Tag Archives: heat level: 2

Love in Every Stitch, M/M romance

Love in Every Stitch

Blurb: Jake is a trapper working high in the mountains of Wyoming Territory, usually not seeing another human from one month to the next. Recently, however, he’s had an unexpected guest – an Easterner named Edwin, who pitches in to ensure that Jake has enough supplies to survive the coming winter. As the evenings draw in, Jake works on knitting a blanket, adding a bit of love (and maybe even magic) into every stitch, hoping to entice Edwin to join him under its warmth…

Genre: male-male romance; historical; Western; supernatural; short story

Word count: 2,600

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Published on 19 December 2020.

A Pride of Poppies, LGBTQ+ fiction

A Pride of Poppies

WWI anthology cover FINAL 200pxModern GLBTQI fiction of the Great War

Blurb: Ten authors – in thirteen stories – explore the experiences of GLBTQI people during World War I. In what ways were their lives the same as or different from those of other people?

A London pub, an English village, a shell-hole on the Front, the outskirts of Thai Nguyen city, a ship in heavy weather off Zeebrugge, a civilian internment camp … Loves and griefs that must remain unspoken, unexpected freedoms, the tensions between individuality and duty, and every now and then the relief of recognition. You’ll find both heartaches and joys in this astonishing range of thought-provoking stories.

An anthology featuring authors: Julie Bozza; Barry Brennessel; Charlie Cochrane; Sam Evans; Lou Faulkner; Adam Fitzroy; Wendy C. Fries; Z. McAspurren; Eleanor Musgrove; Jay Lewis Taylor

Genre: LGBTQ+ fiction; historical; wartime; anthology

Click here for the blurbs, and here for the reviews.

Word count: 65,000

Awards:

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All proceeds are donated to the Royal British Legion.

Published on 1 May 2016.

A Pride of Poppies

stories: Lena and the Swan

This is the second of my stories that appeared in A Pride of Poppies. The other story explored a difficult and challenging situation for its main character Drew. This story, however, is far more positive and up-beat.

image courtesy of Pezibear on Pixabay

The men are away at war. Lena has taken on her uncle’s work, and is delivering the mail in her village and to the outlying farms. When I first started writing the story, I began with two or three paragraphs of exposition about these facts – but luckily it occurred to me to start with something rather more powerful.

When we first meet Lena she is flying along a country lane on her bicycle, enjoying the speed and the sunshine, and revelling in the sheer freedom of it. There’s no denying that war is a tragedy, but it did serve to open up opportunities to women to do different kinds of work, to contribute in different ways than usual.

That’s all well and good, but Lena is also taking the chance to provide a very personal kind of comfort to the lonely wives.

I very much enjoyed writing the cheerfully outrageous Lena, and I’d love to return one day to write more about her and her friends. In fact, I’m going to go add her to my To Write List right now …

LGBTQ+ fiction, Mitch Rebecki Gets a Life

Mitch Rebecki Gets a Life

Blurb: Investigative journalist Mitch Rebecki loves his job and loves New York. He doesn’t mind making enemies, either. When a crime boss threatens retaliation, Mitch’s editor sends him out of harm’s way to Sydney. In exile and resentfully working on lifestyle pieces, Mitch is miserable. But he makes a friend or two, meets a man … and discovers that Australians do organized crime, too, in a small way. Mitch soon finds himself in too deep on all counts, and trying to head home again seems the only solution …

Genre: gay fiction; contemporary; crime drama; novel

Click here for an excerpt of text, and here for the reviews.

Word count: 49,000

Awards: An Honourable Mention in the Rainbow Awards 2015.

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First published by Manifold Press on 1 February 2015. Revised edition released by LIBRAtiger on 1 March 2019.