Wrap-Up Wednesday | March

To say I haven’t read much this month would be a lie. I have read loads, but… I’ve read my own books.

It’s so weird! I don’t know how other authors do, but after the last round of edits, I don’t touch my books. I never read them, never. But I’m in the middle of moving my books to JMS Books and wanted to have a readthrough before sending them in, so that’s what I’ve been doing. Some make me cringe a little, but some have been a joy to revisit.

The Snowflake! I know not many romance readers will touch that book, but man, I’m a genius LOL. I told hubby, it must be a good sign that it still makes me laugh.

I have read books by other authors too, a few.

Hexmaker

Hexmaker (Hexworld #2) by Jordan L. Hawk – I love this series! It’s been a long time since I read Hexbreaker, the first book in the series, and I’ve been saving them. It was time, though. I didn’t have the energy to go search for something I would like, so I went with an option I knew I would. Awesome!

31949586._sy475_A straight-laced policeman. A lighthearted thief. A murdered millionaire.

Fox shifter Malachi steals for one of the biggest crime rings in New York City. But when he witnesses the murder of a millionaire, the only person who can keep him safe is Dr. Owen Yates, forensic hexman for the Metropolitan Witch Police—and Malachi’s witch.

Owen is horrified to discover his familiar is an uneducated thief. Even worse, Malachi threatens to unleash Owen’s deepest desires…desires Owen can’t act upon, as he’s destined for an arranged marriage to secure the Yates family fortune

Their agreement: Malachi will be Owen’s lover as well as his partner, until the day of the wedding. But as their hunt for the murderer carries them from teeming slums to Fifth Avenue mansions, Owens begins to realize Malachi commands his heart as well as his body.

With dark forces drawing ever closer around them, Owen must decide whether to bow to the demands of duty, or to risk everything for the man he loves. 

books2read.com/Hexmaker

Hexslayer

Hexslayer (Hexworld, #3) by Jordan L. Hawk – right after Hexmaker, I continued with Hexslayer. I love this world, witches and familiars, all these handsome Irish men running around in New York. I was about to jump right into the last story in the series after this, but no… I’ll save it for a rainy day 😀

HexslayerHorse shifter Nick has one rule: never trust a witch.

Nick has devoted his life to making his saloon a safe haven for the feral familiars of New York. So when a brutal killer slaughters a feral under his protection, Nick has no choice but to try and catch the murderer. Even if that means bonding with a handsome Irish witch.

Officer Jamie MacDougal came back from the war in Cuba missing part of a leg and most of his heart. After his former lover becomes one of the killer’s victims, Jamie will do anything to solve the case.

Nick comes to Jamie with a proposal: after making a temporary bond, they will work together to stop the murders. Once the killer is caught, they walk away and never see one another again.

It sounds simple enough. But the passion that flares between the two men won’t be so easily extinguished. And if Nick can’t learn to trust his witch, he stands to lose everything—including his life.

books2read.com/Hexslayer

My Enemy Needs Me

My Enemy Needs Me (Dig Deep #1) by J.P. Oliver – I thought this sounded fun, a construction worker and an archaeologist, dinosaur bones and disability. I’ll give it points for having a disabled main character, but both Mark and Ethan annoyed me LOL. It has some entertaining scenes, but you can’t fire someone because of who they’re with, can you? I doubt it would hold up in court.

My Enemy Needs MeKeep your friends close…

Construction work isn’t any sort of calling for Ethan Loeb. He gets the job done, cashes his check, and spends his free time volunteering at the retirement home his elderly mother lives in. He knows he comes across as big, gruff, and grumpy, but right now, he doesn’t much care.

Until him.

…but keep your enemies in your bedroom.

Mark Weaver knows that the construction crew in charge of building a new set of luxury townhouses is more than a bit ticked off that a potential dinosaur find has derailed their tight schedule. They make it very clear that the scientists excavating the site aren’t welcome.

It doesn’t much matter to Mark. Preserving the past trumps new construction any day.

But when Mark’s car dies too far away from the work site for him to walk with his polio-damaged legs, can he accept help from a big, burly construction worker with a secret heart of gold?

books2read.com/MyEnemyNeedsMe

Club 669

Club 669 (House of Witches #1) by Amy Spector – Witches! Who doesn’t love witches?! I love witches. Charlie steals an invitation from a dead body – yup, that’s what anyone would do LOL – and that invitation is the start of a journey into a world of magic. I can’t wait for the next story in this series.

Club 669Club 669 (House of Witches Book 1)

Witch’s corpse. Witch’s ticket. Witch’s party.

As a counter-boy at a high-end men’s boutique, Charlie Jessup’s life consists of little more than work and sleep. That, and enough flirting to help guarantee his commission on sales will pay his rent. So when a twist of fate, and some behavior unbecoming that of a Ganymede employee, leaves him in possession of a dead man’s pass to a mysterious Club 669, Charlie has no desire to waste it.

