Turning Point
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Good Morning Monday! What’s new this week?
Well, the release of Spencer Cohen Book Three came and went, and I’d love to thank everyone who has read and reviewed! The responses and reviews have been lovely, and it makes my heart happy to know people love Spencer and Andrew as much as me. And a huge thanks to everyone who posted, shared, tweeted, liked, loved, commented on all forms of social media.
These boys got to #1 in SEVEN countries (US, UK, Germany, France, Brazil, Canada and Australia) !! And that is an incredible achievement, and proof that I do have the best readers in the world! I wouldn’t be able to do what I love, if it weren’t for you! And there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t appreciate you! <3
Like I’ve done with the first two books, I’ve created a soundtrack on Spotify for Spencer Cohen Book Three. You can find it HERE.
So, in other news for this week, I’m due to have the rights of Starting Point returned to me tomorrow!! At the moment, it is only Starting Point that returns to me, and my other titles with Totally Bound/Pride Publishing will stay with them for the duration of their contracts (approximately two years).
I’m also SUPER excited to announce I’ve engaged Reese Dante to redo the covers. Reese did the very original cover for Point of No Return (back in the old Silver Publishing days) which was my all-time favourite for that book, and given this series has had three covers already, I wanted to get back to the original theme. And what better way to accomplish that than to ask the cover artist who did the original art work. I can not wait to share the new cover to Starting Point with you all!! I’m sure you guys are gonna LOVE it!! <3
I finally managed to wrangle the first draft of Blood & Milk, and now I just need to fix it. Like really fix it. LOL It’s a hellamess, but I’m so excited and relieved to finally give these boys the ending they deserve. It finished at 85,000 words. Not sure where that will end up – I’d imagine I’ll need to add and delete quite a bit. I’m still on schedule for a June 23rd release.
I hope everyone has had a fabulous week! Can you believe we’re already at the end of April?? This year is just flying! Stay tuned for the cover reveals of Starting Point and Blood & Milk, AND some rather exciting audio news!!! 🙂
Until next week… <3
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Good Morning Monday!
My second Good Morning Monday post in a row! Look at me go! LOL
So, this last week as been fairly productive. My word count on Spencer 3 is now at 38K, and I’m thinking there will be approx 10K to go. I have also done first round edits on Spencer 2, tweaked a few things in Spencer 1 before getting ARCs ready and formatting. I’ve also pre-read, proof-read and read for fun! 🙂
I also have some more info on my 2016 writing/release schedule. Please bear in mind this can, and probably will, change. Sometimes things outside our realm of control happen, and sometimes other characters decide their story will be told before someone else’s. But as of today, 2016 looks like this:
Spencer Cohen, Book One – Feb 18th
Spencer Cohen, Book Two – March 17th
Spencer Cohen, Book Three – April 21st
Romance/angst book with Maasai warrior/white Aussie guy – possibly June/July
Romance book with overweight guy/personal trainer guy – possibly Aug/Sept
Romance/angst book of two guys switched at birth – possibly Nov
And I might also do a short follow up to Ten in the Bin as well at some point.Please note I’ve not given any tentative titles to books after my Spencer Cohen Series. I will share the actual titles when I have them, and when/if the actual books are written. I once mentioned the title of a book I wanted to write, and the next day it was on Goodreads. And they wouldn’t remove it. I tried explaining the book hadn’t even been written, but alas, they still wouldn’t take it down. *sigh* Ah, good ol’ Goodreads. Never fails to dismay. LOL But all jokes aside, I now don’t give titles unless they’re the final thing. Not even working titles, not tentative titles.
Oh, and the above schedule doesn’t include translations – I will be having six translated titles this year, I believe. Red Dirt Heart 1 into French, Red Dirt Heart 1 &2 into Italian, and my Cronin’s Key series into French also.
In other news, I will have the rights to Starting Point return to me in April. This will be re-released with a new cover probably early May. The rest of the Turning Point Series will stay with Pride Publishing until mid to late next year 🙂
Speaking of Pride Publishing, my friend S.A. McAuley has the last book of her series out tomorrow!!! If you’ve not read the Border’s War Series, you must grab it now! It’s a M/M futuristic/apocalyptic thriller/romance. You can get the first book for FREE, and the second book for just .99c. I can’t rave about these books enough: the characters, the political complexities, the plot…. THE PLOT, PEOPLE! There is so much plot! LOL I just love Merq and Armise.
You can grab them from Pride Publishing HERE
Until next week… <3
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New Reviews of Turning Point Series
Thank you to Prism Book Alliance who reviewed the Turning Point series.
