It’s a first! I’m hosting a guest blogger this week — fellow author and long-distance friend (she lives in the UK), Sue Brown. I could say wonderful things about her (I certainly enjoy her writing!), but I’ll let her speak for herself. After the blog, she’s been kind enough to supply us with a short bio and an excerpt from her current novel, The Isle of… Where?, which is available through Dreamspinner Press.
I am asked on a regular basis how I can write gay romance. Actually what they normally say is gay porn and that’s the point I roll my eyes and contemplate tearing their heads off.
Let me say this slooooowly.
I don’t write gay porn. Ro-mance. Re-la-tion-ships. Okay?
With men.
Yes, with men.
Two men.
You’re on the ball today. Yes, with two men. Sometimes more. Otherwise it would be het or femme fiction.
But why men? You’re a woman.
So good of you to notice. What gave it away?
Why don’t you write about a man and a woman?
Because I don’t want to.
But…
Yes?
They’re men. Isn’t that icky?
Did you mean sticky? Hopefully.
There’s usually a horrified face at this point. I’m good. I don’t point out that het sex is icky too. Still have bodily fluids, chaps.
So… how do you know what happens?
What happens?
You know…
Is this twenty questions? You’re an adult. Ask a bloody straight question.
You know, between two men?
Are we back to sex again?
*whispers* How do you know what they do?
Me. I can keep a straight face now. IKEA produce a guide. Stick cock A in hole B. It’s a fantastic guide. Not in English of course and the diagrams are bizarre but you can still recognize the…
You’re taking the piss, aren’t you?
Oh yeah.
I was only asking. No need to be sarky.
At this point my companion used to stop, but now, oh no, the torture doesn’t stop there. It carries on… and on.
You write sex?
Haven’t we just been there? Yes I write sex.
Why don’t you write…
Please don’t say it, please, please, please don’t say it…
Fifty Shades of Grey.
You had to frigging say it, didn’t you?
Well?
Because it’s been written already.
But you could make millions.
Plagiarism. Heard of that?
But…
Look, I don’t write het and I don’t write BDSM.
But…
And if you say Brokeback I am going to kill you. Slowly, painfully and you are going to wish you’d never brought the subject up. Do you understand?
You’re very touchy, aren’t you?
Yes, yes I am.
So there we are, folks. Identikit questions. Identikit answers.
The next topic of conversation is the book that is burning inside of every person who discovers I’m a writer. I have a very short answer to that.
Author Bio: Sue Brown is owned by her dog and two children. When she isn’t following their orders, she can be found plotting at her laptop. In fact she hides so she can plot and has got expert at ignoring the orders.
Sue discovered M/M erotica at the time she woke up to find two men kissing on her favorite television series. The series was boring; the kissing was not. She may be late to the party, but she’s made up for it since, writing fan fiction until she was brave enough to venture out into the world of original fiction.
She can be found at her website, her Facebook, and twitter.
The Isle of… Where?
Blurb:
When Liam Marshall’s best friend, Alex, loses his fight with colon cancer, he leaves Liam one final request: buy a ticket to Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, and scatter Alex’s ashes off the pier. Liam is tired, worn out, and in desperate need of a vacation, but instead of sun, sea, sand, and hot cabana boys, he gets a rickety old train, revolting kids, and no Ewan MacGregor.
Liam would have done anything for his friend, but fulfilling Alex’s final wish means letting go of the only family Liam had left. Lost, he freezes on the pier… until Sam Owens comes to his rescue.
Sam’s family has vacationed on the Isle of Wight every year for as long as he can remember, but he’s never met anyone like Liam. Determined to make Liam’s vacation one to remember, Sam looks after him—in and out of the bedroom. He even introduces Liam to his entire family. But as Sam helps Liam let go, he’s forced to admit that he wants Liam to hang on—not to his old life, but to Sam and what they have together.
Excerpt:
The beach was empty, miles of golden sand laid out for them to dig up. It was also freezing, and Liam shivered. It hadn’t occurred to him to bring a jacket, and the wind whipping off the sparkling waves sucked any heat from the sun.
“You’re shivering,” Sam said unnecessarily. “Here.” He slipped off the hoodie he was wearing, holding it out so that Liam could slip it over his head.
“Then you’ll get cold,” Liam pointed out.
“Put it on,” Sam insisted.
Giving in, because he was fucking freezing, Liam tugged on the soft gray hoodie. It drowned him a little, but it was warm and Liam didn’t care. He cared even less when he looked up and saw the open lust in Sam’s eyes.
“You like me wearing your clothes, huh?”
Sam swallowed and Liam had the feeling that if they weren’t in the open, Sam would have jumped him. As it was, he got up close, too close.
“I wanna fuck you wearing that hoodie and nothing else,” Sam whispered in Liam’s ear, his hot breath ghosting over Sam’s neck. There was no need to whisper, no one was in earshot, but it was hot as hell, and Liam couldn’t help the hitch of breath or the moan that escaped him. But because Sam was talking about fucking, Liam had to retort.
“Just remember, I do the fucking.”
“If you wear this hoodie and your arse is bare, I don’t care who fucks who.”
Liam swallowed hard. Sam chuckled and brushed a quick kiss over his lips.
“Sandcastles.”
“Huh?” Liam was soaking up the way Sam filled his senses. Words took a while longer to process.
To his regret, Sam took a step back. “Sandcastles,” he repeated. “Otherwise things could get interesting out here, and much as people like me, I don’t think they’d forgive a display of bare-arsed man-loving in a hurry.”
Sadly, Sam was probably right, and Liam had to postpone the thought of throwing Sam down on the sand for another time. It didn’t occur to him until much later that he was already planning to spend more time with Sam.
Sam jogged back to Molly and picked up the kids’ buckets and spades from the pea-sized trunk. Liam had been firmly corrected and told it was the boot. Whatever. It was still miniscule.
He handed Liam the purple spade and the orange bucket, keeping rainbow ones for himself. When Liam protested, Sam just gave him a look.
“You got my hoodie. Now stop complaining.”
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