free books part two! and a book rec!
Apr. 6th, 2020 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luninosityWant some free romance stories to help brighten everything up? My publisher, the lovely JMS Books, is offering ~96 titles~ for free until Saturday April 11! Primarily LGBTQ, in all flavors, though I think there’re also one or two m/f stories in there!
You’ll find stories of all length, short stories to full novels, and varying heat levels! My own contribution is the first “Leather & Tea” novella, introducing Ben & Simon – my happily married (and mildly kinky!) ex-spy and his romance-writer husband!
Come check out all the free offerings here!
And, if you’re so inclined, my next full-length novel, Cadence and the Pearl, is scheduled for release April 11! It’s m/m, around 60k, in a more or less alternate-17th-century setting – very fairy-story, Lord Dunsany, Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, sort of feeling – and it’s got opera plots and ocean magic and a Northern Isles schoolteacher with a secret, and I honestly really loved writing this one! I hope you like Cadence and Jeremiah and their magic…
Pre-order link at JMS Books here! Only $3.99!
And a book rec – Kay Simone’s One Giant Leap, which I’ve probably mentioned before, but I just. Really love this book. A long-distance falling-in-love m/m romance! With a bisexual astronaut and his adorable ground controller (inexperienced, but shoved into the job by Circumstances)! So much mutual pining and mutual thinking-the-other-could-never-feel-the-same! Two people who both grow and become stronger together! Hurt/comfort! Realistic space-program research! AHHHH SO MANY FEELS.
Book release
Date: 2020-04-06 10:23 pm (UTC)Re: Book release
Date: 2020-04-07 12:36 am (UTC)Refuge at Clifftop was interesting - I'd originally started writing it for something that was going to be another JMS Trio set, super-power focused, but then one person dropped out, and both of the other two of us would've needed at least an extension - I could've sent in *a* version on time, but not polished. So we ended up scrapping the Trio plan. The part that really surprised me was the ending; I hadn't quite planned the proposal, and then it happened!
I was saying in a reply to someone (who very kindly messaged me on tumblr to say they love Ryan, which, <3333 ) that I hadn't expected Ryan to be the one to propose, but as soon as the words turned up, of course it was him! It wouldn’t be Holiday; Holly’s still just grateful to be part of the relationship, and wouldn’t dare ask for anything more. (And his parents aren’t the best example of marriage...) John’s probably the most ‘traditional’ in that sense, and it’s something he’s pictured, and in fact he’s been *wanting* to ask them for a while - he’s sure, he knows, he wants to marry them. But then he hasn’t asked because he doesn’t want to presume - he’s not sure how Holly feels about getting married, and he’s a little afraid Ryan would just laugh and give the practical answer of, “we’re already committed to each other, we’re sure of each other, why do we need to do a whole ceremony to prove it?” So John has kept on not asking, trying to be nice and understanding and not bring it up...
...and then Ryan, who actually has a giant emotional heart underneath everything, nearly lost both of them, and then didn’t lose them, and now he can’t lose them, he just can’t, and - and he needs something, some gesture, some affirmation, all the affirmation, and - somehow he’s asking them to marry him, the symbol, the reassurance, the confirmation, all of that, please, please.
And so of course it was Ryan who asked. Of course it was.
It’s utterly hilarious, though.
Because, although he usually has a plan and is a good team leader and all, Ryan himself didn’t expect to ask - at least, certainly not right then, on the spot! So he’s very much like...oh. Okay. Um, what do we do now? I didn’t even get you rings, or - I’ve never even put that much thought into, y’know, what goes into a wedding! Should I ask you again, only better?
And Holly’s delighted, and offering the family mansion and grounds as a site (the magical/psychic protections will also be helpful, what with the number of other superheroes likely to be in attendance), and thinking about magical decorations, and of course money is no object...
And John is entirely the sort of person who, if he doesn’t quite have a whole Wedding Binder full of ideas, has at least been idly saving some links, some images, you know, just in case...OH HERE LET ME SHOW YOU THESE INVITATION DESIGNS I SAW LOOK THEY HAVE LIGHTNING BOLTS BUT ALSO ROSES :D :D :D He will also totally build a wedding gazebo or arch or something with his bare hands and super-strength.
And also they’re going to have to try to figure out how to incorporate Ryan’s Japanese (very Americanized, he’s like third-generation, but still) heritage, and Holly’s English-upper-class book-loving background, and John’s...more difficult...family (they’re trying, they really are, they want to be supportive but still kind of wistfully wish Johnny had just married a nice girl and stayed in the Army like most of his family, instead of this...this thing he’s got himself into, not even just one young man but two, and one’s a former supervillain and one’s from a whole different cultural background, oh dear...but he’s happy and we love him and he’s already lost someone once, so dammit we’re going to smile and support him being happy, hisses John’s father to John’s Aunt Karen)...plus superpowers, and protecting everybody, AND Ryan’s parents having Excitable Scientist Feels about special effects…
It’s a LOT. It’s also somehow a lot of fun, despite everything. And Ryan sometimes stops to look at both his partners, as they enthusiastically plot out the location of the wedding arch or whatever it’s going to be, near the lake on the grounds, and he just has to smile. They’re his, and he’s theirs. Even if he is going to have to veto the life-size ice sculpture display of them in full costume.