New Release Blitz: Witch, Cat, and Cobb by J.K. Pendragon (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Witch, Cat, and Cobb

Author: J.K. Pendragon

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: December 14, 2020

Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 21700

Genre: Fantasy, LGBTQIA+, Fae/fey/fairies/faeries, Fairy tales, Humorous, Magic/ Magic users, Mythical creatures, Witch, Arranged marriage, Royalty, Transgender, Transspecies, #ownvoices

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Synopsis

Destined for an arranged marriage she wants nothing to do with, Princess Breanwynne decides her only option for escape is to run away. After announcing this plan to her trusted cat, Fen, she’s shocked when he asks that she take him along.

Following his suggestion to venture into the lair of the Swamp Witch begins a life-altering adventure and reveals shocking information that will lead to more than one happily ever after—if she and Fen survive.

Excerpt

Witch, Cat, and Cobb
J.K. Pendragon © 2020
All Rights Reserved

I was not accustomed to swamps.

I had been warned about the dangers of swamps, of course, as all children were, and knew the likelihood of traversing the swamp without grave peril befalling me was dismally low. But somehow, in the course of plotting my grand escape, I hadn’t given that fact as much thought as I should have. And to pay for it, I was knee-deep in muck with a cat’s claws digging painfully into my shoulders.

“Don’t make any sudden movements!” said Fen, digging his claws even deeper into my shoulder until I was certain he had latched onto my bone. “It’ll only make it worse.”

“Make it worse?” I screeched at him. “How could this possibly be worse?”

Fen released his front claws from my neck and placed them gently on my head, “I’ve heard about this sort of ground. If I’m right, it’ll be a few hours before it’s swallowed you whole. Whoops!” He had jumped up onto my head, his back legs scrambling over my ear and causing me to shout in pain as his claws grazed me.

“Ouch!”

“Shh, I’m balancing.” He turned delicately on my head and crouched, wiggling his backside for good measure. “Anyway, you don’t know what sort of creatures you’re likely to attract, making so much noise.” He jumped, shoving me deeper into the muck as he did so, and caught a branch, scrambling up and then perching deftly to look down at me. His normally tawny fur was black in silhouette against the full moon, his eyes a green glint in the otherwise dark swamp.

“I should never have trusted you,” I said, glaring up at him. “You’ve led me to my death!”

“I haven’t!” called Fen, sounding offended. “Anyway, you agreed the swamp was the best choice because no one would come looking for us!”

“And no one will find us even if they do!” I squeaked.

“Hush.” Fen took a step forward, and the tree shifted as he arched his back, swaths of witch’s hair dipped into the muck next to me. He took another step forward, and the branch swayed and bowed downwards. “There, see? Grab that.”

I did so, tangling my fingers in the greasy mats. My shoulders shook as I pulled hand over hand to drag the lower half of my body out of the muck. I was glad I had thought to change into my riding breeches before leaving the castle. Fen made a very un-catlike screech and raced up the tree as it buckled further under my weight.

At last I managed to pull myself up and crawl over to where I hoped the ground was more solid. I let go, falling to the forest floor with a whump and sat, collecting myself. Fen landed lightly on my shoulder, and I hissed at him, causing him to scuttle away and behind the tree.

“Don’t do that,” he said presently, his voice muffled by the leaves and bracken. “Show some gratitude.”

“Right,” I said, standing and attempting to brush myself off as best I could. I was also not accustomed to being quite so dirty. “Thank you for saving me from the peril you yourself put me in.”

“You are the one who wanted to run away, Princess, if I might remind you.” Fen emerged from behind the tree and trotted up to me, jumping deftly back onto my shoulder. “I simply agreed to help you out.”

“You think I don’t know that you’ve got some sort of ulterior motive?” I asked him as I began to walk again, keeping a wary eye out for more of the muck I’d sunken into.

“What ulterior motive could I possibly have?” said Fen. “I’m a cat.”

“A talking cat, I might add. Who waited for how many years, twenty? To decide to reveal that fact to me, and not until I had mentioned I might be thinking of running away to the swamp. Why?”

“I liked the sound of it.”

“You liked the sound of this?” I gestured to the seething wet darkness around us and stopped walking. “No, tell me immediately.”

“Hmph,” said Fen. “If you must know, I’m not really a cat.”

“Fen, I’ve been undressed in front of you!”

“Oh, don’t be so full of yourself, Princess.”

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read Universal Link

Meet the Author

J.K. Pendragon is a Canadian author with a love of all things romantic and fantastical. They first came to the queer fiction community through m/m romance, but soon began to branch off into writing all kinds of queer fiction. As a bisexual and genderqueer person, J.K. is dedicated to producing diverse, entertaining fiction that showcases characters across the rainbow spectrum, and provides queer characters with the happy endings they are so often denied.

J.K. currently resides in British Columbia, Canada with a boyfriend, a cat, and a large collection of artisanal teas that they really need to get around to drinking. They are always happy to chat, and can be reached at jes.k.pendragon@gmail.com.

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New Release Blitz: That Distant Dream by Laurel Beckley (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  That Distant Dream

Series: The Satura Trilogy, Book One

Author: Laurel Beckley

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: December 14, 2020

Heat Level: 1 – No Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 65600

Genre: Science Fiction, LGBTQIA+, science fiction, sci-fi, military scifi, cliffhanger, other-world, military, PTSD, war

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Synopsis

After her escape pod is found drifting through debris nearly two decades after the end of the Redelki Wars, Melin is woken from cryosleep to find a galaxy where she no longer belongs. The galaxy has moved on from the horrors she experienced, the experiences that transformed her into a hero while she slept, but she hasn’t.

Alone, broken in mind and body, Melin is slowly pulled to the planet of her ancestors. She just wants a fresh start. A chance to end the dreams plaguing her sleep. A chance for answers. For new beginnings. For a life lived in oblivion where no one knows her name or what she did.

But Satura is a planet at war. And there are no fresh starts for heroes.

Excerpt

That Distant Dream
Laurel Beckley © 2020
All Rights Reserved

The shuttle jerked violently to the left, shuddered as both engines made the distinct whine of crystal overload, shrieked, and died.

Someone in the back screamed as the craft tumbled, rolling wildly through the atmosphere.

Melin gripped her armrests, squeezed her eyes shut as she willed her breath to remain steady. Hyperventilation would kill her faster.

She tried focusing on what that quack psychoanalyst claimed were “soothing” mantras as the onsetting gravity of reentry sucked her into her seat at a pace faster than the cheap civilian gravity suit could compensate. Breathe, breathe, breathe.

A distant corner of her brain—the one not occupied with breathing, muscle tension, and avoiding G-LOC—remembered a military-grade ship suit wouldn’t have had this problem. Her old space armor would have allowed her to carve a hole out of this blasted shuttle and free dive planetside. She sucked a tight inhale through clenched teeth, chest burning. Think of the positive.

Then she remembered she’d never link in with a set of space armor ever again, and she was back where she’d started.

On a free-falling shuttle with a one-way ticket to the ground.

The shuttle flipped, gaining a moment of antigravity that triggered a spate of relief—and retching and sobbing and fervent prayers—for its passengers.

The shuttle rolled again, nose pointing down.

Melin’s vision tunneled, graying at the edges.

I will not die like this.

A jolt of energy passed through her, setting her fingers on fire and dissolving her vision into sparkling blue light. An engine sputtered, hissed, and restarted with a ferocious roar.

As quickly as the onset had begun, the shuttle leveled in its descent, catching before it hit too steep of a reentry and turned them into a smear of fire and ash across the sky.

The shipboard gravity slackened to a bearable weight, and Melin heaved in a grateful sigh. Her chest hitched as she inhaled too far, and she leaned forward, instinctively slapping her chest to release the five-point harness as her lungs burned and shuddered with a coughing fit. The gravity was still too heavy, and she tumbled forward into the seat in front of her, wheezing.

“You all right, sero?” her seatmate asked with all the sincerity of a corpse. His gray face looked like it had aged thirty years in ten seconds.

