By now you've all probably heard that Samhain Publishing will be closing, which is sad and shocking and a loss to the romance community. Some of the first m/m books I read were from Samhain, and I've always known I could find quality books from them. They're not closed yet so you can still support your favorite Samhain authors (and they're having a huge 40% off sale today so it's a great time to do it). Here are some of my favorites from Samhain in no particular order:

Absolutely anything by KJ Charles. Her Charm of Magpies series might be my favorite, but Think of England is wonderful too, and really anything.

The Enlightenment Trilogy by Joanna Chambers. Also Unnatural and The Dream Alchemist

Scrap Metal by Harper Fox. It was the first book of hers I read but it was definitely not the last. Cold Fusion is waiting for me on my Kindle.

The Plumber's Mate series by JL Merrow. Also Fall Hard and Slam! and her Shamwell Tales series. 

The Love Lessons series by Heidi Cullinan. Also her Minnesota Christmas series and Carry the Ocean and Clockwork Heart.

The Sci-Regency series by JL Langley. Also the With or Without series.

The Cambridge Fellows mysteries by Charlie Cochrane

The Bend or Break series by Amy Jo Cousins

Come Unto These Yellow Sands by Josh Lanyon. This was one of the first Lanyon books I read (and still a favorite!) but again not the last.

The Bohemian and the Banker by Summer Devon and Bonnie Dee. Also Mending Him.

The Hot Floor by Josephine Myles. Also her Bristol series

Collision Course by KA Mitchell. One of the first m/m books I read. Also Bad Boyfriend.

I am positive that I've missed some books I love, and just as positive that I'll be buying some books in the sale, despite my lack of money in the budget for books right now. So tell me, what are some of your favorite Samhain books?
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It's time again for snippets! I've chosen another snippet from The Artist's Masquerade for you this week, but a little different in tone from last week's snippet. As always, remember to visit the Rainbow Snippets Facebook group to read a bunch of six sentence snippets from some fantastic authors.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Need weekend reading? Today is the last day of the sale at Dreamspinner Press. Just a little while longer to get the Chronicles of Tournai books (and tons of other great books) 25% off in ebook or paperback. Find them here.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Welcome to another weekend of Rainbow Snippets! Make sure you visit the Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook to read six sentence snippets of works from some fantastic authors. This week my snippet is from The Artist's Masquerade. We're in Flavian's point of view in this scene. His carefully crafted disguise is falling apart, and he's contemplating using the magic that he hates and fears...

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! I'm off to return to my edits for The Scholar's Heart.

The Scholar's Heart has a blurb! This is the third book in the Chronicles of Tournai series, but like the others, it does stand alone with its own plot and romance. If you have, you'll recognize Etan and Tristan, whose story this is, and you may have been a little annoyed with me for where I left Etan in The Artist's Masquerade. But if you know me at all, you know I can't leave someone sad for long. Here's the blurb:
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The Scholar's Heart is in edits now and will be out later this spring.

It's time to share another six sentence snippet for the fabulous Rainbow Snippets Facebook group. Don't forget to visit the group page and read the rest of this week's wonderful snippets (and add to your tbr list!). In honor of Valentine's this weekend, I chose a romantic little snippet from The Prince's Consort. Hope you enjoy!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend! And stay warm if you're in the area affected by this insane cold!

This Friday's post is a mix of a few random topics. First off, I promised I would update you on my JeRoWriMo progress this month, and I'm happy to say that the challenge is really keeping me motivated and making progress. As of yesterday I've added a little more than 19,000 words to my manuscript, putting me just over 80,000 words on the manuscript and nearly two thirds of the way to the challenge goal. I still have maybe another 20,000 words to finish Tournai 4 (which still needs a title!), but I'm making solid progress to get it finished and submitted. I'm hoping for some productive writing time today, which I will be doing wearing my new fingerless gloves since it's so cold. They were the best purchase, and I'm wondering why I didn't buy a pair sooner.

