The Island

I’m happy to announce that The Island has been re-released, with an awesome new cover thanks to the incredibly talented Natasha Snow.

LOOK AT THE PRETTY! 

Initially, when I got the rights back after my contact with Loose Id expired, I thought about making some changes to the story. It’s interesting to see that what I wrote back in 2012 isn’t what I might write today. There were a few places where, in hindsight, I might have made a different decision with the plot. Ultimately though, I decided to leave it pretty much untouched except for some tiny tweaks I doubt anyone will notice.

Really, at this point, I think I’ve got enough plot bunnies to keep me busy until the next millennium, so I don’t feel the need to start reworking my older stories.

Here’s the blurb, for anyone who didn’t catch the book the first time around:

Shaw is in Fiji to sell a stolen painting to the crime boss, Vornis. It will be the deal of a lifetime, if Shaw can pull it off. But then Vornis parades his latest toy around in front of him—a captured DEA agent whose time is running out. It’s none of Shaw’s business, and it doesn’t matter that under any other circumstances Lee would be exactly Shaw’s type: he’s young, he’s hot, and he might even have a personality if they hadn’t beaten it out of him. Too bad there’s no way Lee is getting off the island. Too bad there’s nothing Shaw can do for him. And too bad there are some lines that even Shaw won’t cross.

Keeping his hands off Lee proves harder than he thinks, but Shaw’s not stupid enough to fall for the tortured captive of a dangerous crime boss, is he? If he did, it wouldn’t be just his job he would be risking—it would be his life.

The Island is available at Amazon and at Smashwords with other retailers to follow shortly, and the paperback will be available soon! 

And, after spending so many hours wrestling with all that formatting to get it right for each platform, I’ve got to put it out there: I need a drink.

Cheers! 

The Island is a TRR Best Book of 2012 Nominee!

Wow, you guys!

The Island has been nominated over at The Romance Reviews for Best GLBT - Contemporary Romance of 2012. And it's in some fine company as well!

So if you're a member over there (and it's a fun site, you should totally be a member!) head on over and vote for your favourites.

Or you can vote for The Island by following this button:

Voting closes on March 31.

Want to win some books? And read about crazy animals?

Today I am over at Tara Lain's blog, with my co-author for The Good Boy, JA Rock. We're taking part in the Paws with a Cause blogfest, and talking about crazy pets and our almost identical history of "Please! PLEASE MUM! Can't we keep it, PLEASE!" 

Check it out! You can win a copy of The Island, by me, your choice from JA's backlist, and a heap of other great prizes. 

Now, because there are only so many words you can write on a guest post, I talked about my cats, who are all adopted. I mean, obviously I didn't give birth to them, but I also didn't go to a pet shop and buy them. No, I had no choice but to take them in, you know, once I looked them in the eye. 

But because I had to keep it short and sweet, I didn't talk about Eudo. 

Also, because Eudo is a sad story. 

Eudo was the stray cat who used to come into my house and eat my cats' food. My cats hated him with a passion, but the sort of repressed British passion you only really see in Merchant Ivory productions. They glared a lot, and looked miffed, but Eudo didn't care. 

Eudo, not caring. 

Once, Eudo didn't come around for a few days. When he finally showed up, he was in bad shape: dragging his swollen leg behind him, his ear torn, his tail all busted up. But still hungry. 

So I made a vet appointment and gave him breakfast. 

"Don't eat too much, Eudo," said my mother, who was visiting that day. 

"Fuck it, Eudo," I told him, "eat as much as you want. Go nuts." 

Because I knew where this was going. 

The vet was very nice about it. Yeah, it was bad. Yeah, it would be the kindest thing. No, they wouldn't charge me. So I made the Grown Up decision. 

Which was no consolation at all when it occurred to me later: that stray cat, hit by a car, had managed to drag himself to the one place where he felt safe. And how did I repay him? 

With a Grown Up decision. 

You can't save them all, of course, but a part of me will always be the little kid standing outside the pet shop or the animal shelter, begging to have the chance. 

