Sunday, December 31, 2023

🎅🎄6th Day of Christmas Author Spotlight🎄🎅: Clare London



Clare London
Clare London took her pen name from the city where she lives, loves, and writes. A lone, brave female in a frenetic, testosterone-fuelled family home, she juggles her writing with her other day job as an accountant.

She’s written in many genres and across many settings, with award-winning novels and short stories published both online and in print. She says she likes variety in her writing while friends say she’s just fickle, but as long as both theories spawn good fiction, she’s happy. Most of her work features male/male romance and drama with a healthy serving of physical passion, as she enjoys both reading and writing about strong, sympathetic, and sexy characters.

Clare currently has several novels sulking at that tricky chapter-three stage and plenty of other projects in mind… she just has to find out where she left them in that frenetic, testosterone-fuelled family home.

Clare loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her on all her social media.


EMAIL: clarelondon11@yahoo.co.uk




Santa No. 5
Summary:

No one looks good in a borrowed Santa suit. Especially in a police line-up.

Jacob Carter is struggling as the new sergeant of the village police station. There’s been a rash of Christmas gift thefts, his staff are bemused by his bossy city ways and, in return, he’s having trouble adapting to their more relaxed approach to community policing. Let alone the fact that everyone seems happy to get involved in everyone else’s diverse and often controversial lives.

He’s having even more trouble believing Nick Hollybush is a heartless criminal, despite the result of a bizarre line-up, and all the practical evidence mounting up. Especially with Nick’s sparkling eyes, the shy smile in Jacob’s direction, and their obvious chemistry.

How on earth is Jacob going to juggle the duties of a copper against the romantic desires of an ordinary man—and still keep the village’s Christmas celebrations safe?

Author Note: this story was originally included in the limited edition charity anthology "Kind Hearts at Christmas".





His Gift
Summary:
Steven Macklin wakes up in a ditch one morning in foul, wet weather with no idea where he is or how he came to be there. Seriously injured, he struggles across bleak heathland to find shelter. The only house he finds is weather-beaten and deserted, although he's too sensible a guy to fall for the cliche of a haunted mansion.

Isn't he?

When he collapses and is taken in by the handsome Eliot, Steven finds himself in a very disturbing situation -- and in the bed of this strange, possessive man.





Just Like in the Movies
Summary:
All Bailey wants is to be a good negotiator, and to impress his boss and teacher, the legendary Drew Fletcher. He admires Fletcher for his skills in the field, but that doesn’t stop him admiring the man for other, more romantic reasons as well. In a tense hostage situation, it’s pretty unlikely Bailey’s usual, rash behaviour will cover him in glory, but in his dreams, it’s all going to happen just like in the movies.

When he finally acts to protect his boss, it doesn’t go the way he hopes -- or does it? Will Bailey get to play the hero and get the guy of his dreams?





The Accidental Baker
Summary:

The Accidental Baker #1
Donnie Watson's baking disasters are legendary, but this Easter, his mismatched chocolate eggs bring accidental but astonishing results to four downhearted gay men. The chocolate sweets spill onto the pavement of a small parade of local shops—and go on a matchmaking tour like no other! From a bankrupt and betrayed baker, to a homeless but hopeful man, to a conceited bar owner in need of a reality check, and finally to the hapless but caring Donnie himself.

After all, Love means you can have chocolate too!





Bite Nite by Clare London
Summary:
Creatures of the Night and Santa’s Christmas duties don’t mix. Every myth and bedtime story tells you so. But on Christmas Eve, when the Elves walked off the job over pension rights, it was time for me—Irwin, the only vampire on Santa’s payroll, despite recent diversity initiatives—and my trusty team to help out.

Just deliver a few parcels, Santa asked me. Just help out on your local patch. Just for one night. Armed with my reluctance to face all that human sentimentality, and accompanied by a wise-cracking werewolf and an unruly fairy with a taste for vodka, I did my best. Honest.

But we were heading for disaster until I came face-to-face with cute babysitter Benny. It’s Santa’s Number One Rule—no fraternising with the clients. But Benny somehow managed to upset my appetite, inflame my libido, and restore my faith in the Christmas spirit, with one cheeky smile and a tasty body piercing. It’s Christmas, and the show must go on!