5* for Point of No Return….”In Kira, Matt finally finds a reason to come out of hiding. Add in a little mystery, some good friends, and some seriously kick ass fight sequences, you have a fun read.”
5* for Breaking Point ….”Breaking Point is heartbreaking. It is violent. It is a struggle to read. That struggle stems from how much I love these two main characters. I want them to have that happy ending. However, they have to work hard for it. They have to examine themselves and their relationship. What they see isn’t always pretty, and they have to deal with that, together and as individuals.”
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Nine New Covers Reveals!!
I have LOTS of new covers to show off! Nine to be exact!!
I made the decision for my books currently listed with Totally Bound to stay with them, instead of me self-publishing them. Totally Bound is rebranding their LGBTQ section to now fall under Pride Publishing, and to celebrate the launch of this new press, they’re revamping existing titles.
Not only do my books get new covers, but I’ve also added some additional content to them! (NOTE: My Turning Point Series will NOT include additional content, but Elements of Retrofit, Clarity of Lines, Sense of Place, Three’s Company, and Taxes and TARDIS will.) And they will be re-released throughout August, available in ebook and paperback at the same time (apparently).
This new content is generally added to the end of the book, not integrated throughout. So, in my Thomas Elkin Series, we have approximately 2000 words at the end of each book added, and finally Cooper gets to have his say! That’s right, each book has a small chapter of Cooper POV. 🙂
Three’s Company has both a prologue and an epilogue. The short prologue (1500 words) is told from Simon’s POV, and the epilogue (3300 words) is back to Wil’s POV. 🙂
Taxes and TARDIS now has a gorgeous little epilogue (2000 words), which was probably my favourite additional content to write. I think everyone will agree when they read it. 🙂
The Turning Point Series doesn’t include any additional content. In my heart, these stories are complete. The three books have a combined word count of 220,000, and trying to add more to Matt and Kira’s story felt forced and wrong. I struggled with what to do for four weeks before I finally decided not to do those boys an injustice by adding content that would detract from their story.
From my understanding, anyone who purchased my titles originally from Totally Bound will be able to download the updated books for free.
So, without further adieu, the covers…
I also received my cover for the Italian translation of Blindside! OMG it’s gorgeous! And will be available for purchase on July 7th.
And in other cover news, I have had the lovely Sara York resizing my paperback covers to all now be 5×8, not the 6×9 they were previously and any/all formatting issues will be fixed. Cronin’s Key I & II are already available in 5×8, but I’m awaiting proofs of my RDH series and Blind Faith series before I let them go live. I will advise when this happens, and will be adding an order form to my website if anyone would like a signed copy. You will be able to pay for them through PayPal. 🙂
Aaaaand, lastly (but super excitedly) I will be giving Sixty Five Hours and Learning to Feel new covers as well. The very talented Mina has graciously agreed to help me give these books new covers. I thought it was very fitting that a friend I have known since my fandom days is giving my ex-fandom books new life 🙂 I will share pics when I have them!!!
Soooo, I think revealing 9 covers at once is pretty amazing and I hope you like them. <3 <3
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Starting Point… coming soon
STARTING POINT
So the Turning Point series is finally coming full circle.
Matthew Elliott is starting over. His life has changed, and even though he went through hell – taking everyone with him – he’s a better man for it.
Kira is still beside him – much to Matt’s amazement. Through serious therapy and open communication, Matt and Kira are making strides. They’re solid, they’re real, and for everything they’ve been through, they’re in love now more than ever.
Although this is the third and final book in the Turning Point series, it’s not an ending. It’s a beginning. Matt’s life is really now only just starting. Everything he’s witnessed, endured and suffered, has led him to this point.
Through the FC, the community gym Matt fought at and now works for, he meets a bunch of kids. Most are street kids, all of them not-so privileged, and he teaches them some self-defense and drug awareness. Through the local community college, Matt is trying to get these kids off the streets and into high school and college.
Rueben and Claude (Ruby and Claude) are two such kids. Street smart and very alone, Ruby is doing the best he can looking after his little sister. Claude is a little firecracker, who keeps Matt honest and on his toes.
But Matt soon finds it harder and harder to keep his work and home lives separate, and they soon bleed into one.
The usual supporting cast are all there; Matt’s ex-cop buddies, his new fight-club friends, and Sal and Yumi, of course. They all play an integral part, as they are, essentially, the framework that makes Matt who he is. Matt has been moulded by the people in his lives, and although none of them are blood relatives, each and every one are his family.
