The Sound of Two Lips Kissing

Many thanks to Tina at Two Lips Reviews for reading Seeking Something Wicked (I know how swamped these sites are) and giving it 4.5/5 kisses. And let me just take this opportunity, since it's my blog, to remind everybody that Book Three of the Utopia-X series, Exploring Savage Places, is coming out in mid June. My extraordinarily intelligent editor at Loose Id assures me it's the best of the series!

By the way, part of Book Three's title as well as its leitmotif (ooo, baby, I haven't had the opportunity to parade out that word in a long time!) come from a famous poem. And a very strange one.

What's better: crazy diatribes or crazy book titles?

So I go on my little late-night blog tour, just to see what's up in different sectors of the 'Sphere, and I come upon not one but three diatribes (I like that word better than "rants," which is really starting to bore me). Shee-it! One of 'em sent my eyeballs into orbit around my brain, because it was so godawfully lonnnnggggg and lacking in simple sentences that it managed to obscure its own point . . . if there was one. Another sent my brain into orbit around itself, because the "message" was both very earnest and just freakin' nonsensical. (That combination always makes me feel I've been dropped into a Lewis Carroll book.)

To put my head back into balance, I went to Oddee and found much more enjoyable kinds of weirdness. So, just in case you need the same adjustment, check out these lists:

fifteen insanely titled books,
twelve more insanely titled books, and
the final ten insanely titled books.
(You'll get to see the covers, too, which I think really enhances the experience!)

Kwitter

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The network that lets people know

what you aren't doing, can't do,

don't want to do, gave up doing,

or tried to do but failed!

Going Into Print

Sometime between now and the end of June, Ellora's Cave will be issuing FOUR of my titles as print editions. This strains my belief.

Better With Age is an anthology of six novellas centering on older women gettin' it on with younger men. My contribution's original cover (from EC's "Oh Yum!" themed series) is on the right. You can read a blurb and excerpt at the publisher's site. Other authors in the antho are Mardi Ballou, Lyn Cash, Karen Erickson, Calista Fox, and Eve Vaughn.

I have some rather unique sex scenes in Liberation, so if you're not averse to hetero romance and a heroine with a gay best friend, instead of the other way around, you might enjoy it. (Besides, bet you've never seen a cover model carved out of teak wood and saturated with lemon oil. If you get the ebook, you can seem him supersized!)

My three related debauchery-and-dragon fantasies -- Wing and Tongue, Cauldron of Keridwen, and Prince of Glacier Glas -- will be put together under one cover. I had all kinds of ideas for a title for this collection, from simple (Farfields) to suggestively smarmy (Galdesh Confidential) to suggestively passionate (Fire in the Soul) to suggestively traditional (The Chronicles of Galdesh) to ridiculous but catchy (Big Teeth and Boxer Briefs). Alas, all were shot down by TPTB. I'm not exactly thrilled with the final title (not telling you yet, 'cause it's stupid), so I'm hoping beyond hope the volume gets a cover as stunning as the one for Wing and Tongue. This might be asking too much, however.

Stay tuned. I'll post when this print plan becomes a reality.

My New Superstition

I'm starting to think blogs are self-fulfilling prophecies -- seriously -- and that's making me hinky about posting. I recently pondered the phenomenon of diametrically opposed reviews of the same book . . . then ended up on the receiving end of just such a pair. I did a study of wankfests . . . and inadvertently ended up hosting one.

Is there some kind of juju to prevent this? Or should I just post about the joys of being a wildly successful, wealthy, critically acclaimed, prize-winning author who photographs well . . . and then sit back and see what happens? ;-)

All of a sudden, Mormons are HOT.

Who'd a thunk it? The Osmonds wanted to be perceived as hot but failed. Quite miserably. Nevertheless, they set the stage. Then Mit (Mitt? Mitttttt?) Romney came along and tried to be -- in an appropriately understated way, of course -- Mr. Hottie of the American political scene. (What the hell does Mit stand for, anyway? Or is it German, as in "With" Romney? Sind Sie mit Romney oder gegen Romney? ) Anyway, he didn't quite make the cut, although he definitely caught our interest.

But in the world of books? WHOA. Jump back, Jack!

First, Stephenie Meyer, bored hausfrau and reluctant author extraordinaire, decides to kill some time by trying her hand at writing. Why not, eh? She doesn't have to work thanks to hubby's considerable earning capacity, and since she really doesn't give a rat's ass about the craft of fiction, she can just go ahead and dabble around to entertain herself. But something entirely unexpected happens. Whoosh! -- down comes the angel Moroni with more golden plates, but on this set are inscribed holy words called the "Twilight" series. Young girl gettin' jiggy with a hungry vampire, both quivering with unspent passion. Meyer looks at the first book and says, "Jiminy, will I have to claim this came out of me?" And the angel answers, "First of all, my name isn't Jiminy. And you betcha, babe. The book sucks too bad for me to claim it, but you'll be well compensated for your embarrassment."

It isn't only in the realm of hetero romance where Mormon sizzle has been sending out steam signals. James Buchanan's most recent release, Hard Fall from MLR Press, features a gay Mormon hero (and, from everything I've read, is an infinitely better book than Meyer's dreck). Then that incomparable greenhouse of eroticism, Ravenous Romance, followed suit by publishing a most provocatively titled short story, "The Missionary and the Artist," which also features a gay Saint.

Makes me want to move to Utah, I'll tell ya.

I wonder which religion or denomination will generate the next eruption of verbal smexxin'. Got any ideas?

Feedback Most Fine

Holy jamoly, sometimes winners do offer feedback! In spades!

Madame Butterfly, aka MBLeah, chose my m/m novella Obsessed at one of Jessewave's recent book-giveaways. That was flattering in and of itself, because Wave invariably gets scads of donated books from her author fans. Leah didn't just pick this book, she accepted it most graciously. And what's more -- astonishingly more, in my world -- she devoted a lot of space to Obsessed on her blog when she gave it a lengthy review. (Click on post title to view.) And then, stretching my incredulity even further, she didn't just devote time and a great deal of thought to the review, she wrote to me afterward and asked follow-up questions!

That is so extraordinarily excellent, I don't know what more to say. If the scale of being impressed went from 1 to 10, I would be impressed to the level of 12, at least.

Never, ever do I want to become so used to such attention, so jaded by popularity or editorial fawning or any other measure of success that such consideration fails to move me enough to respond. I can't imagine taking any interest in my books for granted. Just can't imagine it. And if I ever show the slightest sign of doing so, I expect somebody to lob a rotten grapefruit at me to smack me right back to this post.

Thank you, Leah!

(And you know what else? I just snapped up Clare London's Freeman at Wave's most recent free-for-all, and you can bet you'll all hear about it once I get it read. Gotta keep the good karma flowing!)

EDITED TO ADD: That cover you see below? That's for the sequel to the book Leah just reviewed.