Honorary Blogger Post

Honorary Blogger Piper Vaughn: Best Gifts Ever

Posted on December 19, 2014 by thebloggergirls

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Best Gifts Ever

by Piper Vaughn

Hi, all! Thanks to The Blogger Girls for having me today!

Over the years it’s gotten to the point where my family defaults to giving me an Amazon gift card for just about every special occasion. Not that I’m complaining—I do love Amazon and my Kindle—but it occurs to me that it’s been ages since I got a personal gift from someone that both surprised me and really fit me as an individual. Recently, as hedgehogs have become one of my obsessions over the last few years, I’ve gotten a few hedgehog themed gifts, and occasionally, I’ll get a cute pair of socks from those who know about my sock fetish.

But I think one of the best gifts I ever got came from my parents about a decade or so ago. I was visiting from Alaska for Christmas. They surprised me with a pair of second-row tickets to see the “Hairspray” musical. Why did this make such a great gift? Well, I’ve been obsessed with the John Waters’ movie since childhood. I would watch “Hairspray” constantly. I loved the dancing, the actors, the music. Just everything about it—and at the time, I didn’t even know the “Hairspray” musical existed. It was a surprise in numerous ways, and still stands out in my mind as one of the best gift-opening moments ever.

In The Working Elf Blues, Garnet gives Wes a very special Christmas gift. It’s one he doubts throughout the story, worrying it might seem silly or childish, but it’s highly personal, and when he finally works up the courage to give Wes the gift, well, it’s one of my favorite moments in the story. If you read it, you’ll see why. 🙂

So, what was the best gift you ever received for the holidays? One that really fit you and your personality? I’d love to hear about it. And if you’re interested in winning a copy of The Working Elf Blues, along with an adorable pair of elf-themed holiday socks, check out my blog post. The giveaway is open until December 21st.

Happy holidays to those of you who celebrate. Keep safe and warm! 🙂

~Piper

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About The Working Elf Blues

The Working Elf BluesGarnet Evergreen has never heard of an elf abandoning the North Pole for a human, but he yearns to be the first. Ever since he saw Wes, the boy with sorrowful eyes, Garnet felt an undeniable kinship. Over the years, he’s watched that boy grow into a man, and now he’s determined to give Wes a Christmas he’ll never forget. If only Garnet had thought to test his father’s sleigh before leaving…

Orphaned as a child, Wes spends every Christmas alone at his cabin. When he’s woken by a suspicious boom and finds a wrecked sleigh and an unconscious elf, he doesn’t know how to react. Wes isn’t fanciful. He doesn’t give much credence to the stories about Santa Claus and flying reindeer. But a part of him wants desperately to believe when Garnet promises forever, even if life has taught him that no one ever stays…

Available at: Less Than Three Press, All Romance eBooks, Amazon & BookStrand

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About Piper Vaughn

Piper Vaughn wrote her first love story at eleven and never looked back. Since then, she’s known that writing in some form was exactly what she wanted to do. A reader at the core, Piper loves nothing more than getting lost in a great book—fantasy, young adult, romance, she loves them all (and has a two thousand book library to prove it!). She grew up in Chicago, in an ethnically diverse neighborhood, and loves to put faces and characters of every ethnicity in her stories, so her fictional worlds are as colorful as the real one. Above all, she believes that everyone needs a little true love in their life…even if it’s only in a book.

Find out more about Piper on her Website, Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Categories: Book Promo, Honorary Blogger Post, LGBT | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment

Honorary Blogger Amy Lane: Stories Untold + Giveaway!

Posted on December 17, 2014 by thebloggergirls

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Stories Untold

by Amy Lane

There is so much that parents try to hide from their children.

We don’t like them to know about Santa or the Tooth Fairy.  We don’t want them to know when money is tight, or when we’ve done something stupid.  We don’t want them to know when bad things happen in the world, and we don’t like to tell them when we’re sad.

Without meaning to, parents very often create an alternative version of reality for their children, a sort of box around the household, creating a place in which their rule is right their version of the family is the only one.  It’s only natural—parenting is terrifying. When the short people start asking “Why? Why? Why?” or “How about this? Or this? Or this?”  Parents know their world is flawed, they know they make mistakes, but God, isn’t their job harder if kids argue back with every frickin’ thing?  Nope, nope nope… better to create a world in which the child is protected, and reality is single faceted, and nobody knows the truth, because the truth is a little bit scary.

