Summary:
Christmas is coming… but Alex is running away.
Panicked by the prospect of spending Christmas with his boyfriend’s disapproving parents, Alex flees to the old houseboat in the Norfolk Broads his uncle left him. But when a freak snowstorm traps him there, Alex soon realises he’s not the only heartbroken lover haunting the shores of Halsham Broad.
Two hundred years ago, drummer boy Jack Sadler drowned skating over thin ice to meet his lover. Now, whenever the Broad freezes over, he returns and brings a curse with him.
And every night Alex spends trapped in the icebound boat, he hears the beat of a distant drum draw closer…
OMG!!!! Nothing says Christmas like a good old fashioned ghost story and Amy Rae Durreson definitely has a doozy of a one with A Distant Drum. I stumbled onto it by accident and I am so glad I did!
I won't say too much because I don't want to give anything away, this is definitely one story you have to experience yourself to fully appreciate the creepified factor. Snow and ice storms can be spooky enough(believe me I know I'm a lifelong resident of Wisconsin) but throw in a little history, doomed lovers, and you have a recipe for a very scary Merry Christmas😉 The details the author adds to the distant drums from the title, well let me just say I swear I could hear every beat, every scrape, every chill in the air.
So if you love holiday romance but are looking for something different, a little grit to your Christmas cookies than Amy Rae Durreson's A Distant Drum is right up your alley.
RATING:
Summary:
A race to save his lover—by becoming his own worst nightmare.
Dr. Nick Sewell has it all. Good friends, a career as a Cambridge academic… and recently, a tendency to turn into a wolf every full moon. When a new student arrives from Germany, Nick is horrified by his visceral attraction to the troubled youth—not to mention his violent jealousy when he sees Julian with another man. He’s floored to find out Julian is a werewolf too.
Unlike Nick, Julian has spent his life among other wolves, and in this subject, he’s the teacher and Nick the student. Nick struggles to adjust to this reversal of roles, especially since he’s an alpha and Julian a natural submissive. That dynamic just adds to the attraction smoldering between them, whether they’re in human form or wolf.
But Julian’s pack and the abuse he suffered aren’t far behind him. And the pack wants to reclaim him. For Nick to hold on to his lover, he’ll have to come to terms with the violent acts of his past—and embrace the monster within.
Summary:
A land of castles, swords, and dragons... except the dragons are just stories now. The dragon hunters have done their job too well.
Philip travels from town to town as his dragon hunter father chases old glories and the next drink. Philip is there to carry the bags, tend to the horses, and fade into the background. The promise of riches brings them to a village in a remote valley, but Philip longs to find something – or someone – to call his own.
When a mysterious and compelling stranger appears in town, Philip hopes for connection – even a romance if they can hide it from his father. But the stranger has secrets of his own.
Summary:
Snow Globe Christmas #2
I can’t really complain about my life; I have a job I love and a best friend that fills the void of my nonexistent family, but sometimes I’m lonelier than I like to admit. Especially with the holiday season approaching, I can’t help but wish I had someone special to share it with.
My friend gives me a snow globe with a man and a snowy owl inside, and for some bizarre reason, this man starts showing up every night when I close my eyes. It’s… not real, but I can’t seem to get the guy out of my head. It probably shouldn’t surprise me that my brain conjures up the perfect man in my dreams… well, almost perfect if he’d stop claiming to be a warlock. But the crazy thing is that all of it—that he—feels so real.
When I start falling for the man, the warlock, I can’t help but wish that what we have in my dreams could be a reality. I know it can’t, but at least when I’m asleep, I can be with him—with Alaric.
Although this book is part of A Snow Globe Christmas series, it is a complete stand alone and it isn’t a requirement that you read the previous books to follow along. We wish everyone a happy holiday season.
Summary:
Poisonwood & Lyric #1
A starving incubus.
A bear alone.
Jasper Jones is Lyric’s most pitiful incubus. He can’t feed and doesn’t want to if it means hurting people. When a witch gives him a chance at breaking the cycle of hunger, he rushes half cocked into the woods in search of a cure.
Caleb moved into Poisonwood Forest to escape the crowded city of Lyric, but it’s lonely by himself. He doesn’t expect to find his mate when he trips over an unconscious young man in the middle of the woods, but there he is, perfect—except for a peculiar fondness for processed cookies.
Their only problem is that Jasper’s sick, and when he doesn’t get better, his one shot at survival is in the hands of a bear shifter who’ll do anything to save him.
