Top of the TBR #reading #rainydays #everyday

So, this week I've been reading something a little out of the ordinary for me...

Young Adult fiction. Kids books. 

I went through a YA phase several years back... and even then I couldn't pass for a YA. But I did read Harry Potter cover to cover multiple times. All seven books. Then I fell off that wagon and couldn't get into things like The Hunger Games and Twilight. *shrugs*

Then I bought these books.

And Read them in one sitting. Now I"m stuck waiting until September for the next one to come out. Ooh how I hate the waiting game!

The Paladin Prophecy 

Will West is careful to live life under the radar. At his parents' insistence, he's made sure to get mediocre grades and to stay in the middle of the pack on his cross-country team. Then Will slips up, accidentally scoring off the charts on a nationwide exam.

Alliance

After exposing the sinister underground society of students known as the Knights of Charlemagne, Will West stays at the Center over the summer to explore his newly developing physical and mental abilities. Meanwhile, his roommates investigate the Knights' shadowy purpose and discover unsettling information about their own backgrounds. Will and his friends must quickly figure out what's going on and separate friend from foe as they prepare for the coming fight.

If you're at all into Young Adult at the moment, give them a whirl. The writing is good, action flows well, and the characters are engaging. To be honest, I was half done before I realized it! 

Don't Miss This...This is a great and fun way to give karma a kiss—a good sweet endearing 'thank you' kiss...here’s what it’s all about...Post a link with a snippet of a book, blog, new release, award...anything, as long as it is NOT ABOUT YOU. Include anything about the book: why you liked it, favorite character, great cover...whatever you want.

My choice this week is ePistols at Dawn by ZA Maxfield

This is the kind of story that grabs you right away and won't let you go until you're 100% sure that the characters are going to quit being assholes and get their shit together. I kept covering one eye and shaking my head, going, no that's a bad idea. Don't do that, don't say that... 

But you know what? They did. 

Description

Choose your weapons.

Jae-sun Fields is pissed. Someone has taken the seminal coming-out, coming-of-age novel Doorways and satirized it. He’s determined to use his Internet skills and his job as a tabloid reporter to out the author as the fraud and no-talent hack he’s sure she is.

Kelly Kendall likes his anonymity and, except for his houseboy, factotum and all-around slut, Will, he craves solitude. There’s also that crippling case of OCD that makes it virtually impossible for him to leave the house. He’s hidden his authorship of Doorways behind layers of secrets and several years’ worth of lies—until he loses a bet.

Satirizing his own work, as far as he can see, is his own damned prerogative. Except now he has an online stalker, one who always seems several steps ahead of him in their online duel for information.

A chance meeting reveals more than hidden identities—it exposes a mutual magnetic attraction that can’t be denied. And pushes the stakes that much higher, into a zone that could get way too personal…

Warning: This book contains large Korean men; Will, the houseboy, factotum, and all-around slut; hot sexy manlove including oral sex, and serious ass play. (Jae’s note to self: OCD + socks + mouth = BAD.)

Chapter One

Jae Fields sat in front of Adversary editor-in-chief Alonso Vega’s desk, picking a piece of imaginary lint off the sleeve of his military-inspired coat. Vega leaned back in his expansive leather chair and drummed his fingers on the plushly upholstered armrest. “And this is newsworthy? Who cares about romance novelists?” He sat up. “Don’t you have something more important to write about?”

“This is important. We always, always out the actor or politician who pretends to be straight for filthy lucre. Why not out someone doing the opposite?”

“Because it’s a harmless dodge and one that doesn’t have any significance with how people perceive homosexuals.” Vega was almost through with him. Jae could tell by the way he glanced at the clock on the wall.

“It just pisses me off. Fraud.” He tried to look suitably idealistic.

“I see. This woman is a poseur so she’s newsworthy. I hate to tell you this but you can’t swing a dead cat in this town without hitting a poseur. I’ll give you two days to come up with a better reason to go after her than that she pisses you off, Fields. Find something that makes some sort of damn sense. Like she’s advocating the use of unsafe butt plugs or something. Anything, because a personal crusade isn’t what we do here.”

Jae contemplated this. “I thought that crusade was exactly what we do here.”

