De-blog

Ten years ago (to the day), I released Crying in the Rain – a bi/gay love story (MM romance) and a stand-alone novel in the Hiding Behind The Couch universe. Today, I’m releasing the second edition of  Crying in the Rain . I’ve been updating the formatting of all my books for a while now – optimistically I thought I’d have them all done in 2023, and I don’t have too many left to do, but it’s a lengthy task. While I’m at it, I’m reading through each story, correcting any errors I notice and sorting out my British commas. That’s all most of the stories need for me to be happy with them. But then I reached  Crying in the Rain , and, well, rather than paraphrase myself, here’s my Author’s Note from the new edition: To be clear, I didn’t hate the first edition, but seeing the things I didn’t like about it crop up in reviews…well, there’s an argument there for not reading reviews, I suppose, but those readers weren’t wrong. There was too much ‘head-hopping’.  Crying in the Rai...

Well, author Emily Alter wins the prize for the fastest time of getting me from 'the MC seems like a nice guy' to 'what the hell is he doing?!' :D Emily's a new-to-me author of LGBT+ fiction and fellow psychologist, and we met via the QSF group on Facebook . I'm currently reading Emily's recent release, Who Loves You ; I'm a couple of chapters in and enjoying it very much so far. Kudos to the author for delving straight into mental health - realistically and, I think, respectfully. I've had a few encounters similar to Ben's. Very well captured. Also, Julian sounds like an awesome dude - cheese, mushrooms and anchovies in sandwiches. I think Julian and I could make beautiful suppers together. OK, back to it. I'm about to meet Claude! I think they're non-binary. (Yay!) Guess I'll find out soon enough. I'll do the full review once I've finished it, although I'm a slow reader with a lot of books on the go, so it migh...

Here's the point at which some people will mutter, 'Oh, no, not another blog post about yet another M/M Romance debacle.' Yes, I'm afraid it is, because it's...well, let's call it a 'passionate' community, which isn't surprising, given the popularity of Romance as a genre overall, and the fact that M/M Romance is - debatably - considered the largest subgenre of LGBT fiction. Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that I am NOT saying this relates to all authors of M/M Romance, nor even to all straight female authors of M/M romance. A few authors have posted on their blogs about how (rightly) upset they are by being tarred with the same brush. Some of those authors ARE allies to some parts of the LGBTQIA+ community. But take a look at all those letters and remember: it's entirely possible to be an ally to one at the expense of others. Rarely have I seen an M/M Romance author/ally take to the podium to fight for lesbian rights or the ...

Title: Regeneration Author: Louise Lyons Published: January 15, 2017 Genre: Gay fiction, science fiction, MM romance Length: 75,000 words Cover design: Simon Searle   Purchase Links: Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01NAL4NJ8 Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01NAL4NJ8 Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/688822 Blurb: In the 23rd Century in the galaxy of Sigma Kappa, Kim Fortune was the first surviving experimental enhanced human—a regenerate. Aged fifteen, he escaped the lab and years later, his failings as a regenerate and the suspicion of regular humans, leave him lonely and lacking in self-worth. Stranded on an abandoned planet, the arrival of a stricken ship and its crew give him hope that he may finally find what he always longed for—love. Christian Novak is a successful regenerate with all the intended attributes—including lack of human emotion. Despite their immediate attraction to each other, Kim's failing confidence, ...

I’m at a bit of a loss today. I’m still trying to…oh, I don’t know anymore, lol. Reunions is driving me nuts! So, I decided to step away from it for the purposes of this RainbowSnippet and go with something from the opening pages of Spread Your Wings (the opening pages being all I’ve written so far). Brief explanation: Spread Your Wings is the sequel to Champagne —my first novel, originally published in 2004. I wrote it in the mid-1990s, which was a very different era in LGBTQ fiction, added to which, the story covers the first half of the 1980s. Spread Your Wings is set ten years later (1995-ish).  Champagne doesn’t have even so much as a ‘happy for now’ because, honestly, none of the characters deserved it. Spoiler alert for anyone intending to read Champagne ! (Highlight below to read synopsis.) Champagne tells the story of Sammy, a young man who goes to London in search of his abusive father and instead stumbles upon a seedy revue bar, where he promptly falls i...

