Sunday Snippet, 12.11.22

Sunday Snippet from my gay Victorian fae romance collection, Tales from Blackthorn Briar, a sequel to Oak King Holly King featuring hurt/comfort and many happily-ever-afters – available wherever fine books are found!

~

One might say, as doubtless Dr Hitchingham would, that this was all just as much as any clerk ought to do for their employer. Ephraim might have agreed with this, were it not for how, whenever they dined at the Red Lion, Mr Hull made a point to reach the table in the back room first and draw out Ephraim’s chair for him and wait for him to settle before he seated himself. This behaviour drew even Dr Hitchingham’s notice. Ephraim didn’t mind, and supposed this must be how all clerks conducted themselves in distant lands. The thrill he felt at having an admittedly extraordinarily handsome young man perform such attentive services on his behalf, he shut away in the little lock-box in his heart and did not dwell upon.

~

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Sunday Snippet, 12.4.22

Sunday Snippet from my gay Victorian fae romance, Oak King Holly King – available now wherever fine books are found!

~

“Well,” said Wren, forcing a casual tone over his thunderous pulse. “What do the fae think of men who lie with men?”

The ensuing pause drew out into a lengthy silence as the two men stared each other down. Then, in a single stride, Butcher was upon him. Even barefoot, he towered over Wren. Near enough to fill Wren’s lungs with his woodsmoke musk. Near enough for Wren to feel the heat of his body radiating through his woollen tunic.

And near enough for Butcher to raise his hand to Wren’s jaw and gently lift his chin.

Wren’s heart pounded in his ears. He gazed into those dark eyes, their depths glinting with warmth and curiosity like the night sky shot through with stars.

Then those eyes shut, and Butcher bent down, and Wren tilted his head to meet his kiss.

Wren hadn’t received a kiss in more years than he cared to tell, though he’d imagined many. He could never have imagined this. Butcher’s lips kindled the curious spark into a bonfire, which raged through Wren’s heart as he opened his mouth to taste him, devour him, consume him as he felt himself consumed by the overwhelming flame of his own desire. He burned with need above and below and found himself clutching Butcher’s arms with the grip of a drowning man. All too soon, however, his need for breath forced him to break away. He opened his eyes, gasping, and beheld Butcher gazing down on him with a fascination that matched his own passion.

“I think,” Butcher murmured, “a man who lies with men is the sort of man I like.”

~

Oak King Holly King is a gay Victorian fae romance, available now wherever fine books are found!

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How do you defeat writer’s block?

Everyone has those days when they show up and sit down to write and their brain, for whatever reason, just says, “I can’t.”

For years I didn’t have a solution to this problem beyond beating my head against the keyboard until a few paltry words fell out.

Then, as I walked away from another disappointing writing session with my brain chanting, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…” I stopped and said to myself, “Okay. I can’t write today. But if I could, what would I write?”

And suddenly there burst forth a flood of fresh ideas, dialogue, and fully-formed prose that sent me scurrying back to my keyboard to write it all down.

Rather than arguing with my insecurities and defeatism, I’ve found that allowing myself to have those feelings rather than denying them – and following up with the gentle question of, “What if we could, what would we do?” – can trick my brain into working again.

Will this work for you? I don’t know. You don’t have my brain and I don’t have yours. But for me, tricking myself into treating it as a thought exercise rather than wallowing in personal failure has instantly unblocked me more times than I can count.

What about you? How do you defeat writer’s block?

Sunday Snippet, 11.27.22

Sunday Snippet from my gay Victorian fae romance, Oak King Holly King – available now wherever fine books are found!

~

Butcher rose from the bed with a shocking amount of grace for a man of his stature, his long limbs tangling and untangling themselves in a languid fluidity as he stretched. Wren found himself transfixed by the sight of him. Likewise transfixed by the tiny blue flame, which Butcher set down on the bed-post, where it neither fell nor burned through the wood, but continued to flicker and glow. A shuffling sound drew Wren’s attention from it, and he belatedly saw Butcher had begun to collect the scattered papers.