Happy Dance!

You guys! You guys, LOOK! 

The Island has won first place in the Goodreads M/M Romance Members Choice Awards, for best Slave / Dub Con / Kidnapped story. 

And I am absolutely stoked!

Thank you to everyone who read and loved The Island, and who took the time to vote. It's a great end to 2012, a great beginning to 2013, and a great reminder that I'm not just doing something I love, I'm doing something that other people love as well. 

You know what I have to do now, right? THIS: 

Islands

So, I was rereading The Island last night, and I remembered these photos I took last time I was in Vanuatu. Okay, so The Island is set in Fiji, but I haven't been there since I was a kid. I remember being there for the coup (I don't recall which one) and waving to the army guy with the machine gun as we went to the airport. He waved back. 

But any inspiration I picked up on the beaches in Vanuatu applies to Fiji anyway. Beautiful islands, beautiful beaches, and the endless glittering blue of the Pacific. 

On his Fijian island, Lee collects sand dollars. So did I, in Vanuatu, but for much nicer reasons. My niece Meg was learning to count, so during the day we collected sand dollars and lined them up in the shower at night for her to count. 

Remember how Lee finds a green sand dollar? Here's one, next to an orange star fish: 

And these things were literally metres from our door. Get up in the morning, walk outside, and head straight into the lagoon. 

And the water around Vanuatu -- so blue. 

Here is the bungalow we stayed in for part of the trip. If you think the sand doesn't look as white and clean as it should on a tropical island, that's because this was on Tanna, and the sand here is black thanks to the volcano, Mount Yasur. At night you can drift off to sleep to the sound of the waves breaking on the shore and, in the distance, the rumbling volcano. You can visit the volcano as well, if it's safe, and walk to the top and watch the eruptions. Just magical. 

So our bungalow wasn't five star accommodation like Shaw's...

...but who needs that when you have this view from the hammock? 

You guys, if you ever get the chance to go to Vanuatu, take it! It is one of the most beautiful places on the planet.  

***

Bragging time: I got an awesome review on Joyfully Jay for Dark Space. You can read it here.  Awesome reviews make me do a happy dance! You can see that h... no, no linking to that. I've still got my pride. Also, this particular happy dance was done in my oldest, shabbiest pyjamas. 

See ya, 2012!

Okay, so you know how at the end of the year you’re supposed to stop and take stock and all that sort of thing? That’s for organised people, not me. Or people who know where their priorities should be.  “You know,” I said the other day at work, “I wish they sold bread at the liquor store so I didn’t have to stop at both places.”

(Except, IRL, I didn't say "liquor store". I said "bottle shop". But I've made the mistake before of telling an American about a bottle shop: 

"You mean a shop that sells, like, bottles?" 

"Yeah. With alcohol in them."

"Oh, a liquor store." 

"What did you think I meant?" 

"I really had no idea."

So for the purposes of clarity, which this explanation then ruined, I called it a liquor store in my anecdote.)

Where was I? Oh, right. 

The Island has been nominated in six categories for the Goodreads M/M Romance Member Choice Awards. How awesome is that? (Rhetorical question — it’s totally awesome!) Here are the six categories:

Hurt/Comfort

Beat Tear-Jerker

Contemporary

Slave/Dub

Law Enforcement/PI/Firemen/Military

Best Overall Book of 2012

And, you guys, you have to head over to the New Year’s Kisses Party, hosted by Kay Berrisford and Tara Lain. It is so much fun, and you can win so much stuff! Like a gazillion books. And a gift card you can use to buy even more books!

Happy New Year, everyone! See you in 2013! 

Two more sleeps! Also, another tree has died!

There is a strange disconnect between writing and publishing. For me, at least. This means that there is a massive moment of squeee when something that has only previously been a Word document on my computer, or a badly named file called "The one with the aliens" (yes, really, I don't do titles), turns into a book. A proper, real book. A trees-died-for-its-sins book. And on that note, The Island is coming out in paperback. I don't have a release date yet, but I'll let you know as soon as I find out. 

