So I have a thing about series…you knew that right? I write them. I read them. I love them. The latest in my reading adventures started out simply enough, read a short story by Mia Watts about two cops, partners who have a little too much beer and do something two straight guys would never do. Bad Boys, Bad Boys turns out to be the first in the Boys in Blue series and when I discovered that the heroes of Bad Boys, Bad Boys were in another longer story I had to have it.

These first two books in the series (at least I hope this is only the beginning and not the sum total) are about Geo Wilson and Mack Sullivan, two detectives who’ve been partners for several years. Bad Boys, Bad Boys, as I said, is a short story. In it, we meet the two cops tying one on. Or rather, Geo is tying one on while remembering all the erotic dreams he’s had lately about about his partner Mack. Both Geo and Mack are straight with a long history of women in their pasts. Still, something’s happened recently inside Geo and his dreams are filled with lust for Mack. When his inebriation leads him to kiss Mack, it’s a domino that begins to drop a lot of other dominoes and inhibitions in succession.

Mack questions himself and his reaction to the kiss as he drives Geo home. His cock obviously liked it. And Mack finds himself filled with confusion mixed with a reluctant lust. At Geo’s house, things escalate as Mack tries to get Geo into bed so he can sleep off the drunk. Instead, Geo yanks down Mack’s pants revealing a hard cock that Geo instantly goes for. The resultant blow job blows the doors off of Mack.

Of course, Geo doesn’t remember it except in snatches after Mack confesses what happened. Mack acts like he wants to forget it, but Geo isn’t afraid to turn his back on what happened.  The rest of the short is about Geo chasing Mack. Not literally so much as figuratively. He wants to pursue the attraction and Mack is filled with denial and trepidation not to mention confusion. Through it all, Geo shines brightly as a man who isn’t into lying to himself or others. His attraction for his partner isn’t something he’s willing to compromise on. He wants Mack and he wants Mack to acknowledge that he wants Geo too.

The HFN leaves lots of questions in the reader’s mind. And it leaves this story open for author Mia Watts to return to it. Luckily for the reader, she does revisit Geo and Mack a year later in Reasonable Doubt. In the last year, the two men have grown closer and are now living together. They are in a committed relationship albeit a relationship that’s in the closet. They love each other and are at the stage where they express that freely. However, each man has doubts, albeit about different things.

Reasonable Doubt takes Geo and Mack’s relationship and adds a huge bump in the road to their HEA. First, there’s Geo’s ex, an FBI agent who walked out on him and never looked back. Then, there’s her partner, a snarky twink with a crush on Mack.  Geo allows Lauren to crawl all over him, thinking that Mack’s jealousy is a good thing because it means Mack loves him. Mack pushes Geo away and right at Lauren, thinking that if they had something commitment worthy, Geo wouldn’t let her touch him. At cross purposes, their relationship deteriorates into arguments and unhappiness. It’s not until Andy the twink FBI agent points out to Mack that he’s not much of a man to let a woman take his man away.

When Mack explodes out of his broody, sullen behavior and lays it all on the line, Geo instantly pushes away his ex and comes clean to Mack about his feelings. Their case escalates and comes to a close as Geo and Mack talk commitment and bring their relationship out into the open.

The longer story this time around gives the reader a more complete picture of Geo and Mack, their relationship and their emotions. Sure, there’s hot sex too, but it’s the emotions that I always look for in a book. Personally, I could have stood to have more emotion and description in the sex scenes. I like lots of internal thought about what they are feeling as well as how the sex itself feels. However, while Watts only delivers that at a what I’d call a basic level (she describes the acts themselves sparingly), she does make up for it in two ways. One, she has a way with sexual tension that will make your panties wet. And two, she’ll capture you with a sparkling dialog that shows the depth of the emotion between the two men. Sure, I was rooting for more hot descriptives, but I love good dialog and Mia Watts is great at it.

I’m not sure if there will be other books and if there are, if they will be about other couples or a return to Geo and Mack.  I’d sure like to see more of Geo and Mack. There seems to be more to their story than we’ve seen thus far. Maybe in future installments they’ll only be secondary characters, but still, more Mack and Geo is only a good thing.

I give Bad Boys, Bad Boys, a 4.5 and the longer, hotter Reasonable Doubt gets 4.75 which gives this series (at this point anyway) 4.75 Valentines.

4.5 Valentines

Bad Boys, Bad Boys: Boys in Blue Book 1

Total e-Bound

Short Story

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Blurb:

What you gonna do when they cum for you? A police force partner submits to his desire while under the influence of alcohol. But since neither of the men are gay, what do they do with their lurking lust?

Geo Wilson has been partnered to Mack for three years. Sharing the same muscular build, dark hair, and olive complexion, they’ve been dubbed ‘the twins’ by the department. But lately Geo’s dreams have taken an erotic twist to centre around Mack.

Mack values his friendship with Geo, would give his life for the man. Then one night Geo has a few too many beers and plants a kiss on him, he can’t forget. He might have been able to pass it off as beer-haze except in helping Geo get back to his apartment, Mack is taken off guard by Geo’s tackle and a mind-numbing blow job.

Now the partnership has to redefine itself while the criminal world continues around them. They could lose their badges, or lose each other.

4.75 Valentines

Reasonable Doubt: Boys in Blue Book 2

Total eBound

Novella

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Blurb:

Geo and Mack have faced a lot of problems, but when the problem is within their relationship, will Mack come clean and claim his man, or lose him to an old flame?

Geo Wilson’s feelings for his partner Mack Sullivan run deep. But formerly straight Mack grows distant when Geo’s old flame, a former female detective gone FBI, comes to town to take over the lead on their case. Geo makes no effort to discourage the woman, and Mack wonders if he missed the break up memo.

Geo’s apparent rejection hurts and Mack begins to have reasonable doubts about where they stand.

For Mack, taking the next step is a huge risk and one Geo has never taken before. Geo’s friendliness with the former girlfriend could be a sign of changing affection. It wouldn’t be the first time Geo has left a broken heart in his wake and Mack’s beginning to wonder if he’s just become another notch in Geo’s belt. All that’s left now is the case and as it comes to a close, will Mack and Geo catch the killer only to lose each other?