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Random Paranormal Tales of 2020
A Distant Drum by Amy Rae Durreson
1. Thursday Night
The houseboat door was stiff, the wood a little swollen with the damp and the lock hard to see in the grey winter twilight. I eventually managed to shove it open and step inside, navigating the steps down from the deck more from memory than anything else. It was cold inside, and dark, and I dropped my backpack hastily and fumbled across the well—three steps forward and a shuffle left before my knees bumped the wall, and I realised that I’d been shorter last time I came here.
1. Thursday Night
The houseboat door was stiff, the wood a little swollen with the damp and the lock hard to see in the grey winter twilight. I eventually managed to shove it open and step inside, navigating the steps down from the deck more from memory than anything else. It was cold inside, and dark, and I dropped my backpack hastily and fumbled across the well—three steps forward and a shuffle left before my knees bumped the wall, and I realised that I’d been shorter last time I came here.
It still smelt the same—petrol, wood polish, and under it all the cool, faintly salty bite of the water below. Did it smell like this in summer, when the tourists came to rent it out, or was it only in winter that the old scent of the place came rising out of the woodwork? I half-expected to catch a hint of over-brewed tea, or Gabe’s roll ups.
My eyes were adjusting to the light now, and I hadn’t been far off—the mains switch was right in front of me. I reached up and flicked it on. The fridge began to hum in the galley, something groaned and stuttered in the hull, and a red light came on somewhere high on the wall of the saloon which opened from the well. I leaned back and hit the light switch by the door on the second attempt.
The saloon didn’t look the same. It was a hell of a lot cleaner than it had been when Gabe lived here, for a start. It was probably weird to feel nostalgic for overflowing ashtrays, dog-eared paperbacks, and tea-stained mugs, but I did.
Ah, fuck it, I might as well come out and admit it was Gabe I missed, the old git, and now I could spend the whole of Christmas weeping into the lining of my coat.
Partly because I wasn’t going to take said coat off until I’d got the heating going. Back when Gabe had lived here, there had been a single crappy plug-in heater which ate electricity like Gabe went through a bag of Tetley’s, but I’d signed off on the installation of a proper furnace last year, on the advice of the rental company. It would extend the season at either end, they had told me, and I’d been both too busy with work and aching from the loss of the last family member who liked me. I hadn’t wanted to deal with anything about the boat myself.
She’s got a name, numpty, Gabe grumbled in my memory. She’s a lady, and even a lad with no taste for the lasses can show her some respect.
The rental company had given her some twee name in line with their company policy—Halsham Dancer, I thought, or maybe, Halsham Dreamer. I’d never been able to keep it fixed in my head. To me she was, and would always be, Lovely Lily.
I said now, slipping back into childhood habits, “Hey, Lily, milady, help me out. Where’s your heating switch?”
The wind sighed through the reeds along the side of the creek. An owl called, long and eerie. Somewhere out in the darkness, on another boat or, more likely, in a passing car, someone had their music on loud enough that I could just hear the beat, even out here in the darkness.
I sighed and went back to get my bag. If I could get a phone signal, I could check the emails about the installation and find out where—
There was a leather folder sitting on the low bench beside my bag. Embossed letters on the front read Guest Information.
It had probably been there before. It had been dark when I’d come in, and I hadn’t been looking for it. All the same, I remembered all the stories Gabe had told me when I was a kid, and ducked my head, muttering, “Thanks, Lil.”
The switch was in the kitchen. While the boat slowly heated, I stashed the groceries I’d brought with me in the fridge—nothing but beer and service station sandwiches, in proper Gabe style—and wandered through the rest of the not-quite-familiar rooms. It was all very clean and charming, but it felt a little too sanitised to be the Lily. There was even a plaque on the wall outlining her history in an antique font—from her wherrying days on the Thames in the 1930s to her presence at Dunkirk to a mastless retirement here on the edges of Halsham Broad. Most of it was new to me, and I patted her wall fondly, feeling an odd swell of pride in the old girl. “Gabe always said you were an old trouper. Guess he was right.”
As the air warmed, I began to feel more at home. I’d never been here in the winter—even Gabe had been reluctantly dragged away to endure a family Christmas, but I’d been released to Gabe’s care every Easter and for a week every summer. I could still remember the relief of that train ride, each rattle of the tracks drawing me farther away from the boy my parents wanted me to be, until I exploded off the train at Norwich to hurl myself at Gabe and his dog—first Frodo, then Galadriel, and last of all Elrond, all of them smelly, shaggy, and of thoroughly mixed lineage, none of them allowed to visit the London-dwelling parts of the family.
