Fiction Friday - The five star reads (October edition)

Does exactly what it says on the tin.

This month has been a brilliant month for reading (lucky that, since I've written hardly a word). Only a couple of books have triggered my 'why am I reading this' alarm. Almost all have been four star reads and books I'd happily read again and these were listed in last week's post. A handful have have been so good that I won't hesitate to recommend them to you as must reads.

In Sunshine or In Shadow by Josh Lanyon - Amazing what Josh can do in so few pages. 
Muscling Through by JL Merrow - Adorable. Funny. Different. 
Passing Through by Jay Northcote - This book is a slight departure for Jay Northcote but only by a few degrees of angst. Her characters are still endearing, the relationship is still sweet, and the sex is still hot. However you will need tissues.
Permanently Legless by J.L. Merrow - The strength of this short story is in the voice of the narrator. What could have been an uncomfortable and bitter read was funny and hopeful.
Strange Fortune by Josh Lanyon - For a book that I wondered if I would struggle to finish it in the first few chapters, this developed into an amazing read. Maybe I was just looking for something slightly different, I don't know, but I ended by loving this story. High on adventure, low on sex, with a slow burn relationship this fantasy/historical was just brilliant.

With tomorrow being the end of the month I'm bringing this challenge to a close.

I had intended for November to be a random month but a off the cuff comment from RJ Scott reminded me how many unfinished series I had to read. Consequently I have changed my November challenge to Series! December will still be Christmas and related holiday stories, which means I will be holding off on reading some much anticipated books until the 1st December.
Wanna know what they might be? 
Winter Wonderland by Heidi Cullinan

What Happens at Christmas by Jay Northcote

Rebound Remedy by Christine d'Abo

Winter Oranges by Marie Sexton

Any books you guys are particularly looking forward to?

Resonance - Live at Amazon

Resonance is up for sale in the Kindle store at Amazon. Yes, sale, not free because Amazon won't let me make it free. Pay for it if you wish but it is supposed to be a free story. If enough people tell them it is free elsewhere I'm hoping Amazon will remove the pricing thereby making it free for all :) To do that I need you guys to pop over there and spread the word.
And if you can't wait to for Amazon to sort themselves out and need to read it now you can find it for free on ARe.

Amazon UK
Amazon US 

5 Star Review for Lovers Entwined

Inked Rainbow Reads have given Lovers Entwined a 5 star review.

"It’s Ewan’s journey that’s most compelling, falling down a family tree that reveals that love is eternal, soulmates are real, and history, so often, is tragic."

"I loved this book. It has torrid, forbidden romance, ups and downs, triumph and grief, and it made me CRY."

"if you want a good Romance Novel, this one’s it."



If you want to read the review in full, the link is above.

Resonance is Live

Resonance is now available for download at ARe. 

I uploaded to Amazon yesterday but I'm still waiting for that link to go live. When it does it will have a price tag of 99c/99p. If you can let Amazon know it is free elsewhere it can be reduced there too.

Pre-order Resonance today

Resonance is now available to pre-order at ARe.

Cover Art: Garrett Leigh
 http://www.blackjazzdesign.com

Photo Credit: Dan Burgess 
http://www.danburgessphotography.com

Resonance

Resonance: The quality in a sound. The power to evoke enduring emotions. Sometimes one can result in the other.
Rick Brandt would never have said he was claustrophobic; after all he’s been in plenty of enclosed spaces in his job as the village’s only handyman cum gardener.  He even squeezed into a disused coal chute to rescue a trapped dog for an elderly resident. So why did opening his eyes in the MRI scanner induce a breath stealing freak-out that has him jabbing at the panic button.

Luckily, Mal, the radiographer running his scan has a pleasant voice and an excellent bedside manner that soothes Rick’s frayed nerves and rabbity heartbeat. Soon the resonance of his tone has gone beyond calming and Rick is lost in a fantasy of the man behind the voice. But things aren’t always what they seem and when Rick’s shocked surprise at the reality causes offence, the likelihood of him getting to experience Mal’s true bedside manner appears to be slipping away.

Fiction Friday - part two

For October my plan, which I'm pleased to say I've been sticking to with very few exceptions, was to pick five of my favourite authors and read as many of their books as I have languishing on my Kindle. And there are many. What am I saving them for? What joys am I doing myself out of?

Why five authors? Because as much as you love an author the writing style can get repetitive when you read nothing but them for the entire month.

Who did I chose for this first month (because three weeks in and I've found this a most rewarding experiment, so I will be doing it again)?

Josh Lanyon
Jo Myles
Jay Northcote
JL Merrow
RJ Scott

Now looking at that list I think you can expect several things; many of these stories will have a very British feel, and there have been a lot of good reads from this bunch of authors. In fact too many for me to do my normal Fiction Friday roundup. So what I'm going to do is list the books that I enjoyed and then next week I'll follow that list up with the five star reads.

