Postcards from the Edge

...from the edge of my sanity, that is. Here's what happened:

Lynn and I planned a Facebook "release party" for Whetting the Appetite -- an online chat, basically. I decided it would be fun to make up a promotional postcard-style graphic for each story in the anthology, and post them randomly throughout the day.

It took me over nine hours to make all the postcards (the anthology has 46 stories -- even compressing the three-parter into one postcard still left me with 44 to make!)... and at the end, I was feeling pretty proud of them, actually.

And then, the morning of the release party... my internet died.

Well, of course it did.

So I'm going to post them here -- all 46 of them. (I'll put them behind a jump break, to save your sanity, if you're on an RSS feed -- and if you're reading this from one of the repost sites that doesn't preserve images, please come check out the original post at
http://everyworldneedslove.blogspot.com/2014/03/postcards-from-edge.html )

Guest Blogger: BA Tortuga - Fistfights and Foreplay

Y'all, I've got the amazing BA Tortuga on my blog today, and when she contacted me to ask for a guest blog spot, I'm pretty sure I squee'd in delight. I'm not entirely sure who's doing whom the favor, here, because I've never read a single BA story that I didn't love, and she's one of the very sweetest, nicest, most fun people I've been privileged to work with since I started the whole writing-and-editing gig, which given how awesome everyone else I've met has been, is really saying something.

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Fistfights and Foreplay- Or how you can’t write Texans without a fight sometimes

Hey, y’all! I want to thank Ms Liz for having me. I love working with her, laughing with her, and sharing the geekiness. :D

You might have noticed my tagline is because sometimes fistfights are foreplay. Well, they tell you to find something that’s in all your books, a running thread.

Mine?

Fistfights.

I’m SO proud. ;-)

Today I bring it up because my new book, Terms of Release, is about my old stomping grounds in East Texas, and has more than its share of fistfights in it.

Sage, one of my heroes, has a bit of a checkered past, and a lot of folks gunning for him. He tried hard to make like smoke and disappear, but there are times when a man has to stand his ground. He gets his share of beat up, but he also throws down with his brother in law, a handful of rednecks trying to kill him and his friend Wilma outside a diner, and ends up on the bad side of a tornado, where he has a scuffle in the hospital.

What is it about East Texas and fistfights? I’d say it’s in the water. I’ve never been to a wedding or funeral where someone didn’t get to fighting, and my daddy works as a bouncer in the bar on his free time. For fun.

Does this mean we’re less evolved than the rest of the country? Probably. It also means that emotions run high in Texans, making us damned fun to write about. If it’s not worth fighting for, well then, it’s not worth it. Period.

Says the woman who can’t go to Wal-Mart anywhere within a hundred mile radius of Dallas without getting into a screaming match, at the very least.

Grins.

Sage and Win from Terms of Release, they have a lot that’s worth fighting for, and it takes a lot for Sage to work up the courage to brazen it out. That’s only one of the reasons I love this book so much. I hope y’all do, too.

The Terms of Release is releasing March 24, 2014 from Dreamspinner Press and I’m proud enough to bust.

Official Blurb:

They say a man can always come home. So after doing hard time, Sage Redding heads to his family’s northeast Texas ranch to help his ailing daddy with the cutting horses.

Adam (Win) Winchester is a county deputy and the cousin of one of the men killed in the incident that sent Sage to prison for almost a decade. While Win's uncles, Jim and Teddy, are determined to make Sage and the entire Redding family pay for their loss, Win just figures Sage has paid his dues and maybe needs a friend. Maybe he needs more than a friend. In fact, Win’s counting on it.

No one’s denying Sage is an ex-con who went to prison for manslaughter. Regardless of the love he has for his father, he’s returned knowing things will likely go badly for him. Maybe a man can always come home, but he may not be able to stay.

Paperback buy link (first 20 copies come signed): http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4820

Ebook buy link:
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4776

Where to find BA:
http://www.batortuga.com -- website
batortuga.blogspot.com – blog
@batortuga on twitter
https://www.facebook.com/batortuga

Whetting the Appetite - Cover Reveal (...belated)

I thought I showed you guys this cover weeks ago, but I just went back through my posts, and... not so much, 'cause I suck.

I can't believe it, either, because OH. MY. GOD. You guys, this is the best cover ever. I always say that, I know, but SRSLY, look at it!

I mean, it was amazing enough to get to share an anthology with one of my very favorite writers, who also happens to be one of my best friends. And to have the brilliant V.L. Locey agree to write a forward for it. And to have that anthology accepted for publication by the fantastic J.M. of JMS Books. And to have it be edited by Belea Keeney, who forever holds a place in my heart as my very first professional editor and is one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet (and also, incidentally, is the one who introduced me to J.M., and in a roundabout way got me started on this whole editing gig, as well).

All of that wasn't swoon-worthy enough, apparently. No, in addition to all that, I get this simply brilliant cover to add to my catalog. (And if we sell enough ebooks, it will go to print publication, and I'm so excited about that possibility that I can't even words.)

When? Why, I'm glad you asked! Whetting the Appetite will be available from JMS Books (and the usual complement of ebook distributors) on March 23rd! I did my final proofread of the ebook just the other day, and there are still stories in there -- despite many reviews and revisions and knowing them all like the back of my hand -- that make me tear up, shiver, laugh out loud, and sigh with contentment. You are not going to want to miss this book, I promise!

Lynn and I are probably going to have a Facebook release "party" that day or close to it, so if you enjoy that sort of thing, make sure you're following one of us on Facebook. And I expect there will be some blog touring and such as well, so stay tuned!

Here's the official blurb:

Romance and erotica authors Lynn Townsend and Elizabeth L. Brooks have joined forces to assemble this collection of "flash-fiction" ultra-shorts (most under 2000 words), generated in response to prompts offered by our fans and friends and touching on dozens of aspects of lust, love, and desire.

Subgenres in the collection span contemporary, historical, steampunk, fantasy, sci-fi, and horror, taking you from a modern living room, to the high seas, to Victorian London, to planets and times at the edge of imagination. These stories explore relationships all along the romantic and erotic spectrums, including the thrill of a one-night stand, the fierce burn of rivalry, the heady flush of new romance, the intense trust of BDSM, and all the pros and cons of long-term partnerships. The characters defy conventional gender boundaries, including a preoperative transmale, several aliens, and a few characters whose genders are left open to reader interpretation. Sexual orientations on display vary nearly as widely, with groupings that include m/f, m/m, f/f, and f/f/m -- not to mention those aliens!

With forty-six stories to choose from, there's something here for every moment and mood, something to whet any appetite.