Boys in Blue is a post from: Lex Valentine

First, let me welcome you to Lex’s world of wild writing adventures! Well, maybe not too wild and adventuresome unless you count the fact I write about vampires, dragons, werewolves and other creatures.  Your last stop on this blog tour should have been #12 Kate Richards at http://katerichards.wordpress.com/ and I’m the 13th stop.  To be entered to win prizes on this tour, you need to start at 1RomanceEbooks.com and REGISTER. The grand prize is a Sony eBook reader and there are lots of other prizes as well so make sure you register, visit all the stops on the tour, and comment! The more you comment, the better your chances are to win the ereader.

Normally, I’m not much into blog tours and heavy promo. For one, I just don’t have the time. But it’s fun to do once in awhile and since I have a brand new book out, I thought this might be a good vehicle to maybe find some new readers for the Darkworld.

My newest release is Common Ground, Tales of the Darkworld Book Five.  This series has been growing in popularity and I like to think that it’s fueled by the fact that I don’t really write about shifters and vampires the same way that other authors do. My books are contemporary in nature. My characters would fit right into our world for the most part. Coming from the Darkworld just means they are a species other than human.

These characters have jobs and homes, families and responsibilities, passion and angst. The vampires walk in the sun. (Well, they prefer overcast days since they’re sensitive to direct sunlight and get sunburnt easily.) The werewolves don’t get furry with the full moon.  The Magia (the magical race) don’t use wands. (They can, but they don’t have to.) The dragons don’t lay eggs. (They have live births.) And so on.

The first four books in the series focused on the dragons. This book shifts the focus to the vampires and werewolves. In fact, it’s really the introduction to the werewolves because until now, they’ve only been mentioned in passing and I’ve not written about one of them.

This is also a turning point in the series. Up until now, the books have truly been stand alones. With this book, which is stand alone as well, the tide begins to shift toward readers needing the rest of the series to fully know and enjoy what’s happening to these characters and families. There’s a very big picture drawn by this series as a whole. The Tales of the Darkworld is a series about family, relationships, friendships, and love. Every story is a tale of courtship and love that revolves around three friends who help each couple find their happily ever after. There are no boundaries in the series as it goes from couple to couple, male/female to male/male, from BDSM to menage, from those who are alive to those who are dead…and everything in between.

The fifth book in the series is the story of one of the three friends who helps orchestrate the HEAs in the other books. Marius Granville is a broody vampire who thinks love has passed him by. Then he meets a freedom loving werewolf who is involved in a menage. Sair McCallan’s love teaches Marius that love doesn’t have to be strictly monogamous and that there is great freedom in indulging your passions – whatever they may be – with your mate.

Common Ground, Tales of the Darkworld Book Five (M/F/F/M, menage a quatre)

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Blurb:

Werewolf Sair McCallan escapes the confines of her brother’s pack with the help of a mated werewolf couple who believe in open sexuality and relationships. With Weylyn and Keir Randall, Sair experiences freedom in all things for the first time in her life. When she meets her mate, she’s shocked to find he’s a boring, broody vampire. Uptight Marius Granville has his staid and orderly life completely shattered by the arrival of his bloodmate, a beautiful werewolf who steals his heart and expects him to join in her kinky play with the Randalls. Marius is forced out of his hum drum existence and opens himself to new sexual experiences to please Sair. As her new mate strives to give her everything she needs, Sair battles internal demons that threaten their fragile new relationship.

Warning: This book includes sex on a washing machine, a make out session ala From Here to Eternity, sex between best friends (F/F), double penetration of a female (oh, baby!), and the best blowjob in the world (M/M) all within the confines of the hottest ménage a quatre the Darkworld has ever seen.

I hope you enjoyed this look into the Darkworld. Please leave me a comment to be entered in a drawing to win a pdf copy of Common Ground. Don’t forget to leave comments all along the tour stops to up your chances of winning a Sony ebook reader. And now, off you go to stop #14, Bryn Colvin at http://blogspot.loveyoudivineinfo.com/!

Thanks for coming by and participating in 1RomanceEbook’s anniversary blog tour. Have a great time along the tour!

An Anniversary! is a post from: Lex Valentine

~

The Project Alpha series by N.J. Walters is a futuristic story with an Armageddon storyline. In these three books, Earth has gone through the “Great Change” and much of the world is contaminated, polluted, and basically destroyed. On the part of the planet where the series takes place, the rich and powerful created an inner city behind the Gate where the air is pure, flowers and grass grow and everything is pristine…on the surface. However, the underpinnings of this society are corrupt and evil.

In the outer city, the air is polluted and often smoggy and foggy like the London of Jack the Ripper’s day. Buildings are in ruins and the trappings of the 21st century society litter the rubble…burned out cars, televisions, etc. The people who live outside the Gate are desperate to survive which can make them dangerous.

The plot of all the books in this series is similar. Thirty years before, the rulers of the inner city had scientists create the perfect soldier. The Piedmont Corporation created genetically enhanced men with microcomputers in their brains.  These men were called Alphas. Midway through the project, most of the Alphas were destroyed for various reasons – they weren’t developing fast enough, they botched their assignments, etc. When the remaining two Alphas figured out how to bypass some of their programming, they were slated for execution too, but they escaped.

The corrupt General who runs the inner city seeks to destroy these two Alphas while the Alphas, in turn, seek to destroy General Caruthers and the Ruling Council. They believe clean air and plentiful fresh food should be available for everyone, not just the rich and powerful.

In the first book, Embracing Silence, a tracker for the Resistance trails a strange man through the outer city. The strange man is Tienan, Alpha One, and he knows he’s being tracked. Eventually, he decides to capture his tracker and is surprised to find that it’s a woman.

Silence is an orphan who was named by her adopted brother Adrian when he rescued her at age twelve. She’s smart and resourceful, but no match for an Alpha. Tienan is shocked by his instantaneous sexual attraction to Silence. He keeps her locked up for several days as the sexual tension between them grows.  When this couple finally comes together it’s explosive.