How exciting! This is my first cover reveal for another author, and I feel like I've been holding this precious secret for ages. At last, I get to share it with everyone else. What a privilege! :) Before that, though, here's what you need to know about the book: Title: Regeneration Author: Louise Lyons Release date: January 15, 2017 Genre: Gay fiction, science fiction, MM romance Length: 75,000 words Cover design: Simon Searle Blurb In the 23rd Century in the galaxy of Sigma Kappa, Kim Fortune was the first surviving experimental enhanced human—a regenerate. Aged fifteen, he escaped the lab and years later, his failings as a regenerate and the suspicion of regular humans, leave him lonely and lacking in self-worth. Stranded on an abandoned planet, the arrival of a stricken ship and its crew give him hope that he may finally find what he always longed for—love. Christian Novak is a successful regenerate with all the intended attributes—including lack of h...

I've extended the giveaway to the end of Hanukkah. Here are the links and coupon codes: Smashwords: https://is.gd/bfjmQG (coupon: KV22Z) Beaten Track: https://is.gd/3XBEKT (coupon: KV22Z) All Romance eBooks: https://is.gd/nGRgDO Blurb: Freelance engineer Sol Brooks doesn't do the festive season. He thinks it's boring and overly sentimental. With the rest of the household laid up with 'the flu', Sol's planned on using the time to crack on with some work. His mother, however, has other ideas. And so does Sol's husband, Adam. A stand-alone holiday special featuring Sol and Adam from Checking Him Out. * * * * * WARNING: this story contains sex acts between consenting male adults. * * * * * In this series: Checking Him Out (book 1) Checking Him Out For The Holidays Hiding Out Taking Him On (book 2 - Noah and Matty) Checking In (book 3)

(Second time of trying to post...) OK, yes, it's Thursday, but it's still Wednesday somewhere in the world. BST? Dunno what you're talking about... ;) I've not taken part in WIPpet Wednesday for a few weeks, nor any other snippet sharing, because I had a bit of an author epiphany, or meltdown. I'm undecided. The long and short of it is I realised I wasn't enjoying writing, and the reason is...deadlines! I can write to deadlines, no problem at all, but they're not always a good thing for creativity. So, I'm not doing it anymore! Unless I really, really have to. What is WIPpet Wednesday? WIPpet Wednesday is a blog hop where authors share from their current works in progress - expertly organised/hosted by Emily Witt - and the excerpt has to relate to the date in some way. For links to other fabulous authors' WIPpets, visit: http://www.inlinkz.com/wpview.php?id=355404 It's 29th September, 2016, so I'm going with 29 sentences from ...

WIPpet Wednesday is a blog hop where authors share from their current works in progress - expertly organised/hosted by Emily Witt - and the excerpt has to relate to the date in some way. For links to other fabulous authors' WIPpets, visit: http://www.inlinkz.com/wpview.php?id=355404 So, it's the 18th August (I'm a day late :/): 8+18=26 sentences of my work in progress, The WAG and The Scoundrel , which is a white-collar crime mystery (ish) / romance (ish) (LGBTQ). It's the first book in the Gray Fisher Series , which is a spinoff of Hiding Behind The Couch . It's scheduled for an October release. It's written! Hurrah! I'm currently working through it - as is my no.1 beta-reader (Nige) to make sure it's fit for my editor. This will likely be the last snippet from this WIP. In the scene below, Gray and Will are having dinner and talking about Jean-Michel - Gray's deceased civil partner. Here's the WIPpet: "Very French," Will s...

WIPpet Wednesday is a blog hop where authors share from their current works in progress - expertly organised/hosted by Emily Witt - and the excerpt has to relate to the date in some way. For links to other fabulous authors' WIPpets, visit: http://www.inlinkz.com/wpview.php?id=355404 So, it's the 10th August: 3+7=10, and 8 is 378 words of my work in progress, The WAG and The Scoundrel , which is a white-collar crime mystery (ish) / romance (ish) (LGBTQ). It's the first book in the Gray Fisher Series , which is a spinoff of Hiding Behind The Couch . It's scheduled for an October release. It's...getting there. There are three main characters in The WAG and The Scoundrel: Gray Fisher, Will Richards and police officer Rob Simpson-Stone - a previous colleague of Gray's. In the scene below, Rob is at the public swimming pool with his son, Lucas. Rob and Lucas's mum, Zoë, are divorced, and Zoë has custody. Here's the WIPpet: "Mum said you could c...

