I’m here as Holly today! Two days ago, you could read a quick announcement about the World Naked Gardening stories we’ve been working on this year. Yesterday, the lovely Nell Iris was on a visit to tell us all about Strike a Pose. Today, I thought I’d talk a little about Perfect Rows.

It’s all Nell and Ally’s fault we’ve written these stories. Nell thought I should write a story for World Naked Gardening Day since I write stories for strange days, and then Ally thought we all should. And here we are, five Naked Gardening stories with various amounts of gardening but all with some nudity in the garden LOL

In Perfect Rows, there is a fair deal of gardening. Grayson has ambitions. He wants to grow enough vegetables not to have to buy any during the summer. Given they have a big garden, it should be doable. 

The problem is Camden.

Cam lives in the house across from Grayson, and they share the garden. Camden is a bit of an arse – quite frankly, he’s a dick – and he has a clear idea of what the garden should look like, and vegetables don’t fit his vision. He wants pretty flowers in perfect rows.

I had a great time writing this one, but I might have allowed Cam to become a bit more of a dick than he needed to be LOL

Blurb: 

Everything would’ve been perfect if Grayson Dawe hadn’t been forced to share his garden with Camden Hensley. Grayson has everything he needs in life – a job, friends, a house he loves, and a garden. He wants to grow enough vegetables to cover his needs over the summer, and he has a plan for how to achieve it. 

 Camden Hensley loves his garden. He loves beautiful flowers in perfect rows, sweet scents and buzzing bees, but his neighbor, Grayson, messes everything up. He mixes vegetables with flowers in the growing beds and is incapable of placing plants in straight lines. And when Cam pulls out the plants growing in the wrong place, Grayson snarls at him. 

 Grayson doesn’t want to fight with Camden, but he’s completely unreasonable. Cam only wants Grayson to stop creating chaos and to grow flowers instead of vegetables. Neither of them is willing to back down, and days in the garden usually end in shouting matches, at least until Grayson realizes he can shut Cam up by kissing him. But will they ever be able to agree about what plants should grow where? 

Buy links: 

Contemporary Gay Romance: 16,427 words 

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

Excerpt:

Grayson avoided Cam for the rest of the week. He spotted him a couple of times in the garden, not working but wandering around. As long as he didn’t touch Grayson’s beds, he could wander as much as he wanted.
When Friday afternoon came to an end, Ryan suggested they’d go out for a beer. Grayson was going stir-crazy peeking out his windows all the time to see if he could spot Camden, so a beer and to be away from home for some time sounded like a good plan.
He wondered if Camden avoided him since he never wandered while Grayson was outside. He’d spent time in the garden, made plans, written down notes about what should go where, and started new seeds to have plants to fill the gaps as he harvested. A lot was going on, and while he wished he wouldn’t have to eat turnips again in a long, long time he was damn proud of what he’d accomplished. He hadn’t bought one single vegetable for several weeks, and while it irked him Cam had gotten both his carrots and his garlic, he’d make do. He’d sown new carrots, but he’d have to live without garlic, at least until September when he was allowed to buy veggies again.
Life without garlic was no fun, but a challenge was a challenge.
“Are we hitting the pub directly or are we going for the respectable look?”
Grayson grinned at Ryan. Sometimes they stopped for a beer before they headed home for the day, but today he wanted out of his work clothes. “How about a shower and clean clothes, and I’ll buy you dinner.”
“Oh, are you taking me out on a date?” Ryan fluttered his eyelashes.
“Sure, and I expect you to put out.”
Ryan scrunched his nose. “I’m saving myself for marriage.”
Grayson snorted. There had been plenty of women warming Ryan’s bed throughout the years. “I’ll ask your father for your hand then.”
“Ha! That would be the day.” Ryan grinned. “I can almost picture the look on his face.”
Grayson could too. He’d known Ryan’s dad since they were kids, and while he had no problems with Grayson being queer, he wouldn’t want Ryan to be.
“Are you coming by my place when you’re ready?”
Grayson nodded and headed to his car.
Forty-five minutes later, he was ready to go. He’d had a quick shower, had put on his best jeans and a shirt showing off his physique—though, he didn’t expect to meet anyone who’d care—and a black leather jacket. He’d gone as far as to style his hair.
Stepping out through the front door, he came to an abrupt stop. Camden was sitting on the edge of the raised bed with a bucket and a hand rake.
“You can put the weeds in the compost.”
Cam jumped and turned to look at him, then he looked some more. “Wow, you clean up nice, Grayson. Big date?”
He refused to acknowledge the compliment if it was one. “Yeah, I’m taking Ryan out to dinner.”
“Ryan?”
“Yes, Ryan. Problem with that?”
Camden looked stunned but shook his head. “I… eh… didn’t know you were gay. Or is Ryan a woman? Women can be named Ryan too, right?” A flush climbed Cam’s cheeks, and Grayson watched in fascination. Camden was flustered.
He grinned. “You know Ryan Becker. He is a man.”
“Ryan Becker. I had no idea he was… Ah, well… have fun then.” Cam looked away only to frown at the garden bed. “These.” He pointed at the spring onions. “Are they weeds?”
“No, spring onions.”
“Oh. I pulled some up.” He looked into the bucket, and Grayson tried not to growl. They were still a bit too small, but if he didn’t want them in the bed, he could at least eat them.
“It’s your bed.”
Camden frowned at him. “Yeah, but you spent money on seeds, it would be a waste to throw them.”
Grayson agreed.
“I mean I wouldn’t have placed them so irregularly, it’s too easy to mistake them for weeds, but now they’re there.” He shrugged.
“Do you ever see nature grow in perfect rows?”
“If I plant in perfect rows, it’ll grow in perfect rows.”
Grayson pulled in a deep breath and stepped away. Better to leave than fight with Cam.
“Have fun!” Camden smiled at him.
“Don’t wait up.”
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?”
Grayson grinned and shook his head. It wasn’t like that at all.

