Oh my!!

This time of year the M/M Group on Goodreads holds their annual awards.... and to my surprise A Point of Honour has bee nominated in two categories

So I get to display these....

I am really rather pleased with myself :)

What I read in October....

Blessed Samhain!

(Or Happy Halloween if you prefer)

After falling into something of a reading slump over the summer months this month I hit lucky.  The lowest rating I gave any book I read this month was 3 stars, and that was just one book.  The majority were 4.5 starts or above - so it's been very hard to pick a favourite this month.

But I am going with The Boy with the Painful Tattoo.  It was a long time coming this book, but so worth the wait.  I love cosy mysteries anyway, and this series falls into that category - albeit with tongue firmly pushed into cheek.

Special mentions to the Red Dirt Heart series, for being unashamedly Australian and a lot of fun, and to the NA books - Fever Pitch and Brandon Mills vs. the V Card, both of which were really great reads.

Finally, I am not a big one for anthologies.... usually I only enjoy about half of the books in any set but Another Place in Time was fantastic (caveat - I am a historical story reader in any event so came at this expecting to enjoy it -plus there are some excellent authors involved) - oh and it's sold in aid of a great charity.

So the full list.......

1. The Foster Family – Jamie Samms
2. Fever Pitch – Heidi Cullinan
3. Claimings, Tails and other Alien Artifacts – Lyn Gala (r)
4. Assimilation, Love and other Human Oddities – Lyn Gala
5. The Boy with the Painful Tattoo – Josh Lanyon
6. Bloodline – Jordan L. Hawk
7. Between Saints and Sinners – Marie Sexton
8. My Relegence Rake – J.L. Langley (r)
9. Another Place in Time – various
10. Nelson & Caleb – Kaje Harper
11. With Abandon – J.L. Langley (r)
12. Red Dirt Heart – N.R. Walker
13. Red Dirt Heart 2 – N.R. Walker
14. Red Dirt Heart 3 – N.R. Walker
15. Bread, Salt & Wine – Dev Bentham
16. Mark Cooper vs. America - Lisa Henry & JA Rock (r)
17. Brandon Mills vs. The V Card – Lisa Henry & JA Rock
18. Life Lessons – K.J. Harper (r)
19. Breaking Cover - K.J. Harper (r)

And onwards to next month - when I am hoping to write for NaNo so I am guessing there won't be that much reading done......

Scribbling plans for autumn.....

I scribble stories down in fits and starts....... for the last three years the Don't Read in the Closet event on Goodreads has been about it for me...... but I think finishing my first story this year, and then launching straight into another, did something to my brain......

Since I finished that story I've written as short D/s piece for a friend (she'll have to wait to read it as it's going to be part of her Christmas present hopefully) and got part way through a fantasy M/M story for a potential submission to a publisher's call for age gap stories - though whether I shall actually get the courage to submit it is another matter.

I am have another couple of ideas knocking about in my head for things I'd like to write..... and then there is NaNo... where I have optimistically signed up for the fourth year ... now I've never managed to really get started... the first year, I plotted and planned, then work got in the way... the second, well I was foolish to even try as I had my final exams for my professional qualification in the middle of November.... and then last year, my head was all over the place after dad's death and I couldn't write a thing....  So this year... I thought, why not,,,

I have consulted Rupert as to what he'd like us to write (ah the joys of a very demanding plot bunny - I really should never have given him a name... I am sure that is what gave him power over me).... and it will be an f/f shifter story, set in the Peak District (because it's somewhere I know and love).  It also contains children, a bi character and probably some violence.... though I shall try not to kill anyone this time....

I do have to stop reading shifter stories between now and starting writing though.... and yes, there is a tonne of irony here as the person who is super picky about shifter stories writing one myself....... there will be no "pick a Greek letter" syndrome though...

And then, finally, I've just signed up for a Flash Fiction Holiday Blog Hop  - under 3000 words (500 - 1000 words preferably) - holiday themed, must contain a "bad boy" and a gift of some sort... inspired by this picture

More details can be found at Thorny Sterling's blog

I wasn't going to sign up, but I kept going back and looking at the photo, and then I had "an idea" - which is always dangerous when you are at work and meant to be concentrating....

Fingers crossed these guys will let me give a brief view of their story :)

Books for a unseasonable September....

We are having some rather lovely weather at the moment - most un-September like. It's apparently been the driest September since about 1910, and one of the warmest.

As I am typing this, it's gone 6pm and I am in my kitchen, which is bathed in sunlight, and all the windows are open letting in a nice breeze.

