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My EPIC 2010 Finalists

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:59:00 -0500

So I'm off to New Orleans in a couple of weeks for EPICon 2010 and I'm happy to report that two of my Amber Quill books are finalists for awards. VGL Male Seeks Same is up for Best Contemporary Romance and Dead End Street is up for Best Young Adult Fiction.

I'm really proud to be among the other finalists. See the complete list of finalists here. And I am so looking forward to getting to New Orleans (where I haven't been in more than 10 years) and reconnecting with old friends and peers and making new ones.

Today, I'd like to share with you a little bit about each of the nominated books.

VGL Male Seeks Same

SYNOPSIS

Poor Ethan Schwartz. It seems like he will never find that special someone. At age 42, he’s still alone, his bed still empty, and his 42-inch HDTV overworked. He’s tried the bars and other places where gay men are supposed to find one another, but for Ethan, it never works out. He wonders if it ever will. Should he get a cat?

But all of that is about to change. At work, Ethan hears about a website that promises to deliver more than just the tawdry hook-ups associated with so many other sites. Ethan wants romance, and although he’s always been a little shy about the whole cyber-dating scene, he figures he has nothing to lose.

Well, maybe he does have something to lose: his self-esteem. After he posts his profile, he gets zero responses. But Ethan realizes one thing about the cyberworld that isn’t true in the real one: Online, Ethan can be anyone he wants to be.

And a new persona is born. The new Ethan is handsome (with someone else’s pic) and the sudden recipient of dozens of online come-ons. What Ethan doesn't count on, however, is finding—among the propositions and the flattery—his one true love. Not just a gorgeous man, but one who suits him in almost every way.

How does Ethan turn his budding cyber love into a real one? And can he hang on to his mystery suitor without turning him off with his deception?

EXCERPT

...For years, Ethan had observed the hoopla surrounding the Internet and its supposed ease of getting people together for sex, romance, half price books, and even cut-rate psychotherapy, but never thought he would traverse its well-traveled highways to meet a man. Somehow, it all seemed too cheap and easy, almost tawdry. Ethan wanted to meet a man through a mutual friend, at a dinner party perhaps, where the assembled group (all attractive upwardly mobile professionals and artists) were enjoying paella and whimsical cocktails like sidecars or Tom Collins. Their eyes would meet over the olive tapenade and they would exchange phone numbers while waiting for the host to bring them their coats. Or, even better, they would meet in a bookstore (no, not that kind!) where they would both be reaching for a copy of the latest David Sedaris at the exact same moment and then would laugh and insist that the other take the shelf copy first. Or maybe he would discover his intended as he rode alone on Lake Michigan’s bike trail and his future beloved would help him when he got a flat tire. It was a story they would tell their grandchildren.

“Yeah, right.” Ethan blew out a big sigh and hit the TAB key to take him to the first box needing to be filled in. “That’s not the way it happens these days. These days, guys meet online. Period. Jane Austen would be appalled.”

Filling out the application to be a member of wingpeople.com was not all that different than filling out a job application. Ethan shook his head. That wasn’t true at all! Filling out a job application was much easier. At least a job application didn’t ask you about your most intimate physical dimensions, or if you considered yourself a top or a bottom, or “versatile.” A job application would never ask if you considered yourself to have a swimmer’s build, or if there was “more of you to love.” A job application would never ask if you “partied,” although they might test to see if you did, if they became serious about hiring you. Filling out paperwork for a job would never require you to tell, in great detail, what you were looking for in a potential mate.

But Ethan supposed all this information, all this nosy prying, was for a good purpose, which was to match you up with other like-minded souls. And Ethan actually adored the idea of that. He was not one of these middle-aged men he saw wandering around Halsted Street dressed in head-to-toe Abercrombie and Fitch, hoping to find a “boy” of no more than thirty years or so.

Ethan wanted a companion, someone he could relate to, someone with a bit of a shared history. He wondered if this route could ever deliver such a bird.

He wondered if such a bird even existed, or if it had gone the way of the dodo.

