Contest! Storm Grant - Few Are Chosen (Riptide Publishing)

Read Widely and Well

Penguin’s Book Country website—a place where authors seeking publication can post bits of their books—has a nifty map showing all the genres they think are out there. According to them, I write Comic Fantasy. Huh. Who knew?

And when I click on the little button for Comic Fantasy, it does feature authors who have influenced my writing over the years: Christopher Moore, Sir Terry Pratchett, Piers Antony, etc.

My latest book, FEW ARE CHOSEN, features two young “Chosen Ones” sent to slay a rogue demon. At first they clash, but then find they work well together.  And then they discover they do other things well together. First kill, first kiss, first time. It’s funny, but also poignant; it will take you back to your own awkward first time.

Genre-wise, it’s m/m, humor, urban fantasy, YA and also interracial. A little something for everyone. And since it falls into five different genres or sub-genres, it’s a good thing I read outside my genre.

At a recent meeting of my RWA chapter, one of the speakers asked the room of about 60 attendees if they read outside the romance genre. I raised my hand and looked around, shocked, at the small percentage of other hands up in the room.

Then she asked if people read outside their chosen romantic SUB-genre, such as paranormal romance, romantic suspense, contemporary. Again, few hands went up.

I understand that it’s important for an author to familiarize herself with her chosen genre—even to immerse herself when writing. But one should also read outside that genre—you never know what you could be writing next. Or where your next ideas and influences will come from.

Me? I read across genres looking for humor. I can’t wait for the next Discworld (Terry Pratchett) or

Stephanie Plum (Janet Evanovich) novels to come out. I love Mary Janice Davidson’s Queen Betsey series, and anything by Christopher Moore.

Oddly, since I got the e-reader, I've read more mainstream books than ebooks.

So how ‘bout you? Do you tend to read widely outside a chosen genre? Do you read any m/m that strikes your fancy, from historical to paranormal? Or exclusively within one category? Do you then also read m/f or ménage?

What were the last few books you read?

Storm Grant (also writing as Gina X. Grant)

Email / Website / Blog / Twitter / Facebook / Goodreads

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BLURB:

FEW ARE CHOSEN by Storm Grant

Sparks fly between virgin teenage demon hunters when the Chosen One turns out to be… the Chosen Two?

Apprentice warrior Blake St. Blake is the Chosen One, raised by an ancient order to defend the world against evil. Well, maybe not the whole world, but at least his neighborhood in downtown Detroit.

When a dreaded reflux demon is sighted in a local cemetery, Blake is sent off to his very first battle, armed with his sword, his super-senses, his black leather duster, and a few well-rehearsed one-liners.

But another Chosen One gets in Blake’s way—an apprentice wizard named Shadow. While the boys argue about who’s the more chosen of the two, the demon escapes.

Blake wants to be angry, but it turns out he and Shadow have a lot in common. Besides, Shadow’s pretty cute, and Blake can’t help but think that the wizard’s skills (and hands and lips and other bits) might make the perfect complement to his. Blake and Shadow are brave enough to challenge the reflux demon in a second battle, but will they have the courage to tell each other how they feel?

Title Details

Publisher: Riptide Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-937551-22-3

eBook release: Feb 20 2012

eBook formats: pdf, mobi, html, epub

Word count: ~12,000

Page count: ~40

Heat Wave: On-screen, mildly explicit love scenes

Type: Standalone

eBook   $2.99  

Contest:

Play The Name Game for FEW IS CHOSEN and win a copy of ALL THREE of these entertaining books from Storm Grant’s backlist: Gym Dandy, Shift Happens, and Tart and Soul. (Two full-length novels and a novella!)

1. What is Shadow’s real first name? ___  ___  ___  ___

2. What is Shadow’s mentor’s first name? ___  ___  ___  ___  ___

3. What is the name of the Order that raised and trained Blake? The Order of the ___  ___  ___  ___

How to enter: DO NOT POST YOUR ANSWERS! Instead, to qualify:

1. Email your answers to the three questions, above, to storm.grant@gmail.com.

2.  Then post a comment to this blog stating that you’ve emailed your entry.

You may enter once for each stop on the blog tour, thereby increasing your chances of being the grand prize winner!

One grand prize winner will be selected March 5^th.

Blog tour, details here.

Anne Brooks - The Heart’s Greater Silence Comment to Win

Yes, you read right!  The details are the bottom of the post.  

