A Casual Weekend Thing Release Day!

I’m so excited to announce that A Casual Weekend Thing is officially available! It has been released from Dreamspinner Press today!

And I am holding a contest to win one of four signed paperback copies! To enter, leave a comment on the CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT!

It's available directly from the publisher in ebook and paperback, and in ebook form from all of the usual retailers. 

Doug Heavy Runner left the life of an openly gay Miami police officer and returned to his home on the Salish-Kootenai Indian Reservation when his mother got sick. In the two years since she passed, he’s carved out an empty life as a small-town deputy, relying on out-of-town one-night stands to keep him sane. Then he meets Detective Christopher Hayes, and they share a wild night so incredible Doug breaks his own rule and allows a one-night stand to grow into a weekend of amazing sex.

When Christopher travels from San Diego to Montana to deal with his abusive brother’s suicide, he doesn’t expect to find the man he spent the weekend with to be handling his brother’s case. He certainly doesn’t mind spending more time with Doug—but then an arsonist destroys the house Christopher inherited from his brother, and Christopher and Doug discover they are the primary suspects.

As they investigate, they discover Christopher’s dead brother has set them on the trail of a psychotic pedophile who will stop at nothing to silence his last victim. However, the search for the victim goes horribly wrong, leaving Doug hospitalized and Christopher at the mercy of the killer….

Buy From Dreamspinner Press

Buy From Amazon

Buy From Barnes & Noble

How lame is it that I want to log on to Amazon and buy a copy of my own book just because it exists?

I'm Giving Away Four Signed Paperback Copies of A Casual Weekend Thing!

Today I had one of those Why didn't I write a novel I can tell my conservative family and neighbors about? moments—on an international level. All because of giveaways. Giveaways seem to be the thing to do when you jump into publishing for the first time. Blog tours are lots of work and require a lack of shyness, so that was out. I have enough trouble updating this once every couple months. But I finally signed up for a Goodreads account! I thought it might be my giveaway salvation.

I sat there looking at Goodreads giveaways all morning, rehashing warnings about giving m/m erotic stories away to people who a) might be minors, although there's a check box that might, theoretically, prevent minors from entering, or b) might be horrified to receive a book that includes explicit sex between men. (I've watched my dear sister-in-law go through the list and click on absolutely everything without looking at the cover art, much more reading the blurbs, so I know it happens...)

I had this horrible premonition that anyone who won it through such a huge venue probably wouldn't even want to read it. I chickened out.

So I'm giving away four signed paperback copies on here instead! I'm announcing the contest on a couple of m/m oriented groups, and adding notes to my free stories, in hopes that the free copies will go to people who will enjoy them. 

Here's the Official Blurb:

Doug Heavy Runner left the life of an openly gay Miami police officer and returned to his home on the Salish-Kootenai Indian Reservation when his mother got sick. In the two years since she passed, he’s carved out an empty life as a small-town deputy, relying on out-of-town one-night stands to keep him sane. Then he meets Detective Christopher Hayes, and they share a wild night so incredible Doug breaks his own rule and allows a one-night stand to grow into a weekend of amazing sex.

When Christopher travels from San Diego to Montana to deal with his abusive brother’s suicide, he doesn’t expect to find the man he spent the weekend with to be handling his brother’s case. He certainly doesn’t mind spending more time with Doug—but then an arsonist destroys the house Christopher inherited from his brother, and Christopher and Doug discover they are the primary suspects.

As they investigate, they discover Christopher’s dead brother has set them on the trail of a psychotic pedophile who will stop at nothing to silence his last victim. However, the search for the victim goes horribly wrong, leaving Doug hospitalized and Christopher at the mercy of the killer…. 

The contest will be open until 8:00 PM PST May 31^st, 2013.

Rules:

1. To enter, leave a comment on THIS post with a valid email address. 
    
2. By entering, you're stating that you are at least 18 years of age. Seriously, it's illegal to send porn to minors, and I think this book counts. (If it doesn't count as porn, I'll just try harder next time;)
   
   
3. Winners will be selected by the time-honored tradition of assigning every comment a number and drawing four from a Santa hat.
   
   
4. Winners will be notified by email and will have 48 hours to reply and tell me where they would like their copy sent.

Moving Beyond Stereotypes: Vegan Cowboys and Character Quirks (And a recipe for Turkish Rice)

It's confession time. One of the main characters in “A Casual Weekend Thing” started life as a cowboy.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for romance novel stereotypes—and the strong, silent cowboy is definitely one of my favorites, along with the sexy fireman, and the jaded police officer. But the challenge for any writer when trying to write a romance novel is to make characters who are unique, real, vibrant people.

Unfortunately, I often find myself reading novels where the author obviously started out with stereotypes (hello, sexy fireman!), smacked a masculine name on them, and let them fill the role of the story's hero without any more development whatsoever. And it works, but it works because most contemporary romance novels don't require anything other than that the hero be 100% alpha male and that he express his desire for the story's heroine at least once every two pages. In a romance where both main characters are men, where they're not included as a foil/romantic interest for a well-developed, spunky heroine, that trick doesn't work.

I must have read a thousand suggestions and tips for making your own characters feel real, and none of them helped me get my strong, silent cowboy beyond the stereotype. I made charts of interests, hobbies, forgotten dreams, and physical tics—but he was still just a cowboy. I couldn't figure out how to make him come alive on the page until I decided to make him everything a cowboy is not, without getting rid of the stereotype base. I incorporated every polar opposite of “cowboy” into his character development that I could think of, and a real person gradually emerged on the page. He turned out to be an enrolled member of the Salish-Kootani Indian Tribe and a well-educated deputy sheriff. Instead of riding a horse, he rock climbed. Instead of wearing a cowboy hat, he opted for a suit. And because he never forgot bottle-feeding calves as a boy, he didn't eat meat. He was still a cowboy underneath it all, but he had morphed into someone whose life and self-definition evolve and change as the years go by, into a character who finally felt real.

I even went to far as to experiment with different vegan recipes to figure out what an over-worked, totally stressed vegan cowboy might make for a dinner date. I tried a dozen recipes, experimented with every meat substitute, even bought whole vegan cookbooks that called for ingredients I couldn't pronounce. In the end, this basic recipe for Turkish Rice found it's way into the book because, like my cowboy, the simple ingredients morph from basic ingredients into something unique, complex, and amazing. Try it, it's good.

Turkish Rice

1 14oz can chickpeas/garbanzo beans

1 14.5oz can diced tomatoes

1 cup vegetable broth

2 cups cooked brown rice

2 tsp cumin

½ tsp paprika

¾ tsp salt

1 tsp dried cilantro

Add everything to a large skillet and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Let simmer 8-10 minutes, or until most of the moisture has evaporated. It's THAT easy. Enjoy.