New Release Blitz: Stable Hand by AE Lister (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Stable Hand

Series: The Braided Crop Ranch, Book One

Author: AE Lister

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: November 2, 2020

Heat Level: 4 – Lots of Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 84800

Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, BDSM, pony play, cowboys, entertainment, sex toys, menage, polyamory, rewards, punishments

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Synopsis

The Braided Crop Ranch is looking for stable hands. But this is no ordinary horse ranch. They cater to men with a certain interest. An interest involving harnesses, tails, and trainers.

Managed and expertly run by registered psychologist, Adam Marsland, the Ranch is a safe place for the expression of sex positive and kink positive needs and fantasies.

Jensen Moriarty is desperate for a job. He can handle horses. In fact, he’s a pro at it. Too bad the BCR doesn’t deal with real horses. But they do have “ponies”.

If Jensen can wrap his head around what the BCR actually stands for, he may have the opportunity to expand his resumé and experience something completely unexpected in the process.

Excerpt

Stable Hand
AE Lister © 2020
All Rights Reserved

Horses. They were what I knew. What I’d grown up knowing, riding, grooming, tacking in the small Alberta town where I’d lived.

I missed small-town life. Ottawa wasn’t a huge city, but it was big enough, crowded enough, it made me crave the peace and quiet of a smaller life.

My friend Mitchell hadn’t told me much about the Braided Crop Ranch except to say the place was secluded deep in the heart of the Muskokas in Northern Ontario, which turned out to be an understatement.

From my calculations I was only about twenty minutes away, but the brush had thickened, and the GPS wasn’t making sense. There wasn’t even a proper road. Out of desperation, I pulled my car over to the gravel on the side of the dirt track. I left the car on, air conditioner blasting, while I looked up the name of the man who’d interviewed me over the phone: a Mr. Adam Marsland. I found the number quickly in my contacts and hit call.

“BCR, Connor speaking,” a chipper male voice announced after a few rings.

The voice didn’t belong to Mr. Marsland.

“Uh,” I hesitated. “Hi. I’m trying to reach Adam Marsland?”

“Who’s calling, please?”

I cleared my throat, feeling like an idiot. Nothing like starting a new job and not being able to find the place. “This is Jensen Moriarty. I’m supposed to be there at noon, but I—”

“Oh, hi, Jensen. I’m Mr. Marsland’s personal assistant. Would you like me to get him for you?”

“I just need directions. My GPS isn’t making sense.”

Connor laughed. “He should have told you not to rely on the GPS. You should be using the map from the email.”

Email? “What email?”

There was a pause. “You didn’t get the welcome email? The one outlining our policies and practices? I’m sure I sent the form to you a few days ago…”

I wracked my brain but didn’t remember seeing an email. Unless the message had gone into my spam folder. “No, I didn’t get it. A map would be…helpful.”

“Sure, yeah, let me text the map to you. Hold on a second.”

“You might as well text me the other info as well.”

Connor cleared his throat. “Yes, well, I’ll let Mr. Marsland explain everything when you get here.”

I heard a notification and saw the map had come through. I opened the file quickly and had a look.

“Looks like I’m not too far.”

“Okay, come to the main building when you get here. You’ll see the BCR sign on the wall.”

“BCR?” I asked, wiping a crushed mosquito off the dash.

“The Braided Crop Ranch. That is where you’re trying to get to, right?”

“Yes. I just— Yes, that’s where I’m headed.” God, could I make a worse first impression?

“I’ll make sure Adam is here to greet you.”

“Thanks,” I said.

As I’d suspected, I wasn’t far out. If I followed this dirt road and turned onto another called Rattler’s Revenge in about three miles, I’d be there.

Would they put me to work right away, cleaning stalls and looking after the horses? Mr. Marsland hadn’t described my exact duties during our phone interview, but Mitchell had said they were looking for a stable hand.

Marsland had seemed like a nice guy. He’d appeared more interested in the kind of person I was rather than in any experience I’d had. I’d explained I needed a job that would give me some direction along with a decent salary so I could pay off my student loans.

The business degree had been a waste of money, no matter what my parents said. Turned out I hated accounting. Yeah, I was good with numbers, but working with them all day and night was too much to ask.

I needed to be outside. I needed to be interacting with other beings, human or animal. I needed hard work and adventure.

Now I had no idea what I wanted to do. Except for horses. I wanted to work with horses. Living on a ranch with a bunch of other cowboys wouldn’t be so bad either. Even if they didn’t share my orientation, the eye candy would be heavenly.

I’d been surprised when Adam told me the salary I’d be earning. The level was high for a stable hand. He’d also mentioned something about the special stock at the BCR so maybe they only housed Arabians or something. That would be a treat. I’d never seen a full-blood Arabian horse up close.

After following the serpentine curve of Rattler’s Revenge for about fifteen minutes, the brush thinned, and I emerged into a large clearing with the impressive outline of the ranch spread before me. The path took me to a set of steel black gates with BCR in big iron letters affixed to the bars.

A black intercom box perched on the stone wall to the left of the gates. I pulled in close, lowered my window, and pressed the button.

There was a crackle and then Connor’s voice. “Name please.”

“Jensen Moriarty. We spoke on the phone.”

“Awesome. I’ll buzz you in.”

An electrical humming noise sounded as the gates unlocked and slowly swung open.

“Welcome to the BCR, Jensen,” Connor said.

I drove forward and rolled up the window to keep the heat out.

An array of bright red and brown buildings crowded the far distance. In front of me stood an imposing clapboarded farmhouse with these words, painted in black, spanning the wall:

THE BRAIDED CROP RANCH STABLES

~ Pony shows every month ~

Pony shows every month, huh? Looked like I’d have my work cut out for me.

I parked in the small lot to the left of the front door and turned the car off. I wondered if driving all the way out here had been the right thing to do. At any rate, the job provided a new beginning and somewhere to spend the summer. If I enjoyed the work and found the people to be friendly and helpful, maybe I’d stay for a while.

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NineStar Press | Books2Read Universal Link

Meet the Author

AE Lister/Elizabeth Lister is a Canadian non-binary author with a vivid imagination and a head full of unique and interesting characters. They have published many other books, one of which (Beyond the Edge) received an Honorable Mention from the National Leather Association–International for excellence in SM/Leather/Fetish writing.

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New Release Blitz: Flicker by Elizabeth Tybush (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Flicker

Series: The Fire of Felwing

Author: Elizabeth Tybush

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: November 2, 2020

Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 78900

Genre: Fantasy, LGBTQIA+, slow burn, magic, magic users, friends to lovers, mythical creatures, royalty, redemption, past mistakes, portals

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Synopsis

Stripped of his magick and exiled to Earth, Solin Felwing vows to redeem himself. He committed a lot of bad for “the greater good” and the only way to make up for it is to give back to those he stole from. Incognito, of course, to avoid being brought to justice by humankind.

Solin volunteers at a soup kitchen, but his redemption is thrown into disarray when his best friend Jemier arrives to profess his love. Sam, Solin’s one-man support group and only human friend, thinks Solin deserves better.

When old enemies resurface, Solin fears his attempt to change is over for good. He could easily wipe his foes from existence—if he had his magick. Saving his friends—and himself—means compromising in new ways, but the temptation to sin remains. Everything could change in a flicker.

Excerpt

Flicker
Elizabeth Tybush © 2020
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One
2017

Polaris, New York, Gaia

I stole the sunglasses with ease, unseen by any who’d dare report it. The large-lensed mask reflected the busy downtown of a city I neither knew nor understood but was nonetheless stranded in. I hid my eyes and features behind those lenses and continued my prowl.

I headed for the sidewalk patio of a bistro where a man with attentions diverted elsewhere would soon lose the hooded sweatshirt draped over the back of his folding chair.

“You gonna pay for those?”

I stopped. Had I not been caught entirely unaware, I would’ve fled, albeit into unknown territory with mere morning shadows and dubious dumpsters as my cover. I turned to face the source of the familiar voice, knowing I could not flee from them in my state or else I would be hunted.

Sam smirked. Sunglasses concealed his brown eyes, and he wore the same style of casual garb I wore although he had more of a decision in it than I did. His tailored clothing came from finer cloth and perfectly fit his slender form. He gave me a dramatic once-over and smirked again. His brown hair had taken on some salt since we’d last met, and his sun-kissed peach skin glowed.

“So, what brings you back here?” he asked in singsong. I waited for him to call for local or regional law enforcement. I couldn’t be sure he wasn’t here by their command. “Couldn’t have just had the hankering for some light shoplifting. Don’t they have stores where you’re from?”

I glared at him, calculating the many ways to escape his clutches. Sam and I shared similar builds, although he stood slightly shorter than me and had thinner limbs. My training alone would overpower him if I needed it to. If only my body were bereft of the aches that naturally came from sleeping on dubious hard surfaces for several cool summer nights in a row.

I said nothing but regretted hiding the heat of my glare behind my disguise.

“Of course they do.” He reached. I dodged. He held up his hands in peace and nodded a silent invitation to walk alongside him.