It was only now that I wondered what favours Gabe had traded to get those weeks.
The darkness was different at this time of year. There was none of that lingering light that clung to a summer’s night even when the sun was down, or even the fresh vastness of a starry April night. In December, the darkness felt heavy, clustering close around her windows. I filled the kettle, put it on to boil, and then went back outside, drawn by that absolute darkness.
The air tasted so crisp and cold it stung my mouth. Looking out where I knew there was water, I could see nothing but the black depth of night. To the north, where the village of Halsham clustered around the marina, a couple of lights showed, but it was hard to tell how far away they were. Farther to the south-east, I could just see faint glimmers from the coastal village of Gorsey. The moon was the barest thin crescent, offering no light. Under my feet, the deck was already slick with frost and I couldn’t hear or feel the usual sway of the water beneath the Lily. Had the broad frozen?
The owl cried out again and I could hear that faint beat of music stripped of all its grace by distance.
I wasn’t expecting the sudden shrill of my phone, and jumped enough that I almost went skidding across the deck. I’d left it inside and rushed to get it despite the sudden clench of guilt in my gut. I should have known a hasty text message wouldn’t have been enough, and I’d been relying on the fact that I’d never known a signal at Halsham Broad before to put off what was going to be a monumental reckoning.
“Hey,” I said, closing my eyes.
“So you are alive then?” Nik snapped. “I’ve been trying to contact you for the last two hours.”
“Didn’t you get my text?”
Nik took a long breath and then let it out in one furious huff. “Yes, I got your fucking text. But for your information, needed some time—back in the New Year does not actually tell me anything useful. Like, for example, where the hell you are!”
“I’m fine.”
“Fine is not a place in England.”
“I’m sure it’s a place somewhere, though. I mean, there’s Finland and Finchley, which are both close.” I could usually get a laugh out of Nik if I babbled enough, and I didn’t want to fight. Nik wasn’t stupid. He knew why I wasn’t there.
He didn’t laugh. “Are you in Finland or Finchley?”
“No.”
He grated out, “So, where the fuck are you?”
“I’m—”
“Because you should be here, packing your bags to go to my parents for Christmas.”
“Your parents hate me.”
“Oh, for fuck’s—” He stopped himself and said, “My parents do not hate you.”
“They absolutely hate me. They think I seduced you away from being their good little heterosexual Catholic son.”
“Hate to break it to you, darling, but you were hardly my first.”
“Yeah, but I was the first one they met, right? And it was a disaster.”
“Not that much of a—”
“Disaster,” I emphasised.
A Dragon Hunter's Son by Hanna Dare
Philip took one of his hands and kissed the knuckles before firmly pressing it back to Ejoler’s side. “We just have to keep it secret and be patient. I can sneak away later tonight.”
He tried not to think of how little time together they had left. Maybe Jaxon could be put off for a few more days. He might indulge too much tonight to get up before dawn – Philip never encouraged his drinking, but this was a special occasion. Or perhaps Philip could somehow get them lost in the caves tomorrow until his father got frustrated enough to give up.
Ejoler nodded to him. “I can wait. My patience can outlast the mountains themselves. But, Philip” — he fixed him with a fierce and hungry stare — “do not make me wait that long.”
Ejoler turned away and walked on ahead, leaving Philip to bite his lip and settle his breathing before he could follow.
*****
It was nearly suppertime at the inn by the time they got back, which may have accounted for the crowd. But Philip had never seen the place so completely filled, with people unable to find room inside standing in front of the building talking together in small anxious clusters.
Lily elbowed her way through the open door, giving mugs of ale to the people outside until her hands were empty. She caught sight of Philip and rushed over.
Lily clutched at him urgently. “Philip! I’ve been looking for you all day. Everybody’s talking.”
Philip froze, worried that something in his face had given him away — that the marks of Ejoler’s kisses or just his own happiness was shining through his skin. It didn’t seem unbelievable in that moment that the whole village would be there to stare at him.
“It’s Tris,” she continued. “I wouldn’t normally believe him, the way he goes on, but he says, absolutely swears he saw—”
Had Tris spied on them? Followed them into the caves today or spotted them in the woods, or even sensed something the day before? But Lily was staring up at him with a mix of fear and giddy excitement.
