Bennie’s Wish by Xara X. Xanakas

May 4, 2012

Bennie must convince Ally of his sincerity after a humiliating prank. Bennie’s Wish by Xara X. Xanakas, available from Dreamspinner Press.

For years, Ally Theodisius has suspected his “friends” have been humoring him to stay in his good graces—and his wallet—so when a No Pants Day breakfast ends in his humiliation, he finally takes a stand.

When model Bennie Arnold runs into Ally, his first impression is of a cute, adorably dimpled writer in dire need of a real friend. Bennie would be happy to fill the role. There’s just one little problem: he’s going commando, and it happens to be No Pants Day. If he has any hope of getting his wish, Bennie will have to use his best assets to convince Ally he’s the real deal.

Buy in eBook
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Novella

Coming Up and Contest Question

April 26, 2012

I think it’s almost bedtime for me, even though I guess most of the people who will want to take part in the contest are just getting started with their evenings. Timezones are such funny things.

I wanted to talk a little bit about what’s to come. I was writing a lot last year and so far this year not that much, but I’ll get back to writing more actively soon, I hope. The writing I did last year and early this year has really paid off.

The next release I have coming up is book one of my shifter series. The series’ name is Finnshifters and the first book is called Chuffed. I’m working on book three and I’ve submitted book two, so they’re all coming up eventually, hopefully every few months or so. How many books are in the series? Probably four or five. Unless something new pops up.

Finnshifters is my take on the shifter genre. In my world, there are only “cats and dogs” as far as shifters are concerned, and it’s otherwise pretty much a regular world, just with shifters who live in secrecy. The series is a bit different, at least I think so, and the setting is Finland, which makes it unique in the M/M-genre. I hope you all will like it, at least I really do.

Another new thing I have coming up is a new novel. The working title is Technically Dead, and it’s about a young human who fell in love with a really old vampire and they ended up changing each other’s lives. The story begins in present day, where they haven’t seen each other in a decade and much has happened in between. And then much more happens and things change even more, you know the deal!

Chuffed will be out in May-June and Technically Dead in July-August. When I have the official dates, I’ll post them on my blog, which you can find from my website.

Since it is my bedtime, it’s also time for me to give you the last contest-question!

Because my upcoming shifter series, I want to know what kind of shifter you would want to be if you had to choose? It doesn’t have to be a feline or a canine breed, it can be whatever you like. Tell me why you chose this kind of animal and email me at tiafielding at gmail dot com with the two other answers to the previous questions.

When I have the contest winners, I’ll post them to my Facebook page and my blog. This should happen no later than Wednesday, May 2nd. If I don’t get many answers, I’ll extend the contest deadline and probably post it to a few other places too, just to get a few more emails to toss into the mix.

It has been fun, rambling along today! Let’s do this again some time, shall we?

Have a nice spring, everyone!

- Tia Fielding

Excerpt – Thank My Lucky Scars by Tia Fielding

April 26, 2012

Just to change things up a bit, here’s a tiny PG-ish excerpt of yesterday’s release, Thank My Lucky Scars. I hope you enjoy it!

“Half now, half later? Please?” he asked and put on a puppy dog face that made me laugh and then surrender.

“Fine, but if I go all mushy and loopy and try to fondle your assets, it’s not me, it’s the drugs.” I huffed and held out my hand for the pill bottle. “I’m supposed to take two, so I’ll take one. Look.” I made a show of taking one pill from the bottle, placing it on my tongue, and then swallowing it with a sip of water.

I caught, just for a second, Brian watching my throat as I  swallowed,  but  then  he  walked  around  the  coffee  table  to sit down again.

“It’s an interesting song,” he said, listening with his head tilted a little, and then he grinned. “And you’re stating you wouldn’t want to, quote, ‘fondle my assets’ if you weren’t under the influence of some nasty medication?”

His  expression  was  so  teasing,  so  perfectly  what  I  had thought he was like, that I wasn’t sure if this was the real him or the Brian he usually showed to people he didn’t know. Fanboys like me.

“I wouldn’t go that  far, but I’ve pretty much resigned myself to the idea that I won’t be doing any… fondling, for a few months at least.” I rapped my knuckles on my cast.

“Oh, right, that does put a damper on things.” Brian nodded  and  gestured  at  my laptop.  “Can  I  show  you something?” he asked.

“Sure. And besides, I read the blog of that one porn fanatic guy—he said you don’t fondle your fanboys anyways,” I said as neutrally as I could while I settled a bit lower in the corner of the couch. I wasn’t getting loopy yet, but I was tired from the pain, and it was beginning to show.

