“Beautiful, compelling and above all, believable. I couldn’t put it down. Hope to see more from this writing pair.”
Source: Amazon.com: Elr’s review of Vespertine
sex
"So good I didn't want it to end. Wonderful everything! Nicky and Jazz forever!" | Review of Vespertine
“This was so good I didn’t want it to end. Wonderful everything! Nicky and Jazz forever!”
Source: Goodreads | Rennie’s review of Vespertine
Can a priest and a rock star obey love’s call?
Seventeen years ago, Jasper Hendricks and Nicholas Blumfeld’s childhood friendship turned into a secret, blissful love affair. They spent several idyllic months together until Jasper’s calling to the Catholic priesthood became impossible to ignore. Left floundering, Nicky followed his own trajectory into rock stardom, but he never stopped looking back.
Today, Jasper pushes boundaries as an out, gay priest, working hard to help vulnerable LGBTQ youth. He’s determined to bring change to the church and the world. Respected, admired, and settled in his skin, Jasper has long ignored his loneliness.
As Nico Blue, guitarist and songwriter for the band Vespertine, Nicky owns the hearts of millions. He and his bandmates have toured the world, lighting their fans on fire with their music. Numbed by drugs and fueled by simmering anger, Nicky feels completely alone. When Vespertine is forced to get sober, Nicky returns home to where it all started.
Jasper and Nicky’s careers have ruled their lives since they parted as teens. When they come face to face again, they must choose between the past’s lingering ghosts or the promise of a new future.
Twice Cut! A Cut Sex Scene from Training Complex! Available at Crystal’s Many Reviewers! #gay #hawt
Twice Cut
Part of writing is cutting the parts of the book that you may like but don’t serve the plot or pace of the story. As a book, Training Complex, the sequel to 2013’s Training Season, contains a lot of sex, but at one time it contained even more. In fact, four sex scenes were cut from the final book and I will be sharing them on various blogs over the next couple of months.
This scene was actually written for Training Season back in 2013 but was cut from that book for various reasons. I loved it so much, though, that I tried to work it into Training Complex. I made editorial changes to the setting and the situation, but, for the most part, it’s the same scene. I probably spent six hours reworking this, though, and so it hurt a little when once again it ended up on the cutting room floor.
But I present it to you now in hopes that you may enjoy it just a little and get a taste of some of what might be offered in Training Complex itself.
CLICK ON THROUGH TO CRYSTAL’S MANY REVIEWERS TO READ THE SCENE!
Available at:
SEXcerpt and Reader’s Choice Giveaway! Leta Blake is at Diverse Reader with a cut sex scene from Training Complex! #free #gay
Click through HERE to read a cut sex scene from Training Complex and to participate in a rafflecopter for a reader’s choice giveaway! Any of my books are available to one lucky winner!
As a tease, I’ll start the scene off for you here!
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Warning: 18+ readership and mildly spoilery for the issues in the book as a whole, as well as a particular kink.
Matty sat on the toilet and shook the cock cage, rattling it to the best of his ability. The vibration of the lock on the polycarbonate resonated against his straining flesh but it gave him no relief. “Fuck, fuck,” he whispered, needing more stimulation, needing anything that would take his mind off his desperate need to come.
He’d never, ever felt so horny in his life. He knew this was true because while every single hour since putting on the cock cage had consisted of escalating horniness, rising unbearably moment-to-moment, but the fact that he’d been so overwhelmed at a dinner with Anja and Ben, of all people, that he’d had to leave the table and frantically, uselessly masturbate in the toilet stall said it all. Hands down, it was both the most horny and most mortified he’d ever been. Well, maybe failing at the Olympics was worse. Or that time with Rob and the toilet in Montana, but that had ended up being weirdly intimate. Oh, God, he didn’t need to think about anything intimate.
“Matty?” Rob’s voice preceded the fall of his footsteps and the sound of the bathroom door swinging shut. “You okay in here?”
“I’m fine.”
“What’s taking so long?”
Matty looked down at his dick, pressed hard and miserably against the polycarbonate cock cage, and then at his swollen, aching balls, already so full of unreleased spunk. Fuck, he needed to come.”
FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS AT DIVERSE READER!