What happens afterward isn’t exactly what the reader expects yet it’s not unexpected either. Betrayal, overwhelming sexual attraction, undeniable love, sacrifice, and the unveiling of long held secrets all lead to the HEA shared by Tienan and Silence. It also leads to an ending where the reader knows more in this world is coming.  General Caruthers is still after them. The Resistance is on the move. And there’s another Alpha – Tienan’s friend Logan known as Alpha Two – still out there.

The second book, Have Mercy, takes up the story by following Logan as he is pursued by the security police from the inner city. Unfortunately, he’s shot by them and although he eludes them, he passes out in a shack. He’s found by two teenagers who take him to a woman healer.

Logan awakens tied to a bed but bullet free with his wounds neatly stitched up. His attraction to the healer, Mercy Dockins, is instantaneous and mutual. The two share a quick, incendiary encounter in a pantry, setting up the rest of the story in a similar manner to Embracing Silence. Lust turns to love almost immediately with Logan’s Alpha genes telling him right away that Mercy belongs to him.

Logan discovers that Mercy lives in a community beyond the northern border of the outer city. Her house is filled with orphans from the city. Their community is walled in and they have animals and vegetable gardens.  Logan’s longing to belong and Mercy’s longing for a family dovetail as each realizes how much they want to be together and how impossible that would be.

The ending of Have Mercy is a little more surprising than the end of Embracing Silence.  How Logan and Mercy get their HEA isn’t that predictable. But it also sets up the reader for the third story in this series that leads to the battle against the inner city and General Caruthers’ forces. There is yet another Alpha who needs a HEA, after all.

In Sweet Charity, the third Alpha is Adrian whose secret (that he’s an Alpha) is revealed in Embracing Silence. In Have Mercy, we discover that he’s actually Alpha Ten. Here in his own story, we find him matched with his enemy’s daughter.

Abused both mentally and physically by her father, Charity has spent her life as the General’s pawn. She knows nothing of love and affection from men, yet when she meets Adrian, that changes. Escaping from the inner city, risking her life to take a dying man’s message to Adrian, Charity takes control of her destiny for the first time. And the instant Adrian lays eyes on her, he knows she belongs to him.

There are some twists and turns to the battle that ends this book. They are all related to the General, his machinations, Charity and Adrian. I’ve probably given enough spoilers about this series so I’m not going to divulge anything about the battle. You’re all smart enough to know that Adrian and Charity survive otherwise we’d have no HEA. However, I’m not about to tell you the how.

What I will tell you is that this book is a timeless tale of an abused woman who risks torture and death for the man she’s come to love. It’s a journey from her past filled with pain and fear to her present where she takes control of her life by offering it up to save another while facing down the biggest demon she has…her father.

Sweet Charity has all the elements any reader of romance could ever want. It will make you bite your nails, ache with tears, and laugh along with the characters as they find happiness at last. It leaves you with the promise of love everlasting as the hero and heroine truly do conquer all.

The theme of good versus evil, illustrated by a beautiful city that seems so perfect but is actually more polluted than the one outside it’s gates is a compelling one. The evil underpinnings of the inner city make it more ugly than the ruins that comprise the outer city where good souls just seek to survive. The theme of steadfast love that grows quickly and strongly in the harsh environment of fear and betrayal parallels the two cities. And over all lies the notion that this could be humanity’s fate if our society continues to leech our planet of its resources.

This is a gritty series, but the passion between each set of lovers is intense. I preferred Embracing Silence slightly over the others if only because of the climax between Tienan and Silence when she thinks he does not care about her and thinks her adopted brother doesn’t trust her. I’m a sucker for a heroine who lifts her chin and puts one foot in front of the other despite being ravaged by heartbreak and the overwhelming sense of being alone and unloved. N.J. Walters does this really well and that ending gives Embracing Silence 5 Valentines.  Sweet Charity with it’s gripping battle and the answers to so many questions raised in the first two books comes in next with 4.75 Valentines. Have Mercy may only rate 4.5 Valentines, but it’s still an amazing story, sexy and incredibly sweet. The series as a whole rates a 5 from me. If you like sci fi rom, you should read these.

5 Valentines

Project Alpha: Embracing Silence

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Blurb:

Earth 2133

Tienan is an Alpha—an assassin who has been genetically and computer enhanced. He has escaped from the lab that created him and the Ruling Council that controlled him. He is now outside the Gate—a high-tech shield that protects the enclosed city from the contaminated and lawless land outside. Tienan must constantly evade security forces sent to eliminate him, his only goal to destroy his former masters.

Silence is a tracker with the Resistance on the trail of a dangerous stranger. The hunter becomes the hunted and when Tienan kidnaps her, she thinks her life is over. But both captor and captive are enthralled with one another. Desire and need ignite each time they touch. Enemies become lovers.

Treachery and mistrust drive them apart. But nothing can diminish the sexual heat smoldering between them. With enemies all around, they must confront each other one final time. With time running out, sexual longing and trust battle with betrayal for supremacy.

4.5 Valentines

Project Alpha: Have Mercy

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Blurb:

Earth 2133

Logan is an Alpha—a genetically enhanced assassin—who has escaped from the lab that created him. He is now outside the Gate, a high-tech shield that protects the enclosed city from the contaminated and lawless land outside. Shot while evading security forces sent to eliminate him, Logan’s only goal is survival.

Mercy Dockins is a healer. Her world is shaken to its foundations when a stranger is brought to her near death. As she heals him, her body and soul respond to him, overwhelming her with sexual desire. With little more than a look and a touch, passion flares out of control, consuming them both.

But this stranger is dangerous to not only her well-being, but also to the safety of everyone she loves. And he has brought the security forces right to her door.

4.75 Valentines

Project Alpha: Sweet Charity

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Blurb:

Earth 2133

Adrian is an Alpha—a genetically enhanced assassin—thought dead by the people who created him. Living outside the Gate, a high tech shield that protects the enclosed city from the contaminated and lawless land outside, he is the leader of the Resistance, living only to bring down the Gate and the people who sought to kill him.