Finally, Ethan got through the laborious screens of questions and was ready to hit “submit.” He was even pleased with the photo of himself he had decided on using, dredged up from some of his event publicity files from his work folder. In the photo, taken just a few months ago, he was shown smiling with the director of the latest offering at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. He had simply cropped out the grinning, bespectled director and voila, he had himself a halfway-decent headshot. At least the picture was honest and, in its way, flattering. He hoped at least one or two men out there in cyberland would be inclined to agree.

He hit “submit,” wondering as he did if the obvious sexual connotations of the word had occurred to anyone else.

As soon as a “thank you” message popped up, telling Ethan his message was in the queue awaiting approval (which would take eight to twelve hours), sweat began to pop up on his brow. “Good Lord,” he wondered aloud, “what did I just do?”

He thought of the poor folks whose forays into dating sites and social networks like MySpace or Friendster ended up on Dr. Phil, or worse, Judge Judy, and the woe those people experienced when they exposed their more intimate sides to the world. They were idiots, as Judy and Phil would say, with no more sense than God gave a grasshopper. His little adventure could end up coming back to haunt him. What, for example, would Bubbles have to say about his profile once it was approved and active? Would he snicker behind manicured nails and call over the entire office to gape and guffaw at his photo and his predilection for forties noir classics? And that kind of information was the least of his worries—he had divulged to the entire world his sexual likes and dislikes, for cryin’ out loud.

He got up and got a Coke Zero and tried to reassure himself by saying that he was just flattering himself. Everyone was online these days and the truth was no one would really even care about him or his little profile. All he needed to really worry about was that some imagined man out there, reasonably good looking, well-read, and with a quirky sense of humor, would pause long enough at his profile to send him a message...

Dead End Street

SYNOPSIS

The old house at the end of a dead-end street is more of a dead end than anyone realizes...

They are five misfit kids who have banded together in their small Ohio River town. Over the years, they had organized various clubs, and now they've formed the Halloween Horror Club. The premise is simple: each week, each teen spins a horrifying tale, and at the end of five weeks, the scariest story wins a prize. The twist: the stories have to be told in the infamous and abandoned Tuttle house, where, fifteen years earlier, nearly an entire family had been murdered in their beds.

The idea of the club seems like a good one, until the kids begin to realize they may not be alone in the Tuttle house, which backs up against the woods. There seems to be someone—or something—watching them. Is it Paul Tuttle, the son who, while still in his teens, disappeared the night his parents and sister were killed? Or is it someone even more sinister?

With each story (each a completed short, original horror tale that stands on its own), the tension mounts...and so does the anger of the house's mysterious inhabitant. He is enraged at having his space violated, and his rage could mean a real dead end for those who dare to invade his home...

EXCERPT

...Marlene turned to Peter. “What do you mean? Some sort of club to go see horror movies? We already do that.” Marlene was the quietest of the group, and they all acknowledged she was the smartest, too.

Peter rolled his eyes. “No, I have something a little more imaginative in mind.” He paused and waited until Roy looked away from the computer monitor. Peter bit his lower lip, then continued. “I was thinking of this club as a limited time thing.” He let his statement hang in the air, hoping he was building an appropriate sense of suspense and danger. He hung back from the group gathered around the computer, hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts.

“Yeah. Like the McPig sandwiches at McDonald’s.” David snorted with laughter at his own joke.

“C’mon, Dave. Let him finish.” Roy spoke up, but his words weren’t very convincing. His high-pitched voice made him sound like a seven-year-old boy, or worse, a girl.

“Thanks,” Peter said. “Anyway, what I was thinking was this. It’s only six weeks until Halloween, right?”

Erin nodded and flung a mass of her dark brown hair over one shoulder. She gave Peter the full attention of her eyes, which were so dark they appeared bottomless. Erin was the prettiest of the group, and what made her especially so was the fact that she had no idea this was the case.

Peter continued. “Well, what we could do is meet officially once a week. At that time, one of us would be responsible for making up a scary story—you know, something really gross or bloody—for that week. Let’s see if we can come up with something more terrifying than any movie, something that would make some of us afraid to turn off the lights at bedtime. When we’re all done, we’ll take a vote, and whoever gets the most votes gets to decide how we’ll spend Halloween.”

