Two Chicks Obsessed with Books & Eye Candy

Sharing our love of M/M Romance

historical

The Fall Guy by Chris Quinton: Blog Tour, New Release Review

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In 1920s New York, Pinkerton Agent John Brady is assigned to a brutal robbery/kidnapping, an open and shut case with an obvious culprit – but nothing and no one are what they seem.

Small-time crook Cesare Donati has the perfect getaway: a transatlantic cruise ship. When Brady turns up at his cabin door, Cesare knows he is out of options until they reach England.

Will London be a safe haven or a place of reckoning?

Length: 13,000 words approx.

Amazon US – Kindle Unlimited

Amazon UK – Kindle Unlimited

 

The Fall Guy, an historical short story, took place beginning in NYC, and then over to London, as our two MC’s helped return a damsel safely to her family’s arms.

I liked the story, although with such a short story, it was hard to feel, as the reader, that you got to know the character’s well. In fact, I could totally see most stories with them, as they continue their lives as partners together in the raging 1920s.

I did have a hard time believing that several people were okay with knowing these men were together. I know things were more forgiving in some ways during Prohibition, but having several people be open about it, seemed out of time and place to me.

The historical references, language and visuals were very well done. The author did a great job with research into the language, and names of period items, as well as the name of those items in two separate countries.

3 pieces of eye candy from me.

Chris Quinton started creating stories not long after she mastered joined-up writing, somewhat to the bemusement of her parents and her English teachers. But she received plenty of encouragement. Her dad gave her an already old Everest typewriter when she was ten, and it was probably the best gift she’d ever received – until the inventions of the home-computer and the worldwide web.

Chris’s reading and writing interests range from historical, mystery, and paranormal, to science-fiction and fantasy, writing mostly in the male/male genre. She refuses to be pigeon-holed and intends to uphold the long and honourable tradition of the Eccentric Brit to the best of her ability. In her spare time [hah!] she reads, embroiders, quilts and knits. Over the years she has been a stable lad [briefly] in a local racing stable and stud, a part-time and unpaid amateur archaeologist, a civilian clerk at her local police station and a 15th century re-enactor.

She lives in a small and ancient city in the south-west of the United Kingdom, sharing her usually chaotic home with an extended family, three dogs, a frilled dragon [lizard] and sundry goldfish and tropicals.

chris.quintonwriter@ymail.com

http://chrisquintonwriter.blogspot.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/chris.quinton.14
https://twitter.com/Chris_writer
http://uk.pinterest.com/writerchris/
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2952441.Chris_Quinton
http://www.librarything.com/author/quintonchris

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No Way Out by Eric Alan Westfall : Blog Tour, Exclusive Author Interview, Excerpt, New Release Review and Giveaway

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It’s April of 1816 in Another England.

And Jeremy—a whore from the Dock—is living in a guest bedroom at the London home of the (in)famous Iron Marquess, with over fifteen days missing from his life.

For someone who remembers everything from his third birthday on, it’s unnerving not to know. Fine, fourteen days for the coma and the infection delirium. But those first thirty-six hours. Do they explain how he got hurt, how he got to Ireton House, and why his lordship’s mountain-sized valet is taking care of him? Or why his ironness looks at him with nothing iron at all in his eyes?

Jeremy and the Iron Marquess both have dark secrets. Forced engagements, an inheritance, a scheme to clap Jeremy in Bedlam, the revelation of the missing hours, a problem with plumage, some numbered accounts, and a long sea voyage, all seem to mean there’s no way out of the snares surrounding them. Or is the old saying true: where there’s a waltz, there’s a way?

All royalties will go to a local LGBT organization.

Author: Eric Alan Westfall

Genres: MM Romance, historical, alternate history

Pairings: MM

Keywords/Categories: MM romance, historical, humor

Series Title: Another England

Position (Number) in Series: #3

Necessary to Read Previous Books: No

Amazon

Universal

QueeRomance Ink

Goodreads

 

What led you to write in your genre?

If I were to use “gay”—romance or otherwise—as the genre, I’d have to say because I’m a gay man, and my ideas aren’t mainstream. Writing MM books didn’t happen, at least not for publication, until I got hooked by the Don’t Read in the Closet events of the Goodreads MM Romance Group in 2013. Within the broader MM category, I have two genres: fantasy and historical.