The last contest-question and some rambling a bit later!

Tia Travels Again!

April 26, 2012

I used to travel a lot as a kid. My family went through a holiday destination every year or every two years from the time I was six-ish to when I was fifteen. After that I’ve only gone abroad once, for my language course in England when I was sixteen.

I’m a low-income person, so I don’t have money to travel these days. I’d really love to go to the larger events and cons in the US, but the tickets are ridiculously expensive and I just can’t. Maybe one day. At least the thought will keep me writing!

Because I can’t go as far as the US, I decided to aim closer. There’s this event this year, the UK GLBTQ Fiction Meet, in Brighton, UK. It takes place in September, and I’m really looking forward to it. My sister, she’s 14, is coming with me and she insists we go to London as well.

It wasn’t like she had to twist my arm… I mean I loved the few things I had a chance to see in London when I was there on a day-trip during my language course. I adore The Tower of London. I also want to go see The London Dungeon again.

Because my sister is a huge Harry Potter-freak, we’re also going to go to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London. It’s going to be amazing and a treat even for me who haven’t actually read all the books or seen all the movies. I’ll have to before I go there, though. Not because of spoilers but because my dear friend who is probably coming with us will flay me if I don’t… You know who you are.

These are my travel plans for the future. I’m probably taking a little road trip (cue 5 hours of driving and bad singing. At least I’m doing it alone, eh?) soon to see relatives and friends in another part of Finland, but that doesn’t count, really. Because there needs to be an airplane involved for it to be a proper trip!

Contest-question number two: If you could travel abroad right this minute, where would you go and why?

Tia and Music, the Love Story.

April 26, 2012

I think I’ve always loved music. It is a huge inspiration and most of my stories tend to have songs or playlists. I’ve posted the playlist for my first novel By Any Other Name to my blog. You can find it here.

One of my first memories of a specific band or song comes from when I was about three years old. My mom had bought this new C-cassette of this Finnish band and we were listening to it in the car while driving to or from my grandparents’ house.

Since then, I’ve never really stopped listening. There was a boy band-period when I was about ten years old. Yes, it all started from this song.  New Kids On The Block forever! It’s been twenty years and I still remember the lyrics.

After the boy bands (also Take That, they were awesome!), I went punk-ish, but also listened to rock music. I remember this period where I listened to a lot of things, and during it I was on a vacation with the family in Turkey when I was about fourteen. I was sunbathing near the pool of our hotel with my Walkman and my cassettes and my favorite songs that week in the sun were anything from Oasis, Aerosmith, Green Day, Offspring and yes, Take That.

There have come periods in my life when I’ve listened to a certain kind of music for a long time, but I’ve always gone back to Green Day eventually. In 2010 I had the opportunity to go see them live in Helsinki, here in Finland. The funny thing was, I took my kid sister with me, and I suddenly realized I’d been a fan for a longer time she had been alive. Where did all those years go?!

Lately, and I’m thirty now, I’ve cultivated my extremely random taste in music a little. I know instantly what I like, and I know what I won’t touch with a stick. So anything from Eminem to Dave Matthews Band to Muse to Linkin Park and Mozart, I’ll be there. I said cultivated, not “stopped being random”.

I have a favorite song at the moment. While I don’t like the original, I greatly enjoy this Glee version (by the lovely Darren Criss and the even more lovely Matt Bomer) of Somebody That I Used to Know (originally by Gotye ft. Kimbra).

And here’s my first contest-question: What’s been playing in your head or your player lately? You know that one song you can’t stop listening whether you like it or not?

Remember to collect all three questions (the other two are coming later today) and email them in one email to me at tiafielding at gmail dot com to win some nice prizes listed in a previous post!

Contest Details!

April 26, 2012

For the contest, I have figured out a few prizes.

Here we go:

1. Any three (3) of my Dreamspinner Press e-books (including my next release, Finnshifters 1: Chuffed).

2. A special package from yours truly via mail (this is valid worldwide and will contain something special) AND one (1) e-book of mine from Dreamspinner Press (not including any future releases).

3. A $15 gift card to All Romance Ebooks.

4. One (1) of my ebooks from Dreamspinner Press (no future releases).

I’ll randomly pick four people, and they get to pick a prize of the above four. So the first person can pick one, and the second can pick one of the remaining three and so on and so forth until there are no prizes left. Is this clear enough?

What you need to do to qualify to win is to follow my posts today. I’ll put three questions into the posts (they will be marked, don’t worry) and then you will have to email me your answers. There are no right or wrong answers, they’re open questions and I will pick the winners randomly, but you will have to answer all three to qualify.

