Aim Higher, which is one of the first stories I ever sold, and which first appeared in the I Do Two anthology in support of marriage equality, is out today for the first time in a standalone ebook.

It’s a very short story (less than 3,000 words) and is coming out under JMS Books’ Hot Flash line, so here’s a very short snippet!

“I’ve been doing this all wrong, haven’t I?” he says. “I heard about this. Kids your age who fancy each other show it by physical violence. She’s the one you really want, isn’t she? You want a girl, not a boy!”

And he won’t shut up about it all bloody morning, just keeps droning on and on until I can’t think straight, and I totally lose it in the middle of Geography and shout really loud, “I do NOT fancy Mandy Dorkins!”

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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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Thirteen year old Simone’s not having an easy time of it right now. Her parents have split up, everyone thinks she’s gone mad, and there’s a Greek god visible only to her who won’t stop trying to fix her up with boys. But when her father finally meets Eros—or Eric, as he prefers to be known—matters take a twist none of them were expecting!

Note: this story also appears in the I Do Two anthology

Out today!

JMS Books | Smashwords | Amazon

I’m delighted to be taking part once again in RJ Scott’s Autism Awareness Blog Hop, and this year’s theme is Childhood Toys.

Nearly two-thirds of children with autism between the ages of 6 and 15 have been bullied. 

 For more facts about autism, and details of all blogs participating in the Autism Awareness Project, see RJ Scott’s master post here: rjscott.co.uk/autism19

Childhood toys

 It’s funny how what you play with as a child can be a clue to what you’ll be like as an adult. As a girl—and in spite of my massive tomboy phase—I loved playing with my Pippa dolls. For the non Brits, Pippa was like a smaller version of Barbie popular in the 1970s (yep, showing my age here!) Like Barbie, she had an endless succession of outfits you could buy, and swap with your friends. Not content with them, I used to hand-stitch extra clothes for her. I was anything but an accomplished seamstress and I can’t remember how most of them turned out, but for some reason the outfit I made after seeing Raquel Welch’s fur bikini in One Million Years BC sticks in the mind. I only had bright blue fur fabric available, so it was certainly eye-catching!

My daughter, by contrast, never clicked with dolls of any kind—or sewing, for that matter. Her cuddly toys had a far more exciting time than Pippa and her friends ever did, going on perilous adventures in space (laundry detergent bulbs made excellent helmets) or mountaineering with Action Man (he was the one with the climbing gear).

And nowadays? True to form, DD, now uni age, is a confirmed jogging-bottoms-and-t-shirt girl. (I’m still waiting to see on the space travel and mountaineering.) And me? I’m sitting here in a dress. And over to the left of me is a half-finished bustle I’m making to wear at a steampunk event in the summer. Well, it could be worse. At least it’s not a fur bikini! 😉

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Giveaway: I’m offering a free e-copy of my third Porthkennack novel, Love at First Hate, to a randomly chosen commenter on this post.

Just leave a comment on this post (wherever you see it) including your email address by 25^th April to be in with a chance – and please do check out the other posts on RJ’s list for more giveaways! 😀

First impressions can doom second chances

Bran Roscarrock has been living in the closet all his life. As heir to an expansive family legacy in the town of Porthkennack, old-fashioned ideals of respectability and duty were drummed into him since childhood, and he’s never dared to live—or love—openly.

Sam Ferreira, an old friend of Bran’s brother Jory, is a disgraced academic desperate to leave his dead-end job. When Jory asks him to take over as curator of a planned exhibition on Edward of Woodstock, the fourteenth-century Black Prince, Sam leaps at the chance to do what he loves and make a fresh start.

But Bran’s funding the exhibition, and though sparks fly between the two men, they’re not all happy ones. Bran idolises Prince Edward as a hero, while Sam’s determined to present a balanced picture. With neither of them prepared to give ground, a hundred years of war seems all too possible. And if Bran finds out about Sam’s past, his future may not be bright, and their budding romance may be lost to history.

Available in ebook & paperback:

Riptide | Amazon

I grew up on the Isle of Wight, and I don’t get back there often enough. It’s a great place to be on a hot summer’s day, but today I’m feeling nostalgic for grey, windswept winter days, with the sea whipped up by the wind to crash over the sea wall. Ferry crossings on a blustery day are kinda fun, too. 😉

So today’s snippet is from Lovers Leap, my rom-com set on the island. Here, Rufus and Michael are discovering their different attitudes to the culinary arts:

Rufus blinked. “I like cooking. Always have.”

“Why?”

“What’s not to like? It’s like making little artworks on a plate. And then you get to eat them at the end.”

“Uh-huh.” The closest Michael had ever got to art in the kitchen was when he’d put extra bits of ham on a pizza he was warming up for his tea cos Mum was ill, and made them form the shape of a penis.