And now, with great pleasure, I give you Anne Brooks.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Heart’s Greater Silence started out a few years ago with the first scene floating round my head trying to find somewhere to settle. All I can see is a man, mid twenties or so, walking down a dark street in the shadows of London. I don’t know who he is, or where he’s going to. He’s alone. He’s bitter about what’s happened with the bloke he’s just left. The bloke he’s supposed to be with. I think he might be smoking and I don’t know his name yet.

If he does light up, it doesn’t last for long as the rain makes the cigarette go out, and he throws it away, treading it underfoot. Whatever’s happened, he thinks it’s typical and he deserves it. He walks down the shadow of the street and I follow him, uncertain how close I can get, then he turns the corner and he’s gone.

At this point there are three choices I can make: I can keep at his heels and find out where he’s going and if he’ll take me with him; or I can walk away, file the experience as interesting while it lasted but not worth further commitment; or I can file it away for mulling over and bringing out again.

Sometimes, however, the character makes the choice for me. This was one of those occasions. I didn’t even know his name, though I did know I couldn’t completely follow him right then – there were too many things going on in my life at the time, too many books to write or stories to edit. But the nameless man was too strong to be forgotten. So I filed him away for remembering and thinking about to see if he fit in with any of my other projects or if he deserved his own story.

I even at one time thought he might be Michael, the gay hooker and artist from my thriller, A Dangerous Man. But although they were similar in lots of ways, the circumstances and the feel of the walking man simply felt different.

It was only years later when I was trying to think of a story I could submit to Riptide Publishing that the man I’d imagined came back to me again. This time I knew he wasn’t someone from another of my stories. This time I knew his story was his own and I could discover both his name and his character by using the themes that had recently become important to me: religion; faith; love; and obsession.

So I started with that scene where he’s walking away from a man, someone he knows and cares for, and began to write the story of where, or who, he might be going towards. It was strange, but for the first time I can remember I started to write without knowing his name. And it didn’t matter. I knew he’d tell me when he was good and ready.

And he did. In a conversation with the man he was walking towards with all that overwhelming desire and reluctance in his blood, he finally tells me, and I know then there’ll be more to discover. Far more than one story can convey.

His name is Mark.

Okay everyone, 

Here are the guidelines from Anne about this blog tour.

She has one contest per stop - with the prize being a backlist ebook giveaway for one commenter.

She  also has a cumulative competition throughout the blog tour involving answering 3 questions from HGS - with the prize being 3 backlist ebooks for one commenter from the tour as a whole. The questions are

• (a) What item of his trade is Richard wearing when Mark sees him in church? 
• (b) When Craig discovers Mark and Richard together, what does he do just before leaving? 
• (c) What action does Mark take at the end of the story?

Also one signed cover flat and magnet for one commenter per stop - with this NOT being the winner of Item 1 (see above)

One gift certificate to be drawn at the end of the tour - with this NOT being the winner of Item 2 (see above).

What's in a Name - Rhianon Etzweiler

Black’s world is an amalgam of European cultures, prominently French, German, and British. This is because in Black’s world, the metro – named York – is the hub of a territory that spans the geographic regions those cultures and countries (as well as others) inhabited, once upon a time. On the streets, the Nightwalkers, street dealers, and the rest of the humans, speak a patois that’s a mix of all three and many others besides. It took a good bit of research and careful planning to give each culture and dialect some form of prominent representation – and role – in the story.

I decided on monikers that would translate easily, short names with equally simple meanings – or, as with Jhez, none at all. Among the humans of the street, York’s ruling vampire has a different sort of nickname –Le Gross, which has a variety of translated meanings depending on the mood and/or native language of the speaker. As many as there are languages in the patois. And every one of them is applicable to the vampire’s character, depending on perspective.

In “Blacker Than Black,” names are important – as labels of the roles each individual is playing. Because every last character upon the page is playing a role, be they vampire or human, lyche or streetdealer or Nightwalker. The world is a blend of cultural influences, coexisting alongside each other. It’s a world where humans have stopped fighting each other over what sets them apart, and joined forces to survive as one against a greater threat.

Thanks for stopping by, don’t forget to leave a comment with your email address to enter the drawings. For a taste of Black, check out the extended excerpt on Riptide’s site (here) and then follow along to Top2Bottom Reviews (http://top2bottomreviews.wordpress.com) for an exclusive follow-up!