I answered this question about my interest in fantasy on the blog tour for Of Princes False and True, so here I am talking about historical novels.

Part of the reason is my “meeting” Georgette Heyer in 1961, as a freshman in college. Ms. Heyer was a prolific writer in the first half of the 20th Century, and for all practical purposes she invented Regency historical novels. Not a moment of sex in any of them, but they’re all marvels of historical precision in terms of dress, food, manners, mores, entertainments, etc., etc. More important, though, they’re witty, clever, remarkably fun and she always tells a good story.

I went on reading Regencies after college, especially when so many were released by the major publishers. By that time, the books had to have explicit sex, and since they were MF, I’d enjoy the plot, hit the 37-page sex scene, go flippity-flippity-flip through the paperback pages until it was over, and then go on with the plot.

My first historical was The Rake, The Rogue, and The Roué, which was inspired by a picture prompt and a letter in a DRitC even. That book was the creation of my “Another England” back story. The second AE book was also a DRitC picture (a remarkably explicit actual 1893 photo collage of men, er, having fun while wearing socks). The combination pretty much hooked me.

So you can blame Georgette Heyer and DRitC for my writing gay historicals.

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

Finishing it. I went back and checked, and I wrote the first half of the opening chapter in mid-2011. I wrote in starts and stops over the following six years (if you have a substantial amount of time I can offer you a long list of reasons/excuses why). I got started with MM romances in 2013, but this one stayed on the back burner, though by the end of 2017, it was up to 120,000 words.

The book just sat there, occasionally reminding me of its existence, for most of 2018, until July, when I committed myself…as in paid out money!!!!…for the guys at Other Worlds Ink to set up the pretty much back to back blog tours for Of Princes False and True and no way out. Which meant both books had to be finished in roughly a month each.

The final words, bringing the grand total to just of 152,000 happened in August. For whatever reason, philosophical (as one of my characters might say, “’e finely got ‘is ‘ead out of ‘is arse, ‘n’ got it done”) or financial (he’s too cheap to let that non-refundable payment go to waste), I wrote every day. And each day, for whatever chapter I picked to work on—I don’t write gaily forward from beginning to end—the words were there.

Now let’s see if I can keep up…not quite the same pace…but a reasonable one and get some more books done and out the door.

What are some of your favorite writing resources?

Resources, plural? There’s something other than Google? Really?

Who knew?

Okay, so maybe there are a couple of resources I rely on.

Google mostly. For example, in no way out, I had a question about trousers, pantaloons and breeches in Regency England. Yep, they’re all different. Plus underwear. (Oh, c’mon. This is a gay romance. Of course they’re going to get undressed, so I had to be sure how they’d do it, especially for the scene on the quarterdeck.) A quick bit of Googling led me to a site devoted to the Regency period with an article on men’s clothing. As I don’t do the kind of research which makes the historical novels of the likes of Heyer and Dunnett so accurate, Google provides me enough of the details to give the flavor of the period.

And as I am fond of slang, there are two resources I own.

There’s The Big Book of Filth, edited and compiled by Jonathon Green, who is in fact a renowned British lexicographer and authority on slang. This little book (with its clever cartoon illustrations) has 6500 slang words and phrases about sex, and it even tells you roughly when the word came into use.

An even better resource is Green’s Chambers Slang Dictionary, a 1500-page hardcover, that not only defines the slang word or phrase, but gives you a history of its use, and when it was first used. This is all kinds of English slang, not just related to sex. If you want to be sure your slang is right, or if your story is set in a particular period and you don’t know whether you can use “gobsmacked”…you can find out with this marvelous book.

How do you handle a story that doesn’t go as you planned?

With abject gratitude to Mike the Manly Muse and his character cohorts in crime. I’m the proverbial “pantser” and only twice can I say I actually planned a book:  no way out and the one I’m currently hooked on writing regardless of what I should really be doing (a gay version of The Tinderbox, starring Charlie, our intrepid soldier hero, and Prince Caspian the Charming, who needs rescuing from a copper cauldron).

In no way out, Mike stepped in, fairly near the end of writing, and said, “What about this? Wouldn’t it work about X?” (Nope, not telling you which MC.) It would, indeed. And at the same time, while X didn’t change any of the already written or to-be-written actions of the MC, it created…an explanation, if you will…of who he was, and made him a more complex person than he was before. Some of what had been done had to be revised, but with an idea like X, it was worth it.

