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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.

I decided to share a few snippets from The Merchant's Love this month because it's four year book birthday is June 18th. I always call this book a warm hug in book form because that's how it's always felt to me (and what I needed when I was writing it). It's the story of Faelen, a demisexual bookish royal, falling in love over books and baked goods with Maxen, a bisexual merchant who is utterly besotted with him from the start. There's also some family drama and a bit of magic gone wrong. I've skipped ahead quite a bit this week. I did some baking in honor of Faelen and Maxen's anniversary and thought this snippet the perfect one to go with the cinnamon rolls I made. (I went long again—I'm sorry! I promise I'll stick to the line requirements next week!)

You can find more about The Merchant's Love here. And don't forget The Merchant's Love and my other books are 40% off in ebook at NineStar Press this month. 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.

I decided to share a few snippets from The Merchant's Love this month because it has an anniversary coming up in a couple of weeks. I always call this book a warm hug in book form because that's how it's always felt to me (and what I needed when I was writing it). It's the story of Faelen, a demisexual bookish royal, falling in love over books and baked goods with Maxen, a bisexual merchant who is utterly besotted with him from the start. There's also some family drama and a bit of magic gone wrong. In this snippet, Faelen and his twin Alexander are at their cousin Etan's wedding to Tristan. Tristan's brother has been spending a lot of time looking at Faelen, and Alexander noticed.  (I'm sorry this is a bit long!)

You can find more about The Merchant's Love here. The Merchant's Love and my other books are all 40% off at NineStar Press this month, so don't miss out on a great sale! Thanks for reading, and I hope you're all staying safe and well.

Since the pandemic started, my reading habits (ability? attention span?) have been all over the place. I sometimes can't get into books at all or have trouble focusing on a particular format. It's incredibly frustrating for someone used to reading multiple books at a time and reading for escape and comfort. For the past month, audiobooks have been my savior again because I've had a hard time focusing on print books. I've had to put a few aside, but I know I'll get back to them once this spell passes. In the meantime, I did read some books I really enjoyed in May.

For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten: I so enjoyed this Beauty and the Beast-esque fantasy romance. For centuries, the tradition has been that the first daughter of the monarch is for the throne and the second is sent to the Wolf of the Wilderwood as a sacrifice to bring back the old gods (of course, we find out that none of this is as straightforward as is believed). Second daughter Red is resigned to her fate (mostly because she wants to protect her sister from her magic), though her sister Neve is not. When Red arrives in the Wood, she finds things are very different than she believed. The fantasy aspects are engrossing as are the themes of sisterhood and sacrifice. And the slow burn romance between Red and the Wolf is wonderful. I'm looking forward to the second book, which just came out this week.

The Perks of Loving a Wallflower by Erica Ridley: This was an absolutely delightful queer Regency romance—really charming and fun. We have a slow burn romance that's marketed as f/f (but Tommy—Thomasina—comes across from the way the character presents herself as more nonbinary, maybe, and the cover, though gorgeous, doesn't really show us Tommy as she's described) alongside a fun caper in which Tommy's family and Philippa and friends are trying to keep a friend's uncle from stealing her work and calling it his own. Meanwhile, bluestocking Philippa's parents are trying to marry her off to a titled man for family advancement. I loved Philippa especially and thought Philippa and Tommy together were charming. I don't feel like I know Tommy or the background on Tommy's family as well as I know Philippa, but that could be because this is the second book in the series. Overall, I felt like it could stand alone fine, but I'm going to go back and read the first.

A Dead Djinn in Cairo and The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark: I read one of these novellas in ebook and the other in audio and enjoyed both immensely. There's a novel in this series as well, which I'm grateful for because I want more of the world these shorts gave me a taste of. The world is an early 20th century Cairo filled with magic and supernatural creatures and some steampunk elements. The emergence of djinn into the world has made Egypt a major global power, and the main characters of both novellas are detectives with a supernatural police force solving problems and potentially saving the world.

Hunt the Stars by Jessie Mihalik: I won an ARC of this sci-fi romance, um, a while ago, and I definitely feel bad it's taken me so long to get to it. But it was so good! I got pulled right the story. Tavi is a bounty hunter who takes a job from her sworn enemy because she and her crew desperately need the money. Since the stakes are high (and we find out just how high as the story progresses), he and his team insist on joining the hunt with Tavi and her crew. Tavi and Torran are enemies because there was a massive war between the humans and Torran's alien people. The romance aspect is well done, as trust is slowly built and feelings develop. If you like enemies to lovers, forced proximity, competence porn, and found family, there's a lot to love here. The plot is also fabulously twisty. I can't wait for the second book.

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik: A Deadly Education is set at the Scholomance, a somewhat sentient magical school filled with monsters (but no teachers) where magical kids are sent to learn and hopefully survive their adolescence. Relationships in the school are less about friendship and more about strategic alliances for survival inside and the hope for better after. The narrator is El, a prickly, snarky outcast who, when she was a child, was predicted to destroy everything with her massive dark power. She is incredibly powerful, but she doesn't want to bring destruction—even though the school keeps giving her spells for just that. Her voice (and the narrator's performance of it) were wonderfully sarcastic and amusing. It's also delightful to watch her utter confusion as she makes actual friends and builds bonds and ends up with a love interest. There's also an excellent thread about wealth and privilege running through the book. I'm going to be annoyed when I listen the second book in the series and then have to wait for the third!

The Grimrose Girls by Laura Pohl: I had heard good things about this YA mystery/fantasy, so I grabbed it from the library. It took me a while to get through, but I think that was more my lack of reading attention span than anything about the book. The book starts in the aftermath of the death of a girl at an elite boarding school. The police rule it a suicide, but her three best friends don't agree. They, along with their new roommate who has her own agenda, decide to find out what really happened. What they discover is something twisty and magical that has been happening at the school for years and that involves students being the subject of the worst outcomes of fairy tales. By the end of the book, they discover what happened to their friend, but they have a ways to go in what to do about the curse (the second book is out later this year, so I assume all will be resolved there). Picking out the different fairy tales for each character was interesting, and I loved all the queer rep in this book: just among the main characters, two are lesbians, one is biromantic demisexual, and the other is aromantic asexual.

​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.

I decided to share a few snippets from The Merchant's Love this month because it has an anniversary coming up in a couple of weeks. I always call this book a warm hug in book form because that's how it's always felt to me (and what I needed when I was writing it). It's the story of Faelen, a demisexual bookish royal, falling in love over books and baked goods with Maxen, a bisexual merchant who is utterly besotted with him from the start. There's also some family drama and a bit of magic gone wrong. This snippet is the beginning of the book, when Faelen, his twin Alexander, and their mother and brother arrive back in Tournai after a long absence.

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​In the last decade since his father was appointed ambassador to the kingdom of Teilo, Faelen had been on the grounds of Tournai’s royal palace three times, if he included today. The relief, happiness, and utter sense of home flooding through him as soon as he stepped off the boat had been shocking in its intensity, but not surprising otherwise. Sometime in the middle of the journey, he’d been hit with the bone-deep certainty that he needed to be back in Tournai. He’d mentioned it to Alexander, who admitted feeling the same—which Faelen was happy to hear from his twin, even if it did make the whole thing stranger.

He tried not to dwell on it, which was made a bit easier because of his discomfort that they were arriving unannounced and uninvited.

Well, not entirely uninvited. Faelen’s cousin Etan was getting married in a couple of weeks, and the entire family had been invited to the wedding, but Faelen couldn’t imagine Philip, the crown prince, and Amory, his husband, expected them to descend on the palace for it.

He and Alexander would be staying in Jumelle longer than that if they had their way.

You can find more about The Merchant's Love here. The Merchant's Love and the rest of my books are 40% off at NineStar Press this month, so don't miss out on a great sale! Thanks for reading today and I hope you're staying safe and well!

NineStar Press is having a big sale this month. Lots of books, including all of mine, are 40% off. Go get some reading for Pride Month and beyond!

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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 a few snippets from The Artist's Masquerade, which was released two years ago this month by NineStar Press with gorgeous new cover art. I feel like picking favorites among my books is like picking favorite children and I can't do that, but I do adore The Artist's Masquerade and Cathal and Flavian's story. This is an opposites attract romance between the uptight and duty-bound duke's heir and a sharp-tongued artist who is in disguise and on the run. There are also spies and intrigue and magic and an exploration of family. When the book begins, Cathal's father has informed him that he has arranged a marriage for Cathal with a relative of the emperor of Ardunn. When she arrives, Flavian is with her disguised as her female companion and prepared to slip away as soon as possible. Things do not go to plan. And then Cathal is an added complication—he's supposed to marry Flavian's friend (though the marriage was arranged before either of them met) even as attraction explodes between him and Flavian.

​“What do you want?” he whispered to Cathal. “What do you need?”

​“You.”

Flavian’s breath caught. Cathal had to only mean what he said at this moment, in bed, but staring into Cathal’s eyes, Flavian wanted it to mean more, wanted Cathal to need him for more than the physical.

“You have me,” he whispered back, trying to ignore the fear lancing through him because those words were true. He was Cathal’s. He didn’t know how it had happened or when, but he was. It was terrifying but also...joyful.

