Tag: first in a series

Love Gets A Homerun with Wild Pitch by Sloan Johnson (tour, excerpt and giveaway)

WildPitch

Title: Wild Pitch (Homeruns #1)
Author: Sloan Johnson
Release Date: June 18, 2015
Goodreads

STRW Author BookSynopsis

There’s never been any question in Sean Tucker’s mind that he’d do whatever it took to make it to the major leagues and be one of the best pitchers of his time. The day he acknowledged to himself that he was gay was also the day he vowed to stay in the closet in order to chase his dreams. The problem is, he never counted on Mason Atley.

Sean showed rookie short stop Mason Atley the ropes, both on the field and off. The two forged a friendship which continued as both of them moved through the ranks of the farm system and into the majors. Unfortunately, there’s always been one secret Mason never felt he could share with Sean. Until now.

For seven years, Sean lived with the fact that he loved a man who would never reciprocate. When Mason admits that he’s always known he’s bisexual but has never allowed himself to pursue a relationship with a man, will Sean be able to put aside his reservations about starting a relationship with the friend he’d always assumed was straight? And more importantly, will they be able to find a way to stay together when their careers keep them apart more than they can be together?

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STRW Spotlight Book Excerpt

“Are you saying what I think you are?” I asked, my mind still holding me back from pushing him back on the couch to give him what he seemed to be begging for. My fingers tangled through his hair, holding him so his face was barely an inch away from mine. I feared that, if I let go, the trance would be broken and I’d never know what it felt to press my body against his.

“Yeah, I think I am.” Throwing caution to the wind, I placed my hands on his shoulders and shoved him back. His wavy hair felt like silk under my fingers as I plundered his mouth with a crushing kiss. He moaned as his hips bucked against mine, just as desperate for release as I felt. A surge of connection jolted through my body, from my mouth all the way down to my cock, urging me to claim him. There’d be time for regrets later, but if this was what Mason wanted, I would be the one to give it to him.
My cock begged to be freed from the confines of my jeans, pleaded with my hands to reach between our bodies and pull his sweats over his hips, but I couldn’t. Just like my performance earlier in the day, I allowed someone else to weasel his way into my mind and I choked.

“Mace, we can’t do this,” I said with more than a trace of resignation behind the words. “I don’t want you doing something with me because you think it’ll take my mind off what happened earlier. You deserve better than that. If you’re really interested in guys, that’s awesome, but I can’t be your guinea pig. You mean too much to me for me to lose you when you decide you want to go back to women. I wouldn’t be able to stand being pushed aside because your tastes change.”
Mason’s face contorted as if he’d eaten something sour. “Dude, you make it sound like it’s a banquet dinner and I’m going to decide I picked the wrong entrée! Why can’t life be a buffet? If I’m in the mood for a steak, I’ll have the steak. If I want the salmon, I’ll grab a piece of that. Life’s short, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to get to St. Peter and regret never trying steak. Unfortunately for me, the only cut I’m interested in is you.”

“See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about,” I countered. “Let’s keep going with your ridiculous analogy, because you seem to focus better when we’re talking about food… what happens when you try the steak, only to decide that you can’t stand it? What if you realize that what you thought was steak was closer to a nasty fast-food burger? I don’t want to take that chance.”

Playlist for Wild Pitch can be found here!

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Enter to win a eBook of Wild Pitch. Must be 18 years of age or older to enter. Link and prizes provided by the author.

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STRW Author Bio and Contacts

Sloan Johnson is a big city girl trapped in a country girl’s life. While she longs for the hustle and bustle of New York City or Las Vegas, she hasn’t yet figured out how to sit on the deck with her morning coffee, watching the deer and wild turkeys in the fields while surrounded by concrete and glass.

When she was three, her parents received their first call from the principal asking them to pick her up from school. Apparently, if you aren’t enrolled, you can’t attend classes, even in Kindergarten. The next week, she was in preschool and started plotting her first story soon after.

Later in life, her parents needed to do something to help their socially awkward, uncoordinated child come out of her shell and figured there was no better place than a bar on Wednesday nights. It’s a good thing they did because this is where she found her love of reading and writing. Who needs socialization when you can sit alone in your bedroom with a good book?

