If you're looking for the HAHABT, click here
Author Names: Raine O’Tierney, L.J.
LaBarthe, Cate Ashwood
Book Names: All That Shimmers (Raine),
Swimming With Elephants (L.J.), Red Runs Through (Cate)
Release
Dates: May 6, May 13, and May 20
Blurb(s):
Piece Us Back Together:
Life can seem bleak for people suffering devastating injuries
or illnesses of the mind and body, and every day can be a struggle. But
sometimes, when hope seems in short supply, they find a reason to keep up the
fight. The men in these stories face some of the most difficult challenges
imaginable, but fortunately they won’t be facing them alone, because when
everything seems darkest, a point of light appears. With compassion,
understanding, and love, these hurt souls have a chance to piece the broken
parts of their lives and themselves into something strong and beautiful. Love
might even be able to mend the most serious wounds of all—those of the heart.
All That Shimmers by
Raine O’Tierney
Beau Bell is a former Olympic hopeful, left paralyzed from
the waist down after a car accident. He has every reason in the world to be
pissed off and miserable, yet he’s training for the Paralympics Men's 100m—S6
division. The chair? Just a part of who he is now. Beau's attitude is golden.
If only he could contend with this one little issue: errant erections and no
way to relieve them!
Nikša Meríc is a lonely scientist and really bad poet living
underneath the old building where he does his research. Every night he watches
his neighbor through his basement window as he undresses in his wheelchair.
Although there is no apparent reason for Nikša to be unhappy, he’s struggled
with depression his whole life and has tried to kill himself on multiple
occasions.
When Beau proposes that his “voyeur” come over and help him
experiment with the erections he can’t actually feel, the relationship they
build is a sexual one. But the relationship they need is one that will heal
each other’s heart as well.
Available May 6th, 2015
Swimming With Elephants
by L.J. LaBarthe
After suffering a torn rotator cuff in his left shoulder,
Garrett believes his life is over. Depressed, bereft, in pain, and unable to
return to the career he loves as an arborist, he sees no hope or future for
himself. But a trip to Havelock Island in India turns his world upside down. He
meets Jai, an Indian nurse, and becomes smitten with him. Near the end of his
trip, while swimming with an elephant, he tells Jai how he feels.
After Garrett returns to Australia, he wonders if he can ever
be healed of all his pain—physical, emotional, and mental—and fears that love
and romance will never be his again. But then Jai turns up in Perth and brings
with him astonishing news.
Available May 13th, 2015
Red Runs Through by
Cate Ashwood
Carter McClintock’s life is uncomplicated. For the past five
years, he’s spent so much time in hospital scrubs that one day bleeds into the
next, and that’s just the way he likes it. That is, until he meets Matthew
Nolan. Carter has never had a patient affect him the way Matthew does. During
Matthew’s stay in the hospital, the chemistry is unmistakable, and once he is discharged,
Carter asks him out.
Despite the obvious attraction between them, Matthew’s HIV
status keeps him from handing Carter his heart, refusing to believe anyone
could ever truly want him. When Matthew’s past comes to light, their budding
relationship is threatened before it has even begun. But Carter isn’t one to
give up without a fight and he will do anything to show Matthew the lengths he
will go to keep them together.
Pages or Words: Varies by book
Categories: Contemporary, Fiction, Gay
Fiction, M/M Romance, Romance
Excerpt:
(Attached to the mail)
Sales Links:
Piece Us Back Together Anthology:
All That Shimmers:
Swimming With Elephants:
Red Runs Through:
About the authors:
Raine O’Tierney
Raine O'Tierney lives outside of Kansas City with her
husband, fellow Dreamspinner Press author, Siôn O'Tierney. When she's not
writing, she's either asleep, or fighting the good fight for intellectual
freedom at her library day job. Raine believes the best thing we can do in life
is be kind to one another, and she enjoys encouraging fellow writers! Writing
for 20+ years (with the last 10 spent on M/M) Raine changes sub-genres to suit
her mood and believes all good stories end sweetly. Contact her if you're
interested in talking about point-and-click adventure games or about which
dachshunds are the best kinds of dachshunds!
L.J.
LaBarthe
L.J. LaBarthe is a French-Australian woman, who was
born during the Witching Hour, just after midnight. From this auspicious
beginning, she went on to write a prize-winning short story about Humpty Dumpty
wearing an Aussie hat complete with corks dangling from it when she was six
years old. From there, she wrote for her high school yearbook, her university
newspaper, and, from her early teens to her twenties, produced a fanzine about
the local punk rock music scene. She loves music of all kinds and was once a
classical pianist; she loves languages and speaks French and English and a
teeny-tiny smattering of Mandarin Chinese, which she hopes to relearn properly
very soon. She enjoys TV, film, travel, cooking, eating out, abandoned places,
urbex, history, and researching.