“Yes.” Vega stood, clearly intent on ushering him out of his office manually. “But we have to pick our infidels, don’t we?” The door closed in Jae’s face before he could reply.

On the way back to his cubicle Jae saw Shannon Israel pop like a prairie dog from behind an oatmeal-colored partition. “What did he say?”

“I’ve got two days. I have to make my case in two days or I can forget it and he’ll assign me something else.” Two more heads popped up to his left.

“Have you read the book yet? It’s actually good. Hilarious. Here…” Bill Parker pulled his copy of Windows up from behind the wall like a puppet and waved it. He read an excerpt that made Shannon blanch. “He kills me.”

Jae gave her a hard stare, but she cursed soundly. “Oh, if that were only true.”

“Shannon?” said Bill.

“What?”

“Shut up.” His head dropped below the cubicle visibility line. Shannon’s followed it down.

“Sorry to rain on the gay-pride parade,” she muttered, a disembodied voice floating over the rows of partitions. “I’m just saying… That’s all I’m saying.”

“And yet,” Bill snarked, “you continue to say it, over and over, until we’re all sick to death.”

“Not me,” Abby, Shannon’s office BFF called out, from somewhere beyond the first line of industrial partitions.

“Thanks, baby,” said Shannon.

“’Course, I hate to say it,” Abby continued, “but I loved this book. I howled with laughter. It kind of reminded me of Tom Jones, or Fannie. Sorry, Jae. Love you.”

Everyone’s desktop pinged at once, and when Jae got there he had a global instant message that read, “Suck up,” from Bill.

He noticed his own copy of Windows lying on his desk. It wasn’t the book. It wasn’t even the writing, which, he had to admit, if you took it as satire, was…extremely funny. It wasn’t even, though he could make a case, that the book had been written from a gay man’s perspective by what was obviously not a man at all.

No.

It was that she’d called it Windows, a not-so-subtle reference to the one and only thing Jae still held sacred from high school years he’d rather forget: Doorways, the coming-of-age novel by Kieran Anders.

Jae had read the cover off that book by the time he was sixteen and knew it practically by heart. So when someone he knew mentioned to him that the book Windows by Kelly Kendall could be considered an affectionate homage, he’d picked it up, in print no less, rather than e-book format, and had been appalled to see that it was less an homage than a blatant rip-off, a travesty of bad taste and worse writing and just plain porn.

Jae read it in horror, cover to cover, exhibiting the very inability to put down a book, no matter how bad, which formed the heart of his desire to write. He’d finished it and shaken it out of his hand with the vague sense that it clung there like something sticky and that everyone else could tell he’d read it simply by looking at him.

It’s not that he wasn’t a big fan of porn. He was. Maybe the book even gave him a boner or two. But no one, no one messed with Doorways on his watch.

It was time to share the love, he decided, launching his web browser. He’d had to search out Kendall’s email address from the woman’s publisher, Diabolique Press. Unlike most writers, she had no website or blog that Jae could find. She was apparently reclusive in the extreme. There was a tiny blurb about her, and when asked, by one Sberryfields, Jae’s porn-buying alter ego, her publisher had given him an email address and directed him to write to “Kelly Kendall” there.

He felt Shannon ease up behind him and absently reached out a hand to pat her.
“This guy really bugs you, doesn’t he?” she asked.

“She does. Yes.”

“What makes you so sure it’s a woman? It might be he’s just exactly what he says.” She put a fresh cup of coffee by his elbow and he smiled up at her in thanks.

“No way a gay man is going to send up Doorways.” Jae shook his head. “It’s…like…the holy grail of coming-out novels. Catcher in the Rye for those of us not destined to be homicidal assholes.”

Shannon smiled. “Ah. The sacred author Kieran Anders.”

“Yeah.” He turned back to the computer. “I’m on my sixth copy. My first disintegrated from adolescent tears, the next three I inscribed and gave to the first three boys I thought could be ‘the one’, the fifth was stolen by a certain film star who didn’t exactly remain anonymous after he spent the night with me, and the one I have now? I keep in a safe.” He sighed. “I guess you could say it’s special to me.”

“So our Mr. Kendall treads on sacred ground.”

“Yep.” Jae tapped a few words out on the edit profile screen. “Should I be SberryFields, or go to the full-length StrawberryFields?”

