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​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 month, I'm sharing some snippets from A Harmony of Fire and Earth, the second book in the Elemental Magicae duology. This book picks up right where A Dance of Water and Air ends (if you don't want spoilers, proceed with caution!). Arden and Edmund have reached relative safety in Edmund's home kingdom and are preparing for their wedding, but as personally happy as they are, they know their countries are still in danger. They believe there is a way to protect them, but they need powerful wielders of Earth and Fire magic to help. Arden sends for two he trusts—Rhys and Briallen—and they bring Gaz, a powerful Fire wielder, with them. Rhys fell in love with Gaz a long time ago, but his friend doesn't know it. And almost no one, including Rhys, knows that Gaz is actually Prince Gareth, Edmund's brother long thought dead and in hiding for his own safety. Gareth agrees to return home to help his brother, knowing that it could put him in danger and destroy the relationship he begins with Rhys along the way. Here's a bit from the beginning, before Arden gets in touch. Gareth and Meraud, his one-time guard and now friend (she would say she's still his guard too), are in the village tavern.

You can find more about A Harmony of Fire and Earth here. Thanks for reading today, and I hope you're staying safe and well.

Hello, my darlings! I hope the first month of 2023 was kind to you and brought you many excellent books to read. I started my year with some favorite rereads in audio and also read some wonderful new to me books:

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske: (F/F historical fantasy romance) A Restless Truth is the second book in the Last Binding Trilogy and definitely doesn't stand alone, so read A Marvelous Light first. I adored the first book—it was one of my favorite reads last year, and this book will probably be one of my favorites this year. This second book takes us out of Edwardian England and onto a ship making the journey from the US to England. Maude, sister of Robin from book one, is at the heart of this story, and she is a delight. The story itself is a romp aboard ship as Maude searches for a magical artifact with the allies she's drawn to her and tries to evade the people looking for it, who will do anything—including murder—to get their hands on it. The romance between Maude and Violet felt like a good beginning for them and I would classify it in an unresolved HFN place. My only disappointment is the lack of Robin and Edwin from the first book, though I did love the glimpses of them we got.

The Kiss Curse by Erin Sterling: (M/F paranormal romance) I'm going to say right out that my favorite character was Sir Purrcival the talking cat. He was adorable and made me laugh, and I would like more scenes with him. That said, the rest of the book was great fun as well. This is the sequel to The Ex Hex (which was pitched as Hocus Pocus but they fuck and this continues in that vein), and probably should be read after that one. The Kiss Curse brings us back to Graves Glen for more witchy small town shenanigans. I loved the romance between Gwyn and Wells with their enemies to lovers vibe and excellent banter. The book is funny and sexy, and there's an intriguing, mysterious plot to draw you in as well. 

Back in a Spell by Lana Harper: (F/NB paranormal romance) Another witchy book in another series I've been loving. Back in a Spell is the third book in the Witches of Thistle Grove series. I adore the setting of these books—this magical little town inhabited by witch families and a lot of regular people who have no idea. This book brings us Nina and Morty as main characters. It took me a little while to warm up to Nina, not necessarily because of her, but because her family has been set up as the antagonists since the beginning of the series. But I did warm up to Nina and even enjoyed seeing her older brother begin to redeem himself. Morty was a delight from the very beginning (actually from his brief scene in the first book). He and Nina match on a dating app, and Nina's friend convinces her to go out with him. Their first date does not go well, but Morty suddenly begins developing magic, something he never had or knew existed before. Their romance from there is lovely, and so is Nina's growth as she figures out the origins of all the weird magical stuff happening in town.

Perfectly Imperfect Pixie by MJ May: (M/M paranormal romance) This was a quick cute read. Phil is a home and hearth pixie, but while he has the colorful hair and fluttering wings of other pixies, he's also six feet tall, much larger than normally petite pixies. As such, no one will give him a chance and he hasn't found a home and family to bond to and care for. Until he's hired by a wolf shifter to care for his home and the two children he recently received guardianship of, mostly to make him seem a better bet in the custody battle with the children's horrible grandfather. What follows is a sweet slow burn romance between pixie Phil and shifter Sedrick and a lovely story of building a family. The book could've used a better edit and proofread, but it was still good read.

A Fake Girlfriend for Chinese New Year by Jackie Lau: (M/F contemporary romance) This is the third novella in the Holidays with the Wongs series. After his parents and grandparents set up him and his siblings on blind dates at Thanksgiving (to mostly disastrous results), Zach has decided he needs to bring a fake girlfriend to Chinese New Year to make sure that doesn't happen again. He asks his friend Jo to fake date him leading up to the holiday and attend the family celebration with him. When she agrees, he has no idea that she's already fallen for him.  The novella is a cute, funny friends to lovers, fake dating to real love story. A quick, fun read for any time of year, but especially seasonal around Chinese New Year.

What have you read and loved lately?