He studied me with the same expression he had when we’d first met. This was Sam. This would always be Sam. With one glance he’d understood me, treated me as an equal, and never underestimated me. A good quality in an ally as well as a friend, but for us, neither applied.

I took his invitation only to keep myself from staying still too long in a crowd I’d stolen from. When I’d first met Sam, he’d offered me a drink. I only hoped this offer had the same hospitable intent.

“Seriously though, are you gonna pay for those? Because I can buy you new clothes, Solin.”

“No, I am not going to pay for them, and I don’t want your charity.” My stomach disagreed. Food had only come my way during brief moments of opportunity.

“Yeah, about that…oh, here we are.”

“This is your vehicle?” I examined the nondescript, aging hatchback and its peeling, off-silver paint. “Part of your disguise, no doubt.”

“I’m rich, not famous. This is more for your benefit. Get in.”

“I’d rather not.”

“I’m not going to kill you.”

“You couldn’t.”

“Have you seen yourself lately? I totally could.”

Had he seen me lately? How long had he been watching me? Of course he hadn’t just stumbled upon me, which meant he had been observing me for a while without me detecting him.

“But I’m not going to.” Sam opened the passenger-side door. “Trust me?”

I got in.

“You should put your seat belt on.”

“I’m aware.” I struggled to find comfort in the cramped passenger seat.

“The thingy under the seat, on the side there.”

I clicked into a more comfortable place. “I’m not thanking you.”

He flipped down the visor above my head. “And you have a little something on your chin.”

I grumbled and looked through at least three layers of dust and two more layers of grime on the cracked mirror above. A light-brown blob surrounded by a black blob looked back at me with its dark blobby eyes. No little something detected in my warped reflection. I flipped the visor up, then wiped my chin of the grease smudge using the slightly cleaner rearview mirror, albeit when Sam turned his gaze away.

The car revved to life, and we sat in silence for a few blocks. Passersby were too invested in their mobile devices to notice us—perhaps utilizing the very technology that had made Sam his wealth—sometimes at great detriment to their own health. He drove beyond the territory I’d explored since arriving in this place into areas slightly cleaner, slightly brighter, and slightly less bumpy. On these roads, the dreadful pine-scented ornament dangling from the rearview mirror no longer danced annoyingly in my peripheral vision.

“Radio’s busted, sorry,” he said. We slowed to a stop at a traffic light. “They don’t know you’re here.”

“Nonsense. You know I’m here.”

“Because I’m awesome, but that’s not the point. The point is, I might’ve done something slightly illegal to make sure what I saw, no one else saw.”

I considered unbuckling and jumping out the door. “For vengeance, no doubt.”

“Nah, seems like someone beat me to it. Besides, the best revenge is…something about being the better person? Living a good life? Whatever. We’re here.”

He parked the car next to an empty alley wedged between buildings of varying heights, though none over ten stories. The alley’s putrid odor smelled worse than the dumpsters that had served as shelter last night, but the rodents didn’t seem to mind.

“I taste garbage, Sam.”

“Keep walking,” he said. “We’re good.”

As we ventured through the maze of alleys, I understood he told the truth. I could trust him, for this moment. He clearly hadn’t told his friends about my arrival, and he didn’t move as a killer moved. The farther we walked from the car, the safer I felt.

The alleys smelled nicer too. We arrived at the back entrance of a shorter building where he punched a number into a keypad before opening the door and holding it for me.

“After you.”

His kindness alarmed me more than comforted me, but for however little I trusted him, I did trust my own assessment of the facts I had. I walked not to death, nor to barred walls. A keypad could mean anything. It did not mean Sam was luring me into a trap.

I entered after a moment of pensive reluctance and followed him up the stairwell of warm whites and polished woods.

Signs of humanity were everywhere. In the sole set of crisp boot prints on the vinyl-covered steps. In the recycling bins we passed at every floor’s exit, sitting below signs advising residents not to leave their recycling bins in the stairwell for safety reasons. In the leftover clear tape adhered to each floor’s door, ghosts of former safety signs. In the chewed gum beneath the handrail to the fifth and final floor before the roof.

“This way.” Sam nodded at the door.

Sunlight spilled from rooftop windows into the long hallway, reminding me briefly of home. Our steps echoed off the wooden floor as we passed doors with Welcome signs and decorative mats. At the very end of the hallway, Sam pulled out keys, unlocked the door, and opened it with a grand gesture.

“Home sweet home.”

The scent of fresh latex paint greeted us. Before us lay a furnished yet oddly empty apartment, save the bright morning light beaming from the windows and the gently frosted skylight. Beautiful but impractical. A man of such wealth put himself in grave danger with such windows. I had a hard time imagining a man of Sam’s status living in a home with…apparently no walls between rooms.

“This isn’t your home,” I said.

“Nope.” He dangled the keys. “It’s yours. The apartment, not the building. Forged your name on the lease and paid ahead for a year, so the landlady might not recognize you when you finally need to pay—”

I swept away his hand and headed for a window, forcing myself to squint through the intense light of morning. “I need nothing from you.”

“Okay, so maybe stop thinking I’m doing this as a favor to you, and maybe think about this as me having to do this for myself.”

“Why? I left you on a rooftop to die.”

“Oh, so you remember that? I blamed you so long for that, forgetting completely that it was—you know what, just take the damn keys, Solin.”

“You don’t know what my father would do if he discovered I cheated my way through exile.”

“Exile? Shit, did you try to take over your home planet too?”

“That’s not what I did here, and it’s complicated,” I said. “Let me wallow in my reckoning alone. My path doesn’t include charity.”

“Maybe it can. My charity. Take it. I guarantee you that being human is suffering enough.”

Powerless. He knew just how powerless I was. I faced him and paced the room, circling him. I had to reclaim some of my power, and I tired of being idle. My boots clicked along the glossy hardwood, which groaned whenever I neared the kitchen island.

“This is your last warning, Gardyner. My redemption will not include you. I will make my own way, and I won’t have you or anyone else meddling in things they don’t understand.”

“My last warning? You think I care about your warnings?” Now Sam paced, and I stopped, ceding power in the dialogue to him. I’d relied on fear to impress a message, and that didn’t work with Sam. He knew I had nothing to flex. “Listen, Solin, your redemption, if that’s even what you’re doing here, does include me. I was affected by that stunt you pulled. People died because of that bomb.”

“You know that wasn’t me—”

“But you enabled it. You trusted that asshole with power, and look what happened. And don’t forget, you did leave me to die. After I helped you. So yeah, I’m part of your redemption now. And you’re going to take this apartment and that credit card on the counter, and you’re going to be clothed and fed and sheltered while you walk this path.”

“I don’t want your money.”

“It’s not mine. It’s yours. I figured you might’ve been amassing some wealth here when you tried to conquer Earth five years ago.”

“Not conquer. Invite you to join our Federation.”

“That’s not what the internet said.”

“You know that’s not what I was here to do. You were there, Sam. Things didn’t go according to plan.”

“Yeah, I was there for the worst part of it. Anyway, you needed money to ‘invite us to join your Federation,’ especially if you wanted to establish a base of operations for thousands of years to come.”

“I had no plans for a base and no ill intentions for humanity. Besides, my account was drained. You watched it happen.”

“I found some leftovers. Moved them without a hitch. Don’t worry. The Shadowfall Alliance didn’t see a thing. They’re still pretty young, and their tech is weaker than they think. Plus, they aren’t as brilliant as I am.”

“But just as narcissistic,” I returned.

He grinned. “What you call narcissism, I call being realistic.”

“And what, you’ll let me live here and spend all of this money without supervision?”

“Do you need to be supervised?”

I said nothing.

“Do you want to be supervised?”

“No. Did we not just establish that?”

“Maybe ‘protected’ is a better word.”

“Get over yourself, Gardyner. You can’t protect me from anyone. Not your people in the Alliance and certainly not my own.”

“I found you, didn’t I?”

“Only because I dropped my guard.”

“Right,” he said incredulously. “How about this—I’ll keep an eye on things too. You know, for my sake. Not yours. Because you can do that all by your lonesome.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” He turned to leave, but when he made it to the door, hand on the knob, he stopped. “I’m not kidding. I’m doing this for myself.”

“Of course you are.”

“Sometimes it pays to understand what, or whom, you hate. Makes some of the pain go away.” He tossed the keys at me. I caught them. “One for the lobby, one for your mailbox downstairs, and one for each lock on that door. Code is 8152. Oh, and there’s an ID card for you too. And a checkbook. But no one uses those anymore. Your name is Jonathan now. Probably best that you don’t share a name with Earth’s Most Wanted.”

I squeezed the sharp ridges of the keys with my fingertips, hoping the distraction would serve as a mask for my emotions since I no longer possessed any of the deceptive powers I once relied on.

“Thank you, Sam.”

He nodded at a device on the coffee table. “Call me if you need anything.”