Random promo stuff next: Dreamspinner is having two sales right now! All paperbacks are 25% off right now, and all paranormal ebooks are also 25% off. The ebook of The Prince's Consort is included in the paranormal sale, and the paperbacks of both Tournai books are included in that sale, so it's a great time to buy if you're a paperback lover. Check out the sales here. Also, there are still a few days left to enter the Goodreads giveaway for a signed copy of The Artist's Masquerade. Enter here:
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Finally I realized it's been a long time since I talked about what I'm reading. Right now I'm reading and enjoying Betrothed: A Faery Tale by Therese Woodson. I'm also finally starting the new Lisa Kleypas historical. In between writing and edits, of course. Here are a few others I've read and enjoyed recently:

Radio Silence by Alyssa Cole - I don't usually read post-apocalyptic stories, but this one was highly recommended and I ended up really enjoying it. Then again it wasn't a disturbing post-apocalyptic book (no really scary stuff here). The hero and heroine had great chemistry. I'm going to have to read the second in the series to find out what caused the lights to go out, and because I liked John as a side character in this one and I want to read his story. 

Cath a Tiger by the Tail by Charlie Cochet - I love Charlie Cochet's THIRDs series, and I'd been waiting for Calvin and Ethan's book. This one definitely works best when read in series order.

Malachite by Kirby Crow - This fantasy romance is on the darker side, and there were times I wondered if I liked any of the characters, but the world is really intriguing and I'm looking forward to more in this series.

Out! by JL Merrow - A fun and funny addition to her Shamwell series that works as a standalone. I love how British her books are, and I've enjoyed all the books in this series.

It's going to be a chilly weekend here, and I'm hoping to spend some of it curled up with a book and a blanket (and more of it curled up with my laptop and a blanket) and hot cocoa. What are you reading this weekend?

Today author Christopher Hawthorne Moss is visiting to tell us about his LGBT historical fiction blog.

How can we recover the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in history?  We know of a few prominent figures, from Alexander the Great and Sappho to Oscar Wilde and Gertrude Stein, but for the most part the only thing we know about GLBTQ individuals is arrest records and diatribes by religious writers, an erasure only matched by women, aboriginal peoples, racial minorities, the very poor, and people with disabilities.  But all is not lost.  The oft unsung historical novelist has the power to recreate plausible, passionate, and positive stories of what life may have been like for men who love men, women who love women, and men and women who are identified as the other.  There are several authors who have inspired me with the sensitivity of their efforts to give readers a peek into what loves and lives may have been for those for whom “love (is) that dare not speak its name.”  As historical research persists and old notions of propriety are reconsidered, more and more historical fiction appears to be dead-on accurate.
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It has been my passion and mission to collect information on this historical fiction with an eye to developing through fiction a plausibly accurate representation of what our lives may have been like in earlier eras, providing a blog at http://ourstoryglbtqhistoricalfiction.blogspot.com listing and assessing the stories that can stand in for the truth of GLBTQ people’s lives and loves.  This way we can all invoke a heritage through reasonably accurate and plausible stories that reassure us and also grant us the same heritage that comforts, warns, and provides us with a map to lead our steps.

It was when I started sampling GLBTQ historical fiction that I discovered what precisely inspired my own flights of plausible fancy.  One of the first I read was Brandy Emily Purdy’s CONFESSION OF PIERS GAVESTON, about the infamous lover of King Edward II of England and his tragic death.  Gaveston is a historical figure who communicated his homosexual love to no less a figure than playwright Christopher Marlowe who shared his tastes, and only the most negative of historians can ignore all the clues and make him straight.  That seems to be the pattern with such figures, where the assumptions about the individuals have to stretch far beyond rational interpretation to make them straight.
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But Gaveston is a noble, a historical figure who is almost obvious in his place in history.  As I read GLBTQ historical fiction I found more everyday characters who loved their own sex.  Most notable are all the Age of Sail novels by such authors as M Kei, Alex Beecroft, and Elin Gregory, who took the combination of all-male environments and the likely attraction of such to gay men and made romances of their loves.  A similar setting provided Charlie Cochrane with a place for her own two lovers, Jonty Stewart and Orlando Coppersmith, to find each other at a boys’ college, creating the Cambridge Fellows series that is dear to the heart of many. Cochrane’s heroes are very real, very credible, and provide both the conflict for a good story and the characteristics for a plausible love story that creeps into the painful as the years go by and the two young men must part, heartbreakingly, during World War I, a fate shared by other men but so much more poignant for those who could not speak of their loss.

This leads me to the very day-to-day personalities of Tamara Allen’s characters in such wonderful stories as THE ONLY GOLD and WHISTLING IN THE DARK.  Allen’s portrayal of same-sex desiring men is so poignant and heart-lifting that whatever may seem unlikely about their loves come very much to life.  They always resist the attraction – how could they not with society’s condemnation always present?  But they finally realize that happiness and fulfillment can only be found in each other’s arms.