Melin waved a hand between coughs, focusing on breathing. In and out and in and out, settle your chest, you aren’t going to die. You just survived a weird shuttle mishap. A little coughing fit is nothing. And when you get your shit together, you can tell this asshat to address you as an adult, not a child.

Eventually, her inhales matched her exhales. Unthinking, she wiped her mouth with her left hand—the flesh still new and tingly from the regen. Fuck. Everything felt new and fresh and raw. She sucked in a rattling breath.

The last set of skin grafts had done wonders to fix the burn scars. She looked like new. On the outside. Her insides were old, brittle, and breaking with every wracking cough, every interminable second. At least she had control of her bodily functions again. Melin shook her head and rubbed her temples with her right hand, feeling the calluses of her finger pads brush against her forehead. She carefully tucked her left hand against her side. A cobbled together golem, that’s what she was now.

“It’s like this on every jump,” her seatmate said. He straightened in his seat as if trying to gather his composure. Melin grimaced. Of course he hadn’t passed out.

Melin ignored him, leaning into her seat and fumbling with the straps.

He had introduced himself as Diplomatic Corpsmember Undersecretary Obidiah Calderon when they’d first boarded after he’d squeezed his body into the jump chair beside hers. His thigh touched hers even now, oozing over the seat. He’d been assigned to a backwoods planet of minor significance that would make or break his career. As if to emphasize his importance and larger stature, his thighs were spread wide, invading her space and pushing her further into the cramped window seat.

“Almost like the planet doesn’t want us here,” he added when he had obviously failed to pique her interest. “But we still land safely—80 percent of the time.”

She nodded absently and turned to the windows, which were untinted now they were in the upper atmosphere, revealing more gray clouds. At least this shuttle had windows. Tactical combat shuttles had no windows, and—Melin shook her head, trying to physically toss aside those memories. Those times were long past, and she was on a clean slate.

What clean slate she had left.

A fresh start, she’d resolved to think of it when she’d boarded the starship to this sector of Intergalactic Association of Sentient Species space.

A fresh start, take eleven or so.

She’d lost count somewhere around clean slate number five.

But there was no true fresh start for someone who’d received the highest awards in the IASS not once but twice. It had been two years since she’d woken from cryo, and the novelty of her circumstances had worn off. At first, she’d been shepherded from place to place; the long-lost treasure recovered. Although it certainly hadn’t helped IASS fleet when she’d punched that reporter immediately upon her release from the swank veterans’ hospital they’d stashed her in during her long recovery. And the state dinner where she’d spazzed when the servers popped the bubbly. One of the poor busboys wouldn’t walk ever again.

The brass stopped trying to mold her into a puppet, had stopped trying to point her along a destined path. Reporters stopped following her when they’d realized there would be no story.

She was all past with no future. She was even ruined for further military service. No one wanted to work with an operator who couldn’t even use a suit. Who couldn’t do five-dimensional math. Who couldn’t take an implant ever again.

Melin closed her eyes, forehead resting against the cool plex-glass.

She’d failed at every single thing they’d set her to since her waking.

Now, more than ever, she wanted nothing more than to just slide off into the background. She wanted to be something less than a footnote in history.

She wanted to be nothing.

Because without an implant, she was nothing.

Cranial implants had been enhancing humanity for generations. Nearly everyone had one—generally put in at birth or when they took their qualification exams upon entering adulthood. Few people failed to take an implant—although there were several religions focused on maintaining the purity of the human body.

Unimplanted people were rare because there were no jobs beyond the most menial for them. Entire families would scrounge for years for the cheapest model to implant their children and send them to school for a better future and for their children to turn around and raise up their parents in return.

But no one at the upper levels wanted to chance the story of the heroine of the Redelki Wars mopping a floor—and she had no desire to return to her long-fled homeworld.

So, during those nine or ten previous fresh starts and throughout the year of rehab she’d…floated. Unable to face her future, to accept reality, she’d turned herself off. Half-drifting, half-asleep until the only time it seemed she was really awake was while dozing, and even then, she’d wake unrested, troubled by the damn dreams.

They began in cryo-sleep.

The shrinks had insisted she hadn’t—couldn’t have—dreamt, that dreams were impossible because she had been effectively dead, but she had. She had dreamed, those long years as an ice cube. Weird dreams, muddled and glorious and filled with swords and dragons and monsters and creatures from fairy tales and nightmares. Dreams that mixed her life with her great-grandmother’s stories, but it had all been so real.

They had been more real than the monotonous reality of flex this, good, now bend your index finger, good, rotate your wrist, good. Of sterile gray walls and the hot-metal stench of recycled air.

The dreams had faded a couple months after she first woke. When she’d regained words in a language her therapists understood. But she kept seeing flickers of people she had never met in real life but felt so familiar out of the corner of her eyes.

They’d remained intermittent during the never-ending horrors of the grafts and regrowing her arm and the physical therapy, but after she’d been discharged, they grew more persistent.

Months, weeks apart, then quicker, every night, pulling her to a place she’d known only from childhood stories.

Satura.

With nothing else left than the desire to stop the dreams, she had set her sights here, and who would have refused her? She was a hero. The hero. Besides, at that point the IASS wanted her out of their hair. She was a liability, an embarrassment waiting to happen.

Satura had seemed the best place to send her.

It was the end of the line in every sense.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read Universal Link

Meet the Author

Laurel Beckley has been writing ever since she started her first novel the summer before eighth grade—a hand-written epic fantasy catastrophe that has lurked in her mind and an increasingly ratty college-ruled notebook ever since.

She is a writer, Marine Corps veteran, and librarian.

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New Release Blitz: Make the Yuletide Gay by Ivy L. James (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Make the Yuletide Gay

Author: Ivy L. James

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: December 14, 2020

Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 24700

Genre: Contemporary Holiday, LGBTQIA+, contemporary, romance, lesbian, editors, publishing, seasonal/holiday/Christmas, age-gap, coworkers, office affair, road trip, hot chocolate

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Synopsis

Junior editor Grace Taylor is doubling as the temporary assistant to senior editor Nicola Valentine…and harboring a secret crush on her. Grace is devastated when a work conference forces her to miss her big family Christmas. However, she gets a gift she doesn’t expect when a snowstorm strands her and Nicola at a small B&B.

Nicola has no idea how to handle sharing a room with her gorgeous, vibrant assistant. As she learns to share her heart as well, her fear threatens the blossoming relationship. Can she let Grace in, or will Nicola’s past sabotage her chance at happiness?

Excerpt

Make the Yuletide Gay
Ivy L. James © 2020
All Rights Reserved

Grace Taylor, junior editor at Pembroke Press, had doubled as the temporary assistant to senior editor Nicola Valentine for two weeks now, and she had mixed feelings about the whole thing.

Pros of working so closely with Nicola:

It might provide an advantage when promotion time came around.
Grace saw Nicola’s beautiful, beautiful face all day.
When not seeing her beautiful, beautiful face, she saw her beautiful, beautiful ass.
God, she was beautiful.

Cons of working so closely with Nicola:

Grace had to see her beautiful, beautiful face all day.
When not seeing her beautiful, beautiful face, she had to see her beautiful, beautiful ass.
God, she was beautiful.

For obvious reasons, Grace kept these thoughts to herself.

At least she had the week of Christmas off. Some time away from the office—far away—might help reset her brain. There was nothing like her moms’ obsession with tinsel and oversized yard décor to get a girl’s mind off real life.

But right now, real life offered her a direct view of Nicola leaning against her oak desk during a conference call, and visions of sugar plums dissipated from Grace’s head.

The lamplight gleamed on the silk of Nicola’s deep-blue blouse, highlighting her curves, business tinted with pleasure. The neckline dipped low to bare smooth brown skin and a tempting shadow of cleavage. Her charcoal-gray pencil skirt fit tight over full hips and ass, and with her ever-present high heels… God.

Phone tucked between her shoulder and ear, Nicola traced the edge of the desk, her slim fingers tipped in short, gray-polished nails.

Grace sucked in a breath.

