Sales

Totally Bound are having a 20% off sale across all ebooks.

Take advantage of the offer if you want to buy When Love Flue In for a last minute Christmas read. Or if you just want to extend those warm & fuzzy holiday feelings.

Also JMS Books are still running their sale until 2nd January 2015. 
Pick up Waiting for a Spark at 35% off.

A Five Star Review

YAY! A five star review for When Love Flue In, this review from Sinfully Sexy Books. 


"A true Christmas fairy tale."

"Reagan and Dominic are as sweet as Christmas fruit pies."

"Dominic's first time is funny, romantic, threaded with caring and so wonderfully hot."

"You have to read this one for Christmas. It will genuinely warm your heart."



Read the full review here.

Favourite reads in November

Yes, I know it's nearly the end of December but I noticed that with all the promo work for When Love Flue In I forgot to pimp my reading round up from November.

November’s reads were made up primarily of some free reads that hit my ereader that month, some more Halloween stories and two new series (one new new and one paperback that had been hanging around for too long and I only picked up because my Kindle has been playing up).

Books read: 15

5 star reads: 0

4 star reads: 7

DNFs:  0 (this is more because the ones that I really didn't care for were so short that I finished them. Had they been longer stories I would probably have DNF'd at least 3 of them)

5 star reads

None!

4 star reads

Trick or Treat by JL Merrow

Starstruck (Bluewater Bay 1) by L A Witt

There's Something About Ari (Bluewater Bay #2) by LB Gregg

An Erie Halloween by V L Locey

A Hundred Lonely Halloweens by Ari McKay

Posted To Death (Simon Kirby-Jones Mysteries #1) by Dean James

Steam Heat by Ari McKay

Thankfully I already have some five star reads for December.

Just when you thought it was safe to pop back to my blog

Yes, I'm still blogging about When Love Flue In. After several weeks of blogging silence on the subject I'm back, because when better to blog on a Christmas release than Christmas Eve.

I'll be talking once again about Mince Pies. I covered the history behind one of my favourite festive treats over at Katherine Halle's blog a couple of weeks ago. Today I'll be blogging over at Guys Like Romance Too about the many different styles of Mince Pies on the market today and when you can expect to have them thrust upon you.

Also there will be a pie-centric excerpt from the novella and a giveaway.

First draft in the bag

I have finally finished the first draft of New Lease of Life. This story started life with the intention of being a short for a dreamspinner anthology submission. I missed both the deadline and the maximum word count by a mile because it somehow morphed into just under 60K.

I was going to post this tomorrow as a Christmas present to you all but I remembered that I'm blogging over at Guys Like Romance Too and nobody would expect two posts from me in a day :)

So to celebrate the end of the first draft I decided to do one of those 7 from 7 things but instead I'm doing 12 from 23 (the date, see).

Twelve lines from page twenty-three.
(this is first draft and unbetaed)

“You have a website,” Colby said, the phrasing making the words a statement not a question despite his hesitancy. 
“Of course. I work online. It would be poor business practise not to have a website.”
“Uh-huh.” Colby shook his head and made a show of chewing.
Obviously, he had more to say on the subject and Pip tried to avoid staring, casting his gaze back to his lunch rather than watching and waiting for the undulation of Colby’s throat when he swallowed. Or the way he licked his lips to catch the oil from the semi-sundried tomatoes.
“The blog. Tweedle’s about. Nice play on words by the way.”
Fuck. The brioche seemed to expand to clog his throat. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 
“I found it. Your blog. I was researching tweed and you came up.”

Enjoy.

And it's your last chance to enter the giveaway for When Love Flue In. 

I got a B - Another review

Another great review for When Love Flue In, this time from The Bookpushers.

Since it's only a mini review I will post the whole of the main body of the review.

"A fun and sexy Christmas novella about a recently divorced lawyer and the man who cleans his chimney every year. We get POVs from both men which I really enjoyed because I found Dominic adorable with his crush and Reagan’s moment when he realized he was the object of it was priceless.