Charity Caruthers is the daughter of one of the most powerful and brutal men in the inner city—the General. She risks everything sneaking outside the Gate to get a message to Adrian.

Passion explodes, ripping apart the foundations of both their lives. Charity begins to understand true sexual desire as Adrian teaches her the passion to be found in dark fantasies. Loyalties are tested and trust pushed to the limits as the final confrontation is at hand. Some will die. Some will live. And Adrian and Charity’s fragile relationship could be the final casualty in this war of retribution and freedom.

Project Alpha is a post from: Lex Valentine

The blog on this site is meant to be about writing, books, and publishing. Why shouldn’t I just do mini reviews of the stuff I’ve read and enjoyed? I talked about Neil Placky’s Gaylife.com on Sunlight Sucks. I talked about Kim Knox’s Breaking Chance on Flirty Author Bitches. And when I talked about The Dickens with Love and The Christmas She Rules here, I thought of it in a more promotional light rather than what it truly was…a review.

So while that Christmas post was a review, this shall serve as my first official “Valentine Review.” As such, I’m going to break the mold a bit.   I will try not to give spoilers, but I have to admit that may be tough for me. Also, I may mention some grammatical or structural stuff from time to time, but the main thrust of a Valentine Review will always be positive because, to be frank, I don’t want to come on here and talk about BAD books. I don’t want to give bad books unwarranted attention. There are other review sites out there who are happy to do that in their own snarky way. They get a lot of traffic from rubberneckers with a reality show mentality who thrive on seeing train wrecks. Sorry, folks. Move along. No train wrecks to be seen here. Only the stuff I like will have the privilege of a Valentine Review.

~

For my first official forage into this area I’ll be telling you mostly about one book, but also a little about the other two in the series. Laurann Dohner’s Cyborg Seduction series at Ellora’s Cave may not be a comfortable fit for a modern woman who only wants to read about enlightened societies where women have true equality to men. There are some shades of the old romance bodice rippers with forced seduction themes in these books.  That’s not to say that the heroines aren’t fiesty. They’re far from submissive, but the societies in this series dictate the circumstances they find themselves in where they have to bargain to the lesser of two evils. The lesser usually being that they have to submit to sex with a cyborg.  Like those old romances where the pirate captures the lady and seduces her into loving him, these heroines fall for the cyborgs. But it’s not pretty at first and readers who aren’t a fan of this type of storyline had best just steer clear.

My most recent read, and the most recent release in this series, was Melting Iron. In the first two books, Burning Up Flint and Kissing Steel, the hero of Melting Iron is a total and complete asshole and you pretty much hate him.  However, what I noticed most about Melting Iron is that the author really has learned how to take a cold, nasty cyborg and turn him into a true hero that the reader adores.

As a reader, I didn’t like Flint all that much and it truly takes the entire book for him to get to the hero point and show that he loves the heroine. Steel, in the second book, warmed up a lot quicker. In the third book, Iron shows he is the hero almost from the beginning. Which is amazing considering how horrid he was as a secondary character in the first two books.  This growth in the author as a writer gives me a lot of hope that if she does further stories in this series and world (yes, please! I’d like Ice’s and Coal’s stories!) that I’ll be able to identify with the heroes right from the start.

The world Ms. Dohner has built is a harsh one. Humans created the cyborgs on Earth and when they realized they couldn’t control them and use them, they tried to have them all exterminated. Since the cyborgs had enhanced intelligence, they escaped and found a new world to colonize, Garden. On Garden, men outnumber women by quite a bit because the majority of the cyborg females were lost during escape from Earth. Because of the unequal numbers, laws are put into place to ensure that breeding occurs and the cyborg race is continued. The laws become a huge problem when love enters the mix.

In the first two books of the series you discover that the lost cyborg women have been found. This creates a shift in numbers that affects the laws and helps to ease the path of true love between the human females and cyborg males of the series. Sure, it’s a plot device but it’s an acceptable one, and as a reader, I mostly sat on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen with the laws to help the poor heroes and heroines achieve their monogamous HEAs.

I really enjoyed the first two books in this series, but I loved the third one which is weird because I didn’t expect to like Iron AT ALL. In Melting Iron you have a fiesty red-headed female mechanic (human) pitted against a cold, almost brutal cyborg male with a long red braid. The red hair is a key factor in this story and I’m not going to go into the nuts and bolts of it, but I will say that the heroine’s utter fascination with seeing Iron’s long hair turned  loose hit a special nerve with me. (I beg Rott to let his long curly hair loose too.)

Dawn, the heroine, is a woman I can identify with much more than the first two heroines. Her mercurial moods and Irish temper are a lot closer to my own personality and the fact that she’s techie and works as a mechanic is also way more like me. So, I could totally identify with her.  Dawn’s evolution from captive slave to Iron’s family unit (it’s kinda like being married) follows an arc I can empathize with.  But it’s still the development of Iron’s character that shows how the author’s skills have grown as this series has gone along.

It’s here in this third book that the reader discovers why Iron is so harsh in the first two books. Learning his background through Dawn’s eyes puts his prior behavior into perspective finally. And this book comes across much more richly in terms of the emotions of the hero and heroine than the others did. The detail with which their emotions are drawn suck you right in, something I applaud.

I noticed more telling and structural issues in the first two books, not enough for me to dislike them, but enough that I wouldn’t give either top marks. Melting Iron, however, is deserving of the top spot. The Cyborg Seduction series as a whole is deserving of top marks and is definitely a series I would recommend to those who like or are interested in reading sci fi rom.  If you don’t believe me, just read em yourself and decide.

5 Valentines

Melting Iron: Cyborg Seduction Book 3

Laurann Dohner

Ellora’s Cave

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Blurb:

Being a female mechanic on a space station for eight years has taught Dawn a lot of tough life lessons that have hardened her heart. She’s got a temper and a mouth to match her red hair and has never backed away from a challenge. Then she’s kidnapped and blackmailed into agreeing to be a cyborg’s personal sex slave.