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NineStar Press | Books2Read Universal Link

Meet the Author

Liz plays way too much Minecraft and dreams about producing a television series. She loves an old-fashioned film noir and, unlike her character Solin, takes her coffee with a healthy dose of milk. Recent accomplishments include a 2019 fellowship at the Storytellers’ Institute and the book you’re about to read.

Flicker is her debut novel with NineStar Press. To learn more about The Fire of Felwing series and other upcoming stories, visit Liz at elizabethtybush.com.

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Blog Tour: Nice Catching You: A Holiday Love Story by Ryan Taylor & Joshua Harwood (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Nice Catching You: A Holiday Love Story

Author: Ryan Taylor & Joshua Harwood

Publisher:  Wainscott Press

Release Date: 10/30/2020

Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 84,000 words

Genre: Romance, Gay Holiday Romance, Contemporary Gay Romance, Holiday Romance

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Synopsis

What happens when the No. 1 college hockey star in the country falls in love—with a man?
Nick Johnson, a top prospect for a pro hockey team, has a secret: he’s gay. Tired of living in the
closet for the sport he loves, he sees no way out.

Jacob Meyer’s string of bad boyfriends left him cynical about love. Instead, he focuses on his
studies as a third-year law student. With a new job waiting for him, he’s eager to graduate and
move on.

On a school-sponsored trip, Nick and Jacob meet in a most unexpected way. When Nick tells
Jacob his secret, they decide to hang out, just as friends. But their attraction is too strong to
ignore, and they soon begin dating.

Since Nick is a big man on campus, it doesn’t take long for people to notice his attachment to
Jacob. All hell breaks loose when the relationship gets out. As the national media descends,
university officials try to figure out how to solve their “problem.” Their efforts divide Nick’s
team, inflame fans, and put Nick and Jacob’s futures in jeopardy. Will the men be able to
survive a plot to destroy them without derailing both their careers?

Nice Catching You is an out-for-you romance featuring a lot of love, exciting hockey, and a
beautiful holiday. There’s also plenty of steam and a very happy ending.

Excerpt

JACOB

Sunday, December 4

I haven’t been on many buses, but I was starting to think I might die on this one. The snow
began falling before we left Whiteface Mountain early in the afternoon, not unusual for one of
the top ski resorts in the Northeast. We were due in Syracuse before six, and I hoped the weather
didn’t delay us much. The last week of classes would start the next day, and I had work to do.
The snow was coming down hard, and by the time we reached I-87, I could see very little
out the window. Many of the cars had pulled over to the side, and others were creeping along
with their hazards flashing. Our bus joined the traffic and immediately began slipping all over
the road.

With fifty-odd college students on the trip, there had been a lot of noise when we left the
resort, but nerves had soon taken over, and people were mostly quiet now. I sat alone, three rows
from the back of the bus, trying to read a case for Federal Courts. With only one more semester
of law school to go, I needed to do well. A big firm in Boston offered me a job right before
Thanksgiving, contingent on my maintaining a 3.8 GPA. Pulling a C in Fed Courts would bring
me slightly under the requirement. Although I had high hopes for a job in DC, I couldn’t risk
losing the Boston offer.

Between the bus sliding in the snow and the constant chatter from the guys in the seat
behind me, I couldn’t concentrate at all. They were hockey players, and they kept up a
conversation about the game, other players, cars, and whatever else dumb undergrad jocks talk
about. They were the only people behind me except for their friend, who was passed out on a
seat in the back.

Whoa! The rear end of the bus lurched violently into the left lane. I tried to grab something
to hold onto, but I was already airborne by the time I dropped the heavy casebook.
Hands grabbed my shoulders but didn’t slow my momentum. Dreading the impact with the
seat across the aisle, I screwed my eyes shut and held my breath. All at once, something stopped
me. Rather, someone stopped me, and that someone had brawny arms and a hard body. He’d
caught me in midair.

“You all right?”

“What?” On my back in the man’s arms, facing the top of the bus, I couldn’t see much. I
turned my head, trying to find out who had hold of me.

“Everything okay?”

I craned my neck in the other direction just as he leaned over, and it was—shit!—one of the
hockey guys who’d been sitting behind me. I’d seen him over the weekend with his buddies, at
least one of whom had laughed at me the whole time. Now they’d laugh even harder, and I’d be
known as the skinny little runt who couldn’t even stay in his seat—the twit who had to be
rescued by a real man.

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Meet the Authors

Ryan Taylor and Joshua Harwood met in law school and were married in 2017. They live in a
suburb of Washington, DC, and share their home with a big, cuddly German shepherd. Ryan and
Josh enjoy travel, friends, and advocating for causes dear to their hearts. Ryan also loves to
swim, and Josh likes to putter in the garden whenever he can. The romance they were so lucky to
find with each other inspires their stories about love between out and proud men.

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New Release Blitz: Tipping the Balance by C. Koehler (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Tipping the Balance

Series: CalPac Crew, Book Two

Author: C. Koehler

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: October 26, 2020

Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 107376

Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, contemporary, romance, family-drama, gay, real estate agent, college graduate, housing developer, questioning, coming out

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Synopsis

The boys from ROCKING THE BOAT are back in TIPPING THE BALANCE. Nick Bedford’s best friend Drew St. Charles is a man with a dream. He wants to move from selling real estate and flipping houses on the side into renovating houses. Ideally, he’d find the houses and his boyfriend would flip them. Not that he has a boyfriend.

Brad Sundstrom, fresh out of college and working for his father in the family construction business, never believed he could dream of more…until he met Drew. When Drew wins a contract to restore the historic Bayard Mansion, they become the solution to each other’s problems. Drew needs someone to oversee the renovation and offers Brad, who wants out from under his father’s thumb, the job of project foreman.

Working in close contact makes the sparks between the two men burst into flame, and Brad takes his first hesitant steps out of the closet. Before long, spending the day together at work leads to nights spent together. It looks as if Drew’s dream is coming true, but then he is savagely attacked in a hate crime, and Brad panics.

Brad faces a crucial test. Will he overcome his fears and take his place at Drew’s side? Or will he retreat to the stifling familiarity of the closet?

Excerpt

Tipping the Balance
C. Koehler © 2020
All Rights Reserved

“Are you sure you can’t get a general contractor’s license?” Drew wiped the sweat out of his eyes.

“Did you just whine?” Nick grunted as he muscled a cherrywood cabinet into place. “Besides, what about the one you already work with?”

“Shut up. Bob’s great, but I’m getting tired of hiring an outside contractor so this work passes inspection, and anyway, you’d be cheaper.” Drew set a level on the cabinet Nick had just installed and squinted at it as the bubbles moved sluggishly in the yellow fluid. “It’s not…quite…plumb.”

“How come you don’t have a contractor’s license?” Nick squatted down to tap a shim into place under the cabinet. Sweat soaked his shirt, as portable fans cooled the kitchen in theory only, but with the HVAC unit out, fans were all they could get in the summer heat.

Drew looked up from the level, struck once again by just how attractive his best friend was. Coaching the men’s crew at California Pacific College certainly encouraged Nick to keep himself fit—that, and his smokin’ hot boyfriend, Morgan. Some coaches let themselves go, but not Nick. Not for the first time, Drew found himself wishing they could’ve worked out, but they’d given that a whirl as undergraduates and both agreed they made better friends than lovers.

And what friends they were, pulling each other through hard times and celebrating the good. Drew had helped Nick win and keep Morgan. Nick worked like a dog all summer for Drew’s home renovation business. He was one of the few people Drew trusted besides himself to supervise each project from start to finish, the only other person whose eye for detail and quality touches matched his own. Nick treated the jobs done by St. Charles Renovations like it was his own name on the line, not Drew’s.

“Because getting my real estate license took all my time and money when I was younger, and now selling houses takes all my time.” Drew sighed. “The flipping was just a sideline, and now reno work for other people? It’s killing me, I tell you.”

“A sideline.” Nick snorted. “The best home flip in the area. Isn’t that what Sacramento Magazine named you this year? Spend the time on this it deserves, and the St. Charles property empire could grow by leaps and bounds.”

“It still will. I like a challenge.” Drew grinned wolfishly. “Besides, sleep is for sissies.”

“You would know from sissies.” Nick watched Drew carefully to gauge the reaction, faintly disappointed when Drew barely even rolled his eyes. “Is it level?”

“Yes.” Drew straightened.

“Good, now you can use those over-gymmed muscles for something besides filling a polo shirt and help me hang the next cabinet. That’ll be the last of the uppers on this side of the kitchen. The guys can help me hang the rest later.”

“I can’t get too sweaty. I have to show houses this afternoon,” Drew said.

“Don’t worry, princess, you’ll still be the prettiest girl in the room.” Nick laughed. “I just need someone to steady it and hold it while I get it bolted to the cleats. The pilot holes have already been drilled.”

“Seriously, Nick, how am I going to replace you?” Drew asked. “You’ll go back to coaching and your grad work all too soon, and I’ll lose my best crew leader.”

“I’m your only crew leader,” Nick pointed out.

Drew made a face. “Don’t remind me.”

