Tag: gay fiction

A Stella Review: Strong Medicine by JK Hogan

RATING  4 out of 5 stars

Strong MedicineTwo men who meet in a psychiatric institution couldn’t possibly find happiness together—could they?

The world seemed to be telling disgraced former child star and singer Cameron Fox that he would never be happy again. A drunken car accident gets him sentenced to a work release program at Riverbend Behavioral Health Facility.

Reclusive, traumatized writer Jonah Radley has an entire graveyard of skeletons in his closet. Jonah regularly hospitalizes himself for psychotic episodes caused by a horrific childhood trauma, his biggest secret—one he refuses to speak about in therapy.

Jonah and Cameron form a bond inside the hospital, forged in mutual pain and hope for a better life. Once they leave the hospital, they must decide if they are brave enough to explore the intricacies of living with mental illness—and find a new normal together.

Strong Medicine was my first book by JK Hogan and it really surprised me. Reading  the blurb I have to admit I was a little scared at the start, afraid it was going to be hard to take. It was exactly what I was expecting, I hurt  so much through all the story. Still it was so worthed.

Cameron and Jonah are completely different: the first is a former child prodige, just being excluded by his whole big family from their band and sent by a judge to a behavioral health facility, where he will work for a year and learn to never drive after having drinking. Here Cameron is soon attracted to Jonah, the young man who will later steal his heart (and mine). Jonah is a survivor, each time he needs to committee himself, afraid to hurt not only himself, he comes back to life, sure he is more shattered than ever but he is working on his illness.  And hoping for a better life.

I think what I loved more were the characters, they were real and flawed just like us. And this is something I really need in books like Strong Medicine, true and painfully beautiful stories. Yes it scared me and brought tears to my eyes more than one, following Jonah in his psychic breaks wasn’t easy, seeing through his eyes what he was seeing. But I have to say everything, every single detail, was IMO well delivered, I enjoyed a lot.

This book is not for everyone, if you like sweet and romantic stories, it is really none of that. It’s  almost unbearable in some parts but the changes in Cameron and Jonah’s lives were emotional and believable. I feel to recommend Strong Medicine to everyone but please keep in mind my previous words.

I like the cover art by Wilde City Press, the style and colors are different from the usual covers and so it’s a winner to me.

Sales Links:  Wilde City Press | ARe | Amazon

BOOK DETAILS

Kindle Edition, 289 pages

Published May 18th 2016 by Wilde City Press (first published May 11th 2016)

ASIN B01FEH1GL0

Edition Language English

In the Spotlight: Into the Blue by Pene Hanson (excerpt and giveaway)

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Into the Blue by Pene Henson
 Release Date: July 7, 2016

Goodreads Link
Publisher: Interlude Press
Cover Artist: Colleen M. Good

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Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words is happy to be interviewing Pene Henson author of Into the Blue today. Hi Pene, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Tell us a little about yourself, your background, and your current book.

  • What’s the easiest thing about writing?

The easiest part for me is knowing these characters’ hearts and thinking through how they would respond to the world and the things that happen around them. But generally there’s no bad side. 

I love the act of writing enough that my extremely early mornings don’t feel difficult. Not that the work of writing is always easy, but it’s always a joy.

  • Name one author (living or dead) you’d like to write with?

My friend Jo and I wrote a large number of stories together and I’d love to see what we will do if we commit to a novel. She’s a powerful and heart-breaking writer who knows all the odd little quirks of humanity, all the ways people fail others and come good anyway, and I suspect our joint novel will be more complicated than anything I could write alone. 

But she has no idea about tenses and point of view. So I’d be in charge of that.

  • Tell us about your cover and how it came about.

I could talk about this cover forever. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. When our art director, CB Messer, met with me about the cover she had read the book. She’s lived in Hawaii and so connected with the imagery and the subject matter. We instantly agreed on the visuals of that early morning light, the pale golds and shifting blues of surf at dawn. CB suggested we could focus the front cover on the power of the surf and the surfing competition or on the relationship between the characters and the sea. Honestly, either would have been gorgeous but I felt relationships are critical to the book. It’s a gentle book despite their sporting prowess. 

When she sent this drawing through, I loved it even more than I anticipated. I love the light in the sky and reflecting from the water. And the boys, waiting for the next wave, Ollie’s profile and Tai’s strong back visible and recognizably them. It’s the moment before a wave comes in, that waiting time before everything changes.

And then the back. With the warm sunlit deck of the Blue House and the five boards leaning together, one for each of the people living there.

CB is an exceptional artist and really captured the book.