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DIVERSE READER’S REVIEW OF TRAINING COMPLEX:
I want to be Leta Blake when I grow up! *sigh* I always need to sit back and decompress after reading one of her books. Where do I begin here? Okay, Training Complex is the sequel to Training Season. We join Matty and Rob in New York. Matty is coaching figure skating and Rob is a PT. These two love like no others. Leta brings that all consuming, old fashioned, From Here to Eternity feel to the love they have. Of course on a hotness scale it just explodes. SO HOT! They have a BDSM relationship and I want to buy Leta a huge ass drink for getting it right. You want to know how BDSM works? THIS, HERE. She knows what she’s talking about. She addresses SO many issues in this book, Disordered eating, depression, anxiety. And it’s breathtaking. I love reading her books because it’s like being wrapped in a blanket of perfection. There are a million layers to her plots, and her characters. She flows through it brilliantly and it feels almost effortless. Training Complex is the perfect balance of angst, happiness, love, loss, and fear. Leta brings them together in a way that you are left truly content. Bravo, Leta. Another 5 star story!
Available at:
“Off. The. Page. Scorchingly. Delicious!!!!!” 5 Stars! Review of Smoky Mountain Dreams by Leta Blake #gay #romance
“It was sweet, emotional, funny (the quips from Gran are LOL-good), poignant, and SO damn well written. I wish I could visit Smoky Mountain!! And the sex w/Christopher and Jesse??? Off. The. Page. Scorchingly. Delicious!!!!! I look forward to reading more books from this author.”
via Amazon.com: Elaine’s review of Smoky Mountain Dreams.
Click for reviews and praise for Smoky Mountain Dreams!
Buy at ARe. Buy at Amazon. Buy at Smashwords. Buy at Kobo. Buy at Barnes & Noble. Buy at iTunes.
“Leta Blake is not afraid to take risks in her storytelling” Review: Smoky Mountain Dreams by Leta Blake – Im With Geek
“Leta Blake continues to be an author who both surprises and delights, and is not afraid to take risks in her storytelling. This book tackles controversial topics with ease, and this is what makes it stand out from others in the genre. Quite frankly, Smoky Mountain Dreams is a must-read for romance fans everywhere.”
Review: Smoky Mountain Dreams by Leta Blake – Im With Geek.
Christopher Ryder and Jesse Birch are two men hanging on to the past. While Christopher has let go of his failure as a country singer in Nashville, he’s still trying to please his narrow-minded, non-accepting family. His beloved Gran loves him the way he is, but Christopher feels painfully invisible to everyone else. He’s happy enough performing at the Smoky Mountain Dreams theme park in Tennessee, but even when Christopher is center stage he aches for someone to see the real him.
There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to bisexual Jesse. He’s raising two kids and fighting with family after a tragic accident took his children’s mother. There’s no room in his life for dating, his kids are his priority, and he doesn’t want more than an occasional hook-up. He sure as hell doesn’t want to fall hard for his favorite local singer, but when Christopher walks into his jewelry studio, Jesse hears a new song in his heart.
Smoky Mountain Dreams is available now at:
AMAZON
B&N
SMASHWORDS
iTUNES
SCRIBD
OYSTER
And now at KOBO.
Autumn Sale! .99 for Training Season by Leta Blake – November at Amazon ONLY! #mmromance #gay
Head on over to Amazon to get fan favorite, Training Season, for only 99 cents!
Five Stars for A Forbidden Rumspringa by Keira Andrews! #gay #mmromance Love This One!!
A Forbidden Rumspringa by Keira Andrews
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
As a beta reader of this book, I should admit my potential bias up front. But, having said that, I think this is Keira Andrews’ best book to date. The forward momentum, the sexual tension, the sexual fulfillment, and the quandary the characters find themselves in are all wonderfully drawn. Both protagonists are relatable, lovable, and sexy. This one has such an exciting ending that I’m excited to see the rest of the series! Cannot wait for more of these sexy, sweet Amish boys!
As an aside, the research that went into this book is phenomenal and I loved learning about this particular sect of Amish. (Apparently, there are many different groups of Amish who have different rules and regulations.) The religious situation is set up well without dwelling too heavily on God-y concerns or dragging the book down with a lot of religious angst. The angst mainly operates out of sense of identity/family/home and how one moves through that when all of one’s urges and romantic feelings defy what is acceptable.