Those nails scraping on her skin, with the heels and prim clothes scattered across her apartment floor…

Not that that’s ever happening. Grace had no illusions about office relationships, casual or otherwise. It never ended well for anyone involved. Still…when she went home, no one had to know she fantasized about going to Nicola’s desk, with that silky shirt unbuttoned and dark hair loose, and pulling her into a deep, lazy kiss.

Late at night, the fantasy darkened. Panting breaths, exploring hands, parting legs…

You can’t think about this at work. She huffed and stalked over to the employee break room to busy her hands with preparing the morning coffees—one with plenty of creamer, one black. The beige office walls and bland cubicles around her did nothing to reflect the holiday season.

When Nicola ended the call, Grace opened the office door and offered her the second steaming mug. “How’s your morning so far?”

Nicola swigged from the cup, unfazed by the heat and bitterness. “I just learned I have to cancel my holiday plans to attend a work conference that Craig was supposed to cover. So I’ve had better.”

Craig Harkness, the other senior editor. Grace winced. “That sucks. Is it at least nearby?”

Nicola’s lips twisted into a humorless smile. “Of course not. It’s in Maine.”

Over a ten-hour drive away from their work in Washington, D.C. “Oh, no, will you—?”

“And, of course, I’ll need you with me.”

Grace froze.

“Between the holiday and the late notice, there aren’t any flights left, so we’ll take my car. We leave tomorrow, return next Saturday.”

Maine? For the entire week? Her brain threw up a blue screen of death, and she laughed. “Sorry, what?” You can’t possibly have said… No. No way.

Nicola scrolled through something on her phone screen. “I know it’s last minute. The company will reimburse you for any cancellations you have to make, plus our meals and accommodations, and you’ll get overtime. But you’ll need to go. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.” When she glanced up, she really did look apologetic. “I know it’s not ideal.”

Not ideal? Grace’s family. Her traditional Christmas. Her chance to get Nicola Valentine out of her head. So close, and yet so far away. “I’m not sure I understand.”

With a tsk, Nicola set aside her coffee mug. “It’s the publishing conference of the year. If Pembroke Press isn’t there, we’re screwed. And Craig had some sort of personal emergency—” Her jaw ticked despite her even tone. “—so it falls to me. And I need my assistant with me to help keep everything on track.”

But I have to go? Grace had only been an in-office assistant so far. Scheduling meetings, answering emails, entering data in spreadsheets. Small things, relatively speaking. Conference of the year? What if I screw it up for her?

But she’d volunteered to assist, and she didn’t have the sway to say no. Not to mention the ever-looming mountain of college debt. I need this job.

Nicola stared at her with an are-you-stupid look. “Well?”

It wasn’t a question.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read Universal Link

 

Meet the Author

Ivy L. James wrote her first story on Post-it notes as a child. Since then, she has graduated to regular paper and enjoys writing inclusive, heartwarming romance as a way to counterbalance the negativity in the world. She lives in Maryland with her partner and their corgi, cat, and two snakes.

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New Release Blitz: In the Winter Woods by Isabelle Adler (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  In the Winter Woods

Author: Isabelle Adler

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: December 14, 2020

Heat Level: 1 – No Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 61800

Genre: Contemporary Holiday, LGBTQIA+, contemporary, romance, gay, bi, seasonal/holiday, Christmas, Vermont, writer, law enforcement, crime, crime procedure, mystery, small town, maple syrup

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Synopsis

Declan Kensington isn’t really in the mood for Christmas. His latest mystery book sales are tanking, his finances are in a dismal state, and his spirits are anything but festive. Perhaps spending the holidays alone at his family lakeside cabin in the small village of Maplewood, Vermont, will provide him much-needed peace and quiet. Then he might finally get to work on a new book and (hopefully) jumpstart his stalling writing career.

When he starts receiving anonymous letters threatening him to leave, Declan realizes his solitary writer’s retreat isn’t at all what he bargained for. And if the threats aren’t enough, a killer strikes, casting Declan in the role of the most likely suspect. Now it’s up to him and the handsome local Public Safety Commissioner Curtis Monroe to find out the truth before Declan spends Christmas (and the rest of his life) in jail. But as dead bodies pile up and dark secrets are revealed beneath Maplewood’s picture-perfect facade, Declan’s heart may yet be in more danger than his life…

Excerpt

In the Winter Woods
Isabelle Adler © 2020
All Rights Reserved

At first glance, there was nothing sinister about the lakeside village of Maplewood, Vermont.

In fact, there wasn’t much of anything in the village. I had passed the post office, the fire station, the town hall, and a big billboard announcing the construction of some sort of theme park, all situated along the half-mile stretch of Main Street before parking my car in front of the convenience store. It abutted the first gas station I’d seen in the last few hours. The faded sign at the front was fitted with twinkling lights and plastic green holly garlands that had seen better days. Despite the general shabbiness, there was something charming and distinctly Christmas-y about it, like looking at a vintage postcard.

I got out and tightened my parka around me. Snow crunched under my sneakers, which were hardly suitable for the weather. I’d forgotten just how cold the winters here in Vermont could be, and now I was paying the price for neglecting to properly equip myself for the long trip from Manhattan’s Upper West Side all the way to Lake Champlain.

Granted, it had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. Not the part about leaving New York City, but coming here to Maplewood. I didn’t remember much of the town, having last been here with my family when I was thirteen or fourteen, but I doubted it’d changed much in the last twenty years.

The doorbell chimed as I entered the store. It seemed to be empty aside from a gray-haired elderly lady behind the counter, who looked up and offered me a distracted smile before turning back to a talk show on a small TV set tucked beside the register.

I blew on my hands and rubbed them together, then picked up a basket and started off down the aisle toward the refrigerators in the back. I suspected I would have to stock up on everything before going up to the cabin. It hadn’t been used for something like five years, since the last vacation my sister Jenny and her husband had taken there after being married, when the cabin still belonged to our parents. Everything still lurking in the depths of the pantry would have to be thrown out anyway.

Between grocery shopping and another full tank of gas, this retreat was turning out more expensive than I initially imagined. And it was a retreat, I told myself firmly, a writer’s retreat of one. Jenny would say I was running away from my problems, but it was the opposite, really. I’d come here to tackle them head-on.

I wanted to do battle with my lingering writer’s block somewhere where I wouldn’t have to stretch my dwindling income to cover rent for a Manhattan apartment. It’d come down to either living in the center of the known universe or, well, eating. And whoever had come up with the idea an artist had to starve to produce great art was clearly full of it.

The first thing that caught my eye was a display rack of Champ the Champlain Lake Monster merchandise. Much like the Loch Ness monster in Scotland, “Champ” was a popular piece of local folklore and somewhat of a draw for holidaymakers all around the lake. A cardboard cutout of Champ wearing a Santa hat invited the customers to peruse the display. I glanced at the selection of postcards and printed T-shirts and moved into the food isles.

I picked some sensible items—dried pasta, canned tomato sauce, eggs, bread, and some packaged vegetables. Then (because I wasn’t living in complete denial) I added instant coffee and a box of sugary donuts.

The doorbell rang again as I was contemplating adding cocoa to the selection. I glanced briefly above the shelves and saw a tall man in a dark blue uniform step inside. He wore one of those heavy-duty puffer jackets and a hat.

I hadn’t heard another car or a bike pull up, so I assumed he’d walked here. His cheeks were red, his pale skin flushed with the bracing cold of midday winter air. Maybe he was one of those people who found regular outdoor exercise invigorating. I shuddered.

The uniform clearly marked him as some sort of law enforcement officer. He was also handsome in that macho, all-American-good-looks kind of way I found inexplicably irritating. The blue eyes and chiseled jaw reminded me of the D-list actors who drifted from one episodic role in a network show to another for the length of their careers, relying on their appearance rather than talent to get them through.

The officer’s gaze swept over the store and lingered on me for a split second before he turned to greet the shopkeeper. I tuned out their chatter as I tried to figure out what else I needed for the next week or so. The cabin wasn’t that far away, but I preferred to avoid making frequent trips to the village if I could help it.

Having finally concluded my shopping, I took my basket over to the counter, which was decorated with green and silver tinsel. Both the newcomer and the elderly lady fell silent at my approach.

“Hi,” I said awkwardly.