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 on social media: 

Website :: Facebook :: Twitter :: Pinterest :: BookBub :: Goodreads :: Newsletter 

Nell Iris is back! Today, she’s talking about Strike a Pose, and for the record, I don’t mind marble penises on covers, in rants or in blog posts LOL. Welcome, Nell!

Hi everyone and a huge thank you to Ofelia for once again letting me come for a visit and talk about my latest book, Strike a Pose. You’re most kind! 😘

Strike a Pose is written for World Naked Gardening Day which occurs on the first Saturday in May annually. I stumbled upon it somehow last year and told my lovely hostess’s alter ego Holly Day that she should write a story about it since she writes stories for all the weird and wonderful holidays out there as you know. Then A.L. Lester said we should all write stories with naked gardeners, and I promptly said yes. We enlisted a couple more people, the awesome K.L. Noone and Amy Spector, and started writing. So on May 7th, five stories with a Naked Gardening theme were released. The stories are all standalone and not related in any other way than the theme.

“Can you put marble penises on a book cover?” I asked Ofelia in the morning office one day, and I’m sure she almost choked on her coffee at my question but she’s too kind to complain. But I had a valid reason for my question. MC Didrik in Strike a Pose is a photographer, and he’s doing a photoshoot of his best friend’s father, Johan, for World Naked Gardening Day, and the theme for the shoot is statues. Didrik has Johan posing as famous (naked!) statues in his garden, so I wanted to put a picture of a statue on the cover. And for accuracy’s sake, and to connect it to the theme, I wanted it to be naked.

Hence my question.

As a Swede, I’m not bothered by pictures of genitalia (unless we’re talking dick pics: don’t send me one of those!!) like people can be, but when I browsed books about Michelangelo’s David on Amazon, he was conspicuously cropped so his marble junk wasn’t showing. It made me suspicious, which is why I asked Ofelia. She, as a fellow Swede, was on the same page as I (it’s marble, what’s the big deal?), but by then Ally Lester had joined us, and since she’s a sensible Brit she said, “you can probably not put marble penises on book covers.”

That made me sad. I had found some awesome stock photos I wanted to use. This glorious marble ass for example, but most of all I wanted this lovely, full-frontal, discus thrower. But even though Ally was adamant, I decided to ask my publisher JMS Books anyway. They promptly told me that no, you cannot put marble penises on book covers. Amazon does not approve…and they knew this from experience! 😁

But, despite not being allowed to put the full-frontal discus thrower on my cover, I’m very happy with the results. JMS Books’ cover artist, strategically put the title over the unacceptable marble body part (that was already covered, btw, here’s the original) so no one at Amazon would be offended. Everyone is happy!

Except for maybe poor Ofelia, who’s not only had to listen to me rant about marble penises on several occasions, but now I also write about them on her blog. 😁

Blurb: 

Didrik would do anything for his best friend, Filip, including taking pictures of Filip’s dad, Johan, for a charity calendar. Naked pictures, of beautiful, irresistible, wonderful Johan, who was single-handedly responsible for Didrik’s gay awakening. He was also happily married and unavailable…until he wasn’t.

