Teaser of The Intersection of Purgatory and Paradise

When Holding Out for a Fairy Tale released last month, I promised I'd post a teaser for the 3rd book in the Least Likely Partnerships series, and here it is!

From The Intersection of Purgatory and Paradise

The rock came out of nowhere. It smacked Christopher in the back of the head with a crack that echoed around the street. He stumbled forward, dragging his feet to a stop as his vision went black. He braced his hands on his knees as his field of vision filled with splotches of neon light that seemed to flash behind his eyelids.

The screech of tires and laughter from the street behind him cut through the pain. He bit back on the panic that threatened to paralyze him and forced himself to move. He staggered off the sidewalk toward the hedge separating him from the parking lot on his left.

“No one wants fucking perverts like you jogging past our playgrounds!”

Christopher ignored the voice, just added it to the list of evidence he was collecting in his head. He noted the make and model of the vehicle, a new Ford Explorer with dark tinted windows. A young man, obviously still a teen, was standing on the passenger side seat, half of his body through the window. He was holding onto the roof rack of the SUV with one hand. The driver’s side window was down and Christopher could see more kids in the SUV. He didn’t recognize any of them, but he would be able to identify them later if he had to.

He shoved his way through the hedge, desperate to put even the illusion of a barrier between himself and the SUV.

“Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” a high pitched voice shouted from across the parking lot. 

The SUV peeled away and the laughter faded.

 “Chris?” Christopher turned toward Brittney McAllister, the woman his lover had almost married once upon a time, and the current Baker County chief medical examiner. He let her slip under his shoulder and guide him through the parking lot to the Coroner’s Office.

"Hi,” he whispered, delicately reaching toward the back of his head. “Am I bleeding?”

“Yeah. Sit down on the steps, let me take a look.”

Christopher lowered himself on to the concrete and bent forward. Even though getting to know his lover Doug’s ex had been awkward, the angry glares and suspicious looks from the rest of the small town of Elkin left Christopher grateful for any ally he could get.

For a while, he’d really believed that once he’d settled in people would stop comparing him to his brother and warm up to him.

He’d been stupid and naive.

The people of Elkin would never warm up to someone they considered a threat to their children, and he was too closely connected to his brother’s case for them ever to see him as anything else.

Christopher winced as Brittney’s fingernails lifted his too-long hair. She hissed behind him. “Those rotten little bastards. Come on inside, I’ll call Doug.”

Christopher caught her wrist. “No. He’s got enough shit to deal with thanks to me. It’s fine.”

I'm Being Interviewed at LaQuette's Living & Loving the Written Word Today!

June Updates!

Today, yes TODAY, I’m being interviewed over at LaQuette Likes! This is my first author interview, and I’ll be sharing a bit about how I got started writing and I'll be talking a bit about Holding Out for a Fairy tale! Head over to her blog to check it out!

This month I finally finished and submitted The Way Things Are, the story of longshoreman Patrick Connelly and his doomed attempts not to hit on his son’s sexy probation officer, Ken Atkins. There’s a new teaser in the interview here! (And unlike my first crack at novel length fiction—about Patrick’s son Jay and his adventures with spray paint—this one will have the attention of professional editors before it sees the light of day!)

And finally, the third book in the Least likely Partnership series is coming together! With any luck, it will be available in May, 2015! I say with any luck, because it’s summer vacation. There’s something very strange about writing explicit sex scenes or writing about… well, horrible things, with 4+ rowdy kids screaming about video games four feet away.

Audiobooks, New Releases, and Gardening

                                                                 

A Casual Weekend Thing has come out as an audiobook! It’s went on sale at Audible last night! Now I just need to finish re-listening to Rhys Ford’s Sinner’s Gin before I hear it, because jumping from one narrator to another confuses the hell out of my poor brain.

Also, Holding Out for a Fairy Tale releases tomorrow! Dreamspinner is running all kinds of sales this month to celebrate their 7^th anniversary! In addition to 15% off every Dreamspinner title at ARe, they’re offering larger discounts and flash sales at the Dreamspinner site throughout the month!

Check out Dreamspinner's ARe sale!

And beyond announcing the release, I’m going to be a coward about the whole promo thing this time around.

Even with the one year anniversary of A Casual Weekend Thing coming up, I still don’t feel like this new role has really sunk in. With more experience with the publishing process, the emotional roller coaster of book releases and reviews, and attending the Dreamspinner Press Writers Workshop in Portland just a couple weeks ago, I am at the point where I either need to start taking this whole writing thing seriously, or stop pretending that it was ever more than a hobby. And to be honest, I’m still on the fence.

Writing is an isolated and depressing process for me. The most commonly repeated bits of advice for writers on the internet is to write a lot, to revise more than one writes, and to have as many sets of eyes as possible read and critique a story before it ever makes its way into the world. With a super-conservative family who treats any mention of homosexuality as a bad joke, a husband who is quietly supportive of my writing so long as it can never, ever be linked back to him, and being more shy than an anxious house cat, that last step has never been possible for me. Which means the first feedback I typically get on a story is from reviews after a story is already released. And the whole process always stops my current writing project cold. I can’t very well just say, “Be gentle, I’m new at this!” because, when something is actually marketed and sold, the expectation of a professional quality product is totally fair.