So if parents are good at creating this world, grandparents are superb at it. When I was growing up, there were lots of things I didn’t recognize about my grandparents’ relationship that a more adult me can see.  Grandpa could be mean, and Grandma could be manipulative. Grandma once told me that Grandpa was called into service for Korea after he’d settled down and started to raise a family. She said that when he came back, he wasn’t the same man.

My aunts and uncle spoke vaguely at Grandma’s funeral of her long suffering patience, and the things she sacrificed to keep the family together, and to give the kids the best parts of their father.

I can write the story here in the subtext—but the little girl who thought their home was beautiful and they were gods doesn’t want to.

In The Bells of Times Square, Nate is at the end of his life, and a stroke has rendered him without speech. He is left with the story of him and his first lover locked in his heart—his family will never know.  He’s left them with clues, but vague ones, leaving us to wonder—will his family be able to read the subtext? Will his grandson be able to guess? Will he be able to fill in the blanks and write the story?

Or will he remain willfully blind to anything that will paint his beloved grandfather as not the god he’s loved all his life?  Will he be able to look at the secret story and see that even the flaws, the human parts, make his grandfather a better man?

My grandparents aren’t different people for my perception that they were human.  And perhaps growing up is recognizing that all of the grownups we knew as children were just as lost as we are.

Maybe that’s the ultimate comfort.  Not that the people who raised us were perfect, but that they weren’t. Maybe that belief is what will allow us to take risks and break out of the box of perfection we were led to believe existed.  Maybe we can build a better box if we break those perceptions.

But then, each family’s box is different.  Nate’s grandson’s decision was his own to make.  And so was mine.  And the beauty of a story is that you get to take the pieces of the story made just for you and use them to build your own box.

May yours be the best, most truthful box you can afford.

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About The Bells of Times Square

TheBellsOfTimesSquare_500x750Every New Year’s Eve since 1946, Nate Meyer has ventured alone to Times Square to listen for the ghostly church bells he and his long-lost wartime lover vowed to hear together. This year, however, his grandson Blaine is pushing Nate through the Manhattan streets, revealing his secrets to his silent, stroke-stricken grandfather.

When Blaine introduces his boyfriend to his beloved grandfather, he has no idea that Nate holds a similar secret. As they endure the chilly death of the old year, Nate is drawn back in memory to a much earlier time . . . and to Walter.

Long before, in a peace carefully crafted in the heart of wartime tumult, Nate and Walter forged a loving home in the midst of violence and chaos. But nothing in war is permanent, and now all Nate has is memories of a man his family never knew existed. And a hope that he’ll finally hear the church bells that will unite everybody—including the lovers who hid the best and most sacred parts of their hearts.

 Available at: Riptide Publishing & Amazon

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About Amy Lane

Amy Lane exists happily with her noisy family in a crumbling suburban crapmansion, and equally happily with the surprisingly demanding voices who live in her head.

She loves cats, movies, yarn, pretty colors, pretty men, shiny things, and Twu Wuv, and despises house cleaning, low fat granola bars, and vainglorious prickweenies.

She can be found at her computer, dodging housework, or simultaneously reading, watching television, and knitting, because she likes to freak people out by proving it can be done.

Find out more about Amy on her Website, Blog, Twitter, Facebook or Goodreads.

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Hi, and welcome to the blog tour for The Bells of Times Square!  This book is close to my heart– if you read the extra front and back matter in the story, you will see that I drew inspiration from my grandparents and their roles in WWII.  There was a lot of research involved here and also an unusual romance.  I hope you enjoy this stop on the tour, and don’t forget to enter the Rafflecopter below for the giveaway of a $10 gift certificate to Riptide Publishing and a signed copy of The Bells of Times Square!  Feel free to comment, or to contact me at any of my links below–I’d love to hear from you!

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Good luck!

Categories: Book Promo, Giveaways, Honorary Blogger Post, LGBT, Published in 2014 | Tags: , , , | 14 Comments

Honorary Blogger Lynn Kelling: Hearing Voices + Giveaway!

Posted on December 16, 2014 by thebloggergirls

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Hearing Voices

by Lynn Kelling

Sometimes, when I’m writing a story, the characters completely take me by surprise—doing or saying things I never planned on. This happened in a big way with Arctic Absolution.

