Arts

Rainbow Snippets: New stories and Pride weekend

Books, Fiction, Other Relationships, Writing

Happy Saturday! It’s Pride this weekend, so I’ll be proudly sporting my bi colors and my fancy confetti-streaked nails. It’s probably hard to tell in the pic, but the middle ones are rainbow, and there’s one each, L-R, for asexual, bi, genderqueer, and trans (for myself and the people closest to me).

Today’s snippet is from my new anthology of interconnected stories, Leaps of Faith. They’re all in the same setting as Passing on Faith and Walking by Faith. People kept asking me for more of Cat and Micah and their friends, so here it is. This is a bit of the first story, “From the Lips of Children.” (Cat is 13 here, his sister is 11.)

[Cat] knew he liked boys but not girls, and he knew the word for boys-who-only-liked-boys was gay, but did it still apply if he wasn’t sure he was a boy? Cat didn’t know a word for that, someone who wasn’t a boy or a girl, and it wasn’t like there were people to ask. Cat did not think he was a girl, not even after all the times he’d sneaked into LR’s room after lights-out so she could let him try on the dresses she saved for special occasions.

LR had good taste, and the two of them were almost the same size, due to LR still being flat-chested and Cat not growing right because he was always sick. He was used to having Mom fuss over him constantly because of his hemophilia and the complications he had from reacting to the synthetic clotting factor. Having a son—or whatever you called a kid who only felt like a boy part-time—who dressed in “girls’ clothes” would, in her mind, invite trouble.

Rainbow Snippets is a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQIA+ authors, readers, and bloggers to share 6 sentences each week from a work of fiction—published or in-progress—or a book recommendation. Feel free to join in!

Review: The Follow by Eliza David

Books, Reviews

About the Book

Title: The Follow

Author: Eliza David

Published: July 7, 2017

ASIN: B072FH6Q39

Category: Fiction

Genre: African American, fiction, erotica, romance

Goodreads

Synopsis

New hire Shauna McIntyre joins The Charisma Group, a New York-based talent agency specializing in social media management. Even though she has never been much of a fangirl in her personal life, Shauna expects that her signature professional task is managing the online fandom of her famous clientele. What she didn’t expect was to fall in love with one of them.

R&B sensation King Smith has made a career of singing soulful tunes and strumming his guitar for his adoring fans. King also harbors a secret: he’s in recovery for sex addiction. When King lays eyes on Shauna, the crooner with a craving for no-strings lust decides to change his life in an effort to hold on to her.

Once King is tempted by the admiration of a persistent online fan, Shauna has a decision to make. When professional lines are blurred and relentless love takes hold, will Shauna sacrifice her rising career for an affair with a famous man with a seemingly insatiable thirst for his fandom?

Purchase Link

Amazon

Review

Let me start by saying that I’m not really a romance reader. However, every time, Eliza David’s books grab me and pull me in because they feel like so much more. This is no exception. It has everything I look for in a book: Heavy on character development, social commentary, relatable themes. Plus there’s a large dose of witty dialog and plenty of well-written, steamy sex.

Right away, what had my attention is that there’s no glossing over anything. Readers are aware right from the start that King is dealing with a serious problem. What I love is that this is handled all the way through with a lot of empathy. It’s not played for drama or swept under the rug for the sake of furthering the relationship. King’s addiction is as much a character as the people, and yet this never feels like an “issues book” to me. It feels brutally honest at times, heartbreaking at others, and there’s even some gentle humor. Everything about it is three-dimensional.

I can’t say enough good things about Shauna. She’s like so many women, feeling obligated to be everything for everyone even while struggling with her own problems. I love that she’s allowed to be vulnerable and admit that trusting King is hard for her. He comes on a bit like a hurricane, impatient for her to just let go, but she sets firm limits. It’s both painful and wonderful to watch her breaking down, torn between what her head and her heart want.

The side characters are terrific as well, from Shauna’s office mate Lena to the fans themselves. There’s a character I didn’t especially like, and I won’t spoil who it is, but by the end, I was firmly in their camp. I’d love to see them find their happily ever after, and I’ll try not to be too impatient.