“You and Renochuck have me for another two months, so make the most of it,” Nick said, “because after that I go back to just being your friend.”

“Renochuck?”

“That’s what Octavio and the guys call it.”

“Some of them barely speak English, and they still came up with Renochuck.” Drew shook his head. He wiped a speck of dirt off the rich red wood.

Nick eyed Drew askance as he bent over. “Bend from the hips, not your lower back.”

“Yes, Coach,” Drew sighed.

“Did you enjoy throwing your back out last fall?”

Drew smirked. “Oh hell yes, I had a fabulous time. It was the event of the season.”

Nick didn’t reply. He just glared at Drew, warm brown eyes to merry blue ones. “Did you enjoy the aftermath? No? Then do it my way. I do know something about bodies in motion, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, that’s what Morgan tells me.”

“Hands on.” Nick loftily ignored his friend. He squatted down and put one hand under the cabinet and used the other on top to steady it. “In three. One, two, and up!”

“Now I know,” Drew grunted out, “where that coxswain of yours gets his abrasive tone from.”

“No, that’s totally Stuart’s,” Nick said. “Besides, we’re crew. We’re not real bright, but we can lift heavy objects. Now, put those muscles to some use, Muscle Mary, and hold this steady while I drill it.”

“I’m sure you’re very good at drilling, seeing how much practice you’ve been getting.” The muscles of Drew’s arms and back strained to hold the cabinet in place as Nick hurried to secure it to the wall. Then he noticed something. “Why is the taller of the two of us the one who’s not holding this up?”

Nick grinned at him. “Because I’m the drilling expert, remember? There,” he said as he put the last bolt in. “That’ll hold it while I finish up. You can let go.”

Drew lowered his arms. “Seriously, how’s it going with you and Morgan?”

He pretended to listen as Nick rattled off a list of his boyfriend’s virtues, but Nick’s syrupy smile answered the question well enough. “I’m sorry, what’d you just say?”

“I asked if you were going to be around this weekend,” Nick said. “I’m meeting his parents for the first time, and I’m scared shitless. I’m hoping you’ll be around so I can send panicked text messages from the bathroom.”

“Meeting the parents? It must be serious.” Drew smiled.

“You know it. He’s it, the only one I’ll ever want.”

“Some of us might like the chance to find that for ourselves, you know.” Drew pretended to be very interested in a small pile of loose screws.

“Aww, jeez, not Brad Sundstrom again. I keep telling you he’s straight.”

“Just his phone—”

Nick put the drill down. “Look, Drew. You know I can’t give out his information without his permission. It’s a confidentiality issue, among other things. I was his coach, technically a college official. I can’t just hand out phone numbers like that.”

Drew knew all about Nick’s scruples, having listened to him endlessly gnaw his guts out about his interest in Morgan. He supposed he ought to be grateful to Morgan for taking matters into his own hands, if not because Morgan made Nick happy, then because it shut Nick up. “Then will you at least give him my number if he asks for it?”

“Drew—”

“C’mon, Nick. It’s a fair question. Don’t I at least deserve the chance to get shot down?”

“I just don’t want to see you hurt,” Nick said quietly.

“I’m a big boy, babydoll. I can take care of myself.”

“I know, and yeah, if he asks, I’ll pass your number on.”

Drew looked at his watch. “Shit, it can’t be that late, can it?”

“It can be, yes. Late for the showings?” Nick asked.

“Just about. Everything looks great so far, but keep in touch, and let me know if you hear from the counter fabricators, will you?” Drew said, already heading for his car.

“Of course.” Nick picked up his drill.

Drew tried to mop the sweat off his brow as he rushed for his car but only succeeded in pushing it up into his brown locks. He had just enough time to run home and shower before he showed the first of the homes to his clients. Yeah, rummaging around in the dirt and sawdust probably wasn’t the best idea, but he couldn’t give up fixing up homes, he just couldn’t. What he hadn’t told Nick was that some days, he felt like he’d made a huge mistake in getting a real estate license instead of going directly into repair and improvement. Working his way through the building trades might’ve seemed strange after getting his bachelor’s degree in business, but it would’ve been handy when he got a contractor’s license. While he’d never wanted to be a designer, there was something almost magical about watching a dump of a home rise from the depths to become a showplace, limited only by budget and imagination. The cabinets with their reeded glass inserts, the soapstone counters that were supposed to have arrived last week, the reclaimed Indonesian teak floors covered with marine varnish to repel water, the lighting, all of the pieces fitted together like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle only he could solve—that was why he couldn’t keep out of it.

But how—oh how—was he going to replace Nick?

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Meet the Author

Christopher Koehler always wanted to write, but it wasn’t until his grad school years that he realized writing was how he wanted to spend his life. Long something of a hothouse flower, he’s been lucky to be surrounded by people who encouraged that, especially his long-suffering husband of twenty-nine years and counting.

He loves many genres of fiction and nonfiction, but he’s especially fond of romances, because it’s in them that human emotions and relations, at least most of the ones fit to be discussed publicly, are laid bare.

While writing is his passion and his life, when he’s not doing that, he’s a househusband, at-home dad, and oarsman with a slightly disturbing interest in manners and the other ways people behave badly.

Christopher is approaching the tenth anniversary of publication and has been fortunate to be recognized for his writing, including by the American Library Association, which named Poz a 2016 Recommended Title, and an Honorable Mention for “Transformation,” in Innovation, Volume 6 of Queer Sci Fi’s Flash Fiction Anthology.

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New Release Blitz: Dragon Adventures by Mell Eight (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Dragon Adventures

Series: Supernatural Consultant, Book Six

Author: Mell Eight

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: October 26, 2020

Heat Level: 1 – No Sex

Pairing: No Romance

Length: 24800

Genre: Paranormal, LGBTQIA+, YA, shifters, magic-users, kidnapping/abduction, travel, soul mates, road trip

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Synopsis

Aqua and Rios are bored, which is always a recipe for disaster. Going on a trip might not solve the cause of the boredom, but they know it will distract them for a while. Except, Rios runs into a nix trying to save his river from drug smugglers and Aqua is kidnapped by a bunch of angry fire salamanders. Their fun adventure quickly turns into a desperate fight for survival, and they’re not certain they’ll be able get back home ever again.

Excerpt

Dragon Adventures
Mell Eight © 2020
All Rights Reserved

“Ugh.”

“Blarg.”

“Pbtth.”

“Frrpth.”

“That’s enough, boys.” Uncle Willy’s frown of displeasure was pronounced. Rios shut his mouth on another fart noise and Aqua did the same at his side. The long table was quiet, Rios realized, and they were all staring at him and at Aqua. Uncle Dane, with his shiny blond hair, was easily recognizable sitting farther down. He was hiding a smile, but the rest of the people didn’t look happy at all.

“Really, William. This is an important meeting. Send the children away,” Ming said sharply. She was the tiny Asian woman who controlled everything west of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains. The entire table was full of territory leaders, and Uncle Willy had explained who each one was and the territory they controlled before they’d arrived for the North American Territory Leaders Conference that occurred every ten years. The last conference had been in Mexico, and the next two or three were going to be in the US before it went back to Mexico. Uncle Willy controlled Canada, and he always hosted the conference after Mexico.

Uncle Willy had been very stern with the boys about the conference. He had been teaching them all about his duties as territory leader and wanted them to sit quietly so they could listen and learn. But that was boring!

Rios opened his mouth to explain how bored he was, but Uncle Willy’s frown grew even sterner, so he shut his mouth again. Uncle Willy was his and Aqua’s caretaker. He had found them making a mess in a river and had ended up adopting them instead of punishing them. Living with Uncle Willy was fun. He played games with them and taught them magic. Even though they had to do chores, it was much better than living in the wild. Uncle Willy had even lost a lot of weight over the years so he could go swimming with them; he wasn’t skinny, of course, but he could keep up now, at least. But then he had said that being fifteen years old signified that they could now take on some responsibility. Well, if responsibility meant sitting in boring meetings while people did a lot of useless talking, then responsibility was awful.

Both Aqua and Rios hated being bored, and Uncle Willy knew that. Rios hoped his answering pout at Uncle Willy explained his reasoning.

“Go on, then,” Uncle Willy finally said with a sigh. Rios refrained from cheering happily as he jumped down from his seat and scampered out of the room after Aqua.

It took them ten minutes to realize there was nothing to do outside of the meeting either.

“Nickel should have come,” Aqua grumbled into the pillow that he used for a face-plant. His blue hair was spread around his head like a wave.

He should have. Rios couldn’t agree more. Nickel was awesome. He was an older water dragon, about twenty-two, and Aqua and Rios had been playing with him for ten years. He had taught them so much about their shared magic and was happy to see them whenever they could convince Uncle Willy that they should go visit. Except, the last four years of their friendship hadn’t been nearly as fun. Nickel had a new playmate: an air dragon named Platinum. Instead of coming to the territory leaders’ meeting with Dane like Nickel should have, he was home playing with his new best friend. It wasn’t fair.

