Heat Wave: Burlington

Heat Wave: Burlington is out...

For this week, only, at the publisher for 30% off list price. It will be available through Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, and other e-book sellers (Smashwords, All Romance, etc) starting next week.

Blurb

Brandon Russo can't stand the sight of blood and the current heat wave makes doing almost anything outdoors unpleasant. So when an SUV sideswipes a bicycle right at the gate of the storage facility in Burlington, Vermont, where Brandon works for his aunt, he considers just locking himself in the office and calling 911. But he's rewarded for letting his good nature overcome his squeamishness when the man he rescues from the ditch turns out to be absolutely gorgeous.

Scott Seay is a photographer on the trail of a legend. A strong lead has brought him to Vermont for the auction of a storage unit whose owner had been obsessed with Champy, the creature rumored to live in the depths of Lake Champlain. When Scott winds up in a ditch outside that very same storage facility, being rescued by a hot, chivalrous man who literally sweeps Scott into his arms ... well, Scott's always believed in fate.

EXCERPT:

Brandon woke up with the disconcerting feeling of having no idea where he was or why he was so aroused. His cock pressed urgently against too-tight jeans and his heart rate was so rapid, he could feel each beat in his eyeballs. A warm body -- too warm, really -- pressed against his, and an arm was draped over his hips, fingers dangling against his belly.

His mouth was sticky; he’d gone to bed without brushing his teeth. He ran his tongue around in his mouth for a bit, working up some spit, trying to remember the events of the day that led to having what was quite obviously a man in his bed. He squirmed just a bit, rubbing against the person spooned up against him. The person made a breathy sort of sigh, shifted a little, and Brandon could feel the hard length of his bed-guest’s cock against his butt cheek.

Why was it so dark? Usually the street light just outside Brandon’s window lit his bedroom with an annoying, amber-yellow glow. Right. He wasn’t in his bed. He was in Scott’s hotel room. The day’s events returned, a little muzzy, but he sorted them out painfully, his brain completely sleep-muddled. He wasn’t sure why he was sleeping with Scott’s arm around him, although he had to admit, uncomfortable erection or not, he didn’t mind having Scott’s arm around him. But it wasn’t like him to forget having sex, and he was pretty sure they hadn’t. So why was he ...

Crap. He must have fallen asleep while watching television. Which meant he was currently hogging Scott’s bed without being invited into it in the first place. Unease settled like a cold rock in his belly. Like Scott hadn’t had a bad enough day without trying to sleep around a bed hog.

Brandon squirmed, trying to move out from under Scott’s arm. Least he could do was sleep on the room’s tiny sofa if he couldn’t find his keys in the dark without waking Scott. Every movement was torture, waking himself further and feeling the lean length of Scott’s body against him. To be honest, he didn’t really want to go. He wanted to turn in that heated embrace and kiss Scott awake.

Scott’s arms tightened around Brandon’s hip. “Hey,” Scott said, his breath ruffling Brandon’s hair. “Where you goin’?”

“Sorry I woke you,” Brandon said. “I’ll head on home and let you get some sleep.”

Scott snuggled closer. “Look, I know I’m really bad with the flirting thing. I don’t get loads of practice. But I did invite you up to my room. I ... if you want ... I’d like you to stay.”

* ~* ~ *~ ~* ~

Aaaand, I got another book cover in my email box....

This collection will be available for a limited time only and I'm told it will be for sale "soon."

Antimatter Press is not, however, keeping its doors open. All remaining contracts have been returned, and this book will be the last publication. I'm not quite sure when it will be out, but I'll let you know as soon as it is.

My story in this collection is called "Living Proof" and is about ghosts who wonder what happens before death... an interesting twist on the ghost hunter concepts. I think you'll enjoy it.

It is not, however, my usual, nor is it a romance at all, but just a straight up spec-fic story.

Anyway, more as I know more...