Now, Sloan is a tattooed mom with a mohawk and two kids. She’s been kicked out of the PTA in two school districts and is no longer asked to help with fundraisers because she’s been known to lose herself with a good book and forget she has somewhere to be.

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mason card

A Stella Review: The Dom Around The Corner (Escape #1) by Christine d’Abo

Rating:  3.75 stars out of 5

The Dom Around the Corner coverSimon is jaded. His bookstore is failing, his personal life is nonexistent, and he’s tired of the local scene. He’s desperate for a change, and hopes to find it at Escape, the hot new BDSM club in town.

What he finds there is Gavin. One look at the sexy submissive is all he needs to know that his trip to Escape was the right decision. And their night of no-holds-barred kinky sex feels like only the beginning . . . until his promising new sub vanishes with the dawn.

Then Gavin walks through the door of Simon’s bookstore—for business, not pleasure. To both of their surprise, he’s the consultant Simon hired to help save the store. As they work together, Simon realizes that he might have another shot at happiness, if only he can convince Gavin that he’s worth sticking around for.

The Dom Around The Corner is the first book in a new series by Christine d’Abo and the first I read by this author. I’m always curious about “new to me” writers and this one surprised me positively. I’m glad I picked this book to review. It was a winner to me for different reasons, apart from the BDSM theme which I enjoy a lot.

I’m a sucker for characters with baggage and bad luck in life, it makes them more real, just like me. In this book we meet Simon, a respected Dom, that is going through some hard times. His bookstore is having some trouble and he can’t come out of it.  He is still looking for a sub, the perfect one, the one Simon is searching for since forever, someone who fit in his life as a sub and as a life partner too. He is tired of the BDSM world around him, it is not what he wants anymore, to play for just a couple of hours. He makes a last attempt going to a new club and finally he finds Gavin.

Gavin has been without a Dom for three years. He’s still not ready to move on but he’s tired of being on pause with his life. He just needs someone who helps him relax and shut down his mind. He is soon attracted to the beautiful and powerful Dom but at the end of their first scenes together, scared of the possibility of something more, Gavin leaves Simon in a hurry. Destiny seems to put them on the same road again but can both of them put down their barriers and give their lives a second chance?

I loved Simon and Gavin, I found them so real in their worries and relationships. The book is also enriched by some second characters, as in Jocelyn, Simon’s cousin, a strong, helpful, stubborn young woman, the one to cheer Simon up; or Jared, the bartender matchmaker.

I liked the writing, the double POV helped me a lot at understanding both MCs and the dialogues were engaging. I think the author was really good at making me love Simon and Gavin (especially the young sub) choosing to focus the story in their present and not in Gavin’s hurtful past, which would have made the book definitely heavier.

The Dom Around The Corner has the right amount of everything I like to read about and I’d like to recommend it. I hope to see more of this new couple soon in the next book.

Cover art by L.C. Chase. Well done, the arrow recalls the story but it wasn’t eye catching to me cause I simply prefer another style.

Sales Links:   Riptide Publishing  –  – Amazon  Buy It Here on June 15th

Book Details:

ebook, Second Edition, 104 pages
Expected publication: June 15th 2015 by Riptide Publishing
original title Commanding Acquisitions (1-800-DOM-HELP, #2 )
ISBN 9781626493
Edition Language English
Escape series #1

Publisher’s note: This title is a heavily revised re-issue of a prior story, Commanding Acquisitions, originally released in 2010.

SALE LINKS

RIPTIDE PUBLISHING

In Our Book Spotlight: Drama Queen ( A Nicky and Noah Mystery) by Joe Cosentino (author interview and giveaway)

Drama Queen Cover

Drama Queen: A Nicky and Noah Mystery by Joe Cosentino
Publisher:  Lethe Press Books
Cover Art: Ben Baldwin

Release Date: June 6, 2015

STRW In The Spotlight Header

Sales Link: Lethe Press Books  – Amazon

Love a mystery?  Need a new m/m romance novel to read?  Why not combine them both with Joe Cosentino’s latest novel, Drama Queen (A Nicky and Noah Mystery) out June 6th?  We have all the information for you below.  Check it out!  Happy Reading.

And now onto my interview with Joe Cosentino!

 

Hello, Joe. Thank you for stopping by to chat with us today.

My pleasure. I love answering your questions!

Great. Here’s the first. When did you start writing?