“Boring!” David said. “Can we move on to other business, like putting some other music on? This sucks.” David reached out toward the computer, and Marlene slapped his hand away.

Her eyes were bright with interest. “I think the idea has potential.”

“I didn’t tell you guys the best part, though.” Peter’s face warmed with excitement. “We’ll meet at the Tuttle house each week. That’s where we’ll tell our stories.” Peter’s smile died as he surveyed the reaction on his friends’ faces.

The group got quiet. Even the music seemed to become softer, as if an unseen hand, pale, veiny, and covered with sores, was turning down the sound.

“The Tuttle house?” Erin whispered, her dark eyes alive with fear.

“Isn’t that where all those murders happened? That family?” Roy’s voice cracked.

“Supposedly,” David spoke up. “That was a long time ago, before any of us were even born. I think it’s just a rotting house up on the hill. Nothing to be scared of.”

“Then we can do it?” Peter sounded hopeful.

“I haven’t got a problem,” David said.

“I don’t know.” Erin twisted a strand of her dark hair. “What if someone catches us?”

“Who’s going to catch us?” Marlene spoke up. “The house is at the end of a dead-end road. There aren’t even any neighbors until you get to the Washington’s, and they’re at least a football field or two away. If we’re quiet, I don’t think anyone would pay any attention. It’s just an empty, old house, really.”

Peter looked around at them all. “‘An empty old house’? Maybe. That’s part of why I want us to meet there. To see just how empty it is. I’ve heard things, lots of things about the Tuttle house. I know you guys have, too.” His gaze met Erin’s, whose unblemished and perfect skin had gone pale. “It may not be as empty as some people’d like to think.” He grinned. “Or hope...”

BUY VGL Male Seeks Same

BUY Dead End Street

Nominated for Best Author of 2009

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:52:00 -0500

Thanks to the good taste of the folks at LoveRomances Cafe I have been nominated as the Best GBLT Author 2009. I'm very flattered by the nomination and honored to be in the incredible company of the other authors who made the nominated list.

If you're of the mind I deserve to win, why, thank you very much. I urge you to make your opinion known before the deadline of February 23.

To vote, simply e-mail dawn_roberto@yahoo.com with "LRC's "BEST OF 2009" Awards" in the subject line. If this is not in the subject it will not be counted. You are to vote from the nominee list on your pick. The list will be up in our loop files under "LRC Best of award nominees 2009". Voting rules are here. You’ll need to be logged into the LRC loop to read this message. Any entries received after the deadline will NOT be counted and automatically deleted.

SEXUAL UNDERGROUND: New Cover

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:01:00 -0500

Tales from the Underground, my new collection of erotic fiction and non-fiction from MLR Press, is getting close to coming out...fingers crossed for March, but for sure in April. Check out the wonderful cover from artist Deana Jamroz.

FROM THE BACK COVER

I wanted to write about people who were not just out, but out there, people who lived their sexual lives in ways most of us could only imagine…and for whom the flavor vanilla had absolutely no appeal. I interviewed porn stars, prostitutes, self-proclaimed sex pigs, and delved into bizarre sexual practices. It was eye-opening, arousing, and a lot of fun (but never, never good clean fun). I also include here my favorite dirty stories. They all explore a side of life that exists not in the twilight zone, but in my favorite destination…the sexual underground.

EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT

Fill it to the Rim…

Ask your mother, or any of your straight friends, to use the word “rim” in a sentence as a verb and they may be hard pressed to come up with a response. Oh sure, Mom might say, “Grandma’s lovely mixing bowl was rimmed in fleur-de-lis.” But for the most part, your straight friends probably think of the word rim as a noun.

But ask your gay brethren and you’ll come up with an entirely different response. The rim of their favorite coffee cup is probably the last thing to come to their filthy little minds when that particular three-letter word arises in conversation. “Rimming” or “tossing a salad” are just a couple of metaphors for the act known less delicately as “eating butt” or for those of a more clinical semantic bent, analingus.