Aqua rolled onto his side so his face wasn’t being smushed by the pillow. He growled under his breath and then let out a heavy sigh. They were both brothers, and the fact that they had definitely hatched from the same clutch was obvious in their shared brow line and rounded chins. Aqua’s nose was a little longer than Rios’s, his eyes a smidge wider, and he was about four inches taller, but they were clearly brothers. They hadn’t been entirely certain of that fact when they were younger and had been confused for twins more times than Rios could count. When they had been kits covered in identical blue dragon scales with identically colored hair, no one could tell them apart. Only as they grew had their differences become apparent, but as far as the issue of being bored and being abandoned by Nickel, they were of the same mind.

“We should go tell Nickel how sad we are that he couldn’t come,” Rios whined, knowing he was speaking what Aqua was also thinking.

“Not on the phone,” Aqua grumbled in reply immediately. The phone number for Nickel’s new house that he was sharing with Platinum was written in a little book kept next to the phone in the kitchen, but a phone call wouldn’t convey just how upset they were with Nickel. It had to be done in person.

“Uncle Willy won’t take us there when he’s still in the middle of a meeting,” Rios mused aloud, “and Uncle Dane isn’t going back home until the meeting is over, so we can’t tag along with him.”

“So we’ll have to travel on our own,” Aqua said insistently.

That made sense to Rios. They weren’t too far away from Dane’s territory, or at least Rios didn’t think so. Uncle Willy owned big houses all over Canada. He didn’t want to use his main house—where they lived most of the time—for the meeting, so he had brought them all to his house in Ontario instead.

“Wasn’t there a map on the wall of Uncle Willy’s office?” Rios asked. They didn’t spend too much time in Ontario, but they had made sure to thoroughly explore the house.

They ran out of the living room eagerly, up the stairs, and down the hall to the office. Since Uncle Willy was downstairs in the meeting, they didn’t knock. Aqua threw the door open and they piled inside.

It wasn’t hard to find the map on the wall. It was only about five feet by five feet long, and Rios could easily grip the wooden frame and take it off the hook. Some of the lines were a bit different than Rios thought he remembered, but it was definitely a map of North America. Although, only the right half of the US portion of the map had the lines that denoted the States. The rest of the map was mostly blank. It definitely looked weird, but they could still pinpoint where Uncle Willy’s house was in Canada and Uncle Dane’s house was in Massachusetts.

“There is a river, see!” Aqua ran his finger down the big lake that Rios knew was called after a big bird. Lake Seagull didn’t sound right—maybe it started with an H, but it wasn’t Hawk. The big lake connected to another slightly smaller lake via a river, which then connected to a third lake that was close to where Dane lived.

It looked like it would be faster and much more direct to walk on land, but they were water dragons and could traverse through the lakes and rivers at much greater speed. Once they got to the last big lake, they could find smaller rivers to get to Nickel’s house.

Aqua held his finger over the distance from the third lake to Massachusetts and grinned at Rios. “It’s only a few inches long. With our water magic, we can get there in a few hours.”

Something didn’t seem quite right—weren’t they supposed to measure with a ruler or something a little more accurate?—but it sounded like too much fun not to go anyway. Rios glanced at the clock, which read eleven in the morning.

“We had better pack lunch,” he said with his own grin.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read Universal Link

Meet the Author

When Mell Eight was in high school, she discovered dragons. Beautiful, wondrous creatures that took her on epic adventures both to faraway lands and on journeys of the heart. Mell wanted to create dragons of her own, so she put pen to paper. Mell Eight is now known for her own soaring dragons, as well as for other wonderful characters dancing across the pages of her books. While she mostly writes paranormal or fantasy stories, she has been seen exploring the real world once or twice.

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New Release Blitz: Canopy by Liz Faraim (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Canopy

Series: Vivian Chastain, Book One

Author: Liz Faraim

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: October 26, 2020

Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 72700

Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, Contemporary, romance, crime/thriller, lesbian, polyamory, ex-military, bartender, family drama

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Synopsis

Vivian Chastain is an adrenaline addicted veteran, transitioning to civilian life in Sacramento, California. She settles into a new routine while she finishes up college and works as a bartender, covering up her intense anxiety with fake bravado and swagger. All Vivian wants is peace and quiet, but her whole trajectory changes when she stumbles upon a heinous crime in progress and has to fight for her life to get away.

While recovering from the fight, she falls in love with someone who is tall in stature but short on emotional intelligence, and this toxic union provides Vivian the relationship that she thinks she needs. Given Vivian’s insecurities and traumatic past, she clings to the relationship even while it destroys her.

Vivian’s relationships are strained to their breaking points as she continues to seek balance. She turns to her best friend for support, only to be left empty handed and alone until she finds comradery and care from the last person she would have thought.

Excerpt

Canopy
Liz Faraim © 2020
All Rights Reserved

January 2004

Paso Robles, California

Elevation: 14,000 feet AGL

Scott shouted into my ear over the deafening roar of wild, whipping wind and prop engines.

“Okay, Vivian. On the count of three, I want you to take a big step forward and jump!”

Sucking in my breath, I held it as churning wind buffeted my body. Scott’s goatee tickled my ear as he leaned into me again and shouted, “One! Two! Three!”

Just as I began to step forward, Scott’s full body weight pushed against my back and together we teetered on the edge before tipping out of the side door of the tiny Cessna.

In the moment I stepped out of the plane, my vision and hearing stopped. And just as quickly, it all came rushing back. I took in the reality that I was plummeting toward Earth. My training kicking in, I briskly checked the altimeter strapped to my wrist before folding my arms across my chest.

*

Even in the shade of an enormous maple tree, I had a film of grimy sweat on my forehead, arms, and neck. I lay on my belly in the crunchy dead grass of Mom’s backyard. Sweat pooled on my lower back. I rolled over and peered up at the broad canopy of the tree. Branches crisscrossed; the leaves hanging perfectly still in the hot summer air, the blue sky visible though the gaps.

I concentrated on the speckled sunlight as it danced on the backs of my eyelids and then flopped my arm across my eyes, listening to trucks rumbling in the distance on Highway 113. Dishes clinked in a sink. The back door of the house opened and closed with a rattle, followed by my brother’s familiar tread.

I tensed and moved my forearm slightly down, so it covered the bridge of my nose. My other arm covered my abdomen. Otherwise I kept my eyes closed and stayed still.

His footsteps stopped near my head. I waited. Sweat dripped from my armpit and was wicked away by my well-worn T-shirt. The seconds drew out as he stood over me, likely considering his options. Another big rig rolled by on the freeway, its trailers rattling loudly. Grass tickled my ear.

“Vivi, where’s Mom?”

My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. The heat was too much, and I was incredibly thirsty.

“Viv-iiiii…where’s Mom?”

“Just running errands. Should be back soon.” I turned my head toward him and opened my eyes. His brown hair was tousled, the bangs hanging past his eyebrows. He scuffed the toe of his shoe in the scrubby grass. Joey was bored, and Mom wasn’t home, which meant trouble wasn’t far behind.

Closing my eyes, I turned my face back toward the sky. Sweat gathered between the crease inside my elbow and the spot where it rested on my nose. Cautiously, I took my arm away from my face and let it flop into the grass.

“Hey, give me the comics,” Joey demanded. The newspaper I had been reading rustled as he snatched it up. His footsteps crunched away, and I heard wood creak as he climbed up the ladder that was leaning against the house.

Thirsty, I stood up. Stars dazzled in front of my eyes and my head and hands tingled. Once the dizziness had passed, I trotted across the small yard toward the back door. My worn-out sneaker slapped onto the concrete of the shady back porch when Joey called out. I froze, one foot on the porch, the other on the old brick walkway. Standing there in silence, I waited.

“Viv, come up here.” Joey’s voice was syrupy, traveling down to me from the roof.

“No, thanks. I got stuff to do,” I said, still not moving.

“Viiiiivv, up here. Now.” His voice took on a sharp edge.

I clenched my jaw as my temper started to rise.

“Joey! I got stuff to do. I’m goin’ inside.” I stepped up onto the porch and strode resolutely to the sliding glass door.

“Vivian,” Joey said, taunting. “Come up here now, or I’ll tell Mom it was you who broke the piano bench.”

Joey had hit the nail on the head. He knew I would do anything not to get into trouble with Mom. My hand slipped off the cool metal handle of the sliding glass door. I spun on my heel and marched to the ladder. It was huge and weathered, the white paint peeling to reveal graying wood below. I nimbly climbed up and made the scary transition from the ladder to the roof, swinging my leg over the top rung.

The sun was brighter up there, and I squinted as I walked to Joey.

“What!” I balled my hands up into little fists, my mouth set.

Joey pointed to the tops of some trees growing over the far side of the house.

“Go over there and pick me some loquats.” He fanned himself with the comics and fixed his muddy-brown eyes on mine.

I didn’t move and didn’t respond, glaring at him. Joey stood up, walked straight up to me, and punched my upper arm as hard as he could. I staggered, trying to keep my balance on the steeply pitched roof. Tears instantly welled up, and I bit back a yelp of pain. My arm throbbed deeply, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of making me cry.

