It's weekend, and time for more Rainbow Snippets. 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 thought I'd share a snippet from The Sorcerer's Guardian today. It will be a year on Tuesday that this book came out, and since then, it's received an Honorable Mention in the Rainbow Awards. Loriot and Savarin have been sent out on a mission for the prince and have been clashing with each other the whole journey so far. So they obviously need to be thrown together even more, right? (I went over six sentences with this one—sorry!—but I thought it was necessary.)

“Good evening,” Loriot replied. “We need two bedchambers for the night—well, likely more than one night, if the storms continue as they’re supposed to.”

​“Ah, well,” the innkeeper said, “as you can hear, the inn is quite full.”

Savarin straightened further. Loriot could feel the tension in his muscles just standing next to him. But Loriot wanted to slump to the floor.

“Are you saying you don’t have chambers for us?” Savarin said.

“No, no. Not exactly.” The man stuttered over the words, and Loriot wondered if they were really that intimidating. He didn’t feel intimidating dripping water all over the stone floor.

“What do you mean, then?” Savarin prompted, and Loriot had to concede that however Savarin looked, his tone remained intimidating.

“I’m sorry, sir. I meant that I don’t have two chambers for you, but if you would be willing to share, I do have one left vacant.” 

​

If you'd like to know more about The Sorcerer's Guardian, you can find it here. Through November 27th, The Sorcerer's Guardian is 35% off at Dreamspinner, along with my other DSP books, in case you need some weekend reading. Have a great weekend, everyone!

If you need books for your holiday/travel/weekend reading, Dreamspinner is having a storewide sale through the 27th! Happy reading!

Happy Thanksgiving to all who are celebrating! I hope today finds you surrounded by friends and family with lots of good food to eat. I just wanted to take a moment and say how thankful I am for all you, dear readers, and to be a part of the wonderful Romance community. Love to you all.

Jackie Keswick is visiting today to tell us about her new book, Undercover Star, which is out today. From the snippets I've seen, it sounds like it's going to be really good! Welcome, Jackie!

At some time in the past, his boss had earned a PhD in stupid ideas. Josh knew it. Most days, he was okay with it. But this... this was the stupidest idea in the history of stupid ideas.

​Josh needed a beer.

He slammed through the door of the place he considered his local, three minutes down the road from Scotland Yard. He didn't live in Westminster, of course, but he spent more time in this joint than in any other. The place felt like a home away from home: calming and soothing. Somewhere to relax.

Right now he was desperate for all of that, never mind it was only lunchtime. A few tourists scattered before him as he stalked to the bar. He tried for an apologetic smile, not sure the lame attempt did much to reassure them.

"And who pissed in your cornflakes this morning?" Chris, the pub's landlord, opened the door to the small, secluded snug the moment he saw Josh, and set a pint of Old Peculier in front of him before Josh had parked his arse on a barstool. The two of them went way back, and Josh could count on Chris not to mince his words. Or to flinch when Josh replied in the same vein.

"Tim fucking Montgomery." Josh drained half the pint in one long swallow. He set the glass back on the bar and dropped his head into his hands. They were alone in the snug and Chris was a good listener. He also knew Josh's boss, another plus when Josh was hanging on to his temper by his fingernails. "It's this case I'm working. We need to move in posh circles, and said posh circles aren't cooperating. So, in his infinite wisdom, Tim's landed me with a fucking baby rock star."

"For real? Who?"

"How the—" Josh dialled it back. It wasn't Chris's fault that Tim had lost the plot. "I dunno," he grumbled. "Some blond kid, barely out of nappies. Matisse something?"

"Matisse Vervein?"

"That sounds about it."

"You're goin' to work with Matisse Vervein? And you have no idea who he is?"

"Should I?"

"Yes, you damn well should." Chris's outrage was almost comical. "He's famous. Why didn't you bring him with you?"

"What?"

Chris pulled him a second pint. "Listen. Matisse writes awesome music. He has a voice that makes your knees go weak and he moves like honey down your arsecrack. People pay money to shake his hand and you're grousin' over the chance to work with him? What're you gonna do, anyhow? Start a dance studio?"

