Padme's Library: Monday's Montage Mantlepiece: Beneath the Layers

Monday, May 1, 2017

Monday's Montage Mantlepiece: Beneath the Layers

Summary:
Eight stories of men who like a little satin and lace.

A Linebacker in Lace by Caitlin Ricci
This ex-linebacker is impossible for his friend to resist.

Satin Secrets by CL Mustafic
Sometimes secrets are better when they’re shared.

Backwards and in High Heels by Elizabeth Coldwell
Tonight he has the chance to live out his dream.

Angels in Delaware by Sita Bethel
When one finds two partners, it helps to dress for the occasion.

All That Entails by E.M. Hamill
A gender-fluid prince with a penchant for gowns finds his unlikely match in an arranged marriage.

After the Dance by Sydney Blackburn
Sometimes happily ever after requires a pretty frock.

A Secret Shared by C.A. Blocke
One sweet secret shared—and a spicy one returned.

Ruffle My Feathers by Asta Idonea
Sometimes love can be found behind a feather boa.

A Linebacker in Lace by Caitlin Ricci
Brent likes wearing lace underwear, but it’s not something he plans to reveal, and he never thought he’d meet a guy who shared his kink. So when Arliss approaches him at a bar and mentions he can see lace underwear peeking out from his waistband, Brent is embarrassed—until he finds out Arliss has got a thing for guys in lace.

Satin Secrets by CL Mustafic
When Dr. Gavin Addison answers his doorbell, instead of the delivery guy he expected, he gets Officer Lex Turner, who takes Gavin’s invitation to step in out of the cold a little too far. Before he leaves though, he investigates the satin lace peeking out between Gavin’s shirt and pants. Will what he finds be the only secret revealed?

Backwards and in High Heels by Elizabeth Coldwell
Dancing cheek-to-cheek with his lover while wearing a beautiful gown has always been Billie’s dream. But how can he persuade a sympathetic teacher that he needs to learn how to dance backwards—like a woman—so he can make that fantasy come true?

Angels in Delaware by Sita Bethel
Stranded at a nightclub, Beau thought he’d have a long, solitary walk home. He never expected to meet two gorgeous strangers willing to give him a different kind of ride instead.

All That Entails by E.M. Hamill
Prince Darian is prepared to set aside his scandalous preference for gowns and take a wife to benefit his royal brother’s treasury. Henry is resigned to the fate his outward sex dictates and determined to follow through with an arranged marriage to the prince, rather than risk his father’s threat of an asylum. But he will enter this union with the truth known—or not at all.

In each other, they find unlikely kindred spirits and realize they may finally get the acceptance for which they’ve always longed.

After the Dance by Sydney Blackburn
Mechanic Frank Dixon knows his unrequited love for the boss’s son, Charles Quinn, is an impossible dream, even after he and Charles work together on a special project and become friends. When Charles confides his parents are going to force him to choose a bride during an old-fashioned ball, Frank’s roommate uses his influence to help Frank fulfill his wish to attend the ball in a pretty frock. But after the dance, will his heart be broken, or will all his dreams come true?

A Secret Shared by C.A. Blocke
When Michael told Tommy of his nerdy secret life as a Dungeon Master, after a few months of casual dating that seemed to be heading for serious territory, he didn’t expect anything in return. He certainly didn’t expect his new boyfriend to join him for a game session, and he definitely didn’t anticipate Tommy divulging his desire to dress up en femme. Thankfully, the surprise comes out well—for both of them.

Ruffle My Feathers by Asta Idonea
Barrett leads a double life—builder by day and drag act by night. Having successfully kept this from his colleagues, he’s stunned when he spots his boss, Keith, at a performance. Unlike Barrett, Keith is still completely in the closet. And though he promises not to reveal Barrett’s secret, the sight of Barrett in dress and feather boa awakes hidden desires, and he may not be able to keep them at bay.

Caitlin Ricci

Caitlin was fortunate growing up to be surrounded by family and teachers that encouraged her love of reading. She has always been a voracious reader and that love of the written word easily morphed into a passion for writing. If she isn't writing, she can usually be found studying as she works toward her counseling degree. She comes from a military family and the men and women of the armed forces are close to her heart. She also enjoys gardening and horseback riding in the Colorado Rockies where she calls home with her wonderful fiance and their dog. Her belief that there is no one true path to happily ever after runs deeply through all of her stories.