Other times, Mike will murmur in my far-from-shell-like ear suggestions for sentences or phrases or paragraphs. Sometimes, too, Mike suggests an alternate route for getting to the end. I almost always start knowing the title, the beginning and the ending, and pretty much how to get to the point of typing “FIN.” Usually Mike’s suggestion is better than what I’d first had in mind.

Thanks, Mike!

There were parts I really liked about this book. The guys and the plot were fine, and there was a good amount of sexy times in nice detail. So. If I say there’s a lot I liked, there was some things I didn’t like. You know how in classic books, the sentences go on for ages, and by the time you’ve gotten to the end of the sentence, you’re just confused about what was said? Like, a five-line sentence littered with 87 commas. I can’t keep that all straight in my head. That’s the style of this book, so it’s no wonder it’s 300+ pages. There were also numerous instances of the author kind of sort of saying something but not *quite* being explicit about what exactly it is happening on the page. So I kind of squinted and looked around and either eventually figured it out after reading another few paragraphs or I just never figured out exactly and specifically what he was trying to convey. It was sometimes exhausting. Several times it was written something like “He said the word.” Wait, what word? What did I miss? Frustrating.

At one point, one hero actually has raunchy sex with another man, which is generally a no-no for me, but fine, it was explained why and I got over it. And honestly it’s probably more realistic that way. But while there is seemingly an HEA, it was definitely not enough for me! These guys went through some stuff and I wanted declarations of love and forever and possibly one sexy times scene for the road, but it ended rather abruptly.

Giving this 3.5 for the story, as I liked the guys and there was some nice angst.

  1. IT ALL BEGINS

6 April 1816

1:38 p.m.

Ireton House, London

 

The voice was back.

Inside my head.

Still I swiveled, twisting to look behind, knowing I would see what I always see when the words are said—nothing. The unpainted, scuffed wooden floor was empty. The door to second story elegance had not creaked since we passed through, shutting it behind us, moments ago. The stairs to lesser third-story elegance and fourth story no elegance at all were both bare of bodies who might whisper words only I could hear.

I turned forward again, teetered, and reaching out, slapped my palms flat against the walls of the narrow servants’ stairs. Pressing hard, I tilted back, but my socked foot slipped on the slick wooden edge. When I landed, the floor made known its displeasure with a sharp splinter through the rope-belted loose trousers, ill-fitting smalls, and into my bum. I yelped.

The cold voice of Thomas, the senior footman, rose up the stairwell from the landing below. “His lordship is waiting.”

I shifted my weight to my left hip, and rolled to my knees, giving him a fine view of my bottom if he was watching, which was by now instinctive. I made a point of lifting my left leg with great care, and with equal care placing my foot on the floor, again in case he was watching. A right foot repeat and then some clearly awkward struggling to get myself as upright on the landing as I could—although a boy with a twisted spine and a twisted leg can never be truly upright—followed by a shuffle-step away from the edge. I suppressed the temptation to rub my right arse cheek. Without turning around I called down, “Well, bugger ‘is bleedin’ lordship! Me feet ‘urt ‘n me arse ‘as been ‘urt, too.”

My feet didn’t hurt much any more. Though bandaged still, and covered with the thick wool stockings sagging around my ankles, they had almost healed. But the pretense might keep me here, with a comfortable bed, and good food, for just a while longer. I grinned a small, wicked grin to myself, and wiped it away as I turned to face the stairs. “Right, then. Shall I drop me britches, turn ‘n bend and you can see what’s stickin’ in me bum, ‘n maybe come up ‘n pull it out?”

It was amazing how much disdain could be contained in stare and stance. Thomas even managed to look down his nose while looking up the stairs.

“Orright, orright. Jus’ wait a bleedin’ minute. ‘n you might want to close yer eyes so’s y’don’t see somethin’ what might ‘orrify you, just in case me grip slips, ‘cause I ain’t goin’ nowhere with somethin’ stickin’ in me arse.”

My hands were on the knot in the rope, and I grinned broadly when the footman closed his eyes, with a stern “Be quick about it then, boy.”