After losing his husband five years ago, Johan finally seems ready to move on, and as they start the charity project, everything changes. With every meeting, every conversation, every pose for the camera, the attraction between them swells and grows, until it burns hot and threatens to consume them.

Their interactions, their relationship is surprisingly easy, but it’s not without its challenges. The age difference for one thing. Telling Filip for another. Is their connection enough to last? Can they overcome the hurdles to get the happily ever after they deserve?

M/M Contemporary / 17545 words

Buy links: 

JMS Books :: Amazon :: Books2Read

About Nell

Nell Iris is a romantic at heart who believes everyone deserves a happy ending. She’s a bonafide bookworm (learned to read long before she started school), wouldn’t dream of going anywhere without something to read (not even the ladies room), loves music (and singing along at the top of her voice but she’s no Celine Dion), and is a real Star Trek nerd (Make it so). She loves words, bullet journals, poetry, wine, coffee-flavored kisses, and fika (a Swedish cultural thing involving coffee and pastry!)

Nell believes passionately in equality for all regardless of race, gender or sexuality, and wants to make the world a better, less hateful, place.

Nell is a bisexual Swedish woman married to the love of her life, a proud mama of a grown daughter, and is approaching 50 faster than she’d like. She lives in the south of Sweden where she spends her days thinking up stories about people falling in love. After dreaming about being a writer for most of her life, she finally was in a place where she could pursue her dream and released her first book in 2017.

Nell Iris writes gay romance, prefers sweet over angsty, short over long, and quirky characters over alpha males.

Find Nell on social media:

Newsletter :: Webpage/blog :: Twitter :: Instagram :: Facebook Page :: Facebook Profile :: Goodreads :: Bookbub

Excerpt: 

His gaze is immediately drawn to my drawings. “I’ve been curious since last night, please tell me what you’ve got.”

I nod and launch into an explanation of how I couldn’t make any of the actual gardening themes work, how they all felt wrong. “I promised you art,” I explain, “and that wasn’t it. It felt more like something the local gardening association would do. Not that it’s anything wrong with that, but it wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t right.”

He nods along with my explanation, his attention fixed on me. “So you came up with something else?”

I bob my head. “Statues!” 

“Statues?”

“Yes! I took a break from sketching because I was stuck and ended up watching a documentary about Michelangelo. The idea is that you pose as famous statues. It was David that sparked the idea—” I thumb through my sketchbook to find the drawing I’m talking about and turn it to him when I find what I’m looking for, “—like this. And then I started researching more classical statues. I found a bunch of them we could recreate. Hang on, I downloaded pictures.” 

I hand him my phone when I’ve found the folder with all the statues and watch him as he swipes through them. “There are more than twelve,” I say, “because not everyone might work. And you can pick which ones you like, and the ones you think CM would’ve liked. And of course, the ones you’re comfortable with. Or we can shoot them all and choose what pictures to include when we know how they turned out. And if you know of any statues I haven’t included, I’m open to suggestions.”

He gives me back my phone. “Show me more of your sketches.”

“I haven’t sketched them all out, but here, let me show you what I’ve got.” 

We go through all the drawings, and I explain my thought process, and he nods and hums in all the right places. He even offers some input, tapping his finger on the discus thrower. “I know a better spot for this one.” 

“Show me.” 

He stands and jumps off the porch, and I grab the sketchbook and my phone before I follow him. He takes me to a part of the garden I hadn’t paid attention to, a portion of the lawn that’s relatively free of other vegetation, and I see what he means. It’s easy to frame it like a sports field, with no trees or bushes that would catch the discus when thrown. 

“You’re right,” I mumble, and open the sketchbook to a blank page, but mutter when I realize I haven’t brought a pencil. “Let’s try it.”

“Now?”

“Mhm. I can use my phone for a test shoot.”

“Oh, okay. So what do you want me to do.” 

I grab his wrist and tug him gently until he follows me. “Stand here.” I fiddle with my phone until I find the image of the discus thrower. “Can I help you into the pose?”

“Yes.”

I proceed to mold and shape him like the statue; back arched, knees bent, his left hand resting against his right knee, and his right hand pulled back as though he’s about to hurl a discus across a field. His empty hand disturbs the vision, so I tuck my sketchbook into his hand. “Pretend this is a discus.”

He nods and I step back, crouching on the ground to see his pose from a different angle, opening my camera app to snap a few pictures to keep as a memory. I move to my left. “Look up at the discus,” I say. “You’re an athlete. A champion. You’re going to hurl that thing with all your strength and beat all the other champions.” 

