• Good Morning Monday ~ Upside Down is OUT NOW!!

    Yes, Upside Down has been released, and I’m SO thrilled with the reactions and the feedback I’ve received. Jordan and Hennessy have connected with a lot of readers, and that makes my little ace heart so very happy!!  On release day, Upside Down reached #1 in six countries, #2 in two other countries, and #3 in another!

    I’ve had private messages and emails from a lot of folks who just wanted to reach out and say thank you, and for a writer that’s an amazing compliment. I’m very honoured to be able to be able to do this, and to know I connect with people through words is pretty freaking awesome. So thank YOU, the readers, who make it all possible.

    Okay, enough with the sappiness!

    Here’s the details:

    Universal Amazon Link

    Blurb:

    Jordan O’Neill isn’t a fan of labels, considering he has a few. Gay, geek, librarian, socially awkward, a nervous rambler, an introvert, an outsider. The last thing he needs is one more. But when he realises adding the label asexual might explain a lot, it turns his world upside down.
    Hennessy Lang moved to Surry Hills after splitting with his boyfriend. His being asexual had seen the end of a lot of his romances, but he’s determined to stay true to himself. Leaving his North Shore support group behind, he starts his own in Surry Hills, where he meets first-time-attendee Jordan.
    A little bewildered and scared, but completely adorable, Hennessy is struck by this guy who’s trying to find where he belongs. Maybe Hennessy can convince Jordan that his world hasn’t been turned upside down at all, but maybe it’s now—for the first time in his life—the right way up.


    Quick WIP update:

    It was a slow writing week last week (release weeks usually are) but it’s currently at 50K words and I would really LOVE to finish it this week. I’m not sure that’s likely, given there’s probably 15K to go, but I’m running out of time. I have my editors deadline, but also my kids will be on school holidays in two weeks and having people in my writing space kills my mojo.

    The story itself is angsty and about overcoming demons and finding your own strength. It’s a little different to my usual style (I think, anyway) but it’s friends to lovers, and fighting to be together, but they need to fix themselves apart first. It’s also a hot mess right now and I need to pull all the threads together to make it worth anything LOL.

    I will be doing a cover reveal in the next few weeks so stay tuned for that!

    Okies, that’s all for today! Until next week! <3

  • Good Morning Monday! An Upside Down Excerpt!

    It’s almost release day for Upside Down!!  So to celebrate, and to help get you excited, here’s an excerpt!  This is Jordan’s POV – he’s a rambler, and he’s funny 🙂

    I can’t wait for you all to meet them, and release day just might coincide with my birthday this week !

