Lou Sylvre's Blog - Posts Tagged "m-m-romance"

Verena's luck was strong the day of the Loving Luki Vasquez giveaway at Cup-o-Porn, and she got that free copy of the ebook. Congratulations, Verena, and thank you for entering.

A goodly number of people entered the Friday Free for All giveaway last week, but sadly there could be only one winner. So here's a chance to try again, or to try for the first time.

All you have to do is lie. What could be simpler? Fiction writers do it everyday. (Okay, if you must, you may tell the truth.) Here's the specs: in 35 words or less

If you entered the contest on Cup-o-Porn, give me the down and dirty on why you should have been the winner.

If you didn't enter the contest on CoP, tell me why you wanted to but didn't.

Simple, right? As usual, you may enter with a comment here, or on my Wordpress blog or email me at lou(dot)sylvre(at)sylvre(dot)com. (Your email entry will be shown here.)

I'll run the contest for a week, then I'll choose the winner in a completely subjective fashion.

So lie to me, okay? Please.
Oh, and if you already have an ebook of Loving Luki Vasquez and want to lie just for fun, please do.

Hi everybody. I posted this excerpt today over at Love Romances Cafe, and at first I thought I'd just post the link to that forum. But then I thought, geez. Why not make it easier? I'll post some other excerpts—and I'll be posting dates and links for upcoming chats which will include giveaways and such. But for now, here's the prologue, setting the stage for Delsyn's Blues, Vasquez & James book 2. (Here's the buy link at Dreamspinner Press.)

DELSYN played the blues, played his frustration and grief away with old songs, heart songs, songs that did the crying for him and let him laugh. Mostly, anyway.

It was hard, and it didn’t get easier. The summer before, he’d nearly died; he’d been long unconscious, and his brain had almost starved for oxygen—lacking the blood that was instead filling the spaces in his joints. He’d surprised everyone but his uncle Sonny James when, despite everything, he lived. Perhaps he’d surprised even Sonny when his brain recovered, worked amost like normal. But his joints hadn’t been so forgiving, and every bend of knee or ankle, every bit of
weight to bear meant pain, sometimes as hot and swift as lightning.

He’d just turned eighteen. This wasn’t the way the world was supposed to work.

Del’s world had narrowed down mostly to Sonny’s acres, a beautiful place that he’d known all his life, but even there he couldn’t go wherever he wanted. A wheelchair is useless over rough, soft ground, and crutches worse, dangerous even. He loved this place and hated it for the trap that it had become. His music—his guitar and his mercifully spared hands—helped. Sonny did what he could: drove him up the coast to Neah Bay, into Port Angeles for a movie, into Port
Clifton—the nearest town—for Frappuccino at Margie’s. A couple of times, Luki Vasquez—the man his uncle loved—had carried him on his back as easily as if he’d been a child, took him down to the beach, and helped him wade through the low waves at the edge of the Juan de Fuca
Strait.

But he hadn’t once been in the forest, Sonny’s forest, the woods he’d grown up in—and that mattered. One night he’d felt particularly lost and frustrated, and after saying goodnight to Sonny and Luki, he’d left the house by the back door and made halting, unsteady progress on his crutches to the line of trees that guarded the thick forest beyond. The smells, cedar and dust and new-formed frost, were memory and real all at once, and Delsyn desperately wanted to be in there with the trees and insects, just breathing the same air. So, placing the crutches carefully where they didn’t sink, following one weak leg at a time, Delsyn went in.

He only made it a few steps before he needed to rest, so he propped his crutches against a familiar stump, a gigantic memory of the old-growth forest that once lived there, still rotting into red dust a century after it had been cut. He settled himself down carefully into its folds, glad he couldn’t see the bugs that were certainly feasting off the soft pulp even at this time of night. By shifting from foot to foot, he could rest his legs, and then he’d leave. But he was glad he’d come. For once, he’d go to sleep with sweet, forest-scented dreams.

