New WIP Song

...for the little novella I'm working on.

Winner Smart Ass 2

Congrats to:

~Kaetrin~

You won a signed copy of Smart Ass 2: Pressure Point by Amber Green and LB Gregg! All you have to do now is drop me an email--noseinabook at live dot com

Thanks to everyone who stopped in to say hello to Amber--and I'll see you soon. I'm writing like the wind.

~LB

MLM--Or Q&A With Smart Ass Amber Green

Good Morning!

Today on Noseinabook, I'm celebrating the release of Smart Ass 2: Pressure Point with fellow contributor, Amber Green. Just ten quick questions off the top of my head. I haven't done this before, but I thought it would be fun for everyone to get to know Amber.

Amber Green has been around the virtual eBook block. Her books include the Huntsmen series from Loose-id (Bareback, Backtrack, and Lights Out), the prohibition era menage story Steal Away, and a vampire m/m short story More Than Memories--AND her first Turner and Turner story, One Good Turn, was paired with my very first novella, Gobsmacked in Smart Ass 1: Close Quarters.

Phewie. That's a lot of promo.

A quick FYI--If you're looking for an eBook version of Amber's Smart Ass 2 story, Golden Boys, it's available for purchase at Aspen Mountain Press.

*Ten Questions with Amber Green*

1) What's the last sporting event you watched?

Street football: five shirtless young construction workers, one eager puppy, one "observer" with a super-soaker. It was great. If I'd been thinking, I would have grabbed a camera.

2) Money or love?

How expensive is the love?

3) Favorite day of the week and why.

Monday. Things fall into place on Monday. I get so much done. And the whole family can often assemble that one night of the week.

**Ed Note: I'm partial to Monday, too.

4) Where is your dream vacation?

Someplace cool and green and quiet.

5) Do you miss anyone right now?

Yes. My older son has been off being a Marine for the past three and a half years. I've seen him twice in that time.

6) How many pets do you have? What are they?

Seven cats, two dogs, one lizard, a dozen hens (layers plus retirees).

My four-month-old Big Brown Puppy o' Happiness looks ever more like a mastiff as he grows. And he is growing! But he doesn't drool. How can you beat a mastiff who doesn't drool?

Our other dog was irresponsible and disobedient--but amusing and extremely playful--before her constant playmate (my big sweet doggie) died a year ago May. Nowadays the puppy's attempts to engage her wear on her nerves something awful.

The puppy now has his own kitten. Two weeks ago some friends took a pewter-gray feral kitten from a rottweiler. We are not sure of the gender yet. Well, I'm pretty sure she's female and my husband is pretty sure she's male. Developmentally speaking, she had some characteristics of a three-week-old and some of a four-week-old. Could run, but not in a straight line or without falling over soon. Couldn't grab or pounce competently. One eye not fully open. Dehydrated, of course. We now have her tame enough to feed without bloodshed. One day while I was cleaning her, she was squalling away. The puppy crawled up onto the bed beside me, pushed in under my elbow, and took over the cleaning. The squalling stopped instantly. I held her up for him and he cleaned away. Struggles stopped. Then the purring commenced. He does all the cleaning now, though we still flea-comb her daily.

The two 16-year-old cats are unhappy that Niddles (the little needle-wielder) has taken over my bedroom.

The once-feral black cat has to be watched closely because she's violently jealous. The puppy actually summoned the nerve to growl at her yesterday; we think he was protecting the kitten.

The calico twins are shunning us. They magnanimously forgave us after three weeks for bringing in the puppy, but the kitten is a fresh abomination.

One of the two outside cats was killed in the road the day after the puppy arrived. The other outside cat is still sad and stunned.

The hens don't have names. Technically, critters without names aren't pets, but some of them act like pets

My younger son has a fat-tailed, pink, naked-looking lizard named Chibzilla, AKA Chibbles. She does a sphinx-pose on his head when he's at the computer. I was about to say he makes a weird picture, but then I'm typing this with a gray kitten perched atop my head and with my elbow trying to stay in the chest of the puppy who's trying to reach her. At least my son isn't risking broken glasses (or worse).

7) Last movie you paid to see?

Star Trek reboot. Okay, I must be part mastiff.

8) Is there a chore you avoid?

Is there a chore I don't?

9) Would you sky dive?

You know, my mother had this odd habit of jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. She was a pilot too. Made me wonder what she learned while flying them that made her want to be an expert at escaping one.

I hate small planes, particularly the noise and the air pressure fluctuations. But I think I would like to free-fall.

