October M/M Releases I Look Forward To

I'm not sure what happened with September but it's October already. So, time for my monthly list of M/M releases. These titles caught my eye:

Love Lessons by Heidi Cullinan | Goodreads

Happy Gay Friday & Dance With Me

This week’s HGF picture is from a video that Sharon sent me (thanks Sharon!). Unfortunately I can’t embed the video here but when you follow this link you can watch it at the filmmaker’s site, Bruce Weber.

I feel like I have hardly read anything this week, I only finished one book! It was a good one and a full length novel, but still, just one. O_o

It had been a while since I had read a Heidi Cullinan book so when I went through my endless list on my iPad and saw Dance With Me I clicked it open and started reading it (click here for the backblurb). It was a slow read, literally since it took me a week to finish it, but also figuratively because the author takes her time to introduce the characters to us and to show the progress Ed and Laurie make developing a relationship and learning to deal with their individual mental and physical problems. It was quite an intense read thanks to this and it was kind of hard to keep reading sometimes, because of all the pain the characters go through. Oddly enough I had some trouble connecting to both heroes until far into the story. But in the end I needed a tissue or two nonetheless.
I’m a big fan of Heidi Cullinan’s writing because of her skill to create so many psychological and emotional layers which take you deeper and deeper into her stories and characters’ lives and feelings. Her books ask for some dedicated reading time because of the impact they make.

It’s a long weekend here in the Netherlands due to Easter and hubs and I will be away for a great part of it to celebrate my father’s birthday too. I hope you all enjoy it, with or without lots of chocolate eggs. :)

Happy Gay Friday!

Happy Gay Friday & Some Randomness

Friday can never come too soon! I’m always glad when another week has dragged itself along and turns into a Friday again. :) This week’s Happy Gay Friday post is going to be a mildly chaotic one I’m afraid, or at the very best very random.


1.
First, I don’t know WTH is up with my previous post. Its RSS feed doesn’t seem to work (it’s not visible in Google Reader or blog rolls) and the comments don’t show up while they do appear in my email inbox. Weird! It might have something to do with the table thing I used…

2.

For you who know Lis, my friend and one of the reviewers here, you’ll be happy to know that she’s safe. I’m not sure if you knew, but she left the Netherlands last December to seek adventure down under. She’s hopping from one farm to the next place to earn her living and at the moment she’s in Queensland where the rivers are flooding. It’s really bad, as you can see in these pictures.
Lis’s village is evacuated and she’s been helping evacuating animals and people. Isn’t she a heroine? :) My romantic senses are going overdrive ever since I knew she’s been helping out on this farm where she lives with a recently divorced man and his kids. And now that they’ve been evacuated they're all staying in a small mobile home together. How intimate! ;)
But seriously, let’s pray the flood situation won’t get worse.

3.
I’m a bit dazed about the fact that I’ve only read one book this past week. Not even a few short stories or novellas sneaked in, nope, just the one book. That’s pretty unusual for me.
But I must add that it was a truly good one, so that makes up for the minimum reading time that I was granted. It was the third book in the Cut & Run series by Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux: Fish & Chips.

Sharon and I are going to review it together very soonish. Be aware of lots of gushing from us because we both love, love, love Ty & Zane, we can’t help it. :)

4.
Next week we have a guest author making her first appearance at Rarely Dusty Books. It’s the lovely Ellis Carrington who will be here talking about Romancing the Monster. I had the pleasure of meeting her in New Orleans last October and I’m honored that she agreed to come over to RDB for some fun. She’ll be giving away a copy of her soon to be released novella Immortal Valentine so be sure to check back in on Monday for a chance to win the book.

In the meantime you can have some fun with the soap… ehh… Gaytime Drama she and fellow authors like Damon Suede and Poppy Dennison are writing for the M/M Romance group at Goodreads here. (you must be a member of the group I think).