CL Mustafic
CL Mustafic is a born and bred American mid-westerner who mysteriously ended up living in one of those countries nobody can ever find on the map of Europe. Left with too much time on her hands – let’s be honest here it was the lack of television channels in her native language – and too many voices in her head trying to fill the silence, she decided to give her life-long dream of writing a novel a shot. So now between shuttling kids back and forth from various activities, risking her life on the insanely narrow, busy streets of her new home town, she loses herself in her own made up world where love always wins.

Elizabeth Coldwell

I am Rotherham’s foremost (okay, only) writer of quality erotica and erotic romance. Though I’m now based in London, family and football take me back North on a regular basis. Indeed, if you’re ever at a Rotherham United match (I know, what are the chances?) and you spot a small blonde with a large ‘London Millers’ flag, that’ll be me.

For twenty years, I worked on the UK edition of Forum magazine, for most of those years as editor. In that time, I built up the fiction side of the magazine, and was responsible for publishing the first stories by lots of now well-known and established erotic authors – most notably Portia da Costa and Lindsay Gordon, who was until recently Black Lace’s series editor.

However, I love writing even more than I love editing, and I’ve finally taken the plunge to write full-time. I’ve had stories published by Black Lace, Xcite Books, Cleis Press, Circlet Press, Mammoth, Ravenous Romance, Total-e-bound and more, and my collection of three gay erotic novellas, Wild Rides, will be coming out as a print book from Xcite in 2012. And I’m happy in my work…

Sita Bethel
Sita Bethel obtained a B.A. in Creative Writing at Arkansas Tech University; however, she learned how to write fiction on sites such as Archive Of Our Own and fanfiction.net. She keeps coloring books near her computer for when she’s “writing,” and owns an awful lot of dice for someone who’s never played a tabletop RPG. Sita Bethel currently lives in Arkansas, teaches Zumba Fitness and Salsaton classes at a local gym, and hopes to someday own a fortress of solitude staffed with incompetent henchmen.

EM Hamill
E.M. Hamill is a nurse by day, sci fi and fantasy novelist by night. She lives in eastern Kansas with her family, where they fend off flying monkey attacks and prep for the zombie apocalypse. She also writes young adult material under the name Elisabeth Hamill. Her first novel, SONG MAGICK, won first place for YA fantasy in the 2014 Dante Rossetti Awards for Young Adult Fiction.

Sydney Blackburn
Always a voracious reader, I became a writer to write the stories I couldn't find from other writers. My love affair with science fiction started in fourth grade when Ray Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day" showed up in our school readers. I first started reading romance when I ran out of books to read and delved into my mother's stash.

CA Blocke
C.A. Blocke is a thirty-something writer who’s been captivated by the magic of how people relate to each other for as long as she can remember. Far more than overarching drawn-out plots, she prefers to focus heavily on relationships in various situations that feel like real life—even when at its most surreal. Real Life, she feels, is messy and complicated, and that shines through in her fiction where the road to a happy ending frequently isn’t just a straight line. A long-time reader and writer of fluffy character-driven pieces, her style tends to highlight small slices of life that come together to form a whole picture of the plot.

She is a gender nonconforming, demisexual-identified female who feels most comfortable writing unconventional relationships involving non-heterosexual couplings. Sexual identity often colors her works and features heavily in finding the comfortable place where identities can collide with minimal friction. She enjoys exploring different takes on ‘acceptable’ sexuality and blurring the lines between what is expected and what really happens.

A small-town Arizona native, the Southwest and its rural communities fascinate her—particularly the rigid-identity politics and the ramifications of breaking the social norm. Of course, that’s not to say that she doesn’t also enjoy writing about urban life and the various challenges present in the big city. While most at home writing contemporary romance with a warm little erotica twist, she’s very prone to following her muse down the dark alleys and open valleys it drags her through—making it nearly impossible to know just what genre will take her interest next.

Asta Idonea
Asta Idonea is an alternate pen name of author Nicki J Markus.

Nicki was born in England in 1982, but now lives in Adelaide, South Australia with her husband. She has loved both reading and writing from a young age and is also a keen linguist, having studied several foreign languages.

Nicki launched her writing career in 2011 when she released several short stories with Wicked Nights Publishing. She then had two novellas published with Silver Publishing, prior to the company’s closure.

At present, she has several new projects on the go. As well as branching out into the exciting world of M/M under the pen name Asta Idonea, Nicki is working on the first book in a fantasy-mythology trilogy and hopes to find a publisher for it in 2015.

Nicki currently works as a freelance editor and proofreader, and in her spare time she enjoys completing MOOCs and pursuing other interests, including: reading; music; theatre; cinema; photography; sketching; and cross stitch. She also loves history, folklore and mythology, pen-palling and travel.