If you’re looking for some good free reading, check out the GRL Authors’ LGBT Romance collection on Prolific Works (was Instafreebie) – you do have to enter an email to download (and may then get an author newsletter, but can always unsubscribe.) This collection includes 77 gay romance offerings from novels to shorts – some are perma-free books (my own stories are the freebies Nor Iron Bars a Cage and Like the Taste of Summer); some are free just for this giveaway, and some are noted as preview excerpts of longer works for you to get a free taste.
This giveaway runs Sept 1 through Oct 31. If there’s an author you’ve been curious about, or wanted to “meet” before GRL, here’s potentially a chance to check out their writing. (Not all attending authors have a participating story.) You do not have to be going to the conference to download the stories. Enjoy.
https://claims.prolificworks.com/gg/rIu8BvYf550LBItMdQhG?fbclid=IwAR2q8s8malj9rWTBYDK7Z1oOofoVQtf4WyKLcIwaLpENzTZn881Y6mNzFaI
Also remember that there is still time to register for GRL in Albuquerque, NM – Oct 16-20 Registration is open through Sept 8th.
This event is great fun – a chance to hang out with 400 people who all love M/M romance, meet a hundred authors, ask questions, get swag, go to panels, win free books, have fun at evening parties, and more. The official dates are Oct 17-20, but you won’t want to miss the narrators’ panel Wed evening the 16th, if you can make it there.
Check it out – https://gayromlit.com/2019-events
Dear Author,
I have just finished Diving into the Deep.
What a lovely book! They were so cute together (and apart as well!). Great story, lovable MC’s, real conflict (PTST, fighting, sniping at one another, stress) and all that was nicely done. Not glossed over or mentioned in passing, but taken head-on and dealt with it in an actual and realistic manner. The sex scenes between the two were lovingly and gently written. The banter was outstanding and so sarcastically humourous, I loved it!
I was sweating bullets during the sea rescue when the sharks where circling! What a harrowing experience that must be in real life, and reading about it was also harrowing, to say the least!
What a great ceremony at the end! Made me cry it was so moving. They loved each other so much, from the start, through their time onboard the ship, through the homecoming, the PTSD, (Jake was so loving, calm and patient with Daniel through his PTSD, what a swell guy!) and into their later years. One can feel/sense/see the love between the two every time they interact and through the inner dialogue. They “learned” each other, whether it was the beginning fumblings at sex, or living on board ship, trying not to get caught and during their time as civilians living together and getting through all the stress that entails. (it is not easy coming from regimented Military life to civilian life. Not only for the Military members but also for the Military family: wife and kids. My husband retired from the Army many years ago and I well remember the ‘confusion’ of civilian life. Everything is done differently in the Military, we talk differently, we do things differently, friends in the Military are different from civilian friends.)Well done! All aspects of this story, Well Done!
What made me most sad was how we take for granted the freedom and liberties that LGBT has now. And all the hardships these men and women had just to have a relationship with oneanother. Most of us do not know (or may have forgotten) how hard it was back then, what the consequences were of being found out. And consequences were tough and brutal in those days. I am glad you didn’t gloss over that aspect of being gay back then. I was trembling with and for both Jake and Daniel and the other gay sailors on the ship, hoping they wouldn’t be found out.
I am certainly not belittleing LGBT in this day and age. There are still hardships now: gay bashings, beatings, pray-the-gay-away camps etc. But now there are recourses, help, agencies, shelters, friends and family, councillors and more that can help.
All in all, I tremendously enjoyed reading this book. Many thanks to you, (mostly to you for writing such a gem), the Goodreads staff, editors (no typos or other grammatical errors I could detect! Kudos!), volunteers etc.
Regards,
Daniela
Thank you so much for stopping by and writing that for me <3 <3 – I'm so glad you enjoyed meeting Jacob and Daniel and following them through 59 years together.
I'm pleased if the story makes people think about those who lived in eras even tougher than ours. We owe them so much for helping move society forward, even if we have a long way still to go. I wrote Into Deep Waters to pay some homage to those people. And also sometimes I think these days we despair when rights are denied, or we take a step backward, and I think (as much as any step back hurts) it can give us hope to remember how far we have come with steady two steps forward and one back, even in my lifetime.
And yes, the folks in the Goodreads group deserve a lot of credit for the volunteer effort that went into those writing events. A lot of great stories were made possible, and new authors encouraged, by the generosity of those volunteers.