It won't last ......

Okay, so onto reading.  This hasn't been a stellar month for books read.... only 17 and 5 of those were re-reads.  That doesn't count the Love's Landscapes books that I am still working my way through

My favourite this month was Kaje Harper's third Hidden Wolves book, Unjustified Claims.  I am picky abut my shifters but really like the set up of these books, and enjoy the authors writing.  I re-read the first two before the new one as a refresher, but really, I've read them that many times it really wasn't necessary :)

I also read a whole series - starting with Pale as a Ghost, by Stephen Osborne, which is about a paranormal investigator, whose boyfriend is a ghost, his best friend a 200 year old witch and his dog a zombie.... they were a lot of fun, though the last book nearly gave me heart failure at one point. 

I am obviously in a paranormal mood as I also enjoyed reading Rhys Fords Fish and Ghost series this month

As for the others, the Sean Michael books were formulaic fluff which is something I sometimes need.  biggest disappointment was Sue Brown's The Last Wolf, which just didn't work for me.

There might have been some comfort reading after the trauma last week, when all I wanted to do was hide in Falls Chance Ranch.

So list in full ...

1. Brush & Whip – Sean Michael
2. Fish and Ghosts – Rhys Ford
3. The Last Wolf – Sue Brown
4. Pack & Mate – Sean Michael
5. Duck, Duck Ghost – Rhys Ford
6. Spiretown – Lia Black
7. Pale as a Ghost – Stephen Osborne
8. Animal Instinct – Stephen Osborne
9. The Scarlet Tide – Stephen Osborne
10. Dead End – Stephen Osborne
11. Unacceptable Risk – Kaje Harper (r)
12. Unexpected Demands – Kaje Harper (r)
13. Unjustified Claims – Kaje Harper
14. A Case of Possession – K.J. Charles
15. How to Train your Dom in Five Easy Lessons – Josephine Myles
16. Falls Chance Ranch – Rolf & Ranger (r)
17. Three Traders – Rolf & Ranger (r)

There was also about 5 books read for research and some writing done......... of which there will be more of shortly......

Sometimes things happen in life for no bloody good reason at all........

This might get a bit bleak..... read on at your own risk

Death ........ we all know it happens to every living thing, sometimes it's a blessing, sometimes it's just what is expected, sometimes it's a huge, completely unfair bastard that rips a hole in your life for no reason you can fathom whatsoever.

It's the last of these that has hit me hard over the last 48 hours.

I work in a department of mixed ages - from 18 to 67 - and a smaller team of six, of which I am the oldest at 41.  I've been there for six years and I'm good friends with the team - two of who have been there longer than me.

One of them didn't turn up for work yesterday.  We phoned and texted, but no answer.  We called his emergency contacts but couldn't get anyone there either.  My team leader went to his house but couldn't get a response at the door.  We phoned the hospitals, and eventually we phoned the police.  They broke into the house and found that he'd passed away sometime over the weekend.  We have no further information.

He was 35.

He was lively, in fairly good health, he even went to the gym about 3 times a week - hell he went last week to body attack on Thursday night.

He hadn't looked well for a few days, and we'd tried to get him to see a doctor - but he was highly resistant to this ... and as he was a competent adult you can't force him to go if he doesn't want to.

Today we had to tell the rest of the team.  Tomorrow my team leader and I are going in to work early to clear out his desk and box up his personal possessions.

For six years he's been the guy that sits in the desk behind me, who looks over my shoulder when he walks past, who teases me about spending too much time on the internet, who asks what I am buying him when I do my supermarket shop online at lunch time, who eats oranges most afternoons so that the smell when he peels them wafts across the pod.  No longer will I hear him when he first gets to work and he's wearing his bike over trousers that crinkle when he walks.  No longer will someone move the collection of stuffed animals my team leader and I have on our desks when we are are away - so we come back to find them doing rude things to each other - or climbing up the plants.......

Last week I interviewed for the position of team leader whilst my current team leader is on maternity leave.  Two others interviewed as well, and he told me that if I didn't get it he was going to stage a one man rebellion because I was already part of "our" team, and he didn't want someone else coming in to it.  We were laughing about me being in charge.  I got the job, but it wasn't announced till yesterday, so he never knew.

No one really understands why this happened.  There was nothing obvious to say he was that sick.

And now he's gone.  For the last 6 years I spent 35 hours a week working along side him - that's an awful lot of time.  There is a hole in my life where a friend should be.