But how safe is putting your tongue where the sun don’t shine? Once again, I will reiterate my claim, before I go any further, that I am not a doctor, nor have I ever even played one on TV, so what I say here should not be construed as medical advice. It’s only the results of my own feeble research into the topic that I present here, so take it with a grain of salt…or a shot of penicillin…or a hepatitis vaccination. Which brings me to my first point: hepatitis. Other than winding up with a shit-eating grin, your biggest risk when it comes to rimming is contracting hepatitis, A or B, maybe even C. Face it, butt munchers, the easiest way to get hepatitis is through fecal matter and you’re bound to come into contact with some if you go sticking your nose (and your mouth) in a loved one’s butthole, however tight, pink, hairy or beautiful that little rosebud may be. The good news here is that you can allay many of your worries by visiting your doctor and getting yourself vaccinated against the dreaded virus(es). Then you can munch away with abandon, bearing in mind that you have not been vaccinated against other nasty little critters you could pick up this way, like parasites. As with most any gestures of affection, you must weigh the risks and benefits of any such display and decide what is right for you. Keeping your nose out of others’ business is your decision, as an educated consumer.

You may be wondering about that old bugaboo we hear so much about these days: HIV. From what I’ve learned, rimming is not all that likely to give you the dreaded virus, provided you have a healthy mouth (no cuts, sores, blisters, icky gums, etc.) and he has a clean ass free from any sores, rips or cuts. We won’t even get into felching here.

I guess when it comes to tossing a salad, cleaning the kitchen, or whatever fanciful term you choose to dress up your taste for butt with, the key words are common sense and caution.

So, dear ones, I close with two clichés: bottoms up! And bon appetit!

I'm Going to Kill Myself a Gay Tonight

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:38:00 -0500

Here's a new twist to the gay hate crime dialogue you've heard so much about lately: Glen H. Footman is perhaps the first hate crime victim to be screwed over by both the miscreant who shot him as he walked peacefully along a street with his longtime partner and then once more, after death, by his home state, Maryland.

What are you talking about? You might ask. How could the state be involved?

The answer is quite simple once you know the story. It boils down to a few hard facts. In September 2008, Foote and his partner of 13 years, Alex Chavarria, were minding their own business walking along a street in Mount Vernon, a Baltimore neighborhood just north of the downtown. Witnesses have said that the man who stopped Footman to ask him a question and went on to shoot him twice was earlier overheard saying, "I'm going to kill myself a gay tonight." As of this writing, Baltimore police have classified the murder as a possible hate crime but have not made any arrests. Footman spent months at Maryland Shock Trauma Center, then a rehabilitation center, then at home. He died November 9, almost a year after he was shot.

To compound the tragedy, Footman died too soon to get any of the state dollars available to victims from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. According to Peter Hermann, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, "A spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, which oversees the panel, told me an investigator had put the application on the docket in early November, but the board wasn't due to vote until a week after Footman died. And because Footman, 52, had no spouse and no dependents, there is no one for the state to give the money to."

No one to give the money to? How about Alex Chavarria, Footman's partner of 13 years? Surely, he's grieving and could probably use some help with the cost of caring for and trying to save the man he loved over the course of nearly a year? Oh right, Maryland doesn't allow same-sex marriage. Ergo, Chavarria is not eligible for any compensation from the state board. If they were a straight couple, it would not be a problem. Here's a good example to give to your right-wing friends when they say they just can't approve of same sex marriage.

Chavarria is angry over this, but according to the Baltimore Sun's coverage, "he is angrier with what he calls bureaucratic fumbling by the board, which he says repeatedly delayed dealing with the case because of lost faxes, missed information and poor record-keeping. He said one clerk told him she had misplaced his file and that it had to be redone and resubmitted.

"'I am upset and disappointed that this program never helped us and is not organized to work, even for those who do it right from the start," Chavarria said in an e-mail. "Why does the board not recognize that the victims include the family and/or caregivers who are truly the ones supporting everything financially?'"

