Guest Post | #SlidingIntoMyDMs by Nell Iris

February 18, 2021February 13, 2021 ~ Ofelia Gränd ~ 1 Comment

Guest-Post

Today, we have Nell Iris on a visit! She’s here to talk about her new release #SlidingIntoMyDMs. It’s a #Love story, and I’m super excited about this multi-authored series from JMS Books, but I’ll let Nell tell you more about it. Welcome, Nell!

Thank you so much for having me, Ofelia. It’s always a pleasure to stop by for a visit, and you’re always so generous with your space. I’m proud of us for being such great role models of authors sticking together and lifting each other up 😊

I’m here today to talk about my new book, #SlidingIntoMyDMs, which’s a part of a multi-authored series released by my publisher JMS Books. Last summer, JMS Books sent out an in-house submission call for their authors, where the theme was “falling into love on social media.” We could either pick an existing SM platform where our MCs would meet and fall in love, or we could come up with a new one. The title for the submission call was #Love, and the title of our stories had to start with a hashtag. Hence #SlidingIntoMyDMs.

It all started

Do you ever wonder where authors get their inspiration from?

Last year, I got a DM on Instagram from M, an old acquaintance of mine who I haven’t seen in at least over a decade. He’d watched a video of Radiohead, my favorite band since I heard Creep, some time back in 1993, and thought of me. It was in the spring when the pandemic was relatively new in our lives and we were all fragile and needed cheering up. And then M, this nice, lovely person, saw something he thought I’d like and sent it to me.

He caught me on a particularly bad day so that video cheered me up more than he probably expected it would, and after watching it all the way through (it was an hour-long live show), I cried. I was moved by the music, and I was moved by his thoughtfulness, and after I felt happy.

His thoughtful gesture got me thinking. What if someone needed a pick-me-up just like me? What if his old acquaintance reached out to him via Instagram DM to cheer him up? What if they reconnected and it leads to something more. What if…?

So I scribbled down a few bullet points, the seeds of an idea, and as on cue, JMS Books put out a submission call a short while later and I thought Hmmm?, found my notes, and started writing what turned into Moss and Eddy’s story.

Blurb #SlidingIntoMyDMs:

Cover “Hi. I heard you’ve been sick.”

Eddy Pennington is recovering from a severe bout of pneumonia when an old acquaintance, Moss, sends him a message on social media. They haven’t spoken in years, but Eddy is pleasantly surprised. He always liked Moss even if they were never close friends.

Moss Fanning has no ulterior motive with his message: all he wants is to wish Eddy a speedy recovery. He got over the crush he used to have on Eddy a long time ago.

They reconnect easily and have even more in common now. And when they meet in person, the attraction is instant. Will an innocent, well-meaning message on social media lead to something more? Something deeper? Something…everlasting?

M/M Contemporary / 21998 words

Buy links #SlidingIntoMyDMs

JMS Books :: Universal Buy Link

dog

Excerpt #SlidingIntoMyDMs:

I sink back onto my pillow tower and groan out loud. He’s just fucking perfect, isn’t he? Adopting an abused dog, spending his life coddling him, making sure he has a nice life.

What’s the catch? No one can be that good, right?

Eddy: Now I feel like a jerk for wanting to see your niece riding your dog. I’ll give him a doggy treat and apologize when I meet him.

Moss. LOL. Weirdo. You’re fine.

I decide to throw caution to the wind, because why not? Seriously though. Are you perfect? This time his answer takes a while and I have time to start regretting my question but then I can see him start writing and soon a reply pops up on my screen.

Moss: Um, no? But I’m glad you seem to think so 😉

I lay my phone screen down on my chest. I need to think. I haven’t flirted in so long, haven’t had a real relationship in forever. Hookups on Grindr are so much easier, with no expectations other than tab A in slot B. But this…this is flirting. I’m not great at flirting IRL, and probably even worse at in my Instagram DMs.

But at the same time, I kind of like it. It feels…unpretentious. Like it’s okay if nothing comes of it because social media isn’t the real world. Or at least it shouldn’t be.

I don’t know. I’m too old for this shit. And that thought alone makes me feel even older. I’m forty-two, not one-hundred-and-two. I pick the phone back up.

Eddy: You gotta love a man taking care of poor abused dogs. It’s the rule.

Moss: It is? What rules are those? I need to read them, so I don’t break any of them inadvertently.

Eddy: They are ‘Eddy Pennington’s unwritten but very important rules of conduct and man-loving’ of course. Sadly, they only exist in my brain so I can’t lend them to you.

Moss: I’m laughing so hard I woke up Balderik.

Eddy: Are you laughing at me or with me?

Moss: With you of course.

Eddy: Good save.