Every seventeen years, the House of Witches throws a party like no other. It’s invitation-only, and for centuries it has helped ensure peace between the covens. It’s the last place Caspian wants to be, but with the death of Queen Avel, and his own imminent rise to the throne, it’s more important than ever that he attends. The stability of the House depends on it.

In four days a new king will be crowned, but when Charlie unintentionally crashes a gathering of the most secretive of all the Great Houses, he sets in motion a series of events that could disrupt the transition of power, and threaten the future of the House of Witches forever.

books2read.com/HouseOfWitches1

Fridays at Ofelia’s | There Will Be Aliens

Guest-Post

Hi! Holly here again 😀 Aliens, nay or yay?

On March 20th, it was Extraterrestrial Abductions Day, and I didn’t think we should let the day slip us by without giving it some special love, so I wrote a story…

There Will Be Aliens is an M/M version of the Mars Needs Women trope without being Mpreg. We have a planet called Negudade and they have a problem there. For some reason, the inhabitants have lost most of their emotions and the females no longer want to have children.

In an attempt to save the future of the planet, they sent a small group of males to Earth to capture a group of women. Their hope is by mating the human women, they’ll be able to have offspring able to feel and, in the future, want families of their own.

The idea of a species with human traits but with numbed emotional responses fascinates me. It’s not a huge part of the story, it’s the reason the Negudade come to Earth, but it’s something I’d love to explore more in another story on some future occasion.

Carlo, one of the main characters, was never meant to be taken, but when the aliens tried to take his best friend, Grace, he fought them, and Zenon, the captain of the spaceship, is far more interested in Carlo than any of the women they are to capture.

Extraterrestrial-Abduction-Day

Excerpt:

Zenon watched one creature stand. It was male. He’d seen pictures of them so they’d know what not to take, but this man… He had fair skin, no visible claws or fangs. Zenon suspected he could’ve watched him for years and not grow bored. His eyes changed shape, his facial expression—he’d never seen anyone show so much emotion. He didn’t know if anyone on Negudade could harbor as much emotion.

Their information claimed Earthlings didn’t have fangs or claws, and the man didn’t show any, but Zenon had his doubts. A species wouldn’t survive if they couldn’t defend themselves, and there were animals on Negudade that looked harmless until threatened—then teeth, claws, spikes, or poison appeared.

He hoped they weren’t poisonous.

Be careful of them.” He nodded at Brox to attack from the right as he edged to the left.

Brox spoke in a low voice. “I’ll take the female, you disarm the male.”

He appeared disarmed already, but Zenon nodded. He expected the male would run off to save himself. A Negudade would unless they were on a contract to protect the person they were with. He took a quick step forward, so he could catch the man when he tried to escape.

The female screamed, and the man, instead of running off, hit Brox in the jaw when he tried to grab her. Zenon stared. What was he doing?

Anek took a step forward, but Ghurva didn’t as much as twitch.

Zenon studied Brox, but he looked unaffected by the blow.

Why isn’t he running?” Brox touched his jaw. “He’s not strong.”

The man glanced at them, looked over his shoulder at the female, and said something. Zenon had a language chip embedded, everyone on the ship did, but he couldn’t make sense of what the male said. Perhaps he was breaking their contract. It was the smartest thing he could do.

Water spilled from the female’s eyes. “Is the female ill?” He didn’t look away from the Earthlings. When no reply came, he glanced at Ghurva. “Ghurva?”

I don’t know.”

The male doesn’t appear alarmed by the symptoms.” Anek took another step forward. “It’s most likely not contagious, or he’d moved away.”

A strange tightness wrapped around Zenon’s ribcage. Could the male be infected by whatever the female had?

Then the man nodded, and as he took a step forward, the female jumped down on the other side of the strange wide outdoor chair. She ran.

Shall I go get her?”

Zenon nodded at Brox. “Anek, follow in case there are more Earthlings around.” He took a step forward, and when the man tried to hit him, he caught his arm and secured him—though careful not to touch any of the pale skin in case it was covered in poison—and slung him over his shoulder. He’d expected him to weigh more. He was short but didn’t look unhealthily thin, so he should’ve weighed more.

Where are you taking him?” Ghurva gave him a curious look—no one he’d ever met could give curious looks except Ghurva. Another sign he wasn’t like most Negudade.

I’m bringing him.”

No.”

Zenon bared his teeth. “Are you questioning me?”

Captain.” Ghurva nodded, Zenon assumed to let him know Ghurva was aware of his status, but he kept on talking so it didn’t make a difference. “Our orders are ten females. No males.”

I’m taking him for me. We have space and supplies for one more. I will have none of the females.”

Ghurva shook his head. Watching him made Zenon dizzy. Why couldn’t he be like normal people and tell him what he meant instead of using gestures?

No, but—”

Enough.” Zenon strode toward the ship while the female’s scream came closer and closer.