Finally as an old English major I enjoy scholarship concerning literature and was delighted to discover Norman Jones’s work GAY AND LESBIAN HISTORICAL FICTION: SEXUAL MYSTERY AND POST-SECULAR NARRATIVE, which examines the inclusion of structures and images in GLBTQ historical fiction that show up in more mainstream literature, such as self-identification, coming out stories, looking for a role model, and finding community.  Jones discusses these themes in William Faulkner’s ABSALOM, ABSALOM, Mary Renault’s Alexander novels, Mark Merlis’s AN ARROW’S FLIGHT, and other GLBTQ novels.  Realizing the heritage of GLBTQ literature made me aware of my place in a long and growing tradition.
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Who knows what it is about historical novels that so satisfies its fans.  Perhaps it is the isolation and desperation so charmingly fulfilled in other times, or perhaps it is the comfort of knowing we have, in fact, always been here and always been queer but found a way to make our lives and loves work.  The longer our attention to the past continues, we discover just how prophetic historical novelists have been when one after another story of same-sex-desiring and gender-variant historical figures come to life.  It is special to be part of this movement and find over and over that we are writing stories that prove to be true.
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More recently I have taken on the challenge of listing all the ways gay and transgender people managed to create lives and find love and togetherness which I am calling “How and Why They Managed” and have included these on the blog.  They run the gamut from isolation and loneliness, to surreptitious to blatantly open, in those times or communities where condemnation was or is not present, such as in American Indian or Ancient Greek societies among others.  As much as ill-informed historians and historical novelists may protest the very existence of “gay people” in earlier times, the truth is that there are many places and times where same sex desire was not condemned or individuals in society who could find enclaves of acceptance.  The all-or-nothing notions of these people mean more to those of us who are GLBTQ than simple oversight.  They deny us our very existence and the tales that will provide us with a sense of belonging and our place in time.

Recent biological studies, carried out by those such as Dr. Joshua D. Safer, MD1, have demonstrated causal factors that prove that GLBTQ people are truly “born that way”, suggesting that no new environmental factors can be found to account for “unnatural” inclinations, that gay and transgender people have always been part of the human animal and not “unnatural” at all.  This points to the fact that we do have history, that no amount of denial on the part of scholars, religious people, or others can change this fact.  It is therefore incumbent on the part of historians and sociologists and, barring that, those storytellers so inclined to add us back to the Story of Mankind.  Odds are that we found ways to be happy and fulfilled, and why not write stories that reflect this truth?

Come read Our Story GLBTQ Historical Fiction and discover the hundreds of authors who want to make these stories happen.
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1 Safer, Joshua D., and Tangpricha, Vin, “Out Of The Shadows: It Is Time To Mainstream Treatment For Transgender Patients”, Endocrine practice : official journal of the American College of Endocrinology and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists 14.2 (March 2008): 248–250, doi: 10.4158/EP.14.2.248

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About Christopher:

Christopher Hawthorne Moss is the author of BELOVED PILGRIM, WHERE MY LOVE LIES DREAMING, “Le Beau Soleil”, “Truck Stop”, and other historical fiction. You can find Christopher Hawthorne Moss’s own historical novels and stories, such as the transgender Crusader knight in BELOVED PILGRIM, the adventurous army lieutenant who accompanies General Scott during the Mexican War of 1846-48,  and the two lovers from different worlds who go through the same Civil War trauma only to find each other again in WHERE MY LOVE LIES DREAMING at his web site at http://authorchristophermoss.blogspot.com 

Grace R. Duncan is visiting today unveiling the cover for her new novel Patience and sharing an excerpt. Welcome, Grace!
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Patience
Forbes Mates, Book 2
Dreamspinner Press
Cover by Reese Dante
Release date: 3/7/2016
230 pages

Jamie Ryan was almost ready to accept he’d never find his destined mate. They’re uncommon to begin with and same-sex versions downright rare. Since his gay best friend found a destined mate, Jamie figured he was out of luck. Until end of semester stress forces him to go through the full-moon shift early. Stuck in wolf form, he runs into none other than his destined mate. Who’s human.