It’d been a pretty impressive penis, mind. He’d added slices of salami for bollocks and extra cheese for spunk. Then he’d nearly wet himself when Mum came into the kitchen to check he hadn’t starved to death just as he was taking it out of the oven.

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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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Lovers Leap

The picture on the Rainbow Snippets group shows a cat admiring butterflies. If my experience of cats is anything to go by, that scene will be followed in about 0.3 seconds by a cat chomping down on butterflies. To celebrate our love for what are, when all’s said and done, cute little murder-beasts, today’s snippet is taken from Hard Tail, in which our hapless narrator Tim has gone to stay in his hospitalised brother’s house – and has just discovered his brother apparently has a cat he’s neglected to mention:

I was woken at seven o’clock on the first day of my new life as a shopkeeper by a cat jumping on my chest. As wake-up calls went, it was fairly effective. I opened my eyes to a mouthful of fangs looking like they were about to take my nose off, which, given the dead-mouse breath coming my way, would actually have been a mercy.

“Gah!” I’m never at my most eloquent when I’ve just woken up.

The cat hissed back at me, obviously not a morning person either. I shifted position, hoping it would get the hint and bugger off. Too late, I realised the flaw in that plan.

Claws.

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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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Hard Tail

Not that there’s snow in Hertfordshire, at least not as I write. But I hear there’s plenty of the stuff in other parts, and in this hemisphere it’s certainly the season for it. So today’s snippet comes once again from To Love a Traitor, which is set in the winter of 1920. Here, undercover investigator George-ne-Roger is perhaps having a little too much fun in the snow with the man he suspects of spying in WW1, Matthew:

George turned the toboggan around and set it at the top of the slope. It was a beauty—elegantly constructed out of wood, with a seat about three feet long set above sturdy, curved runners. He seated himself upon it, and Matthew slung a leg over and sat down behind him. It felt curiously intimate for such an absurdly innocent affair—Matthew’s legs were either side of George’s, and his chest was pressed up against George’s back, his good arm around George’s waist. Thank heaven for layers of clothing between them.

“Right, I’m set,” Matthew said in his ear, the warmth of his breath tickling the back of George’s neck.

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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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This week’s snippet comes from a book chosen from my backlist using Random.org‘s trusty random number generator (and if you click on the link you’ll get a comprehensive explanation of randomness and how it is generated, which is a lot more complicated than you might think).

To Love a Traitor is set in the aftermath of the First World War. Here, Roger (who has yet to change his name to George and take up investigating in earnest) is discussing the wartime incident that claimed his brother’s life:

“Well, according to Mabel, some of the reports were contradictory, but there was talk of one man—a Lieutenant Matthew Connaught—who had had a stroke of luck not being caught up in it all. He’d been supposed to be going with them—no one seemed to know why—but the night before, he got a bullet in the leg. It was put down to enemy fire, but, well, I find that a little hard to believe.” Roger shrugged. “Granted I was never in the trenches, but it seems to me the angle’s all wrong. Perhaps if he’d poked his head above the parapet and a sniper had taken an ear off, but a leg?”

“You think it sounds fishy, don’t you?” Sir Arthur’s good eye had the disconcerting quality of seeming to see right through Roger, while giving away in return no more than did his glass one.

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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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I’m not sure how I got from thinking of the turning of the new year to time travel, but there you go – today’s snippet is taken from my novella Trick of Time.  In this snippet, our narrator Ted, who’s a wounded soul from the present day, and rent-boy Jem are sharing an intimate moment in Victorian London:

“Where d’you come from? Not from around here.”

I shivered again at the certainty in his tone. “If I told you, you’d think I was mad.”

“Said I could ask you anything I wanted, didn’t you?”

Somehow, in the darkness, with his arms around me, I could talk to him. “All right, then. I’m from…another time. The future. A hundred and fifty years or so from now, I think. What year is this?”

“Been eighteen eighty-six all year.”

“Then it’s a little less. Say a hundred and forty. Go on—tell me I’m mad.”

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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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Yesterday, I was delighted to see my MM werewolf novel, Midnight in Berlin, had made a best-of-year list. And today I received a box full of author copies. If that’s not all telling me where this week’s snippet should come from, I don’t know what it is! 😉

This is taken from Chapter One, where our narrator Leon stars in a cautionary tale about the perils of hitchhiking, even when the car’s a Porsche and the driver’s really hot:

“Verdammt noch mal!”

It was more of a growl than a curse as he rolled me over and pinned me down again. I was still winded from the impact, but that was okay because I didn’t reckon I could breathe anyhow. He wasn’t the guy who picked me up in the Porsche anymore. My mind flashed crazily to stories I’d read of Peter Stübbe, the werewolf of Bedburg. He’d met a gruesome death four centuries ago, but it looked like he might have left a descendant or two. I was pretty sure I was staring at one of them.

I was really going to die.

Christoph’s face… wasn’t human anymore.

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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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Midnight in Berlin