Santa No. 5

His Gift
B&N  /  KOBO  /  GOOGLE PLAY

Just Like in the Movies
KOBO  /  iTUNES  /  GOOGLE PLAY
B&N  /  WEBSITE  /  JMS BOOKS

The Accidental Baker

Bite Night


🎅🎄Sunday's Sport Stats🎄🎅: Sparkle by RJ Scott & VL Locey



Summary:

LA Storm #1.5
Being in love with a Hollywood star isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Neither is planning a secret holiday wedding to said box-office hero. There’s the press and paparazzi to outfox, the wedding planner to please, and the catering to sort out. All of that while juggling a crushing hockey schedule and dealing with the world’s most annoying neighbor. But despite the setbacks, worries, and flight plans for family, I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.

Marrying Finn Kerrigan is everything



This free short really only mentions Christmas in passing but in my heart that is all that's needed for a Xmas labelling😉.  Frankly, I can't think of a better story that is most likely my final read of 2023.  Sparkle is a short and sweet continuation of Script, the first entry in LA Storm which is the latest branch of the Scott & Locey Hockey Tree.  I say "continuation" because lets face it, the characters of their hockey universe have a tendency to keep popping up here and there for a variety of reasons. 

Sparkle will leave you smiling, shedding a few happy tears, and even a couple of bursts of laughter.  Honestly, this free short is jam packed to the rafters with emotions in levels that one doesn't often find in a short of this size. Such a delicious surprise holiday treat.

RATING:



Some days it was just better to stay in bed, right? 

Well, what happened when you were still in bed but the day was already running out of control? Where did a man go to get away from the ultimate madness of a Christmas wedding when the sanctity of his bedroom had been breached? I’d thought of hiding under the bed but the space was too small for a hockey player. 

“No way, I would not go with buying your veggies for your veggie platters from some chain store,” I heard Rottie telling my fiancé, his carton-a-day gravelly voice clawing through the pillow I’d placed over my head. “Listen, Finn, for serious, my guru knows a thing or two about this. Organic locally grown is the only way to go. I mean… move over Cameron,” the rocker said then shoved me to the edge of the bed so he could wiggle his scrawny ass between me and Finn. I said many bad words under my pillow. “Right, so what you want to do is keep everything that goes into your body clean, without fungicides, pesticides, or regicides.” 

Okay, someone had to step in here. I could hear Finn typing away on his notebook. I flung the pillow aside. Rottie, who had been working an 80’ s Scottish hairband look for the past few months and my adorable Finn both glanced my way, Finn leaning to see me around the rocker wearing a bright pink and blue kilt, a bandolier filled with various tubes of fruit lip balms instead of bullets— because hey you never knew when your lips would need balm— and tiny ballet slippers smiled at me. That smile of his could wipe away most anything. Sadly, it didn’t have the power to eliminate a rock star. 

“Okay, before you fill your wedding folder with everything that this cumquat says,” I jerked a thumb at my neighbor who snickered then crossed his ankles, “Regicides are not something that you spray on a pepper plant. A regicide is when you kill a king.” 

Finn sighed, deleted, and then handed me his notebook, blue eyes glowing with excitement. To say that Finn was into our upcoming nuptials would be the understatement of all time. Finn had dove into setting things up with his usual love of all things life. Which was amazing and adorable, but man sometimes it was exhausting. Why I had agreed to get married on our short Christmas break from hockey spoke to how totally in love I was with the man. Most hockey players got married off-season. I simply could not wait that long to claim him as my husband, and vice versa, so yeah here we were having a discussion with a singer resting in our bed at six in the freaking morning. 

“Oh right, well, most of them words that end in cide are never good. Homicide, genocide, fungicide, amigocide.” 

“I… what?” I pushed up to sit and stare at Rottie. 

“You know when you kill your friend. Amigocide.” He flipped back his Dee Snider locks then gave me the look that screamed he was busting my balls and knew it. 

“That is not the right… never mind.” I nudged Rottie over and asked the most important question of the new day. “How did you get into my house?” 

“Oh, I knocked. Finn let me in.” Rottie smiled down at me. 

Finn nodded. 

“Huh, I wasn’t expecting such a normal means of entry. I thought maybe you would have parachuted out of a helicopter then came down the chimney,” I tossed out. 