The shopkeeper put on the spectacles that hung on a dainty beaded chain around her neck and began scanning my items. She looked for all the world like a prim schoolmistress in her pale-pink sweater and upswept hairdo, her gray hair almost white against her deep brown skin. However, the look she gave me above the glasses now perched on the tip of her nose was friendly enough.

“Renting a cottage or just passing through?” she inquired.

The officer turned to examine a rack of magazines near the window, but for some reason I got the distinct impression he was listening in.

“Renting. That is, I’m staying in one of the cabins, up near the lake. It’s my family’s, actually. The Kensingtons?”

“Oh, yes!” Her face lit up. “I remember. Such a lovely family; came here nigh every year in the summertime. But not anymore.”

This wasn’t phrased as a question, precisely, but her voice rose expectantly at the last bit.

“My parents died last year.” Saying it still hurt, but I’d made my peace with it enough by now to be casual about it. “The cabin passed down to me. Well, to my sister Jenny and me, but I don’t think she has much interest in coming to Vermont anymore.” Neither did I, for that matter, but I wasn’t about to say so in front of the locals. “My name is Declan Kensington.”

The old lady raised her head, her eyes going wide behind the thin golden rims.

“The Declan Kensington? The mystery writer?”

“One and the same,” I said.

The man finally picked a newspaper and moved to stand behind me. He was definitely paying attention to our conversation, though why it would interest him, I had no notion. He didn’t seem in any hurry to leave, in any case.

“My goodness!” the shopkeeper gasped. “You know, I’ve never made the connection with the Kensington family. I’m a huge fan of your work.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes, Mr Kensington, am I ever!”

I was somewhat surprised that an old-fashioned-looking small-town shopkeeper would be reading crime thrillers that featured an openly gay protagonist, but perhaps I was being unnecessarily judgmental. Times were changing, after all—at least according to my Twitter feed.

She continued, oblivious to my incredulity.

“I’m Janice. Janice Bentley. I have all your books! Well, most of them,” she added almost apologetically.

I knew what she meant, of course. Even the most die-hard fans of my Owen Graves mystery thriller series had been loudly critical of the last books I’d produced, and the rest voted with their wallets. Which was why I was here, in Maplewood, in an attempt to cut down on my living expenses by taking up in an old family cabin while I worked on my next masterpiece.

And boy, did I need a masterpiece.

“Strange timing for a lakeside weekend getaway,” the man said. We both turned to look at him, and he shrugged. “It’s freezing.”

As if the fact wasn’t self-evident.

“I’m not here on a vacation,” I said icily. “I’m here to work.”

Not that it was any of their business, of course, but it struck me that saying it out loud was a commitment of sorts, as if their expectations would somehow keep me accountable. It was a bit pathetic, really, that I had to resort to such excuses to trick myself into writing, but I had to face the truth. I was fumbling my way through the worst writing block of my career, and I had to take all the incentives I could claw out. If I didn’t force the words out somehow, and soon, I might as well throw in the towel and become a junior analyst in my mother’s (and now my sister’s) financial advisory firm, waiting for a nice zombie apocalypse to put me out of my misery.

“Your light is broken,” the man said.

“What?”

He nodded toward the parking lot.

“The Honda Accord. It’s yours, right? I saw one of the taillights was busted when I walked by. You should get it fixed.”

“I’ll take care of it, officer,” I said, still reeling from the unpleasant way his words echoed my grim musings. “Unless you’d rather slap me with a fine.”

I don’t know why I was being snappish, really. The officer wasn’t being belligerent, but something in his careless standoffishness irked me. That, and I was already in a foul mood; not much was needed to set me on edge.

He didn’t exactly roll his eyes at my challenge, but I got the distinct impression he did so in his mind.

“The roads here can be dangerous in winter if you’re unfamiliar with them, especially at night,” he said with a hint of reproach. “If someone is driving behind you, you might be putting them at risk. Better be safe than sorry.”

I felt instantly bad. The man gave me no reason to be rude. And besides, my behavior smacked of the kind of privileged white-male arrogance I was doing my best to check myself on.

Clearly, I wasn’t doing a very good job.

“Sorry,” I said, hoping I sounded sincere this time. “I’ll have it fixed.”

The officer nodded and pushed a couple of dollar bills across the counter to pay for his newspaper, which turned out to be The St. Albans Messenger.

“Have a nice stay, Mr. Kensington,” he said and headed out. I saw him throw another glance at my Honda before walking off down the road, the newspaper tucked under his armpit.

“That’s Curtis Monroe, our public safety commissioner,” Janice said, dropping her voice conspiratorially, even though he couldn’t possibly hear her. “He’s a sweetheart, really.”

From our very brief acquaintance, “sweetheart” wouldn’t be the word I’d associate with Commissioner Monroe, but the last thing I wanted right now was to argue the point with Janice.

“Commissioner? So you have a large public safety department here at Maplewood?” I asked, looking longingly at the till. The light was beginning to fail ever so slightly, and I was itching to be off.

Janice laughed as if I were being purposefully funny.

“Oh, heavens, no! It’s just him and Jack Gleason, his deputy. It’s such a small, peaceful village; we hardly have any trouble going on except for the tourist season. And even then, it’s mostly folks having one too many drinks and making a ruckus. You’ll be bored with us quite soon, Mr. Kensington, I’m sure.”

“You know, maybe boredom is exactly what I need right now to focus on my work,” I told her, handing her my credit card. “It looks like the perfect place to get some peace and quiet.”

In retrospect, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read Universal Link

Meet the Author

A voracious reader from the age of five, Isabelle Adler has always dreamed of one day putting her own stories into writing. She loves traveling, art, and science, and finds inspiration in all of these. Her favorite genres include sci-fi, fantasy, and historical adventure. She also firmly believes in the unlimited powers of imagination and caffeine.

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New Release Blitz: Leaning Into Series – The Complete Box Set by Lane Hayes

Lean in to love, to the fall, to a forever kind of wish…

A peek into the lives of a group of college buddies is the beginning of a special journey showcasing the unique bonds of friends who become true family. Friends to lovers, age gaps, second chances, hurt/comfort, coming out, and a couple of holiday shorts too! Take a trip to San Francisco and wine country to meet this compelling crew in this complete box set. You won’t be sorry!

Five complete novels, two novellas, and two brand new short stories…
Leaning Into Love
Leaning Into Always
Leaning Into the Fall
Leaning Into Touch
Leaning Into New Beginnings – *Bonus Short Story
Leaning Into a Wish- Holiday Novella
Leaning Into the Look
Leaning Into Forever
Leaning Into the Holidays- *Bonus Short Story

What the Reviewers Are Saying…

“What can I say. I love this series. All the couples are unique, all the love stories special and all the characters are locked deeply in my heart.”— Love Bytes Reviews


“I have loved every single book in this series, and I’ve probably said they are all my favorites, but I have to say this book really struck a chord with me.”
—Amazon review

“My heart is so full after reading this incredible story!” —Amazon review

“This book is why Lane Hayes is one of my favorite authors. Her characters are so real and their stories have such substance.” —Amazon reviewer

This box set includes all the original titles in the Leaning Into Series as well as two previously unpublished short stories. An additional, brand new chapter has been added to Leaning Into the Holidays. Be sure to find out how leaning into love becomes a forever HEA.

Purchase The Box Set

Meet the Author

Lane Hayes loves a good romance! An avid reader from an early age, she has always been drawn to well-told love story with beautifully written characters. Her debut novel was a 2013 Rainbow Award finalist and subsequent books have received Honorable Mentions, and were winners in the 2016, 2017, and 2018-2019 Rainbow Awards. She loves red wine, chocolate and travel (in no particular order). Lane lives in Southern California with her amazing husband in a not quite empty nest.