Terran Academy, Vol 1: Economics 101; The True Cost of Running an Empire

I'd like to talk a bit about my newest project, completely different (ok, well, sort of different) from everything I've done up til now.

First off, it's Young Adult... which I've never done before at all. While I've written some stuff that's not romantic--I've got a ghost story piece coming out "soon," in Local Magic--and there are a few non-romance pieces in Whetting the Appetite, I tend to be more comfortable working with romance.

Secondly, while there will be a sub-plot romance, it's more of a space-opera adventure story.

Third, my publisher wants outlines before I start writing.

So, those are a whole bunch of new things; I've written to spec before, but not like this at all. I'm a little nervous, but I'm having fun with the idea.

Today I spent quite a bit of time outlining the first installment; the idea is that in 2016, there will be one novelette released every four months, so three installments per year, of about 17,500 words each. And I wrote up character profiles for my main characters.

Thought I'd take a few minutes to introduce you to my main character, just to see what you think of her. Obviously, not all of this information will come out directly in the novel, and of course, it's all still preliminary. Characters often undergo some dramatic changes between planning and writing.

Ancet Grice - female - series 12 cloned human from Orion IV

Considered sub-human by genuine Terrans, Ancet Grice is the physical descendant of a genetically modified series 12 clone. In order to live on some of Terra's colonies, modified humans are sent to terraform. Once the planet is considered habitable by "pure" humans, the Series humans are collected, modified for the next planet, and sent off. Several hundred years ago, Orion IV's Series humans conducted a revolt against Terra. Terran resources were already stretched thin with war in other parts of the galaxy and after a brief war, Terra offered Orion IV peace.

Series 12 humans, sometimes called slummers, now have the same rights as other non-human species, but they are not allowed to emigrate from their home planet. Some other of the later series have managed to run away from their assignments to freedom on Orion, which is causing some vast over-population problems on Orion IV. Series 20 and later modified humans have genetically altered structure enough that they cannot survive without human intervention, and therefore are less prone to successfully migrating to Orion IV. Most of them die within a few months of escape.

Only within the last twenty years have slummers been able to compete academically for the coveted spots at Terran Academy. Ancet Grice is the first one who has made it through the difficult testing and interview process. She is anxious to learn but also terrified of being on Terra, a place her family and most of her planetfolk consider to be the very depths of Hell. Her parents are also worried that, once on Terra, she'll be drafted into service instead of actually attending the Academy; the demagogue of her planet insisted that she be allowed to attend; they hope to stabilize relations with Terra and eventually allow for freer travel through the galaxy, particularly to colonize, because of the population problems.

Because of the high population density on Orion IV, homosexuality is encouraged to prevent accidental pregnancies. On Orion IV, a couple has to have a license and pay a substantial mating fee in order to be able to have a legal child. This does not, however, keep a lot of people from having illegal babies.

Ancet is extremely intelligent, soft-spoken, and always wants people to talk out their problems. She freezes up in a combat situation, despite having a complete nano-neural work-up for warrior skills. Seeing someone she cares about being hurt will force-activate those skills, but she'll have extreme emotional fallout after.

Her genetic modifications include reinforced flesh, the ability to retain oxygen for lengthy periods of time, vastly improved survivability in extreme temperatures and analysis mods in her tongue for detecting chemicals. She was originally designed for cultivation; she can take soil samples and has an ingrained sense for living things, especially plants.

Current Events

It's been a busy couple of months for me, and there's really no end in sight... my writing schedule puts me for - and this is just stuff I have planned, contracted, or verbally agreed to with publishers - booked up mostly solid until 2017.

Yikes!

But, in the meanwhile...

Building Us will be released by Torquere Press on June 18th.

Antho blurb: In “Building Us,” by Lynn Townsend, Eric and Temple discover that, for want of a nail, a ring is lost...

Two-Line blurb: Construction foreman, Eric, wants to build more than just a house with his steady boyfriend, Temple. But can Temple convince Eric that it's the relationship, and not the ring, that matters most?