“What about KillingFields?”

He grinned. “That’s my profile at LiveJournal. I’m making something up that sounds girly for MySpace so I look like any other fangirl if Kendall decides to check me out.”

“Oh, SberryFields then, it has fewer letters to type.”

“Got it… I thought so too. Thanks.”

“You going to just write a fan letter?” She leaned her hip on his desk. “Going under cover?”

“Yep.” He didn’t look up. “See me. See me squee.”

“Go get her, tiger.” She moved away after a moment and he was glad. This was personal somehow and he wanted to get on with it.

Jae smiled. Oh yes. Let the word go forth to those rapacious enough to pimp the book Doorways for their own financial gain. Jae-sun Fields was not about to stand idly by and watch that happen.


* * *


Kelly Mackay was up to his balls in the sheer pleasure of being Kelly Mackay. Will Lanier, houseboy, factotum and general all-around slut was rubbing his shoulders, having just brought in a steaming mug of tea. The appointment with his tax accountant was postponed due to illness and he’d beaten the deadline for his latest screenplay by twenty-four hours. That meant he was free to spend the whole, entire, luxurious day doing nothing. He could read a good book, answer emails, lie in bed all day watching Doctor Who on video, or just lie naked on the living room floor and count the cobwebs on the ceiling. If Will were the type to let any linger.

Will’s magical fingers kneaded out any remaining tension.

“You’re sure you got it right?” Kelly asked. “The appointment has been cancelled?”

“Yes. I got it right. The man has the flu; he could barely talk. He said he’d see you next week probably. Maybe longer.”

“I hate to hope it will take him a long time to get better.” Kelly frowned.

“But you do.” Will thumped his back and started picking up the books Kelly had been looking at the night before. They were all over his elegantly spare office. On the floor, covering the large mahogany desk, lying open, spines up, even though Will lectured him endlessly. It was the one thing he did that was careless, leaving the books like that.

“Not that one, I’m still going over it.” Kelly held out his hand and Will handed him the book. Kelly smacked Will’s luscious ass with it as the younger man leaned over a file box to retrieve a magazine. “I have a ton of—”

“Nothing doing.” Will leaped neatly out of the way before Kelly could land a second swat. “You are going to relax if I have to bend myself over every piece of furniture in this house to get you to do it.” He demonstrated a deep forward bend, with not a little shimmy in it, and winked from between his legs.

That drew a look from Kelly. “Excuse me?”

“Figure of speech.” Will stood.

“Wishful thinking.”

“Ouch.” Will’s eyebrows shot up. “Somebody’s pissy this morning.”

“I’m not pissy.” Kelly got up and moved to the window. “Sorry.” He held his arm out to Will and the kid slid under it. At five ten Kelly wasn’t the tallest man, but Will was half a head again shorter. He had close-cropped bleached hair and eyes that had seen some pretty hard times. When he’d first met Will, Kelly hired him to do odd secretarial work on the recommendation of an older friend. Since then he’d wondered if the older man wasn’t passing along a beloved pet he no longer felt up to caring for.

Will didn’t talk much about his past, except to say that he’d survived it. The pain of that hadn’t quite left him yet. Since Will moved in Kelly had been awakened at all hours by the sound of Will’s nightmares, sometimes even sobbing, coming from the next room.

Kelly gave the kid a squeeze and a kiss on the top of the head.

Kelly had experienced an instant affinity for Will, whose outlandish behavior was the perfect antidote for his own inflexible personality. Will disengaged himself and started out of Kelly’s office. They’d been true friends, with benefits off and on since the beginning. Mostly Kelly encouraged Will to find friends his own age to play. Still, watching that ass swing out of the room…

Will turned as if he knew. “Okay, if you’re not going take me up on my generous offer, I’m going to clean.” He shot Kelly a look as he left.

“It’s not that I don’t love you.”

“I know. But you’re old and you don’t have it in you. I understand,” Will called from the kitchen.

“Hey.” Kelly was stung.