The compensation board, created in 1968 to help 'innocent victims of crime' has paid out more than $100 million to victims and their families. The money does not come from taxes, but from court costs and fees paid by offenders.

The board was set up to help victims like Footman.

According to the Sun, "The only help (the board) is now offering his friends and family is up to $5,000 in funeral costs. That money is not restricted to a spouse or dependent, but can go to the person responsible for the burial. It is money the state said Footman's partner has not applied for and it is money Chavarria said he doesn't need nor want.

"Chavarria said Footman first applied to the board for compensation on Feb. 7, 2009, (he sent me [Hermann] a copy of his original form dated 2/7/08, explaining that his partner got the year wrong but did send it in February of last year). It typically takes about 180 days to complete a review and vote on a claim, and based on that date, a decision should have been made before Footman died." Although Footman applied in plenty of time to receive compensation and officials even concede his case was "well-documented" time still ran out on his application for aid. Footman could have applied for up to $45,000, but was asking for only $12,000, his out-of-pocket expenses not covered by insurance. Rick Binetti, a spokesman for the state prison system that oversees the compensation board says it's possible Footman's file could have been "misplaced."

And I sit here, shaking my head in sadness and dismay, with a lump in my throat, over the death of a man who was shot to death in the street simply because he loved someone else's idea of the wrong person, a state who has a system to help victims of crime but who fumbled things on their end for so long they got out of providing that help, and for a damaged survivor of hate crime, having to go on...with the cold knowledge that if he had been legally married to his life partner, this compensation would not even be an issue.

Deadly Vision in NEW EBook Edition!

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:50:00 -0500

For all of you Kindle and other e-book readers out there, I am pleased to announce my print novel, Deadly Vision is now available in a brand new e-book edition from Bristlecone Pine Press.

Click here to get your copy.

Synopsis

What If You Suddenly Became Psychic and Could Stop Two Cold-Blooded Killers?

What if...No One Believed You?

Small-town single mom Cass D'Angelo's life changes when a thunderstorm sweeps into her small Ohio River town. Cass must venture out in it to hunt for her son, seven-year-old Max. Lightning strikes a tree near her and a branch to the head knocks her unconscious. When Cass awakens a couple days later, she sees into the deepest secrets of those around her. Worse, some teenage girls have gone missing, and Cass sees their grisly fates. The discovery opens the door to a whole new life. The police are suspicious. The press wants to make her a celebrity. And the killers are desperate to know how she found their carefully concealed grave. Cass finds an ally in Dani Westwood, a local reporter. The two women begin to probe into the disappearances/murders and start to forge a romance. When Cass's little boy, Max, disappears, Cass must race against the clock to find him...before it's too late.

Reviews

From Gregg Olsen, New York Times Best-Selling Author

Horror fiction's most original voice knows how to spin a tale that makes a reader double check the door locks and windows. It is at once smart and twisted.

From Victor J. Banis, author of Longhorns

Rick R. Reed moves to the head of the graveyard with this bone-chilling story of a reluctant psychic, a pair of maniacal killers, and the slaughter of innocence. Fiendishly good!

Excerpt

The Summitville Paper was nothing much. It never had been—reporting on the lives of some 15,000 citizens filled usually no more than twenty or thirty pages. The national news occupied the front page and maybe continued on to the second. The remainder was taken up by advertising, editorials about such things as high school activities and earth-shattering decisions like whether local merchants should continue to stay open late on Thursday nights, and reporting who had gotten married, divorced, arrested, been involved in automobile accidents, or admitted to the emergency room of Summitville City Hospital. There was a comics page and a crossword puzzle, sometimes a syndicated movie review. If someone wanted something meatier, they purchased the Pittsburgh paper.

But still, Cass was more than a little intrigued when a nurse’s aide brought her that morning’s edition. It had obviously already been read, clumsily folded, the crossword puzzle attempted. But Cass could count on one hand the number of times she had been celebrated enough to make its pages: her birth, when she had been on the homecoming court in high school (a Carrie-like fluke...Cass had already been deep into her first crush on another girl and hadn’t even known why she had accepted Tommy Nevins’ invitation), when she had given birth to Max, and when she had sprained her ankle and had been admitted to the emergency room.