Toward the beginning of the story, there is a scene in which Jaye, one of the main characters, is left alone in his cabin with his thoughts. It was a turning point for me. It was when I really began to understand who he is. Before this quiet pause, there is a riot of action. The book opens with Jaye trying to rob a convenience store. After Trooper Dixon Rowe arrives, there are a lot of distractions for Jaye to cope with while trying to talk his way out trouble. Later that night and alone at last in his cabin in the Alaskan wilderness, Jaye abruptly begins hearing voices. Once awakened by some subtle trigger, these voices’ taunting, cruel whispers weave in and out of everything Jaye thinks or speaks.

This wasn’t an aspect of his character I had planned on ahead of time. But, knowing what Jaye had managed to live through, against all odds, I suddenly realized I couldn’t shut out the voices either.

Jaye adjusted his personality and body language, in the heat of the moment and reacting to danger, to play off of Rowe’s sympathies, as well as his libido. It was role playing, and he happily lost himself in pretending to be someone else.

But once Jaye was alone, there was no one else he needed to be. The truth came out.

In prison, and in his life before prison, Jaye had been severely traumatized. He had survived, but not without some scars. Jaye’s mental illness does not define him, but it is also inseparable from who he is. It is constantly altering his experiences. He hears the voices of his attackers, and reacts to sensations and stimuli he knows don’t actually exist. These phenomena create tension, anxiety, and challenge him to try to not respond to people who aren’t really there.

Without diagnosing Jaye, I simply wanted to allow him to be an honest product of his collective experiences. The things Jaye’s “ghosts” say to him are part memory, part direct reaction to Jaye’s fears or hopes. They’re upsetting to hear, but Jaye can’t shut them out—so neither should we.

Barely out of his teens, Jaye has fought for his life more than once. But the only confrontations he’s truly scared of are those he finds at night in the dark; there’s no light, and no one there to assure him that the devil whispering in his ear and caressing his thigh isn’t really there. Weapons don’t work as well when the person you’re trying to defend yourself from is you.

As a man with a devil of his own to deal with, Dixon knows better than to try to fix Jaye or fight his battles for him. Instead, he tries to help Jaye reach hidden, inner reservoirs of strength by holding his hand and thereby letting him stretch just a little farther, to get a little closer to clarity.

For Jaye, nightmares from his past are what—more than anything—challenge him to endure his present moments. That struggle is a universal one. As Buddha said, “Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.”

But when inner peace is hard to find, sometimes a loving, patient presence at our side, holding our hand, can be our greatest blessing. That’s what Dixon is for Jaye.

Though Jaye hears voices, it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with him. It’s his truth; his process to work through the rough spots. As an author, I know something about that. Jaye is one of my voices. Sometimes I want to shut him out, too, but know in my heart I never will.

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About Arctic Absolution

15825603In the frozen expanses of remote Alaska, Dixon Rowe is a good man and a good cop who keeps finding himself in bed with the enemy. After he picks up a young ex-con named Jaye Larson for stealing food, Dixon gets seduced by the possibility of helping someone truly in need. Though he tells himself he’s assisting young Jaye out of the goodness of his heart, not because of how sexy Jaye is under all of the tattoos and defiance, the temptations of sin entangle them as their hostile environment threatens. Both of their pasts are filled with malicious ghosts that haunt every step, and while Jaye’s demons are less tangible that Dixon’s, they are all powerful enough to put both of their lives in danger.

Available at: Fantastic Fiction, Amazon, Smashwords & All Romance eBooks

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About Lynn Kelling

Lynn Kelling began writing in order to tell stories that weren’t afraid of the dark, didn’t hold anything back and always strived to be memorable, forging lasting attachments between character and reader. Her inspiration comes from taking a closer look at behaviors and ideas lurking at the fringes of life – basically anything that people may hesitate to speak of in mixed company, but everyone wonders about anyway. Her work is driven by the taboo in order to expose the humanity within it. Lynn is an artist, designer and lover of any form of creative self-expression that comes from a place of honesty and emotion, whether it’s body art or opera. She has had multiple novels published, has written over 70 works of erotic fiction of varying lengths, and always has several novels in progress.

Find out more about Lynn on her Website, Facebook, Twitter or Forbidden Fiction Story Page.

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Lynn has graciously offered up an autographed paperback copy of  to one lucky winner!! The giveaway starts now and ends December 22, 2014 at 11:59 p.m. To enter, just click the link below!

Rafflecopter Giveaway

Please be aware that the only way to enter the giveaway is to click the Rafflecopter link above. Any comments on this post will not count towards entering the giveaway, except to verify your Rafflecopter entry.