So rather than spend two months recovering from the emotional ups and down that are sure to follow this new release, I’m going to go hide in my garden for a few weeks and re-hash my current work in progress with a pen and paper. Again. The prequel to Graffiti can’t decide if it wants to be a contemporary romance or a suspense novel, and I’ve written it both ways a couple times. (Damn mental quirk that insists all stories must have a bad guy….) Once I get it settled into one genre or the other, I’ll try to post the first chapter of the 3^rd book in Least Likely Partnerships—in which Christopher discovers that running away is a hard habit to break.

My dear husband decided to “help” with my garden beds last year. He second-guessed my vermiculite and fertilizer ratios until he managed to make my garden toxic enough to kill everything I tried to plant. He pointed out that at least this season I won't have to pull any weeds. The real silver lining, though, is having plenty of work to keep me too busy to go anywhere near Goodreads.

Holding Out for a Fairy Tale Cover Art and Blurb

I feel like I’m still in those long, slow weeks of January were everyone is winding down from the holidays, and the entire month of February seems to have come and gone without me really noticing. Suddenly it’s March, and the spin-off of A Casual Weekend Thing is in its final round of edits! I’ve got cover art, blurbs, and all that fun stuff to share.

Here is the official blurb and cover art, once again produced by Dreamspinner Press’s wonderful Brooke Albrecht!

When his vicious cousin Alejandro makes a violent late-night visit, San Diego homicide detective Ray Delgado gets a brutal reminder of why he left his family behind. Alejandro wants Ray to find his sister, Sophia, who disappeared from the UC San Diego campus, before the FBI digs too deep into his business.

Special Agent Elliot Belkamp spent his entire life jumping from one place to another, but his new assignment assisting a FBI task force offers him a chance to settle down. When Elliot catches a missing persons case as his first assignment, the last person he expects to find poking around the victim’s dorm room is Ray, a one-time hookup he’s more inclined to punch in the face than kiss hello. After discovering Sophia's disappearance is linked to a massive computer-based theft that has two powerful crime families ready to declare war, Elliot focuses on his investigation and tries to ignore Ray.  As the search for Sophia turns dangerous, Elliot and Ray discover that tackling organized crime might be easier than resisting the urge to tackle each other.

 

 
I’ve also posted a longer excerpt on the book’s page HERE if anyone would like to read the first chapter!

Giveaway Winners!

Wow, what a crazy month. I am back to writing mysteries and writing about human smuggling during the holidays is more than a little weird. So weird that I needed to unwind last night (New Years!) and am just now getting this post put together!

So, without further ado, the winners of the four signed paperback copies of Sex & Sourdough are Feliz, Val, vitajex, and Riverhaze! Congratulations!

I've sent emails to each of the winners to follow-up, but if you see your name and haven't gotten that email (yay for spam filters!) go ahead and email me your information at ajthomasromance@gmail.com and I'll get your book on it's way!

If I don't hear back form a winner within 48 hours, I'll try bugging them one more time and then select another winner from the list of comments!

Sex & Sourdough Released Today!

I've been so busy over at the Dreamspinner Press Blog that I've ended up neglecting my own! But it's the official release day for Sex & Sourdough! This is my second novel, and my first crack at a contemporary boy meets boy romance!

Anders Blankenship never intended to hike the Appalachian Trail alone, but when his boyfriend cancels, Anders steels his courage, leaving the abusive relationship to tackle the long-distance hike. Though a hiking virgin, he’s glad he made the decision when he receives threatening messages from his ex. Luckily, Kevin, an experienced backpacker, takes him under his wing.

Kevin Winters isn’t looking for a hiking partner, let alone a fling with a cute man on the rebound. After learning he has the autoimmune disorder that killed his father, Kevin left his family to wander remote trails. Convinced his future holds only pain and death, Kevin refuses to get close to anyone. The family sourdough recipes he recreates over a campfire are his only solace.

In the wilderness, Anders and Kevin discover a lot of common ground. While the future holds uncertainties they may not be ready to deal with, it might also hold the chance for happiness.

Buy from Amazon
Buy from Dreamspinner

Goodreads Chats, Taking Over the Dreamspinner Press Blog, and Giveaways!

When A Casual Weekend Thing released, I hiked down into Bryce Canyon and tried to hide there for the entire week. This time around, it's too cold. So, I'm going to try to do the usual promo stuff.

In addition to my "I can't keep the paper back copies of this where innocent eyes, or my mother-in-law, might find them!" giveaway, I'll be....

Friday: I'm taking over the Dreamspinner Press Blog on Friday! I'll be posting, and chatting,  throughout the day on Friday, and giving away an ebook copy of Sex & Sourdough!

Saturday: I will be doing a Meet the Author chat on the Dreamspinner Press Goodreads Group, from 9:00am - 12:00pm PCT, with another giveaway!

Come join me for a chance to win!