I had a great time with this read. I loved the MCs and the relationship between Reagan his mother was lovely. For a shorter read this packed a wonderful little emotional punch that didn’t rely solely on the incredibly hot sex but included the dialogue and fantasies as well.
Definitely checking out other books by the author.

I’m giving “When Love Flue In” a B"

Don't worry, last stop

And finally we arrive at the last stop of the tour. Today I'm sharing my thoughts at Therese Woodson's blog about epilogues and when you need one.


Have you been paying attention? Don't forget one lucky commenter could win a copy of When Love Flue In just by answering this simple question.

Which king alledgedly had his life saved by a chimney sweep?

That's it. All there is to it. The answer I'm looking for is in one of the posts from the blog tour.

Leave the answer in the comments along with your email address so that I can contact you. Then I'll pick a winner from all the correct answers. (I will check Goodreads in case anyone has answered at the blog post over there.) I'll be keeping the contest open for a couple of days so feel free to enter unless you see a comment from me confirming the winner.

Good luck and thanks for popping by.

Not run out of things to talk about yet?

Today you'll find me over at Elin Gregory's blog discussing the history of chimney sweeps.

I must confess the post got rather depressing considering it is promo for a Christmas story. Luckily, When Love Flue In contains none of these elements. I'll apologise now, though.

For goodness sake woman put a sock in it

Today I'll be over at Meredith Russell's blog (check out the link to her cover art work while you're there).

My inane ramblings today will involve additional content and the type of scenes guaranteed to strike fear in my heart when I'm asked to knock one up.

Me again

Hello again. Yep, it's me.

Today I'm discussing one of my favourite festive treats over at Katherine Halle's blog.

The Mince Pie. Where did that idea come from and why do we eat it at Christmas?

Stop One

On the first stop of my mini tour I'm blogging over at RJ's blog. Well, Reagan is actually. He's going to tell you all about life as a modern day chimney sweep.

To recap

I know the links in Friday and Saturday's posts were misbehaving. These have been updated to the correct links but I'll list them here as well.

Female First

ARe Cafe

This has been a public service announcement.

Announcing a mini blog tour and a chance to win

So When Love Flue In has been out a couple of days and already I've blogged in a few places that were arranged by Totally Bound. (Thanks Holly.) But feeling the need for the familiar I decided to gather (aka pester) some friends and arrange a mini blog tour of my own.

The stops for the tour will be

RJ Scott 
Katherine Halle
Meredith Russell
Elin Gregory
Therese Woodson

Follow each of these posts and at the end of the tour I'll pose a question. It could be taken from any of these five posts. Correct answers will go into a hat (probably an actual hat since I don't know how these random generator jobbies work) and the lucky commenter will win a copy of the ebook.

Announcement over. See you again tomorrow.

Wherein I babble on again

So if you didn't hear enough of my opinions yesterday there are yet more oportunities to listen to me going on in the coming week.

Today you'll find me over at ARe Cafe discussing what type of read I hope to find whenever I pick up a Christmas story.

When Love Flue In released today

Today sees the release of my Christmas novella 'When Love Flue In'.

To celebrate this release I'm blogging over at Female First  about book titles and the importance (or not) of getting them right. Join me over there and let me know what you think.



A soot-haired chimney sweep, an exploding flue and an uncooked turkey. It’s an unholy trinity that may make all of Dominic’s Christmas wishes come true.

Dominic is celebrating his first Christmas since his divorce, and although he’s spending it on his own, he’s determined to have a traditional Christmas morning, including a roaring fire. Unfortunately, Dominic’s chimney is blocked, which is why Reagan, a soot-haired chimney sweep, is head and shoulders up Dominic’s flue. Dominic is just lucky the man had a cancellation on Christmas Eve.