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Audio Release Blitz: Starting from Somewhere Audio Blitz (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title: Starting From Somewhere

Series: Starting From, #4

Author: Lane Hayes

Narrator: Michael Dean

Publisher: Lane Hayes

Release Date: November 24, 2020

Heat Level: 4 – Lots of Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 3 hrs and 39 mins

Genre: Romance, Bisexual, Rock star and nerd, Opposites attract, Age Gap

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Synopsis

The guitarist and the geek…

Bobby J-

What can I say? I’m a man of many tastes. I know what I like, and I’m not afraid to go for it. And I like the adorable geek from the bar. A lot. He’s smart and sassy…and he doesn’t seem to know or care that I’m in a hot up-and-coming band. However, I just found out he’s the new intern at Scratch Records. Uh-oh, this could get tricky.

Cody-

Confession…I’ve flubbed my mission. My quest is to research cool things and interesting people before I start my job as aerospace analyst—not fall for a rock star. My internship won’t last long if I can’t control this infatuation. Bobby J might look like a bear, but he’s fun and sweet and…oh boy, I think I’m in over my head. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. After all, you’ve got to start somewhere.

Starting From Somewhere is a MM, bisexual romance with some rock and roll and a little nerdiness! Each book in the Starting From series can be read as a stand-alone.

Excerpt

Cody nodded as he pulled out his cell and typed a few notes. “Got it. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Give me one shot before I go.” I motioned for him to start talking.

“A flirting shot. Okay.” He licked his lips nervously, then shook his head. “I can’t. Everything I’m thinking is…rude.”

I barked a quick laugh. “You have my complete and undivided attention. Bring it on.”

“Um…your jeans look tight. I can’t wait for you to stand up so I can see your ass. But I’d love to see your ass out of them too.”

I bit back a grin. “Okay. That was direct and kinda hot, but do not under any circumstances try that with anyone else on planet Earth.”

“Too much?”

“A tad.” I squeezed his shoulder as I stood. “Keep practicing. It was nice to meet you, Cody.”

“You too. I’ll walk out with you. I’ve done enough research tonight.”

I nodded, then led the way to the exit, holding the door open for him. I stepped outside and gazed up at the fast-moving clouds drifting over the half-moon before turning toward my new acquaintance. Cody pulled his keys from his pocket and smiled.

“Where’d you park?” I asked.

“Over there.” He gestured at the black Mini Cooper at the far end of the lot mostly hidden in shadows.

My chivalrous side kicked in out of the blue. “I’ll walk you to your car. I’m heading that way.”

Cody beamed at me. “Thank you. Are you working early tomorrow?”

“No, why you do ask?”

“I’m making polite conversation. No flirtation whatsoever. Although I was mulling over our earlier discussion and realized you’re guilty of double standards.”

“How so?”

“Earlier you said…and I quote, ‘I’d do you.’ You added something about doing ‘it’ over a bar, a table, etcetera. Ring any bells?” He pointed his key fob at his car and gave a satisfied nod when it beeped on cue.

I squinted warily. “Yeah, but—”

“When I told you I wanted to see your posterior in your Levi’s, I was somehow out of line. The logic confuses me. Why should you be able to say what you’re thinking, and I can’t?” He came to a stop at the driver’s side of his car and crossed his arms, silently issuing a challenge of some kind.

“Now that you mention it, I suppose that does seem unfair.” I scratched my beard thoughtfully, then turned around to show off my denim-clad ass. “Ta-da! I present my posterior.”

Cody snickered. “Very nice.”

“Glad you approve.” I pivoted to face him and fumbled with my belt. “I guess I could show you the whole kit and caboodle…or caboose.”

“No, no. Let’s not ask for trouble.”

I raised my hands in surrender. “If you say so.”

“I do. Kiss me instead.”

“Excuse me?”

He pursed his lips, looking uncomfortable as hell. To his credit, he didn’t back down. “You heard me.”

The husky note in his voice zipped through my veins like a secret elixir. The sudden onslaught of need and desire was a powerful combo. I stepped closer, wedging myself between him and the Prius parked next to his car. I was at least four inches taller than Cody and much bigger. I could squish him like a bug. I wouldn’t. I wasn’t that kind of guy, but he didn’t know that. He should be careful around men like me.

“Why?”

“Because I might never meet anyone like you again. If I do, I might not be confident, brave, or sincere enough to tell him what I want. I feel like this might be a chance I should take. I understand if you say no. I’m not your type. I get it. I’m not sure why you talked to me at all tonight. Or why—”

I curled my fingers around the back of his neck and sealed my lips to his.

So what happened to my gentlemanly resolve to not corrupt a nerdy, adorable dude barking up the wrong tree for some sexy action? I had no fucking clue.

Purchase at Audible

Get the entire series!

Meet the Author

Lane Hayes loves a good romance! An avid reader from an early age, she has always been drawn to well-told love story with beautifully written characters. Her debut novel was a 2013 Rainbow Award finalist and subsequent books have received Honorable Mentions, and were winners in the 2016, 2017, and 2018-2019 Rainbow Awards. She loves red wine, chocolate and travel (in no particular order). Lane lives in Southern California with her amazing husband in a not quite empty nest.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Instagram | Bookbub

Meet the Narrator

Originally from Chicago and currently based in New York City, I have performed around the country and the world on stage, television, and film. I studied acting at the University of Arizona and the University of Kansas City Missouri.

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New Release Blitz: Burying the Hatchet by A.C. Thomas (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Burying the Hatchet

Author: A.C. Thomas

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: December 7, 2020

Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 32800

Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, contemporary, gay, holiday/seasonal, Christmas tree farm, interracial, enemies/rivals to lovers, second chances, family drama/homophobia, outing, slow burn, size difference, Southern, mutual pining

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Synopsis

Home for the holidays for the first time in five years, Clayton Osborne steps off the plane with a chip on his shoulder and a suitcase full of grief…only to come face to flannel-covered chest with his worst nightmare. It’s Jake Carver, his high school nemesis and guilty crush. Clayton never expected Jake to still be working on his family tree farm. Of course, now that he’s older and wiser, it will be no problem to ignore Jake’s axe-swinging, barb-slinging, larger-than-life presence. Right?

Jake Carver loves his work, running NorthStar Tree Farm like it was his own. He’s let other things in his life fall by the wayside as he poured everything he had into his job. Until Clayton Osborne, star of his teenage dreams and his greatest regret returns home as beautiful and feisty as ever. If Jake just keeps his head down and focuses on his work, he can make it through the holidays without revealing his lingering feelings for Clayton. Right?

The mountains of North Carolina ring with more than Christmas bells when boyhood enemies collide as men. Long-buried feelings blossom and grow while the pair work side by side to save the farm, until Clayton must confront his obligation to return to his job in Chicago. He’s going to have to choose. Does he want his big-city life, or love in the mountains? All of this hinges on whether he and Jake can finally bury the hatchet. Can love overcome the years of conflict in their past?

With the help of a good old-fashioned Christmas miracle, it just might.

Excerpt

They settled into a routine, spending the week setting up for the Jubilee and cutting trees for retail, Clayton organizing the office into a semblance of order while Jake decorated the house. Visiting Ma every other day.

There was no discussion of it, but they fell into a pattern of eating every meal together before long, breakfast standing in the kitchen, lunch out by the barn, dinner at the table.

Clayton worked through Ma’s patched-together home cookbook, flipping through stained, sticky pages to find old favorites.

On Thursday, he stood stirring a pot of Brunswick stew when the creak of a floorboard alerted him to Jake peering over his shoulder.

He held out a taste on the cracked wooden spoon, steam thickening the air between them.

Jake ducked his head, pausing at Clayton’s hissed “Careful, it’s hot,” and nodded slowly before blowing on the spoon, letting Clayton slip it between his full lips with a satisfied hum. The resulting flutter in Clayton’s stomach had nothing to do with food.

The sweet, building comfort of domesticity started ringing alarm bells in Clayton’s head, warning him to make a reality check before he fell too deeply into the fantasy.

That was how he found himself sitting up in bed, scrolling idly through his favorite dating app just to take a look at the local scene since he’d been gone.

Plenty of attractive guys, but he couldn’t muster up any enthusiasm, passing on every one without a second thought.

Until he came across a profile picture that stopped him in his tracks, the air freezing in his lungs.

There, on his screen, right in front of his face, was a set of abs Clayton could have picked out of a lineup.

In poor lighting.

During a snowstorm.

