JL Merrow

Yay! Off to Kaprun, for family holiday/refresher course in speaking German and eating Strudel.

I'll be back on August 2nd – which is when Making Contact comes out!
To whet your appetite, here's a snippet from one of the two stories I've got in this sci-fi themed m/m anthology. The story's called Gifted in Tongues, and you may remember I posted about it last month.

Basically, our hero, Spitz, has been slung in jail for reasons he can't quite remember, and is getting to know his alien cellmate, a six-foot ginger Felid...

( Gifted in Tongues )

Hope you enjoyed that – look after yourselves until I get back! :D

I'm over on the torquere_social today, and I've just posted an excerpt from my story Dead Shot in the Shot Through the Heart Taste Test which was released on Wednesday.

The Taste Test is all about getting caught by Cupid's arrow, and here's the blurb from my story Dead Shot:

A chance meeting brought about by a stray arrow brings Peter and Edward together, but will their pasts come between them before they even get started?

You can find the excerpt here.

Later, I'll be offering the chance to win a copy of the Taste Test, which features stories by my fellow I Do Two authors Lenore Black and DC Juris. They're hoping to pop by later to post excerpts of their own stories, so if you can, please drop by! :D

Mmm, Valentine's Day does seem to be creeping up on us, doesn't it?

I've just been doing the edits for my story in the upcoming Torquere Press Shot Through the Heart Taste Test, Dead Shot. And I realised I haven't told you anything about it yet!

Dead Shot, like my story Aim Higher in the almost-released I Do Two anthology, has a child in it.

But there the similarities end. Simone, in Aim Higher, is a nice, if occasionally outspoken girl struggling with more difficulties than beset the average twelve-year old.

Kevin in Dead Shot, by contrast, is a ten-year-old, ginger-headed boy you really wouldn't want to be left looking after for any length of time. Particularly if you're misguided enough to let him loose with a bow and arrows...

( Snippet )

...but, uh, not enough to actually accept the story. Hmmm...

This, btw, is Cathie Culver's debut effort, which several of you were kind enough to give me advice on submitting *hugs you all*. The mag sent it back with a request for a reworking of a couple of really quite small bits - and blimey, that was quick! I only sent it in last Friday, and we're talking snailmail here! *blows a kiss to the slushpile fairy*

So, have done a quick rewrite and will send it back. Fingers crossed!

In other news: the Dreamspinner Press Mistletoe Madness stories are now on individual sale, including mine:


Pleasures with Rough Strife

(piccy is a linky) :D

( Excerpt )

It occurs to me that, while I’ve been banging on intermittently about Rael the succubus, very few of you have yet got to meet him. So in celebration of his first story having been accepted into the Torquere Care and Feeding of Demons anthology due out in October, here’s a snippet:

( Read more... )

And while I’m here: I was absolutely delighted to see that my Sip, Good Company has been reviewed by the lovely jenre on her blog (you’ll have to scroll down to get to mine). :)

I feel a little embarrassed to be plugging another anthology so soon after the last one (and particularly, knowing that Sindustry 2 is due out next week), but hey, is it my fault they all come out at the same time?

Er, yes, probably, seeing as I knew what the publication dates were when I sent in the stories... ;)

This one, Cherry published by Torquere Press, is special to me because it not only has stories by some stonking big names in m/m romance: Julia Talbot, Kiernan Kelly, BA Tortuga, Sean Michael - it also has the first story I ever sold. Yep, this is the one I was pinging off the walls about way back in April!

It's also my first attempt to write in a foreign language, by which, of course, I mean American. That brought its own problems: I could hear the characters' voices clearly, but being a simple, untravelled English girl from the Shires (wait, that's Hobbits, isn't it? Well, you know what I mean) I wasn't at all sure where they came from. Cue slightly farcical conversation with the long-suffering beta:

Me: Um, I've written this story - can you tell me where I've set it, please?
LSB: *sighs, and wonders why she agreed to all this*

It's probably about time I stopped rambling and let you read a snippet: ( Clickety click! (PG) )