author. human. working hard to become stellar at life.
Leta is turning 40! In celebration, she’s offering 40% off her books The River Leith and Training Season over at Smashwords! Find the coupon codes below.
OFFER ENDS SEPTEMBER 30, 2014!!!
The coupon code for THE RIVER LEITH at Smashwords is SG45C (not case-sensitive).
The coupon code for TRAINING SEASON at Smashwords is WR24Y (not case-sensitive).
“M/M romance fans won’t want to miss out on this one. Leith and Zach are two lovable heroes and their love story is one that I won’t forget any time soon.”
via The Reading Room Blog: *Review* The River Leith by Leta Blake.
Buy at ARe. Buy at Amazon. Buy at Smashwords. Buy at Kobo. Buy at Barnes & Noble. Buy at iTunes.
From the link below:
“Meet Jack and Kin from my novella Arctic Fire.
Haunted by what he lost in Afghanistan, Captain Jack Turner is at a crossroads. A routine mission to the Arctic gets him out from behind his boring new desk, but he starts off on the wrong foot with the Canadian Ranger guiding him across the forbidding and dangerous land. Jack doesn’t know where he belongs, but he’d rather be anywhere than sharing a tent with Sergeant Kin Carsen.
The Arctic is in Kin’s blood, and he can’t seem to leave the tundra behind. He wishes he could live openly as a gay man, but the north isn’t as accepting as the rest of Canada. Although he’s lonely, he’s proud of his responsibility as a Ranger, patrolling the vast land he knows so well. But he’s on unfamiliar ground with Jack, and when they’re stranded alone by a blizzard, unexpected desire begins to burn. Soon they’re locked in a struggle to survive, and all these strangers have is each other.”
Click the following link to read an excerpt of Keira’s new novella! And, in even better news, there are going to be 16 sizzling gay military men stories for only 99 cents!.
Welcome to Cathia University, where school is in session! Nine of today’s hottest gay romance authors have crafted brand-new interrelated novellas celebrating everything wonderful about college, with over 200,000 words featuring sophisticated professors, sexy teaching assistants, ambitious grad students, and spirited undergraduates, all looking for the same thing: an A+ in true love.
Annabeth Albert: Winning Bracket
Cassandra Carr: The Eloquent Jock
Dalton Diaz: Lesson Learned
Mia Downing: Switching Leads
Whitley Gray: Artistic Endeavor
Bianca Sommerland: Solid Education
KyAnn Waters: Private Lessons
LA Witt: Did Somebody Order a Pizza?
Sara York: The Dust Of Everyday Life
The Campus Cravings male/male bundle will release on August 25th! Add Campus Cravings to your Goodreads to-be-read-list HERE.
(I’m sorry international fans, but this deal is U.S. only! )
That’s right! First five people to comment below gets a free paperback of The River Leith sent their way.
For clarity, that’s the first five people to reply on my Facebook post AND the first five people to reply on this blog post AND the first five people to comment on the post at Goodreads. That’s a total of fifteen books going out to fifteen folks! (Um, hopefully that many people would like a free paperback of this one!)
Okay, ready, set, go!
*waits* *crickets*
Um, or, you know, whenever you might think you might maybe want this book? 🙂
Embarrassingly, it came to my attention that there were eighteen typos in the final files in The River Leith that went up for sale two weeks ago. One of those typos came in the middle of a very important conversation between the characters and was quite cringeworthy.
I’d like to apologize to the readers that these errors made it through. It’s kind of amazing given the attention to detail and number of eyes that were on this book, and yet it happened as it did. Regardless, it’s important to me that readers have the best book available in their hands, so I’ve taken the steps and paid to have the files re-formatted and as of two days ago, I’ve officially uploaded new files to all vendors.
Hopefully we have caught all of the typos in the book now and going forward there will be no problem. If you’ve already purchased the book, you can go to the vendor to see about updating the file for your reading.
At Amazon in particular, I know there is an option for updating your file to the corrected version. Here are the directions on how to do that from their page:
Follow these steps to enable the Automatic Book Update:
1. Visit the Manage Your Content and Devices page
2. Select “Automatic Book Update” from the left navigation bar.
3. Click Turn On.
So, when I wrote The River Leith, it originally had an epilogue after the last vlog post, but my editor said, “Nope. Nope, nope, nope. It ends nicely with the vlog. No need to clutter the book up with what amounts to two endings!” So, with a heavy heart, I deleted the scene.
But! That gives me an opportunity to share it with you now! Let me say in advance IT HAS MASSIVE, MASSIVE, MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE END OF THE BOOK!!!! If you have not read the book, then you may want to take a pass on reading beyond the cut.
If you have read the book, then you know what happens, so let’s just cut to the chase! Click on through to see the deleted epilogue to The River Leith. There’s more texting, more Thakur, more Zach, and more Leith! *twirls and throws confetti*
[Read more…] about Deleted Scene: The River Leith’s Alternate Ending #spoilers #extras
Well, hello there! I used to know how to use this site to do this cool thing called blogging, but then I decided that I needed a break because I had too much on me, and now I’m sitting here looking at this blank page and thinking, “What the hell do I do with this?”