And here she was on the front page. There was no picture, but the headline was identification enough. Cass had assumed that when people got hit so hard in the head it knocked them unconscious for hours, they eventually died. But, obviously, that wasn’t true, because here she was, feeling better, actually, with every passing moment. The article gave credit to quick action by the Summitville Fire Department in saving the “local woman’s” life.

“We were on the scene immediately,” paramedic John Fore was quoted as saying, “and were able to restore the woman’s breathing within a couple of minutes.” Cass smiled, thank God for that. She went on to read how she had been rushed to the hospital and was now in stable condition.

Cass was just about to put the paper aside when another article caught her eye. “Teenager Reported Missing,” by Dani Westwood. It wasn’t so much the headline that got her attention, but the picture of the young girl beneath it. Pretty. Long blonde hair. And disturbingly familiar.

Even though Summitville was a small town, the girl’s name, Lucy Plant, didn’t ring any bells. Perhaps Cass had waited on her at the Elite, the diner where she worked. But still, no specific recollection came back. Cass couldn’t visualize the girl sitting at the counter, nor at one of the booths.

And yet she looked so familiar, as if she were someone Cass was friends with, or even a relative.

Cass scanned the story. The girl had been reported missing by her mother yesterday afternoon, just before the storm that had caused such a turn in Cass’s own life.

There were no clues. The girl, at least according to her mother, could not possibly have been a runaway. “Lucy’s a good girl,” Karen Plant had told Summitville police officer Myron Briggs. “She wouldn’t even go down the block to visit a friend without telling me first.”

The last time anyone had seen Lucy Plant was when her mother looked outside the living room window. Lucy had been playing with her Barbie dolls on the front lawn.

Cass closed her eyes. She remembered, suddenly, the storm coming, and not knowing where Max was. She sympathized with the girl’s mother and the panic she must have felt when she couldn’t locate her daughter.

A ceiling fan. Beneath her closed lids, Cass saw a ceiling fan. She didn’t know why. She didn’t own one herself, and the one in her parents’ living room was an entirely different model from this one, which was white, with a plain globe. Her parents’ fan had four frosted-glass light fixtures and faux wood blades.

Cass kept her eyes closed, watching the ceiling fan whirl, its blades blurring and becoming singular: there was something wrong with the fan. It didn’t work quite right.

Cass felt nauseated and opened her eyes. Her face was glazed with sweat. Her stomach churned and she was afraid she would vomit. Why was seeing a ceiling fan so disturbing? Or was this some sort of aftershock, an effect of her accident in the woods near her house?

Cass didn’t think so.

She glanced down at the face of Lucy Plant and sucked in some air. “Oh my God,” she whispered, “she’s dead.”

The smell of the Ohio River, fishy and damp, suddenly came to her, even though her hospital windows were hermetically sealed and the river was a good four or five blocks away. Why had she said Lucy was dead?

What did she know about it?

She closed her eyes again and saw a blinking light: red.

What did it mean?

Part of her wanted to close her eyes again, to see if more of the vision would come to her; part of her dreaded ever closing her eyes again. Where was this coming from? It’s just aftereffects, Cass, she told herself. You suffered a blow to your head, brain-jarring. That’s all.

She lay back on the pillows. When she closed her eyes again, she saw the blinking red light and a shadowy figure behind it: a woman’s head. The image, for no objective reason, was horrifying.

Cass sat up in bed, heart pounding. “No,” she said loudly, then whispered, “no.”

She forced herself to breathe deeply. She looked down at Lucy Plant’s calm, smiling face again: the straight blonde hair, the kind someone more romantically inclined would refer to as “flaxen.” The wide eyes, too big for her little-girl face, but which would someday be beautiful. The dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. The chipped front tooth.