  • Is this book part of a series? Do you have ideas that could make it into a series? If it is a series, tell us a little about it.

No, no it’s not and it was never intended to be. However (is there always a forever) I do have a story to tell about Hannah, who lives with Tai and Ollie. She’s a joy to me. Broad-shouldered and laid back. She’s in love with her best friend but I don’t know that’s going anywhere. I think she could have a whirlwind of a girlfriend who knocks her off her steady perch. And then Tai and Ollie and Sunny would be in the background.

  • Word association. Tell us the first thing that comes to mind when you read these words.

Ketchup – We still call it tomato sauce.

Flakes – Goldfish food

Elastic – Heart ❤

Timer – How to get kids to do anything faster ☺

Google – where all my documents live

Now more about

Into the Blue by Pene Henson

Blurb

Tai Talagi and Ollie Birkstrom have been inseparable since they met as kids surfing the North Shore. Now they live with their best friends in a pulled-together family, sharing life and the saltwater in their veins. Tai’s spent years setting aside his feelings for Ollie, but when Ollie’s pro surfing aspirations come to fruition, their steady world shifts. Is the relationship worth risking everything for a chance at something terrifying and beautiful and altogether new?

 

Pages or Words: 236 pages, 72,600 words
 Categories: Contemporary, Gay Fiction, M/M Romance, New Adult, Romance

Excerpt

Across from them, one of the Brazilians plays guitar. Ollie doesn’t recognize the song even when a couple of others sing along. The beach is wider and the sand finer than on the North Shore, but every beach is a little like home. Ollie misses the Blue House; he misses the surf and the palms and the shoreline he knows so well. He misses Jaime and Sunny and Hannah. Still, though he’s as far from home as he’s ever been, Ollie’s comfortable. These are his people, too. He leans back on his arms and looks up into the dark.

He’s watched the night sky since he was a little kid, but down here in the Southern Hemisphere he doesn’t recognize the hundreds upon hundreds of stars. The Southern Cross is up there. Ollie tries to orient himself.

Tai shifts toward him, then looks up and follows Ollie’s gaze. The warmth of Tai’s body settles into Ollie’s heart, grounds him. Ollie leans into him a little, and their arms brush to the elbow. The contact simmers in the air between them.

Unexpectedly, Ollie knows what he wants. “Come back to the hotel,” he says quietly to Tai. He pitches his voice low. It hums across the tiny space between them. No one else can hear him over the pounding surf and the sound of the music. It’s easy to be bold in the dark of a beach where Ollie’s never been before. He’s shocked by that same boldness.

Buy the book

 

 

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Meet the Author

Pene Henson has gone from British boarding schools to New York City law firms. She now lives in Sydney, Australia, where she is an intellectual property lawyer and published poet who is deeply immersed in the city’s LGBTQIA community. She spends her spare time enjoying the outdoors and gazing at the ocean with her gorgeous wife and two unexpectedly exceptional sons. Into the Blue is her first novel.

Where to find the author:


Tour Dates & Stops:

7-Jul: Havan Fellows, Louise Lyons, Parker Williams

8-Jul: Outrageous Heroes, Unquietly Me, Dawn’s Reading Nook

11-Jul: Love Bytes, Kirsty Loves Books, Bayou Book Junkie

12-Jul: Wicked Faerie’s Tales and Reviews, MM Good Book Reviews, Butterfly-O-Meter

13-Jul: Oh My Shelves, Boys on the Brink Reviews

14-Jul: Molly Lolly, Happily Ever Chapter

15-Jul: Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words, Sinfully Addicted to All Male Romance, Prism Book Alliance

18-Jul: MM Book Escape, Making It Happen, Velvet Panic, BFD Book Blog

19-Jul: Book Lovers 4Ever, My Fiction Nook, V’s Reads

20-Jul: A.M. Leibowitz, Alpha Book Club

Final (1)

Giveaway

 

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A BJ Review: Assumed Dead by Becky Black

Rating:  3.5 stars out of 5

Assumed DeadThe zombie apocalypse left twelve people trapped, but safe, at a scientific research base on an Arctic island. Three years later, with supplies critically low, they know they can’t survive another harsh winter. But all of them fear what awaits them on the mainland.

Former grad student, Matt Warner, has retrained as a nurse under the group’s doctor, Peter Lane. Training is not the only thing Matt wants to be under Peter for, but Peter has always resisted responding to Matt’s interest in him. Before all this started Peter had a husband, Harrison, back home. A husband he desperately hopes is still alive.