10) What toppings do you choose for your pizza?

Black olives, mushrooms, tomatoes, feta, onions.

LB-This was terrific. I have to admit the skydiving thing was a surprise, but hearing about her care and commitment to animals was not. I love that about Amber.

Thanks so much to Amber Green. I'd share a pizza with you any day.

~Contest Alert~

A random commenter on this post will receive and autographed copy of Smart Ass: Pressure Point (Happy Ending by LB Gregg and Golden Boys by Amber Green in PRINT).

Rules: Offer ends Wednesday, June 23rd 11PM EST. One entry per person. Winner will be announced Thursday, June 24th.

FYI: I'm also holding contests for Smart Ass2 at DIK and at Goodreads.

Happy Monday!

~LB

Contest

I'm having a give away--yes I already gave two of these books away, but for those of you who didn't win that copy of Lanyon's A Vintage Affair or Fox's Life After Joe---and if you're interested in possibly winning a signed copy of Smart Ass 2: Pressure Point (Happy Ending in PRINT)--pop by for my third day on DIK.

Another Day

Another post on DIK. Today Josh Lanyon, Harper Fox and I are NOT doing another top ten list.

LB as Little Surfer. Tamarindo. Last Saturday.

Yes, I wear pigtails on the beach.

.

She's back...

on DIK. Pop by and say hello. I have friends with me.

My family in Tamarindo last Saturday.

Winners and Sinners

Random dot org selected the winner of Josh Lanyon's upcoming book--A Vintage Affair--

~Smokinhotbooks~

and the winner of Harper Fox's Life After Joe

~Joanna~

Thanks to everyone who popped by last week--I see Angie and Bonnie Dee were here--special hello to you both. It was great to finally meet Bonnie at RT. Congrats on the Carina launch (which I missed--but rafting the Pacuare IS rafting the Pacuare).

Now. LB Gregg business.

First bit of news:

While I was away, it seems that Smart Ass 2: Pressure Point released...surprise!

You can pick it up at Amazon.com. This is the print version of Men of Smithfield-Happy Ending paired with Amber Green's Golden Boys. You can read more about Happy Ending, including reviews and an excerpt, by clicking on my link.

And finally, I keep reading that In and Out is THE VERY LAST MEN OF SMITHFIELD novel--which is sort of funny because I intend to write short stories for each of my Smithfield couples. First? A wee little Christmas story featuring a certain Resident Trooper and a high strung Physician Assistant named Mark Meehan. Not sure when the hell I'll get it written, but it's going to happen.

Just an FYI.

I'll be back soon with photos from the trip. For now, here's a view of Pacuare River last Wednesday afternoon.

Yes. It looks exactly like that. The water was a little muddy due to rain the night before, but the river was practically perfect otherwise. This is where we jumped ship (raft) and floated a bit.

~LB

ManLoveMonday: Guest bloggers Josh Lanyon & Harper Fox

Josh: About a year ago I forced my way into the writing life of the very talented Harper Fox and strong-armed her into…well, giving this publishing thing a serious try. And the result was three books in about three? Four months? Which Harper then sold to three of my fave rave publishers. Driftwood will be released from Samhain August 17th and Life After Joe is part of the big Carina Press launch. So I thought I’d take a moment, with the help of my dear pal Lisabea, to formally introduce Harper to m/m readers.

(This is a very serious interview, by the way, so no pictures please -- and keep the whispers to a minimum.)

JOSH - Harper, what do you like most about the writing process? What do you like least?

HARPER - Ooh, interesting one! I love the moment when the struggle for a plot, a concept, suddenly comes to an end, usually somewhere completely inappropriate where you can't write it down, and you stumble around the supermarket in a daze with this insight, this idea, which is worth more than diamonds or – to you – that baby getting cradled in its mother's arms, and you hold on to it with a mother's passion. It changes the look of the whole world. I've got the idea for my next story. And what I like least is pretty closely related – the moment when you realise that, no matter how well you did with the draft and the opening chapter, your end result will never, ever come close to that first blinding vision of how it could be. Because words aren't made to bear that kind of thing into reality. For that, you need a film studio, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and a really quite seriously major budget. So what I like best is inspiration – and what I like least is the Shadow. Cue TS Eliot, who often gets pressed into service to convey what I can't express, lairy old bigot that he was - “Between the conception / And the creation / Between the emotion / And the response / Falls the Shadow”... Oh, and getting up at five o'clock on a dark winter morning to write sex. That sucks absolutely.

