De-blog

  Three years after his partner’s death, Detective Chief Inspector Gray Fisher has finally made the break from the police. With a new place to live, a new job and his PhD underway, Gray welcomes the friendship of Will Richards, an investment banker with hidden depths and a farmhouse menagerie of rescue animals. Gray’s not looking for love, and he’s certainly not interested in becoming involved in police work again…until former colleague Rob Simpson-Stone tracks him down to ask for his help with a case. So begins Gray and Rob’s new business partnership. For Rob Simpson-Stone, the career change may have come too late to rescue his marriage, but his relationship with his son is back on track. Rob’s grown-up nieces might be a taller order, but he’s prepared to do whatever it takes to prove they no longer need to worry that one day he won’t come home. As events unfold, Gray’s past recklessness catches up with him and Rob both, putting those they hold close in danger and forcing them to ...

Title:  Minuet Series:  Notes from Boston Author:  A.M. Leibowitz Publisher: Supposed Crimes Release Date: 1st September 2019 Full disclosure: I beta-read Minuet (along with books 2 and 3 - Nightsong and Drumbeat ), which doesn't make any difference to what I will say - I'd love this series just as much had I read it in the usual way. But it has given me an insight beyond each novel, as I've kept in mind how the various arcs fit together and developed strong feelings towards certain characters. Those feelings don't always run in line with 'heroes' and 'villains', although...the one uber villain, well, let's say he gets his comeuppance quite satisfactorily in  Minuet . Central to this instalment are the characters Mack, Amelia and Jomari, and I must admit that I still don't feel I know Jomari as well as the other two, purely because I've known him for a shorter period of time. In some ways, he's more closed off than Mack, altho...

Not My Christmas by Debbie McGowan Published: 25th December, 2019 Length: 18,000 words (approx.) 99c from Smashwords  • Amazon Blurb: Christmas at the Davenports has never been a relaxing affair, so when the opportunity for a little alone time with a beautiful, available woman comes Charlie Davenport’s way, she takes it, breaking several family traditions and risking the wrath of her siblings. But it’ll be worth it, right? And she can always make it up to them later…or next Christmas. A stand-alone story from the world of Hiding Behind The Couch. Keywords: LGBTQ+, ownvoices, romance, family, bisexual women, Christmas, humour

Woot! My 2018 novella The Great Village Bun Fight won an award this weekend. :) The Rainbow Awards  are an annual/bi-annual event, run by Elisa Rolle, celebrating LGBTQ+ books across all genres. Entrants make a donation to an LGBTQ+ charity of their choosing, and this year, the awards raised over $12,000. A huge thank you to Elisa for all her hard work and dedication to the awards and the contributions they make, not just to writers and readers but to the LGBTQ+ community. The Great Village Bun Fight (Winner of the Rainbow Award for  Best Bisexual Contemporary Humorous Fiction) Paperback • eBook • Audiobook For purchase links, visit: https://www.beatentrackpublishing.com/bunfight All’s fair in love and war. But not in baking. A humorous story about baking and village life. Also includes a rockin' reverend, cakes and bunting. Do what you do best. So said Henry’s grandad a year ago to the day as he handed Henry a small, red-foil-wrap...

Highlights The one where Notes from Boston’s Amelia Roberts takes a much-needed vacation to England and runs into Shaunna Hennessy from Hiding Behind The Couch—a fortuitous meeting for both. Co-written with A.M. Leibowitz Copyright © 2019 A.M. Leibowitz and Debbie McGowan Cross-posted at: http://amleibowitz.com/2019/01/27/highlights-a-short-story/ Prefer an ebook? ePub | Mobi | PDF | Smashwords * * * A quiet afternoon at Young at Heart hairdressing salon. Hayley—Shaunna’s boss/salon owner—chats away to her client while Shaunna perches with phone in hand on the high stool next to the counter. Her attention flits between the murmured conversation, a text interchange with BFF Adele and watching for her “two o’clock” to arrive—a new client— Amelia Roberts , according to the diary; she’s the only other appointment this afternoon. The door opens, and a dark-haired woman, curvy but tiny in stature, steps in. She’s not alone, but one of her companions says somethin...

I realised today that I still haven't reviewed Drumbeat , which is shocking. It's been out for... [goes to look...cough] a while. OK, September 1st, it was released, and it was a while before that when I read it, because I struck lucky and got to beta-read. I honestly don't know what the process is like for other beta-readers, but for me it's like getting books on super early pre-release AND getting the chance to talk about the characters and events with the author. A private fan convention, essentially. I love it! Drumbeat  is the third book in A.M. Leibowitz 's Notes from Boston series , and I've got to say before I get into talking about the story itself, I love these covers so much. How much? I've got them up onscreen as I type. They're exactly right for the series and for each story. The observant will notice the series title and the book titles are music-themed, and the characters are all somehow connected to the performing arts (as well as t...