Iron is one big bastard with long, fiery red hair, intense, dark blue eyes and a stubborn streak as thick as his dense muscles. If Iron thinks he can tame her, he’s about to learn that “meek” is not in Dawn’s vocabulary. But with that handsome face, a body to die for, a wickedly talented tongue and those magical hands, the guy just doesn’t fight fair.

Dawn is intent on melting Iron’s icy resolve to never fall in love with a human. He’s winning her heart and she’s determined to win his right back. These two redheads have just met their matches. Let the battle for love begin.

Reader Advisory: The big cyborg using his “research” on his new captive during a smoking-hot bondage scene. Woot!

Cyborg Seduction is a post from: Lex Valentine

Tomorrow is an event that I always enjoy. I’ve put a song here for it too. It’s been in my head all day as I’ve prepared to write this post and invite you all to come by for a chance to win prizes.

Share Unsuspecting Sunday Afternoon (Main Version) by Backstreet Boys

Yes, it’s the last Sunday of the month again! Time for Ethan Day’s Gay Day!

After I got the official notice, I went into my kitchen in search of a drink. It’s warm here in SoCal so Rott has all the windows open and the front door cracked open to let air through the screen door. He asks me why I’m smiling and without even a thought for how open everything is I reply in my usual big mouthed way, “Oh, I just got the notice for Gay Day. You know, that big chat I go to the last Sunday of the month.”

Rott rolls his eyes and points to the open windows. “Could you say that any louder? Let’s confuse the neighbors even more about how weird we are.”

For a moment, I think I was offended. Then it struck me as funny. It’s true that our neighbors don’t like us and think we’re weird. But I think a lot of that is the parking wars we’ve been having. Still, it did kind of give me a chuckle to think of them trying to figure out our sexuality because I’m all excited about Gay Day. LOL

Here’s this month’s information. If you enjoy this genre and want a chance at some freebies, join Ethan’s group and come on by!

Gay Day Notice from Ethan Day

Sunday, June 27th is Gay Day at my Yahoo Group.  Gay Day is the one day a month when the best authors in GLBT Romance stop by to post excerpts of their new and upcoming releases.

The following authors will be generously offering giveaways you can enter to win:

WILLA OKATI – BECAUSE ITS TRUE

NEIL PLAKCY – DANCING WITH THE TIDE

LEX VALENTINE – WHERE THERE’S SMOKE

ANDREW GREY – PUMP ME UP

TRINA LANE – LOVE’S RETURN

DEVON RHODES – THROUGH THE RED DOOR

KATE MCMURRAY – IN HOT PURSUIT

SOPHIA TITHENIEL – SADIE’S KISS

STEPHANI HECHT – DOUBLE SHOT CAPPUCCCINO

Z.A. MAXFIELD – JACOB’S LADDER

The amazing Authors below will be popping in and out to chat & post excerpts from their latest books:

AKM MILES – STONE CANYON

LYNN LORENZ – SILENT LODGE

SOPHIA TITHENIEL – MORGANS VIGIL

P.A. BROWN – L.A. BYTES

TC BLUE – THE ONE THAT BROKE FREE

CHARLIE COCHRANE – SAND from the LAST GASP ANTHO

ETHAN DAY – AT PIPER’S POINT

The day will begin from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. CST in the Ethan Day Yahoo Group where we’ll be posting excerpts, running contests for free books, and chatting about all the new and upcoming releases from your favorite authors.

From 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. CST we’ll be hosting another LIVE Chat which is pretty much a free for all, anything-goes-chat that’ll inevitably have you uttering the phrase, “What the f**k?” : )

***You will need to have Downloaded Skype in order to take part in the Live Chat.***

Once you’ve downloaded the FREE software, simply add me as a contact: ethandayonline — and I’ll be able to add you to the chat room!

I hope everyone will stop by to catch up with your favorite authors and join in all the fun!

Unsuspecting Sunday Afternoon is a post from: Lex Valentine

Lex walked into Which Wich and carefully ordered her sandwich, a cookie, and a pineapple milkshake. After paying, she moved to the far end of the sandwich shop and leaned against a wall, watching the staff make sandwiches. Absently, she sucked on the straw, thinking about her current WIP and what needed to happen next. She never realized that she must have somehow presented some sort of strange picture sucking on the straw, wrapping her tongue around it, eyes narrowed to slits as the creamy shake oozed from the straw onto her tongue all the while with a faraway expression in her big brown eyes.

A movement across the room caught her eye and Lex looked up from her shake to see a tall man with impossibly broad shoulders barely contained in a navy tank top. He was headed right for her. She blinked in astonishment. The man wore shorts and flip flops and walked with a cock-first kind of stride that she recognized from what she liked to call her “slutty past.”

Cocking up her right brow just slightly, she eyed the young man who had to be at least twenty years her junior. He had the kind of hotness women got drooly over. Raven hair, a lean, chiseled, stubbled jaw… and oh, those shoulders. The muscles rippled as he walked, yet he wasn’t muscle bound like a bodybuilder. He had lean hips and the thighs beneath his loose khaki shorts spoke of wiry muscle not bulk.

Sky blue eyes beneath impossibly black brows focused directly on her… and no one else. He walked toward her, ignoring the stares of men and women alike as he crossed the busy sandwich shop. Beauty like his commanded attention and it had Lex’s too, but for a different reason.

For all of three seconds she remembered what it was like to be twenty years younger and on the prowl. A plethora of sexual double entendres hovered on her tongue born from an instant spike of animal attraction. Then her lips twitched as amusement took over. Of all the people in the shop, he had to make a beeline for her. She wondered why until he spoke.

“Is that a pineapple milkshake?” he asked as he stopped a mere two feet from her, oozing sexuality.

His eyes blinked slowly, a move probably designed to make her melt. He was obviously used to people falling all over themselves with him. She could see the anticipation in his gorgeous eyes as he waited for her to get starry-eyed over him.