Cass felt her eyes brim with tears, a lump in her throat. “So innocent,” she whispered, rocking back and forth in the bed, unaware that she was even moving. “So innocent. What a waste.” She smelled the river again, and when she closed her eyes once more, she had another vision: the brown murky water of the Ohio River, its tree-lined shores and...and...

Cass bit her lip so hard she tasted blood.

A freshly dug grave.

Cass opened her eyes and batted at her own face, as if she could physically remove the odd imagery. She didn’t want to see these things. It was like a dream, a nightmare, but she wasn’t sleeping.

The images were so vivid—the knowledge so certain.

Lucy Plant wasn’t coming back.

Her gaze fell upon a line of type in the news story about the girl’s disappearance. Her mother was making a plea. “Please, if anyone knows anything about my daughter...if anyone has seen her, please, please, let us know. All we want is to know that she’s safe. No. All that we want is for her to be home again, where she belongs. Her little brother misses her. I miss her. Her father...we all do. Please, if you know anything about our girl, come forward.”

And Cass wondered what she should do. She visualized herself down at Summitville police headquarters, telling them she knew something about the girl’s disappearance. “Yes, I had a vision. The girl is dead and she’s buried near the river. I saw a ceiling fan and a blinking red light, like on a video camera.”

She would be treated with understanding and pity. Scorn and laughter behind her back. The police would call some mental hospital in Pittsburgh.

But what could she do?

She did know something about Lucy Plant. She was sure of it. She wished she didn’t, but there it was.

Cass flung the newspaper to the floor and forced herself to look out the window, where the tree-covered hills of West Virginia stared dumbly back at her, much as they stared dumbly at the shallow grave Cass was certain this poor young girl was buried in.

Footsteps. A child.

Cass sighed with relief. Max.

“I wanna see Mama!” he yelled.

And her mother was telling him to slow down.

It was the real world. Cass wondered if she’d ever be part of it again.

ON THE EDGE New Cover

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:57:00 -0500

I woke up this morning to the cover for On the Edge, my forthcoming (summer 2010) collection of gay erotic romance. As always, cover designer at Amber Allure, Trace Edward Zaber, has done an amazing, eye-catching job.

The book will be a trade paperback and will contain eight of my hottest, and most romantic tales, previously only available in e-book format:

Incubus

Superstar

Riding the El at Midnight

Pottery Peter

Through the Closet Door

Fugue

MANamorphosis

No Place Like Home

Leave me a comment below and let me know what you think!

Shooting A Child

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:41:00 -0500

Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot
it.
- Truman Capote

A statement like that makes a reasonable person gasp. The idea of "taking a child out in the back yard and shooting it" is such an arresting and shocking image that it takes one's breath away.

But if you're a writer--or anyone who creates--you might understand. First off, to say that Capote had a flair for the dramatic would be an understatement. In life as well as in his writing, he loved to push buttons, which is probably why he's remembered as much for who he was as much as for what he wrote. But Capote's point, about the sadness and loss a creative person feels at the end of a project is a lot like a death. A death that you bring about by your own hand.

I understand the quote because I feel a sense of loss and despair when I write the words, "the end." For me, who rarely writes a series, it is as if I have effectively killed off my characters. More prosaic people in my life think I'm crazy when I say that my characters come to life for me when I'm writing a book and that they often surprise me with what they do or say. Other writers--for the most part--understand.

For me, writing a book is all about taking a journey with the characters I have created. In the course of that trip, I nurture them. I love them (even the bad ones...and as many parents might attest, sometimes you love the bad ones the most). I don't always see it as me giving them life, but them giving something to me--surprises, emotions, a better understanding of not only them, but myself. They become dear to me, real to me.

When I finished my novel Deadly Vision, I asked my friend Mary, who was an early reader of the book, to give me her opinion on it. In the course of our conversation, I told Mary about that sense of loss I felt now that my characters' journeys were over and how much I missed them. She laughed and said that maybe I should "host a tea party" for my "little friends." She didn't quite get it. Or maybe she did. One of the best tests of friendships is sometimes the ability to be mean with each other and get away with it. But I digress.