As a kid I was the star of the plays in my friend’s garage. We forced our poor, unsuspecting parents to watch every one—including the lavish musicals! After college I became a professional actor, working in film, television, and theatre opposite stars like Rosie O’Donnell, Nathan Lane, Bruce Willis, Charles Keating, Jason Robards, and Holland Taylor. Moving on to playwriting and ultimately writing novels seemed like an obvious next step.

Is Drama Queen your first novel?

I wrote a straight (with gay supporting characters) mystery/romance series about an ex-child star, the Jana Lane mysteries. Paper Doll is out now. Porcelain Doll and Satin Doll should follow soon. I also wrote the well-received An Infatuation, an MM romance novella published by Dreamspinner Press.

How did Lethe Press come to publish Drama Queen?

I noticed Lethe Press publishes many humorous, theatrically-styled gay books, and the company has been successful for fourteen years. After I submitted the manuscript, Steve Berman offered to publish it, saying he had great fun reading it.

Why did you write a gay mystery/comedy/romance series?

Can’t we all use a good laugh, a challenging brain twister, and a bit of romance? Drama Queen is the kind of book I like reading. It is funny, theatrical, sexy, wild, and wacky with a solid mystery full of plot twists and turns at its center.

How do you think up all the clues, red herrings, and surprises in the novel?

I’ve read every Agatha Christie novel and play many times. She is a genius at outlining when and where to give the reader what information. I love the inversion in her books, where she uses sleight of hand to lay out all the information, but not in a straight forward manner. The reader becomes the sleuth to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. I tried to do the same in this series.

Since you are a college theatre professor, is the series based on you, your colleagues, and students?

Do you mean if anybody at my college ticks me off, I kill him/her in the series? Hah. To be honest, I like my colleagues and students too much to murder them in my books. Martin Anderson, Nicky and Noah’s department head, is based on me. He’s a loyal, hardworking department head and professor who fully supports his faculty colleagues, office assistant, and the students in his department. Like me, he is also a little bit, well quite a bit, of a gossip. My knowledge of theatre is also very evident in the series. The other characters and the location came from my head. As my mother says, “How do you think up all these crazy things? Well, you always were a bit crazy as a kid.”

Nicky is described as being well endowed. Does that help him solve the murders?

It doesn’t hurt. Hah. Nicky has to flirt his way into some places to get certain information, so his handsome face, muscular body, and huge penis are definitely assets. Even more, however, Nicky and Noah use their theatre skills, including playing other people, to get clues. Most of all, Nicky uses his smarts, always a fine asset in an amateur detective.

Nicky is of Italian-American decent, like you. Is that a coincidence?

Not at all. I come from a very funny Italian family. I use that in a great deal of my writing. In later books, we get to meet Nicky and Noah’s parents, and they are a riot!

How many books have your written so far in this series?

Three: Drama Queen, Drama Muscle, and Drama Cruise. In Drama Queen, Nicky and Noah have to uncover why college theatre professors are dropping like stage curtains. In Drama Muscle, Nicky and Noah have to find out why musclemen are dropping like weights in the Physical Education department while Nicky directs the Student Bodybuilding Competition. In Drama Cruise, Nicky and Noah go on a cruise to Alaska, and discover why college theatre professors are going overboard like lifeboats while Nicky directs a murder mystery dinner theatre show onboard ship.

Is Drama Queen available as an ebook and paperbook?

Yes! I am thrilled about that. This gives the reader an option to read it on a Kindle, Nook, computer, or with book in hand on the beach or in bed.

Will there be an audiobook coming down the line?

I sure hope so. It’s all up to God—and to Steve Berman!

STRW Author BookSynopsis

It could be curtains for college theatre professor Nicky Abbondanza. With dead bodies popping up all over campus, Nicky must use his drama skills to figure out who is playing the role of murderer before it is lights out for Nicky and his colleagues. Complicating matters is Nicky’s huge crush on Noah Oliver, a gorgeous assistant professor in his department, who may or may not be involved with a cocky graduate assistant…and is also the top suspect for the murders! You will be applauding and shouting Bravo for Joe Cosentino’s fast-paced, side-splittingly funny, edge-of-your-seat, delightfully entertaining novel. Curtain up!