Unable to take his eyes off Reagan’s low-slung jeans and enticing arse while Reagan sets about the hearth with rods and brushes, Dominic knows five years is a long time to be obsessed with the man who sweeps his chimney every Christmas. This year there’s nothing to stop Dominic from acting on his desires—except his own insecurities.

An exploding flue provides the opportunity for more than just polite conversation and could be the catalyst for a perfect Christmas. But Dominic will need to stop hiding who he really is before a special sweep can light a fire in his heart.

Publisher's Note: This book was previously released by another publisher. It has been revised and re-edited for release with Totally Bound Publishing.

Buy Links

Totally Bound

ARe

Kobo

Amazon US  &  UK


Edit: It doesn't look as though the post at Female First is up yet. I'll get you a link as soon as I have it. In the meantime I'm going to leave this post up because, hey, new release. Yay!

Edit2: Finally have a working link for Female First.

December and what I hope to achieve

To be fair the answer to that is very little. By its very nature December is a slow writing month for me at the best of times. There is just too much family stuff going on to actually make any plans. But this year has the added chaos that is a new release.

For anyone who hasn’t been to this blog in a while ‘When Love Flue In’ will be released this coming Friday, 5th December. Many blog posts will ensue where I wax lyrical about chimney sweeps or all things Christmas related. I’ll also be giving away a couple of copies at various places, the first of which is currently going on at Stumblingoverchaos.

I fully intend to finish the first draft of New Lease of Life. I know I said this last month but I was struck down by a chest infection that laid me low for a fortnight leaving me with little energy and even less inclination to write. During this period the few words that could be pulled from my brain were utter tosh. I did manage to break the 50K mark though and as far as my vague plotting goes I think I’m only about four scenes from the end. Of course, one of those is the sex scene which will slow me down considerably.

The rest of the month I’m leaving free. I get the feeling that some beta work will be coming my way in the near future (thanks to a little bird called Twitter) and I always make the time to get that back as soon as reasonably possible. I’m almost certainly expecting some edits (more about that in a later post, probably early January) and some cover art discussions/decisions will be required. Maybe I'll get some research done on what could possibly be the main subject of my next story.

As for the rest of my free time (hah!) I intend to do lots of reading. Anyone that saw December’s planned reading post will know I have a huge pile (metaphorically speaking) of holiday themed stories to get through. Hopefully these will provide a sweet, fluffy sugar rush without any of the resulting calories and keep me happy and smiling well into the New Year.

December Planned Reading List

With so many books in my TBR pile I like to get some idea of what I intend to read during the coming month. It doesn’t always work, some books are still floundering unread even though they been on my planned reading list since January.

December is easy, though. December is Christmas and Festive Holiday reading. There are a couple of books on this list that I don’t own yet. Also I have pre-ordered Dreamspinner’s Celebrate package so I shall have all of those individual stories to read too.

This list isn’t the order I intend to read in either.

Sleigh Ride is planned as my first read because I’ve been looking forward to reading that for months.

title	author
Comfort and Joy	Lanyon, Josh*
Unwrapping Hank	Easton, Eli *
Gaudete	Durreson, Amy Rae *
Making His List	Rhodes, Devon *
A Gift of Mistletoe	Whitehall, Alex *
GI Joe Holiday	Smith, Amberly *
Enchanted Grounds	Moore, Michelle
Christmas Bells	Deacon, Andi
Silver Thaw	Price, Nora Catherine
Sleigh Ride (Minnesota Christmas, #2)	Cullinan, Heidi*
Needing A Little Christmas	Violet, Silvia *
Christmas Serendipity	Livings, Liam
Holiday History	Champa, Heidi*
Home for Christmas	Bennett, Nicki
As the Snow Lay All Around	Blaise, S.
Where the Lovelight Gleams	Andrews, Keira *
Sweet and Sour	Amara, Astrid*
A Gift for Santa (The Naughty North Pole, #3)	Wadsworth, Deanna *
The First	West, Rachel *
I Spy Something Christmas (I Spy, #3)	Lanyon, Josh*
Miracle of the Bellskis (Bellskis, #2)	Amara, Astrid*
Vespers in the Snow (Philip & Clive, #1)	Aedin, M. Jules *
All I Want For Christmas	Reilly, Linda
Holiday Outing	Amara, Astrid*
Love Ahead: Expect Delays	Amara, Astrid*
Christmas Luck	Brown, Bethany
The Christmas Throwaway	Scott, R.J. *
My Christmas Present	Griffin, Toni *
Stuff My Stocking: M/M Romance Stories that are Nice and… Naughty	O'Shea, M.J. *

