Category: Do You Want To Read It?

Guest Post | Heathcliff and the Sexy Whippet by A.M. Fox

~ Ofelia Gränd ~ 3 Comments

Guest-Post

Today, A.M. Fox here to talk about the years he’s had and his first published book, Heathcliff and the Sexy Whippet. Take it away, Mr Fox.

A blog post about Heathcliff and the Sexy Whippet, by A.M. Fox

When I was lucky enough to get a blog spot on Ofelia Grand’s blog Island of love, I was rather worried.

What to say about books during a pandemic?

How to come across as neither dismissive of the state of the world, or crazed with anxiety?

You know how it is.

I started writing Whippet as a way of blocking off everything going on outside. Writing is my panacea; my support and comfort. The only thing that keeps me (almost) sane. This year, I’ve written around 200K. One and a half novels, a novella and some shorties, which constitutes a lot of manic brain cells and ear tugging.

I love Wuthering heights. Have you read it? What a twisted, fucked-up book it truly is, all the more so because of when it was written. First time I read it, I was a teenager, too young to comprehend the abyss of abuse and bitterness it depicts. Now, I know better. It’s hardly a romance but it is haunting. In some weird way, it has stayed with me through the years, knocking on my window.

Sexy Whippet is a far cry, being romantic, happy and contemporary. The main character, Sean, lands up with a job he’s not prepared for. That’s happened to me a few times… He’s still busy with the film but agreed to let me interview him for this blog. Of course, he’s doing my hair as we speak and Heath wanted to be here too.

Sean, can you tell us what you first noticed about Heath?

Your hair is a mess! I’m just going to untangle these knots so excuse if I tug. It might hurt but it won’t be agony. No pain, no gain! Heath? Ur, well. First time I saw him, he was dressed to kill in a cloak and riding boots. I think he was carrying a crop!

Is that what caught your eye?

No, no it wasn’t. To tell you the truth I’d forgotten my glasses so I couldn’t see too well anyway. I could make out his shape, but it was only when I wrestled him to the floor that I smelt him.

Wrestled him to the floor, you say?

Um. Yeah. Sounds harsh but it was necessary! He moaned but I was more worried about Daffodil, the huge doggy.

So what did you notice?

Heath smelt of olives and so I knew he was in trouble and needed my help.

Sean has bounded off and so I’m turning the interview over to Heath, who sits in the corner reading.

How about you, Heath? What did you first notice about Sean?

I’d like to say it was his smile, which, as you’ve no doubt noticed, is gorgeous? But it wasn’t. The very first thing I noticed was the suit he wore for the interview.

It was nice?

No. Absolutely horrible and made for someone three times the size of Sean. He looked as if he was hiding inside. I felt sorry for him, until he had me on the floor crawling on hands and knees. Then I—felt something else.

Heath has wandered across to Sean and we leave them, kissing.

When was it released? December 4th!
Where is to for sale? All the normal places.

books2read.com/HeathcliffAndTheSexyWhippet

Excerpt:

I fetched some products and instructed him about their use. ‘Smells very clinical. I think it’s best if I wash your hair and bathe you, from now on,’ I said, ‘you need to feel the experience of being the patient, rather than the doctor. I don’t mean a full body bath,’ I hastened to explain, hotly. ‘You could keep underwear. If you absolutely insist.’

‘I’m not going to argue,’ he said, ‘you’ve got magic hands. I don’t know what it is but you make me so calm. Help yourself. Actors don’t mind nakedness.’

He leaned back against the sink while I died a silent death, arranged his tresses and wished for the millionth time that he did not already have a boyfriend. I had heard about people clicking from the first meeting, but it had certainly never happened to me before. When he was around, I was able to chat and share in a way that was unfamiliar and alluring. ‘Just relax.’

I showered and lathered, massaged and played. Heath closed his eyes and I got perfect opportunity to examine his masculine jaw and neck. I’m not sure where I got the confidence but I began soaping around his neck and ears, too, and then down onto his chest. I caressed, pouring all my care into my fingers and hoping it went onto him. I spent a long time on his nipples and stomach. When he moaned, my trousers became tight.

‘Jeez,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t stop.’

