Delaneys and daffodils

Book News:

Gay erotic short story The Delaneys, My Parents and Me is now available at Amazon UK (where it was even briefly in the Top 100 Gay Erotic Fiction charts, well gosh) and Amazon US. You can also find it at All Romance Ebooks.

It's also been getting some positive reviews, including a 4-star review, a 5-star review and another 5-star review, all at Goodreads, and one from On Top Down Under Reviews, which included the following comments:

"This is the last in the six book series/serial of The Delaneys and I'm so very sad to see my lads leave me. Every ebook was a joy to read. Nover long but each one was beautifully written, perfectly edited, and used the English language the way it was meant to be used. Never once did they fail to make me laugh out loud, and there was some incredibly erotic times … It was this series that introduced me to Anne Brooke and it is with great sadness that I say farewell to Liam, Mark and Johnny."

Many thanks for that, Karen! The lads are sorry to leave you too ...

Other exciting news is that gay thriller Maloney's Law, which will be republished on 7 April by Amber Allure Press, has a brand-new cover, and pretty dang wonderful it is too. I love it.

And, much to my delight and astonishment, Leeds Library has bought an ecopy of fantasy novel, The Gifting, so many thanks for that, Leeds, and I hope it gets many borrowers for you.


Life News:

The delights of the dentist this week, so I have survived a rather deep filling, phew. Apparently, if it doesn't work, then I might have to have root canal treatment (oh joy!...) so I'm praying very hard that it works, ho hum.

Mind you, I was pleasantly distracted by the surprise visit from the first butterfly of the season - a red admiral - here on our winter heather. So wonderful. I only hope it survives the snow that's forecast for tomorrow, groan ... I also bought myself some spring daffodils and they've been cheering up our kitchen windowsill no end.

And, keeping to the nature theme, we've done a great job in keeping the weeds down this weekend, and we've even eaten the first of our home-grown potatoes, goodness me. Mind you, if I'm honest, they were actually the potatoes we were trying to grow for Christmas so they're just a tad late, but very tasty nonetheless.

Yesterday, K and I spent a pleasant morning at Nymans, and thoroughly enjoyed their spring walk, in spite of the bleak weather. Whilst there, I treated myself to a new tiarella and have planted it out this morning.

Meanwhile, cake baking has not been neglected and this weekend's offering is Farmhouse Orange Victoria Sponge, which is pretty tasty - though I say it myself and shouldn't. Still, when has that ever stopped me, eh?

And, over at The Angry Anglican, I'm talking about cardinal sins and celibacy, possibly both at the same time, hey ho. Don't say you haven't been warned.

Though, as a final warning, I really can't do better than this cartoon which somehow says it all, at least for me. Really, it's astonishing I'm still allowed to roam free across Surrey, for now ...

Anne Brooke
Gay Reads UK
The Gathandrian Fantasy Trilogy
Biblical Fiction UK
Lori Olding Children's Author

Hampton Court Flowers and a very figgy mystery

Book News:

I'm pleased to say that, having been rather let down by my previous blog tour promotional company, my new one, Goddess Fish Promotions, does at least understand the need to communicate with me on a regular basis (hurrah!!) and have an actual tour schedule for fantasy novel The Gifting. This will now take place from 27 August to 7 September, and the grand prize will be a free Kindle, with consolation prizes of ebooks. So it will definitely be worth entering, just as long as I get a few dates in the spaces currently there, hey ho ...

Meanwhile, literary horror story The Gift of The Snow has just been purchased by the South Carolina Low Country library, so many thanks to them and I hope some lovely person might borrow it soon.

I'm also now included as my children's writer alter-ego Lori Olding at the Karabeth Publishing website, so that's nice to see.

In terms of recent competitions, the winners of the Erato GLBT Pride Month Giveaway were Avalie, Jennifer and Trix. Many congratulations to them, and a big thank you to all who took part.  Along the same lines, the recent Independence Day bloghop was great fun and my three winners were MFierydrgn, Marissa and Adila. Congratulations to all!

Plus, for those of you keeping count, there are only five months to go before the rights to my gay crime novel Maloney's Law return to me, so I'm very much looking forward to that.

Recent meditation poems are:




Meditation 674
Our best joys
must be allowed
to leave us

or the dance of life
will become a cloud
to grieve us.




Meditation 675
The true mystery
is how history
works out somehow
to bring us to now

and all we can do,
no matter where or who,
friend or foe,
is join in the show.


Life News:

Yesterday, K and I had an absolutely fantastic day out at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, which was totally stunning and we spent six glorious hours in a veritable Flower Heaven. We bought, and have today planted, oxalis, osteospermum (which is rapidly becoming my "go to" plant for reliability and colour), dianthus, ladybird poppies (one of which has already flowered) and white flowering euphorbia. Plus I added to my heuchera city names collection with Shanghai. Next on my heuchera list are Vienna and Hollywood. Watch this space ...