The heat from the roof radiated through the soles of my sneakers as I willed the tears not to fall. Breaking eye contact with him, I walked carefully up and over the peak of the roof. The trees were planted close to the house, so the branches hung low over the gutters, heavy with ripe fruit. Holding the hem of my T-shirt out, I created a pouch and began picking loquats until I had gotten the closest ones. Inching closer to the edge, the toe of my shoe over the gutter, I stretched my short arms up to pick a few more.

When the pouch of my shirt was full, I squatted down in the shade of the tree and chose a fat, golden loquat. Biting into it, I was thrilled with how sweet and juicy it was. Carefully, I ate around the large seeds and then tossed them into the side yard. I wiped my sticky fingers on my shorts.

Standing up, ready to face Joey again, I heard a heavy wooden thunk. Walking back up and over the peak of the roof, I didn’t see Joey. I scurried over to where the ladder had been. Joey stood in the yard, looking up at me. He barked out a malicious laugh that instantly piqued my anger. With my sore right arm tucked into my side, still holding the hem of my shirt, I grabbed a ripe loquat and threw it at Joey as hard as I could. I missed. The loquat bounced across the dead grass. Joey’s laughter immediately stopped. I threw another, this time hitting him in the gut. The overripe fruit left a smear of juice on his raggedy, striped, hand-me-down polo shirt. I threw two more. Both fell short.

Recalibrating, I continued angrily throwing until all of the fruit was gone. I dropped my hands to my sides, the sun beating down. Joey gaped at me. A long pause followed while he decided what to do. He finally blinked and spoke.

“Look at you up there. Stuck like a stupid stray cat. With your stupid black hair and stupid blue eyes. You don’t even look like anybody in the family. You’re not a real Chastain.”

My bottom lip trembled, but I held in the tears. “Good! Maybe I don’t wanna be a Chastain. You’re all terrible people!”

His eyes narrowed as he turned and walked toward the back door. “Good luck getting off the roof, Vivi,” he said over his shoulder.

“Joey! Joey! Joey! Bring back the ladder!” I screamed as hard and loud as I could. “Joey! Joey! Come onnnn!”

Trying to stay calm, I looked around the backyard. The wooden ladder lay useless in the dirt, surrounded by smears of loquat. I peered over the edge, trying to judge how high up I was. It was a straight drop to hard packed dirt. I walked back over to the loquat trees.

“Joey! Come onnn!” I shouted again, as I tested the branches. I was too heavy to shimmy down the branches to the trunk. Dishes clinked at the neighbor’s house, and I looked across the side yard. Old Mrs. Hadler was standing at her sink looking out of the window at me. She shook her head with a disapproving glare and then went back to washing her dishes. Embarrassed, I stopped shouting and walked around to the front of the house. It was still high up, but there was nice green grass below. Mom always watered the front yard and made sure the planters on the porch had flowers in them; meanwhile, she let the backyard die.

Sweat dripped down my face and neck. It was the hottest point of the day, and the street hummed with the sound of air conditioners working hard. Nobody was out except for Gail, who lived half a block away. She pedaled by on her bicycle, dressed in her usual hospital scrubs, and looked at me with concern.

Anger coursed through me and frustrated tears started to well up again. I let a few silently roll down my grimy cheeks. The salty tears hung on my jaw before dripping down onto the roof, where they evaporated. I wiped my face with the front of my shirt, clenched my jaw, and stepped off the roof.

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NineStar Press | Books2Read Universal Link

Meet the Author

Liz is a recovering workaholic who has mastered multi-tasking, including balancing a day job, solo parenting, writing, and finding some semblance of a social life. In past lives she has been a soldier, a bartender, a shoe salesperson, an assistant museum curator, and even a driving instructor.

Liz lives in the East Bay Area of California, and enjoys exploring nature with her son.

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New Release Blitz: The Silence of Lightning by Marie S. Crosswell (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  The Silence of Lightning

Author: Marie S. Crosswell

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: October 19, 2020

Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 73800

Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, contemporary, bisexual, ace, interracial, Wyoming, rodeo, cowboys, in the closet, outing, family, HFN

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Synopsis

Former pro-rodeo champion Smith Rose and his cousins Cooper and Christa Boone live a quiet life together in the town of Cody, Wyoming—until the summer of 2015 shakes them to their foundations.

Stuck in an unhappy rut since his retirement from the rodeo five years prior, Smith is forced to reckon with his past, present, and future when his former friend and lover John Henry Walker shows up at Smith’s bar. Meanwhile, the Boone sisters face a threat they never would’ve predicted when an out-of-town stranger begins to stalk Christa after meeting her at a party. While trying to support her sister and their cousin, Cooper secretly agonizes over her fears of their little family splitting apart and where that would leave her.

When Smith, Cooper, and Christa’s problems converge in a dangerous confrontation, will the three of them survive?

Excerpt

The Silence of Lightning
Marie S. Crosswell © 2020
All Rights Reserved

Cody, Wyoming
Summer, 2015

The three of them sit sprawled in a booth: Smith, Cooper, and Christa. Their table’s littered with beer bottles and the shucked off metal caps. Smith’s got a cooler on the floor alongside his seat because this is his bar and he can do whatever the hell he wants. He opens each beer with the bottle opener on his key ring. His cousins got a pretty good buzz going on, the two of them pink-faced and smiling, leaning into each other. Smith is mellowed out, not drunk. He doesn’t watch the saloon or Georgeanne filling in for him at the bar, just nurses his drink and considers his cousins.

“There is no way in hell I’m riding fifteen hundred miles on the back of a motorcycle,” says Christa.

“Why not?” Cooper whines. “Labor Day weekend, it’ll be beautiful. We won’t see weather that good in between here and Austin until next spring, which is almost a year from now.”

“I wouldn’t go in the spring either. I’m not traveling that far on a bike. Period.”

“You don’t even have to worry about the bike. I’m the one handling it. All you have to do is hold on and enjoy the scenery.”

“I wouldn’t be enjoying anything, Cooper! I’d be terrified the whole way. What’s fun about that?”

“I wouldn’t even go fast!” Cooper says. “I’ll cap it at five above the speed limit; I promise.”

“Eighty miles an hour on a motorcycle is still enough to kill you!”

“Okay, first of all, it would be seventy half the time, and second of all, why don’t you trust me? I’m not some reckless yahoo looking to cheat death taking a corner too fast, and even if I was, I would never gamble with your life.”

Christa gives her sister an indulgent smile. “It’s not about you. It’s about all the things you can’t control. My fear included.”

Cooper sighs in defeat and blinks at Smith sitting across from her. “Will you go with me?”

Smith pauses. “Might follow in the truck.”

Cooper rolls her eyes. “Forget it. I’ll go on my own.”

“You’re not making that trip alone, Cooper,” says Christa, sipping on her beer.

“Well, I wouldn’t have to if you’d come with me.”

Cooper’s been restoring a 1966 Triumph Bonneville T120TT all year, tinkering with it in her spare time at the garage where she’s an auto mechanic. She reckons she’ll be finished with it by the time September rolls around, and she’s been pestering her sister about a long road trip to Texas.

Christa ignores Cooper’s pouting and gives Smith a pointed look. “You coming to the rodeo with us?”

“No, ma’am,” he replies and draws on his beer. He’s sitting in the interior corner on his side of the booth, and he’s got his left arm stretched out along the top of the seatback behind him. He might be hiding a little, from the rest of the room.

“Smith. Come on.”

“Every year, you two go out there, and every year, I don’t. I figure that’ll never change.”

“Why can’t you just suspend your boycott for one night and spend some time with us?”

“I’m spending time with you right now. I’ll follow you anywhere, except the damn rodeo. Why don’t you skip the rodeo and do something else with me? We could take the motorcycle course at the DMV and get licensed.”

Christa makes a face at him. “Very funny.”

“Well, we’re going tomorrow night, with or without you,” Cooper says to Smith. “And I’m betting whoever places first in bronc and bull riding won’t come anywhere near your records, like I always do. Then I’ll be proven right like I always am. At least half a dozen people will recognize me and Chris as your family, ask us how you’re doing, and then recount some memory of your glory days we’ve both heard about a thousand times. We’ll smile and nod and agree you were the best in the West, shake hands, and go home.”

“Clearly, I’m not missing anything,” says Smith, his face shaded under the brim of his cowboy hat.

“If you hate the rodeo so much, why did you decide to live in Cody?” Christa asks. “You could’ve gone back to Rawlins or Cheyenne. Left Wyoming altogether.”

“Cody ain’t a bad place to live.” Smith flicks his eyes past his cousin and gives the saloon a once-over. “You two are here.”

“We’re here because of you,” says Cooper.

Smith glances at her but doesn’t respond, draining his beer bottle instead.