A familiar canvas of warm skin scattered with tiny tight black curls, every muscle defined and exaggerated to absurd proportions. Dark-brown freckles across his broad shoulders with a thin, jagged scar stretched across his collarbone and a birthmark in the shape of Australia just above his Adonis belt on the left side.

Jake freaking Carver had a profile on here. Under the name “MountainMan21.”

Holy shit.

Clayton sucked in air with a ragged gasp, having spent far too long without taking a single breath, fixated on the image.

His radiator must be working overtime because the room was suddenly far too hot.

A thrill went down his spine, old fantasies resurrected like a phoenix from the flames. Memories of working the farm with Jake in the summer during high school, his shirt magically evaporating and leaving Clayton as hot and sweaty as the sun beating down on their heads.

But then reality set in, along with building, brewing anger.

Just like the way Clayton had usually cooled off in those days when Jake had shoved him into the filthy pond, laughing as he sputtered in the mud.

What if this wasn’t really a profile?

What if it was a trap? He’d read about that happening sometimes. Guys making fake profiles to lure unsuspecting people and beat them or worse.

Was Jake involved in something nefarious?

Clayton didn’t want to believe it; Jake had mellowed so much as an adult, giving no hint that he bore Clayton any ill will for his sexuality. Acting so sweet with his ma.

But this. It came out of nowhere.

Clayton was going to have to get to the bottom of it.

After he scrolled through the rest of these pictures.

Cheese crisps, how many angles could one guy use to take pictures of his own abdomen? Not that Clayton was complaining about the view, but, wow.

He only hated himself a little bit for taking screenshots.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read Universal Link

Meet the Author

A.C. Thomas left the glamorous world of teaching preschool for the even more glamorous world of staying home with her toddler. Between the diaper changes and tea parties, she escapes into fantastical worlds, reading every romance available and even writing a few herself.

She devours books of every flavor—science fiction, historical, fantasy—but always with a touch of romance because she believes there is nothing more fantastical than the transformative power of love.

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New Release Blitz: Cold Snap by Sam Clover (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Cold Snap

Author: Sam Clover

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: December 7, 2020

Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 50300

Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, Interracial, Law Enforcement, Open relationship, Shifters, Age Gap, Dark

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Synopsis

A lifetime of bad experiences has left Iddy homeless and wary of shelters.

Rumors of a monster hunting the city streets at night surface, but between the cold and predators of the human variety, Iddy has more important things to worry about. That is until he comes face-to-face with the monster and survives. Now, it has him in its sights.

Excerpt

Cold Snap
Sam Clover © 2020
All Rights Reserved

She was pretty in a white-bread, picket-fence way. Idal didn’t want to be creepy, but those floor-to-ceiling windows provided the frozen world below such an excellent voyeuristic view. His gaze kept drifting right back up.

If she sensed him watching, she gave no indication. He envied that. A warm, placid bubble of unguarded ignorance. Living that pretty, happy life as if she had no idea how ugly and cold the world could be.

Felt pretty damn cold down there though with nothing but a flattened cardboard box between his frozen ass and the snow.

A footstep crunched behind him. He looked back as his friend, Calaca, slipped into the small space of his cardboard shelter. The guy looked more gaunt than usual. More ragged. But the steam wafting up from a tall paper cup in those bony hands stole Iddy’s attention.

“Are you fucking stupid?” Calaca grumbled as he plunked down next to him.

Iddy’s frozen little heart fluttered. He sucked in a shivery breath through his teeth and snuggled in close against Calaca’s side. “Oh my God, that smells amazing. Can I touch it?”

Calaca scowled at Iddy through his thick emo fringe, but he handed the cup over. “Four more last night.”

That sounded ominous. Iddy would have loved to riddle it out, but his mental faculties were blocks of ice, and the heat that seeped through his threadbare gloves made everything else so much less important.

Calaca glared at Iddy for a long moment. “They found four more bodies, Iddy. All of ’em hobos like you. You should be at the shelter.”

It was sweet that Calaca cared, but Iddy had enough to worry about without adding urban legends on top of it. He hung his nose over the lid’s vent and let the steam caress the numb tip of his nose for a good couple of seconds.

“I’d rather take my chances with the mothman than lock myself in a gymnasium full of violent homophobes.” Iddy closed his eyes as he inhaled the bitter aroma. “Mm, dark roast.” He exhaled with an exaggerated moan.

Calaca let out a derisive laugh. “Fuck, just drink it.”

Iddy’s eyes popped open. He looked excitedly up at Calaca and flashed a broad, frozen-stiff grin. “Oh my God, I love you.” He took a greedy sip. It burned his tongue but felt so damn good going down, he immediately took another.

After a moment, Calaca’s stubborn grumble broke through Iddy’s coffee-flavoured haze with more doom and gloom. “It’s not ‘mothman’. Animal attacks actually happen, you know. It’s not fucking fiction.”

“I definitely heard someone say ‘mothman’.”

“And I heard someone say Chupacabra.” Calaca rolled his eyes. “Fuck, my dealer thinks he saw a UFO, and now he’s got his whole apartment block crying ‘aliens’. Take the word of crackheads and schizos with a grain of salt, you know?”

Iddy snickered. “Damn, there goes my whole news network.”

Calaca curled his lip in a frustrated sneer, and his attention drifted out to the frozen pedestrians bustling by. “Shit… Just get off the street tonight, okay?”

Iddy smiled warmly at him. “That, I can do.”

*

The sun dropped so fast Iddy felt its desperate descent in his bones.

He stood against the wall with his shoulders hunched up to his burning ears. His teeth chattered. Frost teased at the tips of his fingers. This cold snap wasn’t the first this bitch of a winter had thrown at the city, but it promised to be the longest. As if he didn’t already have a thousand knocks against him, it would be a miracle if he survived the season without a permanent hunchback and a few frost-blackened digits.

The clock had struck six o’clock. Pity hour where people with tables full of hot food waiting for them occasionally let their guilty consciences pry a couple of quarters from their thick wallets.

A young girl with a head full of ringlets skittered up to him. She flashed an adorable, pinched-nose smile, sans two front teeth. “Aren’t you cold?”

Iddy let out a shaky laugh. He tried to still his chattering and puffed out his chest. “Of course not. I’m Jack Frost.”

“No, you’re not!” The girl’s nose pinched tighter. “Daddy says bums are boozers. Jack Frost can’t drink—it would freeze!”

“That’s what boozecicles are for.”

The girl giggled. “Boozecicles.” Then her pinched little face turned stern as she pulled a crumpled dollar bill from her pocket. She wiggled it in the air and ordered, “No boozecicles! You need to eat!”

Iddy smiled as warmly as he could manage and tipped his knit hat. “Yes ma’am.”

“Hey!” Someone barked. A middle-aged man stormed across the road towards them. “Get the fuck away from my daughter!”

The evening rush froze still. Every pair of eyes on the street snapped to him with a wave of mass judgment and fear. He froze too, like a deer in the headlights. He wanted to run, but he knew that would validate all their ugly assumptions.

The man snatched the dollar from the little girl. He shoved his way into Iddy’s personal space to tower threateningly over him. “If you touched her, you perverted piece of shit—”

“I—I didn’t,” Iddy stammered.

The girl shrieked, “Daddy!”

Daddy grabbed Iddy by the throat with one hand and threw him roughly against the wall of a derelict bookshop. Iddy barely got out a gasp as his head banged against the brick and he collapsed to the salted sidewalk.

Iddy stayed on his hands and knees. When a splatter of thick, yellow spit hit his cheek, he flinched, but he didn’t move. Much as he desperately wanted to avoid his pants getting soaked through, he didn’t want the guy to think him getting up was a challenge. So, he waited with his head hung low as the guy grabbed the little girl and strutted off. And he kept waiting until the spectators dispersed.

When he finally picked himself up and dared a glance around, people were still watching. Most were subtle about it, but their disgust hung in the air. Their minds were made up in clenched fists and flared nostrils.

There was no way he was getting any more pity money out of that crowd. Time to find somewhere to crash anyway—every minute the temperature dropped more and more. So with a resigned sigh, he collected the bits of change from the Styrofoam bowl at his feet. Two dollars’ worth if he was lucky.