And, much to our joy, just as we arrived at the Show, K and I passed right next to Monty Don (who is Gardening Totty Extraordinaire, to my mind) and Rachel de Thame (whom K is ... um ... quite partial to also), and I came over all Fan Girl, though didn't quite have the courage to talk to them. My gardening heroes - what could be nicer!

Another gardening excitement is that our crocosmia lucifer is now in flower, and gloriously fiery it's beginning to look too. Plus the gardening mystery of the week is the fact that when I left for work on Tuesday morning, my poor dead fig tree was looking terribly sad and bare in its pot but when I returned on Tuesday evening, it was gloriously bushy, with lots of fruit and (interesting this one ...) a much thicker stem ... Hmm, K assures me with an Expression of Total Innocence that this is nothing to do with him, but just goes to show what a brilliant gardener I am. It's a mystery indeed, if I can believe him ...

Finally, it may be just me but I really can't get that thrilled about the whole Higgs Boson thing. Scientists have found something incredibly small. Um, gosh. Give it another 45 years or so and they'll probably find something even smaller. I do wonder if they'd be better off making it easier on themselves by looking for something larger, but I do understand that's a minority view, hey ho ...

Anne Brooke
The Gathandrian Fantasy Trilogy
Gay Reads UK
Biblical Fiction UK
Lori Olding - Children's Author

Angels, Lions and Death

Book News

There's a definite religious theme in the latest book news, which is surely very appropriate for the season, hurrah. First off, biblical short story, Dancing with Lions, is being offered at a 25% discount directly from Untreed Reads until April 15th, so don't miss out on that one.

Plus four copies (four, gosh!) of my other biblical story, A Little Death, have just been purchased by Northern Ireland Libraries, so that's definitely put a smile on my face. Not to be outdone, gay romantic comedy Angels and Airheads is now a bestseller at All Romance Ebooks, and has just received a 4-star review at The Novel Approach (so many thanks for that).

And as a very special Easter treat for you, I'm giving away FIVE ecopies of my fantasy novel The Gifting until 29th April at LibraryThing. So pop across there now and add your name to the list and you'll be in with a chance of winning - good luck!

Meanwhile, I'm continuing to work on a set of interviews and articles for a variety of bloggers and review sites, so many thanks for those requests. Further details to follow ...



Life News:

I've spent the last three days at the AUA universities conference in Manchester. I enjoyed it as usual and it was really lovely to be up there with my wonderful colleague Carol C, but I'm not sure it was as good as previous conferences. I think that was probably due to a number of factors, including me still getting over being ill last week, the hugely long drive up in the rain there and back (groan ...), and possibly also the fact that we were in hotels rather than student accommodation, so it didn't have quite so much of the fun/community factor, to my mind. That said, I'm sure that once I get to grips with my notes, I'll find a thousand and one useful ideas to take away - it's just that I can't quite get my head round them at the moment.

Back home, K has planted a bed of pansies next to the sweet peas at the front, and our back garden tulips are going to be red (hurrah!) though they're not out yet. Plus we have one bluebell just out in the back, so I'm hoping there'll be more soon. We do so love bluebells.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Anne Brooke
The Gathandrian fantasy trilogy
Gay Reads UK
Biblical Fiction UK

Buy One Get One Free and Roof Disasters

Book News:

Fantasy novel The Gifting is currently being advertised on the Kindle UK Users Forum until 7 February, so if you buy a copy before then, you also get a FREE ebook from anything on my backlist. I am indeed the Queen of the Offers this year (as it were) so happy shopping!

Meanwhile, don't forget that my gay short story The Heart's Greater Silence is less than 72 hours away from being released to you if you've preordered it. And if you haven't, I believe there's still time to do so and also enter into the Riptide competition to win FREE ebooks for a year, so don't miss out ... Speaking of which, there's a lovely 5-star review at Goodreads just in today, so thank you, Jeff, for that. So pleased you enjoyed the read. And don't forget my blog tour will start on 6 February and there will be lots of goodies and prizes to win, as well as some exclusive extracts, so I do hope you'll join me. I'm sure it's going to be fun.

