Geek Out: Recs and Babbles

I meant to write (and post) this post last week, but Life. In any case, it seems timely for this week, as LT3's Geek Out collection is releasing, and oh man, do we have some awesome stories. You can check out the full collection here (and buy the bundle here!).

I'm going to talk about my favorites. I have four favorites. (I am, as ever, indecisive as hell. ;3) I also kind of suck at reviews, so hopefully I will make sense. Disclaimer! I am one of the owners of the publishing company publishing these books, but the opinions and fangirling here are honestly presented.

Love Rampage by Alex Powell
Maíra has always wanted a unicorn, but isn't quite prepared when one shows up on her doorstep and kidnaps her—and proclaims that Maíra must confess her feelings to the girl she loves. Maíra is definitely reluctant to follow through with that, but everything changes when Carol is kidnapped by a demon... 

This book is my #1 favorite of the collection. 100% absolutely adored it from start to finish. Basically this book is perfect. It's lighthearted, fairy-tale style writing that makes fun of itself even as it explores more serious topics. Maíra is amazing, the unicorn is so hilariously bossy and one-track mind, I love it. Carol is also amazing, and the book is so tightly plotted and sweet, I'm just 100% over the moon with it. A++ recommend, will re-read forever.



The rest of these are in the order that I opened them in my browser tabs (aka no particular order), as they are all close seconds to Love Rampage. ^^



Long Macchiatos and Monsters by Alison Evans
Jalen, lover of B-grade sci-fi movies, meets the far-too-handsome P in a cafe while deciding whether or not to skip uni again. When P invites them along to a double feature of Robot Monster and Cat Women of the Moon, Jalen can hardly believe that hot boys like bad sci-fi, too. But as their relationship progresses, Jalen realizes P leaves them wondering if they're on the same page about what dating means, and if that's what they're doing.

So I am ebook formatter extraordinaire for LT3, which means I get books in advance for ARC formatting as well as general ebook creation. I often get glimses of books while I do this, but I don't often read books at this stage. Rare is the book that I have to stop formatting so I can read it. Long Macchiatos and Monsters is one of those books. I had five hundred gazillion other things to do that day (as per usual), but I put them off because I was so intrigued by the glimpses of the characters I got as I verified formatting. P and Jalen are by turns sweet and amazing and quirky and lovely. I love the way they meet (coffee shop) and bond (over terrible B-movies). I have no idea how to wrap this up, so I'm going to stop fangirling here. ^^

(Also this cover legit makes me want to go out and get froofy coffee, even though it's ten at night and that would be a terrible idea.)

Defying Convention by Cecil Wilde
Danny and AJ have been online friends for years, and secretly in love with each other. When the opportunity to attend a comics convention comes up, they decide to go and share a room. But friendship online does not always translate to friendship offline, and both are anxious about how the meeting will go, and the friendship change, when faced with challenges easily avoided behind the safety of computer screens...

Defying Convention explores a theme I've seen done a bunch of times (relationship begins at con, major conflict arises b/c what is to be done after when the two MCs go their separate ways???). The twist here is that Danny and AJ have been online friends for years. I really enjoyed the way that played into their interactions, and I loved, loved, loved how comfortable they were with each other. This one has probably the most personal vibes with me; how Danny and AJ meet up and interact with each other resonated strongly with me, as that's 100% how I met Megan: online first, meeting up with a short visit first, and man was that first visit nervewracking, even though I knew it would be fine. I won't spoil the ending, but I loved it. I don't think they could have had a more perfect ending. I was genuinely flailing at the ending.

Double Take by J.K. Pendragon
Studying magical science at the prestigious Kemet Academy is a privilege and dream come true for Teka, a poor student from D'mt. But focusing on school doesn't mean xe can't also admire Hasani, the handsome graduate student overseeing Teka's work.

Then late one night at the school library, Teka runs into Hasani and is completely astonished when the stern, quiet man xe knows by day acts so flirty and casual, it's like he's a different person. When the late night encounter leads to dating, Teka can scarcely believe xyr luck.

But the luck plays out when xe discovers why Hasani seems so different between night and day, a discovery that seems to have no resolution except heartache...

I'm sure no one is surprised to see this one in the list of my favorites. Magic university? YES PLEASE AND THANK YOU. Add in the threesome/twincest and the deft way that was handled, and I was over the moon. This is a short story (most of the Geek Out books are), but the worldbuilding was extraordinary. I loved how well laid out the magic was, the different customs for different provinces (?? I can't remember if they were called something different). I love Teka and xyr by turns shy and forward demeanor, and Hasani was amazing. Both of them. :3 I can 100% believe the way everything went down (vague statement is vague, but I am not spoiling the fun here). (Also, did I mention magic university??? Because magic university!!! ...I may have a book type.)

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I'm going to take a moment here and link the other four books in the collection: Horse Crazy, Manifest, Of Anime and the Baeci, and Sext Based Adventures. You should definitely drop by and check them out, see if they might vibe with you. ^^

I was going to post a writing news sort of update with this, but uh, it's long enough already, so next week. Over and out, and I hope ya'll have a good week.

News and Such

Various odds and ends of news for this post:

(1) The Errant Prince (gay/trans fantasy novella ft. stubborn idiots who like to flirt a lot) is about a month away. It's up for preorder most places that allow it (including Amazon, ARe, etc.) and is also up on NetGalley for reviewer-type people. ^^

(2) Losing Ground (bisexual M/M urban fantasy ft. all the angst and sweetness (mostly the sweetness, NGL)) is up at LT3 for preorder. It comes out in ebook on March 4.

