JL Merrow

My EPIC award finalist historical romance, To Love a Traitor, has a brooding new cover – and I’m delighted to say it will be back on the virtual shelves sooner than expected!

The new re-release date for the ebook is 6th May, and it’ll be out (again) in paperback by the end of the month. 🙂

Wounds of the heart are the hardest to heal

Solicitor’s clerk George Johnson has a secret goal when he moves into a London boarding house in the winter of 1920: to find out if his fellow lodger, Matthew Connaught, was the wartime traitor who cost George’s adored older brother Hugh his life.

Yet the more he gets to know his quarry, the more George loses sight of his mission—and his heart. Blessed with boyish good looks and charm in abundance, ad man Matthew is irrepressibly cheerful despite having lost an arm in the Great War—and soon makes plain his attraction to George.

Matthew’s advances become ever harder to resist, and George tries to tell himself his brother’s death was just the luck of the draw, and to forget he’s hiding secrets of his own—including who he really is.

But as George’s feelings for Matthew grow, so does his desperation to know the truth about what happened that day in Ypres.  Even if it means he’ll lose the man he’s come to love.

Due to be re-released by JMS Books on 6th May 2017

I’m delighted to say my Iceland-set romantic suspense novel, Fall Hard, is out today in second edition:

With Muscling Through coming out in 2nd edition today, where else could today’s snippet come from? 😉

In this scene from Chapter 2, Cambridge lecturer Larry takes big Al, who works on the punts, to a University dinner for the first time:

When we walked into this big hall with the fancy woodwork, everyone stared at me and Larry. I wasn’t sure if it was ’cause of me or ’cause we were two poofs, but there was loads of other blokes without girlfriends, so maybe they were used to poofs.

We walked past this tall bloke going bald on top, and he looked at Larry and me and said, “My God! Since when have gorillas been allowed into Hall?”

Larry sort of huffed. “Really, Doctor Hardwicke, one would have hoped that an English don would have been able to come up with something a little more original and pithy.”

I know he said pithy, not pissy. I asked him afterward.

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Don’t forget to check out the rainbow snippets Facebook group for more little excerpts from a whole host of talented authors.

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And that includes the brand new book #4, Spun!

All of my Shamwell Tales are now available to pre-order from Riptide Publishing

The books are available to pre-order individually in ebook and paperback, and books #1 – #3 (Caught!, Played! and Out!, which were previously published by Samhain) are also available in a discounted ebook collection: 

I’m delighted to say that Southampton Stories #2, Hard Tail, is out today in second edition:

Finding love can be a bumpy ride

Available exclusively on Amazon & on Kindle Unlimited

As with all the books I’m re-releasing under my Sea Singer imprint, this book has received only minor revisions from the Samhain edition and will be available exclusively via Amazon for the first 3 months, after which I plan to make it more widely available.

I’ve been busy getting some of my Samhain books back up on Amazon, and one of them is Hard Tail, my cycle-shop romance set near Southampton.

Here’s a little snippet featuring our hero, Tim, who’s staying in his brother’s house after the break up of his (Tim’s) marriage:

I wrapped a towel round my waist and was about to go downstairs when it occurred to me I was alone here. No one to care if I walked around naked; no one to hiss what if the neighbours look through the window at me. I blew a kiss at my hazy reflection in Jay’s tiny bathroom mirror; already the clear patch I’d wiped was misting over again. After slinging the towel over the side of the bath, I sauntered downstairs, my cock bouncing lightly at every step. Damn, it felt good to be free.

Until, of course, the front door opened when I was halfway down the stairs and [Jay’s girlfriend] Olivia stepped into the house, her eyes exactly level with my tackle.

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Don’t forget to check out the rainbow snippets Facebook group for more little excerpts from a whole host of talented authors.

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Southampton Stories #2

Finding love can be a bumpy ride

Due out in 2nd edition 28 March 2017 

exclusively on Amazon & on Kindle Unlimited

Now available to pre-order

My award-winning romantic comedy set in Cheltenham, Slam! has a gorgeous new cover by the multi-talented Garret Leigh:

Limericks, lies and puppy-dog eyes

Amateur poet Jude is a carnivore working in a vegan cafe. His little dog, Bubbles, is the only man in the Anglo-Japanese graduate’s life—but Jude yearns from afar for “Karate Crumpet”, a man who runs past the cafe window every Saturday night leading a martial arts class. Jude’s swept off his feet when he’s rescued from muggers by the object of his affections—and when Jude finds out the calm, competent, hunk of muscle is also gay, he’s in seventh heaven.

Trouble is, the universe seems to be conspiring to stop them getting together. While Jude’s ready to jump straight into bed with his saviour, David’s still got one foot in the closet and wants to take things slowly. Then there’s Jude’s best friend, who has a dangerous secret, and his mother, who’s desperately trying to keep her own love life on track by lying about her age—meaning Jude has to pretend to be a schoolboy!

With a maze of different stories to keep straight, a potential stepfather to keep happy, and ex boyfriends who keep turning up on dates, Jude’s getting increasingly confused. Poetry in motion, it’s not!

Due to be re-released on Amazon & on Kindle Unlimited on 11th April 2017

Yep, you read that date right. I’ve decided to step up the re-release of some of my old Samhain titles under my Sea Singer imprint, and you can see the new proposed schedule here. It’s…kind of speedy, but heh, those books have had enough of a holiday. Time for them to get back out there! 😉

I hope to soon be able to share the fabulous new covers for my Shamwell Tales, the first 3 of which Riptide Publishing plan to re-release in time for the debut of #4 in the series, Spun!. 😀

In case you missed my last post: the first of my books to come out under my Sea Singer imprint,  Pricks and Pragmatism is now available on Amazon & on Kindle Unlimited.

And the second of my Southampton Stories, Hard Tail, which will be re-released on 28th March, is now available to pre-order.

Well, with Angel out in second edition today, this week’s snippet couldn’t be from anywhere else, could it? 😉  We’ve moved on a little from last week’s snippet, and its Michael who speaks first:

“Aren’t you going to ask me where they go?”

“What?”

“The wings. Aren’t you wondering where they disappear to when I fold them? It’s what I’d ask.”

“Okay, so where do they go?”

Michael looked away, his inky hair sweeping his shoulders as he turned and leaving Don with the strange fancy that it ought to leave brushstrokes upon his flesh in its wake. “I don’t know. To Hell, I guess.”

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Don’t forget to check out the rainbow snippets Facebook group for more little excerpts from a whole host of talented authors.

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How do you know if you’re one of the damned?

As a child, Don wanted to become a priest. Now a grown man mostly at ease with being gay, he’s left the Catholic Church and has chosen instead to help people through his work as a parole officer. His strong faith is shaken when his latest assignment turns out to be Michael, a young man Don hasn’t seen since he took Michael to church as a child—and saw his parish priest cast Michael out of the church as a demon.

Meeting him as an adult re-ignites the obsession Don had with the boy he couldn’t save—but can Michael be saved at all? Or is the strangely compelling demon with a taste for risky sex as damned as he believes himself to be?

Available exclusively from JMS Books for one week, at 20% off, and on Kindle Unlimited