Starting Point is over 94,000 words long, and will be available from April 25th from Totally Bound. The early download link is
https://www.totallybound.com/starting-point
BLURB:
After going past the point of no return and finally reaching breaking point, the only thing Matthew Elliott can do now is start over.
Matthew Elliott is a recovering man. As an ex-cop and ex-fighter, his new job teaching kids at the local community gym about drug awareness and self-defence, is a little bit of both. His new focus on helping street kids is helping him heal, and with Kira by his side, he’s making strides.
Brother and sister, Rueben and Claudia, are homeless kids and they’re very much alone. As they strike a chord with Matt, he does everything in his power to help them.
But when Ruby and Claude need more help than he bargained for, it stops being about work, and starts being about home.
The day he met Kira, Matt’s life changed direction, and it’s only now he realises that everything he’s been through was a lead up to this. It was never about endings. His life, his purpose, was just beginning.
Early Download (Totally Bound site) – 25 April 2014
General Release (Amazon etc) – 23 May 2014 -
Red Dirt Heart cover and excerpt and Starting Point cover reveal!
RED DIRT HEART
The absolutely gorgeous cover, made by extremely talented Sara York.
Blurb:
Welcome to Sutton Station: One of the world’s largest working farms in the middle of Australia – where if the animals and heat don’t kill you first, your heart just might.
Charlie Sutton runs Sutton Station the only way he knows how, the way his father did before him. Determined to keep his head down and his heart in check, Charlie swears the red dirt that surrounds him – isolates him – runs through his veins.
American agronomy student Travis Craig arrives at Sutton Station to see how farmers make a living from one of the harshest environments on earth. But it’s not the barren, brutal and totally beautiful landscapes that capture him so completely.
It’s the man with the red dirt heart.
I’d like you to meet Charlie Sutton and Travis Craig, the two main characters in my newest book, Red Dirt Heart.
Charlie Sutton Travis Craig Set in the Australian Outback, Sutton Station is the eighth largest cattle station in Australia. With landscapes of red earth, blue skies and blistering heat, Red Dirt Heart is the story of how one American Agronomy student turns up at Sutton Station for a one-month-long working holiday, and subsequently turns one Australian cowboy’s life upside down.
Having surrounded himself with isolation, Charlie is quite content to spend his life ensuring Sutton Station remains one of the most respected properties in the Outback. Convinced he’ll spend his life alone, just as his father did before him, Charlie isn’t prepared for Travis Craig.
Confident and a competent farmhand, Travis offers Charlie a ‘few weeks of fun’ while he’s there. What could possibly go wrong?
Excerpt:
CHAPTER ONE – Where the American guy walks in, all blue eyes and disarming smiles, and my life goes to shit.
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Just on sundown, I got off the motorbike, kicked the stand down so the bike stood upright without me and closed the gate. I’d been out all day in the South paddocks doing a final check of fences and water trough pumps before we bought the cattle down from the North. I’d seen the ute back at the homestead as I came in so I knew George was home.
George was my leading hand. He was in his fifties, with greying hair and sun-hardened skin. He’d worked here for as long I could remember, but he was more than a loyal employee. He was my friend, and in a lot of ways, more of a dad to me than my own old man ever was.
He’d been out all day. Left before sun-up and headed into Alice Springs. We were a good three hours from the nearest town, and with a list as long as his arm from the Station cook, Ma – who also happened to be his wife – he needed a few hours in town before heading out to the airport to pick up the real reason for his trip.
An American agronomy student by the name of Travis Craig.
When my father ran this farm, every year we’d have people from another country come and spend a couple of weeks as part of some Diversification exchange program. My old man always said it was a good way to source out what other countries were teaching, but really I think he just liked the extra pair of hands at the finish of the dry season. And when we’d had a phone call back in July to ask if we’d be interested in hosting another student, and given it’d been a few years, I thought it seemed like a good idea. Now I couldn’t help but wonder if this Travis Craig would be a help or a liability.
I rode the bike into the yard and pulled up in the shed. I figured they’d know I’d arrived, having heard the bike, so I headed straight for the house. Like most homesteads built almost a hundred years ago, it was a weatherboard home, with an old iron roof and a veranda around four sides to try and keep it cool.
I kicked the red dust from my boots on the veranda steps and tried to brush the same from my jeans, took off my hat before I opened the door and walked inside. There was a suitcase and a duffel bag near the front door, and voices at the back of the house.
“In the kitchen,” George called out.
I followed the sound of chatter and the smell of something good to find a meeting of sorts in the old country-style kitchen. The worn, solid wooden table that graced the middle of the room was covered with plates of scones and trays of cups and tea, and three people were in chairs around it. My right-hand man, George, his wife the cook, Ma, and a stranger with short light-brown hair and pale blue eyes.