Thank you, Ofelia, for inviting me here, and thank you for the Mince Pies!
A.M. Fox

Heathcliff and the sexy WhippetA Christmas feel-good tale of snowy, cobbled streets, unfulfilled desires and the sexiest whippet in Yorkshire!
When bubbly Sean Miles applies for a job with a film company, little does he realise what he’s getting into. As an experienced dog groomer, he’s great with fur and claws and loves a poochie cuddle, but has never offered human treatments. Until now.
Heath Mailer is playing the character of Heathcliff. Dark, brooding and intense, the lead actor can scowl aplenty but when he’s in trouble he doesn’t know how to ask for help. Who’s going to offer a hand to Mister Moody?
Forced to work together, Sean and Heath discover some unusual techniques that not only aid the production but also get to the heart of what ails the lead actor. Whoever said dog therapy can’t work on people?

Cover Reveal | The Hunted and the Hind by A.L. Lester

~ Ofelia Gränd ~ Leave a comment

Cover-Reveal

We’re gonna take a short break from the holiday stories – there’s a life after Christmas after all – because today, A.L. Lester is here to show off the cover of her coming release. I love it. So pretty!

Hello there everyone and thank you so much to Ofelia for inviting me to visit today! I am popping in to bring you the cover of The Hunted and the Hind and tell you a bit about it, and the Lost in Time universe.

Hunted is the third in my Lost in Time 1920s London trilogy, although as you may gather from the cover, at least some of it takes place elsewhere! The Lost in Time Universe is based around an old green book. It’s definitely not a book of magic. It’s simply a book of instructions. Instructions to use energy to make things happen. To get what you want.

Be careful how you use the book. Because everything you do comes with a price.

The universe gets it name because the first book I wrote begins with a magical accident that results in one of the main characters getting pulled back from 2016 to 1920. Everything else sort of went on from there! You can read more about the universe and the order of the books on my website.

Hunted jigsaw

At the end of book number two, Shadows on the Border, poor Sergeant Will Grant got sucked through the border after Fenn, who returned to their home in the Outlands with the murderous creature they’d finally captured with the help of Will’s police team. It took me ages to work out what I wanted to write in Hunted because I never actually set out to write a trilogy–this is one of the downsides of discovery writing, which I have now rather learned to my cost. There were so many loose ends I wanted to tie up to feel that I’d satisfactorily ended the series, for both readers and for myself. It took me three rewrites to get the story knocked into a shape that I feel happy with.

Without further ado…here’s the cover (and the blurb!) for…

TheHuntedendtheHide3

The Hunted and the Hind

Inadvertently tumbling through the border after Fenn and then thrown into the middle of the internecine political disputes of their people, Sergeant Will Grant of the Metropolitan Police has spent three months in prison in the Underhalls of the Frem. When Fenn comes to free him and return him home through the border, he has very little time to work out what’s going on before the sudden appearance of Fenn’s missing younger sibling Keren throws Fenn for a loop.

Instead of returning them to London as planned, the trio step through the border to the Egyptian desert. Once they work out where they are, it’s a two week trip back to England with the possibility of pursuit both onboard ship and when they reach home.

Will the journey give Fenn and Will time to resolve the feelings they have been dancing around since the day they met? How will they keep Keren from recapture by the faction who tried to persuade Fenn they were dead? And has Will’s friend Alec forgiven Fenn for lying about their motives when they first traveled to London four months ago?

Preorder from the publisher, JMS Books!

About A. L. Lester

Ally Lester is a writer of queer, mostly paranormal, historical, romantic suspense, usually set in the Lost in Time universe. They live in the South West of England with Mr AL, two children, a badly behaved dachshund, a terrifying cat and some hens. Likes gardening but doesn’t really have time or energy.  Not musical. Doesn’t much like telly. Non-binary. Chronically disabled. Has tedious fits.

Find all my links at my lnk.bio page

X-mas Read | Turning Wood by Ofelia Gränd

~ Ofelia Gränd ~ 2 Comments

X-mas-read

Today, I’m stealing a spot for myself. Turning Wood was published last year. It’s a short Christmas story about Otho Newcomer and Mason Dager and it was the story that started the whole Up North series.