Her brow arced a little higher and her mouth curved up in a wry smile. ”Yeah. It is pineapple,” she replied coolly, her gaze stroking over the perfect lines of his shoulders and arms. He sure was pretty, she thought to herself and stuck the straw back in her mouth, her tongue twining around it before she sucked.

The young man’s eyes glittered knowingly. He watched her suck on the straw, his own tongue peeping out to lick at the corners of his mouth. “I was going to get that, but I didn’t know if it was any good,” he murmured and Lex wondered if he realized that someone might think his words weren’t about the milkshake.

“Oh, it’s good, but it’s not real pineappley,” she told him smoothly.

She sucked on the straw again and the young man started to move forward. He jerked then, bumped from behind by a friend. He turned away as they discussed their drinks and sandwiches. Lex leaned on the wall, her mouth quirked up in a smile of immense amusement. She didn’t look like much that day. Black suede flats. Black and white tweedy baggy pants with cuffs. An off white henley type shirt with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows. Her hair was fuzzy from the humidity and shoved into a scrunchie. As usual, she wore no makeup but her expressive eyes rarely needed any.

The young man and his friends moved away. As the other two men pushed in front of the beautiful man, he looked back over his shoulder at Lex. She noticed that the back of his left arm had an Old English R tattooed on it. The back of the right arm had an L. His sky blue eyes flicked over her from her grey streaked, mussed hair to her wry expression, and the body that was no longer trim and muscular as it had been twenty years before.

And then he smiled, white teeth flashing. As he turned back to his friend, his left eyelid dipped in a wink. Lex let the tip of her tongue spiral around the straw and the young man laughed, his hand lifting in a sort of wave to her as he left the shop. Returning to her shake, Lex looked around the shop and found every eye, male and female alike, on her. This time, both her brows rose. Apparently, weeks away from her 49th birthday, overweight by more pounds than she would ever admit to, and definitely not dressed for success, Lex still had an indefinable something that sparked hot men.

The counter person called her name and she took her sandwich, walking out of the shop with that wry smile still on her face. More than one of her boyfriends had said her eyes could seduce a monk. A man young enough to be her son seemed about on a par with monks to her these days so she figured she was doing okay for an old lady who wrote sex scenes in her spare time and called them novels.

She unlocked her non-descript Dodge and tossed the sandwich in, eyeing the pineapple milkshake. “Yeah, I’ve always loved a good pineapple shake. You just never know what will happen when you’re sucking on something you love…” she murmured wickedly.

If you’re interested, the guy sorta looked like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC7sGAf6dUY

Lunch With Lex is a post from: Lex Valentine

Probably one of the most difficult things to deal with in a relationship is trust. Not only trusting your partner, but also trusting yourself.

I recently had a discussion with my husband in which he told me that he wants me to get angry. My usual method of dealing with anger is to hold it in till I can’t anymore, then cry to him for half an hour or so about the situation and a bunch of other stuff. He said when I’m mad at him, he’d rather have me start an argument than hold it in.

I trust him. I know if I argue with him, he isn’t going to lash out at me or hurt me in any way. My problem was that I didn’t trust myself not to lash out at him.

So I made him promise that if I did what he needs, he’ll have my back and stop me if I go too far. Not that I can’t control my temper; I just don’t trust that I will.

The fact that I trust him enough to know he won’t lash out in an argument and that he’ll help me with my temper is due to his working to earn that trust. For a lot of reasons I won’t go into here, I have abundant cause not to trust anyone at all. But he knew that going in, and he’s been patient, kind, and caring to a fault, and has gotten past my distrust. He’s earned the right to be trusted.

I think a lot of people have trust issues of one level or another. All of us have some hurt or slight in our past that we have to overcome before we’re willing to let the next person in. Some of us have more issues than others, of course.

My novella Beginner’s Luck started out being about a couple who wanted to have anal sex, so they bought a butt plug kit online to help them. But when I started looking more closely at the story, prompted along by help from Lex and from Mary at Pink Petal Books, I realized it was more than that.

Kyla, the heroine in the story, doesn’t want anal sex just because it’s hot, or nasty, or whatever. She wants to do it to show her boyfriend Alec that he’s earned her trust. Because I speak from experience when I say that being on the receiving end of anal requires a LOT of trust in one’s partner.

So instead of being just a story about a couple who buy butt plugs, Beginner’s Luck became a story about a woman who had a lot of trust issues to overcome, and the man who found her worth the effort to help her overcome them. It isn’t a story about sex, it’s a story about the power of trust.

Though there is some pretty hot sex in it…

Beginner’s Luck is available through Pink Petal Books.

Karenna Colcroft

The Power of Trust is a post from: Lex Valentine

I am hoping that everyone loves Zander and Voth. This is an action book almost opposite in nature to Rousing Caine. In Caine, it’s all about what’s happening inside Jason and all about Caine’s emotions. In Smoke, it’s all about the action. My heroes are on a mission and there are those who try to stop them. There’s an out and out battle with cobra shifters where the heroes are greatly outnumbered. In this book, it’s the action that lends poignancy to the emotional moments.

If you would like to win a copy of Where There’s Smoke and other books in the Phoenix trilogy, (Deeper Than the Ocean by Dee Carney and Playing Wolf by Mina Carter) head on over to Liquid Silver’s SEx Blog and comment on my post about my first release with this publisher. You have until about 7 am Monday morning to do this.

Here’s the info on Where There’s Smoke. I hope you enjoy it!

Where There’s Smoke, Book Three of the Phoenix Prophecy

Molten Silver Title

Buy Link

Blurb:

A murderous father. A son with a price on his head. Zander’s year-long affair with a mysterious woman ends when she tells him that her abusive mate is the father he’s never known. The woman, a prophesy-dreaming immortal known as the Phoenix, explains that Zander has three brothers and that his father killed their mothers. Now, the Phoenix has dreamt of her mate’s death and Zander’s destiny. Voth is the Phoenix’s successor and Zander’s true mate. The two set out to find Zander’s brothers while eluding the assassins sent after them by Zander’s father. Passion burns hot between them, sealing their fate, as their journey leads them to fulfill the Phoenix’s prophecy

Excerpt:

Zander followed Nix to the fire pit where the flames rose a bit higher than they should have for an ordinary fire. They swelled when Nix came closer, and he realized they were responding to the presence of the Phoenix. A draft of cold air brushed his face, and he looked up, his eyes tracking the movements of the pale brown bird with the long tail as it circled the campsite.