My email is tiafielding at gmail dot com, and that’s where you need to send your answers.

If you get here later than tonight, don’t worry. You have until midnight of April 29th to take part and send in your answers. (I’ll check them my Monday night, which means anyone anywhere will have time to THEIR Sunday night.)

The first contest question will be posted soon-ish.

I can't wait to see these outside. So far there's only snow, but at least it's melting!

Tia Fielding’s Day at the DSP-blog!

April 26, 2012

It’s finally here! Don’t know if anyone else is excited, but I sure am!

I’m Tia Fielding, if you didn’t guess that already, and I’ve been a Dreamspinner Press-author for almost a year now. I have two short stories, three novellas and one novel out, and at the moment there are two other releases lined up, if not more… (that’s a secret!)

Today, I’ll be posting every now and then about my latest releases, upcoming releases, what inspires me and so on. I’ll probably be talking about playlists–because music is important to me, and of course, I’ll hold a little contest later on, with some neat prizes to boot!

I’m also taking questions and answering them as I go, so please do leave some in the comments, and I’ll get back to you at some point.

So, let’s get this party started, eh?

Here’s the cover and the blurb for my second latest release from March 28th, Something New.

For thirty-five-year-old writer Frank Hudson and his partner of fourteen years, the spark is dead, and it’s time to move on. Frank sets his sights on a sleepy town in Vermont, where he plans to start over in peace and quiet—plans that are destroyed when fireman Conner O’Malley literally blazes onto the scene. To Frank, the tattooed, redheaded twenty-three-year-old and his bright smile are a flash of light in an otherwise dreary life.

But it’s a tricky situation right from the beginning. Frank’s passionless relationship has left him doubting that anyone could ever find him attractive. Conner’s juggling a demanding job and the unexpected responsibility of playing dad to his little brother and sister. Battling their own insecurities, Conner’s demanding schedule, and small-town homophobia is hard work—but sometimes hard work pays off.

And here’s my latest release, Thank My Lucky Scars, that was released yesterday!

When London bicycle messenger Matt Rooney has a run-in with a rich guy’s Mercedes, he ends up housebound with his leg in a cast. Bored, Matt uses his suddenly limitless free time to web-stalk American porn star Brian Enola. What he doesn’t expect is for his witty Tweets to develop into an actual correspondence.

A UK promotion brings Brian to London, where the online chemistry explodes into real-life attraction—but a potential romance is foiled by the forces of distance, misunderstanding, and practicality. After all, Matt and Brian live on different continents. But with the support of their loved ones, maybe they can find the strength to give love a fighting chance.

If you click at the cover, you get to the book’s page at the Dreamspinner-shop.

I’ll be back in a bit, I’m going to get some coffee and figure out what to post next!

- T

Words & Music

April 25, 2012

Originally, I’d planned on posting lyrics to some of the songs that commenters mentioned, but a quick YouTube search showed me I can do better than that. Take a look (and a listen!) at these video versions of some  classic love songs:

Reunited by Peaches & Herb

Against All Odds by Phil Collins

In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel

I Go Crazy by Paul Davis

When I Fall by Barenaked Ladies

My, My, Hey, Hey by Neil Young

I was surprised at how perfectly “Reunited” fit the tone of False Start, but then so did “I Go Crazy” and “Against All Odds” so I guess what I learned is that loving, and leaving, and loving again is a pretty classic human experience, immortalized in both words and music.

Excerpt: False Start

April 25, 2012

Here’s an excerpt from False Start, which is on sale now! There’s a little sexual content and some cussin’ in the excerpt. Nothing y’all can’t handle.

Summary:

It’s Tucker Locke’s ten-year college reunion, and he doesn’t have much to show for himself. Sure, he’s a successful lawyer with a nice car and a nice apartment, but his life is empty, and Tucker knows why. A decade ago, not ready to come out of the closet, he left Whit Jamison behind.

Tucker’s spent ten years pretending to be straight—ten years thinking about his mistakes. But all the time in the world couldn’t prepare him for the reality of seeing Whit again. Whit’s taller, more mature, more attractive than ever, and every bit as out and proud as he was ten years ago. Time hasn’t changed the chemistry between them, and it looks like Tucker might get a second chance. All he has to do is brush aside the years of lies and embrace one powerful truth.