“Nah, the chimney schtick is in two weeks,” Rottie replied then took a sip of coffee from my favorite mug. I was really going to have to talk to Finn about being so kind to our neighbors. Yeah, I was feeling my Scrooge this morning, big time. Bah and humbug. 

“Do not try to get down our chimney,” I barked and got a gruff chuckle from the man wedged between me and Finn. 

“Rottie, where does your guru say to get our veggies?” Finn asked as he took his notebook back and opened it, using a spare pillow as a sort of fluffy stand. 

“I buy all my stuff from the San Pedro Street Community Garden. Such an amazing place, lots of small plots rented by local folks, but they also have several plots that they use for growing the goodies that they then sell. Oh, and they have bee hives too! Everything is organic and totally without any funky nasties that rot your testes.” 

Finn’s bright blue peepers widened. “Holy shit, do vegetables from the store rot your balls?!” 

Rottie shrugged a lean shoulder covered with various tattoos. “My guru says that you should only eat things that will make your sperm happy. That’s why I went totally vegan last month. And now I’m coming bucketfuls. I’m a god-damn sexual Velociraptor.” 

“It’s a T-Rex,” I sighed out. 

“Big lizard, pointy teeth, the point is that I now produce twice the amount of semen I did before and my balls are even more manly. Want to see?” 

We both yelled no but he flipped up his kilt anyway. 

“Go home, Rottie,” I barked, eyes squeezed shut. “And leave my mug this time.” 

“Right, off I go. I have tantric drum lessons at seven followed by a photo shoot to lock down the new album cover.” He handed me my mug, stood then walked to the end of the bed, jumped down, bowed deeply, and meandered out of the bedroom door. 



Saturday's Series Spotlight
Harrisburg Raptors
Part 1  /  Part 2  /  Part 3  /  Part 4

Owatonna U
Part 1  /  Part 2

Arizona Raptors
Part 1  /  Part 2

Boston Rebels
Part 1  /  Part 2

Hockey Universe
Xmas Edition

Road to the Stanley Cup Edition

Father's Day Edition

Chestorford Coyotes

LA Storm


🏒👨‍❤️‍👨🏒💖👬💖🏒👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏒




RJ Scott
Writing love stories with a happy ever after – cowboys, heroes, family, hockey, single dads, bodyguards

USA Today bestselling author RJ Scott has written over one hundred romance books. Emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, single dads, hockey players, millionaires, princes, bodyguards, Navy SEALs, soldiers, doctors, paramedics, firefighters, cops, and the men who get mixed up in their lives, always 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 box of chocolates she couldn’t defeat.




VL Locey
V.L. Locey loves worn jeans, yoga, belly laughs, walking, reading and writing lusty tales, Greek mythology, the New York Rangers, comic books, and coffee.
(Not necessarily in that order.)

She shares her life with her husband, her daughter, one dog, two cats, a flock of assorted domestic fowl, and two Jersey steers.

When not writing spicy romances, she enjoys spending her day with her menagerie in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with a cup of fresh java in hand.



RJ Scott
FACEBOOK  /  TWITTER  /  WEBSITE
NEWSLETTER  /  CHIRP  /  INSTAGRAM
AUDIOBOOKS  /  B&N  /  GOOGLE PLAY
AUDIBLE  /  FB GROUP  /  PINTEREST  /  TUMBLR
BOOKBUB  /  KOBO  /  SMASHWORDS
iTUNES  /  AMAZON  /  GOODREADS
EMAIL: rj@rjscott.co.uk

VL Locey
FACEBOOK  /  TWITTER  /  WEBSITE
BOOKBUB  /  B&N  /  INSTAGRAM  /  AUDIBLE
iTUNES  /  AMAZON  /  GOODREADS
EMAIL: vicki@vllocey.com



Sparkle #1.5

Harrisburg Railers Series
B&N  /  iTUNES  /  CHIRP

Owatonna U Series
B&N  /  iTUNES  /  SMASHWORDS
KOBO  /  WEBSITE  /  GOODREADS TBR

Arizona Raptors Series
B&N  /  iTUNES  /  SMASHWORDS
KOBO  /  WEBSITE  /  GOODREADS TBR

Boston Rebels Series
B&N  /  iTUNES  /  SMASHWORDS
KOBO  /  WEBSITE  /  GOODREADS TBR

Chestorford Coyotes Series

LA Storm Series