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

Up North | The Egg Hunt

Easter Eggs
I’m in the middle of the spring cleaning of my books and the first one to come back up again is The Egg Hunt. The Egg Hunt was previously a Nortown story called Once in a Forest, but will from here on out be an Up North story named The Egg Hunt. I hope that once I’m done it won’t be as confusing.

It’s an Easter story, and if the title didn’t give it away, I’ll let you know that there’s an egg hunt 😀

Anyway, for Up North stories I always do a character introduction, and here we have the story of Tom and Jason.

I find it hard to write this post because I don’t much like Jason. It’s not his fault, but whenever I’ve needed someone to be a bit of an arse in Nortown, Jason is the one who’s received the role. He can say things no one should say, and he can appear selfish at times. He cares for Tom, but it’s not a good sign when I’m swearing over a character I’ve created while reading through the story LOL.

Nah, perhaps I’m unjust. Jason has some good sides or… It’s a defence mechanism.

Tom is your calm, mellow lumberjack. He’s in the closet and has no plans of ever coming out. He doesn’t trust his friends to accept him for who he is, and in his mission to keep himself hidden, he’s become a replica of a person instead of his real self.

Jason will figure him out, though! It’s his mission.

The Egg Hunt was first published back in 2016, but I’m glad to have it back up there. Even though Jason is my scapegoat for all bad things happening in Nortown LOL.

Character card - Tom Character card - Jason

the egg huntJason has one rule when it comes to holidays — work his shift behind the bar and then find a willing body to distract himself with. One night is long enough to satisfy his needs and still walk away with his heart intact. It has worked out fine for most of his adult life, but this Easter, he’s trying something new. He’s leaving the city to visit his friend Aiden, who recently moved in with his boyfriend in the middle of nowhere, but one unfortunate incident leaves Jason without a place to sleep.

Tom doesn’t just not do relationships, he rarely does hook-ups, either, and never too close to home. Living on his own without attachments is easier than having the whole town knowing about him. As the holiday approaches, his lonely house grows even quieter than normal — at least until his friend Tristan dumps an arrogant bartender in his lap.

As soon as Jason lays eyes on the gruff lumberjack whose home he’ll be sharing, he knows who’ll warm his bed for the weekend and help chase away any pending holiday gloom. Too bad Tom doesn’t want to get with the program. As much as he wants to let Jason close, he won’t risk outing himself for a weekend fling. Will Jason trust Tom not to break his heart if he stays longer than a couple of days? Will Tom value their relationship higher than the town gossip?

Release date: April 3rd, 2021

Pre-order in the JMS shop (20% off)