Despair finally weakens Peter’s resolve and he and Matt begin sharing a bed. It’s Matt’s dream come true, even if he knows Peter’s feelings for him aren’t as strong as his for Peter. But everything changes, when the group learns of the existence of a vaccine against the zombie virus and they escape the island to search for the people distributing the vaccine. Matt fears their relationship won’t survive, because Peter wants to search for his husband—even if only to confirm his death. And Peter knows if he goes looking for Harrison, he’ll lose Matt forever.

This is a sequel to Patient Z which I read a few for the first time a few months ago, so when I saw that this one was coming out, I wanted to read it right away. I rated the first book four stars and was eager to follow on with the story, especially when I noticed that this story also had a bi-racial couple. Unfortunately, as is often the case, while I enjoyed it, this second book didn’t quite live up to the first one for me.

This story doesn’t follow along with the first couple, Mitch and Cal’s and their group, but I actually enjoyed that aspect. It gave a chance to see what happened to others, and how everyone’s experience of the apocalypse would vary. However, it does pick up several months after the events of the first book, so we do get to see the continuation of the original storyline as the vaccine begins to be shared with others.

The world that this group lived in was so much less threatening than that from book one, which played a large part in why I didn’t quite enjoy it as much as book one. There was very little action up until right near the very end, and even at that point, it didn’t involve zombies. It almost felt like the zombies were more of a window dressing—gross in appearance on the few times when one or two showed up, but they never felt like a real threat at any point. For the vast majority of the book, we are told about things that might be a threat and danger for this group, but we don’t see them in action, and thus are not on the edge of the seat or tense with worry. Even when they meet up with the second group, its pretty much the same thing. In fact, except for one mild scene early on that was very easily handled with no casualties or drama, the whole thing felt very tame. When the big fight scene near the end came, there hadn’t really been anything leading up to it, so it felt like it came out of left field.

The two main characters, Matt from New Zealand and Peter the doctor from the US, didn’t grab me and make me care for them as much as Cal and Mitch had in book. In fact, they didn’t intrigue me as much as some of the secondary characters, like R.J. and Jay and even Barrett did. The romance relationship between Matt and Peter moved slow at first, which was okay for a while, but Peter’s hemming and hawing started to get to me and when something did finally take off between them, I just didn’t feel the passion or urgency any more. There were quite a few sexy bits, but because of Peter’s lack of commitment one way or the other, I wasn’t quite able to feel invested in them as a couple and so the romance part fell flat for me.

Overall, this book has a lower key, calmer, less intense feel that book one. Not what I’d expected for a zombie apocalypse story. If you prefer a milder post-apocalyptic story full of hope and lots of interesting details, then this should fit the bill. I enjoyed the story itself more than the main couple, and would be willing to read more in this world especially if it included more about the mysterious R.J.

The cover does a good job of conveying the story, but much like the story itself, it doesn’t quite pack the punch of the first.

Sales Links:  Loose id LLC | ARe | Amazon

Book Details: 

ebook, 294 pages
Published June 14th 2016 by Loose Id
Original TitleAssumed Dead
ISBN139781682521489
Edition LanguageEnglish

Kris Ripper Talks The Big Picture and the ‘Gays of Our Lives’ (Blog Tour and Giveaway)

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Gays of Our Lives (Queers of La Vista #1)by Kris Ripper
Riptide Publishing
Cover art by L.C. Chase

Read an Excerpt/Buy it Here

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Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words is happy to have Kris Ripper here today to talk about zir release, Gays of Our Lives and The Big Picture.  Welcome, Kris.

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The Big Picture

I’m not a writer who focuses a great deal on theme and motifs while I’m writing. If you do your job right—if you write a book that’s formed well, and has a coherent story to it—then all that exists whether you know it or not.

I was the kid in the literature class who sat there daydreaming about my own books while the teacher went on and on about the Biblical resonances in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. Start talking High Lit and my eyes glaze over.

However.

There comes a point as a writer when you realize that this stuff exists in stories. All kinds of stories: novels, poems, movies, television shows, video games. If you’re caught up in a character or a plot, chances are there’s something about it, thematically, that calls to you.

As a reader/viewer/consumer, you can pay attention to this stuff or not. (I always find it’s a lot more fun to decode and deconstruct stuff with a group of folks who enjoy that sort of thing.) But as a writer, I think it’s pretty important to have at least a passing knowledge of the stuff you’re actually trying to say with a story.

And let me stress again, that this stuff is accessible to everyone, even those of us who weren’t good in school, even those of us who were trying so hard to understand Tristram Shandy that we missed the sex bits.