Chad Sutton has always had good instincts. They served him well as a detective and continued on when he went private. Those instincts tell him there’s something about the dog that comes up to him while running away from animal control that isn’t quite right. He works to put the pieces together, but is unsuccessful until his dog turns into a human before his eyes.

Jamie has no idea what a shifter mate bite will do to a human. He’s terrified to try—and possibly kill his mate. They hunt together for answers while working together on a case for Chad. It’s easy to see they belong together, but Jamie fears the gods gave him someone he can’t keep.

Preorder Patience:
Dreamspinner Press ebook
Dreamspinner Press paperback

Jamie threw back another shot and set the glass on the bar. It was days like this that made him wish to hell his metabolism wasn’t so damned fast. Thanks to his wolf, there wasn’t much he could do. His body processed alcohol almost as fast as he could drink it.
It didn’t help that he’d been feeling out of sorts the whole day. After his last final, he’d loaded the rest of his things from his dorm room into his car. All through it, he’d felt just… off. He couldn’t wait until he got back out to pack lands and Tanner and Finley’s house. They both insisted he take one of the spare rooms when he wasn’t on campus.
He hadn’t wanted to at first. He wasn’t sure he wanted to sit around and watch Tanner and Finley be loving and physical. It wasn’t so much that he still had feelings for Finley. He didn’t, thank the gods. It was more of a different sort of jealousy. Now that he’d seen what it was to have a mate, he wanted one of his own—badly.
Tanner and Finley had tried to set him up with their friend the pack doctor, Miles. While Jamie could admit Miles was most definitely hot, with his long red hair and lean physique, Miles wasn’t his destined mate. And they got along well enough, but he didn’t even feel the interest with Miles he had with Finley. Luckily for both of them, Miles felt the same. They’d been able to occasionally fuck and be good friends, but that’s as far as it had gone.
Thankfully, Tanner and Finley weren’t as bad as he’d expected. They kept most of their physical stuff to their bedroom, with the occasional touch and kiss in front of him. So going back there for holidays and breaks wasn’t as bad as he’d been afraid it would be.
And now he wanted nothing more than to get on the road and make the hour-and-a-half-in-traffic trip back. His wolf had been prodding him for a while, and he needed to shift and run, let him loose.
Jamie tried to think of the last time he’d shifted outside of the full moon. When he realized he wasn’t sure, it made sense that he was so antsy. He was rather surprised he hadn’t started chasing the mailman down the street or chewing on his roommate’s slippers. Their kind had an unfortunate tendency to display horribly doglike behaviors—in human form—when they didn’t shift often enough. The worst of the side effects included full-blown attention deficit issues. Considering he was at the tail end of his junior year in college and squeaking through finals, Jamie counted himself lucky he’d managed to keep from any of that.
The prodding was undoubtedly the reason he was feeling out of sorts. His wolf prowled just under the surface, and he wondered if he shouldn’t just tell his friends good-bye and head home.
“Come on, man! You’re being a lightweight tonight,” his roommate, Dwayne, said, shoving another shot at him. “You usually drink all of us under the table.”
“I gotta drive home, dude,” Jamie said. He wasn’t about to explain that it didn’t matter how many shots he had, he could sober up in no time and still drive.
“You can crash on my couch,” Troy offered.
Jamie turned to his other friend and shook his head. “Naw, it’s okay. I guess I can do a couple more.” He picked up another glass and lifted it to his lips, then stopped when he realized the fine hairs on the back of his hand weren’t quite so fine. He blinked, confused, since his vision was still normal.
Right then, the colors faded to grays. Jamie downed the shot quickly and closed his eyes, pretending to struggle to swallow the liquor, trying to fight his wolf back into its place.
Not yet. Just a little longer.
When he opened his eyes, the color was back, but his wolf was even closer to the surface. He glanced at his watch—a digital with the moon phases on it, just in case—but the full moon was still more than two days away. The date didn’t seem to matter, though. Jamie was losing the fight against his wolf, and he needed to get out of there—fast.
“Dude, you okay?” Troy asked, peering at him.
Dwayne was grinning from the other side. “I think he finally had one too many.”
Jamie jumped on the excuse. “Uh, yeah. Something with that last shot. Need some air. Sorry.” With that, he hurried out to the street and took a deep breath. Unfortunately, Forbes Avenue in the heart of Oakland—Pittsburgh’s college district—wasn’t the best place for fresh air. All he got for his trouble was two lungs full of exhaust and a burning nose. He knew better—he’d been fighting the stench of city for most of the last two years—and he cursed himself for doing it anyway.
Shaking his head at himself, he darted past the Dunkin’ Donuts and the door to The O, then around the corner, looking for a quick place to hide. His vision turned gray again, and he struggled to hold his wolf back at least until he could get hidden. He ducked into the alley just beyond the building and let out a breath.
Before he could think of how to handle this, his wolf broke through, and Jamie found himself forced through the shift. His gums itched as his teeth dropped, his claws extended, and fur erupted over his skin. His bones and muscles realigned, and seconds later, he landed on four paws.
He shook himself hard and gave himself just a moment to savor being in his fur again. But this was not the place for him to be in wolf form. He was too far away from Schenley Park, or any other park, for that matter. Never mind the fact that wolves didn’t wander around in city parks. They weren’t even truly native to this region, much less would they be found in a park completely surrounded by city.
He prodded his wolf, trying to nudge him back so he could take his human form again. However, his wolf refused to relinquish control. Jamie struggled, trying to internally reason with his wolf—if he could go back to human, he could get home to the forest and shift for a while. His wolf wouldn’t listen. He was getting truly worried now, when his human side couldn’t pull the lupine side back.
No matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to get control. Huffing, Jamie sat and considered his options, though there were very few. He could keep trying to shift, but he suspected that would be an exercise in futility. He could try to get to his car… except there was no way he could get the door open, even if he could get down the street and through the garage unseen.
He turned to his clothes and nosed through the pile of denim scraps that used to be his jeans. He managed to pull his phone out with his mouth, but the screen wouldn’t recognize the touch of his paw. Not that he knew what he’d do anyway. Call Finley, maybe. But that obviously wasn’t an option.
He looked toward the street but knew that was a bad idea, no matter how much he wanted to get away. Until he was human again, he didn’t dare risk venturing out of the alley. That left the other direction.
Jamie looked down at his clothes, then left them to explore the short distance to the back wall. He found milk crates, a huge trash compactor, the currently raised bottom of a fire escape, a couple of recycling bins, and not much else. A door that presumably led into the kitchen of The O sat in the wall to his right. At the end of the alley, it turned in an L-shape into a tiny parking lot Jamie hadn’t known was there.
It was dark enough no one should be able to see him, so he figured his best bet at this point was find a spot in the corner and wait. Hopefully, after some rest and time in his fur, his wolf would let go and he could get back into his human skin.
He nosed open one of the recycling bins first. It took a couple of trips, but he got his clothes, shoes, watch, phone, and wallet into the bin. Even if they ended up in a dump somewhere, he didn’t want them just lying out on the ground where someone could steal them. Once he was human again, he could fish them out, but until then at least they were out of sight.
He found a quiet spot under the fire escape and behind the door to settle in. With a sigh, he lay down and rested his head on his paws to wait.



