I have a shiny new cover for Lynx. So pretty! Natalie Winters has done a fantastic job. To be published in ebook April 6.
I’m excited to see Lynx, Trey’s novel, up on the coming soon pages at Samhain. Lynx will be released April 6, and here’s the blurb (cover art still to come):
The only way to break free is to let go.
In order to protect his shifter kin, FBI agent Trey Walters hides his ability from his employers. For him, a vacation means a whole midwinter month in the Canadian wilderness, free to live in his wolf skin.
When he happens upon a rare lynx shifter, he’s fascinated. And his protective instincts kick into overdrive. The young man needs to be shielded from werewolves and humans alike, whether he likes it or not.
Jonah can hardly wrap his head around the fact that other shifters exist, much less endure the presence of a stranger in his lonely sanctuary. Blaming himself for his brother’s death, he lives in self-imposed isolation. Trust? Forget it. Yet Trey’s patience penetrates Jonah’s fear, and it doesn’t take long for him to fall like a rock for the wolf.
Trey hadn’t planned to embark on an intense, passionate affair, but he finds himself vowing to return after his next undercover mission is over. As months stretch into years, however, Jonah fears that Trey has broken faith with him—or is dead. There’s only one way to find out. Leave the safety of his lair and venture into a dangerous, deadly world…
Also, my novella Wolf Town has just been contracted with Samhain. A werewolf hero and a hero with psychic powers—I’m very excited about it. Plus it introduces some new characters. More information as it comes. ETA To be released June 15.
I posted these reviews at my Jorrie Spencer blog today:
This week two excellent Samhain novellas by KA Mitchell and Josh Lanyon were released in ebook. They’ll be together in a print anthology next year.
An Improper Holiday
I haven’t actually read a lot of historical gay romance. I think it can be tricky to pull off an effective HEA, and there tends to be a pall of sadness given the way gay men and women had to live in the past. Not that it’s all a bed of roses now, but it’s clearly much improved in some places. In An Improper Holiday, KA Mitchell managed to draw me in to her world and persuade me that the two heroes who lived there were going to be happy together in 1814 England.
I think readers of historical romance will really enjoy this because KA Mitchell has, to my mind, an excellent historical voice, with a language that sounds of its time. (I’m not necessarily saying it’s completely historically accurate—or not—but that I was persuaded by her writing. It has the right flavor to work for me. When I read historicals, I like to be taken to another time and place. An Improper Holiday did that.)
Ian is returning from the war, minus part of his arm. This is a reunion story, as Ian and Nicky were lovers five years ago. Nicky has gone on to have affairs with other partners, but wants to rekindle their relationship because Ian is The One for him. Ian meanwhile has not been with anyone else since Nicky and fears their relationship was unnatural and wrong. So it’s a lovely courtship, with some very nice touches and really well-done secondary characters, including Ian’s sister.
The Dickens With Love
A quirky contemporary romance, with a Dickensian flavor. James, the narrator is a book hunter whose involvement in a scandal a few years ago lost him pretty much everything. He gets by working at a bookstore but does some of his old work too, for a rather disreputable man. As the novella begins, the book he’s going to assess is supposedly by Dickens, and owned by a Professor Crisparkle from England who turns out not to be elderly and eccentric, but rather hot and not-so-eccentric—and very interested in James. But James can’t be upfront about a number of things and inadvisedly mixes business with pleasure—just as the professor begins to mean a lot to him.
This story is quirky as I mentioned, as well as angsty and lovely. It might be one of my favorite Josh Lanyon stories, though I can’t put my finger on exactly why. It has the lonely-protag-determined-to-get-by that I love so well. The narrator has been isolated by certain events, some but definitely not all of the isolation of his own making. But he keeps chugging away, finding it hard to hope for more in a way that I find totally heart-tugging. (In this, it actually reminded me most of Lanyon’s Cards on the Table, though in other ways they are totally different.)
Lanyon does a great job in developing the relationship, weaving in a Dickens-like story and showcasing a rather aggressive ocelot. I was rooting hard for these guys in the end, and I’m hoping there will be a sequel some day.
I contracted a new book a while back. Lynx is due out in June and it’s Trey’s story. So it’s a werewolf/cat shifter romance. I’m trying to finish it up this week and next. I’m excited to have a new book coming out in 2010.
Today Jessewave has an interview of me here. I’m new to interviewing but Jesse was very patient!
Feral made it to number two at My Bookstore and More.
I’ve had some nice reviews of Feral, and they are much appreciated:
- Literary Nymphs Review gives 5 nymphs.
The story grabbed my attention from the first paragraph… I’ll be adding Joely Skye’s to my must-read author’s list.
- Rainbow Reviews gives 4.5 stars.
The author does a wonderful job portraying the men’s struggle as they come to terms with their pasts and fight for their futures. …a wonderful story that should not be missed.
- Ecataromance gives 5 stars.
Feral is a truly magnificent book that any paranormal reader will enjoy. This is a five star work and I can not wait to read more about Ms. Skye’s shifters.