I hadn’t planned on it being part of a series, but for some reason, I feel right at home in the woods around Nortown and Northfield. When I needed a doctor, doctor Ash, who’s crushing on Andre in the Nortown books, popped up. It wasn’t my intentions to put him there, but I did. Then I figured, since I’d already started, I might as well continue.

All Up North stories are standalone, more so than the Nortown stories. The only thing linking the books is the location.

Coolest of all is that Turning Woods is part of the 2020 Top Ten Gay Romance anthology from JMS Books that will be released on December 30th. 

Turning-Ice-breaking

Excerpt:

Looking up from his work, he saw something move—a man walking out on the ice on the river. Was he insane? The currents were too strong there; the ice wasn’t thick enough to walk on. It had closed over yesterday when the temperature had dropped, but it broke open now and then, a constant struggle between the current and the ice.

Before Otho’s brain caught up with what he was doing, he’d dropped the gouge on the ground and ran out from under the carport.

“Hey!” He waved his arms, but the man didn’t look in his direction. “Hey! You, hello!” He ran, his heavy boots sinking into the snow. He jumped over the snowdrift on the other side of the narrow gravel road passing by his cabin. The reeds buried underneath the snow tangled around his ankles, but he kept going.

“Hey, you!” He waved more, but the man didn’t so much as glance in his direction. Shit. When Otho stepped onto the ice, he slowed down. This close to the land it shouldn’t be any danger, but Otho feared he weighed more than the man. It was a grown man, though, not some teen who didn’t know better.

“Come on, man! Come back here!” Otho took one slow step after the other, and in that moment, the man turned around to face him. Otho blew out a breath and waved.

The sound of the ice breaking shouldn’t have been so loud, but it was. It was as if it was moaning a protest before opening its jaws to swallow the man. Otho’s heart stopped. “No!”

For half a second, he stood immobilized, then he dug into his pocket for his phone and called the emergency service center. He slid down on his stomach and crawled over the ice while waiting for the call to connect.

A sharp intake of air was all he heard from the man as he hurried the best he could. A woman talking in a clear, calm voice answered.

“A man has gone through the ice of the river.” Otho almost hung up before adding, “By River Cove on Lakeside Lane in Snowmelt.” He disconnected. He probably should have said more, but the man was freezing to death or drowning. With the pulse drumming in his ears, he pictured the man sliding in under the ice. His breath froze, and he pushed himself forward.

The edge of the hole came closer. The black water looked alive, angry, and threatening as it tried to pull the man under. Only his head and part of his shoulders remained above the surface. His skin was white, not pale, white. His lips blue, his eyes wide, and his body stiff. Otho dragged himself forward, spreading his weight over as large an area as possible.

“Easy.” He was talking to himself as much as to the man. “Can you grab the edge?”

He still had about four feet to go to where the water lapped at the ice, but he didn’t know how much closer he dared move. The man’s wide eyes latched on to his, and Otho forced a calm expression to his face. “Good.”

The man had done nothing, but Otho figured he couldn’t go wrong with praise. “Now can you try to swim?”

He didn’t move, did nothing but stare at Otho.

“Come closer and try to put your elbows on the ice.”

The man continued to stare and his dark lashes were turning whiter by the second. Damn, he needed out of the cold. Otho crawled closer, listening to the ice as he did. His heart was hammering in his throat. If he went through the ice, he would curse himself his entire afterlife—if there was one.

Turning-WoodFor Otho Newcomer, the small village of Snowmelt is a haven from his old life. If he’s not exactly a changed man, he at least hopes to keep his distance from all those easy romances, and the inevitable heartache and disappointment that have always followed.

Mason Dager is an idiot. His ex has cleared out his bank account, sold his car and gotten him thrown out of his apartment. And he has no one to blame but himself. But what better way to celebrate a new chapter in his life—one that includes homelessness and the humiliation of telling his family they were right all along—than to spend Christmas at a swanky winter resort like River Cove? It’s already paid for after all.

When a very drunk Mason makes yet another dumb decision, Otho comes to the rescue, throwing the two men together during the most magical time of the year.

What should be the wrong choice for both of them, might be exactly what they need. They’ll just have to survive a nosy best friend, an asshole of an ex, and the scars of their pasts.

books2read.com/TurningWood