I'm posting as part of  Rainbow Snippets , which 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. At the tail end of December, I said I'd try to post more regularly to Rainbow Snippets, but then a spider chomped me, and there was just so much life happening. So, more realistically, I'm going to aim to get in at least one post a month. * * * * * Last time, I posted from  To Be Sure , which is a novella from the Hiding Behind The Couch series. I'm not posting from it today, because I have a (kind of) new release available (on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited) that incorporates  To Be Sure  and Red Hot Christmas — the novella I'm snipping from. I'll come back to that after the snippet, because the context for my choice is actually a conversation on a thread on the Rainbow Snippets page, where I mentioned that Andy (from the ...

I haven’t posted a Rainbow Snippet in such a long time, but I’m going to do my best to change that in the coming year and get back to posting regularly. About Rainbow Snippets 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. Today’s Rainbow Snippet I’m posting from  To Be Sure , which is contemporary LGBT+ fiction with romantic elements, featuring two older women (aged 70+): Saorla Tierney, a bisexual woman from Derry, The North of Ireland, and her ...

Saorla Tierney's sons are conspiring against her, and at their age, they should know better. After all, she's nearly seventy-one herself, and, quite frankly, whether she still 'has needs' is none of their business. OK, so, maybe she was a bit harsh with Sean when all he did was ask if she and Aileen wanted a double hotel room. And of course she feels bad for biting Finn's head off when he was only having a wee joke. Between her grandson's unconventional baptism and the decades-long feud between her sons, even with Aileen at her side it's not as easy a decision as they seem to think. Or maybe it is. Saorla doesn't know anymore, and until she's sure... To Be Sure is a stand-alone novella-length character special in the Hiding Behind The Couch series. (Part of Never Too Late - a collection of nine stories featuring LGBTQIA characters over the age of fifty) Purchase Links: Beaten Track [ebook] Smashwords [ebook] A...

I haven’t posted to  Rainbow Snippets  in such a long time—busy life, in short—but I decided to join in today to celebrate Trans Awareness Week. I’ll be honest: there are very few trans characters in my stories, and for no good reason, but I’ve become aware of it over the past couple of years, and I’m working on changing that. :) Anyway, here’s a snippet from The Making of Us featuring Jazz—one of the officers of (MC) Jesse’s university’s LGBT+ society. * * * * * Most of the members identified as gay or lesbian; there were a couple of trans students—Jazz being the only one I knew well, because we’d been at Weight Watchers together the previous year. I’d lost six kilos, and I was pretty sure I’d put them all back on again in a matter of weeks. Jazz had lost around twenty kilos and kept the weight off, and she looked amazing. Well, she’d looked amazing before, but now, she was more confident and less self-conscious, and she got to wear clothes that accentuated her cur...

Title:   Keeping the Faith  (Faithfully Yours #3) Author:  A. M. Leibowitz Publisher: Supposed Crimes Publication Date: November 1, 2017 Length: 238 pages (~84k words) Genre: Literary fiction/romance Categories/Tags: Bisexual, transgender, grief and loss, spirituality, Christianity ISBN: 1944591273 (ISBN13: 9781944591274) ASIN: B0764ZQMJP Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36086132-keeping-the-faith Purchase Links: Amazon  |  Amazon UK  |  Smashwords  |  Kobo Synopsis: It’s been three years since Micah’s spouse, Cat, passed away at the age of thirty-six. In the process of cleaning his house, Micah discovers a series of letters Cat hid before he died, in which he made one request: that Micah empty his life of Cat as a way of moving on. Micah has been able to work through his sorrow, but he’s unable to fulfill Cat’s last wish. He can’t see a way past his loneliness despite all the caring people aroun...

Pyjamas. Pajamas. Does Cat even wear pyjamas? More likely a silk chemise. Hmm... OK, so here's the thing. Or half the thing, because I don't want to go off on a Josh tangent (but figured I'd get away with mentioning him). I write a series, and I've been writing it for a long time. In fact, next week marks the ten-year anniversary of when I began writing the first novel, and that date coincides (almost - one day difference) with the release of what is nominally the last story in A.M. Leibowitz's 'Faithfully Yours' series. Which is a pretty cool coincidence. Except for the 'nominally the last story' part. *sniffle* There's a lot more to that coincidence - how I got lucky enough to read A.M. Leibowitz's books...before release mwahahaha, and the parallels between Josh and Cat, who are not at all similar in personality, beliefs etc. but what each means to his author...and so on. I should probably mention for anyone who doesn't k...

Title: Leaps of Faith Author: A.M. Leibowitz Published: July 12, 2017 Categories/tags: LGBT literature, Christian fiction, bisexual, genderqueer, romance, contemporary, disability Synopsis: From Christmas to Easter and from childhood through the end of life, here are ten interconnected stories revolving around one couple and the people who love them. These are tales of friendship, family, sensuality, and all the intimate moments that make them who they are, together and apart. The stories, while standalone, also fill in the gaps before and around the events in the novels in the Passing on Fatih series. Included: a youth embraces his identity; two women build a life together; a former rebellious teen finds her way; a pair of lovers explore each other's minds and bodies; a man copes with loss and grief. Review: It's no secret that I love character-driven fiction, which is also why I love book series. Whilst a skilled author can realistically depict characters withi...