FALLOUT - Cover Reveal

You guys know M Caspian, right? You read Kraken, right? 

Well, guess what? M and I wrote a book. It's called FALLOUT, and it's coming on April 17. 

Here is the awesome cover, designed by the brilliant Natasha Snow: 

High-school boyfriends Jack Haldane and Bastian Wade thought everything would be perfect once they reunited at college, putting disapproving parents and small-town attitudes firmly in the past. Now Jack’s on track for a PhD scholarship and a career as a researcher, and Bastian . . . well, living inside a broken body and trailing along in Jack’s shadow didn’t feature in his lofty teenage ambitions. A weekend camping trip back home offers a chance for them to reconnect, but an ugly confrontation with the local motorcycle gang is only the start of their problems. When disaster occurs and the world unravels, will Bastian and Jack manage to hold on to each other, or fall further apart as they try to survive?

I can't wait until you guys can read this book. It's everything M and I love: dark themes, exploring the spaces between good and evil, and between physical strength and strength of spirit, and lots and lots of grey areas. 

We'll be posting links to pre-order as soon as those become available. 

In the meantime, ask yourself this: When the world ends, are you a good guy or a bad guy? And are you always given a choice? 

Writing, Rambling, and Plans for 2015

You know, after writing since forever—I blame it on the fact we didn’t have a TV when I was a kid living in New Guinea—and being published for a few years now, I still haven’t figured out where the ideas come from. And it’s something that people sometimes ask.

“Where do you get your ideas?”

I seriously don’t know. I suspect that the part of my brain that other people use to tell them to put petrol in the car or pay the phone bill or wear matching socks to work today has, in my case, been seconded to urgent daydreaming duties. I mean, I went to a staff meeting the other day and while I don’t actually remember anything that was discussed, I did kind of plan a fantasy story with magic and the ocean and princes and burning people at the stake. So there’s that.

The other day at work, someone said to me, “I wish I’d never stopped writing. I wrote lots when I was in high school, and I really loved it.”

You know the thing about writing? It is like the cheapest hobby on the planet. All you need is a pencil and a piece of paper. And, like any hobby, the more you do it, the better you get. If you enjoy writing, don’t stop doing it. Storytelling is one of the most fun things you can do, and the best way to learn is to just pick up a pencil and give it a go.

source

2014 was a great year for me. Wrote some books, went to GRL—the highlight of the year. And not just because I saw squirrels—and realised that yes, this writing thing is what I want to do. I mean, I can’t quit the day job quite yet, but it’s less of a pipe dream and more of a long term plan now. I mean, it would be, if I could plan anything in the long term. Or at all.

2015 will hopefully be the year I go to two conventions—Euro Pride in Munich in July, and GRL in San Diego in October (if I can get a spot). It’s also the year I want to branch out in YA, probably not under this name, and have a go at a few other writing projects as well.

Coming up soon, of course, is THE MERCHANT OF DEATH, Book 2 in J.A. Rock’s and my Playing the Fool trilogy. It’s out on February 2 from Riptide.

Heidi Belleau and I are also working on a story set in the same universe as BLISS, so that’s shaping up nicely!

And guess which lucky person got to write a novel with the awesome M. Caspian? It’s called FALLOUT, and it’s dark, dark, dark!

And J.A. and I have about a gazillion things to work on: the third Boy book, the third Prescott book, this entirely weird project we may have pitched to our publisher at GRL, and about a gazillion other ideas.

2015 is going to be a busy one!

TENTACLES!

So...tentacles. Specifically, in m/m. Look, you'll either like them or you won't, and nothing I say will change your mind. 

*whispers* I like them! 

But if you want to dip your toes into the dark, mysterious waters of tentacle sex, here's a good place to start. My three favourite m/m (m/something else?) tentsex stories: 

The Tentacle Monster Everyone Wanted, by Evie Kiels 

This free, fun, and surprisingly sweet story is all about the tentacles. But more than that, it's all about the boy with the tentacles -- Kip -- who is lonely, unloved (except for his sister, who's off to join the Peace Corp) and still suffering from being rejected by Aniket, his high school crush, when they both realised the same night he was a tentacle monster. Then, years later, Aniket walks back into his life. 

Most tentacle stuff I've read is all about the alien non-con, but not here. Here, the monster is just a sweet young guy with some unusual biology. 

Read this one, guys. It's super short, super fun, and has some seriously hot scenes going on. Check this out even if you don't like tentacles, because Kip is such a lovely character that it won't take you long to see past them. 

Gay Tentacles From Space! by Charlotte Mistry

First of all, ignore the title, the cover, and probably the blurb. This isn't cheesy like you think it is. We all know how it's going to go, right? Sexy, cocky guy gets entangled and ravished by a tentacle monster, and has the forced-gay time of his life. 

Well it kind of goes there, but for starters the writing is better that. There's some nice world building that you don't usually get in shorts like these, but more than that it's atmospheric. I mean that. This isn't PWP tentacle sex, this is almost a horror story. It's dark and weird, and the ending was really, really unexpectedly creepy and wonderful. 

Much more than I was expecting! 

And now, the best for last: Kraken, by M Caspian

I thought I knew was I was getting into -- a smutty piece of fluff with a man who is molested by a tentacle monster but it's okay because he likes it in the end. That is not this book. This book is creepy. I said that, right? It's the word I keep coming back to. 

It has the following elements: 

1. A monster. See title. Check. 

2. An isolated location. An island. Check. 

3. Creepy locals. You know those assholes know exactly what's going on, but you don't know whose side they're on. Check. 

4. A guy who wanders into the middle of everything and happens to be the next chosen sacrifice. Check. 

But that's not all this book has got. It's got a fantastic sense of place -- the descriptions of the landscapes weren't just visual, they were visceral. The island has it's own history, of both its people and its industries. And the atmosphere just gets creepier and creepier, like the rolling fog in a 1940's gothic film. The details here are fantastic. I don't want to give any spoilers, so I'll just say -- the birds! Oh my god, the birds! There are so many layers here, that I will definitely be rereading it, and at a slower pace this time so I don't miss a thing. 

Make no mistake. Kraken is not romance. What Kraken does is take the basic set-up of a romance and twist it around until you realise you're looking at a horror and you have been since the very beginning. 

This is a great book if you like darker fiction. Dip your toes into these waters, and I guarantee you'll be back for more. 

And I'll be interviewing M Caspian soon on my blog, so stay tuned for that!