L.J. loves to read complicated plots and hopes to do
complex plot lines justice in her own writing. She writes paranormal,
historical, urban fantasy, and contemporary Australian stories, usually m/m
romance and featuring m/m erotica. She has won a Rainbow Awards Honorable
Mention and another award for Best Historical Gay Novel.
L.J. lives in the city of Adelaide, and is owned by
her cat.
Cate Ashwood
Cate Ashwood wrote her very first story in a hot-pink
binder when she was in the second grade and found her passion for writing. Her
first successful foray into romance writing came five years later when she
wrote her best friend, who was experiencing a case of unrequited love, her own
happily ever after.
Cate’s life has taken a number of different and
adventurous roads. She now lives a stone’s throw from the ocean, just outside
of Vancouver, British Columbia with her husband, her brand new little boy, and
her two cats. Her life is filled with family and friends, travel, and, of
course, books.
Goodreads
Link:
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Cover
Artist: Paul Richmond
Tour Dates & Stops:
6-May
7-May
13-May
14-May
20-May
21-May
Rafflecopter
Prize: One e-copy of each book in the anthology (to one winner)
Rafflecopter
Code:
And now for the interview!
Cate:
How
do you come up with the titles to your books?
I am absolutely terrible at titles! I've even forced
LJ to name my books for me before. I spent an obscene amount of time tonight
trying to come up with a title for the first book in my new series, and I'm
still drawing a blank. I got lucky with Red Runs Through. It actually came from
a snippet of a line of a song and I thought it fit perfectly. The story
revolves around Carter, who does blood tests on Matthew, and Matthew, who has
HIV, but ultimately, it's about heart, so Red Runs Through. :)
Say
your publisher has offered to fly you anywhere in the world to do research on
an upcoming book, where would you most likely want to go?
Oh, God, wouldn't that be amazing? Right now, the
book I'm working on takes place in Vancouver, which is very close to where I live,
so that wouldn't do. I'm also working on another collaboration with LJ, this
one taking place in Adelaide, Australia, where she lives. I'd LOVE to visit her
there! She's shown me photos and it looks gorgeous.
Really, though, there are so many places on my
travel list. I'd love to visit the places I wrote about in Thirty Things. I was
only able to see them through Google Maps a lot of the time, so it would be
amazing to actually follow the road trip Nate and Finn took. I'd love to go
back to France and England and Ireland as well. I think that there are very few
places on this planet that I wouldn't want to see.
What
is a talent you wish you had, but don't?
The art of avoiding procrastination. Seriously. I
think I spend half my day doing things that aren't necessary at all.
L.J.:
Tell
us something about your newest release that is NOT in the blurb.
There is a term that I've heard used quite often in
my own life situation, and it is "invisible disability." That is, a
disability that is a definite impairment but isn't immediately obvious. This
long-novella is about one of these sorts of disabilities. I have intimate
experience with how people treat you when they discover that no, you're not
doing X, Y or Z because you're a killjoy, you're not doing it because you
physically canNOT, and it ranges between accepting and kind to insulting and
depressing.
Dealing with that on top of the disability is very frustrating.
This story features one of these "invisible disabilities" and how
people react to it or treat the character who has it, as well as him finding
love and acceptance not just with a wonderful man but in himself. That latter
is particularly important, I think, because being at peace with yourself isn't
an easy thing.
What
is your most embarrassing moment?
I find this funny now, but at the time, I was
mortified. It makes a great story, though! When I was 14, I was a huge fan of
the band The Damned. They were playing a show in Adelaide (my home city, the
capital city of the state of South Australia), so my mum rang up the club and
asked if we could go in early and get a poster. The club said yes, so we did.
When we got there, mum asked if we could go upstairs and look at the club, and
they said sure. It was closed at the time, doors opened for the show at 10pm.
So we went upstairs and lo and behold, who was there? The Damned.
I promptly forgot how to speak, and mum did all the
talking. The band gave me their autographs and mum happily told them they
were lucky not to go swimming that day as someone got attacked by a
shark. Then we left the club and I staggered around the corner in this fit of
fangirl ZOMG!ness, and promptly walked smack into a tree.
My mortification was extreme because right behind
us, having decided to go and get some dinner, were The Damned. So I met the
band, got their autographs, listened to mum tell them about shark attacks and
then I walked into a tree. Good times, good times!
When
writing descriptions of your hero/ine, what feature do you start with?
Eyes. Personally, I'm an eye person. Eye colour is
really remarkable—there's such a depth and complexity to it, no one has single
colour eyes, they're a combination. For instance, brown eyes are a mixture of
shades of brown, blue eyes are as well. So it's always the eyes have it first.