Tomorrow, I’ll be at Ren Thompson’s (http://renthompsonishere.blogspot.com) with another excerpt!

For more info on Rhi’s writings:

Email address: RhiAnon.Etzweiler@gmail.com

Website: http://www.RhiAnonEtzweiler.com

Blog: http://RhiAnonEtzweiler.blogspot.com

Twitter: @musefodder

Facebook Profile: here

Goodreads Profile: here

Amazon Author Page: here

Google+ Profile: here

Get “Dark Edge of Honor” here

Andrea Speed - Story Behind the Josh of the Damned series

I love throwing the fantastic and the mundane together, so putting the mouth of hell and a convenience store side by side seemed like a natural thing to do. I love writing horror, and I love writing comedy, but I have to admit that the task of putting them together can be daunting and very tricky. Still, I love the Evil Dead movies, especially two and three, where they really embraced the humor of the films (the first was, as Joe Bob Briggs -or was it Stephen King? - said, “Spam in a cabin”, i.e. a slaughter-fest), and the end of three, where we see a brief snippet of Ash back at his assistant manager job at the S-Mart, could be looked at as inspiration for the overall Josh of the Damned series. After all, what would happen if Ash had to keep juggling his demon killing “job” with his mundane day job?

A key difference is Josh is no demon killer, nor is he an assistant manager. He’s much lower on the totem pole, and as much as I hate to use the term “slacker”, that’s exactly what Josh is. He works a terrible job that he knows is a terrible job, but it doesn’t require much from him, and since he has no real ambition, that suits him just fine. I’m not sure what my inspiration for Josh is, beyond  simply wondering what an employed drifter might be like. Someone who really doesn’t want responsibility, but needs a check. That’s Josh, who may own a cactus, but certainly not a pet. He’s probably lucky to feed himself most of the time. Like a rock in a river, he’s happy to let life just flow past and over him, except the circumstances at his little crap job force him to become more engaged with the world. A weird world full of zombies and lizard people, but anything less probably wouldn’t have shaken him from his natural torpor. Of course I’ve known people like that, and I have my only tendencies that way as well, but Josh doesn’t like confrontation so much, while I don’t mind at all. 

Even when you don’t want to, life changes, and it forces you to change as well. In a way, that’s what the Josh of the Damned series is all about. Josh doesn’t really want to change, but life is going to make him change, in the strangest (and hopefully funniest) way possible.

Here’s the blurb for Pretty Monsters:

Josh knew the night shift at the Quik-Mart would be full of freaks and geeks—and that was before the hell portal opened in the parking lot. Still, he likes to think he can roll with things. Sure, the zombies make a mess sometimes, but at least they never reach for anything more threatening than frozen burritos.

Besides, it’s not all lizard-monsters and the walking dead. There’s also the mysterious hottie with the sly red lips and a taste for sweets.

Josh has had the hots for Hot Guy since the moment he laid eyes on him, and it seems Hot Guy might be sweet on Josh too. Now if only Josh could figure out whether that’s a good thing, a bad thing, or something in between. After all, with a hell vortex just a stone’s throw away, Josh has learned to take nothing at face value—even if it’s a very, very pretty face.

This title is #1 of the Josh of the Damned series.

If you’d like to read an excerpt and purchase Pretty Monsters, click here.

The second in the series, Peek-A-Boo, is available for pre-sale at Riptide Publishing.

More About Andrea:

Andrea Speed was born looking for trouble in some hot month without an R in it. While succeeding in finding Trouble, she has also been found by its twin brother, Clean Up, and is now on the run, wanted for the murder of a mop and a really cute, innocent bucket that was only one day away from retirement. (I was framed, I tell you - framed!) In her spare time, she arms lemurs in preparation for the upcoming war against the Mole Men. Viva la revolution!

Where you can find Andrea:

Email address: aspeed2@gmail.com

Website

Blog

Twitter

Facebook

Goodreads Page

Kari Gregg - Collared -- The Story Behind the Story

Collared -- The Story Behind the Story

I was raised in central West Virginia and I still go back several times each year to visit my family. Although my parents now live in the next county over (light years and entire universes away from my old stomping grounds), I still run into and hear from/about old friends occasionally. Collared came to be after I bumped into one of those friends. We'll call him Jack. That isn't his real name, but close enough.

