Sunday, February 10, 2019
Sunday's Short Stack: Valentine 2525 by RJ Scott
Max never wanted a Companion, but his family and society leave him no choice.
Samekh Taw designation #65572—aka “Sam”—is the Companion created in a laboratory, to Max’s specifications.
Working and then falling in love with Sam is easy, but when it becomes clear that Sam believes he is flawed, it’s up to Max to convince him to hold their secrets close.
And more importantly, to show Sam that love is never just for one day.
How in the world did this short diddy from one of my favorite authors miss my attention for so long?!?!?!?! All that matters is I finally discovered it and Valentine 2525 is brilliantly entertaining. Max and Sam will warm your heart and leave you wanting more. Having said that, could their story have been better had it been longer? Of course but then I say that about most of RJ Scott's work whether they are under 50 pages or over 200. This gem is a lovely blend of sci-fi, romance, friendship, lust, humor, and love proving that a story's greatness is in the quality not the quantity.
RATING: 
Author Bio:USA Today bestselling author RJ Scott writes stories with a heart of romance, a troubled road to reach happiness, and most importantly, a happily ever after.
RJ Scott is the author of over one hundred romance books, writing emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, millionaire, princes, and the men who get mixed up in their lives. RJ is known for writing books that always end with a happy ever after. She lives just outside London and spends every waking minute she isn’t with family either reading or writing.
The last time she had a week’s break from writing she didn’t like it one little bit, and she has yet to meet a bottle of wine she couldn’t defeat.
She’s always thrilled to hear from readers, bloggers and other writers. Please contact via the links below.
BOOKBUB / KOBO / SMASHWORDS
EMAIL: rj@rjscott.co.uk
Release Blitz: Forgive Me Father by TL Travis
Title: Forgive Me Father
Author: TL Travis
Genre: M/M Romance
Release Date: February 8, 2019
Cover Model: Kegan R. Ward
Cover Photography: Eric McKinney
Cover Design: Mayhem Cover Creations
Shunned and cast aside by his faith and family, Jamie is left to do whatever it takes to survive.
He comes across a group of kids in the same predicament, braving the streets of Seattle due to circumstances beyond their control. Lost souls who’ve slipped through the cracks of the broken systems society forced them into. Yet they still offer what little they have to him, including their home.
As time moves on, darkness surrounds him and when one of their own fall’s victim to the streets, Jamie wonders if there’s anything left worth living for. When his savior appears out of nowhere, he finds it hard to believe its real because he knows he’s not worth loving.
This is Jamie’s story from the #1 Amazon Bestselling book, Greyson Fox.
Potential triggers:
Sexual and physical abuse by church and family members, cheating, drug usage, prostitution and thoughts of suicide. Flashbacks of the abuse are present throughout this book. These are the opinions of the characters and in no way reflect the author.
TL Travis is the author of The Sebastian Chronicles along with numerous other erotic novelettes (and many more in the works), The Elders Trilogy - an erotic paranormal (Vampire) romance novel series and many non-fiction articles.
In her spare time she likes to fish, enjoy all the Pacific Northwest has to offer, spin spicy erotic webs for readers to enjoy, and rescue any 4 legged lost souls she comes across. Since her children are grown and have flown the coop, she’s taken to spoiling her two deaf white boxers even more so than they were before.
To view TL Travis literary and photography works please visit her website.
Forgive Me Father
Greyson Fox
⌛💸⏳Currently only 99c/99p⏳💸⌛
Blog Tour: Darkness Dawns by Zakarrie Clarke
Title: Darkness Dawns
Author: Zakarrie Clarke
Genre: M/M Romance
Release Date: February 1, 2019
Publisher: MLR Books
Darkness Dawns is a love story. It also tells the tale of one man’s war with himself, brought onto the battlefield of his blindness. Leo Ferrar suffers from diabetic retinopathy and lost his sight two years ago. Unable to bear the scrutiny of strangers or the impact of his blindness on those he loves, Leo has determined on shutting the world out ever since. This is the man Ben meets on his first day at work as Mr Ferrar’s care assistant.