Wren rushed to intercept him. “That’s all right—I’ll handle it.”

Butcher paused, then handed his sheaves to Wren, who realized as he took them that Butcher had collected them in order.

“Your pardon,” Butcher said. Then, “I was curious.”

Curiosity killed the cat—but satisfaction brought it back. The childish rhyme rose unbidden to the forefront of Wren’s mind. He dropped his gaze from Butcher’s face to the top-most page in the stack, whereupon a slender and beautiful knight embraced a wild, bearded lord. The marginal illustration neatly summarized the entire manuscript. If Butcher had seen this and not been put off by it, then perhaps…? It seemed too much to hope for, and yet the existence of the fae realm had seemed just as impossible before Wren had visited it himself last night.

And wouldn’t it be nice, for once, not to have to keep secrets?

~

Oak King Holly King is a gay Victorian fae romance, available now wherever fine books are found!

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Sunday Snippet, 11.20.22

Sunday Snippet from my gay Victorian fae romance, Oak King Holly King – available now wherever fine books are found!

~

Wren stared in silent horror at Butcher. The fur-lined cloak lay flung over the foot-board. The highwayman boots sat on the floor amidst the snow drift secrets, one half-fallen over the other. The long-beaked Venetian leather mask and the peaked cap with its feather had tumbled onto the counterpane beside Butcher. Butcher himself, by the eerie blue light of his own fae lantern, appeared deep in concentration, his handsome brow furrowed, his full lips pursed, his dark eyes intent on the page he held up before him. He sat with his knees bent, one laid out on the bed and the other upraised, the hem of his tunic far too short to disguise what lay between them despite his woollen hose. A few strands of his black hair had come loose from the leather cord at the nape of his neck and now tumbled down over his high, sharp cheeks like ribbons of rain.

All this would have formed a composition of admirable beauty, had Butcher not held Wren’s doom in his calloused fingertips.

~

Oak King Holly King is a gay Victorian fae romance, available now wherever fine books are found!

Amazon • Apple Books • Barnes & Noble • Bookshop.org • Kobo • Overdrive • Smashwords

Sunday Snippet, 11.13.22

Sunday Snippet from my gay Victorian fae romance collection, Tales from Blackthorn Briar, a sequel to Oak King Holly King featuring hurt/comfort and many happily-ever-afters – available wherever fine books are found!

~

“They say,” Mr Hull continued in a lower tone, “that those who meet beneath the mistletoe must kiss to bring good fortune.”

Ephraim cleared his throat. “Yes—well—servants often indulge in such superstitions for their own merriment.”

“Only servants?” enquired Mr Hull. His dark gaze never broke from Ephraim’s own.

“And young persons,” Ephraim conceded.

“Might gentlemen take part in the tradition, as well?” asked Mr Hull.

Ephraim hesitated. Thoughts he didn’t wish to entertain clouded his mind. Impossible notions. Dangerous ideas. Mr Hull didn’t mean to imply anything of the sort. He merely meant to ascertain, as one newly arrived to English shores and unfamiliar with their custom, whether or not he might, as a gentleman, kiss a lady beneath the mistletoe. Ephraim told himself this even as Mr Hull’s gaze flitted to his lips again.

“They might,” Ephraim conceded. After all, Mr Hull was a handsome young gentleman, and young ladies liked to be kissed by handsome young gentlemen. Or so Ephraim had been told all his life.

Mr Hull bit his lip.

~

Tales from Blackthorn Briar is a collection of sequels to Oak King Holly King, featuring hurt/comfort and many happily-ever-afters – available now wherever fine books are found!

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Sunday Snippet, 11.6.22

Sunday Snippet from my gay Victorian fae romance collection, Tales from Blackthorn Briar, a sequel to Oak King Holly King featuring hurt/comfort and many happily-ever-afters.