Back in high school, Jack was brilliant. He was funny and fun to be around. A much heavier partier than I was (and I was no lightweight). We were bored kids stuck out in the country. We had to drive half an hour to get to a restaurant chain and another hour beyond that to see a movie. Of course we were going to get into trouble. And Jack was excellent at it. So good, in fact, that (like me) he managed to put his party on and maintain the high GPA that was his ticket out of the county and into civilization.

For Jack, though, the train derailed. Never use something that will end up using YOU, compadres. Jack got a powerful monkey on his back in college, dropped out, blew around the party-fest communes back home and finally settled in a shack deep in the woods -- deep enough to dissuade the cops from looking for his crops, if you see what I'm saying.

So anyway, I run into Jack many years (and several lifetimes later) and he's still the fun guy he always was, but wow, does he have a whole treasure trove of conspiracy theories. Really crazy stuff. I love the guy to death, though, and you know what? He's still brilliant. Nuckin futs, yeah, but brilliant. One of the many theories he'd cooked up was an elaborate scenario in which the government was doping the masses (that'd be you and me, pal) with hormones injected into our meat and bio-engineered crops. Whoa. Awesome.

But it got me to thinking...What if behavior could be modified by altering the food supply? What might that look like? How would we, as a society, respond? I thought about an old grade B horror flick in which animals went super-aggressive for some bizarre reason (scared the shit out of me as a 10yo) so I had an idea for what direction I'd go in (though dominance instead, not aggression of the homicidal bent). Then, weirdly enough, I thought about 911, how the horror and grief of that event provoked us (individually and nationally) to act impulsively and at times irrationally -- sometimes for the good and sometimes for the very, very bad.

From that soup of what if's, Collared was born. Everyone's brain chemistry is changing and that's causing us to act in extreme and (sometimes) irrational ways, both individually (for my characters) and as a nation (the political/legal environment). My heroes struggle with who they were, who they want to be and who they are becoming -- juxtaposed against the setting of a world in flux. Nothing makes sense, not how they feel, not how the new environment is coming into shape...It doesn't work. The world they live, breathe and move in does not work. It needs fixing and so do my characters. They're trying. They're fighting to adapt to the changes, to accept their new normal and to make that new normal better. They make mistakes. We, as a society, make mistakes too. But we never stop fighting to make life better. This is Connor's, Emmett's and David's story -- their struggle to find their balance, each other and a way to make a world gone mad work.

Here's the blurb:

Trans-Global IT director Connor Witt is a rare and prized anomaly: the aggression centers in his brain have been suppressed rather than stimulated by the mutated crops that so recently took over the world’s food supply. Bewildered by his physical changes and terrified of a world growing more and more predatory, Connor risks harassment and worse until Trans-Global CEO David Martin collars Connor to protect him against men like security consultant Emmett Drake. Men who stalk Connor as sweet, sexy prey. Men to whom the newly submissive Connor feels irresistibly drawn.

But David can’t be Connor’s master; David’s straight. He promises to find a worthy man, though. One willing to court and appreciate Connor as more than just some rich man’s toy.

While the world adapts to the biological disaster and new laws strip away Connor’s rights, David’s resolve to protect his boy slowly grows into something more. But can his new desires keep pace with Emmett’s determination to claim Connor?

One man offers safety; the other is a safer bet. Problem is, Connor’s never sure which is which. The one thing he does know? He wants them both.

Click the title to read an excerpt and purchase Collared.

Visit Kari's website for more information on all her work.

Cat Grant and The Inspiration for Once a Marine

Hey, Jadette. Thanks for inviting me to blog here!

Once a Marine, my new release from Riptide Publishing, took a long time to gestate. I’d been wanting to write a m/m book with a DADT theme for a couple of years, but I had to wait for the policy to be officially repealed before I could see giving that kind of story a truly happy ending. So when President Obama signed the repeal into law right before Christmas in 2010, I rubbed my hands together and started brainstorming ideas.

As luck would have it, I’d also been following the awesome Rachel Maddow’s ongoing series of interview with service men and women discharged under DADT. Here interview with Army Captain Jonathan Hopkins struck a chord with me. When he told her he’d effectively put his personal life on hold for the better part of ten years because any relationship he had would have to be closeted, I knew I had the model for my Marine, Cole Hammond.