Tonight’s dinner would be a Cola.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read Universal Link

Meet the Author

Sam Clover has been writing for over 15 years on online archives. She started out in the fanfiction community and made the leap over a decade ago into original queer fiction. She has a passion for representation, for kindness, and for encouraging new writers first putting their pen to paper.

She is a pansexual feminist with a penchant for pirates and horror, and she lives waaay up North in Alberta, Canada with her furbabies.

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New Release Blitz: A Bridge to Love by Lee Colgin (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  A Bridge to Love

Author: Lee Colgin

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: December 7, 2020

Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 27300

Genre: Paranormal, LGBTQIA+, wolf shifters, paranormal, seasonal, troll, holiday, sweet, friends to lovers, slow burn, christmas

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Synopsis

Everyone knows a proper troll must never leave his post. Arlo is thrilled to have his own bridge to guard, though it’s a lonely job. A troll should enjoy being alone, but Arlo has never been very good at being a troll. He longs for companionship, but guards that secret like he guards his bridge.

Toby, a cheerful wolf shifter, serves as a messenger between villages. When his route is suddenly blocked by a fearsome troll, he must charm his way across the bridge. Little does he know, he’s charming his way into Arlo’s heart as well. But Toby has his own secrets he dare not reveal.

As the season’s fly by and the holidays approach, their friendship blooms and begins to flourish into something more. But can Toby risk his heart for a troll bound so tight to duty? Will Arlo leave his bridge for love?

A Bridge to Love is an MM Fantasy Romance featuring an adorable gay troll and the sweet wolf shifter who falls for him. Tropes include friends to lovers, slow burn, and hurt/comfort. Sappily ever after guaranteed!

Excerpt

A Bridge to Love
Lee Colgin © 2020
All Rights Reserved

December

Tobias

Adjusting his scarf to block out the chill, Tobias trotted along the path to Red Elk River. There, he would cross the bridge and hang a left onto the trail that led to the Fern Pack’s territory. His satchel was filled to bursting with gifts because it was the night before Christmas Eve.

A roundtrip to visit his sister’s family, one he’d made many times, took from sun up to sundown, especially during winter when days were short and nights long. Toby enjoyed his role as messenger between the wolf packs. He preferred spending his time outdoors. The exercise sent blood pumping through his veins. If he dawdled enough, the stars would keep him company as the path guided him home.

Snow threatened. Toby scented it on the cool breeze. He hoped the weather would hold out until he’d returned safely to his little cottage, but then he’d love to see his village blanketed in white for Christmas.

Toby heard the river before it came into view. The rippling waves of the Red Elk never froze over. The water simply moved too quickly to be captured by a force as fickle as frost. No matter how cold the winter, the wolf shifters could catch fish there. As a youngster, Toby spent lots of cheerful summer afternoons splashing along the moss-covered banks with his many siblings and countless cousins. The memory brought a smile to his lips.

His grin remained as he stepped on the footbridge’s wooden planks that spanned the narrowest section of the river. He ambled across, gazing at the rushing water and protruding rocks below.

“Ho! Who’s there?” came a booming voice from beneath his feet.

Toby startled and hopped back.

The rumbling baritone continued, “Who dares to cross Arlo’s bridge without first paying tribute?”

With unexpected grace, a large troll, his skin as grey as granite, climbed from under the rafters to block Toby’s way. He stood a head taller than Toby, with coppery-orange hair cropped close to his head. Eyebrows that could be mistaken for caterpillars drew tight together, and broad shoulders flexed beneath layers of dingy wool. His cheeks were flushed and puffy. But what Toby found most startling were his robin’s-egg-blue eyes, watery and glazed over as though he’d been crying.

“Hello, Arlo. My name is Tobias.” Toby offered his hand. “My friends call me Toby.”

Arlo sniffed and stared at Toby’s hand as if he had extra fingers that had been dipped in slime. After some awkward consideration, he reached out and swallowed the smaller hand in his giant one with a gentle grasp. Arlo’s warm hand felt so good, Toby didn’t want to let go.

“Well then, what should I call you?” Arlo grunted.

“I meant we should become friends.” Toby gave Arlo’s fingers a squeeze. “So call me Toby.”

Puffing out his chest, Arlo dropped Toby’s hand and roared, “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re playing! You only want to be friends to avoid paying tribute. I won’t have it, Tobias. I guard this bridge, and if you’d like to use it, you must earn it fair and square.” He crossed his arms and glowered.

Toby scanned the landscape. A lush canopy of trees on either side, chipmunks scurrying to their burrows, clouds overhead. Which of these threatened the footbridge of Red Elk? And since when did this bridge have a pouting resident troll?

“Guard it from what?” asked Toby, curious.

Arlo shrugged like that wasn’t important. “What will you give me to cross?”

“Well I suppose I must give you my apologies as I’ve brought nothing extra on my journey. And I would like to be friends. You look as if you need one.” He studied Arlo’s expression and saw a longing there that hinted at melancholy. “Are you quite all right, Arlo?”

Their gazes locked; Arlo’s teary blue eyes glared with scrutiny, even as Toby offered a smile. The troll glanced away and exhaled, breath wispy in the wintry breeze.

“Looks like you have plenty.” Arlo gestured to the bulging sack over Toby’s shoulder. “What’s in the bag?”

“These are gifts from my family and friends of River Pack to my other family and friends of Fern Pack. They are mostly for the children. I’m sorry, but none were meant for you.”

Arlo huffed and turned up his nose. “I will take your apologies this time, but next we meet you’d better have a tribute.” The troll stepped aside to let Toby pass.

Reluctant to leave Arlo alone and unhappy, Toby asked once more. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Perfectly fine.”

“You can come with me if you like.”

Arlo’s pupils widened. His mouth hung open.

Toby moved one step closer, within an arm’s length, his gaze lingering on Arlo’s face. Handsome features, though not typical: rounded cheeks framed an angular jaw, a sharp nose sat over his plump finely shaped cupid’s bow of a mouth, and upon close inspection, a smattering of charcoal freckles fell across his silver-grey cheekbones. Toby rather liked Arlo’s looks, except for the puffy eyes. Why had Arlo been crying?

“Go on,” said Arlo, the rough timber gone from his voice. The words now came in a gentle rumble. “I have things to do.”

Toby gave a little nod. “If you’re sure.”

Arlo grunted.

Toby crossed the bridge. When he got to the other side, he glanced over his shoulder to find Arlo still watching. With a friendly wave Arlo didn’t return, Toby continued on his journey. He wondered what he should bring back for Arlo on his way home.

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NineStar Press | Books2Read Universal Link

Meet the Author

Lee Colgin has loved vampires since she read Dracula on a hot sunny beach at 13 years old. She lives in North Carolina with lots of dogs and her husband. No, he’s not a vampire, but she loves him anyway. Lee likes to workout so she can eat the maximum amount of cookies with her pizza. Ask her how much she can bench press.

If you enjoyed this book, pick up Lee’s debut novel Slay My Love to find out what happens when you’re attracted to the very person who want to kill you an enemies to lovers 56,000k novel available now.

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New Release Blitz: The Christmas Chevalier by Meg Mardell (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  The Christmas Chevalier

Series: Christmas Masquerade, Book One

Author: Meg Mardell

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: November 30th, 2020

Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Male/Female

Length: 33400

Genre: Historical, LGBTQIA+, historical/Victorian England, holiday/Christmas, gay, trans, friends to lovers, coming out, humorous, slow burn, mistaken identity, deception romance

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Synopsis

Alvy Lexington has bought himself the best Christmas present in the world. True, the draughty flat on a dingy stretch of the Thames has none of the welcoming holiday warmth of his family’s West London townhouse. That is the entire point! No one who knows him by his given name will ever set foot here. When his old friend Laura Jacobs needs somewhere to spend the holidays, Alvy knows he should keep his distance, but… But Laura makes him do incautious things. Like offering her a job—since when did he manage a printing press?—and inviting her to a certain Christmas Eve masquerade.