I untied the knot, loosening the waistband since whoever supplied the trousers was much thicker around the middle than me, using my left hand to hold the pants up. I reached behind, and working my right hand into my smalls and found the painful little bugger. With thumb and forefinger I wiggled it free, brought my hand round to the front, and looked at the bloody, bloody thing. I shouldn’t have, but I did. I lifted the three-quarter-inch sliver before my face. “Oi! Is this a dagger wot I see before me?”

Bloody hell. Bloody, bloody, bloody hell. Maybe Thomas wouldn’t…. Well, bloody hell all over again, he did. The footman was looking at me now, his eyes wide, his mouth open to say something, and then he slowly shut it.

It would only make it worse if I tried to cobble together an explanation of why, or how a sixteen-year-old street boy (the age I gave) could paraphrase The Scottish Play. I shut my own mouth, dropped the splinter, retied the knot, and began descending the stairs with care, one thumping step at a time. I braced one hand against the wall—his lordship did not believe in hand rails for his servants—in case of another slip. The footman waited until I was almost at the landing before turning away. Watching my downward struggle, he was unconcerned about the possibility of another fall, his expression informing me if I fell I was on my own. I followed in silence as we went through the halls of the first floor to the front of the house.

Ah, his lordship’s library. I stared at the door.

I’d been in there, just the once, when I shouldn’t have been. But then, I shouldn’t have been in the house in the first place, but I was, though I didn’t know why. Or how I came to be here. Both were part of what was missing. I could remember every…bloody…thing in my life up to the night before…whatever…happened. Remember the Dock on the 12th, the clock in my head saying it was ten thirty at night when I finished the last man. I remember the glint of the shilling as it spun through the air, making me get off my knees, bend and stretch to reach it in the muck. The feel of the metal between my fingertips as I picked it up. Then the twist and roll away, my back taking the brunt of the kick meant for my belly. The man was one of those who, once done, and eager to be tucked and buttoned away, feels guilty and lashes out at the one responsible for his sin. I remember his silhouette as I got to my feet, his realizing how much taller I was, and how the silhouette turned and hurried away.

Then nothing more until I woke up too damned many days later in a bloody nobleman’s house, in sobbing agony, weak, my feet, head and thigh throbbing with pain.

Eric is a Midwesterner, and as Lady Glenhaven might say, “His first sea voyage was with Noah.” He started reading at five with one of the Andrew Lang books (he thinks it was The Blue Fairy Book) and has been a science fiction/fantasy addict ever since. Most of his writing is in those (MM) genres.

The exceptions are his Another England (alternate history) series:  The Rake, The Rogue and the Roué (Regency novel), Mr. Felcher’s Grand Emporium, or, The Adventures of a Pair of Spares in the Fine Art of Gentlemanly Portraiture (Victorian), with no way out (Regency) coming out a month after Of Princes.

Two more fairy tales are in progress:  3 Boars & A Wolf Walk Into A Bar (Eric is sure you can figure this one out), and The Truth About Them Damn Goats (of the gruff variety).

Now all he has to do is find the time to write the incomplete stuff! (The real world can be a real pain!)

Author Facebook (Author Page): https://www.facebook.com/Eric-Alan-Westfall-1045476662268838

Author Twitter: https://twitter.com/eawestfall43


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Robby Riverton: Mail Order Bride by Eli Easton: Audio Book Tour, Review and Giveaway

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Being a fugitive in the Old West shouldn’t be this much fun. The year is 1860. Robby Riverton is a rising star on the New York stage. But he witnesses a murder by a famous crime boss and is forced to go on the run – all the way to Santa Fe.

When he still can’t seem to ditch his pursuers, he disguises himself as a mail-order bride he meets on the wagon train. Caught between gangsters who want to kill him and the crazy, uncouth family of his “intended”, Robby’s only ally is a lazy sheriff who sees exactly who Robby is – and can’t resist him.

Trace Crabtree took the job as sheriff of Flat Bottom because there was never a thing going on. And then Robby Riverton showed up disguised as a woman and betrothed to Trace’s brother. If that wasn’t complicated enough, Trace finds the man as appealing as blueberry pie. He urges Robby to stay undercover until the danger has passed.

But a few weeks of having Robby-Rowena at the ranch and the Crabtree family will never be the same again.