Moss: Balderik told me not to fuck things up before he’s had the chance to go for a walk with you.

Eddy: He did? He sounds like a very smart dog.

Moss: Are we flirting on social media like two old farts?

I burst out laughing but clamp my mouth shut quickly, afraid of a coughing fit.

Eddy: I’m afraid so, yes. I’m pretty certain there are grandpas out there with better game than us.

Moss: I was afraid you’d say that.

Eddy: It’s all good. At least we play in the same league.

Moss: So I can tell Balderik not to worry?

Eddy: Yes, you can. Also, you’re not supposed to make me laugh. Coughing is bad for an old guy with pneumonia 😉

Moss: We definitely need to stop the old guy references.

Eddy: Agreed.

Moss: When can we take you for a walk?

Eddy: My sister already got dibs on tomorrow. But the day after that? Unless I take a turn for the worse?

Moss: Thursday it is! If you send me your address, I’ll pick you up. Balderik and I know a perfect walking spot.

Eddy: Sure. Can’t wait.

Moss: Me either.

After we say goodbye, I send him the address and then check my feed. He’s posted a new picture of himself and Balderik. They’re lying down on a leaf-covered lawn somewhere, Moss’s arm is slung around Balderik, and Balderik is kissing his face.

It’s so fucking adorable I can’t stand it.

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:

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

Guest Post | Be Still, My Heart by Holly Day

February 13, 2021February 13, 2021 ~ Ofelia Gränd ~ 1 Comment

Release-Day

Today, we have Holly Day here to celebrate the release of her story, Be Still, My Heart. She’s put together a giveaway so make sure to read to the end of the post. Welcome, Holly!

Thank you for inviting me again, Ofelia, it’s always a pleasure to be here. I wrote a Valentine Story, can you imagine? I can’t *shakes head* LOL. It was one of those occasions when I was powerless of where the story was going.

I had been up early in the morning as most days, and I’d been writing with Nell Iris, talking about this voice in my head. To clear my mind – not easy when your mind is full of voices – I went on a walk.

keywords - 3 The walk didn’t help at all. Instead, I came home with an entire scene painted in my mind. It was of this eccentric man walking into a dating agency looking for a last-minute date, not realising it wasn’t a rent-a-date-by-the-hour kind of place.

I knew how I wanted the story to be, but when I sat down to write, the words didn’t come. Elian Hubert – my eccentric professor – was clear in my mind, and yet I couldn’t find a flow. Dimitri Petrov, the guy behind the desk when Elian entered the dating agency was easy to write, but I struggled with Elian.

The next morning I talked it over with Nell, and she asked if I had to have both Elian’s and Dimitri’s POV. I didn’t. So this story is entirely from Dimitri’s point of view.

Excerpt:

“I… eh… am not a people person.”

The man barked a laugh. “Me either, hence my coming here for a date. Okay, I don’t care if she’s interesting or not, but please don’t give me one of those who look fit for the catwalk. I want her to be shorter than me, and I like a person who enjoys a good meal. Can I pick her up at six-thirty on the fourteenth? Or maybe we should make it six, so we aren’t late. She needs to be in a dress; it’s a formal dress code.” He scrunched his face again.

“Erm… I think you’ve misunderstood what we do.” They helped people find their true match, or, it was what the flyers claimed. “We don’t set people up with dates. It’s not an escort service.”

The man widened his eyes, took a step back, and looked around. “Where’s your sign? I could’ve sworn I read date somewhere on it.”

“Look… What’s your name?”

The man neared the counter again. “Elian Hubert.” He grinned and offered Dimitri his hand. Dimitri shook it, mostly because of this man’s odd behavior, and he didn’t know what else to do. Elian had long, slim fingers, not a callus in sight.

“I can write you down for an appointment with one of our matchmakers.”

Elian frowned. “What good would it do? I’m not picky. All I need is a plus one for dinner.”

“We’re here to help you find your true match, your soulmate.”

Elian rolled his eyes. “I don’t have time for a soulmate. I need a date for one night—one. It’s to make me look good.” He popped his hip out and made a swishy motion with his hand.

“I would look better next to a big strong man, but a woman will do. I’m not paying for sex, it’s a dinner date.”

Dimitri blinked, unable to decide if he should be offended or laugh. “This is not a bordello. Men come to us to find a wife or a steady girlfriend. They go through a lot of… screening.” It was a million questions. Dimitri had seen the forms. “And our dating agents find them the best match and then set them up on a date.”

Elian rolled his eyes again. “Look. Do you want to go on a date with me?”

Dimitri couldn’t breathe. A date? He hadn’t been on a date in years. Hadn’t touched a person other than doctors and nurses in longer than he could remember. He would avoid crowds for as long as he lived. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“I’ll pay you.”