WIPpet Wednesday is a blog hop where authors share from their current works in progress - expertly organised/hosted by Emily Witt - and the excerpt has to relate to the date in some way. For links to other fabulous authors' WIPpets, visit: http://www.inlinkz.com/wpview.php?id=355404 So, it's the 3rd August: 3x8=24 sentences of my work in progress, The WAG and The Scoundrel , which is a white-collar crime mystery (ish) / romance (ish) (LGBTQ). It's the first book in the Gray Fisher Series , which is a spinoff of Hiding Behind The Couch . It's scheduled for an October release. :o There are three main characters in The WAG and The Scoundrel. So far, the WIPpets have focused on Gray and Will. The third character is police officer Rob Simpson-Stone - a previous colleague of Gray's. In the scene below, Rob has not long been in bed when his phone rings. Here's the WIPpet: "Hello, who's this?" "My name's Naomi. Are you PC Simpson-Ston...

WIPpet Wednesday is a blog hop where authors share from their current works in progress - expertly organised/hosted by Emily Witt - and the excerpt has to relate to the date in some way. For links to other fabulous authors' WIPpets, visit: http://www.inlinkz.com/wpview.php?id=355404 So, it's the 27th July, 2016, or (2707/2016)=691, but that's too many words, so I halved it, thusly 346 (rounded up, plus the last little bit so it wasn't entirely left dangling in anticip-) words of my work in progress, The WAG and The Scoundrel , which is a white-collar crime mystery (ish) / romance (ish) (LGBTQ). It's the first book in the Gray Fisher Series , which is a spinoff of Hiding Behind The Couch . It's scheduled for an October release. :o In the scene below, Gray's at home alone, and he's trying to figure out his feelings about...everything! Here's the WIPpet: It was as well Gray had steered clear of the spirits. The time was fast approaching two a...

WIPpet Wednesday is a blog hop where authors share from their current works in progress - expertly organised/hosted by Emily Witt - and the excerpt has to relate to the date in some way. For links to other fabulous authors' WIPpets, visit: http://www.inlinkz.com/wpview.php?id=355404 So, it's the 20th July, 2016; here's 20 sentences from chapter 7 of my work in progress, The WAG and The Scoundrel , which is a white-collar crime mystery / romance (LGBTQ). It's the first book in the Gray Fisher Series , which is a spinoff of Hiding Behind The Couch . It's scheduled for an October release. Eek! The characters in the excerpt below are Gray Fisher and Will Richards. Through a bit of sneaky match-making (in a previous story), they've reached the level of...friendship. It could go anywhere, depending on how much Will and I can get Gray to loosen up. Here's the WIPpet: If Gray had not been so at peace, he might have worried about the fact he was, in that m...

My first proper WIPpet Wednesday - there's maths involved! :o WIPpet Wednesday is a blog hop where authors share from their current works in progress - expertly organised/hosted by Emily Witt - and the excerpt has to relate to the date in some way. For links to other fabulous authors' WIPpets, visit: http://www.inlinkz.com/wpview.php?id=355404 So, it's the 13th July, 2016, and I'm going with easy maths because my brain is tired. Page 13, I counted 7 lines down and 'wipped' the next 16. This is from my just-gone-to-editor WIP, Class-A , which is both part of Take a Chance - a YA/NA LGBTQ (M/M) anthology (which I'll explain more about in a future post) - and a very short interlude in my series, Hiding Behind The Couch . For followers of the series, Class-A happens during Ruminations (starting with the law halls of residence party). The characters in the excerpt below are Simon and Jess, law undergraduates. Simon is the main character in this story,...

