Category: Contemporary fiction

Author B.A. Tortuga Needs Our Help!

 

B.A. Tortuga Needs Our Help!

As any reader knows B.A Tortuga is a favorite author of mine here at Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words.  I’ve loved her stories for years.  Her ear for local colloqualisms and ‘the vernacular’ is unparalleled. And her love for Texas, cowboys and the rodeo has shown through her characters so vividly, making them come across as authentic, especially larger than life and multidimensional.  They have lived in my heart and memory for years as I suspect they have in yours.

Asked to name a particular favorite story? Almost impossible…there are far too many!  New and old…cowboys and shifters…it doesn’t matter.  The words and stories of B.A. Tortuga enrich our lives.  And now she needs our help and support.  Listen to  Kiernan Kelly below.

From Kiernan Kelly:

BA Tortuga has been a vital part of the m/m writing and publishing community for well over a decade. Together with her wife, Julia Talbot, she created Torquere Press in 2003, the first e-publisher for GLBT romance, giving hundreds of writers a venue to publish their work, and readers a place to find their next great read.  For years, she’s entertained us with her books, her personality, her smile, and her warmth.

Now BA needs our help. She suffers from Takayasu’s disease, an extremely rare and serious arterial illness that has caused her incredible medical issues. The disease is so rare, she’s one of only a handful of people in the United States with it, and doctors are having a difficult time treating her. She’s currently in the hospital as doctors struggle to find a way to help her.

Her medical bills are already enormous.  Now she’s facing a transfer to a Mayo Clinic in another state, where hopefully, doctors will be able to treat her. The financial burden is staggering. She and her wife, Julia, need our help, and the sooner the better.

The funds collected here will be given directly to BA to help offset the cost of relocating, paying her bills and mortgage while she struggles to get treatment.

BA’s situation is dire, folks. She’s given so much to our community, it’s time to give a little back. If you can help, please, please do so. Send her love, send her prayers, and if you can, send a little payback for everything she’s done for us.  She needs us.

📖

 

Here is the link to the Go Fund Me Page for B.A. Tortuga.   It’s going on Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Word’s sidebar and menu as well.

 

https://www.gofundme.com/help-ba-tortuga-get-well

 

Review Tour – Clare London’s Between A Rock and A Hard Place (A London Lads Story)

 

Buy Links: Dreamspinner | Amazon US | Amazon UK
 
Length: 19,598 words
 
Cover Design: Tibbs Design
 
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
 
London Lads Series
 
Chase The Ace (Book #1) Amazon US | Amazon UK | Dreamspinner
How The Other Half Lives (Book #2) Amazon US | Amazon UK | Dreamspinner
A Good Neighbour (Book #3)  Amazon US | Amazon UK  Dreamspinner 
Peepshow (Book #4)  Amazon US | Amazon UK | Dreamspinner
 
Blurb
 

Garry’s at the end of his tether. He’s waiting at Glasgow Airport to meet his friend Will, on their way to a holiday in a Scottish Highlands hotel. Now there’s a ten-hour delay to incoming flights, the seat in the lounge is more like an instrument of torture, and he’s beyond tired of airport food.


He’s also dreading having to apologise for the pass he recently made at Will, his colleague at a London bank, under the influence of too many beers and a long-held crush. Now Will’s been offered a new job offer on a continent thousands of miles away, Garry realises it may be the end of their close friendship—let alone anything more.


To add to Garry’s stress, he’s treated to the company of Emily and Max, two young people who think he needs educating in the ways of the world. Struggling with their well-meaning help and the startling mess from spilled ketchup and noxious-smelling sweets, he’s encouraged to re-examine how he feels about Will and to decide what kind of journey he’d really like them to take together.

Author Bio

Clare took the pen name London from the city where she lives, loves, and writes. A lone, brave female in a frenetic, testosterone-fuelled family home, she juggles her writing with the weekly wash, waiting for the far distant day when she can afford to give up her day job as an accountant. Sheís written in many genres and across many settings, with novels and short stories published both online and in print. She says she likes variety in her writing while friends say sheís just fickle, but as long as both theories spawn good fiction, sheís happy. Most of her work features male/male romance and drama with a healthy serving of physical passion, as she enjoys both reading and writing about strong, sympathetic and sexy characters.


Clare currently has several novels sulking at that tricky chapter 3 stage and plenty of other projects in mind . . . she just has to find out where she left them in that frenetic, testosterone-fuelled family home.


All the details and free fiction are available at her website. Visit her today and say hello!