JOSH - I just want to say here that I love that Harper used the word “lairy.” Is it any wonder I love this woman’s writing? Okay, next question. Rob and John are hiking in the wilderness. They decide to leave their tent and walk around a lake. They start going in the opposite directions. Jim hikes at the rate of 3 miles per hour. Who the hell is Jim? How the hell did he get in our algebra equation? The perimeter of the lake is 10 miles. What happens when they all meet up? Why do you think ménage stories remain so popular even though I have stated many times that I don’t like them?

HARPER - Oh, honestly, Josh. This is simple and we've been through it before. Jim has stolen Rob and John's speedboat because he can only hike at the rate of 3 miles per hour, and he feels this is a reflection on his manhood. He parks up in the reeds at the far edge of the lake and waits for Rob and John, which is easy enough for him because the pair of dolts have started walking in opposite directions. As soon as they appear, sheepish and ready for make-up sex after their pre-breakfast quarrel, Jim leaps out of the reeds and reveals himself for the gratification-delaying plot device he is, introducing just enough doubt in the reader's mind regarding Rob and John's devotion to one another that, by the time they have sorted out their differences, texted back their algebra answers to Quantico, safely disarmed the small thermonuclear device Jim has attached to the speedboat and taken their turns to be simultaneously repelled and attracted by his wrong-side charms, their happy ending back in the tent comes as all the more of a wonderful finale. And not a moment too soon.

JOSH - Exactly. And this is why I always cheat off your answers. Question three: Favorite alcoholic beverage? Favorite place to drink it?

HARPER - An easy one! Cosmopolitan cocktail, and it must have a little bit of burnt orange peel poised on the rim of the glass. I'd like to drink it in Pride And Prejudice, please, on the edge of the haha, while Mr Darcy hauls himself out of the pool, clothes clinging to his manly form, hotly pursued – who knew?! - by Mr Bingley.

JOSH - I love the physicality of your work. All the little touches that add such veracity. How much research do you do?

HARPER - Thank you, and, honest, very little. If it's a helicopter thing or a mountaineering thing, I'll go off and read Wikipedia until I know my crampons from my collectives, but when it comes to physical detail – well, I've got all the equipment I need in this faulty but functional skin vest I seem to have been provided with, and I just use that. I think of how it would feel to me – to be waking up with a hangover, to be getting enfolded in a lover's arms, to be smelling him for the first time after a long hard day on the oil rigs. As for the details of the enfolding – I'm not sure you could call the acquisition of a lot of talkative male gay friends “research” as such, but it definitely helps.

JOSH - Question five is missing. Did you notice that? What do you think question five should be?

HARPER - No, I didn't! Where on earth can it have gone? Question five should always be, where is the Grail? Once Parsifal asks that, the birds start to sing, the land becomes green again and the world is saved. You don't even have to know the answer. Asking is enough.

JOSH - It is indeed. I need to ask it more often. Instead, we’ll go for this. What’s the last song you sang along with? Did you go off-key? Tell the truth.

HARPER - “Don't Stop Believing” by the cast of Glee. And that's the God's honest truth. Five minutes before that I'd been singing along to Marina and the Diamonds, which would have been so much cooler, but did I try to pull my cool wool over your eyes? I did not. No, I did not go off-key. I am a fine, if unappreciated, mezzo-soprano.

JOSH - Me too. Ahem. You’ve tried your hand at contemporary romance, thriller, and action-adventure. What genre would you like to try next, Harper? Why?

HARPER - You know I'm desperate to write that monks-and-Vikings historical. But you won't let me because I need to build up my rep on contemporaries first, and damn right you are, too. I want to do it because (a) I've got the location – lonely mist-wrapped monastery on a cliff's edge, (b) I've got the title – Brothers of the Wild North Sea (how good is that?!), (c) I've got that beautiful, baby-hugging idea for a plot (see answer 1), and (d) – c'mon! Hot monks and Vikings! What's not to love?

JOSH - I know. I know! And I so want to read that book, but angel, listen to your Svengali. Have I ever steered you wrong? WAIT. Don’t answer that in a public forum. Answer this loosely related question: your first book, Life After Joe, is being released June28th as part of the big Carina launch. How does that feel?

HARPER - Just at this exact moment, like a kind of numb fizzy patch on the far edge of my imagination because, for the love of God, I mixed up my launch day with my featured-author day, and the latter – as I discovered last night around nine o'clock – was today, not 28th June. Mercifully Carina let me push it back to Saturday.

