Monday Was Very Good to Me

Folks love to grouse about Monday. It's the first day of the work week (unless you work retail or a restaurant, in which case your work week is haphazard and weekends mean very little in terms of what days they fall on). Monday gets a bad rap sometimes, because yesterday was very good to me.

So much fun news!

First I came home and found a box in the mail from Dreamspinner Press, with pretty, pretty paperback copies of WHAT YOU OWN inside! I was expecting some things from Amazon, but this was even better. This is my third book in print (so far), so it was lovely to flip the pages and browse through Ryan/Adam's story.

Out of curiosity, I went to check the nominations for the Goodreads M/M Romance Group's 2013 Readers Choice Awards. Mostly to see which of my favorite books were nominated in various categories, and there were a lot. So I was pleasantly stunned to see COLOR OF GRACE nominated for Best Tear Jerker.

I'm not sure if you have to be a member of the group to see the nominations, but you have to be a member to vote in the final polls. It's so humbling and gratifying to see my work recognized by readers.

And if that didn't make my day, this final thing did.

Dreamspinner has contracted UNDERSTANDING JEREMY, the sequel to UNEARTHING COLE, and will publish it next summer! Folks have been asking for more of Cole and Jeremy since UC released this past spring, and for a novella, this book was hard to write. Getting into Jeremy's head was a challenge, and it took me more than seven months to write this, working off and on while managing other books. But I'm so pleased with how it turned out, and I hope UC fans love it too.

Below is the blurb I used in my submission query (not the official blurb, which will come later), to give y'all a glimpse of what's to come.

Six weeks after the auction of his parents' hoarded property, Cole Alston is free of their possessions, but not the house and land.  The winning bid fell through, leaving him unable to follow his original plan to take the money and go elsewhere to start over—a plan that is slowly dissolving under the pleasant influence of his unexpected relationship with Jeremy Collins. Jeremy is quite content to have Cole still living with him, and despite Cole's frequent nightmares of the abuse he endured thanks to his ex-boyfriend Martin, they've created a comfortable coexistence.
 

A coexistence that could shatter at any moment, because their relationship is a carefully guarded secret in their very small town. Cole is terrified that coming out will ruin the business and friendships that Jeremy has built, and he'd rather leave than hurt Jeremy so badly. Jeremy has fallen hard for Cole, despite knowing Cole's presence was never a promise, and he's willing to risk blowing up his life in order to keep him. Jeremy has already survived a lifetime of painful losses, but as secrets and misunderstandings continue to pile up, he may face his greatest loss of all: the first man he's ever really loved.

Much love!