Don’t forget to check out JustJen’s review of Arctic Absolution to see what she thought of it!

Good luck!

Categories: Book Promo, Giveaways, Honorary Blogger Post, LGBT, Published in 2014 | Tags: , , , | 15 Comments

Honorary Blogger Cooper Davis: Writing Like Cinema + Giveaway!

Posted on December 15, 2014 by thebloggergirls

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Writing Like Cinema

by Cooper Davis

I am old enough that I’ve lived quite a few lives. But not so old that I can’t write a sexy, smoldering romance—so don’t go there. One of the lives I have lived was a brief stint working in television. Another was taking acting studio classes. Another was reviewing films for a living. These things sort of crystalized into the way that I approach writing, and may be different than some of my compatriots. To me, I see my novels as films, and structure them accordingly. I don’t mean some woo-woo, “I’m so visual, it’s all happening to me when I write,” type thing. I’m really pinpointing something more schematic. I tend to think in terms of an opening act, a midway plot point, and the like.

When I began writing my new male/male historical fantasy, I wasn’t too far into the process when I realized, “This is PRETTY WOMAN…with men. In an alternative Victorian era.” I find that identifying tropes—is PRETTY WOMAN, strictly speaking, a trope?—helps me flesh out a world. It gives me something to hang all the original parts on because it provides a track. A structure, like you find in a screenplay.

So how, you may ask, is a book about men, set in this alternative type Victorian world, really anything like Edward and Vivian from PRETTY WOMAN? I’ll answer that a bit, so let’s talk about the new book, shall we? King Arend Tollemach is a monarch who never wanted to marry a woman. He found a prince when he was but eighteen years old, and even dared to betroth himself to that man without his sire’s permission. Bad, bad idea, Arend. His late father broke that engagement, forced Arend into a loveless marriage with a wife…and he endured the arrangement, which proved pure misery for him. After all, he wasn’t attracted to females to begin with. But, they did ultimately manage to sire an heir, and Cordelia died shortly thereafter.

Roll Camera with this book. Arend has, finally, decided he can slake his “male lust”…he just needs to be discreet. He’s a widowed king, the subject of gossip and speculation throughout his realm. So, there’s but one place he can go to quietly arrange to take a male lover. The ancient Temple Sapphor, that specializes in providing male concubines to nobility.

Enter Julian, a cat-eyed bed servant who is desperate to please, and so eager to be claimed. But his androgyny—his sumptuous voice and beguiling look, offset against his broad shoulders and height—have left many a nobleman unsettled. So, he’s landed on the proverbial shelf.

Until Arend arrives at the temple, and the sparks…they fly.

Julian will be hired for a very particular period of time, Arend informs him—and there will be no attachments, no emotion. He has no plans to open his long-shuttered heart. This will be a business transaction.

Much like Edward’s insistence to Vivian when he hired her in PRETTY WOMAN: “Three thousand, for six days. And Vivian, I will let you go.”

The question is…will Julian be able to overcome King Arend’s youthful heartbreak and his determination never to love again? Or will Arend return Julian to his temple when their concubinage is done?

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About A King Undone

23090887Sometimes you have to risk everything, to follow your heart…

Noble Pleasures, Book 1

In a world where gentlemen openly court and marry fellow noblemen, the threat of scandal still lurks behind every velvet drape for kings and princes. Such has been the fate for King Arend Tollemach, forced to sacrifice his heart on the altar of regal duty.

Now that his wife is dead and his royal obligations are at an end, he’s ready to take an unthinkable risk. King Arend seeks a concubine from Temple Sapphor, a secretive, gated world where he will finally shed his virginity—as least as it pertains to making love to a man.

Julian never thought he’d spend ten years on the temple shelf, passed over again and again. Just when he despairs of ever finding placement in a nobleman’s bed, Arend walks into the temple. A lonely eyed, beautiful king who could easily steal his heart.

Arend discovers he has no problem opening his bed to the exquisite concubine. The problem lies in finding the key to his long-shuttered heart.
Product Warnings: Contains a beautiful, virgin king desperate to bed another man, a concubine who fantasizes about being claimed and revered by a strong monarch, and a sea of scandal set against a sensual, palatial backdrop.

Available at: Samhain Publishing, Amazon and Barnes & Noble

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About Cooper Davis

Cooper Davis first discovered the allure of m/m storytelling when she watched My Beautiful Launderette with a college roommate. Later, her passion for stories about men falling in love and finding their HEA together was stoked by online slash fiction. After years as an avid fan of m/m and slash, Cooper finally decided to try her hand at penning her own stories about same-gender romance and love.

