Three (or Four, depending on how one counts) Cool Things to share today, and a lot of excitement!

First, a free book! JMS Books is doing a free ebook per day Advent Calendar this month, and mine’s today – and it’s Seaworthy (Character Bleed book 1)!

Actors filming a Napoleonic Wars drama & falling in love! Terrible bread puns! A Good Sex Awards runner-up for Sexiest Consent! Come grab it now!

Next, I’m over on Ofelia Grand’s blog today, chatting about my new short story release! “December with Peppermint” is a short fluffy holiday follow-up to “October by Candlelight,” and it’s all about handmade decorations, terrible puns about mint, and definitely no one making a holiday-themed sex tape, no matter what Finn’s agent suggests! Come read about it – and the Colby from Character Bleed cameo! – over here at Ofelia’s!

“December with Peppermint” is a 5k short, a holiday follow-up for Finn and Wes from “October by Candlelight,” my autumn-themed moving-in-together story—here, they’re getting ready for their first Christmas in their home together! Which comes with families wanting to visit, and Finn wanting to decorate everything in sight, and Wes needing to grade papers…and, on top of that, Finn’s agent worrying that he’s not visible enough, not memorable enough, not someone casting directors think of, these days…in need of something drastic, perhaps, to get people talking. (The sex tape suggestion isn’t entirely serious. Though…if Finn and Finn’s boyfriend might be willing to go along with it…) (Wes: “Not in this or any other universe, as much as I love you.”)

And look at the adorable cover! You can get it at Amazon here, or at JMS Books here, or all the places you like to buy books!

And…finally…the big news!

So… Frost & Raine, my little paranormal m/m romance novella about a Cupid & his Frost spirit, just won the 2020-2021 Rainbow Award for Bisexual Fantasy & Paranormal Romance – and was a Runner-Up in overall Best Bisexual Book!

The other two I submitted – Seaworthy (Character Bleed book one) & Cadence and the Pearl – also received Honorable Mentions! And I pretty much haven’t stopped smiling about it since yesterday! So many fabulous authors – it’s such an honor, and such a good cause, with over $10k raised for various charities! And now I suppose I should properly get back to work on the Frost & Raine spin-off, which is Luke’s story, and his own magical happy ending…

Let’s talk numbers. Okay, I’ll talk numbers and you just listen. I’ll try to make it quick and painless. :)

Right now Seven Shards: The Colors of Wine is placing 25th in the contest - the top 8% in fact. This is AMAZING and I owe it all to you. We also just hit pre-order #75, so as thanks the prologue has now been shared for your enjoyment.

There’s still a long way to go to the top, but we’ve been climbing higher all this time and I know I can get there with your help.

Please take a moment to think of the people in your lives: your spouse, your siblings, a roommate, a bestie, your coworkers, your friendly neighborhood bookworm. Surely one or two of them would be willing to spare five minutes if you asked. Let’s look at how that plays out:

• If half of you get one person to pre-order, it would kick me into the Top 20.
• If half of you get two people to pre-order, it would launch me into the Top 15 - aka The Leaderboard.
• And if all of you got two people to pre-order, it would rocket me into the Top 10!

Please consider going that extra mile. Think of the good karma. The favors I would happily owe you. The sight of your name printed in the Acknowledgements section of the book. The knowledge that you helped change my life for the better.

If you’re still with me, please reach out and recruit new readers. There’s only two weeks and 14 hours left, so now is the time to act. Ready. Set. Go!

Aloha All,

The publication of Lost in the Fog is so close I can smell it.  For me, the scent is a cool, ocean breeze mingled with trees and dirt and the dampness of fog drifting across Lands End Trail at the westernmost point of San Francisco.  Maybe there’s some whiskey notes in there as well. 

Lost in the Fog is a mystery, a comedy, a wild adventure, and a neo noir.  It’s also taken a helluva long time to get into print for people to read.  With the pandemic, it’s unfortunately made the wait even longer.