However, as soon as I'm released from this specialist cardiac-care unit, I know I'll go back to thinking of the Life After Joe launch as the eighth bloody wonder of the world. Seriously. I've worked all my life for this. Rightly or wrongly, I feel as if my existence has been validated. I'm proud, honoured, stunned. I like the story about Isaac Bashevis Singer when he got the Nobel Prize for Literature. Journalists kept asking him, are you surprised? Are you happy? Around about the fiftieth time, he said, yes, of course I'm happy. But, seriously, how long do you think I can keep on being surprised? I, unlike Singer, can maintain the surprise indefinitely. (Otherwise the parallel is exact :-)

JOSH - Heh. What do you think is your greatest strength as a writer?

HARPER - The skin vest, I think. I'm not a gay man and nor have I had sex with one. I haven't been shot, drowned, dropped from a helicopter or made homeless (though the night is still young). I don't know the source of the near-hallucinatory power of the experience when I project myself into these events – or when I allow them to project themselves into me – but obviously I'm not going to look it in the mouth. It's not always convenient. A weasel just ate a rabbit on my lawn, and I feel eaten. I also feel like I just had a really nice rabbit. The sensations are contradictory, simultaneous and absolute – also non-perishable and can be stored away indefinitely, until I need to write that story, which BTW is gonna be a fairly odd one.

JOSH - For the at home viewers: NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS FILM -- ER, INTERVIEW. Okey dokey, last question. Did you have an imaginary friend as a child? Do you think he’ll buy your book?

HARPER - Er... You will, won't you? ;-D

(Josh nervously looks behind himself)

HARPER - Seriously, one friend? I had a whole family, and if you met my family, you'd know why. I had a troop. They were protective amalgamations of every strong and loving male figure I'd ever come across on TV or in a book, and they marched visibly ahead of, beside and behind me right out of childhood and into the present day. Every story I write creates more of them. Okay, so I'm delusional, but my sales are gonna skyrocket. Reminds me of that Groucho Marx line about how his uncle thought he was a chicken, and his aunt didn't mind because she needed the eggs.

Very fine questions, Mr Lanyon, and about as surreal as I'd expect of you. Thank you very much!

JOSH - I think your sales are going to skyrocket too, frankly. But I’m biased. I admit it. Thanks for playing along, Harper. And best of luck with the new release. And a big danka darlink to my dear pal, Sweetbea (who has also graciously put up with one heck of a lot of bullying and badgering from me) who is even now swilling exotic drinks as she paddles up the white rafters of the Congo. Or something like that

**Please remember to leave a welcoming comment for Harper--and be entered to win either a copy of Harper's upcoming Carina Press release Life After Joe or Josh Lanyon's upcoming Loose-id release A Vintage Affair.

While I'm Away & Book Give Away

You may not remember this, but back when I actually blogged about books that weren't my own, Josh Lanyon was my very first interview. In honor of...something... my being in another country and without email, no doubt... Josh is popping by to introduce a brand new friend to Nose In A Book. Her name is Harper Fox and she's a fresh new addition to the m/m writing scene.

**Contest Information-While I'm Away

Leave a comment welcoming Harper (starting 6/7) and on June 15th, 2010, 10 pm EST, Random Number Generator will choose one winner each for :

• A Vintage Affair by Josh Lanyon --Loose-id
• Life After Joe by Harper Fox --Carina Press.

See you soon,

LB

Me likey.

Bloomin'

So much work to do before I leave town--and yet I keep staring at the clematis blooming riotously by the pool. It's cheerful and hearty and reminds me that all the hard work we do eventually pays off--because that son-of-bitch gave us real trouble for about three years. Sickly, spindly--look at it now.

(ignore the weeds--we just yanked those)

Go team!

Have a great day.

L

News!

Congrats KT Grant on her first book release!

Yayyayayayay!

Love Struck

Here's the wee blurb:

CEO hotel mogul Barbara Jennings has three months to decide whether to close her Manhattan hotel or cut costs by firing some of her employees. She meets her much-younger employee, Jennifer Caffey and is instantly smitten. Now Barbara has another mission, and that is to seduce the innocent Jenny.

Jenny is also attracted to the powerful and beautiful Barbara, but has never really had a steamy love affair with another woman. Unwittingly, she allows herself to be swept away by her passion for this older woman who may ruin her life.

Check it out! F/F


KT also has a story in this antho! Busy busy girl...