- Elisa Rolle.
…it allows the reader to “feel” the characters, above all to feel their fragility.
All right, Feral is now on sale. Yay!
I already posted the blurb, so here’s the tagline and an excerpt behind the cut.
Seduction is his only chance for freedom…and love is a death sentence.
Amazon rank. It’s the Google Bomb by Smart Bitch Sarah.
For more information, Dear Author is a good source. If you’re on twitter you can follow #amazonfail.
Yeah, they seem to be targeting GBLT and erotic romance. Cannot understand what they are thinking.
My futuristic m/m romance Poison is now in print!
Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million and elsewhere.
I received my own print copies last month and while I loved the cover already, it was even more beautiful in print.
Here’s the blurb:
In this world, trust is hard to find…and the one thing they need to survive.
Tobias Smator lives down his late father’s execution by avoiding the spotlight—and responsibility. He doesn’t mind what people think of him as long as they leave him alone. Still, in this unremarkable half-life he’s fashioned for himself on deceptively low-tech Rimania, he’s not safe from political intrigue. Someone wants him dead.
Alliance operative Geln Marac’s orders for his first assignment were simple: Stay uninvolved. Those orders go out the window, however, when he delivers an antidote to save Tobias from death by poisoning. His reward? Possible betrayal that lands him in the hands of police interrogators. To protect the Alliance, Geln resorts to a temporary mindwipe.
Tobias is fascinated by the amnesiac man who saved his life. But Geln has attracted the attention of the high-powered Lord Eberly, who would use him as a pawn. Rather than sacrifice Geln to the political wolves, Tobias chooses to embrace his heritage.
Geln’s memory reawakens to a precarious situation with no source of protection—except Tobias. There’s only one way forward for both of them.
Trust—or die.
Okay, Feral is now up on the coming soon pages. Yay!
Here’s the blurb.
Seduction is his only chance for freedom…and love is a death sentence.
Even among shifters, Ethan is a rare breed. So rare, he’s spent the last eight years in hiding from the werewolves who once captured and tortured him. Now a tranq dart has cut short his feral existence. Waking in human form in a locked room is more than a living nightmare…it’s reliving his worst one.
Yet in the troubled eyes of one of his captors, he senses a weak link. One he can use to escape—by seducing his jailer.
Bram’s life as pack omega isn’t easy. As long as he obeys his alpha he is protected. However, there are some things he just can’t bring himself to do. Keeping a precious cougar shifter prisoner is one of them, especially one who has somehow managed to capture his heart.
Setting Ethan free could be a death sentence for both of them, for Bram’s pack doesn’t take betrayal lightly. And the alpha is set on revenge.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett’s Havemercy. That’s not a typo, which was my first reaction when I saw the title, Havemercy, and I thought it should be Have Mercy.
Havemercy is the name of the magic metal dragon that one of the main characters, Rook, rides into war.
There are two main storylines to this story, and they weave in and out in the middle and at the end of the book. In Storyline One, Margrave Roynston is banished from the city for his affair with a royal. He’s been accused of bespelling his esrtwhile lover, although the young prince and many others know that Roynston’s talent does not make him capable of any such thing. So Roynston has been burned badly and is sent off to his brother’s estate in the countryside.
At his brother’s is a young man, Hal, who is going to be the tutor of Roynston’s brother’s children. What develops from there is a slow sweet romance. Roynston’s been recently betrayed, he’s older (35) and Hal is not only young (20), but inexperienced—so Roynston has to fight his attraction while both men fall in love. I totally loved this storyline. Lots of wonderful dialogue. It almost had the flavor of a regency romance, a really good one, I might add.
Meanwhile, back in the city in Storyline Two, a young man, Thom, has been assigned to the dragon riders. After a scandal, their “punishment” is to be educated in manners and society by Thom. While the dragons are fascinating and Rook, one of the riders, has a great voice, I did find that at the beginning of the book, I couldn’t wait to get back to Hal and Roynston. However, as the book continued, I became increasingly involved in Rook and Thom’s storyline. It becomes evident early on that their impoverished background is the one and only thing they have in common, as well as their dislike of each other.
This book is in rotating first person point of view. That’s quite rare in the books I’ve read and almost entirely, to date, unsuccessful. Perhaps I read the wrong books. Because I didn’t mind the switching point of view at all. Before Havemercy I used to find that every time there was a point of view switch, I would be reminded that I’m reading a story and be jolted out of the story. But here each section smoothly pulled me in to Thom’s, Hal’s, Roynston’s or Rook’s point of view. It was very well done.
I thought the authors balanced a lot things well, going quite deeply into the personal while still moving the plot forward. There is magic that makes sense, i.e. it never seem particularly convenient or overwhelming. The society and world-building was interesting and cohesive. I will say I thought the portrayal of the ruler (the Esar) was a bit weak, and Hal’s “solution” at the end was too obvious for no one else to have thought of.
Still, a really enjoyable debut, and I can’t wait to read their next book.
I found this book because Jia of Dear Author reviewed it and gave it a B-.