“Why are we here, Nix?” he asked quietly.

Seating herself on a smooth boulder, she looked at him across the width of the fire pit. “Because it’s time for you to know the truth and meet your destiny. Your path no longer lies with mine,” she said simply.

Anger poured through him in a rush and heated his cheekbones. Silently, he cursed his pale skin and hair. “I hate it when you go all phoenix on me. What truth and what destiny?” He stomped closer to the fire pit, and the flames leapt higher. The bird circling above swooped lower.

“My mate is your father, the demi-god Ancelin.”

Nix’s words hit him like bullets, and he recoiled, taking several steps back from her. Cold air swirled around him and the brown bird dove toward the fire pit, the long tail brushing his cheek. As the bird entered the flames, a small explosion occurred, and the flames swelled higher, out of control for a split second. Then they calmed, burning with an eerie glow Zander had never seen before.

“So you’re my step-mother.” Zander’s jaw clenched.

At first, he wasn’t sure what to make of Nix’s confession. He’d always known his father was an asshole. What decent man seduced a presumably innocent girl then abandoned her once she was pregnant with his child? It didn’t matter that Zander’s mother had used her more-than-considerable shape-shifting powers as well as her magic to deceive his father into thinking her innocent. To Zander’s knowledge, his mother had never had a chance to show his father her true face. The man had simply appeared every night for a week, got his rocks off, and then bailed.

Nix grimaced. “I dislike that term. It implies I’ve treated you in a motherly fashion as befits the wife of your father. My position with regard to your father is tenuous at best. When I mated Ancelin, I thought he would be faithful to me and treat our bonding as sacred. I thought he respected and cared for me a little. I suppose I was naïve, because I was wrong on all counts.” She shrugged, her slender shoulders rising and falling gracefully. “It doesn’t matter now. Ancelin’s fate has been decreed. The Phoenix has spoken to him in his dreams. He lives on borrowed time.”

Zander pondered her words. He had spent the past year since his mother’s death searching for his father. Almost the entire time he’d been searching, the answers had lain in his arms. He’d been fucking Nix for a year, and she’d never told him the truth. Fury lashed him, but he tamped it down. After all these months, he knew a little something about Nix. She had reasons for her silence. Apparently, the time had come to find out those reasons.

“So my father mated you and then cheated on you. Now, he’s dreamed of the Phoenix and knows his death is coming, is that correct?” he asked, drawing the words out slowly and thoughtfully.

“Yes, but there is more,” Nix replied.

The cool tone of her voice told Zander she held her emotions on a very tight rein. She sat as if relaxed, but her pose didn’t fool him. A maelstrom of emotions rode her hard. He walked around the fire pit and sat on a rock near her, looking into her turquoise eyes.

“Tell me,” he whispered, his mind racing. So far, her revelations had been only a little shocking. Whatever else she told him couldn’t be nearly so surprising.

A flicker of anguish registered on her face momentarily. If Zander hadn’t been watching her closely, hadn’t known her so well, he wouldn’t have noticed that spasm of emotion at all. “Your mother was not the only girl Ancelin seduced after he mated me.”

Nix hung her head in a shamed manner, almost as if her mate’s acts of infidelity had somehow been her fault. Zander’s eyes narrowed. Why the hell would she feel responsible for what that bastard had done? Had she rejected him, leaving him to seek pleasure with another?

Her head shot up, her eyes flashing fire. “Of course not!” she exclaimed. “In the beginning, I loved him. Until he betrayed me with your mother. Even then I forgave him and welcomed him to my bed. But he didn’t want me. He spurned me yet again and left to seduce another. When his seed took root, he left her and took another lover. He stayed away until he had impregnated her as well. Only then did he return to me, bragging of the fertility of these women.”

Nix’s long, slender fingers stroked her flat abdomen. “The Phoenix sometimes cannot procreate. There is always another waiting in the wings should this be so. I have no children, therefore, my successor has been chosen,” she murmured almost to herself.

The flames in the fire pit swelled once more, and Zander frowned at them wondering if Nix controlled them. He knew she had the ability. Every phoenix controlled fire. It was as if they were fire.

“So you’re telling me I have siblings. Brothers? Sisters?”

“Brothers,” she whispered, her eyes closing for a split second.

His mind tried to sort out her confessions. Three women, three sons. One prophecy. Leapfrogging from one set of ideas to another, a sickening truth occurred to him, and his eyes widened.

“Fuck me,” he breathed. “Did my father kill my mother?”

Nix bit her lip, then she nodded. “The prophecy said that three hands reached for his throat. He took that to mean that each of the women who bore him sons would try to kill him. So he killed them first.”

A fury greater than any he had ever experienced began to grow inside him. “You knew I’d been searching for my mother’s killer, yet you kept this to yourself.” The flat tone of his words conveyed absolutely no emotion. He knew it would tell Nix just how angry he really was. “Why would he kill the women? Why wouldn’t he think it was his sons after him?”

With a sigh, Nix stood and paced around the fire pit. “Your father easily believes women will betray him. In your mother’s case, she truly did, although not out of maliciousness. When he discovered the truth of who she was, her days were numbered despite the prophecy, Zander. Your father does not take betrayal well.”

Irony rode her expression as she paused in her pacing. “He must always control everything and everyone around him. Betraying him in any way is a death sentence.” She shook her head a little, her long ponytail swaying. “He has no trust in women so his first thought after the prophecy came to him was that I arranged for it because of his infidelity. His second thought was that I would use the three women who bore him sons as the instrument of his death.”

“He doesn’t have much imagination, does he?” Zander muttered sourly. The whole story left a bitter taste in his mouth. He knew what his mother had done in order to have him and had wondered if her deception had brought about her death.