"Don't even fucking joke about that where Tim can hear it. That idea is too appalling to contemplate." The second pint went the way of the first and finally—finally—the edges of Josh's anger and agitation blurred a little. The tight coil of tension in his shoulders and neck unwound a notch and he blew out a deep sigh. "Fuck, I hate this."

"Could you be overreactin' a little?"

Josh was mellow enough now to allow the question some room. "Yeah, you're right." This case had taken his best friend's life. It had dragged him halfway across Europe. And now he needed the help of a rock star to get a handle on it? "It's... I don't see why... and he's so damned young and—"

"Don't judge him yet. He looks younger than he is," Chris soothed. "Listen to his music sometime. Especially the stuff he writes for others. There's a lot more to him than he lets on." He clapped a hand on Josh's shoulder and turned him around. "Now, get out of my snug,  find yourself a table, and let me bring you some food. You need grease to soak up all that beer."

There was no arguing with Chris. Josh had learned that a long time ago. He hid in the farthest corner of the bar, and he found a grateful smile when a plate of steak and chips materialised in front of him, along with a third pint.

​

Jackie Keswick was born behind the Iron Curtain with itchy feet, a bent for rocks and a recurring dream of stepping off a bus in the middle of nowhere to go home. She's worked in a hospital and as the only girl with 52 men on an oil rig, spent a winter in Moscow and a summer in Iceland and finally settled in the country of her dreams with her dream team: a husband, a cat, a tandem, a hammer and a laptop.

Jackie loves unexpected reunions and second chances, and men who don't follow the rules when those rules are stupid. She blogs about English history and food, has a thing for green eyes, and is a great believer in making up soundtracks for everything, including her characters and the cat.

And she still hasn't found the place where the bus stops.

For questions and comments, not restricted to green eyes, bus stops, or recipes for traditional English food, you can find Jackie Keswick in all the usual places:

Website / Newsletter / Twitter / Facebook / Instagram

It's weekend, and time for more Rainbow Snippets. 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 thought I'd give you a little snippet of The Scholar's Heart today. I've been finishing up revisions on the next Tournai book (which I just signed a contract for with NineStar Press. Yay!), and Maxen, one of the main characters in that story, is the brother of Tristan, one of the main characters in The Scholar's Heart. So I thought I'd give you a little snippet of the brothers.

If you'd like to know more about The Scholar's Heart, you can find it here. Thanks for reading today!

I realized that it's been far too long since I did one of these posts. Sorry! I've been buried under writing and revising the next Tournai book, and I've let a lot slip. I have exciting news to share, though. I've signed two new contracts with NineStar Press this month! One is for the next book in the Tournai series. No title yet (I'm working on one!), but this is Faelen and Maxen's story. If you've read the other Tournai books, you've met these characters. Faelen is one of the twins that first appeared in The Dragon's Devotion, and Maxen is Tristan's brother. You first met him in The Scholar's Heart, when he was giving Tristan some sensible advice. (And if you haven't read the previous books, that's all right too because they all stand alone and you can start anywhere!) The other book is a fantasy romance that I mentioned here as I was writing it. It's my story of a prince who must marry a queen in an arranged marriage but falls in love with her brother instead. There's lots of political intrigue, an assassination attempt, and a flight for their lives, as they try to keep two kingdoms out of war and find a way to be together. One main character is trans and bisexual, the other cis and demisexual (which makes two recent books I've written with demisexual main characters, since Faelen is as well). It's tentatively titled A Dance of Water and Air. Both books should be out Fall 2018.

Other than that, I don't have too much to report. I've been working on writing/revising the next Tournai book. After that, I'll be moving on to the sequel to Dance. I'd planned to finish up a contemporary I've been working on next, but plans had to change a bit and I need to concentrate on the sequel and Tournai 7 after that. If everything goes well, I'll try to work on the contemporary a bit while I'm writing my main projects. I need to write faster! I have so many ideas...

​Finally, Dreamspinner Press has a coupon code for $3 off a $10 order, good through the 21st, and they'll be running pop-up sales too. Don't miss it!

That's all for now, I think. I'll be better about keeping you updated again, but I better get back to work now!