And now there’s a new calamity to add to the Shit Show of 2020 to further delay Lost in the Fog. 

The fires in California and Oregon, with their extremely dangerous air quality, have been a horrific ordeal that’s affected so many people.  Because of this, it’s produced a slight setback for the printed books to be shipped to everyone who pre-ordered one.  Of course my novel’s delay means absolutely nothing in the larger picture of what’s going on, and my heart goes out to everyone affected.

But there is some good news with Lost in the Fog . . . the e-version will be ready to go on September 21st as promised! 

Anyone who bought a paperback will also automatically receive an e-copy.  You will be emailed my book in both mobi (for Kindle) and Epub (Apple books) files, as well as in Adobe PDF which can be read on any computer or device.  I just received my advanced e-copy, and it looks super cool!  While I’m still a paper and ink kind of guy, I’ve read plenty of books on Kindle and I’m a fan. 

Inkshares has said that the paperbacks of Lost in the Fog will be shipped in October.  I don’t have an exact date, but when I do, you will be the first to know.  I’m incredibly sorry for this delay.

That being said, I’m also incredibly excited that on September 21st e-copies will be sent to everyone who pre-ordered Lost in the Fog!  Thank you, thank you, thank you, and mahalo!  I’m so grateful for your support, and I hope you enjoy the story of Camden, Veronica, and their quest to find the stolen Matisse sculptures in San Francisco.

-Michael  

A new release announcement - what just might be my favorite story I’ve written, so far!

Book One of the Character Bleed trilogy, Seaworthy (essentially the first third of this giant 254k story), comes out tomorrow – August 1 – from JMS Books! I AM SO EXCITED  – as I mentioned, I love this whole story-world so very much, as we play with the contemporary, the historical, and the ways we fall in love with movies and characters. And books Two (Stalwart) and Three (Steadfast) will be out in September and October, respectively, to finish off the trilogy!

Seaworthy contains:

~actors falling in love while filming a gay Napoleonic War-era love story

~slow-burn mutual pining

~very much resolved sexual tension (at last!)

~lots of food/food-related puns

~the purposeful opposite of the “bury your gays” trope

~the most meaningful boot-removal scene I’ve ever written!

And look at this luscious cover art, below! And also I can promise that it comes with a brand-new, not-available-anywhere-else bonus story.

I hope you love Jason and Colby and random conversations about wizards and pastries and history and bread puns and love stories as much as I do!

Buy at Amazon here!

Buy at JMS Books here!

Buy at Barnes & Noble here!

Dear Readers:

Thanks to you and your support for our project over these past years, we are now so close to sharing  A Friend for Otter with you that we can almost taste it! (Stories taste better than you might expect, actually.)

We have very recently completed a painstaking line-by-line edit of the entire manuscript, and although we want to be modest, we love it! Now we have sent the manuscript out to a diverse group of advance readers to get their feedback on every aspect of the story, from the occasional type (although we hope we’ve gotten them all) to the insight and perspective that can be had only from people who have not spent years steeped in these characters and their stories. Now we must eagerly await that feedback, which is the final step before publication. We are very grateful to our advance readers, and we hope their input will help us further refine Otter’s story before we deliver it to you.

Otter is not the only kid in our lives, and a lot has happened in the Medlong-McCarthy family in the years since we began telling this story. All of us are a little older (although we can’t claim to be any wiser), Jesse is still trying to figure out how to make time for projects like this while working and helping to homeschool five kids, and Sylvia now answers to Ván (their middle name). In other words, life has gone on without regard to our progress on this project. And we expect it to keep going on afterward, even as we close this chapter on our work with Otter.

This process has taken us about five years, which is a lot longer than we expected. But you have stood by us and supported us at every step of the way. So once again, from the bottom of our hearts and inkwells, thank you for all of your patience, encouragement, and support as we have worked to make sure Otter’s story is the best we could craft. 

Happy reading!

Jesse and Ván (Sylvia) Medlong