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​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 month, I'm going to share some snippets from A Dance of Water and Air, the first book in my Elemental Magicae series. This book has a demisexual cis m/bisexual trans m pairing. Prince Edmund is informed that he must marry the queen of a neighboring country in an alliance marriage. When he arrives, the queen is distance, but Edmund grows close to and ends up falling in love with her brother, Arden. Then Edmund is accused of attempting to kill the queen, and he and Arden flee. They have to unravel a plot that endangers both of their countries, and find a way to be together too. This is a sweet little moment between Edmund and Arden, a little break from the worrying and strategizing happening after their escape from the palace.
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You can find more about A Dance of Water and Air here. Next week, I'm going to switch over to the second book in the Elemental Magicae series, A Harmony of Fire and Earth. Thanks for reading and I hope you're staying safe and well.

​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 month, I'm going to share some snippets from A Dance of Water and Air, the first book in my Elemental Magicae series. This book has a demisexual cis m/bisexual trans m pairing. Prince Edmund is informed that he must marry the queen of a neighboring country in an alliance marriage. When he arrives, the queen is distance, but Edmund grows close to and ends up falling in love with her brother, Arden. Then Edmund is accused of attempting to kill the queen, and he and Arden flee. They have to unravel a plot that endangers both of their countries, and find a way to be together too. After walking through the night, they arrive at a house where they can spend some time safely and get their bearings. But the lack of enough beds means sharing...

You can find out more about A Dance of Water and Air here. Thanks for reading today, and I hope you're staying safe and well.

​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 month, I'm going to share some snippets from A Dance of Water and Air, the first book in my Elemental Magicae series. This book has a demisexual cis m/bisexual trans m pairing. Prince Edmund is informed that he must marry the queen of a neighboring country in an alliance marriage. When he arrives, the queen is distance, but Edmund grows close to and ends up falling in love with her brother, Arden. Then Edmund is accused of attempting to kill the queen, and he and Arden flee. They have to unravel a plot that endangers both of their countries, and find a way to be together too. I've skipped ahead just slightly for this snippet from last week's. They've gotten out of the dungeon and the castle and are on foot, trying to get away before they're discovered missing.

You can find more about A Dance of Water and Air here. Thanks for reading today and I hope you're staying safe and well.

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​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 month, I'm going to share some snippets from A Dance of Water and Air, the first book in my Elemental Magicae series. This book has a demisexual cis m/bisexual trans m pairing. Prince Edmund is informed that he must marry the queen of a neighboring country in an alliance marriage. When he arrives, the queen is distance, but Edmund grows close to and ends up falling in love with her brother, Arden. Then Edmund is accused of attempting to kill the queen, and he and Arden flee. They have to unravel a plot that endangers both of their countries, and find a way to be together too. I'm jumping in after Edmund has already been accused. He and his secretary Peregrine and guard Seren have been thrown in the dungeon. But Arden has been scheming to get them out (the kiss is unplanned!).

You can find more about A Dance of Water and Air here. Thanks for reading today and I hope you're staying safe and well.

I can't believe December is over already (and we're in 2023!)—time is still working in strange ways, at least in my brain. I already put out a list of some of my favorite reads of 2022, but I wanted to close out the year with some books I read for the first time in December. I didn't read as much—or all the books I wanted to—in December (I love holiday romances and I love to binge them at the end of the year), which was indicative of the year as a whole. I'm hoping to get back on track with reading (and writing!) in this new year. For now, here's December's reading:

Pack of Lies by Charlie Adhara: Pack of Lies starts a new series that spins off from Adhara's Big Bad Wolf paranormal romantic suspense series. We get more of the paranormal and more mystery suspense in this book, but with a new romantic pairing. Eli was a supporting character in the original series, and I will admit to having mixed feelings about him. After this book, I really do love him. I also enjoyed his love interest, and I'm interested to see how the relationship develops, as this wasn't much more than the barest beginnings for them, amid the mystery and murder and suspense of the plot. This book probably stands alone, but I would say to read the original series for more context—and also because it is really good.

Masters in the Hall by KJ Charles: I was so excited to hear this surprise new KJ Charles book! And it did not disappoint. It's a part of the Lilywhite Boys series, though sufficiently separate from the earlier books that you could probably read it on its own (again, though, you'd miss out on an excellent historical romance series if you did...). In this book, we have a disgraced hotel detective and the man who caused him to be disgraced at a Christmas house party during which the detective intends to expose this man as a criminal. What actually happens is a lovely second-chance romance and a ridiculously fun plot to expose the real villain.

The Holiday Trap by Roan Parrish: If you've seen the movie The Holiday, the premise of this novel (house swap!) will be familiar. Greta needs to escape her overbearing, boundary-ignoring family, and Truman has just had his heart broken by his awful boyfriend, so a mutual friend suggests they switch houses for the month of December. Greta heads to New Orleans where she falls in love with the city and Carys. Truman flies up to small-town Maine where he falls for florist Ash and finds that his favorite author—whose books he's been reading forever and got him through everything—may have lived in that very same house. Of the two romances, Truman and Ash's was my favorite. It was just so lovely. And I adored his quest to find more about his favorite author. While Greta's romance didn't resonate as much with me, I loved other parts of her journey to find out who she is outside her family and build the life she wanted.