He twists his head until his steady gaze is locked on the sketchbook, his eyebrows knitted together as though he’s concentrating on his mission. As though he’s mentally preparing himself for the throw of his life, and I start snapping some pictures. 

The light isn’t optimal, my camera phone is pretty crappy, he’s wearing modern clothes instead of being naked, and he’s not holding an actual discus, but none of those things matter. I can see it before me. The end result is going to be fabulous. “Yes,” I mumble. “Yes.” 

The lovely Nell Iris is back! This post made me think of the good old days when Nell, Ally and I wrote together EVERY morning. We still do most days of the week, but now there are demands from the outer world, so sad. Enough reminiscence. Welcome back, Nell.

---

Hi! *waving happily* It’s me. Nell. The lovely Ofelia has graciously invited me back (thank you 😘) to talk about my latest release, It Rained All Night that I wrote for the JMS Books submission call “rain or shine.”

I’d had an idea for the longest time that I wanted to write a story about a couple who’s gotten to know each other online and developed a deep emotional bond with each other. The idea is somewhat inspired by events in my own life. Not that I met someone and fell in love online—I’ve been with the same guy since long before the internet was readily available for everyone—but in the sense that I’ve met people online that I’ve never met but consider friends. Real friends, the kind I talk to every day.

Take my lovely hostess Ofelia, for example. We started our morning writing sessions almost two years ago and Ally (as in A.L. Lester) joined us shortly after that. It started out as writing, but you can’t spend 3 hours together online every day (it was every day in the beginning before my Stupid Day Job interfered) without getting to know each other outside the writing, so we started sharing things about our “real” lives.

The writing dates happen in a chat room for JMS authors, but soon we created a messenger chat for us three where we literally talk every day. A lot of the conversations center around writing, ofc since it’s such a huge part of our lives (be happy you don’t have to read their newsletter onboarding sequence conversations; it almost makes me want to mute them 😁), but there’s also a lot of talk about chickens, grandbabies, husbands, our day jobs, demanding relatives, the state of the world, good or bad books, what we’re doing on a Friday night…You know; the stuff you talk to your friends about.

It hit me one day when I needed to rant about one thing or another (nothing writing-related) and Ofelia and Ally were the people I turned to instead of my real-life BFFs. They are my friends. These people, who I’ve never met IRL, are very important to me and I trust them.

That realization inspired my writer’s brain, and it resulted in It Rained All Night. Mikko and Henrik meet once IRL, exchange contact information, and stay in touch. What starts with a few texts evolves into a deep friendship, and since I’m a romance writer, I had to add a romantic element ofc. But that part of the story is entirely fictional…and not based on my friendship with Ofelia and Ally 😁

Blurb: 

Can a chance meeting in the rain change someone’s life? 

Meeting someone who can make him stop going is an eye-opener for Henrik. The man, Mikko, is his complete opposite, a steady rock in the wild rainstorm that is Henrik’s life, but the connection between them is both unexpected and instantaneous. Their encounter only lasts a few minutes, but before they part, they exchange phone numbers.

They live far away from each other, but soon they text and call daily, until Mikko is Henrik’s dearest friend and most trusted person. But a late-night question on the phone has Henrik re-evaluating his feelings. It’s impossible to love someone you’ve only met in person once…right? 

Is the connection Henrik and Mikko forged long distance enough to sustain them when they meet again? And will their love be strong enough to give them the happily ever after they deserve? 

M/M Contemporary / 7673 words

Buy links: 

JMS Books :: Amazon :: Books2Read

About Nell

Nell Iris is a romantic at heart who believes everyone deserves a happy ending. She’s a bonafide bookworm (learned to read long before she started school), wouldn’t dream of going anywhere without something to read (not even the ladies room), loves music (and singing along at the top of her voice but she’s no Celine Dion), and is a real Star Trek nerd (Make it so). She loves words, bullet journals, poetry, wine, coffee-flavored kisses, and fika (a Swedish cultural thing involving coffee and pastry!)

Nell believes passionately in equality for all regardless of race, gender or sexuality, and wants to make the world a better, less hateful, place.

Nell is a bisexual Swedish woman married to the love of her life, a proud mama of a grown daughter, and is approaching 50 faster than she’d like. She lives in the south of Sweden where she spends her days thinking up stories about people falling in love. After dreaming about being a writer for most of her life, she finally was in a place where she could pursue her dream and released her first book in 2017.

