It's Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15th-October 15th), and I thought I would share some book recs. There are so many fantastic books by latinx authors, and it was difficult to narrow the list down to a handful to share! Please let me know what your favorites are—we can all grow our (already massive) TBR lists.

Mangos and Mistletoe by Adriana Herrera (F/F contemporary holiday romance): I know it's the wrong time of year for a Christmas romance, but I just love this one, so I'm sharing it anyway. Set at a baking competition in Scotland (see, right there, a big reason I was hooked!), two Dominican bakers with very different life experiences have to work together to win and end up falling for each other along the way.

Spellbound by Allie Therin (M/M historical fantasy): This 1920s-set historical fantasy (I don't know why I've really started to look for fantasy set during this time period, but I have) is the beginning of the Magic in Manhattan series. It combines fantastic characters, a sweet romance, intriguing world building, and a fun have-to-save-the-world plot. 

Heart Haunt Havoc by Freydis Moon (Queer horror/romance novella): Full disclosure, I am not at all into horror and this novella rode the line of almost too creepy for me but not quite. I really enjoyed the romance between the trans exorcist called by a nonbinary brujo to help rid their house of a haunting and the gothic atmosphere. Probably a fantastic read as we get into spooky season!

The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas (YA fantasy): Pitched as Percy Jackson meets the Hunger Games, The Sunbearer Trials was a fun book filled with Mexican mythology, adventure, and friendship with a delightful trans main character. I'm very much looking forward to the second book in the duology. 

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova (YA fantasy): Labyrinth Lost is the first book in the Brooklyn Brujas series. Alex is incredibly powerful, but she hates magic. So she does a spell to take away her power, but it goes wrong and her family disappears, becoming trapped in another world. Alex has to travel there (shades of Alice in Wonderland/Narnia) to save them.

Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore (Queer YA fantasy): I found it difficult to choose which of McLemore's books to list here, but finally went with Wild Beauty, which was the first of their books I read. It's also incredibly beautiful, just lovely writing and imagery and an exploration of family and loss and love. For generations, the Nomeolvides women have cared for the gardens of La Pradera—gorgeous gardens that amaze all who see them. They also hide the secret that anyone they love too deeply vanishes. 
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​The Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook asks its members to share six sentence snippets from their work each weekend. Check out the group's Facebook page to read all the snippets and add lots of great books to your TBR. You'll find all sorts of books with the common thread that the main character identifies as LGBTQ.

I'm taking a little break from snippets of To Love the Dragon King and switching to The Dragon's Devotion because The Dragon's Devotion celebrated a book anniversary this month. It's been out in the world for six years! The Dragon's Devotion is part of my Chronicles of Tournai series but stands alone just fine. It's the story of Bastien and Corentin. Bastien inherited a title and took responsibility for his younger siblings far too young when his parents died suddenly. Years later, he learns that their death may not have been the accident everyone thought it was, and of course, he decides to find out the truth—and gets himself into trouble along the way. Corentin is a scholar with a big secret (he's a dragon shifter), but he begins to find it more difficult to keep his secret and keep himself apart when he meets Bastien and is immediately attracted to him. And even more difficult when Bastien ends up in danger. I introduced Bastien and Corentin over the last two weeks, so now I thought I would give you a snippet of them together. This is their first kiss.

You can find more about The Dragon's Devotion here. The Dragon's Devotion is currently $1.99 at Amazon—I had no idea it was on sale until someone brought it to my attention, and I have no idea how long it will last, so grab it while it's a great price! 

The Gauntlet Runner
The Tharassas Cycle, Book 2
Other Worlds Ink
Cover by Kelley York, Sleepy Fox Studio

A GUARD AND A THIEF. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Aik has fallen hopelessly in love with his best friend. But Raven's a thief, which makes things... complicated. Oh, and Raven has just been kidnapped by a dragon.

Now Aik is off on a quest of his own, to hunt down the foul beast and make them give back his ... friend? Lover? Soulmate? The whole not-knowing thing just makes everything harder.

Meanwhile, the world of Tharassas is falling apart, besieged by earthquakes, floods, and strange creatures no one has ever seen before. Aik's ex, Silya has gone back to Gullton to do try to save her people as the Hencha Queen, and Aik's stuck in a caravan with her mother and a damnable magical gauntlet that won't let him be. He has to find Raven, before it’s too late.

Things were messy before, but now they're much, much worse.

Buy The Gauntlet Runner.

Add The Gauntlet Runner to your Goodreads shelf.


About The Tharassas Cycle:

​The Tharassas Cycle is a four book sci-fantasy series set on the recently colonized world of Tharassas. When humans first arrived on planet, they thought they were alone until the hencha mind made itself known. But now a new threat has arisen to challenge both humankind and their new allies on this alien world.

Both the prequel and book one are on sale for just 99¢:

Buy Tales from Tharassas
Buy The Dragon Eater
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Chapter One
Like Fire and Ice

He has to be here. Aik searched frantically through Raven’s pack as the early morning sunlight slipped across the stone windowsill and across the floor, a long, green-tinged ray of light.

He was anxious to be on his way after Raven. His heart was pounding, his thoughts skipping like a spinning stone off hard waters. No one else was awake yet, as far as he could tell, and he wanted to be in and out of the room before anyone was the wiser. Aik glanced at the unmade bed and blushed at what they’d done there the night before. He could still feel Raven’s touch, their bodies entwined….

The sooner he set off, the sooner Aik could rescue him from those awful creatures. The verent must have coerced him; Raven had all but said so. If he could just find Spin, the little familiar could guide him.

He doesn’t love you.