A soft bark of laughter escaped Nix. The rusty sound told him that her amusement wasn’t the pleasant kind.

“Once he killed the three women, the prophecy came to him again. It was then that he began to seek out his sons. Even if he knew the truth, you and your brothers would not be safe.” She waved her hand toward him, and his skin burned with power where her mark lay. “The truth is that your father has four sons not three. One woman bore twins. You have three brothers, Zander. Already there is a connection between you in part because of Ancelin’s blood and in part because you all bear the mark of the Phoenix. I am not sure if your brothers feel this connection, but I know that you do. You have dreamt of them.”

Zander sucked in a breath. Over the past six months he’d had dreams of a merman and two werewolves. Men who also bore the mark of the Phoenix on their bodies, but in different places. The werewolves were marked on the opposite sides of their chests. The merman was marked on a bicep. His own mark was more personal, caressing the skin at the side of his throat. His gaze caught and held Nix’s.

“You marked us.”

She nodded. “The night your father had the Phoenix prophecy. The marks help protect you from him.”

“He wants to kill us.”

Again, she nodded. “I marked each of you more than a year ago. Your brother Danyl’s mark did not physically appear until I met him and touched the spot where I knew the mark lay. Your brothers, Jayce and Ryder, had their marks appear when Ancelin tried to kill them.”

Zander narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Mine appeared the first time I made love to you. I thought you did it,” he murmured.

Nix smiled. “I did. But not then.” She sat on the rock beside him. “After Ancelin killed the three women who’d borne him sons, the prophecy again came to him as he slept. Once more, it told him of three hands reaching for his throat, that his death drew near. So he knew he had not stopped anything by killing those women. That is when he decided to kill his sons.”

“Why are you telling me now? Why didn’t you tell me when I met you for the first time?” Zander’s head ached from the info dump. He’d fantasized of taking Nix from her abusive mate and keeping her for his own. Now, he knew it would never happen. Best a demi-god and take the man’s mate? No way. Zander had a lot of gall, but tempered it with the wisdom to know when he faced a losing battle.

“It will never happen, not because you cannot best your father, but because I am not destined to be yours, Zander,” Nix said with quiet emphasis. “Your mate is another.”

Zander’s breath hissed in sharply. Her tone conveyed a gravity that spoke to him of prophecy. Yet, the Phoenix had never come to his dreams.

She smiled at him, the corners of her bowed mouth curved upward with a spark of amusement. “I came to you in person, Zander, because a prophecy came to my dreams. The Phoenix is your destiny, your mate, but I am not.”

He hadn’t thought she could surprise him any more than she already had, but her words stunned him. Shaking his head as if to clear it, Zander deliberately caught her gaze with his and held it.

“How can that be, Nix? You are the Phoenix.” He kept his voice pitched low, hoping it didn’t give away the turmoil within him.

“But Zander, did I not say that the Phoenix has come to my dreams? It has foreseen my death. The one who takes my place is your mate.”

The soft cadence of her voice washed over him, and he shuddered. The finality, the surety in her words rocked his world. Nix was going to die. The reality of it made his chest ache. His lungs burned with every breath he took. His father would bring about her death. Every cell in his body knew it, and his hatred for the man who gave him life flared anew.

“I cannot deny your reasoning, Zander. Ancelin does figure into my end.” Her smile gentled as she shifted on the rock, leaning forward slightly as she spoke. “We are all part of a larger destiny, you know. Every life is entwined with another, affects others. Each act of destiny affects many. The universe is much more than the sea and shore before you. Beneath the waves lie things you have never seen, and beyond the stars lie things you cannot comprehend. Each thing is a piece of the puzzle that knits together the fabric of this universe and beyond. What your eyes see is a miniscule part. What your heart feels is a much larger, grander portion. What your soul knows is infinite.”

Zander clamped down on the urge to tell her being cryptic and going phoenix on him wouldn’t stop him from trying to prevent her death. Instead, he focused on the words that had the potential to fuck with his carefully balanced existence.

“Since you know who my mate is, why don’t you clue me in?” He tried to keep his words from sounding edgy with the sense of betrayal that had crept into his emotions.

The fire glowed brighter, and the flames rose impossibly high. Zander suddenly wondered why the nondescript brown bird he’d seen earlier had done a kamikaze into the fire. Realization sparked inside him, and his eyes went from Nix to the strange glow in the fire. The outline of the bird appeared and morphed into the shape of a person. A man stepped from the flames.

Phoenix Contest! is a post from: Lex Valentine

Here’s the info from Ethan:

Sunday, April 25th is Gay Day at my Yahoo Group.  Gay Day is the one day a month when the best authors in GLBT Romance stop by to post excerpts of their new and upcoming releases.

The following authors will be generously offering giveaways you can enter to win:

AKM Miles – Love, Grant – Available April 26th

Andrew Gray – An Unexpected Vintage

Clare London – Winners Choice from Her Backlist

Trina Lane – The Perfect Union

TC Blue – A Game of Chances

Leiland Dale – A Prophecy of Destiny

Jambrea Jo Jones – Retribution – Available May 3^rd

Kimberly Gardner – Bound to Please

Stephani Hecht – Man Down

P.A. Brown – L.A. Heat

Z.A. Maxfield – Fugitive Color – Available April 27th

The amazing Authors below will be popping in and out to chat & post excerpts from their latest books:

Lynn Lorenz – Pinky Swear

Amanda Young – Pool Boy Seduction

A.J. Llewellyn – The Book and the Rose – Available April 25th

Jamie Samms – Spinning & Life After

Kimberly Gardner – Blush from Red (An MLR Antho edited by Kris Jacen)

P.A. Brown  - L.A. Bytes

Lex Valentine – Where There’s Smoke- Available May 3rd

Clare London – Heart & Home

Hope to see you there!

Oh So Gay is a post from: Lex Valentine

Warning: Some site content is adult in nature and should be viewed only by those 18 or older.

Disclaimer: Reviewers may have received copies of books from either the author or publisher but otherwise were not paid for their reviews.

Lex’s World is a post from: Lex Valentine