He heard a scrabbling at his feet—probably a vole or a shrew, but he wanted to know just what it was that made the sound. “Light,” he mumbled. “I need a little light.” He always had his phone with him even though it was useless for making calls around Sonny’s place, where no signal could snake past the giant barrier of the Olympic Mountains. He used it to play games. He took pictures. He recorded his own music, the blues he loved to play. He planned to add the SD card
to the tapes he’d made on an old cassette deck and give them to Sonny for his birthday in May, if he could wait that long. But for now he thought the phone could help him. He slid his thumb over the screen to light it up but soon realized the glow wasn’t enough to see the ground, and he knew he couldn’t bend down close if he wanted to be able to get back up. “Bummer,” he said and was about to slip the phone back into his pocket when he heard voices.

A man’s voice, rough and hard. “You’re an idiot! A fool, and if I’d known that before I got involved in your little retirement venture, I would have stayed miles away. Those twins are devious, worse because they’re stupid, too, and everyone in the life knows that—even their own
daddy. You managed to pull them in, as lame as you are; that should have told you something.”

“I’m not sure it was them—”

“What an ass! They practically advertised location. They’re the reason we had to move the samples.”

“And you’re the one who brought ’em here. Not the brightest, in my opinion.”

Del caught the sarcasm in the words, could imagine the man’s gesture encompassing Sonny’s land: “Here.”

“I know this place,” the first man said—a voice Delsyn didn’t recognize. “No one will look here. All we need is a little time when the owner—and his latest fuck—are absent, and we can move it again. Arrange it.”

“Fuck you.”

“Don’t even, you bastard. You’re stupid, and thanks to your little minions, nobody’s going to touch this stuff until it cools off. We’ll be lucky to move the goods by spring.”

The men were moving now, Delsyn guessed; their conversation became obscured by a rustle through leaf-trash and brush. Then, suddenly, he realized the voices were getting closer, and all at once he felt very exposed, very crippled, and very scared.

One set of footsteps moved back into the forest, but the other seemed to be looking for an exit, and that one would pass right by Delsyn. If Del had been fully able, if he hadn’t needed the crutches, he could have held still. But he had no faith in his body, and panic sent him stumbling toward the edge of the trees. He wanted to be out before the man caught him.

He might be killed, he thought. He didn’t want to die hidden in the dark.

“Hey!”

Too late. Aching to move legs that wouldn’t cooperate, Del shouted “Uncle Sonny!” But he was so afraid, his voice barely stumbled past the fear in his throat. And he was too far away from the
house. And Sonny and Luki didn’t even know he was out here.

The voice seemed slimy, seemed to ooze up Delsyn’s spine. “Now, Del, take it easy. You know me. You know I’m not going to hurt you. All I need is for you to tell me what you think you heard so I can explain. You probably misunderstood. We wouldn’t want you to get yourself hurt, now would we?”

Delsyn tried to answer, hoping he’d be smart enough to talk his way out of it. But he didn’t because he couldn’t. Ever since last summer, when he got upset—good or bad—his throat and tongue locked up, like he couldn’t get the language in his brain to come out into the world. And then….

A blow—no more than a slap, but Delsyn felt the change. Felt the simple knot that had held his damaged brain together slip free. Not in the dark, he thought, and he pushed forward as he fell. With moonlight in his eyes and shining silver on the coastal fog around him, Delsyn began to die.

Later, he knew he was no longer home, knew they had taken him someplace machines could reach him with their long plastic arms. A place to wait. And while he waited, he heard things.

A doctor said, “… very probably will not wake up.”

Sonny answered, “But he woke up before.”

Sonny spoke to Delsyn, sometimes, discussing and scolding as if they were riding in the Mustang on the way to the store. The nurses came in, usually chattering, one of them sounding young and very sweet. Other patients, still able to cuss out loud. Even Luki singing the blues for him in that scratchy voice when he thought no one else was around. Del wanted to smile. He wanted to touch someone. He wanted to sing, too. Then his brain came apart a little more and he dreamed a little farther down in the darkness where it was far too quiet. He entered a tunnel that led to the other side of that line, that fence between life and death. He felt pretty good about it. He’d done the best he could to say goodbye.

And he thought that, after all, dying might have been his own idea.