Blurb:

therewillbealiens - smallCarlo Russo is having the worst day. Not only has he lost his job, caught his boyfriend cheating, and had one too many shots with his best friend Grace, now he’s seeing aliens too. Big, black, tail-equipped aliens. After a futile struggle, he and Grace find themselves on a spaceship leaving Earth.

Zenon Scoreceds Qhainqons doesn’t know what it is about the earthling male. Their mission is to bring back ten females in hopes of them being able to provide their planet with children, but he wants the male. What he’s going to do with the male, he doesn’t know, but he’s claiming him as his payment for going on the mission.

Carlo doesn’t approve of kidnapping, but the aliens aren’t too bad, and once the language chip is installed, he finds it entertaining to talk to them. Zen in particular. They’re standoffish and never show any emotion, but Carlo has no problem cuddling up next to Zen at night.

All Zenon wants is to spend time with Carlo, but it’s his job to get them all home in one piece. Will he be able to keep Carlo safe from all the dangers lurking along the trip? He has to because Carlo is his, and he’s not letting him go.

Buy Links

books2read/ThereWillBeAliens :: Amazon.com :: JMS Books

About Holly Day

According to Holly Day, no day should go by uncelebrated and all of them deserve a story. If she’ll have the time to write them remains to be seen. She lives in rural Sweden with a husband, four children, more pets than most, and wouldn’t last a day without coffee. 

Holly gets up at the crack of dawn most days of the week to write gay romance stories. She believes in equality in fiction and in real life. Diversity matters. Representation matters. Visibility matters. We can change the world one story at the time. 

Connect with Holly @ https://lnk.bio/xpae or visit her website @ hollydaywrites.wordpress.com 

#WhatToReadWednesday | My Top 75 Free Gay Romance Books

It’s been a year since the pandemic hit. I don’t know how it’s been for you, but I’ve hardly been working at all, and my guess is that after we’re through the vaccination, we’ll have an economic depression on our hands. I know it angers some people to say so, but life won’t go back to normal as soon as the last person has been jabbed – at least, I don’t believe it will.

Maybe you, like me, are on a tight budget. Maybe you feel like you can’t afford to spend money on books right now. May I suggest the library? Libraries are great, and if you’re in the US you have some awesome library apps that allow you to read ebooks and listen to audiobooks FOR FREE (check out Hoopla and Libby).

But if you, like me, is in some backward country where the library apps aren’t that good, there is a ton of free books out there. Sooo many they get buried underneath other free books.

To give you some tips about what to check out, I spent hours looking through the books I’ve read. I’m not kidding – this took so much longer than I’d anticipated LOL. I was fiddling with Pinterest and realised my ‘Free M/M Romance’ board had close to 100 pins, and I haven’t pinned all the free stories I’ve read – I can’t even remember all the free stories I’ve read, but here we go!

Click the cover and you’ll get to where you can download the book…hopefully 😀

Ofelia’s favourite free stories:

The God Eaters The Magpie Lord The Name on my Wrist The Last Pure Human 12191040 The Duality Paradigm Waiting For Clark Lima Oscar Victor Echo As He Watches All I See The Gate In Heaven and Earth

I thought I’d give you ten, and they’re not in any order of preference, but we ended up with twelve. These may be my favourites, but there are others worth reading, too. I was a bit undecided about how to organise them, but we’ll give it a try like this.

Contemporary

Love on a Wing and a Prayer Life Drawing Just like in the movies Just a Feeling Sign of Spring Glitter 56472797._sy475_ Dirty Pirate Dirty in Drag Sixty Five Hours Better than New This Hour I Lost Bare-Knuckle Love Billie Jean fawn You Get Full Cretid for Being Alive  Dirty Cop Six Learning to feel Game On

Paranormal

The Lodestar of Ys Treasure 27818755._sy475_ Thirsting for More Resurrection Man Winter Winds The Violet and the Tom Guarded Metronomy An Intrepid trip to love Obsidian Bluewood Caged Like A Sparrow Through the Heart Altered States Nor Iron Bars a Cage A Wizard's touch The Ransom of a Night Hunter

Sci-Fi/Dystoian/Steampunk

The Last Rebellion Where Willows Won't Grow Reifu Rising Red Mind Fuck Ten Simple Tips For Surviving the Apocalypse Your Cover's Blown Villains Line of Sightcollateral Facing the Mirror Reclamation The Novelty Maker Flight of Fancy Prisoner 374215 Esperanza

Historical

Book Cover Offense and Satisfaction by Vanessa Mulberry When Skies Have Fallen Shelter from the Storm

Holiday Stories

Snowy nature with a large wolf like dog and a handsome man Up! The invasion of Tork book cover 16036332 10104297 Mate Wanted for Christmas

That’s 75 if I’ve counted correctly. Looking at them, I feel like I’ve missed a bunch that should be on this list, and maybe some should be replaced, but this is how I’ll leave it for now.

Freebies by Ofelia Gränd

Scary-Gary-gif Blood on Sand