In Gays of Our Lives it’s virtually impossible to miss the sex scenes. (Whew. Nothing like reading a whole novel and facing your professor’s “So, let’s talk about the sex in this book” with a blank stare.)

Gays of Our Lives is a sort of adult coming of age story. It doesn’t document the transition many people experience when they leave their family of origin—raw, and edged with fear, excitement, expectation. Emerson’s thirty-one years old; he broke away his family a long time ago, but he’s still saddled with an young adult’s mental baggage about who he should be, and how he relates to other people.

Sometimes the hardest battles we ever fight aren’t the ones against authority, or bullies, or even our own bodies (though Emerson’s had skirmishes in all of those areas). Sometimes it’s the persistent voice in the back of your head telling you you don’t deserve to be happy, that you don’t deserve to find a good partner.

One of the coolest things about books—and storytelling in general—is that you can find yourself in characters who are very little like you. Emerson’s a white, cisgender, gay dude with multiple sclerosis; of those things the only thing we share is that we’re both white. But I had a great time living inside his head, and taking his journey with him, and I learned a little bit about myself along the way.

What about you? Across mediums, who’s the character you’ve most related to, and do they superficially resemble you at all, or are they vastly different?

About Gays of Our Lives

Emerson Robinette only leaves his apartment to get laid and go to work. Having MS—and trying to pretend he doesn’t—makes everything more complicated, especially his fantasies of coming on strong and holding a guy down. Finding a partner who’ll explore that with him isn’t Emerson’s idea of a realistic goal.

Until a chance meeting with a hipster on a bus makes him reconsider. Obie is happy, open-hearted, and warm; what’s more, he gets his kicks being physically dominated, spanked, and teased until he’s begging. It would be perfect, except for one thing: Emerson isn’t made for happiness, and he doesn’t see how a guy like Obie would settle for a cynic like him.

But as far as Obie’s concerned, the only thing keeping them apart is Emerson. Can Emerson handle a boyfriend who’s more invested in his future than he is? Emerson’s barely convinced he has a future. But when Obie’s smiling at him, anything seems possible.

About Kris Ripper

Kris Ripper lives in the great state of California and hails from the San Francisco Bay Area. Kris shares a converted garage with a toddler, can do two pull-ups in a row, and can write backwards. (No, really.) Kris is genderqueer and prefers the z-based pronouns because they’re freaking sweet. Ze has been writing fiction since ze learned how to write, and boring zir stuffed animals with stories long before that.

Connect with Kris:

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Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Gays of Our Lives, Kris is giving away your choice of ebook from zir backlist. (Any release from Kris Ripper prior to Gays of Our Lives.) Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on July 16, 2016. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!

This title is part of the Queers of La Vista universe

New Cover Reveal for Mating Tomeo by A.J. Llewellyn ( giveaway)

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A.J. Llewellyn reveals the beautiful cover art of her next book titled MATING TOMEO coming out from Ai Press.

It releases on July 12, 2016.

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BLURB

In 1946 Hawaii, Tomeo Yamaguchi harbors a secret that would be considered shameful by his traditional Japanese family—he aches for the caress of other men.

Which makes it particularly devastating when Tomeo’s father hires a tanomoshi—a matchmaker—to find a bride for his son.

Tomeo spends time with the tanomoshi, Shin Yamada, and as the men come to know one another, deep feelings emerge, the transition from friends to lovers inevitable. They fall into a clandestine affair, their hushed and hidden lovemaking as beautiful and breathless in their eyes as it is torrid in the eyes of others.

More time spent worshipping Tomeo’s body means less time finding him a suitable bride. Shin’s forsaking his duty and risking everything…but mating Tomeo is worth every stolen second. No matter the cost…

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PRESENTING

Cover Art by Sid Love

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PRE-ORDER LINK

All Romance eBooks

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A.J. Llewellyn lives in California, but dreams of living in Hawaii. Frequent trips to all the islands, bags of Kona coffee in the fridge and a healthy collection of Hawaiian records keep this writer refueled.

A.J’s passion for the islands led to writing a play about the last ruling monarch of Hawaii, Queen Lili’uokalani as well as a non-erotic novel about the overthrow of her kingdom written in diary form from her maid’s point of view.

A.J. never lacks inspiritation for male/male erotic romances and on the rare occasion this happens, pursues other passions such as collecting books on Hawaiiana, surfing and spending time with friends and animal companions.

A.J. Llewellyn believes that love is a song best sung out loud.

||  Website & Blog  ||  Facebook  ||  Twitter  ||  Goodreads  ||

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