It’s Read Around the Rainbow time, and this month, we thought we’d do a quick little This or That readers’ edition post. So let’s dive in, shall we??

LGBT self-discovery story vs. they’ve always known (or have already figured out) they fall under the rainbow umbrella

I am fully in the Already-Know camp. I want my characters to be adults, as in real adults, not some twenty-two-year-old kid running around like a headless chicken LOL. I want them to know themselves, and by that I don’t mean they have to be out, you can be in the closet and still be fully aware of who you are, but I want to be able to understand my characters, and I think I was born middle-aged 😆

No spice vs. all about the spice  

I guess it would be to cheat to say somewhere in between. If I had to choose (which, yeah, I know that’s what we’re doing today) I’d go with no spice. I want plot. I want character development. I want to get to know them as individuals. I don’t care about their dick size.

Speculative fiction vs. contemporary & historical   

Speculative! It’s what I write, and it’s what I read, with a few exceptions.

Pure romance vs. there’s a romantic subplot to the story  

Romance as a subplot. There are some pure romance books I enjoy, no doubt about it, but please give me a mystery, a monster to defeat, an enemy to outrun, or something.

E-reader/audiobook vs. physical book  

I read on my phone. Mostly ebooks, but lately I’ve listened to a few audios. I still vastly prefer ebooks, but there is no denying housework is a bit more fun with a book in my ears. I only pick up a physical book if it’s a garden book.

Read indoors vs. read outdoors  

Indoors! I live in Småland. If there isn’t snow outside, you’ll get eaten by gnats, so yeah, indoors.

Short book vs. long book  

Sometimes, I long for a lengthy book, to really get sucked into the world I’m reading about and digging deep into the characters, but for the most part, I prefer short books. And a short story done well is way more powerful than a novel.

1st person vs. 3rd person

3rd! There are books written in 1st person that I love, but I DNF a lot of books simply because they’re 1st person. I’m sure they’re good, but I simply don’t have the energy. I open the first page, skim it, close the book, and find another. An unpopular opinion, I know.

Series vs. Standalone  

Standalone. There are series I love, many series I love, but standalones are magical. And I’m the queen of reading the first book in a series and then never continuing on to the second.

Tearjerker vs. a laugh a minute 

This depends on what I’m in the mood for. I have a hard time picking. A laugh a minute, perhaps? If I’m in the mood to laugh…

Background music vs. silence

I use music to drown out the rest of the noise in my house. I don’t really listen to it; it just drowns out the rest.

You can only read new books forevermore vs. you can only reread books you’ve previously read forevermore  

Had someone asked me this question five years ago, I’d have gone with new books, but my brain has broken since then. Now I often reread old books simply because I don’t have the energy to take in something new. And there are so many good books! Many new books are awesome, but when you reread something, you know what you’re getting, and if you know what you’re in the mood for, you know which one to pick. So, yeah, I’ll only reread books I’ve previously read if I’m forced to pick 😊

Check out what the others have to say!

Nell Iris

Ellie Thomas

K.L. Noone

Addison Albright

It’s Read Around the Rainbow time!!! Every month, we’re a group of authors who get together and blog about the same topic, and May’s topic is: Do you use a pen name? And if so, why?

I do, more than one, actually. I’ve been Ofelia Gränd for ten years now. On June 5th 2014, my first story was published. It was through Goodreads MM Romance Groups’ Don’t Read in the Closet event. I’d written a few stories before then, MF stories in Swedish, just for the fun of it. Nothing I ever published. And I saw this event and thought why not? So I snagged a prompt. Readers sent in requests, a short description of what they wanted and an image to go with it. Editors would help get the story in shape for free, and the story would be offered to the group’s members for free.

I did it for the fun of it, and I was working as a teacher at the moment, teaching 16-19-year-olds, so I didn’t want my real name tangled up with spicy gay romance. I figured the school might not be pleased, and I didn’t know if I’d write more than one story.

I would, of course, but I wasn’t sure I’d publish anything more. The main reason I did the Don’t Read in the Closet event was the free editing.

So yeah, that was the reason I started Ofelia Gränd. Then, back in 2020, I felt I wanted to do something else. Not changing how I write, or switching genres, or anything like that. But I felt that Ofelia was a mess LOL. I wrote everything from romance to horror, flash fiction to novel length, no heat whatsoever to high heat, and I thought maybe I didn’t have more readers than I did because they never knew what they were getting.

How do you market a mess?

So I started Holly Day. It was much due to Nell Iris, A.L. Lester, and J.M. Snyder. We met up in a chatroom and did writing sprints, and I was writing a Christmas story at the moment. I told them I could write holiday stories all year round. Then I took the kids to the playground and all the while I was thinking about what I’d said.

At first, I thought I’d do Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas or something like that. I told them what I was thinking, and said if I ever was to do something like that I was to name myself Holly Day because I’ll write holiday stories. We had a laugh, but they kept telling me to do it.

So I did. I wrote a Valentine’s story and submitted it to JMS Books as Holly Day, and it wasn’t until then I thought that no, I wasn’t gonna do the big holidays. I was gonna do the crazy ones. So next I wrote a story for Kiss a Ginger Day, and since that was in January and Valentine in February, J.M. Snyder scheduled them accordingly, and the whole idea of monthly releases written for a specific holiday was born.

So, my first pen name was to keep my identity hidden, my second was to fit a brand.

Curious about if the others are writing under their real names or not?? Well, hop on over there and have a look!

Ellie Thomas

Addison Albright

Fiona Glass