A voracious reader across all subgenres of m/m fiction, Cooper is particularly fond of courtships set against the breathless backdrop of scandal and intrigue found in period drawing rooms. She is thrilled that her first historically themed m/m romance series debuts this December with A KING UNDONE (Samhain).

Find out more about Cooper on her Website, Twitter, Facebook or contact her using this form.

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Cooper has graciously offered up an eBook copy (in mobi or epub) of A King Undone AND a $10 Amazon Gift Card!! The giveaway starts now and ends December 21, 2014 at 11:59 p.m. To enter, just click the link below!

Rafflecopter Giveaway

Please be aware that the only way to enter the giveaway is to click the Rafflecopter link above. Any comments on this post will not count towards entering the giveaway, except to verify your Rafflecopter entry.

Don’t forget to check out Heather C’s review of A King Undone to see what she thought of it!

Good luck!

Categories: Book Promo, Giveaways, Honorary Blogger Post, LGBT, Published in 2014 | Tags: , , , , | 23 Comments

Honorary Blogger J.P. Barnaby: Christmas & Sex Toys? + Exclusive Excerpt

Posted on December 14, 2014 by thebloggergirls

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Christmas & Sex Toys?

by J.P. Barnaby

So, whoever thought you’d see a Christmas story about sex toys?

Yeah, me either—but, when TC Blue issues and order, the rest of us listen.  She decided she wanted a holiday anthology called “Butt Babes in Boyland”, and most of us were too afraid to refuse. I mean, have you met TC? Have you ever watched her go off on the check-in counter at the Atlanta airport? No? Yeah, you do what she says. Anyways, when we talked about it at OutlantaCon, someone mentioned the Isle of Misfit Toys (the Rudolph movie), and an idea started to form in my head. What would happen if they were misfit sex toys? Would they have group therapy? Would they want to get away from Santa’s workshop? What kind of toys would band together? It was an interesting idea, one that I was eager to explore.

How did I get involved in the Butt anthologies in the first place, you ask? That is an interesting story too. In May 2013, I was at RT (Romantic Times) in Kansas City, about to go hang out with Jesse Jackman, Dirk Caber, and Johnny Parker. My cell phone rang and I looked down to see Kage Alan’s cute little face on the screen. So, of course, I ignored it. (Kidding) Kage was out at OutlantaCon (which happened to conflict with RT that year). He offered me place in the upcoming Butt Ninjas from Hell anthology. I mentioned that I didn’t know a fecking thing about ninjas or demons. So, he challenged me to do it – to take a break from my emotionally terrorizing novels – and write something funny. With Aaron and Little Boy Lost under my belt, with my branding set, could I do comedy?

Well, imagine that – I could.

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About Butt Babes in Boyland

ButtBabesInBoyland_100dpi_cvrThe holidays are a time for visiting with family and friends, and sharing tales of peace, childlike innocence, and good will towards all mankind. These are not those stories. Instead, sit back and allow yourself to be regaled with the colorful adventures of toy-themed parties with a twist, the future of Elf Enforcement, misfit sex toys at the North Pole, the mysterious Workshop 69, special delivery packages, and a serious case of potentially mistaken identity. This year, the Butt-thology authors cordially invite you to join them in creating a new tradition.

This holiday season, it’s not just turkeys getting stuffed!

Available at: Wilde City, Amazon, All Romance eBooks & Barnes and Noble

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An Exclusive Excerpt from The Isle of Misfit Sex Toys

“It’s enough already, by Claus. Why do they keep playing Christmas carols?” Bob sat back against the discarded sofa he’d salvaged from one of Santa’s old storage units behind the workshop. “Let It Snow” drifted from the open vent above them, and he initiated the protocol used to close his eyes. It took less than a second, but the plastic drifted down over the optical circuits in his sockets. He might have looked like an elf, but beauty, as they say, is only skin-deep. Or, at least, polyethylene deep, anyway.

“I don’t know. I k-k-k-k-kind of like this s-s-s-s-song,” Buzz stuttered from his place in the circle.

“We might as well get started.” Bob sighed. “Is everyone here?” He directed the question to the room, and Dil answered as he turned on yet another lantern in their tomb-like home. It would have been depressing in the utility closet of Santa’s workshop if it weren’t for the alternative. They were all cast-off misfit toys destined for the junk pile. Then Bob rescued them and found a safe place for every toy to live. They considered him their king, but he just wanted someone to abate the crushing loneliness.