5.
This week it finally got a bit colder in our little country. It’s freezing for a couple of days now and today we also got some decent snow. It’s still beautifully virginal although it’s not really much yet, as you can see in this picture taken from my warm and snow-free kitchen. :)

6.
You all know the blog Coffee and Porn in the Morning, right? It’s run by Marie Sexton and Heidi Cullinan and these ladies had a Birthday Bash last month with free stories which I happened to stumble upon. I happily spread the joy of free pretties (even if I’m always too late for the party ;)) so here are the links to the ones I’ve found:
Dirty Laundry, by Heidi Cullinan | Seven Years, by Lynn Flewelling | Chapter Five and the Axe-Wielding Maniac, by Marie Sexton | How much for the whole night? by RJ Scott | Pole Star, by Josephine Myles | A New Reality, by Andrea Speed | The Beginning of the End, by Ethan Stone | The Drifter’s Song, by Z.A. Maxfield | Not a Whore, by Jaime Samms | 9:05, by KC Burn | Interlude, by SA Meade | Tomfoolery, by Lou Harper | When the Sea and the Sky Turn to Blood, by Amy Lane | Method Acting, by Clare London | Too High a Price, by JP Barnaby.

So, this should be enough randomness for one day I think. :)

Happy Gay Friday!

~

GayRomLit in pictures & getting ready for the After Party

There are already many GayRomLit posts out there. Yet, I like to add my little contribution, a bunch of pics of the wonderful time I had.

And on top of that, I invited a few friends and authors (all Riptide published) to write a guest post for me with their reflections on GayRomLit. Rachel Haimowitz will kick off the GayRomLit After Party & Riptide Party tomorrow. The other authors that will visit my place are: Cat Grant, Bryl Tyne, Brita Addams, Damon Suede and Aleksandr Voinov.

And the friends that have agreed on doing a blog post for me are the fab girls I shared a house with in New Orleans: Kris, Leontine, Tam, Kassa and Tracy. The seventh friend who was there, Chris, didn’t accept the invitation… Here we are:

Standing (from left to right): Tam, Kassa, Tracy, Chris

Sitting: me, Leontine, Kris

It’s impossible for me to describe everything that happened during the 4 days of GayRomLit. The schedule was packed, with parties, author readings, a book signing boat cruise, a vampire & ghost tour, a lunch with an author (mine was Simone Anderson), a cemetery tour and a pub crawl, among other things.

The most amazing thing for me was meeting the people behind all those names that I only knew from the internet or the books I read. I had so many fan girl moments, it's ridiculous, really. A good second place on the list of awesome things is reserved for the time we spent in gay bars, and not only because of the nekkid guys. ;) The girls and I had so much fun. I miss them and the rest very much!

Patti, me, Leontine

Ethan Day

me, Clare London, Marie Sexton, Kate McMurray

Chris, Tam, Clare London (unsuccessfully hiding behind the pole), Kassa

M.L. Rhodes, me, Stephani Hecht

me & Cole

Tracy, me, Heidi Cullinan, Leontine

Z.A. Maxfield (in blue, reading)

me, Damon Suede (in kilt *swoon*), Leontine

Kris, Tracy, Kassa, me, Tam, Leontine

me & Devon Rhodes

me & John

me, Leontine, Tracy

Rowan Speedwell, me, J.P. Barnaby

 me & Ellis Carrington

Disclaimer: If you want me to remove your picture shoot me an email and I'll remove it asap

~

Happy Gay Friday & A Fabulous current read

I spent a lot of time traveling by train this week, which always means extra time to read! :) So, the perfect occasion to pick up a longer book: Heidi Cullinan’s Double Blind. This is a compelling book that distinguishes itself from other books so far because of the intriguing, three-dimensional, unusual characters. I’m currently thoroughly enjoying Ethan and Randy’s chemistry and it’s also really nice to see Sam and Mitch (from Special Delivery) back again.