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Meet the Author

Marie S. Crosswell writes long fiction, short fiction, and poetry. Her novellas Texas, Hold Your Queens; Lone Star on a Cowboy Heart; Alchemy; and Cold, Cold Water are available online wherever digital books are sold. Her short fiction has appeared in Thuglit, Betty Fedora, Plots with Guns, Tough, and other indie crime fiction publications. She’s a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College where she studied creative writing. She lives in the American West. Find out more about Marie on her Website.

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New Release Blitz: Start to Finish by Pamela A. Williams (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Start to Finish

Series: The Ian Start Mysteries, Book One

Author: Pamela A. Williams

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: October 19, 2020

Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 61600

Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, College, artist, law enforcement, murder, disabilities, reunited

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Synopsis

Ian Start is an art professor and poet, living and teaching in Providence, Rhode Island. After suffering an infection in his leg that left him disfigured and traumatized, he’s been struggling to regain his emotional balance and find his voice again in his poetry.

It doesn’t help when one of his students is murdered, and he’s implicated. The chemistry is still there between Ian and Jake, who is his ex and the investigator, but being a suspect presents a barrier to their reunion.

Furthermore, Ian’s injury left a massive scar, both physically and emotionally. He is not convinced anyone else should have to live with his disfigurement and his nightmares.

Excerpt

Start to Finish
Pamela A. Williams © 2020
All Rights Reserved

As I hobbled to the door, I could see, through the leaded glass, a stout Black man in a dated tweed blazer. He was staring intently at my approach, which made me wish that I was dressed in more than a robe and flannel pajama bottoms. Opening the door, I saw that there was a second man, a few steps down, looking out toward the street. “Professor Ian Start?” said the man in front of me.

“Yes?” I said, tearing my gaze away from the familiar pale ginger head.

“I’m Detective Henry Ransom from the Providence Police Department. May we have a few minutes of your time?” At that point, the tawny head turned, and it was, as I knew it would be, Jake. Right on cue, Ransom said, “This is Detective Jake Quinn.” Our eyes met and held. In the moment, I was delighted to see him. But in my moment of pleasure, I could see wariness and warning in his eyes, a slight shake of his head that clearly said don’t acknowledge. I immediately assumed there were some gay identity issues at play and kept my trap shut. Everyone knew I was gay, but I was well aware of guilt by association.

“Yes, of course, come in. We were just having coffee. Can I get you a cup?” Ever the perfect host, eh? With no small amount of trepidation, I led them to the kitchen where Rita was sitting at my little table. It looks out over a small terracotta-tiled patio with a wildflower garden beyond, looking bleak and dead in the frigid morning with black stems and flower heads that hadn’t been tended to before the winter frosts.

“Yeah, coffee would be good,” said Detective Ransom. I raised my eyebrows at Jake, who merely nodded. I knew he took it black but inquired of both anyway. Rita introduced herself, and they all shook hands. I didn’t get a handshake. I began to feel very nervous. My knuckles started to prickle.

Rita rents my street-level apartment. Short and trim, with crazy hair from an indeterminate ethnic background, she’s my closest friend even if she is a social worker. I had an overload of social workers during the time I was in the hospital, all telling me how fucked up I was going to be when I got out. After that, I swore off them permanently, but Rita was the exception. Despite our connection, Rita was a little bit of an enigma; quiet as a whisper, I never heard music or a loud voice from her apartment, so it was hard to tell if she was home or not, and I never knew if she had company because she apparently didn’t keep regular hours. But every Sunday morning without fail she’d be at my back door with croissants and hot chocolate and dressed in tight stretchy sportswear, perfectly comfortable with me in pajama bottoms and my faded silk robe. And that’s how a Sunday morning found us, the second of January, a sunny, cold winter day, when we heard the knock at the front door.

“I’m going to head back downstairs, Ian. If you need anything, just call.” And then she was gone. Cops can do that: clear a room instantly.

I poured two cups from the carafe and retrieved a carton of milk from the refrigerator for Ransom, letting him pour. “What’s going on?” I asked.

Ransom spoke. Jake didn’t say a word. “You are acquainted with a Thomas Wilson.” Statement, not a question.

“He was a student of mine, yes.” The answer to the nonquestion.

“Was?” Ransom asked, a hint of a challenge in the tone.

“Yes,” I said warily. “He’s taken his last drawing class. I teach drawing.”

“When was the last time you saw him?” Again Ransom. Christ. This was bad. I was going to hear that Thomas was missing. Missing or hurt, or…no, not going there. My stomach roiled a little.

“What’s going on?” I asked again. And in nearly a whisper. “What kind of detectives are you? Missing persons?” Yeah, like there are missing persons detectives. I was hoping for the best out of the only other option.

“Homicide,” said Ransom. I sat down hard on the nearest chair. Ransom then asked again, “When was the last time you saw Thomas Wilson?”

No, I do not want to hear what’s coming. “The last day of class. Um, the twelfth, I guess. He helped me load portfolios into my car. Are you telling me Thomas is dead?” Jake nodded but said nothing. “Are you sure? Sure it was Thomas? What happened? When?” They were wrong, had the wrong kid, were talking to the wrong instructor. I stared uncomprehendingly at Ransom. I couldn’t meet Jake’s eyes at all. I felt helpless. My knuckles began to itch, and I distractedly scratched at them.

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Meet the Author

Pamela A. Williams is a Clinical Social Worker living and working on the Southcoast of Massachusetts. She is the daughter John E. Williams, winner of the 1973 National Book Award for Augustus. She has always had writing in her blood but has only lately found the serenity and confidence to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, if you will).

Ms. Williams comes from a widely varied background. She’s worked in manufacturing, retail, graphic arts and the mental health field. She tries to bring these experiences to her writing to create well rounded, believable characters. And she remains forever honored and grateful to her clients who have shared their personal stories and broadened her view of humanity. She is awed by their resilience and trust.

She lives with two cats, of course.

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New Release Blitz: Dinner at the Blue Moon Café by Rick R. Reed (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Dinner at the Blue Moon Café

Author: Rick R. Reed

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: October 19, 2020

Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 66700

Genre: Paranormal, LGBTQIA+, chef, murders, werewolf, friendship, shifters, contemporary, Seattle, food, recipes

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Synopsis

A monster moves through the darkest night, lit only by the full moon, taking them, one by one, from Seattle’s gay gathering areas.

In an atmosphere of spine-tingling fear, Thad Matthews finds his first true love cooking in an Italian restaurant called The Blue Moon Cafe. Sam Lupino is everything Thad has ever hoped for in a man: virile, sexy as hell, kind, and…he can cook!

As the pair’s love heats up, so do the questions. Who is the killer preying on Seattle’s gay men? What secrets is Sam’s Sicilian family hiding? And, more important, why do Sam’s unexplained disappearances always coincide with the full moon?

When the secrets are finally revealed, is Thad and Sam’s love for one another strong enough to weather the horrific revelations revealed by the light of the full moon?

Excerpt

Dinner at the Blue Moon Café
Rick R. Reed © 2020
All Rights Reserved

Music from his clock radio woke Thad Matthews at 6:00 a.m. The song, “Smokestack Lightning,” yanked him from a heavy, dream-laden sleep. Its energy forced his eyes open wider, caused synapses, eight hours dormant, to tingle, and made him want to move. Nonetheless, he slapped at the snooze button, silencing the bluesy wail, rolled over, and then pulled the comforter over his head. He was glad he had tuned his clock radio to KPLU, Seattle’s only all-blues all-the-time station, but he desperately wanted to recapture just a few more minutes of his dream, in which he’d found himself on the moors of England. All he could recall was that the moors themselves were appropriately fog shrouded and lit with a silvery luminance from above. Someone waited for him in the shadows and fog. And he couldn’t, for the life of him, know for certain if that someone meant to do him harm or meant to just do him.

He’d been having a lot of sexual dreams lately.

As much as he wanted to unravel the mystery of the dream—and to perhaps savor the vague sexual vibrations he was getting from it—sleep eluded him. He found thoughts of the day crowding in, preventing even the most remote possibility of a recurrence of slumber.

Thad sat up in the four-poster, rubbing his eyes like a little boy, and wondered why he bothered setting an alarm. He had no job to go to, no pressing engagements, no muse to answer to—hell, he didn’t even have an appointment for an oil change.

This day, like all his others, stretched out before him completely unmarred with obligations other than the requirements life imposed upon him, such as eating and going to the bathroom, which the erection poking up under his sheets compelled him to take care of. He called this morning wood a pee-on, because once he had put that particular need to rest, it most often subsided.

After stumbling to the adjoining bathroom and letting go with a flow that caused a mighty sigh of relief to issue forth from him, he thought once again that maybe today should be the day he looked harder into getting himself some employment—anything to put him into contact with other people and to fill his waking hours. Lord knew he filled out enough applications and answered enough Help Wanted ads on Craigslist to keep the officials down at unemployment sending him checks. But all his efforts, dishearteningly, were ignored.