Then I had to come up with a worthy object for his affections – and I’ll admit, I didn’t look too far. I knew I wanted to set the story in a university town, so I picked Berkeley – because I HATE location research, and UC Berkeley is my alma mater, so I already know the town really well. And I made Marc Sullivan, Cole’s lover, a writer because I’d never written a book with a writer protag before. Basically, Marc is me if I were a thirty-year-old gay man. So once I had that down, I was good to go.

Writing the first draft took about a month, which is pretty fast, but I can normally knock it out quickly when I have the characters and the story firmly in mind. It was the editing that nearly killed me – in the best way possible. I’d never had developmental edits before, and needless to say, they were an eye-opener. But they helped kick-start my writing brain into overdrive, and by the time we were done, the book was a thousand percent better.

Many readers have commented on my choice to write the story in one 1^st person POV (Marc) and one 3^rd (Cole). Some have found Cole’s POV a bit distancing, which is exactly what I was aiming for. I wanted readers to get to know and slowly fall in love with Cole, the same way Marc does. Was I successful? That’s for readers to judge.

I had a great time researching and writing Once a Marine. It was a privilege to tell Cole and Marc’s story. I can only hope I’ve honored Cole’s sacrifice, the same sacrifice made by so many of our valiant service men and women, who can now serve openly, with dignity and honor.

Here's the blurb:

Love is a battlefield.

Discharged under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, former Marine major Cole Hammond is struggling to find a new identity. But PTSD casts a pall on everything, and his hard-nosed, homophobic father can’t even bear to look him in the eye. To top it all off, he’s pretty sure he’s flunking out of law school.

Marc Sullivan is a kind, sensitive romance author-slash-waiter with a thing for men in uniform. Cole’s not wearing his anymore, but there’s no mistaking the warrior Marc meets in the diner one rainy afternoon. Cole’s sexy smile and Carolina drawl prove irresistible, but Marc’s played this game before, and he always loses. Once a Marine, always a Marine, and if there’s one thing Marc knows about such men, it’s that they all leave him in the end. It doesn’t help that Cole’s practically closeted in public, or that he refuses to seek treatment for his PTSD.

But like any good Marine, Cole’s willing to fight for what matters. And like the characters in Marc’s stories, he’s certain that if they try just hard enough, together they can find their own happily ever after.

Click the title to read an excerpt and purchase Once a Marine.

Visit my website for more information on my work.

Storm Grant Life Resembles Art

Life Resembles Art

Or sometimes, TV resembles something I’ve written.

Earlier this week, I was flipping channels and landed on a TV show featuring a de-fanged vampire. There was a horrible scene of blood dripping out of the blood-sucker’s mouth, and some really great camera shots showcasing big empty sockets where his canines had been. Make that “ex-blood-sucker”. Apparently in this show’s world-building, no canines = starving to death. They never grow back and without them, the vampire can’t feed.

I’d actually thought of this scenario a couple of years ago, only with 100% less death! In my world, there’s another body fluid on which a de-fanged vampire can survive. Happily.

I let this premise percolate in the back of my mind for a long time, then I started thinking “under what circumstances would a vampire lose his teeth?” followed by, “And how will I make this a sexy love story?” 

I made a few notes, opened my GMC* template, and then suddenly, I’d written an m/m romance about a vampire and his dentist. Don’t you just love it when that happens?

___

NOTE: *GMC = Goals, Motivation and Conflict, a fabulous book by Debra Dixon with a simple formula for writing character-driven fiction. I use this in conjunction with Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat story structure for plot-driven fiction. Together, they’re all you need to plan a book.

Here's the blurb:

No greater love has a vampire than for his dentist.

Deeply in debt to a loan shark, oversexed dentist Cary Drewel lives in fear of foreclosure and bodily harm. His new practice is missing one rather crucial element: patients. Which, terrifyingly enough, is the one thing his creditors also don’t have.

Pierce Sharpe, a powerful vampire with a drinking problem—or, more accurately, a problem drinking—can’t feed through the pain in his damaged eye teeth. In danger of losing his standing in the vampire community, Pierce seeks Cary's dental services. When Cary extracts his canines, Pierce must turn to other bodily fluids for sustenance.

Together, Cary and Pierce find a mutually pleasurable solution to both their problems. Turns out, though, there’s more to this dentist-patient relationship than simple suction, and what began with raw hunger from each of them might just end in love.

Click the title to read an excerpt and purchase Sucks and Blows.

Visit Storm's website.