Reading this book (and working real hard) was keeping me somewhat sane this week. Apparently, all the house stuff (we had some unexpected things happening on Tuesday – all solved now) is getting my muscles all strung up, especially on my left side, from my foot to my hand. I’m so tensed up that walking is really painful, but so is sitting in the same position for more than 10 minutes. And telling myself over and over again to relax, doesn’t help. Silly me. What an annoyance. *le sigh*

Ah well, we have this long weekend over here because of Whitsuntide (if that's what you call it in English... I'm not sure). Tomorrow I have to work, but Whit Sunday we have the annual family BBQ at my uncle’s house, which is going to be fun and relaxing (I hope). Is this a holiday weekend for you too and do you have fun things planned? Reading good books perhaps? I hope so. :)

Anyway, have a Happy Gay Friday!
~

We Have a Winner!! Oh. And some other Happy Stuff

I brought all the commenters on Keta Diablo’s blog tour post – okay not literally, just their names – to Mr Random and he picked one lucky winner! And her name is:

*drumroll*

Twimom227 (aka Jen)

Congratulations Jen! You win a copy of Blood Oath! Keta will be sending your book directly.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by, thanks to the wonderfully generous Keta Diablo for appearing on my blog and giving away one of her books!

~~~~~
If you didn’t win, be sure to come back this Saturday for another sexy giveaway when the lovely writers Jenna Byrnes and Jude Mason drop by! They’ll celebrate a new release in their Kindred Spirits series and will give away a book to one lucky commenter (winner’s pick). It’s an overnight contest that’ll only run until Sunday, so mark your calendars! :)

~~~~~
And, I want to thank Vixen Pearl from Vixen Reviews for giving me this award!! Thank you very much Vixen!! :)

Here's how this award works:
1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic for whatever reason!
4. Contact the bloggers you've picked and let them know about the award! I’m sure they’ll be thankful ;-)


So, here are 7 things about me…

1. I’m an awful procrastinator
*
2. I hate people who start whistling unfamiliar tunes in an occupied train (happened to me today)
*
3. I still miss my Binny every day but refuse to give in to hubby’s wish for a naked cat, I need fluffy and cute
*
4. I’m going horribly into withdrawal during my upcoming vacation without internet access
*
5. I once spent the night with two gorgeous Italian guys while I was in Rome on a passage to India (My excuse: I was only 19 years old ;) and for the first time traveling alone)
*
6. I love the tv-show Supernatural (read Dean Winchester/Jensen Ackles) and even take the DVD of the last season with me on vacation
*
7. Almost all these 7 secrets are related to vacation. Guess what? My vacation just started an hour ago!! Yippeeeh!

Now, the 15 recently discovered, fantastic bloggers:
*depends a bit on how you define ‘recently’, but okay*

1. Redd @ The Forgotten Hollow
2. Diana @ Book of Secrets
3. LynnMarie and her gang @ Happily Ever After Reviews
4. Amora @ Amora’s Place
5. Steph @ Fangs, Wands and Fairy Dust
6. Sherri @ Urban Girl Reader
7. Mama Kitty and her Staff @ Mama Kitty Reviews
8. Carole and Silver @ The Romance Reviews
9. DemonLover @ Demonlover’s Book Reviews & More
10. Evi @ Zwillingsleiden (in German but with the occasional review in English)
11. Jenny @ SupernaturalSnark
12. Ash @ Smashattack Reads
13. Yvonne @ Diva’s Bookcase
14. Daydrmzzz @ Day Dreaming (she just started but her layout and genre preference look promising)
15. This one I leave open – maybe you can tell me which fantastic blogs you’ve recently discovered?

And actually Vixen Pearl’s own blog is fantastic and new to me too and it’s really worth visiting!

I’ll drop by tomorrow at all these wonderful places to fulfill the 4th task! It’s too late now (over here). :)

~~~~~
And I just found out that I have myself won a book!! It’s Double Blind by Heidi Cullinan and I won it over at International Heat *thanks for the tip Chris!*
It’s the perfect way to start my vacation!!
*going to dance a little now*

I hope you’re all having a great day too! Wishing you a lot of Happy Stuff!!