It had been nearly four months since he had been laid off at Perk, the national chain of coffee shops headquartered in suburban Shoreline. Thad had been there for six years, in the marketing department, spending his days writing clever sayings for paper coffee cups and point-of-purchase signs for the stores. It was a tough job, but someone had to do it. And writing phrases like “Plan on Being Spontaneous” paid the bills, even if it didn’t provide much creative or intellectual challenge. It helped sell coffee, and Thad never kidded himself: that’s why he was employed there.

Except now they didn’t need him anymore. Who would write the signs for their special Iced Coffee blend?

He gazed down at the bubbling golden froth in the toilet and flushed it away, along with his thoughts about his former job. He turned and rinsed his hands under the sink, then splashed cold water on his face. Standing up straight, he stared at his reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror.

“You’re too young for a life of leisure,” he said to his reflection, rubbing his hands through his short, coarse red hair, which stuck up in a multitude of directions. People paid good money for products that would make their hair look as fetchingly disheveled as Thad’s did right now. He peered closer at himself, taking inventory of his pale skin, his gray eyes, and the constellation of freckles that spanned his nose and the tops of his cheeks. He flexed, thinking he was looking a little flabby around the middle.

“Workout day. I’ll head over to the gym today. I need it.” He sucked in his gut and let it out again, thinking it was empty and needed refilling. A Pagliacci delivery pizza only went so far. His slumber and active dream life, he supposed, had all but digested the pie.

Thad moved to the bedroom and began tossing pillows on the floor to make up his bed. He wasn’t sure why he bothered with this either, since it was unlikely anyone would see the military-neat bed except for him, when he would approach it once more this evening just to mess it all up again. But it was important to Thad to have a routine. Otherwise his days would blend into one meaningless chunk of time, formless, without definition or purpose.

It was becoming increasingly hard enough to distinguish Tuesday from Thursday—or Sunday, for that matter.

Back when he was putting in forty-plus hours a week, he envied the increasing number of friends and acquaintances who had gotten laid off during the economic downturn. The money they made on unemployment seemed like enough—at least for him and his modest lifestyle in his Green Lake studio apartment—and the freedom they had seemed worth the cut in pay.

But now he wasn’t so sure. The uncertainty of what would happen if he still wasn’t working when the unemployment checks dwindled down to zero hung over him like a vague threat. And the freedom wasn’t really so great, when that same threat prevented him from spending much money, lest he should need it down the road for luxuries like food and a roof over his head.

Worst of all was what the job loss had done to his self-esteem. Thad needed some meaning in his life, a purpose. That much had been instilled in him since he was a little boy, back in Chicago growing up in the working class neighborhood of Bridgeport, where his father was a cop and his mother waited tables at a Lithuanian restaurant.

He pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, padded out to the office area of his apartment, and plopped down in front of his laptop. He planned to check out the classifieds on Craigslist, then Monster, then CareerBuilder. When he was first laid off, he looked only at writing and editing jobs but had lately broadened his search to include, well, just about everything. Thad realized he would work retail, man a customer service phone line, groom dogs, or wait tables, as long as he had a job.

Yet the rest of the world hadn’t gotten wind of his eagerness to accept any kind of employment. Or if they had, they weren’t saying.

Before he went through the often-depressing ritual of cyber pavement pounding, he would check out what had happened in the world since he had stumbled in last night from an evening of self-consolation and vodka on Capitol Hill. He hit the little orange-and-blue Firefox icon on the dock at the bottom of his screen to bring up the day’s online news…

And was jolted right out of whatever sluggishness he was feeling. He stared at the lead article for that day’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer. A chill coursed through him, and he slowly shook his head as he read the details of that morning’s top story, titled “Brutal Slaying in Capitol Hill.” The article described how an as-yet-unidentified young man had been killed in an alley in the Seattle neighborhood known for its heavy concentration of gay bars and clubs. Thad had to stop reading for a moment to close his eyes because the gruesome details were simply too much to bear. His stomach churned. The man had not just been killed but had been literally ripped apart. Very little blood was found at the scene. And forensics had already determined that there was no trace of metal found on the victim’s flesh, which meant that the deed had to have been done with something other than a knife. The worst detail of all was the fact that the remains bore definite signs that much of the man’s flesh had been eaten. Authorities are keeping details to themselves regarding who—or what—the perpetrator could have been. The story closed with the usual cautions about what to do—don’t travel alone, avoid strangers and unlit places—when something so unsettling and violent occurs.

Thad exited Firefox sooner than he had planned and stared out the window. His heart thumped in his chest. Bile splashed at the back of his throat and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He had been in Capitol Hill the night before, having a dirty martini or three at Neighbours, one of the gay ghetto’s most popular hangouts. He wondered if, as he had made his way back to the bus stop, he had passed the killer or killers. If perhaps the killer or killers had eyed him, wondering if he would suffice for their demented purposes. He could see himself through their eyes, being watched from the shadows of a vestibule or an alley as he made his way back to the bus stop on Broadway. He wondered if he looked appetizing. He had been told on more than one occasion that he was “tasty” and “delicious,” but those doing the describing were not thinking of him as dinner—at least not in the conventional sense. He wondered if perhaps the only thing that had saved him was the coincidental passing of a boisterous group from the University of Washington, coming up alongside him just as the fiend in the dark was ready to pounce. He shivered. For once, rejection was a comforting thought.

Rejection, under these circumstances, was the new “getting lucky.”

Still, some poor soul had not been as lucky as he had, and today forensics was probably busy trying to figure out just who this unfortunate soul was. From what Thad had read, it didn’t sound like they had much to go on. Dental records, maybe? What kind of animal would not only kill a fellow human being but also eat his flesh and drink his blood? Was this a human being at all? Thad had heard of bears occasionally making their misguided ways down from the mountains and into Seattle, but they usually got no farther than suburban parks and backyards. And the “bears” that routinely cruised the Capitol Hill neighborhood were of a much more cuddly variety.

Surely, though, an animal couldn’t have been roaming around busy Capitol Hill on Friday night. The neighborhood, on weekend nights, was a blur of barhoppers and partiers, its hilly streets filled with people and cars jockeying for position. Loud and well lit, it was the kind of neighborhood that would scare the shit out of an animal, at least an animal with normal fears and inclinations. This had to be the work of a person, or people, right? And whoever was behind such a thing had to be majorly warped. Thad had a quick vision of pale-gray eyes and enormous canine teeth until he banished the imagery to the back of his brain, grateful for another kind of canine distraction.

That distraction had just sidled up beside Thad, her arrival signaled by a clicking of toenails on hardwood. Thad glanced down at his gray-and-white Chihuahua, Edith, staring up at him with her dark eyes. Her tongue stuck out one side of her mouth, giving her a both comical and wizened appearance. The dog was about a hundred years old, and Thad thought, for better or worse, she was his very best friend in the world. Edith got up on her hind legs to paw at Thad’s lap, indicating to him that he was not the only creature in the house that had to pee first thing in the morning.

Thad got up and, with Edith following impatiently behind, slid into flip-flops and grabbed her leash. “C’mon, sweetheart, let’s take a little walk down to the lake, and then we’ll see about getting us both some breakfast.”

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read Universal Link

Meet the Author

Real Men. True Love.

Rick R. Reed is an award-winning and bestselling author of more than fifty works of published fiction. He is a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Entertainment Weekly has described his work as “heartrending and sensitive.” Lambda Literary has called him: “A writer that doesn’t disappoint…” Find him at www.rickrreedreality.blogspot.com. Rick lives in Palm Springs, CA, with his husband, Bruce, and their fierce Chihuahua/Shiba Inu mix, Kodi.

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Cover Reveal: Nice Catching You: A Holiday Love Story By Ryan Taylor & Joshua Harwood

Nice Catching You: A Holiday Love Story

By Ryan Taylor & Joshua Harwood

Cover Created by : Cherie Fox

Release Date: October 30, 2020

Available to Pre-Order at:

Amazon US

Amazon Universal

What happens when the No. 1 college hockey star in the country falls in love—with a man?

Nick Johnson, a top prospect for a pro hockey team, has a secret: he’s gay. Tired of living in the
closet for the sport he loves, he sees no way out.

Jacob Meyer’s string of bad boyfriends left him cynical about love. Instead, he focuses on his
studies as a third-year law student. With a new job waiting for him, he’s eager to graduate and
move on.

On a school-sponsored trip, Nick and Jacob meet in a most unexpected way. When Nick tells
Jacob his secret, they decide to hang out, just as friends. But their attraction is too strong to
ignore, and they soon begin dating.

Since Nick is a big man on campus, it doesn’t take long for people to notice his attachment to
Jacob. All hell breaks loose when the relationship gets out. As the national media descends,
university officials try to figure out how to solve their “problem.” Their efforts divide Nick’s
team, inflame fans, and put Nick and Jacob’s futures in jeopardy. Will the men be able to
survive a plot to destroy them without derailing both their careers?

Nice Catching You is an out-for-you romance featuring a lot of love, exciting hockey, and a
beautiful holiday. There’s also plenty of steam and a very happy ending.

Pre-Order Your Copy on Amazon US or Amazon Universal Today!

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