“I’m not a whore.” He kept a stony expression on his face, but part of him was amused by this vibrant creature being willing to pay him to go on a date.

Elian sighed. “I didn’t mean that you’d have to sleep with me.”

“But you want to pay me to dress up nice for you and act as arm candy.” He gestured at himself. “I’m not a pretty man.”

Elian’s eyes widened. “I beg to differ.”

“I’m not dating material.” Dimitri crossed his arms over his chest. He should stop talking.

“I’m not asking you to date me for more than one night.” Elian placed his hands on the counter and leaned in closer.

Dimitri narrowed his eyes. “What kind of date are we talking about?” He wouldn’t go.

“I wrote this—” He waved his hands, “—thing. And now they want me to speak at a dinner.”

Dimitri blinked. “You wrote a thing?”

“I teach history of literature at the university.” He motioned in the direction of the old stone building that had always fascinated Dimitri, but where he’d never dared set foot. He didn’t think of himself as stupid, but he wasn’t cut out for academics. Especially not now.

“And I wrote this piece for a magazine; it’s about love through time. They published it and, apparently, some know-it-all deemed it interesting and invited me to talk about it.”

“That’s great. Congratulations.”

Panic shone in Elian’s eyes as he shook his head. “No, I made it up.”

“What?”

“I… I’ve read a lot of books, you know, and in the old ones there is this pining, letter writing, rules—but in contemporary literature there’s a drunken text, a hook-up in an alley, or a werewolf fucking a zombie in a graveyard.”

Dimitri spluttered. Elian clearly read other books than he did.

Elian grinned. “I still haven’t found the last one, but I’m sure it’s out there.”

“So you didn’t write about zombies?”

“I can’t remember what I wrote.” He widened his eyes. “Which is why I don’t have time to find a date, I need to spend the following days coming up with something to support my theory. If I have a theory.” He shook his head. “It was a night of too much wine and a reverse harem, Mpreg erotica book.”

Dimitri looked around, hoping no one was listening to them. “I know what erotica is, but the rest… I have no idea what those mean.”

“Neither did I.” His chuckle did funny things to Dimitri’s heart. “So, can I pick you up at six?”

Shaking his head, Dimitri took a step back. “I don’t do well in crowds.” His hand slowly slid down to where his gun should have been.

Buy Links:

books2read.com/BeStillMyHeart
Be Still, My Heart in the JMS shop

Cover + Blurb - 20 Hearts

Giveaway:

I have put together a rafflecopter giveaway. I’m giving away an ebook copy of Be Still, My Heart + an ebook copy of Hop Hop, Carrot Top that was published last month. Click the link and you’ll be taken to the giveaway. If you’re up for a game, you can increase your chances of winning by counting hearts. How many hearts do you see in this post? Answer in the giveaway, and to increase your chances more visit Nell Iris’, A.L. Lester’s, and my blog and count the hearts there too ❤

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

Guest Post | Playing Chicken

January 25, 2021January 22, 2021 ~ Ofelia Gränd ~ 1 Comment

Guest-Post

Today we have the lovely A.L. Lester here to talk about her surprise release, Playing Chicken. Make sure to read to the end so you don’t miss the giveaway!

Thank you so much for having me here to day to talk about my new short story, Playing Chicken! It’s a meet-cute bit of fluff that I accidentally wrote as a distraction from Real Life ™ over the last couple of weeks. I have recently joined the UK Romance Novelist’s Association’s Welsh chapter (Cariad Chapter—cariad means love in Welsh) and we are doing a Thing next week around St Dwynwen’s Day, the 25^th January. Dwynwen is sometimes talked about as ‘The Welsh St Valentine’ and I have written all about her on my own blog, so I won’t repeat that here!

Playing Chicken is not my usual style at all. I usually write longer, historical-paranormal romances and recently non-binary characters have been making more of an appearance in my stories. At the moment as my main project, I’m writing a trilogy set in my Lost in Time paranormal universe, which is going to have a fair amount of angst and baddies.

It was pure relief to write something cosy and sweet and just…kind.

The setting for the story is actually a friend’s house. They have an old gamekeeper’s cottage isolated in the middle of a Welsh forest, and you have to drive half a mile down a muddy track to get to it. It’s wonderful. I’d love to live there! So impractical in my current situation, but for Marc and Mal and Anghared the deerhound, it’s perfect.

Chickens

My life is much less full of animals now than it was a decade ago. I used to run a market stall selling eggs at the farmer’s market locally, and I bred hens. At one point I had two hundred chickens. We still have a dozen to lay eggs for ourselves, but that’s it, these days. It was lovely to revisit my poultry-keeping past and write about not-Marc’s chickens. I envisage them as Buff Orpingtons, huge and fluffy. Poor Marc doesn’t quite know what to do about them, but they are very gentle-natured and I’m sure he’ll be fine!