“A dragon,” she said. “In the sky above the valley last night. Philip, a real dragon.”
Poisonwood by Sam Burns & WM Fawkes
Caleb set him down gently and adjusted the blanket around his body. Groggy as he was, Jasper managed to catch his hand before he could pull away. “Stay?” he whispered. Unless Caleb was hiding an entire other half of his cabin, there was only one bed. Jasper didn’t want to force him out of it.
With a scowl, Caleb considered him. “I can sleep on the couch.”
If he hadn’t been so dizzy, he’d have rolled his eyes. “Your bed is, like, orgy sized.”
Caleb choked, turning red under his beard. “What would you know about that?”
Okay, so Jasper couldn’t help rolling his eyes, even if he regretted it a second later. “Got a weird family. What I’m saying is that we could fit three more people in here and none of us would even have to touch. I just”—Jasper swallowed—”I don’t want to kick you out of your own bed? I’ve already crashed your entire day. I don’t have to fuck up your night too.” When Caleb’s scowl deepened, Jasper shrank into his shoulders. “Please?”
Caleb nodded tersely. “But I need to put wood on the fire. And change.”
Jasper beamed. ” ‘Kay.”
He watched while Caleb turned around, toward a chest of drawers. He pulled off his shirt, exposing a broad, firm back. If he hadn’t seemed so standoffish, Jasper would’ve told him to turn around and give a little show. He was not at all used to people who didn’t want him—a welcome revelation and, in this particular context, a disappointment. He didn’t want Caleb to have to have him; he wanted Caleb to want to have him. Or show more than vague discomfort when Jasper said something racy.
Amy Rae Durreson is a quiet Brit with a degree in early English literature, which she blames for her somewhat medieval approach to spelling, and at various times has been fluent in Latin, Old English, Ancient Greek, and Old Icelandic, though these days she mostly uses this knowledge to bore her students. Amy started her first novel a quarter of a century ago and has been scribbling away ever since. Despite these long years of experience, she has yet to master the arcane art of the semicolon. She was a winner in the 2017 Rainbow Awards.
JL Merrow is that rare beast, an English person who refuses to drink tea. She read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, where she learned many things, chief amongst which was that she never wanted to see the inside of a lab ever again. Her one regret is that she never mastered the ability of punting one-handed whilst holding a glass of champagne.
She writes (mostly) contemporary gay romance and mysteries, and is frequently accused of humour. Her novel Slam! won the 2013 Rainbow Award for Best LGBT Romantic Comedy, and several of her books have been EPIC Awards finalists, including Muscling Through, Relief Valve (the Plumber's Mate Mysteries) and To Love a Traitor.
JL Merrow is a member of the Romantic Novelists' Association, International Thriller Writers, Verulam Writers and the UK GLBTQ Fiction Meet organising team.
A writer-for-hire for more than ten years, Hanna Dare now writes what she loves to read: well-written, character-driven stories of men exploring their identities and discovering their own unique kind of happily ever afters… usually through sexytimes.
Find Hanna on the internet enjoying pretty pictures, procrastination and caffeinated beverages!
Michele is married to an awesome husband that puts up with her and all the characters in her head—and there are many. They live together in Baltimore, Maryland with their two young boys and two crazy dogs. She grew up dancing and swimming and taught dance—ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop, & modern—for ten years before her kids came along. Now she stays home to write about the sexy men in her head and does PTA everything—as long as coffee is involved. Two other tattooed moms run the PTA with her, and though she wants to rip her hair out from it, she still loves it.
Sam lives in the Midwest with husband and cat, which is even less exciting than it sounds, so she's not sure why you're still reading this.
She specializes in LGBTQIA+ fiction, usually with a romantic element. There's sometimes intrigue and violence, usually a little sex, and almost always some swearing in her work. Her writing is light and happy, though, so if you're looking for a dark gritty reality, you've come to the wrong author.
W.M. Fawkes is an author of LGBTQ+ urban fantasy and paranormal romance. With coauthor Sam Burns, she writes feisty Greek gods, men, and monsters in the Lords of the Underworld series. She lives with her partner in a house owned by three halloween-hued felines that dabble regularly in shadow walking.
Amy Rae Durreson
B&N / SMASHWORDS / KOBO
JL Merrow
A Distant Drum by Amy Rae Durreson
Camwolf by JL Merrow
The Dragon Hunter's Son by Hanna Dare
Wishing on a Dream by Michele Notaro
Poisonwood by Sam Burns & WM Fawkes