George was the first to his feet, and the man beside him soon followed. “Here’s the boss, Charles Sutton,” George said, introducing me formally. “Charlie, this is Travis Craig.”
Travis, who looked about twenty-two years old, held out his hand and smiled. “Mr Sutton. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” His accent was strange to hear at first, but his smile was warm and wide.
I wiped my hand on my shirt and held it out for him to shake. “Travis,” I said with a nod. “Please, call me Charlie.”
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Here’s some picspiration for Red Dirt Heart
Red Dirt Heart will be self-published and will be available on Amazon, ARe and Smashwords in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!! I’m working on the sequel, which apparently has turned into a possible third book. 🙂 I figure no one will mind…
And another new cover!
Yes, I have a cover to show off…
Starting Point, the third and final book in the Turning Point Series, which will be released in April.
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Update on Starting Point
As you may or may not know, I’ve really struggled with writing these last few months. Without going into details and the whole woe is me song, for the last seven months I have been trying to write the final installment in my Turning Point Series.
Well, it’s done. The first draft anyway.
I’ve sent it to my editor (who graciously read it when it was half done and I was about ready to quit writing all together) and I’m sure there will be major edits, rewrites and additions to be done. As it is now, it’s 90,600 words exactly. (I deleted the epilogue – but will add it if my editor thinks it’s necessary).
It’s bittersweet to finish this series. I have LOVED these boys more than words can express. I honestly feel like I know them, like they’re real, and they are very much a part of my life. I have loved writing them, and while it’s sad to let them go, I am also relieved to be at the end.
In the first book, Point of No Return, we meet Matt and Kira, Matt’s workmates and Kira’s parents. In the second book, Breaking Point, we meet the guys at the FC.
In Starting Point, along with all our favourite characters from the first two books, we meet some more special people.
I’d like to introduce you to two kids Matt teaches at the FC, Claudia and Reuben.
Claude Ruby These two kids, brother and sister, Claude and Ruby, come with a world of problems that Matt and Kira weren’t quite prepared for. Still dealing with ramifications from his stint undercover, along with worries that the FC might be financial trouble, Matt finds the course of his life heading in a new direction. But with Kira by his side, Matt realises it’s not a bad thing. In fact, it could be the beginning of something great, and this is just the starting point.
More news when I have it – but I believe it will be a late May publication. Thanks to all who have read and loved these boys. I hope I have given them a HEA they deserve.
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Blog Tour – Desiree Holt
Day 9
Today I’m at the lovely Desiree Holt’s blog talking about research!
For a full list of all Blog Tour stops:
Morticia Knight – http://morticiaknight.blogspot.com.au/
Lisabet Sarai – http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com.au/
S. Dora – http://sdora.wordpress.com/
West Thornhill – http://wthornhillauthor.blogspot.com.au/
Ashe Barker – http://ashebarker.com/
HK Carlton – http://pickagenrealready.blogspot.ca/
Nancy Adams – http://fancynancyadams.wix.com/erotic-nancy-adams
C.A. Szarek – http://www.caszarekwriter.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1
Desiree Holt – http://www.desireeholt.com/
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Blog Tour – C.A Szarek
Day 8
Today I’m at the lovely C.A Scarek’s blog talking about inspiration!
For a full list of all Blog Tour stops:
Morticia Knight – http://morticiaknight.blogspot.com.au/
Lisabet Sarai – http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com.au/
S. Dora – http://sdora.wordpress.com/
West Thornhill – http://wthornhillauthor.blogspot.com.au/
Ashe Barker – http://ashebarker.com/
HK Carlton – http://pickagenrealready.blogspot.ca/
Nancy Adams – http://fancynancyadams.wix.com/erotic-nancy-adams
C.A. Szarek – http://www.caszarekwriter.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1
Desiree Holt – http://www.desireeholt.com/
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Blog Tour – Nancy Adams
Day 7
Today I’m at the lovely Nancy Adams’ blog talking about names!
For a full list of all Blog Tour stops:
Morticia Knight – http://morticiaknight.blogspot.com.au/
Lisabet Sarai – http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com.au/
S. Dora – http://sdora.wordpress.com/
West Thornhill – http://wthornhillauthor.blogspot.com.au/
Ashe Barker – http://ashebarker.com/
HK Carlton – http://pickagenrealready.blogspot.ca/
Nancy Adams – http://fancynancyadams.wix.com/erotic-nancy-adams
C.A. Szarek – http://www.caszarekwriter.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1
Desiree Holt – http://www.desireeholt.com/
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