If you haven’t read it yet, now would be a great time to check out Devotion, Forbes Mates #1 and where you get to meet Jamie first.  Find out more about Devotion and see how you can get Tanner and Finley’s story here: http://www.grace-duncan.com/devotion
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About Grace:

​Grace Duncan grew up with a wild imagination.  She told stories from an early age – many of which got her into trouble.  Eventually, she learned to channel that imagination into less troublesome areas, including fanfiction, which is what has led her to writing male/male erotica.
A gypsy in her own right, Grace has lived all over the United States.  She has currently set up camp in East Texas with her husband and children – both the human and furry kind.
As one of those rare creatures who loves research, Grace can get lost for hours on the internet, reading up on any number of strange and different topics.  She can also be found writing fanfiction, reading fantasy, crime, suspense, romance and other erotica or even dabbling in art.

​Find Grace here:
Website  ◊ Facebook ◊ Twitter ◊ Youtube ◊ Goodreads

It's time for Rainbow Snippets again! And it's the first snippet of February. This week's snippet comes from The Artist's Masquerade again. In this scene, we're in Cathal's point of view. Flavian is still disguised as a woman, and Cathal doesn't know the truth about him yet - he knows Flavian as Flavia, companion to the woman Cathal is meant to marry in an arranged marriage. And, well, things are about to get complicated...
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Head over to the Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook to read the rest of this week's snippets from some great authors. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!