As always, you can save 15% if you preorder direct through LT3. ^^



In other news, as a general head's up, I'm taking a few steps back from social media for productivity and personal reasons. I do still have some more posts in the works (recs, for one), but I don't know when they'll get posted. I will also still be around and check feeds irregularly, but if you need me for anything immediate, you'll have to email or text me. I imagine I'll be back to "business as usual" soonish, but for now I'm playing it low-key.

Why You Aren't an LGBTQ Ally

LGBTQIA, sometimes LGBTQ, sometimes just LGBT.

Mostly, just G.

I swear, it's not a week anymore if I'm not stumbling across some new review site or publishing company or website or blog that touts how much it supports the LGBTQ community and how they're great allies…

… only to read further and find that by LGBTQ community, they mean the M/M community. That they'll only review M/M books because well, they don't have any reviewers on staff who want to read lesbian romance or romance with trans characters (and heaven forbid if you lob a curveball and throw an asexual romance or 'worse' at them). Or they'll say LGBTQ, but if you look through their site, you'll find nothing but reviews of M/M books.

That, by publishing LGBTQ romance (wait, wait, I've got this wrong, GLBTQ romance, there we go), they mean they publish M/M. And yes, I know that's where the big sales are. I run a publishing company and I'm heavily involved in the finances of said company. M/M romance does very well for itself. I've also seen lesbian romance do very well for itself (some of LT3's best sellers in 2014 were lesbian books).

Trans and other queer books don't sell well.  

Because on the whole, (1) readers don't buy them, (2) reviewers won't read them, (3) writers won't write them, and (4) publishers won't publish them. (Obviously there are exceptions. But on the whole, this is true.) There are queer books out there (sometimes they're hard to find, though that will hopefully be less of a problem in the near future when Amazon revamps their categories). There's fewer of them than there are M/M romances, but they are there. That they don't sell, however, is not the point of this post.

I'm sure you're wondering, well, what the fuck is the point of this post, then?

The point of this post is that these books deserve the same treatment as M/M romance books. They don't get it. They don't get it, and I'm fed up with reviewers, readers, writers, and publishers who pull themselves up on high pedestals and trumpet their liberal viewpoints to the world. They're diverse! They're allies! They support the LGBTQ community!

Except, here's a novel concept: You do not get to call yourself a supporter of or ally to a broad and diverse community because you like and focus on one specific segment of that community. Full stop.

(Related: you do not get to call yourself an ally in your own defense when a marginalized person is telling you that you're being a bigot. I don't give any fucks about your self-appointed allyship. Your Ally Card is currently being burned in effigy.)

If you want to be an ally, you cannot limit yourself to simply M/M romance. That's just not good enough. I don't begrudge anyone a preference for M/M romance. I do begrudge people claiming that they support the LGBTQ community, but who then follow that up by doing nothing for the L, B, T, or Q (or I, or A).

I'm not the best writer when it comes to diversity in my fiction. The majority of my books feature bisexual romance (*). It's a problem I'm actively working on. I want to write more lesbian romance. I want to write asexual romance. I want to write more trans romance. I will write these books, because it's important, because supporting the entire community is important.

(*Most of these books pass as gay romance since two cisgender men end up together at the end, but I pretty much always write my characters as bisexual. It only occurred to me recently that people would read that wrong, so I'm getting better at explicitly saying so in-book.)

The point of this post? To issue a challenge to you. Step up. Give something other than an M/M romance a chance. At some point you gave an M/M book a shot and fell in love with that genre. What's stopping you from giving that same chance to a lesbian or trans or other queer book?

Looking Ahead to 2015

I'm sure ya'll have seen about a million of "what's coming in 2015" posts, but here's another from me. ^^ Sorry?

The biggest change in 2015 is that I will no longer be writing for LT3's serials. That line is closing down (if you missed the post last week, you can read about it at LT3's blog), which is going to free me up to work on other projects. The good thing about serials is that it forced me to write and write regularly. One huge drawback about them was that it was nigh impossible to write follow up stories. Serials should be accessible to new and existing subscribers, and writing, say, the sequel to Stolen Hearts for a serial wouldn't work for that (and other reasons).

My aim for 2015 is for it to be the Year of the Sequel. :3 Which, hopefully means that yes, I will finally get that sequel to Stolen Hearts written. My immediate goals for 2015 are:

Write Book 2 of the Stolen Hearts series (tentatively titled Captive Hearts)
Finish/edit Book 2 of the Kingdom Curses series (The Northern Wall)
Write a short story for the Silver & Gold anthology (*)

(*) Mayyybe. This one is starting to morph into something longer. >_> Because short stories are nigh on impossible.

Tentative goals for later in 2015 are books 3 and 4 (and uh, possibly 5?) of the Kingdom Curses series. I'm trying not to plan myself into a corner, as I am all too aware of how easy it is to be distracted.

2015 will already see two novellas and one anthology release for me. ^^ Ya'll have heard me talk about The Errant Prince already. The other novella is Losing Ground, which is an earth elemental magics story that's my final stand-alone serial. It wraps and releases as ebook in March, and was just listed on LT3 (so you can preorder, if you're inclined!) It's urban fantasy, which is probably the closest I've gotten to contemporary in forever. ^^

The anthology stories are the two fairy tales I wrote for LT3's Fairy Tale serial. The Dragon of Bellerose Island and The Cursebreaker are their titles, and they'll be released in Fairytales Slashed: Volume Six in May when LT3's serials wrap. (They're both cute. Super super cute, I can't even.)

I'll try to update throughout the year with my progress on various things, and if there's ever anything you want to see or are curious about the status of (or if I plan to write at all), let me know? ^^