Life News:
Am taking some much-needed days off this coming week, and looking forward just to having nice pottering days in the garden and trips out with my loved one. It looks like this will coincide with our promised heat wave so that's good news. This weekend, it's been so good weather-wise that we've had breakfast out on the patio both days. Lovely.
Over the last couple of weeks or so, the lack of medicinal Happy Pills has really begun to kick in - I absolutely don't want to go back to how it was two or three years ago, which was utterly horrid, so have begun taking a Good Mood St John's Wort tablet in the mornings and two Quiet Life pills in the evenings. Not sure if this is making things any better or not, but I'll give it some time and see how it goes. I reckon if things don't improve much over the next couple of months, I'll try to go and see the doctor again, though I don't reckon she's going to be quite as understanding as my Godalming doctor was. Again, I'll just have to see.
So, with all this in mind, it did hugely irritate me during the week when I tuned in to the radio on the way home from work to hear a charming bisexual man talking to the Radio 4 presenter about how terrible it was that bisexuals were virtually invisible in society. I had to laugh (whilst shouting in disbelief at the pesky radio - not a good look on the A3 ...) - he should ruddy well try being an English woman above the age of 45, then he'd
really know what being invisible damn well feels like. What a lightweight, harrumph!
Thankfully, this week's cake - Lemon Sponge - has turned out very well and makes up for last week's disaster. Phew.
And the October Elstead play has been chosen - a murder mystery - and the lovely K is going to be the policeman in it, hurrah. More lines than last time (always good!) and a step up from his first role with the drama group as a private investigator. Next stop: Chief Super!... Speaking of which, we had a lovely time at the Elstead drama group's summer BBQ yesterday - excellent food, excellent company and excellent weather. Thank you to Sue et al for organising it.
Book News:
I've decided to downplay the whole writing thing for a while - I don't think it's great for my mental health, frankly, and I've felt for a long time that I'm struggling to even be in the game. Plus a lot of wonderful new people are arriving in the gay fiction genre - which is great news for the market and readership - and I've really been around way too long (14 years now) for people to still be telling me that if I keep on going, I'll be sure to make it one day, ho hum. It's getting to be embarrassing!
So I've decided that, in terms of books I don't sell through my current gay fiction or literary fiction publishers, I'm simply going to make them free on the web. At the very least, people shouldn't complain about the waste of money if they dislike the work as they shouldn't have paid for it, hey ho.
So, my current free books are:
The Gifting (Gathandria *1 - epic fantasy),
Hallsfoot's Battle (Gathandria *2 - epic fantasy) and
The Prayer Seeker (spiritual novella).
I hope some of you will take a chance, and maybe even enjoy the reads. You never know!
Meanwhile, over in my gay fiction corner,
A Dangerous Man gained a
5 star review at Goodreads, which included the following comments:
"Honestly, this is one of the best books I have ever read. As an American who has visited London and has English friends, I found the descriptions of London to be, for lack of a better word, intoxicating. The harsh, realistic style Brooke writes is incredible, and the story she tells a modern day Crime and Punishment (my favorite book of all time)."
And
The Beginning of Knowledge gained a
5-star review at Two Men Are Better Than One Reviews:
"This is dark erotica, a short and intense journey into one man’s self discovery, discovery of something dark and dangerous."
Many thanks, both, for reading.
Anne Brooke