The Goodreads M/M Romance Group is having it's annual member "best of" survey, and while I was over there voting I discovered Loving Luki Vasquez is up in three categories: mystery/whodunit, hurt/comfort, and not surprisingly, Reese Dante's beautiful cover is in the running. Of those three I am really touched that the guys were nominated in the hurt/comfort category.

There's tough competition in all the categories. I'd love to have you vote for Luki and Sonny, but wherever you choose to cast your favor, here's the link to the survey.

I'm a little late posting this, which means you might have missed out on a couple of good opportunities to boost your library of M/M romance, but there's still time! Thing is, Dreamspinner Press is having a different sale everyday from now until December 31st, but in order to find out what it is that day you have to go by the on-line store and see for yourself.
Or you can sign up for the newsletter the first time you stop in there, and then you'll get the news about the sales delivered right to you. That's probably easiest.

Climbing over the gunwale, Luki remarked, “Why did you call this a bucket? Looks like a perfectly good boat.”

“Look over the side, back there.” Sonny pointed.

“Melvern’s Bucket,” Luki read. “Oh.”

“So, anyway,” Sonny said. “Off we go to Mack’s Island.”

Luki had already sat down and started to do his routine weapons check. He tended not to be as heavily armed these days as he had been when they first met. But he still had his favorite handgun and two knives, and of course, a supply of ammunition and nylon handcuffs. He was taking stock now, making sure everything was where and how it was supposed to be, a job clearly requiring that a cigarette hang out of his mouth. He puffed at the damn thing without using his hands, which meant he had to keep his eye squinted like Charles Bronson in The Mechanic and his face scrunched up on one side—the side with the scar. Sonny hated that he looked damn sexy that way.

“It’s not fair,” he said.

“What’s not fair?”

That something can look sexy and kill you at the same time. He shook his head to dismiss Luki’s question, didn’t answer at all out loud.
Besides, there were other things he needed to have his mind on now. And he hadn’t forgotten that one reason Luki seemed lightly armed was because he, Sonny, still had his other gun. Sonny didn’t bring the subject up, but he was pretty sure Luki hadn’t forgotten either.
Sonny set the boat in motion, having a fair idea of the coordinates and a fair sense of direction. Not more than fair, out on the water, just like he only had a fair ability to drive the damn boat. Melvern had insisted he learn, but… well, it just wasn’t a car. He couldn’t remember the first time he’d lain across a hood wrenching on a car engine, but as far as activities go, cars had always been what he loved best—aside from weaving and dyes and that sort of thing. And now, aside from Luki. Everything to do with Luki. Including staring at Luki, watching him smoke his lungs dry and play with guns. Disgustingly, Sonny wanted to weave him like that.

“I hate being on the water,” Luki said.

“Yeah?” It didn’t surprise Sonny; he just didn’t know why.

“I’ve had not so good things happen around water, you know?”

“Like getting beat up and cut and generally gay-bashed?”

“Mm-hm.”

“And almost drowning while getting blown up in a river.”

Luki holstered his gun and adjusted the position of the leather accessory, took the cigarette out of his mouth, and looked up at Sonny.

Not smiling. “That too.”

Sonny sighed and stepped over to his lover, letting the Bucket drive itself for a moment. He stood in front of Luki, so close he had to part his legs to either side, which basically parked his sex in Luki’s face. He wished they had more time, but second best would have to do. He buried his hands in Luki’s curls, forcing him to look up. Then he bent low and eased into a kiss, a long, sweet, sucking and sliding one.

After a moment, he regretfully eased off, kissed Luki’s nose on the way by, and stepped back to the wheel. “Very nice,” Luki said, voice huskier than ever. “But there must be an explanation.”

“Now you’ve had something good happen to you on the water. I hope.”

Luki didn’t answer for a moment—which was okay. He absently patted the big red dog, which had been sticking close to Luki since they’d come on board and now leaned into Luki’s legs and stared with him at the gray planks that made up the deck. There was no way to know if either of them saw what they were staring at. After a moment, Luki looked up, chewing his lip, then he let it slip from between his teeth. “You love me, Sonny.”

Sonny nodded.

Luki said, “I love you back.”