“I’m kidding you. I’ll make your favorite for lunch as an apology. If you can’t resist me then, it’s okay too.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” Kelly shook his head and closed his office door with a snap. “Thirty-eight isn’t old,” he muttered. “I’ll give you old, you little pisher. I jogged five miles on the treadmill this morning. Old…”

Kelly opened the first of about a hundred emails that crowded his inbox, then acknowledged the sender and kept on, answering questions, fielding mail, finding ways to keep from revealing himself when asked revealing questions. He worked in this way for about an hour, amazed, as always, that he should be the object of such speculation. Furthermore, what was most alarming, that he should have become, almost overnight, the focal point of a rapidly growing readership of interested women.

Women.

That was what came from writing a gay porn novel, for fun, because at Will’s urging, he’d penned a simple parody of his own novel Doorways. In it he’d transformed its confused hero into a kind of boy Collete à L’ecole of epically energetic proportions. He’d gently satirized himself, which as far as he could tell was his own damned prerogative, and suddenly, inexplicably, he’d gotten hundreds of email responses from, of all people, women. Most of whom hadn’t the faintest idea he’d written the first book at all. Or that it even existed.

If he’d known that this would happen, he’d never have let Will set up an email account for him. He’d been content, since computers had been invented, to confine himself solely to the word processing software that came with them. Even that had been a stretch, as he’d preferred to use a yellow legal pad and a number two pencil, sharpened to a lethal point (but only if it still had a perfectly pristine eraser).

Kelly enjoyed getting the letters. He just had no idea what to do with people who were really complimentary, always wanting to look behind the email for a gag. Like he was being punk’d. His own insecurity notwithstanding, he was afraid that might have something to do with the nature of the book.

Sure, he’d had fun writing it. But it was largely done as a dare with his tongue firmly between his cheeks. It was actually the best time he’d ever had writing anything, because he’d shared it with Will, his one true friend.

The last email was…arresting. Someone named SberryFields wanted to know if he was planning to continue what she called the “Freddie Legacy”, and in the email she postulated a number of possible future titles. She was loquacious and articulate, and alarmingly chipper, and he slumped into his seat with the awful feeling that this was all his life would hold for him from that moment on.

“Will?” Kelly shouted, only to find the very man in question a mere few inches away reading the email from behind him. Kelly put a hand on his chest to calm his racing heart. “When did you get here?”

“Just now, when you called.” Will glanced up at him with clear blue eyes. “What’s the problem?”

“Were you aware, when you got me into this mess, that Windows would be the most popular work of my entire career?”

“I’m sorry, honey.” Will gazed at him with sincere sympathy. “But seriously. Have you read your other stuff?”

Get Yours at All Romance eBooks

Don't Miss This: Passion by M.L. Rhodes

Don't Miss This..

Don't Miss This is a new effort by a few of us in the writing community who wanted to dedicate a little bit of our time to combating the negativity that seems to overwhelm us at times. Every Sunday on Face book we post a link with a snippet of a book, blog, new release, award...anything, as long as it is NOT ABOUT Self promotion. We'd like to show our appreciation for other writers, bloggers, readers, anyone.

I'm expanding that to my blog because I think it really is an awesome idea to let people knwo when they've touched you. So this week, I'm sharing one of my perennial favorites and go to re-reads:

Passion by  Ml Rhodes.

This story hits a lot of notes for me, Robert the workaholic in particular is a character I can identify with. Jesse is sweet but has troubles of his own, and seeing the two of them work things out to create a HEA is just a reaffirmation that love is what it's all about.

If you haven't read it, I highly recommend checking it out today.

As the owner and CEO of his own company, Robert Bauer has spent the past fifteen years building his business into a multi-million-dollar corporation. It’s taken all his time and energy, which hasn’t left much room for a personal life, especially a love life. That’s fine with Robert because he doesn’t believe in the "L word" anyway. Lately, however, every time he goes to his favorite bar, he can’t keep his eyes and thoughts off Jesse McIntyre, the gorgeous bartender with the soulful blue eyes. Even though Robert’s not looking for a relationship, and tries to shake the attraction, he can’t get the younger man out of his system. There’s just one problem...he believes Jesse’s straight.

Jesse’s been on the run from his old life for the past two and a half years. Even though he slings drinks at a gay bar, he has a hard and fast rule about never hooking up with customers. He’s been down that road before, and though his physical wounds have healed, the emotional ones aren’t so easy to forget. He lets his customers assume he’s straight because it makes it easier to keep his distance. That is, until the businessman with the sexy smile starts coming into the bar. Jesse’s drawn to Robert, even though he knows there’s no way a wealthy, powerful man like that would ever be interested in a tattooed, college drop-out bad boy like him. But even if Robert weren’t his opposite, it wouldn’t matter anyway, because Jesse’s determined not to break his rules for anyone.