Website: http://www.clarelondon.com
Blog: http://clarelondon.livejournal.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/clarelondon
Facebook chat: https://www.facebook.com/groups/clarelondoncalling/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/clare_london
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/clarelondon
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/clarelondon

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A Julia Review: Heat Wave (A Seasons of Love story #3) by Elyse Springer

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Sara Walker’s life is going nowhere fast: she has a job she enjoys but doesn’t love, friends who are too busy to hang out with her, and no boyfriend in sight. Then a phone call on a lonely Friday night changes everything, and suddenly she’s spending her weekends with Laura. Newly single and openly bisexual, Laura makes Sara think decidedly not-straight thoughts.

Laura Murphy, with her red hair, freckles, and killer curves, is any guy’s wet dream. But Laura’s done with guys for now, and it’s Sara who can’t stop dreaming about her. When Sara finally gives in to the curiosity, Laura blows her mind and pushes her further than she’s ever gone before.

But Laura makes it very clear that this is only a rebound fling, and she’s still planning to move to California. She’s more than happy to tie Sara up, but she’s not ready to be tied down. If Sara wants to keep her, she’s going to have to work hard to convince Laura that New York is worth staying for . . . and so is she.

Heat Wave by Elyse Springer is the third volume in the “Seasons of Love” series which I got hooked on after reviewing the second entry “Thaw”. Though having read the previous books will certainly enrich your experience due to the reappearance of several characters, it is not necessary to get into the individual volumes. I’d still recommend checking out all of them as it is well worth it.

What I find particularly appealing about this series is that it features characters from a range of different sexual orientations and addresses this fact in a natural and genuine way. This time the story is told from the point of view of Sara, who is now faced with being sexually and romantically attracted to another woman after she has thought of herself as being exclusively heterosexual her entire life. Sara is a character many can sympathize with, in my opinion. She is relatively content with her current living situation but is also in need of new and more profound experiences both in her work and love life – even if she does not quite realize it or can openly admit it to herself at first. She is a strong person who enjoys organisation and efficiency as well as testing her own limits (though she is still hesitant to give it a try in certain areas).

Sara is made aware of her own ambitions and hesitations when she gets closer to Laura who is by now the ex-girlfriend of Sara’s ex-boyfriend. Laura, who identifies as bisexual, is a very open and direct person who makes no secret out of her physical attraction towards Sara and the fact that she is only looking for a friendship with sex and nothing more (at least at first). Her directness challenges Sara to re-examine aspects of her life and herself that she had previously thought to be set in stone. And it was just the thing that Sara needed in her current situation. It is inspiring and quite admirable to witness how Sara finds at last the motivation to give it her all and take her life into a new direction she had not anticipated up to this point – especially her fight to keep Laura in it.

As I mentioned, we also encounter other characters from throughout the series – most notably Nathan, the protagonist of the first book and Sara’s best friend, who acts as a source of encouragement and support. I found it quite endearing to meet familiar faces again and learn a bit about how they have been getting on with their lives.

The sex scenes here are much more numerous and explicit than in the previous book (which is only appropriate considering the characters involved). We are treated to some steamy lady on lady action with light elements of sexual submission and domination as well as a cheeky scene of public sex in a dance club.

While I greatly enjoyed the previous entry to this series, I enjoyed this one even more. The author has a clear, expressive style of writing that gives the characters very distinct voices. They are depicted as realistic and relatable with their own individual sets of strengths and challenges. The frequent reappearance of characters – one time as a protagonist facing the ups and downs of their own relationship troubles and another as a supporting friend – makes you invested in them more and more. I can honestly recommend this series to anyone who enjoys a heartfelt and motivational love story.

The cover design by Natasha Snow is quite pretty and fits in well with the rest of the series.

Sales Links:  Riptide Publishing | Amazon

Book Details:

ebook, 262 pages

Published July 31, 2017

by Riptide Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-62649-515-9

Edition Language: English

A MelanieM Audiobook Review: Drama Cruise (A Nicky & Noah Mystery #3) by Joe Cosentino and Brad Enright (Narrator)

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Theater professors and couple, Nicky Abbondanza and Noah Oliver, are going overboard as usual, but this time on an Alaskan cruise, where dead college theater professors are popping up everywhere from the swimming pool to the captain’s table. Further complicating matters are Nicky’s and Noah’s parents as surprise cruise passengers, and Nicky’s assignment to direct a murder mystery dinner theater show onboard ship. Nicky and Noah will need to use their drama skills to figure out who is bringing the curtain down on vacationers before it is lights out for the handsome couple. You will be applauding and shouting Bravo for Joe Cosentino’s fast-paced, ribald, edge-of-your-seat entertaining third novel in this delightful series. Curtain up and ship ahoy!