There was one thing that, as Shauna says, made me feel A Way. There’s a cheating (probably bisexual) character. Normally, this would make my head explode. However, here, I think it actually works as well as it can. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it, either. I also think there’s some ambiguity to the situation that made me wonder if there’s more under the surface than we got to see on-page. So if there’s never any more about that character, then I can imagine it fan fiction style. Which, in a sense, wouldn’t be amiss with this book.

While I don’t share the main character’s specific experiences, there’s a lot in there that felt familiar. The story has enough realism to feel like an affirmation, but enough fantasy to be satisfying. This is the world I want to belong to: where people can admit to their closest friends what they’re dealing with and get help when they need it. That, I think, is the message I’m walking away with. If King and Shauna can show their full, real selves, maybe that’s a thing we can all strive for.

For outstanding characters, a story told with warmth and compassion, and just the right level of hot loving, this gets 10/10 fountain pens.

About the Author

Website

Eliza David is the author of the six-book Cougarette series. She was born and raised on the noisy South Side of Chicago, but now lives in super quiet Iowa. When she’s not writing, working full-time, or raising two children with her loving husband, Eliza enjoys reading throwback Jackie Collins and indulging in the occasional order of cheese fries.

Eliza is a blogger as well, having served as a contributing writer for Real Moms of Eastern Iowa, Good Men Project, and Thirty on Tap. She was a featured panelist at the Iowa Soul Festival and Iowa City Book Festival.

Eliza’s latest novel, The Follow, dropped in July 2017. She’s currently working on sequels for two of her novels – Savage and The Follow – which are both are slated for release in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

You can follow Eliza on Facebook (www.facebook.com/elizadwrites), Twitter (www.twitter.com/elizadwrites), Instagram (www.instagram.com/writegirlproblems), or on her blog (www.elizadavidwrites.com). Check the Events below to see where you can catch her next!

WIPpet Wednesday: Mama’s Apartment

Books, Fiction, Other Relationships, Writing

Sorry I missed last week. We were on vacation. This week, my kids are away at camp, and the house is eerily quiet.

I’m no longer posting from Leaps of Faith because…it’s LIVE! Today is its “book birthday.” It also happens to be my 20th wedding anniversary. We’re going out for sushi and to see Wonder Woman later.

I’m technically supposed to be getting about 1/3 or so of Drumbeat written during Camp NaNo, so I’m back to using that as my WIP. I think I’ve introduced both Cian (hot Irish dancer who is also deaf) and Jamie (adorable drummer with a zillion piercings).

A little background for the snippet: Jamie grew up homeless (couch-surfing variety, not on-the-street variety). He left home at 15 and eventually found his way to his cousin’s family. Here, his mother has a slightly more stable living situation, and Jamie’s visiting her in Rhode Island. (Geographically, this is not that far from Boston.)

WIPmath: 7/12/17 = 12 sentences

Jamie tried not to judge his mother’s church attendance; she was a born-again, and she maintained that it helped her stay clean, so he didn’t question it. He didn’t have any memories of her when she’d been using, so he had no idea what did or didn’t help her. If church meant so much to her, it wasn’t his place to tell her his feelings on the matter. But he wouldn’t be welcome in the church she attended, no matter how much they embraced and accepted her.

He pulled into the crumbling parking lot behind her building. A group of preteen boys were there, laughing and shoving each other. One of them had a bag full of bang-snaps, and they were tossing them at each other’s feet and shouting. A woman with a toddler in a stroller passed by and glared at them before going back to her loud conversation on her cell phone and pushing the stroller with her free hand.

Jamie pressed the buzzer, and his mother let him up. He ascended to her fourth-floor apartment and opened the door. Inside, it smelled like a combination of cooking food, her cat’s litter box, and stale cigarettes. For Jamie, those were all familiar, comforting in the same way as his mother’s embrace when she put her arms around him.

Like what you read? Be sure to check out the other entries and add your own. Just post a bit of your WIP, connect it to the date, and link up with us. Many thanks to Emily Wrayburn for giving us this space. Happy reading and writing!

Rainbow Snippets: A Duet

Writing

Happy Saturday! We’re back from vacation, and I’m ready to get down to Camp NaNo. I’m working on the next Notes from Boston novel, Drumbeat. This is Jamie’s story, and…well. I have a feeling, after some recent conversations, that it may not be to everyone’s liking. But it’s the story Jamie wants me to tell, so I will.