Are there any Christmas stories that didn't make my list that you would recommend for me to read?

When Love Flue In - Giveaway

Want to win a copy of When Love Flue In?

Head on over to Stumblingoverchaos to enter my giveaway there.




Can't wait that long? Totally Bound have it available for early download here.

Getting Organised

With the best will in the world I’m not the most organised person. I get by on a method of memory (which is crap btw), a prominent white board (for family stuff), and flying by the seat of my pants. Sometimes it is days before I realise that I haven’t done a blog post on one of my own new releases!

I’ve tried buying myself diaries of all manner and description from the bog standard to a Dodo Pad but I just forget to fill them in or, if I get that far, then I forget to check them every day!

However, with my new resolution to blog more I’m going to have to be on the ball. To that end I’m trying to prepare more posts up front and taking advantage of my blog’s feature to schedule the post in advance, because all the time spent writing posts will be for nothing if I forget to submit or fail to promote them.

I’ve also downloaded some free worksheets to help me keep track of what needs to be done. These can be kept in a file on my laptop and are in a pdf format that can be typed into, so there is no need to print them out unless I really want to. I can access the files whenever I need to without having to search for something physical—that I will have more than likely tidied away, somewhere safe i.e. never to be found again.

The site has a variety of different worksheets available, but I’ve started by making use of the Bog Post Planner & Calendar and the Monthly Action Planner.

I’ve found them particularly helpful with my upcoming release to plan posting dates, organise what needs to be written by when, and identifying deadlines.

I’ve got all the tools at my disposal to be a successful blogger. Except time. TARDIS, anyone?

Review Time

Another review for When Love Flue In, this time from Sexy Erotic Xciting. I'm so pleased to get a 'Sexy and Sizzling' four handcuff review!


"Lillian Francis’ When Love Flue In was a lovely tale built on not only mutual attraction but mutual affection."


"Ms. Francis allowed for character development and led us in a journey of self-discovery and sensuality."

"When Love Flue In should be added to any collection of gentle lovers and Christmas cheer. This short read will not disappoint."

Read the full review here.

October's reads

This is hopefully going to be another new feature. Gosh, I am embracing this blogging lark. Let's see how long I can keep it up.

October’s reads were a mixture of my favourite authors, some stories from the Loves Landscapes event, and some stuff that has been hanging around on my Kindle for too long.

Books read 20

5 star reads: 4

4 star reads: 7

DNFs:  2

5 star reads

Once Upon A Haunted Moor (Tyack & Frayne, #1) by Harper Fox

A Case of Possession (A Charm of Magpies, #2) by KJ Charles

Epiphany by JL Merrow

The Boy with the Painful Tattoo(Holmes & Moriarity, #3) by Josh Lanyon

4 star reads

It's All Geek to Me by JL Merrow

Outlast the Night (Lang Downs #3) by Ariel Tachna

Dudleytown (Cornwall Novellas, #1) by LB Gregg

Raising the Rent by JL Merrow

Waiting for a Prince (Island Tales, #1) by KC Wells

Torn by Angela Maye

I Spy Pecan Pie by Anna Birmingham

And for those who only think I read gay romance. A 4 star read from October ( September, August, and July—it took 3 months to read)

The American Boy by Andrew Taylor


In November I'm planning on continuing to read some Halloween inspired spooky reads as well as more standard fare. If I get the chance to read ever again with all these blog posts I have to write!