~

Mr Ephraim Grigsby, Esq., had attained an age which few mortals survived to see. One which Hullvardr himself had not oft witnessed close-hand. Time leant a fragility to his frame, with nevertheless an undercurrent of queer confidence borne of inner wisdom. He moved like one with bones of spun glass. Blue veins stood out beneath his diaphanous skin like streams of molten silver. Lines of lacework beset his noble brow, and the proud chin jutted forth to hint at the strong jawline now half-hidden by jowls, as if too demure to peer out from behind a curtain. His keen and clever eyes gleamed the bright blue of rivers fed by glacial ice. The whole of him appeared as delicate and ethereal as a spider’s web, or the pale wax of the honeycomb brimming with molten gold, and, to Hullvardr’s eye, as precious as enchanted filigree. Most fae never acquired marks of age like these, no matter how many centuries they endured. What a rare joy it would prove to hold this gossamer grace in his arms.

~

Tales from Blackthorn Briar is a collection of sequels to Oak King Holly King, featuring hurt/comfort and many happily-ever-afters – available now wherever fine books are found!

Amazon • Apple Books • Barnes & Noble • Kobo • Scribd • Smashwords

Sunday Snippet, 10.30.22

In the spirit of spooky season, please enjoy this Sunday Snippet from my sapphic Gothic romance, The Haunting of Heatherhurst Hall!

~

Trouble was, Kit mused as she wandered the winding corridors of Heatherhurst Hall, the circumstances most conducive to ghosts were least conducive to photography. Ghosts required midnight storms with howling winds and guttering candles. Photographs required brightest daylight, or, lacking cooperation from the weather, ignited magnesium. But even with chemical assistance, unless she had enough luck to time the snap of the shutter precisely with the flash of the lightning, any photograph she attempted to take in a storm would turn out as black as thunderclouds.

Still, perhaps a ghost or two might be brave enough to come out into the sunshine.

~

The Haunting of Heatherhurst Hall is a Gothic romance rife with horror and heartache, wherein an American heiress makes an ill-advised marriage to bring herself closer the woman who’s stolen her heart.

~

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Sunday Snippet, 10.23.22

In the spirit of spooky season, please enjoy this Sunday Snippet from my sapphic Gothic romance, The Haunting of Heatherhurst Hall!

~

Love had made Alexandra stupid. Love had frayed her steely nerves to the point of snapping, had forced her to question her own behavior, had made her look within herself and realize she had grown as much a monster as any malevolent spirit lurking within the crumbling edifice of Heatherhurst Hall. Her own selfishness had made her unworthy of Kit.

And it only made her love Kit all the more.

~

The Haunting of Heatherhurst Hall is a Gothic romance rife with horror and heartache, wherein an American heiress makes an ill-advised marriage to bring herself closer the woman who’s stolen her heart.

~

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Sunday Snippet, 10.16.22

In the spirit of spooky season, please enjoy this Sunday Snippet from my sapphic Gothic romance, The Haunting of Heatherhurst Hall!

~

Kit ran her fingers over her keys again as a physical reminder of her defense against the metaphysical. She might not have a key to the attic, but she at least had a key to her own bedroom.

Then she remembered Alexandra had the very same ring of keys.

Her breath caught in her throat as a vision flashed before her mind—a vision of herself, asleep, alone in her marriage bed, a full moon hanging in the sky outside the high-arched window, throwing off just enough illumination to reveal the turning of the doorknob, the slow inward creak of the door, and a shadow sliding across the floor with supernatural ease, rising up beside the bed in the form of the raven-haired Alexandra, looming over Kit, helpless and utterly ignorant of the danger—until Alexandra swooped down upon her, and—

Kit snapped out of the waking nightmare, her heart pounding with new fear—or perhaps some other, more unspeakable emotion.

~

The Haunting of Heatherhurst Hall is a Gothic romance rife with horror and heartache, wherein an American heiress makes an ill-advised marriage to bring herself closer the woman who’s stolen her heart.

~

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