Length: 7hrs 34 mins

Narrated by: Matthew Shaw

Cover Design: Dar Albert @ Wicked Smart Design

Audible US

Audible UK

Amazon US

Amazon UK

 

Okay, I will start this review by being completely honest. I didn’t read the ebook initially for this, despite how much I love Eli’s writing, because the cover seemed odd to me. I am definitely a cover person, it draws me, and this one, this one did not do it for me. However, when I got the chance to listen to the audiobook, I went for it, because I liked the premise of the book, and I’ve always loved historical novels.

This one has Robby seeing a murder, and traveling all the way to the Wild West to escape the men following him. Once he assumes the identity of a mail order bride who left the coach when she found “the man of her dreams”, he ends up in Flat Bottom, New Mexico. There he meets his “intended” husband’s family, and the real man of his dreams, Trace.

I ended up skimming a bit in the initial chapters, as I got the gist of what was happening and where the story was headed. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the book, and thought I might stop several chapters in. Then somehow the story ramped up and I was glued to it, wanting to see what was happening in the story. I wanted to know how two men in the mid 1800’s were able to “find each other”, as well as how Trace’s family ended up with the bruises they did (hilarious story!), and how a family like that could be redeemed. The author did it for me, without question.

I found myself laughing along with Robby’s manipulations of Trace’s father who “paid $200” for Rowena, as well as his complaints about the trappings of women’s clothing. Robby was such a refreshing character, and brought life into the Crabtree household where until then there wasn’t anything but a gray day after day. Meanwhile the killers were closing in, about to take Robby back to their boss to deal with appropriately. What a great ending to that portion of the storyline. I could see that in my head, as if it was a movie.

The narrator was new to me, and did a good job of keeping the character’s voices distinct, and adding accents where appropriate. He even kept Robby and “Rowena”‘s voices separate.

I loved how Tracy and Robby got their HEA, it was exactly how I would have envisioned Robby’s HEA. I’m not sure I had a vision of how Trace would keep himself busy, but it worked out so well, and made me laugh. 🙂

Story: 3.5 pieces of eye candy

Narration: 3 pieces of eye candy

 

Having been, at various times and under different names, a minister’s daughter, a computer programmer, a game designer, the author of paranormal mysteries, a fan fiction writer, and organic farmer, Eli has been a m/m romance author since 2013. She has over 30 books published.

Eli has loved romance since her teens and she particulary admires writers who can combine literary merit, genuine humor, melting hotness, and eye-dabbing sweetness into one story. She promises to strive to achieve most of that most of the time. She currently lives on a farm in Pennsylvania with her husband, bulldogs, cows, a cat, and lots of groundhogs.

In romance, Eli is best known for her Christmas stories because she’s a total Christmas sap. These include “Blame it on the Mistletoe”, “Unwrapping Hank” and “Merry Christmas, Mr. Miggles”. Her “Howl at the Moon” series of paranormal romances featuring the town of Mad Creek and its dog shifters has been popular with readers. And her series of Amish-themed romances, Men of Lancaster County, has won genre awards.

In 2018 Eli hopes to do more of the same, assuming they reschedule the apocalypse.

Her website is www.elieaston.com
You can email her at eli@elieaston.com

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*** Disclosure of Material: I received a copy of this book from the Author/Publisher with the hope that I would voluntarily leave unbiased and unsolicited feedback. I was not asked, encouraged, or required to leave a review – nor was I compensated in any way. I am posting this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. ***

Promises by Ruby Moone: Blog Tour, Release Day Review and Giveaway

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Captain Charles Hawkins has returned from the Napoleonic wars desperate for solitude. When the man who saved his life asks a favour, he feels honour bound to agree, but the request fills him with horror.

Sebastian Farrah knows the only useful thing he can do with his life is join Wellington’s army. He has tried everything else and failed. He agrees to his brother’s ridiculous request to spend a month in the country because it is the only way his brother will agree to purchase him a commission.

Charles and Sebastian clash but quickly form a bond that deepens into much more. However, they are running out of time. Charles begs Sebastian to stay, but Sebastian knows to do so he will be forced to reveal what it is that stopped him from succeeding in everything. The shameful secret he carries from the schoolroom.

Length: 32,000 words approx.