I'll be joining, Tj Klune, Elizabeth Noble, Anne Barwell, and Rhys Ford for an all out chat from noon to 6:00 EST (9am to 3pm Pacific time) at
Coffeetime Romance and More. I hear tell we may also have the company of Alan Chin, Helen Patskyn, possibly Jamie Fessenden. and maybe others. We'll answer questions, maybe we'll ask them, we'll post excerpts and maybe pictures, we may even give some things away. Please, please join us.

Keep the drumroll going for just a sec. First, I have to tell you I had one heck of a time with selecting winners at random because neither small children nor Boudreau the cat would help. You see him here checking his email and enjoying my coffee. Pah.

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Finally, I just put all the entries for contest 1 (involving Luki and Sonny's answers to interview questions) in the Xmas paw-stocking belonging to my daughter's cat George, the twin sister of my cat Boudreau.

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And I put all the entries for contest 2 in the paw belonging to Boudreau, then drew them myself.

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Mrs. C. Ellis, who entered on release day, over at the Dreamspinner Press Blog, won parts 1 and 2 of the first contest, and selects the set of both Vasquez and James ebooks. Nikyta won contest 2, and has an ebook version of Delsyn's Blues.

Congrats Mrs. C. Ellis and Nikyta, and thank you to everyone for playing! I like contests, so perhaps keep your eye peeled for other opportunities. Even if I start the contest (or whatever) elsewhere, I try to keep this blog updated.

Clear back on March 2nd, Critter Nymph, of Literary Nymphs, reviewed Delsyn's Blues and gave it the maximum, 5 nymphs. I don't know why I didn't see it before but now that I have, I want to share!
Here's the last line:

"The mystery will hold your attention till the last page and keep you reading late into the night."

To read the rest of what Critter Nymph had to say, here's the link to the review on Literary Nymphs Reviews Only.

I was reading through some of my WIP, Finding Jackie and I ran across these few paragraphs. They made me smile even though it happens at a crucial point in the story. Sonny has insisted that one leg of their extended honeymoon consist of driving to Nebraska in a rented motorhome. (Luki, of course, never says no to Sonny, and it would likely make little difference if he did.) They're stopped and all set up at an RV hookup site, when they get the phone call from Luki's uncle Kaholo: Jackie is missing. Here's a short bit of what immediately follows:

Sonny, of course, had no qualms about driving The Monster really fast. “Here, Luki,” he said, before Luki even hit ‘end call’ after talking with Josh. “You put these away good enough they won’t fly around and break when we turn a corner. I’ll get this old girl all ready and get her fired up.”

Luki obeyed, stashing the glasses, plates, and knives with extra care, not wanting to get Sonny’s scolding, and besides it calmed his mind. While Sonny jumped—literally—out the door to pull plugs and roll hoses, he stacked dishes and tried to line his thoughts up just as neatly. Where to start? How to find Jackie’s trail? One step at a time. That was the only answer he could come up with.

“You done, Luki?” Sonny flung himself into the driver’s seat, and after a quick rattle of the keys and a single crank of the ignition, the diesel engine purred. “Seatbelt, honey. Let’s go.”
Luki jumped into his seat and pulled the belt across his lap as Sonny started The Monster moving, and by the time it was buckled, they’d made the turn onto the highway.

Sonny said, “Hang on.” This worried Luki. By now he was quite used to Sonny’s driving which often seemed wild, but rarely was, because he knew just what he was doing. The vehicle might spin, slide, or skid, but Sonny had control. It was crazy and it made Luki’s stomach do flips, but it didn’t really scare him—it kind of turned him on. But Sonny didn’t usually say, “hang on.” Luki wondered if perhaps he should have used the bathroom while he could.

His knuckles stayed white for the next half hour, until he acclimated himself to the faint squeal of tires, almost rhythmic on the winding road, the whoosh of cars and trucks as The Monster pushed past them, the rising pitch of the engine’s whine as they picked up speed on every downhill. Finally, he started to believe he was safe in Sonny’s hands even in the oversized vehicle, and he started to believe he would make it through without smoking, and he let hands relax in his lap.

“Sonny,” he said. “First, I love you. Also, I think this is going to be a hard thing for me to work out—finding Jackie.”