Why Straight Women Love Gay Romance

It's a question I get asked so often that if I had a pound every time someone asked it, I'd be a rich woman by now: why do straight women read/write/love gay fiction/romance? Well, thanks to a series of very searching and inspirational questions from Geoffrey Knight, you're about to find out.

Because Why Straight Women Love Gay Romance will be published by MLR Press on 7 September, and includes an interview with me, and I'm very proud indeed to be in it. Many thanks to Geoffrey for asking me, and I'm also delighted to say that the book is endorsed by, and includes a foreword from, US bestselling author Suzanne Brockman. Great news indeed for gay romance/gay fiction writers. And, hey, what's not to like about that cover?...

Meanwhile, there are only 4 days left before the anniversary book tour of critically acclaimed fantasy novel The Gifting begins on 27 August. It runs until 7 September and during that time you can win a Kindle ereader in the competition plus a host of other goodies. So don't miss out.

It's also not long before the UK GLBTQ Fiction conference in Brighton in September, so I'm very much looking forward to that. You can find out more about it, and some of the participants including myself, at Jessewave Reviews. I really can't wait! We're off to a cabaret on the Saturday night too, so that will be great.

And I'm looking forward to publishing my two Bible stories, Little Bird and A Small Betrayal, on Kindle under the title The Betrayal of Birds. The cover's really shaping up beautifully so I can't wait to reveal it. Other book news is that literary lesbian short story The Girl in The Painting was briefly at No 71 in the Amazon UK gay & lesbian charts, plus gay thriller A Dangerous Man gained a 5-star review at Goodreads (many thanks, Ayanna) and Where You Hurt The Most gained 4 stars (thank you, Silkeeeeee - I hope I'm getting the number of Es right there!).

Turning to more erudite matters (well, sort of ...), it's good to discover that Prince Harry (ah, you can always rely on a redhead) occasionally takes his clothes off and sometimes in a room with another person in it, hey ho. Mind you, I did enjoy the fact that the online US picture (no, really, you can Google it yourself if you wish to - my loyalty as a British subject naturally prevents me from aiding and abetting you ...) helpfully puts a red star over the prince's bottom so we can be spared the experience of the royal ... um ... passageway. How very thoughtful of them. Or perhaps, as K pondered earlier today, the big red star on the behind is how you recognise the rich folks. It could well be the case.

Speaking of husbands, K has gained a HUGE raft of Husband Points this week by (a) clearing out the garage so it now looks wonderfully ordered and neat; and (b) mending my computer chair. However, I gain equally HUGE numbers of Negative Wife Points as he mended my chair on Tuesday and I only just noticed it today (Thursday) - even though I'd been sitting on it since Tuesday evening ... Ah well, I never pretended to be the most observant of women.

The weekend's cake was Carrot Cake with Mascarpone Frosting, and I have to say it was really incredibly tasty. Mmmm, will definitely be making this one again. I particularly enjoyed the addition of walnuts and banana to it. Lovely!

I'm very happy with my Russian Giant sunflowers, as there are now two of them and very glorious they look as well. My indoor gloxinia is also beginning to come into flower, and I'll be taking a photo of that as soon as it's completely out.

Finally, a big thank you to my sister-in-law and her family, D, B & H, who came for lunch on Sunday and we had a fantastic time. Lunch at The Woolpack was wonderful too and that chocolate dessert was to die for. Bliss indeed.

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

Holidays and Hallsfoot

Have taken this week off in order to get my holiday days down - as usually I get to the end of the holiday year at work and have to scrabble around to take time off. So K and I have been out and about visiting various gardens and houses, and buying yet more plants to fill the garden with late summer colour. Am also attempting to look for flowers which will take me through autumn, but there don't seem to be many around as yet, oh well. Maybe I should have got some bulbs in and planted them before now? I'm probably sadly too late for the autumn crocuses, sigh...

Anyway, my Russian Giant sunflowers are now over 6 feet tall (how do they get so much in such a small seed??) and one of them even has a flower. Result! Plus there are more mauve hibiscus flowers out now so that's very jolly. And the phlox is doing well too - now I've cut a space through the cotoneaster so it can actually see the sun ... That cheered it up no end.

Oh, and the sweetpeas have at last started to blossom, so I brought a bunch in for the dining room yesterday, and the smell is glorious.

Beyond that, I've been a wee bit down really. Saw the doctor yesterday, and we've decided to keep the same level of anti-depressants at the moment, and see how I've doing at the start of October. It makes sense for sure as, money-wise, things might be a bit clearer then.