Marketing Blurb: As a construction foreman, Eric knows how to build a house. What he's uncertain of is how to build a life, now that he's finally found the man he wants to spend his with. Temple, a university professor with a stack of erudite publications as long as his – arm – has always played the single's game, until he met Eric.

Will a roof-top proposal lead to “I do” or will the whole thing fall apart when Eric can't put a ring on it?

In case you don't know, and because I do this publishing bouncehouse thing I often can't advertise publications at one house in publications from another house, "Building Us" is the sequel story to "Home Inspection" which can be found in my collection Whetting the Appetite. The two stories have the same lead characters and Building Us picks up with Eric and Temple about a year after they first got together.

This story also contains some of the hottest m/m I've written thus far.

Thing(s) Two:

I've had some guest spots around the blogosphere, first stop was with All Romance cafe as part of their LGBT pride month, where I talk about being the silent B....

Then I dropped in to raise up interest in an older story, Synchronous Rotations, on Guys Like Romance, Too...

And I've got a full length interview coming up June 18th with SSLY Reading Room (Smile, Somebody Loves You!)

Thing Three:

I took a two-week vacation during the middle of May to seriously hate on my story. That happens, sometimes. Which sort of sucked, since I wanted to be done with Howling Bitch's first draft by June 1st. On the plus side, I did some plot work with Elizabeth Brooks (Honestly, if she and my husband didn't spark on each other wrong after about 12 hours, I'd just marry the girl and get on with my life, because I don't know how I'd live without her. And that would be easier if she was in the same house. Oh well.) and managed to get past the hurdle. Yesterday, between the morning where I got in about 3 hours of work, then in the evening, I tapped out another 2 hours, I finally finished the damn thing and wrote The End.

So, Howling Bitch is finished. Which is GOOD because it's contracted already with Vamptasy, and will be published March 17th? 18th? I'd have to check my contract, but it's mid-March of 2015. Which seems like a long time, but to me, it was just March '14 like 10 minutes ago!

I'm going to let it sit for a week or so, then go back and poke some of the plot issues that need to be massaged into place, add a bit in the middle, and then I'll send it out to my beta readers.

Thing Four:

Which means I'll be getting back to Chicago and the Rainbow Connection boys. Blues was written and finished back in Dec/Jan ish, and has been with my beta readers for a while now. I've gotten some good feedback. This novel has not been hit by the "god, I hate my own work" bug - the boys still talk to me regularly. Well, Vin actually yells at me a lot.

The plan is to edit Blues for the rest of this month and then send it in... eh, maybe mid-July?

At which point I'll be ready to start writing Book Three, Classic. (writerly aside, I've already written the opening chapter because I seriously cannot get people to shut. up. And the first chapter of Punked Up has ALSO been written. At the MOMENT, All That Jazz and Punked Up are still looking like 20 - 30,000 word novellas and I'll release them as one book.) And I may write a bonus short story, because right now, there's a scene in my head - and it's important! - that doesn't fit in the timeline of any of the novels.

And that's ... mostly it, that for the time being.

I've got a writer's retreat in September (not a fan/marketing event, but a networking/chat/drinking/writing event) that I'm looking forward to.

And then as fall starts, I have several short stories that will come out; Fair Game in Kristina Wright's For Love of a Soldier, Full Frontal Neighbor in the Sexy Librarian's Big Book of Erotica, and Living Proof with Antimatter Press's Local Magic.

Somewhere in there, I also need to edit and do another word cut of Marked Man, my fantasy romance - I have tentative interest from one of my publishers with that, provided I can slice out another 20,000 words or so from that monstrosity... I may take another look at the rough and see if there's a "good place" to split it in half, because it's currently around 130,000 words, give or take, which would make 2 novels, and maybe we could release them 3 months apart, or something... I dunno, something to think about.

And then I'll want to write Sins of Angels, which is Book 3 of the Demoniac Codex series...

Yeah, busy writer is busy...