“I think so, Bob.”

Toys began to push odds and ends into a circle, nothing the humans or even the elves would see as organization, but someplace for them to sit, nonetheless. Boxes for the less fortunate, but some more industrious toys found bean bags and even doll furniture to sit on. Each of the toys settled into their place, some with more difficulty than others, but eventually, the room quieted. They’d worked their little circle up to six toys. Sometimes they had more, sometimes less, but for the time being, six seemed like a comfortable number.

Bob stood at the head of the circle, next to the severed doll’s head that had rolled into their hideaway a few months back.

“We’re all here for the same reason,” Bob started, and a hush fell over their little group, broken only by the uncontrolled, intermittent buzzing noise they’d all learned to ignore. “My name is Bob, Battery Operated Boyfriend, designed for a single purpose, one that I can no longer fulfill. Once considered an advanced robotics pleasure toy, now I’m no longer… fully functional, but I’m okay with that. The trilithium battery that powers my neural substructure will keep me running for another hundred years, so I have to find my new purpose. That is my goal, to find my new purpose. Who wants to go next?”

“I w-w-w-w-w-will.”

“Okay, Buzz, go ahead.”

“Yay, Buzz,” two tiny silver spheres chimed in, and Buzz smiled.

“My name is B-B-B-B-Buzz, and I’ve been here for about a m-m-m-m-month. Like Bob, I was d-d-d-d-designed for a p-pretty specific p-purpose. I m-m-m-massage things.” The small spheres on the right giggled, but Buzz continued as if he hadn’t heard. “I w-w-w-wanna learn to c-c-c-control my stut-t-stutter.”

“Thank you, Buzz,” Bob said quietly. “Now, since you found his introduction so funny, Wally, maybe you guys should go next.”

“I’m Wally and he’s Ben,” Wally announced.

“Wally, do we have to go through this every time?” Bob asked with a quiet sigh.

“What? We have to say our names every time, even though we all know each other. Why put him through his fears?” He had a hard time making his tinny little voice sound angry, especially with the smooth expression across the metallic surface of his ball face.

“It’s okay,” Ben interrupted. “We know what our joint purpose is. Our biggest fear is that we’ll be separated and lost.”

Wally rolled to the left, and if Wally and Ben had hands, they’d have joined them.

“Yes, yes, and we all know that Dil the dildo is terrified of the dark. Can we move on to more pressing business like finding a place to live that doesn’t smell like cabbage?” the severed head asked. “I’d also really like to do something about being more mobile. Maybe a skateboard and some arms?”

“Candy, I understand how you’re feeling, but your body deflated. We don’t even know where it is. As for the arms, what exactly are we going to attach them to?” Bob asked patiently, like they hadn’t had that same argument every week.

“Oh, that’s easy for you to say, Mr. Not Fully Functional. At least you can get up and walk around. At least you can get away from the insanity and stand at the door watching where we should be.”

As a whole, the group turned toward the door that led into Santa’s workshop. Though he hated himself for it, Bob felt a longing in his actuators that just wouldn’t die. During the brief time he’d been with Christelpher, the elf who’d created him, they’d been happy. Then his elf slipped at the top of the present-wrapping machine, probably because of the lube that had seemed permanently on his hands. He fell, pointed ears over belled shoes, across the conveyer belt and into the machine. He came out with bows in places they had no reason to be and ribbon wrapped so tightly around his neck he’d been blue as a Smurf. In fact, they’d thought he was a Smurf toy for a few minutes, until the horrible truth had dawned.

Bob still thought of Christelpher often, especially in the dark of night as he wished for the comfort of his slick hands and the whispers of love.

“Hey, Bob, you want to get your head back in the game here? We were talking about how to get ourselves tossed into one of those present sacks and out of here.”

“This isn’t a good idea. What happens when some eight-year-old girl ends up with us?” Wally asked with a smooth expression.

“Oh look, Mommy, I got marbles,” Candy cried in an unnaturally high girly voice. “I’m a broken doll, and you, Bob, can climb down off the shelf and find yourself a Ken doll. We can all find a place outside this room.”

Bob turned toward the cracked sliver of mirror lying against the wall and considered his elven reflection. No one outside the Pole would want a sex toy that looked like an elf. He wasn’t even sure anyone here would, especially one that didn’t work. It didn’t matter where he went, but he could at least help the others.