Speaking of which, I've decided to try to self-publish more work directly to Kindle in an effort to help out with finances, but so far the experiment with Not a Shred of Evidence isn't really working. Since publishing it (though I know it's only been a week so probably way too soon to tell!), I've altered a couple of things on the Amazon landing page and fiddled around with my tags etc, so will see if that makes any difference. Beyond that, my best bet might be to choose stories which are more erotic than satirical, so I'm making preparations for that purpose. I'm hoping my next Kindle offering will be two lesbian erotic stories which I'll package under the title, The Truth about Butterflies. I still have to think about the cover though.

Plus there are a couple of Bible stories, which might do well, as Dancing with Lions doesn't do too badly, and of course there's my long-suffering novella The Prayer Seeker, but they'll be Numbers 3 and 4 on my self-publishing list. Onward and upward.

Book news for now rather than the future is that children's book The Origami Nun is now out in paperback, and you can even buy it directly from Karabeth Publishing at a 10% discount if you put the code AUG10 at check-out until TOMORROW.

Recently I've been asked about how to buy copies of my ebooks for those of you without Kindles. The good news is that you can also find much of my work on the Nook at Barnes and Noble, hurrah.

I've also finished the first round of edits on fantasy novel Hallsfoot's Battle (Gathandria *2) and returned them to Bluewood, so am looking forward to the next stage of the process. The cover's fantastic too so can't wait until I'm allowed to reveal it to you.

Meanwhile, over at Vulpes Libris Reviews, I find myself rather disappointed with Sophie Hannah's crime novel, The Other Half Lives. And she's usually such a great writer too, oh well. Hope to try something else of hers soon ...

And, goodness me, but I've joined Pinterest. Whatever next, eh! Am enjoying having fun with cover art and pics though.

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

Sunflowers, sales and snow

Book News:

I'm happy to say that Where You Hurt The Most is still doing okay in reviews, which is lovely. It's recently received a review rated A- at Brief Encounter Reviews, one at the Well Read Book Blog, plus a 5-star review at Goodreads, and a 4-star review also at Goodreads, this latter from a reader who usually doesn't read contemporary fiction. Many thanks to all for picking up and reviewing the book.

Meanwhile my blog tour continues, with Day 5 taking place at the Book Wenches site where you can find out why I write m/m fiction. And let's not forget you can also enter the competition to win 3 ebooks from my backlist - good luck.

This week, you can also buy any of my books at All Romance Ebooks in their sale - so buy early buy often. After all, who can resist a bargain ... And at the same time, all my books at Dreamspinner Press have a 30% discount right now, so do feel free to have a browse in both of these stores and pick up anything that takes your fancy. As it were. Happy reading!

I've also sent back the proofed copy of my literary paranormal short story The Gift of The Snow to Untreed Reads, so watch this space in terms of a publication date for that one ...

Here's my most recent meditation poem:




Meditation 654
One fact people
so easily forget
is how much
God loves to laugh

for otherwise
He would have created
a far duller world
by half.


The Sunday haiku is:

In this summer hush
a barn owl floats through the trees:
messenger of dusk.


Life News:

We had a great night out on Friday, having dinner and chat with R&G, along with L&J, so many thanks to all for a wonderful time. The food was excellent too, and I had second helpings of everything available. Bad me ...

Yesterday's cake effort was the Swiss Roll - all went fairly well until it got to the rolling up stage, which was something of a nightmare. However I now have lots of great advice from Facebook friends (many thanks, all), and the joy of it all is it tastes pretty damn good, even though it looks rather weird. Phew ...

Last night was also the grand reopening of The Woolpack in Elstead, so we went along with J (L up in London) for our free buffet and champers. All very nice, and we'll definitely be back. The focus is going to be slightly more Italian, which is more than fine as far as I'm concerned. Apparently the coffee's going to be grand, so I can't wait to try it out. Strangely they'll also be open for breakfast from 6am, but that's rather too early even for me, I fear.

This weekend the weather has been glorious, my dears, glorious. So we've been out whenever possible mowing the lawn, finishing off our second gate (why make do with only one?...), getting more bedding plants in and, most importantly of all, getting our sunflower seeds planted. The big problem there was trying to find somewhere the Russian Giant (ooh err, missus) which can get to 4-5 metres tall would be happy, but hurrah that's where the second gate comes into its own. We hope. To encourage appropriate growth, I also bought a lovely sunflower plant from our local flower shop, Teasels, and that looks wonderful. You can't go wrong with a sunflower really.

And, talking of weather, I've been very impressed with Prince Charles' weather forecasting moment, which still makes me laugh even though I've watched it several times. I tell you, he's a natural ...

Anne Brooke
The Gathandrian Fantasy Trilogy
Gay Reads UK
Biblical Fiction UK