Rainbow Snippets is a group for LGBTQ+ authors, readers, and bloggers to gather once a week to share six sentences from a work of fiction–a WIP or a finished work or even a 6-sentence book recommendation (no spoilers please!). In this group you'll find anything from romance and historical fiction to mystery and YA. The common thread is that every story's main character identifies as LGBTQ+. The snippets could range from zero flames to full-on sexytimes, anything goes content-wise. The only rule is snippets will be 6 sentences long–one for each color in the Pride flag. * * * * * I'm all over the place with writing this weekend. I have three WIPs on the go, and I'd planned to snip from something else entirely, but I couldn't find a section that worked. I've opted instead for this little section of Reunions ( Hiding Behind The Couch #7), where Kris and Ade are flying to Sweden to visit Kris's parents; Ade is meeting them for the first time. It...

Finally, finally, finally... I'm posting my first RainbowSnippet! :) I've been in the Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook for a few months, and it's a fab idea (thank you, Charley). We get to share snippets from our LGBTQ+ stories, make recommendations of stories we've read etc. and readers of our posts can follow the trail back to other #RainbowSnippets. So, without further ado, this is a six-line snippet from Cherry Pop Valentine, which is a short story (11k words) I wrote last year for a Valentine's Day challenge. This month (July), it's available for free in the Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale (use SFREE at checkout). Here's the snippet: In the final clip of our band on stage, Sven brings a single rose across to me at the piano and kneels. I take the rose from him, and we fade to black. Ten years together, and even though he’d said yes to us one day getting married, we’d decided not to bother with a civil partnership and instead wait out the cha...

How do we authors know if we've succeeded? Is it based on reaching a certain number of sales? Seeing our book on a bestsellers' list? Being adorned with copious five-star reviews? For many authors, these are precisely the measures they use to gauge their success. In capitalist societies, the accumulation of material wealth is the measure of success, and whether a book is a bestseller right then and there doesn't matter, so long as it's still generating revenue. Published works have a precarious half-life, subject to any number of factors, including, first and foremost, reading trends (currently popular genres, book sales in general), as well as the success of the author's latest published work, genre (literary fiction never dies), whether it's part of a series, and (the one factor we authors can control - I'll come back to this) the author's behaviour. But they do have a half-life, which means authors, potentially, earn some of their living from...

A video blog in which I talk about Love Unlocked, Chain of Secrets and The Love Hearts Game! GIVEAWAY! To win an ebook of Love Unlocked, post a comment with your answer to the following question: How old were Josh and George when they first met? a) seven b) eight c) ten d) eleven Available February 14th, 2016...

The Viaduct of Love... ...and other places to visit in the world of Hiding Behind The Couch Back in 2007, when I first started writing Hiding Behind The Couch , I made some decisions: 1. Not to base the characters on people I knew. 2. Tell the story that needed to be told without forcing the narrative. These two goals continue to guide the storytelling in the series, but there is a real-world inspiration for where the stories happen. I grew up (and still live) in the North-West of England, and it's a beautiful place. I won't bother describing it here - I do it often enough in my books (also, see below), because those places the characters take you to are 'kind of' real locations. In Chain of Secrets ( Love Unlocked anthology - Feb 14th, 2016), Josh and George often treat you to a cycling trip along the canal - that's the Leeds to Liverpool Canal. Top Locks - the junction of Leeds to Liverpool Canal and Rufford Branch Creative Commons - http://www....

Blood, sweat and tears really don't matter Just the things that you do in this garden. (Levellers - 'This Garden' ) I was thinking. I like to do that occasionally, but I rarely give myself the time. I take my Kindle to the loo with me, I proofread in bed, I listen to music while I drive. The rest of the time I'm working, sleeping, or I am in the company of others (I'm working really hard on that last one). Today, I took a few minutes to think and reflect, which is not the same as wallowing. I'm quite adept at living in the moment, but sometimes being mindful is about engaging with thoughts. Indeed, creative thinking requires it. Prompted by a reader's question, my thoughts zoned in on a story I have partly written, which I shouldn't really think about until I've finished what I'm writing now. I did come up with a few ideas, which I safely stowed for later reference, and then I came here to write this post (another thing I'm...