Cold Feet by Jay Northcote
Dead Shot by JL Merrow
Alpha, Delta by RJ Scott
Heart Trouble by Josh Lanyon
Camwolf by JL Merrow - Okay I do want to say something about this one. It's much darker than JL Merrow's normal work and from reviews it seems to be a marmite book but it is well worth the read.
Coming Home by Jay Northcote
The Bucket List by RJ Scott
Barging In by Jo Myles (This is one of the first m/m books I bought, I have no idea why I didn't read it then.)
Wizard's Moon by Josh Lanyon - More fantasy than romance
Perfect Day by Josh Lanyon
The Carpenter and the Actor by RJ Scott
The Doctor and the Bad Boy by RJ Scott
Hairy, Horny, and Over Here by JL Merrow - OMG I loved this one so much. Funny.
The Paramedic and the Writer by RJ Scott

I also read Tea and Crumpet, an early UK Meet anthology, because it included stories by a couple of these authors and discovered a whole bunch of authors that I hadn't read before but will happily seek out. It contained some excellent short stories.

I don't know how many more books I'll get around to reading during the rest of this month. I'm currently reading Josh Lanyon's Strange Fortune as the next book in this challenge. From an authors POV I have to proof read New Lease of Life by Friday. Hopefully I should get a few more struck off this list before the end of the month. Then I think I'll make November a random month, and December, as usual, is a holiday reads only month. That means that I'll probably come back to clear out the remaining books by these authors (and anything new they've added) in January. Sounds like a plan. How do you plan your reads?

Fiction Friday

If you remember many weeks ago I was reading the Irregulars anthology. And what a great collection of stories it was. I particularly like the way the stories were interconnected within the same world.
My favourites:
Cherries Worth Getting, by N. Kimberling: An interesting world with two solid leads and a well thought out investigation. Would have loved a longer investigation to stretch out the romance. 4* (The sequel to this story is in the Charmed and Dangerous anthology that I mentioned last Fiction Friday.)

No Life But This, by A. Amara. A much longer story than the previous two. Loved the couple (although the romance most definitely played second fiddle to the plot) and the plot kept me interested and invested. 4.5*

Things Unseen and Deadly, by G. Hale. This took me an age to get into and I honestly thought about putting it down several times in the first chapter or so. I'm glad I carried on reading. The leads were engaging once you worked out what their story was, not true, Jason was engaging from the get-go but Henry took some warming to. And we got an extra helping of Gunther. I ended up really liking this one. 4*

For some reason I had this part of the blog post ready to go and forgot to hit publish! (The scheduled date for this post was 2/10/2015!)

Anyway that was the end of September and I read a couple of other stories worth mentioning before October rolled around.

First Class Package by Jay Northcote - *Free Read* A geeky science writer has a crush on his postman. First thing to note on this is it's a free read, and not just any free read but a freebie by one of my favourite authors. It's set at Christmas, has a geeky writer type, and a plethora of stuffed toys.

Bonus by Liam Grey - Confession time. I've had this waiting on my Kindle for 3 years and it's a Torquere Press short so there is a good chance that this story is no longer available. However if you do have this short story lurking in the dark corners of your reader dust it off and give it some love.  Bitey sex with hidden feels under a rough 'n' ready attitude.

So that's a summary for the end of September's reading. I'm going to split this post in two and deal with my October Plan in the next segment.
BRB

Resonance - Blurb

Yesterday I revealed the cover for 'Resonance'. Today it's the blurb.

Resonance: The quality in a sound. The power to evoke enduring emotions. Sometimes one can result in the other.

Rick Brandt would never have said he was claustrophobic; after all he’s been in plenty of enclosed spaces in his job as the village’s only handyman cum gardener.  He even squeezed into a disused coal chute to rescue a trapped dog for an elderly resident. So why did opening his eyes in the MRI scanner induce a breath stealing freak-out that has him jabbing at the panic button.

Luckily, Mal, the radiographer running his scan has a pleasant voice and an excellent bedside manner that soothes Rick’s frayed nerves and rabbity heartbeat. Soon the resonance of his tone has gone beyond calming and Rick is lost in a fantasy of the man behind the voice. But things aren’t always what they seem and when Rick’s shocked surprise at the reality causes offence, the likelihood of him getting to experience Mal’s true bedside manner appears to be slipping away.

Release date and links as soon as I can get them organised.

I've added Resonance to Goodreads. Click the widget to add it to your shelf.

(This is the first time I've used this function. Let me know if it works.)

Cover Reveal

Here's the cover art for my free short story 'Resonance'.

I think it is gorgeous and I've got Garrett Leigh (yes, the same Garrett Leigh that designed my glorious logo) to thank for it.

Cover Art: Garrett Leigh http://www.blackjazzdesign.com

Photo Credit: Dan Burgess http://www.danburgessphotography.com

Morning, sucker

Just a quick word to let you know how things are going in the land of Lillian.

With RL stuff happening, writing of new material has been slow. Progress hasn't been helped by the regular interruption of edits for New Lease of Life. Luckily these haven't been too intensive, more the occasional rephrasing (or debating the existing phrasing) rather than any rewrites. NLOL has now been through three rounds of edits with Dreamspinner and that part of the process is over. The blurb is pretty much finalised and now I'm just waiting on a cover. As soon as I have a release date I'll let you know.

Hopefully I should be able to get back into a regular writing routine because I'm eager to get back to Rick and Mal and the rocky road at the start of their relationship. Who are Rick and Mal? Well, if you were at the UK Meet their initial story is on the USB. Don't worry if you weren't, one of my jobs over the next few weeks is to sort out a cover and get that story uploaded to ARe and Amazon.

Property of Lillian Francis

Why the abusive header? You do me a disservice, I was saying hi to my fishy friend.


Okay, that's all there is from me. What are your plans for the coming months?