A former heroin addict, Ben was sentenced to six months community service as punishment for his crimes by a judge entitled to condemn him to a seven-year stretch. Far too charming for his own welfare, Ben proves unaccountably brilliant at ‘bulldozing the blind’.
When fate sees fit to dispatch Ben to the home of the man he has dubbed Mr Ferrarcious; it is with the words of the last five unfortunates who’d dared darken Leo’s doorway ringing in his ears. A door that is opened by a man who might be Lord Byron himself. Drop dead gorgeous and as hot as hell, Leo Ferrar has the most beautiful eyes Ben has ever seen.
Never has an irony seemed so cruel. Nor fate so fortuitous.
Leo knew he should have opted to use the cane, instead of the arm Ben offered him for their unexpected walk.Should. Every time that word left someone’s lips, Leo wanted to scream; fists clenched in a screech of hopeless, helpless rage. The fact that everything he should do was For-His-Own-Benefit, made it so much worse, which was as ludicrous as it was true. Independence was the only thing he had left to aspire to. So, why the fuck did should rub Leo so raw it obliterated any inclination he may have had to do whatever it prefaced? He ought to want to do the things he should. But what if he tried…and failed? What if Leo couldn’t master any of them? Then he would lose even the hope that he might, one day, be able to. Even more galling, that loss would be down to him, because he was so bloody useless. He didwant to show Ben that he was quite capable of managing…didn’t he? Very much, although why that mattered, Leo had no idea.
Why care what this latest in a long line of functioning eyeballs thought of him? It was probably more politic to say, ‘visually unimpaired’. Visually Impaired. Leo had to stifle the urge to punch people who described him thus. Impaired? Adj: weakened or damaged. Weak. Weakened. F’fucksakes. He was still chewing that particular wasp when Ben asked for his wrist.
Does he intend to lead me by it, as if I’m a toddler?
Leo found himself holding it out anyway. Christ knows why he was going along with all this. It was just that…being in Ben’s company was rather like sitting in the passenger seat of a snow plough driven by a drunk. Far preferable to standing in its path…and yet, somehow more appealing than staying behind, wherever the hell it was off to.
Nevertheless, he was still relieved when Ben clasped the proffered wrist—not to cart Leo off as he’d feared—but to plant his hand on top of Ben’s head. The fact that Leo could have changed the lightbulb without stretching a whole lot further, did seem to suggest he’d been addressing Ben’s nipples for the last half hour.
Quite how Ben then contrived to claim fault for something that was Leo’s mistake was less clear, but this was pulled off with such disarming charm, it would’ve been churlish to argue otherwise. Why the hell did the notion of calling Ben’s bluff feel as brutal a prospect as drowning his cat? If he had one, of course. Cat? More to the point…nipples?
“Thank you,” Leo managed to mumble, which was something of a result itself. Half an hour with Ben and he’d started to feel several sandwiches short of the proverbial picnic. He’d also begun to suspect that Violet had been a sweet little old lady—and quite sane—when she’d met Ben.
So off they went. The blindingly daft leading the blind off on a stroll around Camden.
In a bid to distract himself from well, pretty much everything he’d thought for the last five minutes, Leo decided to ask Ben to describe himself. For some reason he was intrigued, not only to know what Ben looked like, but to hear the picture he drew. Leo had an inkling this would prove more unmissable than an aural tour around the National Portrait Gallery. Unmissable?It was a bloody masterpiece. There most definitely were not any renderings of Steptoe’s six-four daughter there. The last two years might have felt a damn sight less soul-destroying if Ben had voiced Leo’s DVD visual descriptions.
Walking outside had lost all its appeal when the world became a giant landmine lying in wait to blow up in Leo’s face; every step into the unknown, a potential public humiliation. Despite this, and Ben’s partiality to lamp posts, they somehow arrived in Gloucester Crescent, alive and well. Even more shocking, was that Leo hadn’t fretted about…anything really, along the way. He’d just drifted along, listening to Ben weave words too beguiling to question where embellishment waved farewell to the truth. But who the fuck would want to, when that would feel as blasphemous as punching a fist through a Picasso?