A Little Blessing by R Cooper: A new Familiar Spirits book! Yay! I can just say that, right? Sigh, okay. This series is filled with lovely, cozy, witchy stories, and I adore them all. This one brings us back to town around Yule and introduces us to Robin Blessing, who was raised by older relatives and then spent years caring for them. Now alone, he's running the family business and not taking care of himself—and he collapses at the feet of Lucas, the teenage crush he never got over (though that's understating a complicated relationship). What develops between them as Lucas and his family move in to Robin's home and life to nurse him through both the flu and his grief is warm and cozy and beautiful and develops in the perfect organic way. The only problem is that I need more—there are some interesting things set up here and I want to know what happens next for the Coven. I immediately went back and reread Holly and Oak, the book in the series most related to this one, after I finished (and loved it again). I also need to learn how to knit.

The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas: This is book one of a Young Adult fantasy duology—be warned that book two isn't out yet (I will be waiting impatiently!). I'd heard this described as Percy Jackson meets the Hunger Games, and it definitely has elements of that. Every ten years, some of the half-human children of the gods are chosen to compete in a series of trials. The winner becomes the next Sunbearer; the loser is sacrificed to replenish the Sun's power and keep the evil Obsidian gods locked away. Teo is son of the Jade goddess of birds is only worried about the trials in relation to his best friend Niya, daughter of a Gold. Only Gods are ever chosen for the trials (and therefore both prepared for it and given far more privilege), until this year when Teo and another Jade are chosen. The world building, based on Mexican mythology, is fantastic, and so is the LGBTQ rep. I loved so many of the characters and their journeys. And the twist at the end! Definitely looking forward to what happens next. 

Hen Fever by Olivia Waite: This f/f Victorian Christmas novella was just delightful. A romance full of depth and feeling between Lydia, a spinster trying to always be on her best behavior (because she knows she is a disappointment to her parents), and Harriet, a soldier's widow trying to get over the absolute worst years of her life with her friends, who have inherited a manor house on the edge of Lydia's village. The lovely romance is contrasted with the approach of the village poultry show, a cutthroat competition that causes both hilarity and conflict. Short, but absolutely satisfying with beautiful writing...and a fantastic cover!

What have you read and loved lately?

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​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.

​Since it's December, I've decided to share some snippets from the closest thing I have to a holiday romance so far. The Merchant's Love is a cozy fall/winter fantasy romance in which a bookish demisexual royal and a bisexual commoner (who is utterly besotted with him from first sight) fall in love over books and baked goods. The Merchant's Love is mostly just a warm hug in book form, but there is a bit of magic gone wrong. And that's how Maxen finds out about Faelen's magical Talent, a magic that runs in his family and is kept secret from anyone outside it.

You can find out more about The Merchant's Love here. The Merchant's Love and my other books are all 50% off at Smashwords through January 1st—not much time left, so don't miss out on a great sale! Thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a happy and healthy 2023!

Happy New Year, my darlings! I know a lot of authors are doing lists of their writing accomplishments to end the year, but, since I didn't hit my goals this year, I'm generally going to skip that. Mostly, I'm going to say thank you. Thank you for reading and reviewing and talking about my books. Thank you for looking forward to what's coming next (I promise I'm working on it!). Thank you to everyone there for making my first GRL in October so much fun. I was so thrilled to meet you all there.

The past few years have been...well, I don't think I actually need to say. As this year ends, I'm looking forward to the next and hoping for good things in 2023 (without actually trying to predict what will happen!). To Love the Dragon King finally out in the world. More reading, more writing. My second GRL. A little travel and adventure. I wish health and happiness and wonderful things for you in 2023! Lots of love to you.

Some of my favorite reads of the year (not all of them published in 2022, but all of them first read by me this year) mostly in the order in which I read them:

The Missing Page by Cat Sebastian (m/m historical cozy mystery)
A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske (m/m historical fantasy romance)
The Windsor Knot and All the Queen's Men by SJ Bennett (cozy mystery)
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo (historical fantasy)
For the Wolf and For the Throne by Hannah Whitten (m/f fantasy romance)
The Perks of Loving a Wallflower by Erica Ridley (f/f Regency romance)
A Dead Djinn in Cairo by P Djeli Clark (alt-historical fantasy novella) 
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh (YA fantasy)
In the Ravenous Dark by AM Strickland (queer YA fantasy)
Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson (YA fantasy)
A Rake of His Own by AJ Lancaster (m/m fantasy romance)
A Little Blessing by R Cooper (m/m paranormal romance)
The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas (queer YA fantasy)

What were some of your favorite reads of the year?

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​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.

​Since it's December, I've decided to share some snippets from the closest thing I have to a holiday romance so far. The Merchant's Love is a cozy fall/winter fantasy romance in which a bookish demisexual royal and a bisexual commoner (who is utterly besotted with him from first sight) fall in love over books and baked goods. In this snippet, Maxen is giving Faelen a Midwinter gift.

You can find more about The Merchant's Love here. The Merchant's Love is 50% off at Smashwords, along with my other books, through January 1st. You can also find a bunch of LGBTQ books on sale or free at Smashwords here. Thanks for reading today, and I hope you're staying safe and well. And Merry Christmas to all who are celebrating!