It's weekend, and time for more Rainbow Snippets. 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+.

This week, I'm snippeting from The Artist's Masquerade. Flavian is thinking about Cathal and reminding himself (again) that's a bad idea to be interested in Cathal at all.

If you'd like to know more about The Artist's Masquerade, you can find it here. Thanks for stopping by today!

October was a busy month as I pushed to finish writing Tournai 6 (revising now! yay!) and attended the NJ Romance Writer conference, but of course, I also found some time to read. It feels strange not to be reading for me. Anyone else? I managed to find time to read through law school and studying for the bar because there's just something about escaping into a story that I need. That all said, here are some books I enjoyed in October:

Team Phison by Chace Verity: An age-gap romance in with the guys meet playing video games on line. The novella is so sweet and left me smiling and feeling all sorts of warm fuzzies. 

Saved and Seen by AM Arthur: These are the first two books in Arthur's Breaking Free series, which is an omegaverse series. I'm hoping we'll get more books too because I really enjoyed them. There are some darker parts of the world and the stories, but the romances are lovely and sweet. Read them in order. They don't stand alone well.

An Unsuitable Heir by KJ Charles: I've been waiting for this book for so long! And it didn't let me down. It was so, so good. I just adored Pen, and I hated to see it end. I wanted more of him and Mark. The rather twisty mystery (I figured out some of it, but it definitely surprised me too) was brought to a satisfying conclusion, and it was good see where all of the characters end up. You don't want to read this book if you haven't read the first two books in the Sins of the Cities trilogy, but really, you need to read these books.

Hexslayer by Jordan L Hawk:  I've been waiting for this book too! I so enjoyed the next book in the Hex World series. Great historical fantasy, romance, and an exciting mystery. I already need the next book! I also read Wild Wild Hex, this month. It's a short story set in the same world, but out west instead of in New York. A Hexas Ranger and a criminal join forces and fall in love along the way. You could probably jump into the series with one of these, but it's so good that you should read them all anyway.

His Convenient Husband by Robin Covington: A contemporary marriage of convenience romance between a pro football player single father (with a delightful kid whom I loved!) and a Russian ballet dancer who is denied asylum in the US and needs a way to stay in the country.  

Nocturne by Irene Preston and Liv Rancourt: Each book in this series seems to get better. The New Orleans at Madi Gras setting is wonderful, the mysteries deeper, the romance growing. I just love Thad and Sara and want more of them immediately. (Please?)

Creative Process by Jodi Payne: Jodi is a fellow NJRW member, and I bought her book at the conference, though it had been on my list since it came out in September. I very much enjoyed this contemporary romance between an author who gets obsessive and tends to lose himself in his writing and a driven, determined cellist. The characters and the romance were both just so charming. 

An Extraordinary Union and A Hope Divided by Alyssa Cole: These books, guys! You need to read them. The second book won't be out until later this month (I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy at RWA and signed too!), but read the first so you're ready. These are wonderful Civil War historicals that tell the stories we never hear but should. They're not easy reads. They don't gloss over the horrors of the United States' past, which makes them very relevant for today. There's powerful history, engrossing stories, lovely romance here. Go read them.

Trick or Treat by Sydney Blackburn: I don't read many short stories, but this short from NineStar's Halloween collection sounded adorable and I wanted a little Halloween-appropriate reading. It was so sweet and adorable, and I had such a smile on my face at the end. The story, though short, was well-rounded and I felt like I got to know the characters, though I would love more about them as their relationship continues. I also read Interview with the Kevin by Mark Lesney, which was a lot of fun (a little take-off on Interview with the Vampire, if the title didn't give that away!).

What have you been reading lately? My TBR is never long enough...

It's weekend, and time for more Rainbow Snippets. 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 break from The Dragon's Devotion for a while and switching over to snippets from some other books. This week, I thought I'd give you a scene between Philip and Amory in The Prince's Consort. I went a little over six sentences—sorry!

If you'd like to know more about The Prince's Consort, you can find it here. The paperback of The Prince's Consort, along with the paperbacks for all my Dreamspinner books, are 30% off in their paperback sale this weekend too. Thanks for stopping by and reading!