But, most importantly, the book is about Isaac and David, and their sweet, stumbling need for love and each other. Oh, just delightful stuff! I think Keira gets better and better with each book she writes. Readers will not be disappointed! And, to reiterate, I really, really, really cant wait for book two!
Oh, and just to be clear, this is not an “inspirational romance” kind of book. There is plenty of sexual conent in these pages. Just in case one might imagine this to be a Christian romance. Nope. It is not a Gay Amish Janette Oake. 😉 Not at all.
Sex Ed — How Young? | Getting HIV at 16, the First Time I Had Sex | HIVPlusMag.com
I read the below article the other day and this quote really stuck out to me:
I contracted HIV the first time I had sex, a few days before my 16th birthday, on the second day of my sophomore year of high school. When it came to losing my virginity, condoms were never a thought. Yes, I knew about STIs, unwanted pregnancy, condoms — even HIV and AIDS. But I honestly thought these things happened only when you were having sex with a woman, not with a man. When it came to sex with another man, I was clueless.
via Getting HIV at 16, the First Time I Had Sex | HIVPlusMag.com.
See, I’ve worked hard to make sure my kid, age eight, already knows the facts of heterosexual sex and, because conversations have led down this path, she also knows about birth control pills and condoms. A conversation we have occasionally in our household:
Me: Hey, kid, when you are a grown-up having sex, what can you do to keep from getting pregnant?
Kid: Use birth control pills and condoms.
Me: What do birth control pills NOT protect you from?
Kid: Sexually transmitted diseases.
Me: What, aside from not having sex, is the only thing that will help protect you from sexual transmitted diseases?
Kid: Condoms.
Me: Give me five. Tell all your friends when you’re, I don’t know, twelve, okay? Tell them ALL. When you’re twelve or thirteen. And if they argue or tell you something different say, “No, you’re wrong. This is how it works.” And if you have doubts, come ask me, I will always tell you the truth about sex.
Which leads me to gay sex. She asked me about it. “Mom, how do gay men have sex? What about gay women?”
What a complicated question! I mean, I hear all the time from gay men about how anal sex is not the end-all-and-be-all of gay sexual relationships and that we shouldn’t emphasize it so much. And, hey, I didn’t tell her about heterosexual anal sex, either. I mentioned oral sex and what we could call frottage and use of hands for pleasure, but didn’t mention any butt stuff. I am trying to figure out when I should mention that. Obviously, I want to and I will need to decide how I want to talk about it, because, here’s the deal:
I want her to know deep down like it’s breathing how to keep from getting pregnant or contracting a disease. I want her to be sure and confident. I want this for her safety and I want this for the safety of her friends. So, yes, I need to make sure she knows about anal sex, condoms, and the relationship to STDs and HIV.
How horrifying that a sixteen year old gay young man didn’t know enough to keep himself safe. I don’t want that for my girl or her friends. Ever.
Straight Guys Aren’t That Different… Right? – YouTube
Straight Guys Aren’t That Different… Right? – YouTube.
I love this Davy Wavy video. He cracks me up.
I lost several hours last month when I was sick watching the videos of the straight guy in this particular Davy Wavy video, and then jumping over to some other mutual friend of theirs. It was a highly unproductive day. Heh. But fun!
Each Character Is His Own Self
I’ve been writing for a long time now and almost every character I’ve written has been more than happy to share everything about their sex lives in rather graphic ways. That’s why I write erotica and romantica. My characters have always liked to overshare.
Until one of my more recent books! My latest character is quite shy and very vanilla. While he’ll tell me a little about the sex he’s having, it’s not nearly so graphic or wild as some of the other characters I’ve written. He’ll go into it some, but when pushed he just sort of clams up. So, I haven’t pushed him much and just let the scenes stand as they do. They aren’t fade to black for the most part, but they are not nearly the same degree of graphic that I usual end up writing.
My friend asked me why this was the case and wondered if I was trying to tone things down. The reason is the character. I’m not trying to tone my writing down, not at all. It’s just this particular character has a lot of reluctance and so I don’t push him. It’s a good reminder that our characters aren’t entirely of our design. They don’t do what we say or what we want. They are their own creatures.