    I didn’t even notice that the room had cleared out. Merry had pulled up a chair at my side, but Hennessy sat with his knees between mine, holding my hand while I cried.
    I fucking cried.
    Through my stupid, traitorous tears, I caught the end of a silent conversation between Merry and him, my Headphones Guy.
    Hennessy.
    And then Merry rubbed my back before she walked out, and Hennessy squeezed my hand. “She’s just gone to get you a drink of water,” he said gently.
    “I don’t know why I’m crying,” I said, wiping my face with my free hand.
    “Because it can be overwhelming,” he said. His voice was calm and soft. “Because it can be life-affirming and scary as hell, all at the same time.”
    I nodded. “I don’t want another label, you know? Because I have enough. I have more than enough. Too many, probably, you know for a geeky book-nerd gay man with so many levels of social awkwardness Freud would need an elevator, but the labels fit. And I hate that they fit. Everything that was said here tonight was like it was said for me, like I was saying those things. I didn’t want this to happen,” I said, shaking my head, fighting more tears. “I wanted to come here and, well, that’s not exactly true. I didn’t want to come here at all; it was Merry’s idea. She suggested that I look into what being asexual meant. After my 683rd failed attempt at a relationship, she thought maybe I should see if I ticked any boxes on the ‘How To See If You Could Be Asexual’ questionnaire on Teen Vogue, and after I realised that I could almost tick all the boxes, I decided I didn’t want or need another label. So then I had to come here tonight to shut her up. I was going to prove her wrong and then I could go on living my best life being not asexual but just a gay man who didn’t actually want to have sex. A socially awkward, geeky book-nerd gay man,” I amended through more tears, “who doesn’t actually want to have sex. I’m sorry for crying. I wasn’t expecting the emotional dump, but I wasn’t expecting to feel so… lost and found. Like I once was lost but now I’m found, kind of like the song, which is cheesy as fuck and I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I just didn’t realise how hard I’d been trying to fit in with the real world, trying to be normal, when my normal was here all along. Because I really am asexual and it hit me like a metric fuckton of bricks that there’s actually nothing wrong with me.”
    And then there were more tears.
    “Because that’s my truth, even if I thought there was something wrong with me, and fuck knows I’ve been told there was, many times,” I said, wiping my face. “But there’s not. I’m asexual, and that’s my motherfucking truth whether I like it or not.”
    Hennessy smiled at me. With his perfect lips and perfect teeth, his pretty blue eyes, and three-day scruff. He looked so different without his headphones, like seeing someone who normally wears glasses without them. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said, still smiling, still holding my hand.
    “I’m sorry, were you not here for the geeky book-nerd gay man with so many levels of social awkwardness Freud would need an elevator conversation?”
    He laughed at that. “I believe I was, yeah.”
    “Sorry about that. I tend to babble a lot when I’m nervous. And swear. Well, I say fuck a lot even when I’m not nervous. I don’t have Tourette’s or anything, I just like the word fuck. The noun and adverb, even the adjective, not the verb obviously because I’m asexual. Apparently. So there is definitely no actioning of the word.”
    Hennessy chuckled. “No actioning of the word, got it.” He still had a hold of my hand, and I liked it. As in, really liked it. My Headphones Guy was holding my hand, and he was smiling at me, in what I think was not in a bad way. I mean, his smile was kind and his eyes were smiling too, if that was even possible. I mean, no it wasn’t possible—eyes could not physically smile, I got that—but damn, they sure looked happy.
    “How are you feeling now?” he asked.
    “A little weirded out,” I answered. “Not gonna lie. I didn’t want to admit the asexual thing to myself for a long time, and I’m thinking it will take some getting used to. Like breaking in a pair of Doc Martens, ya know? Like they’re uncomfortable and tight and basically kill your feet until they’re the most comfortable shoes you’ll ever wear. They become like a second skin, and I’m pretty sure this whole asexual thing will be like that.”
    He made a thoughtful face. “I like that analogy.”
    “And it’s even weirder, because you’re my Headphones Guy and I had no idea you’d be here, but here you are and now you’re holding my hand and I cried in front of you, which is not how I wanted our first meeting to go. Believe me. I had visions of it involving me not being so… well, so me. And doing all the talking, because I tend to talk a lot when I’m nervous, which I think I’ve said already—”
    “I’m your Headphones Guy?”
    Oh fucking fuckity motherfucker. “I said that out loud, didn’t I? To your perfect face, and what kind of perfect name is Hennessy, by the way? Because—”
    A loud peal of laughter broke through the door when a couple, a guy and girl, stumbled into the backroom, their arms around each other, obviously intoxicated and handsy and half kissing, half laughing, until they realised the room wasn’t empty.
    I shot to my feet and pulled my hand away from Hennessy’s.
    “Oh, sorry guys,” the girl said.
    “Didn’t mean to interrupt,” the guy said. He took his hand off her arse to wave it. “Keep doing what you’re doing. We don’t mind. We thought this room was empty.”
    “We weren’t doing anything,” I said quickly.
    “Excuse me,” Merry said, sliding in around the drunk couple. She held three bottles of water. “Sorry, it took forever to get served. They’re really busy.”
    I’d never been happier to see her. “Oh, thank God.” I grabbed her arm and turned her back toward the door. “We need to leave. I called him my Headphones Guy to his perfect fucking face.”
    Merry shot Hennessy a look and held out a bottle of water for him. He took it, still smiling, though somewhat confused. Then Merry looked up at me as I dragged her to the door. “To his face?”
    “What was I supposed to do? You left me unsupervised!” I stopped at the couple who were still standing in the doorway, and only just then I realised what the guy had meant when he said they thought the room was empty… “Oh praise baby motherfucking Jesus, I hope you have antibacterial wipes.”
    Now Merry was hauling me out through the crowded pub. I yelled back at the couple, hoping they’d hear, “At least wipe it down afterwards, we have meetings in there!”
    We burst through the crowd onto the street and Merry looked up at me and sighed. “What else did you say?”
    “What didn’t I say?” I answered. “I was a mess, crying all over him because of the whole asexual thing, thank you very much. Then I was nervous and we both know how well that ends. And I think I might have told him that he was my Headphones Guy, that he had a perfect face and a perfect name, because who the fuck calls their kid Hennessy, and now he thinks I’m a raving lunatic because you. Left. Me. Un. Supervised.”
    Merry cracked her bottle of water, took a long drink, sighed, then hooked her arm around my elbow. “He really is very good looking,” she said as we began the walk back to my flat. “I can see why you’ve been crushing on him forever.”
    I took a swig of my water. “Fucking hell, I wish this was wine. Where is Jesus when you need him?”

    There are no pre-order links, the book will go live on the 21st.

    Much love and peace <3

  • Good Morning Monday! And some info on Upside Down

    I wrote this post for Love Bytes Reviews  and I wanted to share it with you as well, because it’s important to me, and I’m too lazy to type out another post that’s basically the same as this one LOL


    My next release, Upside Down, is the story of two asexual men who are trying to navigate their way through life in a very sexualised world. Everywhere we look, on TV, in books, movies, music videos, YouTube, Instagram (the list is endless) sex is front and centre. We’re told sex sells. And it does.