Why care what this latest in a long line of functioning eyeballs thought of him? It was probably more politic to say, ‘visually unimpaired’. Visually Impaired. Leo had to stifle the urge to punch people who described him thus. Impaired? Adj: weakened or damaged. Weak. Weakened. F’fucksakes. He was still chewing that particular wasp when Ben asked for his wrist.
Does he intend to lead me by it, as if I’m a toddler?
Leo found himself holding it out anyway. Christ knows why he was going along with all this. It was just that…being in Ben’s company was rather like sitting in the passenger seat of a snow plough driven by a drunk. Far preferable to standing in its path…and yet, somehow more appealing than staying behind, wherever the hell it was off to.
Quite how Ben then contrived to claim fault for something that was Leo’s mistake was less clear, but this was pulled off with such disarming charm, it would’ve been churlish to argue otherwise. Why the hell did the notion of calling Ben’s bluff feel as brutal a prospect as drowning his cat? If he had one, of course. Cat? More to the point…nipples?
“Thank you,” Leo managed to mumble, which was something of a result itself. Half an hour with Ben and he’d started to feel several sandwiches short of the proverbial picnic. He’d also begun to suspect that Violet had been a sweet little old lady—and quite sane—when she’d met Ben.
So off they went. The blindingly daft leading the blind off on a stroll around Camden.
In a bid to distract himself from well, pretty much everything he’d thought for the last five minutes, Leo decided to ask Ben to describe himself. For some reason he was intrigued, not only to know what Ben looked like, but to hear the picture he drew. Leo had an inkling this would prove more unmissable than an aural tour around the National Portrait Gallery. Unmissable?It was a bloody masterpiece. There most definitely were not any renderings of Steptoe’s six-four daughter there. The last two years might have felt a damn sight less soul-destroying if Ben had voiced Leo’s DVD visual descriptions.
Walking outside had lost all its appeal when the world became a giant landmine lying in wait to blow up in Leo’s face; every step into the unknown, a potential public humiliation. Despite this, and Ben’s partiality to lamp posts, they somehow arrived in Gloucester Crescent, alive and well. Even more shocking, was that Leo hadn’t fretted about…anything really, along the way. He’d just drifted along, listening to Ben weave words too beguiling to question where embellishment waved farewell to the truth. But who the fuck would want to, when that would feel as blasphemous as punching a fist through a Picasso?
What is the biggest influence/interest that brought you to this genre?
For as long as I can remember I’ve always known that I would fall in love with someone regardless of gender. The first love story that captivated me was that of Boy George and Jon Moss. When I started to write, it was the love against all odds intensity of their relationship I longed to capture...but with the Happy Ever After fate denied them. Straight people/relationships don’t interest me enough to write about, so I’m more likely to rustle up a grandma serial killer novel than a mainstream romance.
When writing a book, what is your favorite part of the creative process(outline, plot, character names, editing, etc)?
All my favourite parts of writing concern the characters; creating them, naming them, describing them. They exist in my mind as fully realised men, so I could rattle off answers to everything from their favourite breakfast cereal to their shoe size.
I do wish I could have answered outline or plot though, as that would sound far more proper. Almost as if I didn’t fly by the seat of my pants.
When reading a book, what genre do you find most interesting/intriguing?
Intensity, always. If an author’s stories are steeped in that, I’m hooked forever.
If you could co-author with any author, past or present, who would you choose?
Anthony Trollope. We would write ‘Phineas In Flux’. A novel in which our esteemed member has a new PPS. I fear that I might insist we name him Sebastian.
Have you always wanted to write or did it come to you "later in life"?
I wanted to be an author from the moment I discovered Enid Blyton. I was eight and decided that I’d like to write books like hers when I grew up...and marry George from the Famous Five.
The former seems to have gone a mite awry along the way, but I still live in hope of the latter.
Thank you for having me.
When Zakarrie was little and dreamed big, she wanted to be a writer. Just like Enid Blyton. Or p'raps not...having been most remiss on the lashings of ginger beer front. After moving to London at eighteen and flitting about for far too long, she finally settled, as blissy as can be, by the sea. When her castaway dreams resurfaced, they were believed into being by the warm words of friends who breathed life into her own. Her one wish now is that someone, somewhere, might enjoy the misadventures of her miscreants as much as she adores writing them.
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