I suppose I should mention that I’m going to have a book out very soon. I can’t decide if I should release it the last week of May or the first week of June. I feel like May is a better month. It sounds happier and it’s six months from when I released Training Season. But, realistically, if I want to have ARCs out, finalize the formatting, and not mess anything up due to a panicky rush, then I should probably set it lose in the wild the first week of June.
I’ve had people ask me what this book is about and each time I flounder. Of course I still flounder on how to talk about Training Season, too. I was at Rainbow Con (which deserves a post of its own!) and a lovely woman named Vicki was looking at a print copy of Training Season. She looked at me and said, “This is your book?” And I said, “Yes. I wrote it. It’s about…things. In a book. That people seem to like.” She looked at me like I was mad (which we all know I am) and smiled politely before putting the book down and walking away. So, yeah, saleswoman I am not!
But, this next book is totally different from Training Season. It’s shorter for one thing and it’s got zero enemas in it, which, hey, will please many folks, I’m sure. I swear I did not drink any liquor on my lunch break, just some kind of power-greens fruit juice thing which might have made me high? I don’t know. Anyway, there’s no figure skating, no ranching, and no D/s dynamics to speak of! And absolutely zero toilets! I promise!
That sells it, doesn’t it? You want to buy this book now, don’t you?
Um, let me try again. It’s a comfort-read featuring the ever-beloved amnesia trope! And a boxer! And a vlogger! And there’s romance and gay lovemaking and a kooky, cliche (in the good way) psychiatrist! And there’s drama! And angst! And hurt-comfort! And squishy, lovable, adorable characters who just make you want to hug them until they come to their senses and do their lives right! (Well, I feel that way about them anyway! And I hope you do, too!)
And if that doesn’t sell it, just look at this cover! I mean, guh, yes? When I send Dar (the cover artist) the back blurb (which is being crafted lovingly by Kathleen Tudor!), I’m going to see if she can’t pull him down just a tad so my name isn’t all up in his eyebrows. I think that will make it easier for me to make a nice little advert out of the cover later when I need one. Anyway, this cover is lovely, isn’t it? He’s looking at you and he’s saying, “Buy me. I’m an amnesiac. I’ve forgotten things and need to relearn them. You can watch me LEARN ALL THE THINGS. *cough*”
Hooray!
Well, lookie there. It seems I remembered how to use this thing after all! Just like riding a bike!
LGBT Month: Interview with Leta Blake – I’m With Geek.
Click above to read my interview for I’m With Geek. Hayley asked some wonderful, thoughtful questions that I really enjoyed answering. Go have a peek! Also, check out their whole site! It’s very interesting and well-done!
Reading a gay erotic romance novel, you’d never know that anal sex between men wasn’t clean, easy, and fuss-free. However, as the following videos with Davy Wavy attest, that’s not always (or possibly even often) the case.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/EzH5kIEGmBk?t=2m27s]
[If the above YouTube video isn’t cued to the right place, it’s at 2:27.]
It’s interesting that in the video above they are discussing the tendency of the porn industry to also present anal sex as totally poop free. From that, I think we can all concur that lots of poop on dicks isn’t considered an ideal turn-on for human beings in general. There’s a reason it’s left out of porn and erotic romance scenes.
But, as Davy points out, it does happen. That’s why many gay men douche or use enemas to try to keep it from interfering as much as it might otherwise. It’s one reason, I think, that not a single gay man who has reviewed my book Training Season has made any noise at all about the scene where one of the MCs uses an enema as part of a non-sexual BDSM scene with his boyfriend. [Perhaps that’s another topic for another day: BDSM scenes are not always sexual.] Many straight female readers, however, have really clutched their pearls over that scene.
I can’t say that surprises me. When the characters started that scene when I was writing it, I said, “Hey, guys, readers are going to hate this. Stop.” But they didn’t stop. So I wrote it. And then editors didn’t hate it. So, we left it in, and went with it. I’m glad that we did. I feel like it’s something that is real and isn’t seen in every book out there.
I remember when I was in college an older friend said to me, “You know you’re with a man who really loves you if you can take a shit in front of him and he still finds you attractive later.” At the time I pondered that comment a lot, but I do think she was on to something there. I appreciated the characters in the book going to a place that few people seem entirely willing to even think about going. The scene was intimate and intense, but not sexual, and advanced the story in an important way.
Anyway, yes, shit happens during anal sex. Porn and the erotic romance might not want to show those realities very often, but I think that there is something almost fetishistic about refusing to contemplate the potential realities associated with a certain act. And I think the fact that gay male readers haven’t found the scene problematic speaks rather clearly to the fact that they’re cool with enemas and other preparation for anal sex that might include the dreaded poo. It’s straight female readers, who often aren’t as familiar with anal sex or the prep that goes with it, who are reacting so negatively to a preparatory scene, and, well, I think that says something interesting, too. Something worth mentioning and thinking about.