When fate throws them together, and they find themselves alone for a weekend, the passion that has silently simmered for months ignites a firestorm that leaves them both shaken. Will it be enough, though, to convince Robert, who’s sworn to never fall in love, that he might be pushing away the best thing that’s ever happened to him? Or to force Jesse to face his fears once and for all and learn to trust his heart?

Excerpt:

...“What the hell. What’s the worst that could happen?” He dabbed the oil against the pulse points at his neck. That way it would maybe be close enough he’d be able to smell it on his skin for a while, like aftershave.

He pretty much expected the rush of lust to hit him again…but oddly enough, it didn’t. Instead, a slow pleasant heat traveled through his veins, his muscles, his skin, like someone rubbing warm velvet against him. It was arousing, but different from before…this was arousing like a long, slow, sensual kiss that let the passion build gradually. His dick didn’t get hard, but it felt like it was a banked fire, pulsing and waiting for the right attention to flare to life. And an overall sense of well-being filled him. The stress of his long day, the drive on the bad roads, and the strange unease he’d been feeling all evening passed. He felt as if he was filled with an energy and confidence he couldn’t describe.

“Okay…not sure what you sold me, but so far I’m liking it.”

Feeling better than he had all night, Robert slipped the bottle of oil back into his coat pocket, pulled on his gloves, and careful of passing traffic on the slippery, snow-packed street, stepped out of his car.

“Let’s go see what BJ’s Pub has to offer tonight,” he murmured, smiling, his step light in spite of the several inches of snow already covering the ground and continuing to fall around him.

When he pushed his way through the heavy door into the warm brass-and-wood-filled pub he was immediately hit with the scents of beer and popcorn and lemon-oil soap.

Robert shook the snow off his head and stomped his feet. As he’d presumed from the number of cars outside, it was a quiet night at the pub, but about half the tables and maybe half the bar were filled with customers, a trio of men played pool at one of the tables in the rear of the room, and a few couples swayed on the dance floor to a rock ballad.

Though BJ’s was LGBT owned and catered to the gay and lesbian crowd, the town had a pretty wide liberal streak, and because the beer and drinks were good and the food was decent, a handful of straight customers were regulars as well. Still, the intention of the place was a gathering spot for gay men and women who could be open about who they were and connect with like-minded and like-oriented people. Robert had discovered BJ’s about eight or nine months ago—he wasn’t sure how he’d missed it before then—and it was now his favorite bar because it was a little more upscale than a lot of other joints, yet not at all snobby. And it was a far more relaxing and pleasant experience to come here than to deal with the raucous and randy bacchanalias and sex fests that took place at other gay clubs. BJ’s was sort of like the friendly neighborhood queer Cheers.

As Robert took in the sights of the pub at a glance, he was struck again by how damned good he felt. Energized, yet relaxed. Ready for…well, whatever adventure might await him.

He peeled off his coat and noticed a couple of younger men and one guy about his age or a little older with a nice bod and graying hair already eyeing him, measuring him up as a potential hook-up. He eyed them back and smiled, letting it be known he was in the market tonight.

Oh, yeah. He felt certain it was going to be a good night, and all that warm-fuzzy home and hearth, love and romance BS of earlier this evening would fade away as soon as he had his arms around a hard, hot body. This was the way his life was meant to be. This was what it was all about.

And then, like steel drawn inevitably to a magnet, his gaze fell on the one person in all the world who could, and did, cause everything else to fade away.

Robert’s pulse pounded. His breathing came out in slow huffs. And his groin tightened in an ache that was one part lust and two parts agony for what it could never, ever have.

Jesse McIntyre.

The pub’s buff, bearded, blue-eyed, extremely hot, extremely fuckable, and extremely straight and way off-limits bartender...

All Romance e-Books

Having shared, I invite you all to join us next Sunday on the Don't Miss This Facebook page- you'll find great reads and a positive attitude! No need to wait for an invitation either- share your own Don't Miss This Post right on the page!