    But not for everyone.

    The over-sexualised world we live in has been normalised to the point where asexuality is considered ‘abnormal’. I’m here to tell you that asexuality is not abnormal. It’s just not common.

    It’s estimated that Asexuality accounts for approximately 1% of the general population, which isn’t a lot in the scheme of things. But those 1% of people are still important, are still valid, and still need to be respected.

    This story hit home for me. It’s something I’ve been struggling with, and trying to get my head around. I’ve been at odds with myself over this for years but it wasn’t until I began reading into what asexuality means that I began to see myself for what I am. And here’s my truth: I am somewhere on the asexual spectrum. I lean more toward the grey (like my hair LOL) and I realised there’s more me in Jordan (a main character in Upside Down) than I probably realised before I started writing.

    Guys, I didn’t know how much I needed to write this book.

    Will everyone love it? Probably not. There is NO sex in this book. And I know some readers won’t even consider reading it because of that fact. And that’s fine. It’s totally their call.

    All I ask is that readers remain respectful. If reviews start to come in saying “OMG there is no sex in this story, why did I bother!!” then they’ve missed the point of the story, they’ve missed the message, and to me, that means I’ve failed as a writer.

    Only time will tell.

    So there it is. I said it. This book is my story. Much like Henry in the Weight of It All was my weight/fitness story, Jordan is my asexuality story.

    This book is not a gospel, or a guide, or a check list to tick off. Everyone’s story is different. I just hope to give some other asexuals a voice, and some characters to identify with.

    Upside Down will be out later this month. There will be no preorders, and it will be in KU for the first three months. If you’d like to keep updated, follow me on Amazon, and you’ll be notified when each new book is released!

    Blurb:

    Jordan O’Neill isn’t a fan of labels, considering he has a few. Gay, geek, a librarian, socially awkward, a nervous rambler, an introvert, an outsider. The last thing he needs is one more. But when he realises adding the label asexual might explain a lot, it turns his world upside down.

    Hennessy Lang moved to Surry Hills after splitting with his boyfriend. His being asexual had seen the end of a lot of his romances, but he’s determined to stay true to himself. Leaving his North Shore support group behind, he starts his own in Surry Hills, where he meets first-time-attendee Jordan.

    A little bewildered and scared but completely adorable, Hennessy is struck by this guy who’s trying to find where he belongs. Maybe Hennessy can convince Jordan that his world hasn’t been turned upside down at all, but maybe it’s now—for the first time in his life—the right way up.

     


    A quick WIP update: Currently at 32K words. Being away and not writing for 2 weeks slowed me down but I’m back to writing this week and will try for ALL the words!

    Okay folks, that’s it for today. Until next week…

  • Good Morning Monday! Travelling All Over The County and Book Signings

    It’s been a hectic two weeks – I’ve travelled a few thousand kilometres, taking some friends from the US to see three different states and attended two book signings, one in Sydney, one in Brisbane.

    I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’d only ever done signings overseas at LGBTQIA+ events, and I’d never had books for sale. I’d only ever done pre-orders and never sold books over the table (for tax reasons being in a foreign country) so I was clueless as to how Australian book signings would go.

    The signing in Sydney was predominately male/female romance, so I wasn’t expecting to be overly busy. I’d had a decent amount of preorders and had some great interest in over the table sales. It was great to be present in an Australian signing, and to represent the LGBTQIA+ genre. I write Australian LGBTQIA+ romance so it means a lot to me to be present.

    This was my table at the Sydney event, Books By The Bridge.

     

    The Brisbane signing had more LGBTQIA+ authors present, and a lot of amazing readers. I had a great preorder list and sold almost ALL the books I’d bought with me to sell on the day. It was busy from the opening minute, and I had an amazing time!

    Here’s a pic of my table at the Brisbane event, Book Marked and Sexy.

    I’d really like to thank everyone who attended these events and made it such a special experience for me! I’m really hoping to make it to more Australian signings in the future and being more present to represent my genre.  <3


    I’ve taken some books out of KU and they’re now at all retailers:

    You can find these books at the following profiles:

    B&N
    iBooks
    Kobo
    Smashwords
    Imago and Imagines, The Weight of It All, and Switched will be available at these sites for a short time only!


    I’m still travelling but will be home this week. I’m behind on my schedule (I haven’t written a word in 2 weeks!) so I’ll be busy trying to get back on track. Upside Down is still scheduled for the 28th March and I’ve been trying to get that proofed in between airports and tours and sight-seeing.  My WIP has been sorely neglected and I intend to remedy that this week! I need to write ALL the words.

    Okay, that’s all I have time for this week! I should be back to regular posting next week!

    Until then…

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