Laura knows the lush London of the Lexingtons is only a temporary escape from her grey days as a governess. But she is determined to enjoy this glittering winter wonderland while it lasts, especially her dance with an angel of a man at the masquerade. Why, his French chevalier costume practically glows! While she daydreams about her white knight, an unexpected business opportunity with Alvy makes her hopeful of a new independent life. But first, she is going to have to come to a real understanding with her old friend.

Excerpt

The Christmas Chevalier
Meg Mardell © 2020
All Rights Reserved

London, 1879

“Oh, my…my…my…”

“God?” her companion supplied innocently.

Laura glared up from where she stood doubled over, clutching the door frame with one gloved hand and pressing her side with the other.

“Gracious! Why…why must you take rooms level with…Big Ben?”

Alvy continued looking down at her with infuriating amusement.

“Ah, but the climb is one of the place’s chief charms. Come look at the view of the river. The embankment’s spoilt all its old charm of course, but we must have wide streets and electric lamps apparently.”

Laura’s heart continued to slam against her corseted ribs. She was not willing to praise the view. Or to move a step further.

“The stairs smell of…boiled cabbage and worse. While your place…what is the smell, Alvy? I would say it was tobacco, except I know your mother—”

“Would have an apoplectic fit if she so much as detected a particle of ash on my person? Very true. But then, that is the beauty of taking quarters in such a godforsaken corner of the town. Mother will never visit! I’m rather glad you were intrepid enough to brave Vauxhall. And the stairs.”

Laura had at last mastered her breathing and straightened to return fire on her tormentor.

“What, and miss a chance to see for myself your new, er, work premises? How spacious it is!”

She gestured around the large but scarcely furnished room. The tall sash windows admitted a great deal of midday winter light—and even more of the chill December air. There was no sign of a desk, or worktable, and the domestic furnishings only extended to a day-bed and a pair of battered armchairs before an open fire.

“You forget, Alvy, I am not such a fine lady that I need fear stares outside of fashionable London. The freedoms of being in the governess class are many and varied.”

Alvy flopped down into an armchair and stretched a slippered foot out from under the hem of a heavy silk dressing gown towards the cheerful blaze.

“Are they indeed? By Jove, I should love to know more about these rights and privileges.”

Laura wondered if she was being teased. But then she never could tell with her friend.

“Well, let’s see…There is the right to squash into an omnibus and end up directly next to a gentleman with a dripping hat.”

Alvy grinned at this start. Laura warmed to her task.

“The right to return your library books while enduring the scrutiny of some wire-spectacled gorgon.”

“Very right too! You look just the sort to eat buttered toast while reading borrowed books.”

“And, let us not forget, the preeminent privilege of politely bickering about the bill with other governesses at tea rooms.”

“Harpies the lot of them—yourself excepted. Lord, I’m so glad you’ve escaped those grubby children—”

“Child. And this one is an angel.” Too angelic, in fact. It made Laura worry about the girl’s inner life.

“Sanctimonious parents—”

“Mr and Mrs Shepherdson have been nothing but kind!” Or they had been. Until the discovery of certain books and letters.

“And the atrociously dull company of Dingley Dell—”

“For the tenth time, Alvy, it is Findleys Ford.”

“Ah ha! So you at least admit they are dull. But all these country backwaters are the same. London’s the only place to live.”

“A point you are forever making in your letters. It is not like I hied off to Dingley—to Findleys Ford on an idle whim.”

“Well, well, the point is you’ve escaped for the holidays. And, as you see, I’ve escaped too.”

“That fact had not eluded me. Your mother claims you are never to be seen at Norland Square.”

Laura could not imagine ever wanting to leave the ever-so-comfortable surrounds of Alvy’s childhood home. She had dreamt of the sumptuous dinners, the hot baths, and the soft sheets turned down by a maid for weeks now as she lay on her narrow tick mattress under the eaves at the Shepherdsons.

“Your mother is under the impression you are starting some great enterprise that will give work to female printers who are refused employment elsewhere.”

“Ah, not quite. I said I was setting up a printing press—and set it up I have.”

Alvy gestured with a long-fingered hand to a space behind the still-gaping door.

Laura swung the door shut. A great black iron contraption with decorative gold paintwork dominated the otherwise empty space.

“Oh, you have an Albion Press!”

“An Albion? I could have sworn the past owner called it an albatross.”

“Very funny. But the gold finial—that gold crown on top—is unmistakable. How on earth did you get it up here?”

“The men got it up here with a great deal of sweat and swearing. I got it up with bribery. They threatened to quit halfway up the stairs.”

“I am only surprised they did not bring down the whole staircase. But the press looks excellently preserved.”

“And it will remain in exactly the same condition.”

“Do you mean it is truly only for show? That is a rather rotten trick to play your mother.”

“Trick? I have done Mother a great service. She doesn’t know what to do with me. She has finally despaired of my marrying now that I am striding across the wasteland of my thirties.”

“I do not remember her ever being very pressing on the issue.”

“I have given myself some employment. Now she will have something to tell her society ladies at those dreadful committee meetings.”

“That you have dedicated yourself to good works—without the work part?”

Alvy blithely ignored Laura’s sarcasm.

“She will omit the part about Vauxhall, naturally.”

“While you will omit everything else?”

Something in Alvy’s dark eyes suddenly made Laura wish to change her tart tone.

With no doormat or boot-scraper in sight, she had no choice but to track the sludgy London streets into the room. Not that there was a scrap of carpet to dirty. Seating herself in a heap of mud-striped travelling skirts on the lone ottoman, Laura studied her friend.

Alvy’s appearance, especially after a long separation, always rekindled a flicker of Laura’s original awe. She knew that the gaze she held was properly described as brown. It was just the pale skin turning bluish under the eyes that made them look so intensely dark. Likewise, the greying walls and bare floorboards of these new quarters probably made Alvy’s costume of rich browns and blues so transparently costly. Alvy preserved a long-limbed grace even when reclining in a splendid heap in the battered chair.

Laura once assumed that the possessor of such a regal appearance would snub a nobody like her. She had since learnt the error of judging by appearances. She now took up one of those elegantly white hands, trying to ignore how dirty her sensible gloves looked in comparison.

“Tell me really what you mean to do. Come. We have known each other since we were practically children.”

The elegant hand was withdrawn. Alvy sat higher in the chair and broke into a fair imitation of a Scotsman.

“Speak for yourself, lassie. I was a full three and twenty when we met at that bonny brook in Switzerland. Or have ye forgot that day?”

Laura definitely remembered the questioning curve of Alvy’s left eyebrow as they passed each other on the trail; she was looking at it again now. Laura had been nineteen and on her first assignment with a family wintering at Luzern.

“How could I forget? You were wearing the most memorable alpine hat and matching coat. More feathers and frogging I had never seen. And yet, infuriatingly, you wore it all with such ease. Why, you still do!”

Alvy looked confused. “I promise that I don’t strut down the streets of London in alpine dress.”

“I mean that you are able to look well in anything. Take this turban contraption. No one else could wear it without looking foolish. Well, except perhaps a Shakespearean tragedian.”

Alvy gingerly felt the turban in question, silk without a doubt, but burst into laughter upon Laura’s final admission.

“The thing you never do seem to realise, Miss Jacobs, is that all clothes are costumes. All equally ridiculous.”

“Yours are not ridiculous! Eccentric perhaps. But becoming. You always do upholster yourself exquisitely. Which is more than I can say for your rooms.”

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read Universal Link

Meet the Author

Meg moved from the US to England because she fell in love with the Victorians’ peculiar blend of glamour and grime. After a decade of exploring historical excesses in a prim scholarly fashion, she realized that fiction is the best way to delve into that period’s great female-focused and LGBT+ stories. Weaned on the high-seas romances of the 1990s, Meg’s lost none of her love for cross-dressing cabin boys but any tolerance for boorish heroes. She’s delighted to now have a whole raft of quirky and queer characters to cheer for on their quest for Happily Ever After. She frequently breaks off writing for an Earl Grey tea (milk not lemon). She’s trying to learn Polish and Portuguese at the same time. She plans to escape Brexit Britain.

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