At the same time, there's a whole baggage of exciting book news this week, which I will list below for ease of understanding:

1. My gay thriller A Dangerous Man is one of the entries for the LGBT Scholarship auction, so please feel free to make a bid and support a very worthy cause. It will end on Sunday 5 February, so there's still time - just! Many thanks.
2. Gay romantic short story Angels and Airheads will be published by Musa Publishing in September, so I'm looking forward to that.
3. Gay erotic short story The Delaneys and Me gained a 4-star review at Goodreads - thank you, Sandra.
4. Not to be outdone, Dating the Delaneys also gained a Goodreads 4-star review - many thanks again to Sandra.
5. Literary lesbian short story The Girl in The Painting was for a time at No 7 in the Amazon UK Short Story charts, which was lovely. It's down to No 25 now, but hey I'm still smiling. It is odd though how people are buying it (for which thank you!) but nobody seems to want to talk about it afterwards. Perhaps it's a secret vice, even though there's no sex in it at all? It is indeed a mystery but a nice one.
6. Another literary lesbian short story A Woman Like The Sea is also subject to a 30% discount at Untreed Reads for the whole of February, so why not give it a try? Again, no sex, but a whole lot of emotion. Enjoy!
7. Two copies of my biblical short story A Little Death have been bought by a library in Indiana, so that's very positive too, well gosh.
8. And, finally, you can now find all my romantic stories and novels in one place at my page at Romance Reviews, so happy browsing there too.

Today, you can find my review of Lisa Jewell's chicklit novel 31 Dream Street at Vulpes Libris Reviews. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was greatly pleased indeed that the main character was a man - good for you, Lisa!

This week's meditations are:


Meditation 619
Everything new begins
with the destruction
of something old

for there is a balance
in the universe
as our stories unfold

and all that fades
is exchanged
for everlasting gold.




Meditation 620
Money has the gift
of deadening thought

where each fresh idea
dies when bought

so all our dancing life
remains uncaught.


Life News:

Jolly cold here in the outback, Captain, I must say. Golly gosh, have we been transplanted to Russia and nobody's told us?? It wouldn't surprise me. Suffice it to say that my thermals are in good use this week, and I even wore them to work for the first time ever. Another weather first was earlier in the week I snuggled up in front of the TV with a blanket round my knees. Not the sexiest image you could think of, I admit, but I have to say it was bliss. I am indeed turning into my grandmother after all and any day now I will be taking up knitting and developing a Geordie accent. You heard it here first ... I'm now wondering if I should invest in a slanket or a snuggie - yes, it is sad that I know these phrases - but I'm not sure K's reaction would be positive.

Mind you, with the way things are developing with our Roof Problem, a slanket may turn out to be a wise option yet. Our third roofing man turned up today to give us a quote and he too thinks it's not good news and the whole lot will have to be redone. He's even coming back tomorrow with a friend so he can take a proper look at the really disastrous parts, ah well. Which in a strange sort of way is actually reassuring as we're therefore not being taken for a ride by the first chappie. No news yet from Chappie No 2 however - perhaps he was just too traumatised by it all. Not only that but in chatting with the neighbour today, it appears that the roof of our house has always been an issue and in fact the extension roof doesn't fit properly with the original one. As this is exactly what today's man said too, I suspect there'll be trouble ahead, my dears. The only mystery now is whether Chappie No 3's quote will be four figures or five.

I'd best start knitting then. Anyone willing to buy a jumper? My prices are good, hey ho ...

Anne Brooke
The Gathandrian Trilogy
Gay Reads UK
Biblical Fiction UK

Counselling and Clarins

Got to town early today to avoid the mad rush for spaces, but weirdly the car-park that's never full was full, and the one that's always full was empty. Will the excitement of the year never end? So I managed to rush round town like a dervish and get suitable gifts for Lord H before going to my counselling appointment. This was really good this week - I feel I'm getting to a deeper level with stuff than I was able to do with Zoe, partly because I was new at the game then and partly because there was so much other crap going on that I couldn't concentrate on the core stuff. Bloody hell, but Kunu the counsellor (which sounds suspiciously like Vlad the Impaler, but she smiles more) is good. She made me think seriously about having a real conversation with Michael (the man who's always in my head and whom the non-funny books I write are always, always about in some way or other - hey somebody pass me the strait-jacket, won't you?...) so we can see what he actually has to say. Scary but interesting. I think I'll do it - next time maybe - but I also think I'll do some free association writing on it and see what comes up. After all, writing it as a first pass through might make it easier. But hey - counselling homework. Who'd have thought it?

I spent the next two hours post-counselling in the Library writing out the Christmas cards and inserting our sad couple's Christmas letter in the cards of those people I actually want to communicate with. Hmm, says it all really. I was also shocked to discover that Guildford Library has no loo. Honestly, what a rubbish (I would prefer to say "crap" here but the pun is too much even for me) place! It hardly has any books either - just staff who look as if they've been there for 150 years, died and never been buried.

Then, it was another two glorious hours in the hands of my Clarins therapist. Ah, the bliss of a facial and massage combined. Almost makes me feel female. Now, there's a novelty. What would Michael think? Oh sorry, I'm not supposed to be doing my homework yet. Bugger.

Today's nice things:

1. Counselling
2. Clarins treatments
3. Coming home and realising I don't have to speak to anyone else but Lord H for a whole evening - hurrah!

Anne Brooke
http://www.annebrooke.com
http://www.goldenford.co.uk