I had another character who was pleased as punch to tell me all about the sex he was having but when it came to his emotions and motivations? He wasn’t interested in sharing. Which, uh, made things quite difficult let me tell you. It also made for a lot of rewrites. *shakes character hard*
What about you? Every had an experience of a character not giving you information that others have spat out willingly?
More Barebacking Research
Just as Catholic couples (are obliged to) relish the divinely-ordained undertaking of procreative sex, barebackers revel in “the rapture of unencumbered fucking.”[23] As one barebacker relates:
Feeling a man’s dick inside me, condomless—that’s when the sex becomes spiritual in its intensity. Communion, in the truest sense. Integral to that closeness is the knowledge that he intends to leave a piece of himself inside me; his cum, like the sex itself, has a psychological value far beyond anything physical. — Unlimited Intimacies
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However, Dean’s greater sin rests in his reluctance to unpack the religious dimensions of his reflections with any depth, despite having made liberal use of terms laden with religious connotation. In his oversight, he leaves perhaps the most intriguing implications of his work unexplored and uninterrogated—namely, that a sexually-charged subculture might inadvertently or ironically rearticulate the established practices of mainstream institutions like the Catholic Church. Dean fails to entertain the dual possibilities that ritualizing raw sex might reroute sacred energies for perverse purposes or —more bleakly—that it might reduce condomless fucking to a sacralized script. Our cursory analyses have initiated only the briefest responses to the questions posed by such a comparison. In place of a decisive conclusion, we uncover an ethical charge. — Unlimited Intimacies: Promiscuous Reflections on Barebacking and Catholic Dogma
Flipping Gender Changes Meaning — Examples
A question I get a lot is “Why m/m? Why do you write so many books with gay main characters?” I’ve got a lot of reasons behind that, some of them incredibly deep and involved, based in feminism and gay rights and freeing the mind. But let’s leave all that behind for now, and focus on how things change meaning when you change the sex/gender of any particular person within a certain expected dynamic.
I feel like the easiest way to illustrate this is with music, so let’s start there.
Everyone knows Adele’s song “Someone Like You”. What happens to the meaning and to your understanding of the song when a man sings it without changing any lyrics.
Jay Brannan also did a cover of Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games”. When he performed it live, he said, “My favorite thing about this song is knowing that by singing it I make you all picture me in a sundress.” I practically jumped up and down when he said that because it told me that he gets it and isn’t just covering it because he likes it, but that he sees a wider implication in his choices.
Another example might be Tori Amos covering “I’m Not In Love”. As she said in an interview, people grew up in the 1970s and 80s slow-danced to this song, not really listening to the lyrics. She covered it to point out how the meaning of it changes when it’s sung by a woman. What opinions do we have about a woman who sings, “I’m not in love, so don’t forget it. It’s just a silly phase I’m going through, and just because I call you up, don’t get me wrong, don’t think you’ve got it made. I’m not in love, no no, it’s because…I like to see you, but then again, that doesn’t mean you mean that much to me.” How do we feel about her compared to how we might feel about a man singing the same thing.
And then there is the more obvious commentary of “Real Men”.
For me, aside from just wanting to tell good stories with characters that I like, I enjoy the challenging nature of writing away from expectations and exploring how changing the sex, gender, sexuality of characters changes the consequences of certain behaviors within relationships. As I said, this is only the tip of the iceberg, but it’s a nice fat tip. Enjoy it. (Heh. See what I did there? LOL!)
Sex With Fairies
For the (on average) twenty people per day who come to my blog via Google looking for some version of “fairy sex” or “fairies having sex”. I know you’ve been disappointed to find yourself reading this entry. But, I’ve got good news! Keira’s and my next book, due out in the next month or so, will feature a ton of fairy sex. Cheers!
In the meantime, feel free to check out our first two fairy tale inspired books. There’s plenty of sex in those, too. Just, you know, no fairies.
Let’s Talk Vibrators
Keira and I are on Darker Temptations talking about, you read that right, vibrators! Come see what we said and feel free to dare to share your experiences with specific brands.