Nell Iris writes gay romance, prefers sweet over angsty, short over long, and quirky characters over alpha males.

Find Nell on social media:

Newsletter :: Webpage/blog :: Twitter :: Instagram :: Facebook Page :: Facebook Profile :: Goodreads :: Bookbub

Excerpt: 

I sigh. If I ever get married. I need a man for that, and I won’t find a man if I’m not looking, and I’m not looking because…

A gust of wind sprays me with chilly raindrops. I shiver but don’t go inside. Instead, I sink deeper into the chair and let the steady dripping on the roof soothe me. 

I’m not looking because of Mikko. 

I don’t know when it happened. When my feelings for Mikko veered from being friendly to something else. Something more. Something deep.

We stayed in contact after the yoga retreat; even though we’d exchanged phone numbers, I didn’t expect much, but he’s an avid texter and kept me updated about his long train ride back home after we parted. He was funny and thoughtful, and it didn’t take long until texting him daily was a regular part of my routine. Until I started expecting “good morning” messages with a picture attached of him contorted in one of the harder, fancier yoga poses. Until I started needing to chat with him for a few moments at the end of the day to unwind. Until he was the one I wanted to confide in, until he was the one I started to turn to when something important was going on. 

Until he was the one I fell—

I push away the thought before I can complete it. It’s not possible to fall in love with someone you’ve only met once. It’s not. 

Still, as I sink deeper into the chair, as the pitter-patter of rain against the roof chases away the stress of the day, I allow myself a second to acknowledge that I’m fooling myself with those kinds of thoughts. 

But then my phone buzzes with an incoming call, I know it can only be one person. Only Mikko would call me at this hour.

“What are you doing up this late?” I ask as a greeting, as the tense set of my shoulders bleed away, leaving me relaxed for the first time all day.

“I was waiting for you to report back from the wedding of the century.” His voice is hoarse, sleepy, but happy.

My free hand flies to my chest and lands over my heart, the heart that’s in danger of melting at the sound of his voice, the heart that’s growing and swelling so quickly I need to keep it contained in my palm, so it won’t burst out of my ribcage. 

“You’re gonna be tired tomorrow. I don’t want you to injure yourself while doing the crow pose.”

“Aw, Henrik.” The R in my name rolls on the tip of his tongue. “I appreciate your concern, but you know I can fly in my sleep.”

I know. And he looks magnificent doing it; with his arm muscles bulging as he holds up his weight, one long leg stretched up toward the sky, toes pointed, gaze focused on the mat, he’s the image of perfection, and I can’t help sighing. 

He doesn’t know the direction my thoughts have taken, so he asks, “Was it that bad? The wedding?” 

“I’m probably the only one in the family who thinks so, but yeah.”

“I wonder why the fancy-gene skipped you. It should be coded into your DNA after hundreds of years as nobility. And you got it with your mother’s milk.”

“You assume my mother breastfed me. If it hadn’t been frowned upon in this day and age in our culture, I’m sure she would have hired a wet nurse. Breastfeeding is for plebeians.”

He chuckles. “You’re exaggerating.”

“Am I? You haven’t met my mother.” 

“She can’t be that bad.”

“She’s not bad. Just not the definition of motherly,” I say.

“I bet she still cried at the wedding.” 

“She dabbed her monogrammed linen handkerchief in the vicinity of her eyes, but I’m not sure there were actual tears.”

He laughs out loud. “Stop, you’re killing me.”

My smile widens as I sink deeper into the chair. I love his laugh. It’s unreserved. The definition of joy.

“Did the bride and groom say ‘I do’ in all the right places at least?”

“They did. And Emma did look radiantly happy. She deserves to be.” 

“Despite torturing you with opulence?”

“Mmm. One day I’ll get my revenge.” 

“You’re crazy,” he snorts, as a gust of wind throws rain against the roof. “Let me listen to the rain. We still have snow on the ground up here. Not much, but still.”

“All right.” I hold my phone up high to make sure the microphone can catch the smatter. The intensity increases on cue as if the rain wants to make Mikko happy. I let him listen a minute or so, before lowering my arm again. “Good? Or do you want more?” 

“Perfect,” he sighs. 

“You should go to sleep.” 

He hums noncommittally, the way he does when he needs to collect his thoughts. I close my eyes and let him, his even breaths in my ear helping me relax even more.

We exist in silence for several minutes, before he finally speaks, his tone raw. Vulnerable. “How long are we going to do this?”

I blink my eyes open and stare at the wet roof, furrowing my eyebrows. “Do what?”

“Pretend we’re only friends.”