The point is, when I get to the end of a book, it's not a cause for celebration, it's an occasion for mourning. Because, to use Capote's rather melodramatic analogy, I have taken my offspring out in the backyard and shot them. They are gone and for me, they won't be back. Once a work is published, I never reread it. And maybe that's why, because when I'm done, I'm done. And those people I came to know so well are gone forever, like dead loved ones. It's bittersweet to revisit their world.

Call me fickle, but after a suitable period of mourning, I find comfort in the arms of new friends, new characters and seldom look back on those I've shot. Heartless bastard.

BLUE MOON CAFE Gets New Cover

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 08:30:00 -0500

It's always with some trepidation that I approach what a cover artist has come up with for a book of mine. After all, this is the face of my baby. I want it to be beautiful. I also want it to be compelling because I know it's a big, fat lie when people say, "Don't judge a book by its cover." In whatever context they mean it, they can and do. The cover helps sell a book almost, if not as much, as what's on the interior.

With the cover artist I work with at Amber Quill Press, Trace Edward Zaber, I am not as afraid when I get that e-mail telling me a cover design is ready. Trace is a great cover artist and I am usually over the moon with what he comes up with for my work. We've worked together on enough books that I hardly have to give him much suggestion or direction on what I hope to see. We're in sync.

The cover for my upcoming novel, The Blue Moon Cafe, is no exception. Trace managed to encapsulate exactly what I wanted to get across: that this was a horror story, yes, but at its heart, it's a love story. It's a book that I hope will make a reader's heart race for many reasons.

And it's appropriate that I'm sharing this with you today, because tonight is a blue moon, the first in a decade.

I'd love to know what you think of the cover. Please feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.

The Blue Moon Café releases on March 7, 2010 in ebook format, with the paperback version to follow approximately two weeks later. To read the first chapter, e-mail me at jimmyfels@gmail.com and I will send it to you.

What The Blue Moon Cafe is about:

Someone—or something—is killing Seattle’s gay men.

A creature moves through the darkest night, lit only by the full moon, taking them, one by one, from the rain city’s gay gathering areas.

Someone—or something—is falling in love with Thad Matthews.

Against a backdrop of horror and fear, young Thad finds his first true love in the most unlikely of places—a new Italian restaurant called The Blue Moon Café. Sam is everything Thad has ever dreamed of in a man: compassionate, giving, handsome, and with brown eyes Thad feels he could sink into…and he can cook! But as the pair’s love begins to grow, so do the questions and uncertainties, the main one being: Why do Sam’s unexplained disappearances always coincide with the full moon?

Prepare yourself for a unique blend of horror and erotic romance with The Blue Moon Café, written by the author Unzipped magazine called, “the Stephen King of gay horror.” You’re guaranteed an unforgettable reading experience, one that skillfully blends the hottest romance with the most chilling terror…

DEADLY VISION Gets NEW Cover

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:46:00 -0500

It's always exciting when I get a new cover for one of my books. The one above, done for Bristlecone Pine Press's upcoming e-book edition of my bestselling print book, Deadly Vision, has me over the moon. Cover artist Alex Beecroft managed to convey the terror and beauty of my story of a single mother who becomes a reluctant psychic witness to the murders of young girls in her small town. I do believe people judge books by their covers and I think that this cover will truly grab a reader's eye, much as I later grab the same reader by the throat...refusing to let go.

This has to be one of the most beautiful and haunting covers to date of any of my books.

What do you think? Please leave me a comment below.

4 Stars for SUPERSTAR

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:49:00 -0500

Rainbow Reviews gave a stellar review of my rock star love story, SUPERSTAR, on their site recently.

In part, they said:

"'This July day is a stunning one, clear, sunny, low humidity and a temperature in the mid 70s ... It's a lovely day to commit suicide.' This statement is a wonderful scene setter. Such deft phrasing is maintained throughout this short story, making it a joy to read...This was a most thought-provoking story, rich in emotion and humanity. I expected it to be mostly depressing, but, although it had its sad moments, the tale was uplifting. I know it will remain long in my memory."

Read the rest of the review here.

Read an excerpt and a synopsis and get your copy here.