I can't help wondering what if I'd pushed harder to get him to see a doctor - what if I'd done more, what if we all had.  But how far can you interfere in the life of someone who is a work colleague, even if they are also a friend?

It's too early to say what the impact of this will be for anyone who worked with him.  Our office is in shock and grieving.  We have to give ourselves time to come to this and time to remember him.  I know the good memories will survive, but for now I am just left with questions.

35 is no age at all.  He had so much life left to live. I shall miss him.

Publication day...... la deuxieme partie....

Inside Le Cafe Procope, Paris (modern day)

Even though I am not a proper published author.... today is my second publication day of the year :)

I've posted before about taking on a second prompt, which had been sadly orphaned by it's original adopter, for the Don't Read in the Closet even run by the M/M Romance group on Goodreads.

A couple of days ago I was told that today was the day, and so this morning I woke with a massive attack of nerves.

This story, Taking a Risk on Love, is set in Paris in 1750 and involves a young man of good birth, Christophe, who makes a wager with his tutor, Yves, that if he can be on time for his lessons for a week then Yves will have accompany him to a masquerade.  Christophe has Yves stitched up from the start, and it's all part of a bigger plan to get closer to his tutor, something Yves is not adverse too.

For me, 18th century Paris is something I knew very little of (well except for the Revolution) and I had a fun time researching various locations - including the Valliot's townhouse, the location for the masquerade and the cafe procope - which is the oldest coffee house in Paris and is still in operation today - though now a rather high class restaurant.

Though Yves and Christophe's story ends with them settling in Italy, in a place I have been to, I've only ever once been to Paris - and that was an overnight stay on my way home from a holiday in the south of France.  Thanks to this story I now have a long list of places I want to visit if I ever do get to go and stay there.

I enjoyed writing this one, I hope that I've managed to make it at least remotely historically accurate, and more importantly I really hope that people enjoy reading it.

Summer time... and reading is easy........

So, that's August done and dusted.... and with the arrival of September it feels a lot closer to the end of the year - we went out for lunch today and they were taking bookings for Christmas parties!!  Schools here go back this week and so I think summer is just about over.

August has flown by very quickly - but thanks to a week off at the beginning of the month I've managed to do a fair bit of reading.

My favourites this month are the final books in Megan Derr's Dance with the Devil series - I've really enjoyed the setting of this series and although some characters just flit in and out rather than all the books having the same MC's it doesn't matter for this one as it's the world building that gives the stories the feel of the thing.  My other favourites are two very different books, Caught! by J.L. Merrow which is so traditionally English and with a very British humour to it and Kaje Harper's The Family we Make - which is not so much a romance, but a family drama.

I have also this month DNF'd my very first book - I usually read everything even if I am annoyed by it, or it's not engaging me, but this I couldn't.  There was just so much wrong with it I was in danger of throwing the Kindle across the room.  I started making notes as I was reading and by 28% I had 5 pages of notes that were factually incorrect, impossible for the time or just wholly unrealistic for the setting...... Now I know for most people that read the book they won't even notice these things, but it was a book set in a 1920's English boys boarding school - and given that school stories of that era are something I've been collecting for over 20 years it's something i couldn't look past.

anyway - the list.....

1. Camwolf – J.L. Merrow (r)
2. Gilliflowers - Gillibran Brown (r)
3. In Despair (Princes of the Blood) – Megan Derr
4. The Slave Catcher – Lilia Ford
5. Ruffskin – Megan Derr
6. Sword of the King – Megan Derr
7. Dance only for Me – Megan Derr
8. Relief Valve – J.L. Merrow
9. Wrestling with Demons – Xavier Mayne
10. Making Repairs – Sean Michael
11. Hungry for Love – Rick Reed
12. Yakuza Courage – H.J. Brues
13. One Good Deed – Andrew Grey
14. Control - Mary Calmes/Cardeno C.
15. Holbrook Academy – Dean Ocean
16. Altered Heart – Kate Steele (r)
17. Caught! – J.L. Merrow
18. Stuff – Josephine Myles
19. The Pagan Lord – Bernard Cornwell (non M/M)
20. Murder on the Mountain – Jamie Fessenden
21. The Family We Make – Kaje Harper

And so to next month - I've a Kindle full of books and although the Don't Read in the Closet releases are winding down (yes I've the date for my 2nd story to be released) I still have a fair few of these to read as well.  Maybe next month I'll list my favourite 10 stories......

Happy September reading!