Excerpt:

His first aid kit was rudimentary but covered the basics. Antiseptics, dressings, butterfly strips. It should do the job. He hauled it out from under the driver’s seat, eyeing the squeezed-in boxes disfavourably. That was going to be today’s job, he supposed.

He was so taken up with his mission that he forgot there should have been a chicken in the porch until he turned back toward the house. He blinked in disbelief. She had a friend. Two friends. They were sat in a row on the back of the garden bench underneath the parlour window. As he watched, they jumped down, one by one and stood in a line, as if waiting for him. The two new ones were very clearly the same breed as Chicken Number One. Big, fluffy, orange. One had more exciting headgear than the other two and was a bit bigger, so he guessed that was a boy-chicken. Cockerel. Cock. He sniggered quietly and then stopped himself as the first chicken…he could tell it was the original one because it had a bit of black in its tail and the others didn’t…looked at him disapprovingly.

Obviously cock jokes were out. The telepathic chicken didn’t like it.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was just getting the first aid kit for Mal. I’ll stop.”

He performed a shuffling dance around them to get back indoors. “You’re like the Midwich Cuckoos,” he told them. “You are not coming into my house. Stay outside. It’s bad enough having a porch full of chicken shit.”

Mal was on his feet looking at him in alarm when he stepped through the parlour door, and the dog was standing beside him, hackles up.

“Who were you talking to?” he asked in a panicked voice. “Is someone out there?”

Marc shook his head. “Chickens,” he said. “I seem to have chickens living in the porch. It’s fine. He narrowed his eyes. “What makes you think there might be someone out there? Who hurt you?”

Mal sat down on the edge of the chair and ran his hands over his cheeks, pulling a face. The dog sat beside him and put her chin on his knee, staring up at him, and he absently began to pet her ears. Marc knelt beside him and opened the first-aid box.

“My ex’s dad,” he said, quietly, after a moment or two. We’d split up anyway. Ages ago. But he saw me in Welshpool a couple of days ago and wanted to drive the point home.’ He shivered. “I’d only gone down into town to pick up some food and bits.” He winced as Marc turned his face toward the light and began to wipe the cut against his hairline with antiseptic. “I’d left Anghared up here, else he wouldn’t have got near me.”

The dog gave a small woof as she heard her name.

“Would he, girl? Stupid man.”

“So how did you end up in my barn?” Marc said, gently fixing butterfly strips over the cut. It had come open again and was bleeding a bit, but it looked like it would be fine. “Come on, let’s look at your ribs too, while I’m at it.”

“They’re fine, honestly. Only bruised.” Mal pulled away and Marc just looked at him. Mal sighed. “All right, all right.” He began to unzip the big hoodie he was swamped in and winced again. Marc raised an eyebrow, silently asking for permission and then reached out to help when Mal nodded. There were a lot of layers to get through and it took a while to gently extract him. The cold was still coming off him in waves and he was shivering badly as he said, “I’ve been staying up in the woods. But I felt too bad to get home. Anghared found me, didn’t you girl? And we needed somewhere out of the cold. I’m freezing, still.”

He was shuddering, which was probably a good thing in retrospect, Marc thought. He hadn’t been shivering at all when he’d first come inside. Incipient hypothermia. He had a quick look and a gentle feel of the ribs. They were badly bruised but he couldn’t feel anything shifting around, so he’d call that good. Mal’s skin was icy cold under Marc’s fingers.

“Bath?” he said. “Or body-heat?”

“Ugh,” he screwed his face up. “Do I have to?”

“Yes,” said Marc firmly. “I don’t want you to die on my first day home for two and a half years. If that’s all right.”

Playing Chicken

Marc returns home from London to his isolated Welsh cottage for good, having found his ex boyfriend shagging someone else in their bed. Who’s the thin, freezing cold man with the bruised face he finds in his barn? Will the tenuous connection between them grow, or fade away?

A 9,000 word short story to mark the Welsh St Valentine’s Day, St Dwynwen’s Day, the 25^th of January. With chickens.

Tag line: A short contemporary gay romance to mark St Dwynwen’s Day – the Welsh St Valentine. With Chickens.
Genre: Gay, romance, contemporary, meet-cute, short story
Length: 9,000 words
Release Date: 18 Jan 2020
Buy: http://books2read.com/playingchicken

Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Playing Chicken, Ally is giving away a copy of her New York Times Book Review featured story, Taking Stock. Click here to join!

About A.L. Lester

Writer of queer, paranormal, historical, romantic suspense. Lives 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.