“Okay, the key is getting to the present-wrapping machine…”

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About J.P. Barnaby

Award winning romance novelist, J.P. Barnaby has penned over a dozen books including the Working Boys series, the Little Boy Lost series, In the Absence of Monsters, and Aaron. As a bisexual woman, J.P. is a proud member of the GLBT community both online and in her small town on the outskirts of Chicago. A member of Mensa, she is described as brilliant but troubled, sweet but introverted, and talented but deviant. She spends her days writing software and her nights writing erotica, which is, of course, far more interesting. The spare time that she carves out between her career and her novels is spent reading about the concept of love, which, like some of her characters, she has never quite figured out for herself.

Find out more about J.P. on her Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Tumblr or Amazon.

Categories: Book Promo, Excerpts, Honorary Blogger Post, LGBT, Published in 2014 | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

Honorary Blogger Amelia C. Gormley: Gaming While Female: Why I Wrote Player vs Player + Giveaway!

Posted on December 10, 2014 by thebloggergirls

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Gaming While Female: Why I Wrote Player vs Player

by Amelia C. Gormley

Hi, and welcome to the Player vs. Player blog tour!

In my last post on the tour, I described how being a gamer led me to publishing original m/m romance. Now I want to take the opportunity to discuss some of the background that led me to write Player vs. Player specifically.

Dragon Age: Origins was groundbreaking in that it was one of the first RPGs to allow same-sex romances. But one bone of contention was that there were some characters who were inaccessible for a same-sex relationship (unless you used player-made modifications to get around those restrictions, which were by no means perfect because they might result in characters referring to your male player character as female or vice versa.) Alistair, the sweet and awkward bastard heir to the throne, hit even my gaydar (which is almost non-existent) but he could only be romanced by a female PC.

Meanwhile, the love interest characters who were capable of being romanced by player characters of the same sex were also available for romance by player characters of the opposite sex. In fact, there was some well-deserved backlash against a moment where bisexual Zevran tells his love interest that he’s amenable to men, but he prefers women. “You’re not my first choice, but you’ll do.” Just what every gay guy wants to hear from the man they love, right?

So in other words, a straight player character would have two romance options in the gender of their choice, but a gay player character would have only one (of course, a bisexual PC would have three, but I digress.)

My point is that there was a lot of discontent over the fact that Alistair wasn’t an option for a gay or bi male player character (some of whom were female players of every orientation wanting to play as a male character) and Morrigan was only available for romance by a male player character.

Then Dragon Age II came out, and BioWare did something new. They made ALL the characters who had romance storylines available to player characters of either gender. There was endless discussion about whether this meant your PC had four bisexual companions, or whether the character was simply “Hawke-sexual” (Hawke being the name of the player character.)

This was really great for the players who felt restricted by the romance option limitations in Dragon Age: Origins, but it resulted in a torrent of new complaints from straight dude-bro gamers whose masculinity was threatened by the fact that a male character might flirt with them until they chose the dialogue option to let him know they weren’t interested (at which point they felt they were being penalized because it would lose them approval points from the character in question.)

One particularly vocal complainer made repeated threads saying that BioWare was neglecting its core demographic, the straight male gamer. David Gaider, the lead writer for Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II, had a rather brilliant rebuttal to that. While Gaider is by no means an un-problematic figure, sometimes he gets it very, very right, and this was one of those times.

But the dude-bro gamers weren’t done with their toxic attacks against BioWare writers. In the summer of 2012, former BioWare writer Jennifer Hepler created a twitter account. Within days, someone had resurrected a years-old post she made where she suggested that gaming might trend in the direction of offering players an opportunity to skip the hack-and-slash combat and simply walk through the story.

This is by no means a new suggestion. Disabled gamers have often complained about the need to play through grueling battle sequences they might not even be physically capable of getting through in order to progress through the game. Overpowered player-made modifications to put the player character into “god mode” and thus end combat with a click of a button have been in place almost since the beginning. As gaming becomes more story-centric and less focused on combat mechanics, a “tourist mode” is a common-sense evolution.

For this, Hepler was called “the cancer that is killing BioWare.” (Trigger Warning for, like, everything, especially if you venture down the rabbit-hole of the comments or the links to Reddit.) Her phone number was made public and she began receiving harassing calls, as well as tweets and emails that included rampant misogyny and graphic threats to kill her children.