“Shut up.” Knowing that Raven had chosen the verent over him still burned. And that he didn’t say ‘I love you.’ But surely, he wasn’t allowed to be angry about that in the face of what had happened.

His mind was spinning, looking for answers, scared for his love, returning to old, stupid wounds and weaknesses.

Why?

The question reverberated again and again, but not even Aik knew what he was asking. His panic stripped away reason and maturity, and left him dizzy and afraid.

He got to the bottom of the pack, finding nothing but clothing and some toiletries. Farking hell. Where are you?

He started opening some of the side pouches, checking through each one before tying it closed again. Maybe Raven had taken Spin with him?

“Searching for this?”

He spun around to find Tri’Aya leaning against the doorway, looking as fresh as if she’d just slept ten hours, though she couldn’t have gotten more than four at best. How does she do that?

She held Spin’s silver sphere between two fingers.

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Scott lives with his husband Mark in a yellow bungalow in Sacramento. He was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were.

He decided that if there weren’t queer characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.

A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality, and is the committee chair for the Indie Authors Committee at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

Website / Facebook (Personal) / Facebook (Author Profile) / Mastodon / Instagram / Goodreads / Liminal Fiction / QueeRomance Ink / Amazon
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Scott is giving away a $20 bookshop.org gift card with this tour:
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The Dragon's Devotion seems to be on sale at Amazon for $1.99 right now. I have no idea how long the sale will last (or that it was even on sale!), but grab it for a great price while you can! You can find it at Amazon here.

This year's Rainbow Space Magic virtual con will be Saturday September 30th and Sunday October 1st, and I'll be a panelist again! This is always a fun con with so many informative panels and fun readings by authors of LGBTQ science fiction and fantasy. And, as always, admission is free! You can find more information about the event here. 

I hope to see you at RSM!

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​The Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook asks its members to share six sentence snippets from their work each weekend. Check out the group's Facebook page to read all the snippets and add lots of great books to your TBR. You'll find all sorts of books with the common thread that the main character identifies as LGBTQ.

I'm taking a little break from snippets of To Love the Dragon King and switching to The Dragon's Devotion because The Dragon's Devotion celebrated a book anniversary this month. It's been out in the world for six years! The Dragon's Devotion is part of my Chronicles of Tournai series but stands alone just fine. It's the story of Bastien and Corentin. Bastien inherited a title and took responsibility for his younger siblings far too young when his parents died suddenly. Years later, he learns that their death may not have been the accident everyone thought it was, and of course, he decides to find out the truth—and gets himself into trouble along the way. Corentin is a scholar with a big secret (he's a dragon shifter), but he begins to find it more difficult to keep his secret and keep himself apart when he meets Bastien and is immediately attracted to him. And even more difficult when Bastien ends up in danger. Last week's snippet introduced you to Corentin. This week's is the book's introduction of Bastien:

You can find out more about The Dragon's Devotion here. Thanks for reading today!

​​
​The Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook asks its members to share six sentence snippets from their work each weekend. Check out the group's Facebook page to read all the snippets and add lots of great books to your TBR. You'll find all sorts of books with the common thread that the main character identifies as LGBTQ.

I'm taking a little break from snippets of To Love the Dragon King and switching to The Dragon's Devotion this weekend because The Dragon's Devotion celebrated a book anniversary this past week. It's been out in the world for six years! The Dragon's Devotion is part of my Chronicles of Tournai series but stands alone just fine. It's the story of Bastien and Corentin. Bastien inherited a title and took responsibility for his younger siblings far too young when his parents died suddenly. Years later, he learns that their death may not have been the accident everyone thought it was, and of course, he decides to find out the truth—and gets himself into trouble along the way. Corentin is a scholar with a big secret (he's a dragon shifter), but he begins to find it more difficult to keep his secret and keep himself apart when he meets Bastien and is immediately attracted to him. And even more difficult when Bastien ends up in danger. Here's a snippet from the very beginning of the book:

​In the privacy of his small office, Corentin circled his neck and rolled his bare shoulders and back, trying to loosen the stiffness there—impossible because his muscles weren’t really stiff. But he did it anyway. It was just that he hadn’t changed and stretched his wings in far too long. Whether real or imagined, it had always been this way if he didn’t use his Talent regularly. Only how was he to accomplish that in this place?

There wasn’t anywhere in the capital city where he could change unseen, and few places close to Jumelle where a large dragon would go unnoticed.

You can find more about The Dragon's Devotion here. Thanks for reading today!

​​
​The Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook asks its members to share six sentence snippets from their work each weekend. Check out the group's Facebook page to read all the snippets and add lots of great books to your TBR. You'll find all sorts of books with the common thread that the main character identifies as LGBTQ.
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I'm currently sharing snippets from To Love the Dragon King, which is now out in the world. Yay! To Love the Dragon King is the first book in a new series, the Dragons of Ivria, which I believe will be a trilogy. In this book, dragon shifter Lysander, the king of Ivria, has come into the knowledge of a treasonous plot against him and the kingdom and has set out to discover the extent of it and its participants. When he arrives to arrest one of the conspirators, he finds Sascha. Sascha was not born with the magic to allow him to transform into a dragon, and therefore, to his (horrible) parents, his only purpose is to enter into a marriage or a contract as a concubine that will benefit his family. To that end, they've contracted him to Jannik, the man Lysander is about to arrest. Sascha  has no knowledge of the plot, or that he's being used in it, or that he's about to be caught up in the orbit of the king and the scheming and danger that revolves around him. This snippet follows directly from last week's.

You can find out more about To Love the Dragon King here. Thanks for reading!