Living Proof

Quite some time ago, a friend of mine - Jonah Knight, I'm sure I've talked about him before. Anyway, he and a friend decided they were going to open a small publishing house, and would I be interested in submitting something? He sent out the call, and as I'm wont to do, I looked it over, saw the deadline was in January, and said "Yeah, that sounds cool."

In my head I have plenty of time....

Astonishingly enough, I did actually finish the story in time for the deadline, despite a bit of procrastinating, some complete changes to what I was doing, and eventually I put together about a 3k short story about ghosts... with a twist.

This'll be a first for me; there's no erotica in this story (sorry!) and no actual central love story. It's a story about ghosts. I think it's a very sweet story and I'm very pleased with it. If nothing else, it was really fun to stretch my writing muscles and do something completely different...

I'll keep you posted, you'll know more when I know more....

Exciting Things!

I think I threw a teaser out here that I'd meant to get back to faster, and didn't...

And here it is; I'm guest podcasting for Jonah Knight and Mikey Mason's Pros & Cons Podcast. Which is just super exciting for about half a dozen different reasons.

• Jonah and Mikey are completely cool, nerdy guys who sing the kind of music that I love. In fact, Jonah was my live talent last year for my Christmas party (and will be again this year!) and I use a lot of his music to inspire my stories. The entire London Steam series of short stories have been inspired by Jonah's album Age of Steam: Strange Machines.
• The podcast was nominated for a Parsec Award and was a finalist this year, so that's pretty awesome and it means I'm getting some potential new readers (hi!)
• It was just a lot of fun to do - I love both guys to pieces and I'm really happy to work with them on projects.
• I think I've mentioned that Jonah's working on another project, Antimatter Press, and so after (or before) the show started, we chatted a bit about my idea and what I was going to be doing.
• Mikey is almost as dirty-minded as I am, so after the show, we cracked some really inappropriate jokes and had a giggle. He's also a fan of good beer and has another podcast called Beer Powered Time Machine that's kinda like sitting around with your friends, drinking beer and telling stories; pants optional. You should totally check it out.
• And I got to do my favorite thing, which was talk about my work with people who actually care. (I try really hard not to bore people to death in my real life with details about my job.)

So, I'll link here and probably put something permanent over on the side bar for y'all to listen to when it goes live... 

Other exciting news, I got some swag for Blood Cries Up:

These are scented soy-wax tarts - Whipped Pumpkin and Kettle Corn - with the Lights Out! cover art... made by my dear friend at Raven Hollow Candles. I'll be giving these away as part of the blog tour I'm doing, along with some other nifty things...

And then, most extremely awesome:

My short story, Full Frontal Neighbor, got accepted into the Sexy Librarian's Big Book of Erotica. I'm really, really excited about this; I particularly love this story and I think y'all will, as well... So I'll let you know more about those details as I get them. Also, this makes 18 publications I've had now in the last two years.

Antimatter Press, long deadline

Local Magic

This is your opportunity to add a little magic to the past. Tell me the tale of a real place, in a real time, but with a fantastical science element.

The story must feature a real geographic feature, a building, a street. It doesn’t have to exist now, but it has to have really existed. A lake? A saloon? An alley?

Stories we will be including in this anthology should include:

1 part Magic

Your choice of wizards, artifacts, monsters or the like.

1 part Science

The magic component above is fueled by Science!

1 part Local History

Set your story in a real place that you know well. The location is not just window dressing. The location should be integral to your story. Culture and geography and real world history have conspired to create events that could have occurred no where else.

Email submissions to: antimatter.subs@gmail.com

Subject ATTN: LOCAL MAGIC

Word count: short stories of 3,000 to 5,000 words, novelettes of 7,500-10,000 words.

Pay: 2c/word or a percentage of net sales.

Your story should arrive in Microsoft Word and be formatted in the industry standard (or come so close that no one will notice: i.e. Times New Roman or Courier, double-spaced).

Deadline is January 15, 2014.