STRW Spotlight Book Excerpt

An Excerpt from Drama Queen:

“Thirty-five! Professor, you are well preserved for someone so old.”
“I hope I’m still working at thirty-five.”
To Paul and Ricky, and to all of my students, thirty-five is older than Methuselah.
“The first one back with a piece can feed me,” said Paul with a bad boy grin.
“No food in the theatre.” After laying down the law, SuCho yanked open the theatre doors and the students filed out into the lobby.
Ariella, our Professor of Costuming and the costume designer for the play (with costumes hanging over both arms) carefully made her way off the stage and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
“Happy birthday, Nicky.”
“So you’ve heard I’m ancient…and incompetent.”
Flicking back her long, black hair, Ariella said in her usual monotone, “Don’t let the kids get to you, Nicky. And don’t let David get to you either. The show is terrific.”
I unleashed a half smile. “Tell David that.”
“I already did. Right after his tirade about the ‘pedestrian and mundane’ costumes. Nicky, David doesn’t like anything, except David.” Are there tears brimming in her dark eyes? “Nobody knows that better than me.”
“Ariella, I hope this isn’t too personal, but with all of your complaints about David, why do you stay married to him?”
She offered a bitter smile. “That my friend is a very good question.”
Ariella went to the Costume Shop adjacent to the stage. I joined the students who were scattered throughout the theatre lobby licking their plastic forks clean of cheesecake while texting each other in dismay over the rising tuition at the college.
Paul, Ricky, Kayla, and Jan sat on the flared stairway leading to the balcony. Kayla, a beautiful dark-skinned African American, and Jan, a gorgeous pale-skinned Albino, were on either side of olive-skinned Ricky as if forming a three-layer cake. Paul faced them and appeared to be presenting some type of proposal. Since they are the officers of the Theatre Club on campus, I assumed they were discussing club business. As I am the club’s faculty advisor I walked over, leaned on a gold marble column, and overheard their conversation.
Jan whispered, “I don’t know if I can um go through with this, guys.”
Paul arched his massive back and slipped his muscular arm around her quivering shoulder, “Sure you can, Jan. Trust me. I’ll take care of everything.”
As Jan melted, Kayla combed her hair and giggled. “It could be like fun.”
With eyes only for Paul, Ricky said, “If you um want me to do it, Paul, I’m in.”
I made my way to the gold staircase railing, and asked if they needed my help.
“No thanks, professor, we’re cool,” said Paul with a contraction and release of his pectoral muscles to the delight of his cohorts.
“Cool cake, professor.” Kayla and Jan giggled as they each fed a piece to Paul.
Ricky added with a smirk, “Paul and I can like drive you home if you are too old to drive, professor.”
I grimaced. “Very funny.”

STRW Author Bio and Contacts

Joe Cosentino is the author of An Infatuation (Dreamspinner Press), Paper Doll the first Jana Lane mystery (Whiskey Creek Press), and The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (Eldridge Plays and Musicals). He has appeared in principal acting roles in film, television, and theatre, opposite stars such as Bruce Willis, Rosie O’Donnell, Nathan Lane, Holland Taylor, and Jason Robards. His one-act plays, Infatuation and Neighbor, were performed in New York City. He wrote The Perils of Pauline educational film (Prentice Hall Publishers). Joe is currently Head of the Department/Professor at a college in upstate New York, and is happily married. His upcoming novels are Drama Muscle the second Nicky and Noah mystery (Lethe Press), A Shooting Star (Dreamspinner Press novella), A Home for the Holidays (Dreamspinner Press holiday novella), and Porcelain Doll the second Jana Lane mystery.

Contact/follow Joe Cosentino at the following sites:

Web site: http://www.JoeCosentino.weebly.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JoeCosentinoauthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JoeCosen
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4071647.Joe_Cosentino
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00KRPXJP6

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Giveaway:  Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.   Prizes provided by the author.  Enter to win an ebook (any format) of Joe Cosentino’s previous release AN INFATUATION (a Bittersweet Dreams novella published by Dreamspinner Press in February) to whomever you deem posts the best comment about their thoughts on the blurb of DRAMA QUEEN (my current release).

Drama Queen CoverBook Details:

Paperback: 194 pages
Publisher: Lethe Press (June 6, 2015)
Language: English
Cover Design: Ben Baldwin
ISBN-10: 1590214676
ISBN-13: 978-1590214671
Release date: June 6, 2015