Publisher: JMS Books

Amazon

JMS Books

 

Another week passed, and Farrah had become an integral part of the household. He was everywhere. Working in the garden, eating with him, accompanying him when he left the house to tour around the estate, working with him with the shipping company, although he was still curiously resistant about that. Charles watched him apply himself to his evening meal with gusto. The man ate like a horse but hadn’t a spare inch on his frame. All the physical work meant that he had arrived in reasonable shape for someone who did nothing but gamble and drink, but now, now he was bursting with good health, humour, and a physique that made Charles want to weep with envy as he thought about his own skeletal frame. There was a warmth to his companionship that made getting up in a morning easier. He realised just how much he was enjoying having him in the house. As they talked, he hoped that he was helping Farrah to see that there were options open to him that didn’t involve him risking his life on the continent. To see that there were a whole host of things that he was good at. Farrah’s comment about the army being all he was good for had stayed with him and it surprised him how annoyed it made him that his family had allowed him to feel that way, and constantly surprised that Farrah seemed to believe it.

Coulson arrived with the tea tray and Charles smiled as he realised Farrah had lost that slightly frantic look he’d had on realising there was no port or brandy on his arrival. When Coulson had retreated, Charles raised his cup in a toast.

“Congratulations on another sterling week Mr Farrah.”

Farrah laughed and raised his cup in response. “Congratulations on putting up with me for another week. You deserve a medal, Captain Hawkins.”

“Nonsense. No medals required.”

Farrah tilted his head on one side and observed him. “You really are the best of men. I know I’m not easy to have around. Too loud, too … much.” He laughed again.

And there he went again. He really seemed to believe that his company would not be valued. That he would be some sort of burden. Charles was stunned when he realised that in that moment he wanted nothing more than to take him in his arms and tell him in no uncertain terms that having him in the house was no hardship, and not only that, he discovered he wanted to hunt down the people who had told him that he was a burden, or a nuisance, and hurt them. It was a disconcerting.

He had to fight to retain his composure and answer in kind. “Piffle. You’ve brightened the place up no end. Once you’d sobered up, that is.” He kept his tone light, but his heart was thumping.

“Really?”

For a big, handsome, seemingly confident man sometimes there was a hint of such wistfulness about him, and it was there full force in that softly spoken word. It was filled with such fragile hope it hurt something inside Charles.

“Really.” Charles spoke softly and something in Farrah brightened. “Now, stop fishing for compliments and tell me what the plan for tomorrow is.” He had to resume his usual brisk tone because if he didn’t, he would have … Charles’ heart stopped in his chest. Oh God. Oh God.

He wanted to kiss him.

Charles is a war veteran and while he was saved by fellow officer Edward, most of the men under him perished. Charles owes Edward a lot and feels compelled to do him a favor even though it makes him exceedingly uncomfortable: put Edward’s wastrel younger brother up for a month at his country home. Edward hopes the time spent with upstanding Charles will help straighten out his brother, Sebastian, while dissuading him from wanting to join the army.

Sebastian has spent his life not succeeding in anything he tries: school, the clergy, business. Instead he spends his time drinking, gambling and generally wasting away. But now he’s decided the thing for him is to join that army, something his brother is adamantly opposed to after losing two other brothers in the war. Sebastian agrees to spend a month with a friend of his brother and if he can go a whole 30 days without making a nuisance of himself, his father will purchase him a commission.

This was a story where the two MCs have issues that hurt my heart. Charles suffers from PTSD and survivors guilty and prefers to spend his life as a recluse. If you don’t care about people,  they can’t hurt you. Sebastian has been told his whole life what a mess he makes of everything, and we learn eventually (spoiler, though you can kind of guess this) he has dyslexia and never learned to read properly. Charles and Sebastian get off on a wrong foot initially, but they quickly form a bond and something more. I love when the MCs help the other recover from childhood and adult hurts as no other person can. I want to hug Sebastian for all the rejection he went through his whole life because no one understood that he wasn’t stupid, he needed special help learning to read. It’s so interesting to me to see historicals address what we today label PTSD and how it was thought of and dealt with in the past. My guess is not very well and it was widely misunderstood and for that Charles gets a hug from me, too.

I love historicals. This was a lovely read with secondary characters I wouldn’t mind seeing more of. I did think it was a little farfetched that one MC would be so open about his preference for other men to near strangers, but I was able to overlook it and overall, I liked it.

3.5 pieces of eye candy

 

August 25 – My Fiction Nook, Xtreme Delusions, August 27 – Two Chicks Obsessed, August 29 – Making It Happen, August 31 – Amy’s MM Romance Reviews, September 3 – Mirrigold, Sexy Erotic Xciting, Valerie Ullmer, Bayou Book Junkie, Lillian Francis

 

My name is Ruby Moone and I love books. All kinds of books. My weakness is for romance, and that can be any kind, but I am particularly fond of historical and paranormal. I decided to write gay romance after reading some fantastic books and falling in love with the genre, so am really thrilled to have my work published here. The day job takes up a lot of my time, but every other spare moment finds me writing or reading. I live in the north west of England with my husband who thinks that I live in two worlds. The real world and in the world in my head…he probably has a point!

Facebook Page – https://www.facebook.com/RubyMoone/?ref=bookmarks

Twitter – @RubyMooneWriter

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/rubymoone/

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*** Disclosure of Material: I received a copy of this book from the Author/Publisher with the hope that I would voluntarily leave unbiased and unsolicited feedback. I was not asked, encouraged, or required to leave a review – nor was I compensated in any way. I am posting this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. ***

Contraband Hearts by Alex Beecroft: Spotlight Tour with Giveaway

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His future depends on bringing the smuggler to justice. His heart demands to join him.

Customs officer Peregrine Dean is sent by his patron to investigate rumors of corruption in the Porthkennack customs house. There he is tasked by the local magistrate to bring down the villainous Tomas Quick, a smuggler with fingers in every pie in town. Fired with zeal and ambition, and struck to the core by his first glimpse of Tomas, Perry determines to stop at nothing until he has succeeded.

Tomas Quick is an honest thief—a criminal regarded by the town as their local Robin Hood. He’s also an arrogant man who relishes the challenge posed by someone as determined and intelligent as Perry. Both of them come to enjoy their cat-and-mouse rivalry a little too much.

But the eighteenth century is a perilous time for someone like Perry: a black man in England. Two have already disappeared from the wrecks of ships. Tomas and Perry must forsake their competition and learn to trust each other if they are to rescue them, or Perry may become the third victim.

Amazon

 

Welcome to Porthkennack, a charming Cornish seaside town with a long and sometimes sinister history. Legend says King Arthur’s Black Knight built the fort on the headland here, and it’s a certainty that the town was founded on the proceeds of smuggling, piracy on the high seas, and the deliberate wrecking of cargo ships on the rocky shore. Nowadays it draws in the tourists with sunshine and surfing, but locals know that the ghosts of its Gothic past are never far below the surface.

This collaborative story world is brought to you by five award-winning, best-selling British LGBTQ romance authors: Alex Beecroft, Joanna Chambers, Charlie Cochrane, Garrett Leigh, and JL Merrow. Follow Porthkennack and its inhabitants through the centuries and through the full rainbow spectrum with historical and contemporary stand-alone titles.

Alex Beecroft is an English author best known for historical fiction, notably Age of Sail, featuring gay characters and romantic storylines. Her novels and shorter works include paranormal, fantasy, and contemporary fiction.

Beecroft won Linden Bay Romance’s (now Samhain Publishing) Starlight Writing Competition in 2007 with her first novel, Captain’s Surrender, making it her first published book. On the subject of writing gay romance, Beecroft has appeared in the Charleston City Paper, LA Weekly, the New Haven Advocate, the Baltimore City Paper, and The Other Paper. She is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association of the UK and an occasional reviewer for the blog Speak Its Name, which highlights historical gay fiction.

Alex was born in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and grew up in the wild countryside of the English Peak District. She lives with her husband and two children in a little village near Cambridge and tries to avoid being mistaken for a tourist.

Alex is only intermittently present in the real world. She has led a Saxon shield wall into battle, toiled as a Georgian kitchen maid, and recently taken up an 800-year-old form of English folk dance, but she still hasn’t learned to operate a mobile phone.

She is represented by Louise Fury of the L. Perkins Literary Agency.

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To celebrate the release of Contraband Hearts, Alex is giving away a $10 Amazon gift card and an ebook from her backlist, your choice! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on May 5, 2018. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following along, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!