Meanwhile: Squeeeeeee!!!!!!   

And, you guys, two more sleeps until Dark Space. Or one. Or I don't even know. What is the point of the International Date Line except to give false hope to people stuck on the wrong side of it, like me, when things are coming out? 

Although I do like speaking to you now from the future. So please imagine this in the most mysterious sage-like voice you can: I am speaking to you now from the world of tomorrow. Dark Space is out on December 4. You should buy it. 

Tribute has been nominated!

In exciting news, Tribute has been nominated by TRR reviewers for Best GLBT – BDSM (2011) at The Romance Reviews. How cool is that? 

If you want to vote for Tribute, you can click on the button on the right, or just follow this link at The Romance Reviews. 

Vote here!

While you're there, check out the other nominations. Tribute is in good company, that's for sure!

And on the subject of good news, check out these awesome reviews for The Island: 


BookAddict's review at The Romance Reviews. 
Jenre's Review at Reviews By JesseWave.
And this is from Alex JouJou at Manic Readers: 


Seldom do you read a book that so mesmerizes you that all external stimuli go away; the phone, the kids, all the other myriad of things you have to do all disappear. I could not put The Island down and I read well into the night to finish. 


I made you ignore the kids? LOL! My work here is done! 

Reader Reviews for The Island

The reader reviews on Goodreads for The Island have been overwhelmingly positive, and I can’t be happier! Was I worried? No, not me!

Well, maybe a little…

I knew when I was writing it that The Island was darker than anything I’d written before – not in content, because I kept the specifics of the rape and torture off the page, but certainly psychologically. I put Lee in a very dark place from the beginning, and put the readers right there in his head with him.

I would definitely like to revisit Shaw and Lee some day, but for now some other stories are calling me. I’m thinking London, gas lamps, frock coats, those canes with swords in them, and maybe even some magic, but we’ll see. 

The Island is here!

I'm delighted to announce that The Island is out today. You can buy it here at Loose Id. 

Shaw has made a lucrative living doing deals with the devil but now, after falling for the tortured captive of a dangerous crime boss, it's not just his job he's risking by getting too close -- it's his life. 

Today when I was at the beach I found a sand dollar. It's sitting on my desk now, reminding me of my guys on their tropical island, of a nightmare masquerading as a paradise, and of how sometimes we put our hope in the craziest things.  

I hope you enjoy it. 

I also hope you like to be surprised! 

Cover Art for The Island

Here is the cover of The Island. The artist is Anne Cain, and I think she's done a fantastic job. I can't wait to share this story with you! 

The Island will be available on January 10 from Loose Id. 

I'm very excited to tell you that my next novel, The Island will be coming out in the New Year, from Loose Id. It's set on a Fijian island that looks a little like this: 

Source

But it's not all sand and sunshine. In many ways, the tone of The Island is darker than Tribute, but I hope that you will fall a little bit in love with my two guys --  one, who tells himself he's there for the money  and everything else is none of his business; and the other, who knows from experience that the most painful thing in the world is hope. 

Here is the blurb: 

Shaw is in Fiji to sell a stolen painting to a crime boss. It will be the deal of a lifetime, if he can pull it off. He isn’t expecting Vornis to parade his latest toy around in front of him - a captured DEA agent whose time is running out. It’s none of Shaw’s business, and it doesn’t matter that under any other circumstances Lee would be exactly Shaw’s type: he’s young, he’s hot, and he might even have a personality if they hadn’t beaten it out of him. Too bad there’s no way Lee is getting off the island. Too bad there’s nothing Shaw can do for him. And too bad there are some lines that even Shaw won’t cross -- keeping his hands off Lee proves harder than he thinks, but Shaw’s not stupid enough to fall for the tortured captive of a dangerous crime boss. If he does, it won’t be just his job he'll be risking -- it will be his life. 

I can't wait to share the cover art with you!