BioWare spoke up in her defense, but it took several days and possibly was only due to the fact that the feminist BioWare fans were very vocal about demanding that they do so.

Then, later that same year, came Anita Sarkeesian and her Tropes vs. Women in Video Games Kickstarter. (Again, extreme trigger warning, both for these links and anything I discuss past this point.)

It seems like a fairly straightforward project, right? Discuss video games and the way they handle portrayals of female characters. Well, apparently this was infuriating enough to the dudebro gamers that they posted violent and toxic comments on the YouTube video for the Kickstarter project. They launched DDoS attacks against the Feminist Frequency website and reported her YouTube channel and KickStarter page for hate speech and promoting terrorism. They vandalized her Wikipedia page, and created obscene memes about her and even a created a game that would “punch” her and create a bruise each time you clicked on her face.

If you would like to see Anita describe the events in her own words, I highly recommend her TED talk video.

Now, you’ve probably heard rumblings recently about something called GamerGate and more misogynist attacks on women in gaming. But I wrote Player vs. Player before any of that happened. Just based on the incidences I’ve mentioned above. And those were more than enough.

But then since August, the misogynist terrorism leveled against women in the gaming industry has reached new lows. I’ve complained that I wrote PvP a year too early, because I was already done editing it by the time GamerGate rolled around.

What is GamerGate? Others have said it better than I. This is a particularly enlightening series of tweets, complete with screencaptures of the plotting behind GamerGate. In short, it’s a targeted campaign of misogynist harassment and terrorist threats against female game developers, journalists, and feminist critics of gaming like Anita Sarkeesian. And yes, when I say terrorism, I mean that quite literally.

In other words, it’s everything Player vs. Player is about. When I started writing PvP, I came at it from the mindset of, “Wow, these incidences of threats and harassment are really scary, because what if one of these dudes decides to up the ante?” Because that’s what bullies do. They egg each other on, encourage each other to get more and more outrageous and violent, and eventually someone decides to take it past verbal harassment and make it physical.

Thankfully, that hasn’t happened yet. But we’re seeing people driven from their homes by credible threats following the leaking of their personal and physical contact information by these guys. And that’s truly terrifying.

So that’s why I wrote Player vs. Player. That’s where it came from.

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About Player vs. Player

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Pushing for change can be dangerous when change starts pushing back.

Video game writer Niles River loves the work he does at Third Wave Studios: creating games with mass appeal that feature women, people of color, and LGBTQ characters. To make his job even better, his best friend is his boss, and his twin brother works beside him. And they mostly agree that being on the forefront of social change is worth dealing with trollish vitriol—Niles is more worried about his clingy ex and their closeted intern’s crush on his brother than he is about internet harassment.

But now the bodies on the ground are no longer virtual, and someone’s started hand-delivering threats to Niles’s door. The vendetta against Third Wave has escalated, and to make matters worse, the investigating detective is an old flame who left Niles heartbroken for a life in the closet.

No change happens without pain, but can Niles justify continuing on with Third Wave when the cost is the blood of others? If he does, the last scene he writes may be his own death.

Available at: Riptide Publishing & Amazon

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About Amelia C. Gormley

Amelia C. Gormley may seem like anyone else. But the truth is she sings in the shower, dances doing laundry, and writes blisteringly hot m/m erotic romance while her son is at school. When she’s not writing in her Pacific Northwest home, Amelia single-handedly juggles her husband, her son, their home, and the obstacles of life by turning into an everyday superhero. And that, she supposes, is just like anyone else.

Her self-published novel-in-three-parts, Impulse (Inertia, Book One; Acceleration, Book Two; and Velocity, Book Three) can be found at most major online book retailers, and be sure to check Riptide for her latest releases, including her Highland historical, The Laird’s Forbidden Lover, the The Professor’s Rule series of erotic novelettes (co-written with Heidi Belleau), the post-apocalyptic romance, Strain, her New Adult contemporary, Saugatuck Summer, and of course, Player vs. Player, available now. She is presently at work on two more novels set in the Strain universe, Juggernaut and Bane, coming summer/fall of 2015.

You can contact Amelia on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, BookLikes, Tumblr, or contact her by email using the form at http://ameliacgormley.com/.

Blog_Tour_Giveaway

Every comment on this blog tour enters you in a drawing for a choice of one a book from my backlist (excluding Player vs Player.) Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on December 13th. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries.

Good luck!

Categories: Book Promo, Giveaways, Honorary Blogger Post, LGBT | Tags: , , , | 14 Comments