My new collection of short stories, Leaps of Faith, is coming out July 12. These are set in the same context as Passing on Faith, and you can pre-order here. I’ll snip from that in the coming weeks. Today’s snippet is the last one from Nightsong. Here, Nate has just fanboyed all over Izzy, but Nate has a more pressing problem—the man who was supposed to sing with him is too sick to show up. Izzy’s about to make him an offer. (In case anyone isn’t familiar, “I’ll Cover You” is from Rent. This novel has numerous references to musical theater and opera.)

Izzy pursed his lips. “You weren’t planning to sing ‘I’ll Cover You,’ by any chance?”

Nate shook his head, but he blushed. “No…well, we would have if anyone had asked for an encore. Why?”

Izzy rose to his feet and drew himself up to his full height, though he still had to angle up a bit to look Nate in the eye. He gestured down at himself then to his beard. “I couldn’t pull off Angel, that’s why.”

The laugh bubbling out of Nate made Izzy a little weak-kneed.

Writing, editing, publishing…and a new release

Books, Fiction, LGBTQ+, Love, Other Relationships, Writing

Next week marks my 20th anniversary with my spouse. I chose that day specifically for the release of my collection of short stories, Leaps of Faith, as my way of celebrating. You can pre-order it here. Isn’t the cover art gorgeous? It’s done by Stacy O’Steen, who also designed the covers for the rest of the series.

The stories are close to my heart, and they all in some way are about that kind of enduring love. A friend once told me that “the best love stories start in the middle.” We were talking about Romance Genre and whether or not what I write fits there. This is an ongoing discussion, one I’ve had with many people. A lot of us are outside genre lines, and for many of us, that can make it hard to know who our target audience is.

I’ve begun to hate the phrase “target audience.” This, to me, implies that readers are primarily locked into one type of book, one type of character, one type of story. Some are, and those who are tend to be exceptionally vocal. But I’ve also noticed that even within a given genre, readers tend to be brand-loyal. Many will read anything by a specific author, even if it’s not their preferred genre. Others have a list of go-to authors, and they’re not often open to trying new ones unless the books have a similar feel.

Lots of us, though, read all kinds of books across genres and in mixed genres and with a wide range of romantic and non-romantic relationships. I have a loyal fanbase of straight men, even though I often write descriptive non-heterosexual intimacy. Mainly they’ve said they’re interested in specific themes in my books, in particular the ones where characters grapple with religious ideology. This is a common thing; readers of other genders and sexualities have said the same. A few people have said they changed their perspective on the church’s position regarding LGBTQ+ people after reading.

Outside of that, my readership is primarily other bisexual+ people of various genders. It’s a small group, sure, but there they are. Would I love to be more popular? I guess. I mean, isn’t that what we’re supposed to want? For the sake of sales, yes, it would be nice. But this is okay with me right now.

I have future plans for things to write. I’ll keep going with my Notes from Boston series because I love being able to explore different relationships and lives through those books. (It was supposed to only be four, but…well, these things change.) I have a sequel outlined for An Act of Devotion as well. (Per reader request, a side character in that book apparently needs his own happily ever after, though it’s not really a romance.) But I’m also working on some other things which may take me in a new direction. Guess you’ll have to watch this space to find out more when the time comes.

As for my new release next week, why did I choose to put it out there? A few reasons:

I’m releasing the final novel in the series in November, and I wanted this out before then.
Half of the stories in it were previously published elsewhere, mainly for charity/promotional anthologies. The rights reverted to me, so I collected them.
Three stories were from my annual Advent blog posts.
The rest are ones that were, in effect, fan service. People asked about some things, and I wrote them.

I hope you’ll give it a chance, especially if you’ve been a fan of Micah and Cat since the beginning. Yes, there are moments in here that are sad, and no, it isn’t a collection of traditional romance shorts. There are three primary couples (not including the one crossover story): two women, a man and a genderqueer person, and a woman and a man. Spoiler alert, every couple has one bi partner (because this is me; did you expect anything else?).

For those who have stuck by these stories, I do hope you’ll forgive me for leaving them on a sad-but-hopeful note. Life hands us these moments sometimes, and in this case, my character asked me to let him go. When my novel is out in November, I will explain in more detail how I made that decision and why.

Happy reading!