Excerpt:

Tucker

The whole thing started on the first day of my senior year at Caswell College in Danesboro, North Carolina, home of the Wildcats, when I first laid eyes on Whit. There I was, sitting pretty: popular, a little bit of a badass, a jock of the “track-pack” variety. Not the quarterback or the point guard, but certainly higher in the social strata than any scrawny freshman could ever aspire to. Whit was lean and awkward, all wrist bones and spiky dark hair. He’d been in college for about four minutes—he still had the dorky orientation folder tucked under his arm, first-day jitters buzzing like bees through the crowd as he climbed the steps to the main entrance of the building we called All Hall, where most classes were held.

See, I thought I’d heard someone call my name, so I turned and looked, and there he was, backpack falling off one shoulder, the red folder marking him as cannon fodder for upperclassmen.

Our eyes met, and the buzzing feeling, that adrenaline spike, focused on me. His eyes went wide and his mouth opened, and he was just a kid, right? What was he, eighteen? Maybe nineteen? But I didn’t look away. I didn’t trip him, like Spew (short for Stuart Pugh) or Sammy Pitt (you can guess what his nickname was) would have done. I didn’t nudge him aside with an admonition to respect his elders or look right over him the way we tended to do with underclassmen.

Any of that could be forgiven; for that matter, it was pretty much expected.

Instead, I stared at him, and he at me.

“Hi. It’s Tucker, right?” he said. His voice didn’t match the protruding wrist bones, the nervous shuffle from one foot to the other. He sounded deep, smart… confident. A real contradiction. “Tucker Locke?”

I nodded.

He stuck his hand out like we were grown-ups meeting at the sixteenth hole, like there weren’t a couple hundred students parting around us like we were an island in a flooding river.

“I’m Whit Jamison,” he said, and I found my hand pumped and squeezed. He had long fingers. “I went to Southern High too. You were a senior when I was a freshman.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t remember you.”

“No reason you would,” he said. “I was, like, three feet tall then.”

“Tucker Locke,” I offered. Then I felt color climb up in my cheeks. He’d already said he knew who I was. I chalked it up to my own first-day jitters. I put my sweaty palms down to the same thing. I had a harder time explaining the way my heart jumped in my chest, or the way I kept looking between his eyes and his mouth.

It was a moment, nothing more, but it set something in motion that ended up defining the entire year. Hell, my entire life.

My memories of senior year go something like this: classes, being hungry enough to eat a bear, cross-country training in the fall, competing, eating some more, track training in the spring, meets, studying. On the weekends I’d drink on Saturday nights and then go to church on Sunday mornings—a minor dichotomy compared to the other part of my life that year: meeting up with Whit late at night. When I think about Caswell, I think about the noise in the halls, the tap of fingers on keyboards, and the way light filtered in through the classroom windows. When I think about Whit, it’s always of nighttime and heat, the way his breath caught when I touched him, the slick slide of his tongue. Light and dark. I separated the two as completely as I could.

Those eight dizzying months of secrets and discovery came to an abrupt halt when my two worlds collided on the Friday night between final exams and graduation. I’d walked a fine line from September to April, living one life for everyone else—my friends, my teachers, my parents, my future clearly mapped—and another in stolen moments with Whit. What did it say about me that those few hours with Whit were the happiest of my life, but I couldn’t bring myself to let him into any other part of my life?

Whit invited me to the movies. Like, you know, a date. A simple enough request, he seemed to think. “It’s just a movie, Tuck,” he said when he asked. “Come on, you’re graduating. Live a little,” he said.

He didn’t understand. I’d been doing exactly that: living a little. Stealing time, taking something for myself before the real world came knocking. Every time we found an hour or two to be together, the world brightened, even in the dark.

I told him I had other plans, hanging out with a bunch of seniors at Stuart Pugh’s house, a little pre-graduation party. He looked at me intently, and I thought he’d push it, but then I slid my hand up the back of his T-shirt and that took care of conversation.

But it turned out Spew and Spit wanted to go to the movies too. Their girlfriends even rounded up a date for me—a redhead with pendulous breasts named Martha-Dunn Dewey who I’d known since kindergarten. Trust me, if I’d wanted to date her, I’d had plenty of opportunities. I went along—what else was I supposed to do? I even held her hand as we walked up to the ticket line at Danesboro’s only fourplex. At nine o’clock on a Friday, a bunch of people were milling around, and the line stretched down the sidewalk.

And of course, three people ahead of us in line stood Whit, his back to me. It hadn’t occurred to me that he’d come by himself because I’d never have done that in a million years. But that’s Whit for you, that’s the kind of guy he was.

When he got to the ticket window, his voice carried when he said, “One for Scorpion King.”

Spit leaned over and spoke loudly enough that I saw the words strike Whit in the back of the neck. “Hey, who knew fags liked action movies?”