I’m a real fan of Joe Cosentino’s over the top murder mystery drama series, The Nicky & Noah Mysteries.  Campy with a heart is one way I love to describe them, so I had already read Drama Cruise and was looking forward to the audio version.

Drama Cruise is one hilarious story about a cruise full of professors, Nicky, Noah, their parents, and a killer out to kill of the professors one by one.  I laughed my way through the book, puzzling over the mystery, loving the interaction between men, their parents, and all the crazy wedding plans.  Really, the book is terrific.  So how did the audiobook version measure up?

Great story is still there, so is the mystery.  But somehow the narration of Brad Enright just didn’t do it for me.  His voices seemed to slide between either way too bland.  I had a hard time telling the difference between some characters unless the author told me there was a change to the hugely campy tones (think 50’s television Italian roles in comedies) used for Nicky’s parents.  I just felt that the narration swung from campy to realistic to bland which threw me off.  I felt the narrator should have chosen one tone and then just  gone for it.

Love the Nicky and Noah mysteries?  You’ll love this one but I think I would go ahead and read the ebook or paperback version.  That’s the story I highly recommend.

Cover art is the wonderful movie poster/high camp version I so love and come to expect.

Sales Links:      Amazon | Audible

Audiobook Details:

Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 5 hours and 56 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Joe Cosentino
Audible.com Release Date: August 10, 2017
Whispersync for Voice: Ready
Language: English
ASIN: B074N6Q1SB

A MelanieM Review: Burning Tracks (Spotlight #2) by Lilah Suzanne

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Gwen Pasternak’s got it all. Or so it seems…

In the sequel to RT Book Reviews’ Top Pick Broken Records, Gwen’s life looks perfect: She has a job she loves as stylist to the stars, a beautiful wife, Flora, and a house in the heart of Nashville. But the more she works alongside country music’s dynamic princess Clementine Campbell, the less Gwen is certain of her commitment to a life of domestic bliss.

Meanwhile, her business partner Nico Takahashi is happily settled down with reformed bad-boy musician Grady Dawson. But when Nico questions the permanence of their relationship, Grady retreats into some dangerous old habits. Will Gwen ruin the life she’s built with Flora for something new and exhilarating? Can Grady be convinced of Nico’s devotion before it’s too late? Burning Tracks is a story of tough choices, taking risks, and the pressures of living life in the spotlight.

Burning Tracks, the second installment in the Spotlight Trilogy, sees Gwen Pasternak take center stage in this saga of intertwined relationships.   Gwen and her wife Flora have always been an integral part of Nico Takahashi’s life.  She’s his partner, sometime life support, best friend and even foundation when things have gone wrong.  And Nico has been hers, even if that put Flora on the outside.  So bringing Gwen out here and letting us see more of her life makes total sense.  She and Nico switch places for a book, with Nico and Grady switching places, their relationship drama swirling as a secondary although still greatly important element here in Burning Tracks.  Neither Gwen or Nico can be separated from each other.

We have been leading up to crisis in relationships, small, large and everything in between and the cause of them.  Here the push has been for a child from Flora, something that Gwen doesn’t really think she wants or is capable of being a good parent to.  Adding to that pressure is a new client, Clementine Campbell, who  wants all of Gwen all of the time.

Lilah Suzanne expertly threads us through the confusion that Gwen feels about all the complications in her life, the pressure she feels, the knowledge that she’s on the precipice of her relationship with her wife who she loves….we feel it all and love Gwen all the more.  She’s so human and vulnerable yet trying to do her best.

Clementine Campbell, the powerful charismatic country star on the rise is just as amazing.  She’s so brilliant a character, she shines off the page, even at her most irritating.  Only Flora comes off as a grey figure here in comparison which is a shame.

Nico and Grady, and the others are all here too, fighting for their relationship, making mistakes still due primarily to communication, something that seems to plague them all.

I love the aspect of the country music business and style here.  That never fails to entertain and inform.

Now to the sex.  Yes, there’s a lot of F/F sex here.  If you don’t care for that, then you can fly over it and still stay at the heart of this story, the relationship dynamics, the mistakes people make, and the paths back to the people who are really their HEA.  I really enjoyed this story, loved it place in the trilogy and highly recommend it.

Cover art again is perfect.

Sales Links:  Interlude Press | Amazon

Book Details:

Kindle Edition, 224 pages
Published August 11th 2016 by Interlude Press
ASINB01FSLEMXQ
Edition LanguageEnglish
Series Spotlight Trilogy: