondering, this is what I look like when I’m writing. It’s very glamorous.

We’re excited to let you know that the first book in this series will be released soon. The novella is titled “Earthly Desires“, and it is based on the Scottish tale of “The Light Princess”, made famous by George MacDonald. More information will be forthcoming and we’re looking forward to sharing more with you as soon as we have more information on when the book will be available. In the meantime, I’m excited to be able to share the cover (by the wonderful Kendra Egert) with you now!

Keira and I are very inspired by this concept and excited about the series. We can’t wait to bring you more books with fairy and folk tale themes in the future, and we hope you’ll come along to fairyland with us!

What’s your favourite fairy tale? Let us know!

Reading: Brave New Love: 15 Dystopian Tales of Desire

Recently I’ve been on a book bender. Unlike an alcohol bender, where you end up saying all kinds of shit you wish you hadn’t, slurring your words, pointing your finger when you talk, and sometimes puking up your guts, a book bender is more like a calorie-less version of grabbing handfuls of cake and shoving it in your mouth, careless of how it smears on your cheeks and into your eyelashes. Nom, nom, nom, boooooooks! Must consume more boooooooks! Yummy books, with yummy words, oh, God, feed more more!

Give me more!

My book bender began when I was down with a pneumonia/mono double whammy and completely high on some codeine cough syrup that my doctor prescribed for me. All I can say about that stuff is that there were several times I found myself thinking, “Damn good thing that I’m not an addict, because this codeine stuff is the bomb.” I also managed to do things on this cough syrup like get a massive, huge bruise on the top of my foot that was extremely painful and very ugly, with absolutely no memory of doing something to cause it. I also apparently ordered ten Kindle books, and nine actual paper books while doped up on.

I’m not being monogamous at all during my book bender, and I’ve been smashing my face into the pages of books both digital and paper with almost no discrimination lately – Greek myths, fairy tales of Russia, Ireland, England, and Romania, a book about the brothers Grimm, still reading Deathless, still crazy about The Book of Imaginary Beings, and I also picked up a wonderful Adrienne Rich volume of poetry with a poem on page one that packs quite a punch. Nom nom nom, words! Give ’em to me!

Imagine the goddess in this picture is me, and that the puppies are books, and that rather than sitting peacefully with them, I’m devouring them madly, smearing their bookliness all over my face and hands.

One of the books I codeine-ordered from Amazon, I have no recollection of ordering at all, to the point that I half suspect that they just stuffed it into my Amazon box and charged me for it for fun because they psychically knew that I was high on codeine when I placed the rest of my order. The name of that one is Brave New Love: 15 Dystopian Tales of Desire edited by Paula Guran. I have a vague, very fuzzy recollection of thinking to myself, “You know, you should really learn to curtail your words. Your word counts are too high. You should take a crash course in short fiction. Buy a bunch of short stories!” Perhaps this book came from that train of thought? Regardless, I own it now, and in the midst of my book bender, I started smashing the book to my face (symbolically; I don’t need to give myself a black eye from book-love) and nom nom noming on it in tiny snatches of time over the last week.

I can’t say that the entire book is delicious, but of the two stories I’ve read so far, one is fairly good, and the other was really quite fantastic.

I’ll start with the fairly good and move on to the quite fantastic.

The first was Beserker Eyes by Maria V. Snyder. Set in a future where gene tweaking has left some with a ‘beserker’ gene, teens are held in what amount to prisons until it is determined whether or not they are a risk to society. All in all, the story was engaging enough. Though, I’m assuming in order to meet a short story word-count, there did seem to be some rather sweeping violations of ‘show don’t tell’. I felt that it ended abruptly, and I thought that it made a better beginning to a longer novel than a short story. Perhaps Ms. Snyder will want to explore this universe more. I think that a longer, full-fledged novel that dealt with the events of the short story and the aftermath would be worth reading. Then again, I’m not familiar with her writing, and perhaps she already has done something larger with this concept. Or maybe this was just something she needed to get out, and for her it ended where, to me as a reader, it should have began.

The second story was Foundlings by Diana Peterfreund. In a world where the ‘birther’ movement has gone too far, teenage girls are taken in as soon as they are discovered to be pregnant – ‘for their own good’ and to mitigate risk to the unborn child. In a few short pages, Peterfreund introduces us to this world in a way that is organic, natural, and mostly believable. The relationships between the three characters are compelling and by the end of the short story, I was invested in all of them, proud of all of them, and emotionally moved by all of three of them. It really is a very beautiful story, and I anticipate that I’ll read it again.

I’ll let you know as I continue to read like a glutton if there are other stories in this anthology that might make it worth the cover price. As it is, I don’t regret my codeine purchase. Not at all.

ETA: I have since read The Salt Sea and the Sky by Elizabeth Bear. It was another situation where I felt like the short story was actually the beginning of something more. It was well written and I was curious about the characters, but at the end I was much more interested in what might happen next than in what had actually transpired so far. Still, it was well-written enough to make me look up Elizabeth Bear on Amazon, and I found that she is the co-author of the wolf books that I heard so much about a few years back. I went ahead and bough the first wolf book for my kindle and am pondering buying one of the Promethean Age books, but the $18.99 for the Kindle edition ($24.00 for the paperback) is a bit steep, especially given the book bender I’ve been on, I probably should wait. The wolf book was at least more reasonably priced.