My spine straightened, but before I could say anything, Spew chimed in, “Maybe he wants to bend over for The Rock.”

Shut up! I wanted to say. Shut the fuck up!

But then Martha-Dunn curled her lip up and said, “Ew, that’s gross. Don’t even make me picture that.”

I watched as red swept up from the back of Whit’s collar all the way to the tips of his ears. He turned, and his eyes narrowed on Spit and Spew, then widened when they landed on me, on my face, then on my sweaty hand, still clutching Martha-Dunn’s.

I wanted to run, but I felt like I was made of stone.

I should have stood up for him. Obviously. That goes without saying. Hell, I should have stood up for myself, because I was like him, just like him, only I didn’t have the balls to say so. I didn’t have the courage. We’d been meeting in secret for months because I couldn’t bring myself to give him up, but I couldn’t stand beside him, either, and take the kind of licks he absorbed every day just for showing up and not pretending to be something he wasn’t.

I should have done something, but I didn’t.

I didn’t say anything. He didn’t say anything. He stood there for a second; then he went into the theater lobby, the back of his neck still red, while Spew and Spit laughed at their own stupid jokes.

He was waiting for me—his cheeks on fire, his mouth set, and his eyes ablaze—when I came into the lobby a few minutes later, with Spew and Spit behind me.

No. Just… no. Nothing good could come from whatever would happen when that unholy trio came together.

I took a hard left and veered off into the concessions line, shaking off Martha-Dunn with a curt word about getting popcorn. I ignored Spew’s shouted, “Yo! Tuckeroo! We’ll save you a seat.” And I ignored the feel of Whit’s gaze on my back.

The brightly colored board above the concessions stand showing enormous packages of Skittles and Milk Duds and Twizzlers blurred as I stared at it, my heart thumping in my chest.

Then, from behind me, I heard, “Your friends are assholes.” Whit’s voice, soft and familiar.

No argument there, but I couldn’t make myself say so. The candy board blurred even more. I blinked a couple of times and dragged in a breath.

“Why didn’t you just tell me you were coming with them? With her?” Whit asked.

My heart thudded again. “This isn’t the time,” I gritted out through my teeth. Not the time and not the place, not in front of all these people. Couldn’t he see that?

“Then when?” he asked, and he must have taken a step forward, because I swear to God, I could feel him up against my back, his breath warm on my neck when he whispered, “Why can’t you just be with me? Just once. Tuck—”

“Back off,” I snarled. I meant it literally, physically, right then and there. I was so scared and so angry I could hardly breathe. I felt trapped, afraid of what onlookers would see, sure that somehow they would know what we’d been getting up to, that it was written all over me in some kind of invisible, pornographic Sharpie. But I meant it figuratively too. I took what I could get; why couldn’t he do the same?

Silence.

When I finally worked up the courage to turn around, he was gone.

The movie sucked. In the back row, Martha-Dunn offered to do the same, rubbing her tits against my arm, but I declined, probably more politely than the brush-off I’d just given Whit.

Whit and I never talked about it. We never touched again, either. It was as if it had all been a dream, as if I’d never held him, never kissed him, never felt him tremble, hot under my hands.

We passed each other a couple of times over the next few days, but I studiously avoided eye contact. I knew what I’d see: the same disappointment I saw when I looked in the mirror.

I know now that I blamed him for my own failing. I let fear define me. That was the main difference between us—he met life head-on, and I ran at the first obstacle I encountered.

I graduated a week later and moved to Richmond a week after that. I spent the next six months studying for the LSATs like my life depended on it, which I guess it did.

My parents thought I was (finally) being industrious.

They had no idea how far I was willing to run.

And that’s how the whole thing ended.

Does one bring balloons to a blog party?

April 25, 2012

Hello! Janey Chapel here, hosting my very first blog party! When I first typed the title of this post, I wrote it as “party blog” rather than “blog party.” An important distinction? I don’t know… what do you think?

I ran a contest earlier this week over at my LiveJournal, asking readers to comment with a song that reminded them of the first time they were “flat-out stupid in love.” Responses ranged from Peaches and Herb to Neil Young, with both of Genesis’s lead singers represented in Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel. Those two know how to lay down some love songs, that’s for sure!

Feel free to play along here — I’m going to be  giving away another free ebook copy of False Start, which is being released today! I’ll choose a winner by random drawing from comments posted on the party blog… I mean, blog party today.

So stay tuned for an excerpt from False Start, a few love song lyrics, and perhaps even a little moment of nostalgia.