Anyway, below is Davy Wavy giving some life tips from his bedroom. Two are applicable to this post: when it doubt douche it out, and shit happens so don’t buy white sheets.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/KdifTiEzXaE]
Today I’m over at Romance Lives Forever doing a character interview with Matty. He was in a subdued mood when answering the questions, apparently, but hopefully he’s still interesting! 😛 Click the link above to read the interview!
“5 Double Toe Loop Golden Glittering stars for this story that has left me an emotional wreck.”
“Unbelievably good, and Matty and Rob’s story will stay with me for quite some time.”
via Goodreads | Bev’s review of Training Season.
SMASHWORDS COUPON CODE: XU64P
50% off! Coupon expires February 15th!
“It seemed every new chapter exposed the reader to new facets of their lives and every one of them was interesting!”
“I would highly recommend this book to anyone loving m/m romance with one hot alpha male and his sexy princess figure skater!”
“4.5 Amazing Stars!”
Goodreads | Ann’s review of Training Season.
Nanee at Satin Sheets Romance has a lot of love for Training Season!
“Wow! This book was a pleasant surprise, I’m not into figure skating but you don’t have to be. I cried, I laughed and I fell in love with these characters!”
Read more of her review at Satin Sheets Romance!
No foolin’ this time! It’s the real deal!
TRAINING SEASON IS AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK!!
I got that whole back cover thing fixed right up, so go forth and pick up your copy!
(Though, hey, nothing’s perfect, and apparently it might take a few days for the change to reflect on the Amazon site itself, but any books sold will have the correct blurb!)
AND I’m giving away two signed copies to two folks who comment here on my blog. I’ll use the random number generator thingy from the interwebs to choose from the comments and contact you. Oh, and the end date for signing up for this little drawing will be on February 3rd!
If you’d like to be considered for this giveaway, please leave a comment below!
Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed and loved on Training Season! You guys, I never imagined this book would be so well loved! THANK YOU! And thank you again! And again! AND AGAIN!
So, weird shit happens, right? Like, for example, when I got the file for the print cover of Training Season, I checked it over really well and it was all perfect. However, later, when I was doing some formatting, it came to my attention that the cover needed slightly altered to work with CreateSpace, so requested the change from the cover artist, who was very prompt with it. Unfortunately, I didn’t check the cover as well as I should have because I thought the only change being made to the file was one of size. Still, I should have checked every aspect a lot more closely than I did because…dun, dun, dun…I didn’t realize that the back cover had a blurb that wasn’t even remotely related to Training Season. Um, oops.
So, yeah, I clicked Publish with it that way.
*headdesk*
Now I’ve got fifteen books with a blurb on the back about some woman named Elizabeth, her daughter Clare, and a dude named Nathan. Everything else about these copies is totally correct. I’ve looked at every page and the rest of the book, the front cover, etc, is absolutely accurate.
So, what to do with these fifteen screwed up copies? I guess give them away for free to anyone who’ll have ’em!
Reply below if you’re willing to home a copy of Training Season with a back blurb that’s all wrong. LOL! The first fifteen to reply will be sent these screwed up books for free. I’ll even sign them if you like, because apparently some people want signed copies of the books? (OMG, that blows my mind!) Um, and because I’m already losing money on this endeavor, please don’t hate me for restricting this to US folks only? I just don’t think I can afford international shipping for fifteen books when I’ve already paid for the books to be printed, etc.
Consider these rare collector’s editions? Or something? OMG this is embarrassing. Hello, my name is Leta, and I’m a dumbass. But you can get a book for free because I am. Just let me know.
“I absolutely adored this book! Definitely one of my favourite ‘feel good’ books. Ever!! It was perfect. Just perfect!”
“Beyond the MC’s are some wonderful side characters! Sooooo many great characters!”
“The descriptive writing is so beautiful too – I hate when authors are so heavy handed and verbose that I zone out – Leta Blake got the balance just right.”
Read more of Barb’s review at Live Your Life, Buy the Book’s Site:
Training Season | Live Your Life, Buy The Book.
“Does Training Season by Leta Blake live up to all it’s crazy hype? IT SO DOES!”
— Breann, at Boy Meets Boy Reviews
Read more of her glowing review at: Boy Meets Boy Reviews: Review: Training Season by Leta Blake.
“I am stunned. I am shocked. I am bewildered, beholden and breathless at what I have just read. What did I just read? A wonderful story? The most complete love story that I have come across? A gorgeous tale of love, hope, loss, acceptance, forgiveness and just a stunning tale…all of the above? You bet your sweet ass.”
— A Review of Training Season by Leta Blake, by The Risque Redhead Reviews.
Another really touching and amazing review of my book, Training Season. I’m so amazed! Thrilled you enjoyed it so much!
Hooray! We are live on Amazon! Love’s Nest is there waiting to fulfill your Kindle’s sexy fairy tale needs! Because, seriously, who doesn’t need some hot gay fairies on their Kindle?