You can find more about The Artist's Masquerade 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 sharing a few snippets from The Artist's Masquerade, which was released two years ago this month by NineStar Press with gorgeous new cover art. I feel like picking favorites among my books is like picking favorite children and I can't do that, but I do adore The Artist's Masquerade and Cathal and Flavian's story. This is an opposites attract romance between the uptight and duty-bound duke's heir and a sharp-tongued artist who is in disguise and on the run. There are also spies and intrigue and magic and an exploration of family. When the book begins, Cathal's father has informed him that he has arranged a marriage for Cathal with a relative of the emperor of Ardunn. When she arrives, Flavian is with her disguised as her female companion and prepared to slip away as soon as possible. Things do not go to plan. And then Cathal is an added complication—he's supposed to marry Flavian's friend (though the marriage was arranged before either of them met) even as attraction explodes between him and Flavian.

You can find more about The Artist's Masquerade 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 sharing a few snippets from The Artist's Masquerade, which was released two years ago this month by NineStar Press with gorgeous new cover art. I feel like picking favorites among my books is like picking favorite children and I can't do that, but I do adore The Artist's Masquerade and Cathal and Flavian's story. This is an opposites attract romance between the uptight and duty-bound duke's heir and a sharp-tongued artist who is in disguise and on the run. There are also spies and intrigue and magic and an exploration of family. When the book begins, Cathal's father has informed him that he has arranged a marriage for Cathal with a relative of the emperor of Ardunn. When she arrives, Flavian is with her disguised as her female companion and prepared to slip away as soon as possible. Things do not go to plan. I've skipped forward a bit for this snippet. Cathal now knows who Flavian is and isn't shy about showing his attraction. (And apparently, I lied last week when I said I would keep to sentence limits this week—I'm sorry!)

You can find more about The Artist's Masquerade here. Thanks for reading today, and I hope you're all staying safe and well!

April was a chilly month here that sometimes felt more like winter than spring, but it still seemed to go by really quickly. I did some more rereading, including listening to the audio of The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting by KJ Charles. The book is delightful, and the audio is excellent. Here are some new to me reads I enjoyed:

Twisted Pretty Things by Ariana Nash: Twisted Pretty Things is the first book in the Shadows of London urban fantasy series. The world building is intriguing and the plot appropriately twisty with secrets, lies, betrayals. I wouldn't say there is a romance in this book, though it feels like maybe a love triangle is being set up...? I'm not a huge fan of love triangles, if that's where this is going, but I'm going to give the next book a try.

What We May Be by Layla Reyne: Ten years ago, Sean, Charlotte, and Trevor were in love and planning a future together, but it all fell apart when Sean left. Now with the FBI, he's back in town helping Charlotte find a killer. I enjoyed this second chance romance/mystery, and I'm excited to hear that my favorite secondary character will be getting his own story.

Caraval by Stephanie Garber: I grabbed Caraval in audio from the library because it seemed intriguing. It's YA fantasy romance and the first book in a trilogy. Scarlett has to navigate the world of Caraval, a game played over multiple nights with a fantastic prize at the end, in order to find her sister and try to keep them both safe from their abusive father—and decide if she can trust a budding romance with someone she meets along the way. The world is dreamy and dark and filled with lies and secrets, twists and turns. 

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes: Another YA audiobook I borrowed from the library last month. I heard comparisons to Knives Out about this book, and I can absolutely see it. In this first book of a trilogy, a teenage girl inherits the estate of a billionaire she's never met. To fulfill the terms of the will, she has to move into his house (filled with secret passages and riddles), where his mostly disinherited family still lives. They see her as a con woman, or a last puzzle left by their deceased grandfather, in the case of the four grandsons, and she decides to play his games to figure out why she's there and stay alive. Despite the absolute presence of a love triangle, I have the second book on hold at the library.

Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution by Elie Mystal: I've been meaning to read more nonfiction, and I started with this book, which was fantastic. Constitutional Law always interested me in law school (though you absolutely do not have to be a lawyer/former lawyer to read and understand this book), and with the current state of politics/jurisprudence/everything, this is a very timely book. It's an unflinching and honest look at the history and interpretation of the constitution, but it's also witty and engaging.

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 sharing a few snippets from The Artist's Masquerade, which was released two years ago this month by NineStar Press with gorgeous new cover art. I feel like picking favorites among my books is like picking favorite children and I can't do that, but I do adore The Artist's Masquerade and Cathal and Flavian's story. This is an opposites attract romance between the uptight and duty-bound duke's heir and a sharp-tongued artist who is in disguise and on the run. There are also spies and intrigue and magic and an exploration of family. When the book begins, Cathal's father has informed him that he has arranged a marriage for Cathal with a relative of the emperor of Ardunn. When she arrives, Flavian is with her disguised as her female companion and prepared to slip away as soon as possible. Things do not go to plan. I have another snippet that is far too long, but I thought all of it was necessary for context—I promise I'll do better next time.

You can learn more about The Artist's Masquerade here. Thanks for reading today and I hope you're all staying safe and well.