The Romance Reviews

Monday 14 May 2012

Betting On Love - print edition

Betting On Love will be released in print on 22 May.



Accepting a bet to seduce any guy his friend chooses puts Zach McKinney in the path of Len Marshall. Smitten immediately, Zach forgets about the bet and falls in love until Len's past catches up with them, putting them both in danger.
For Len Marshall, meeting Zach was akin to destiny. It not only brought love into his life, but made him feel like he has a home. The new relationship, though, is overshadowed by a past blocked from Len's memory and by individuals who want to make sure those memories stay buried. Can love built on shadows pass the test of time? Or will their happiness be destroyed again by men who took Len's life away years ago?

PURCHASE LINK.

Sunday 13 May 2012

Contest WINNERS!

Now, before I announce the 3 winners, I just want to take a moment to let everyone know how I selected the names.

I counted all the entries, giving out number 1 to the first entry, number 2 to the second and so on and then let a random number generator (courtesy of the internet LOL) work it's magic 3 times.

So, the 3 winners are:

  • arella3173_forever
  • Rach
  • Panalopy

 Please let me know which copy you would like (Being Human, Betting On Love or Over The Rainbow), keeping in mind that for ORT the release date is 2 June so you will only be getting your free copy then.


I have the pdfs for the others books but if you require a different format, let me know and I can request it for you. These are only available for now in ebook format...


You can contact me at amariemay@gmail.com


Looking forward to hearing from you!


And thanks to everyone who participated in the contest! I would've loved everyone to win but I guess if that were possible then it wouldn't be a contest!


Take care!


Anna

Saturday 12 May 2012

Contest: free ebook

I will be over on the SILVER face book page (HERE) later today. Now, I've been having issues with the internet, so if I vanish, please still comment away. I will get back to you as soon as I am able!

Contest: free ebook (click on picture to go to my website for more details)


If you comment, you will be entered into a draw where you can win an ebook of your choice from the above 3 books. The random number generator will pick 3 lucky winners and those winner can take a pick. The format can be any format supported on the SILVER website.

Over The Rainbow will be released on 2 June, so at the moment this book is still only possible to purchase on pre-order. If you select this book as your price, you will only receive your free copy once it has been released!

Good luck!

Friday 11 May 2012

Winner of free copy of Being Human!

There were 7 comments so I put all the names on paper and had my flatmate draw one. And the winner of a free copy is:  ariadnechan!

Congratualtions!

Now, those who didn't win a copy, remember I am on the SILVER facebook page tomorrow so you might get another chance to win!

Raise Your Glass Blog Hop featuring A.J. Llewellyn


Moby's Dick - A Tale of a...Tale
By A.J. Llewellyn



Thank you Anna for hosting me today!
I've had a wonderfully happy and successful creative collaboration with author D.J. Manly. There is a true meeting of the minds between us and I can hardly stand myself when I get a call from D.J. saying, "You know, I have this idea..."
Similarly, D.J. gets these calls from me, too!
I have another collaboration that is different - a visual one - with gay porn director John Bruno who has done several covers for me. One book we worked on, Bad Cops, became webisodes on his now-defunct Massive Studio offshoot of Falcon Studios. More were planned, but life has its own ideas sometimes.
Late last year, John who has now relocated to Michigan, asked me if I wanted to do another collaboration. He had an idea of a man out in the ocean rescued by a ship. That was his basic plot. He came up with the title, Moby's Dick and started to work on the cover.
I was intrigued and felt this was a job for both me and D.J. and D.J. loved the idea however as we started to talk the story evolved from that single line John gave us.
We both discovered we had a fascination with the story of the doomed cruise ship, the Costa Concordia. I followed the events rabidly and became utterly consumed with a sidebar story: the numerous salvage crews waiting in the waters off the Amalfi Coast of Italy hoping to land the gig of salvaging the fallen vessel.
Research is one of my favorite parts of writing. I had no idea what salvage work actually entailed and once a crew was assigned to the task I began obsessively researching them and was stunned to learn how many vessels they have rescued - everything from submarines submerged deep in the Arctic Ocean to stranded sea mammals affected by oil leakage.
A story began to emerge and D.J. and I began to work on our whale of a tale. D.J. too, became immersed in the facts of removing oil safely from a ship's hull, and the politics involved.
Salvage crews are the heroes of the modern world.
Beneath the facade of a sort of romance to the idea of a "doomed" ship is the true horror it creates. Firstly of course is the loss of human life.
Secondly, oil leaks into the ocean, chemicals from the ship begin contaminating harbors that local towns rely on for their food and water supply.
I had no idea!
While the search for bodies takes place, salvage is crucial but must wait.
Waiting causes more environmental catastrophe.
Oooh! The angst! As each day of the Costa Concordia's tragedy passed by I began to talk to people. I'm amazed how kind the experts in the field of salvage work are.
They are not vultures waiting to pick at the bones of dead ships.
These are hard-working men of the ocean who are gone from their families for months at a time protecting small towns and big seas...
I loved our characters and I love our story.
At night, I dreamed of Burke Matthews and the man he rescues from the ship, Gabriel Bergeron. I could smell the oil, hear the slap of the waves. This book haunted me because beneath the sand and water was the knowledge that so many people have died at sea and the stories are devastating.
John Bruno, meanwhile fashioned a great cover and we loved it. Then he had to size it to Silver Publishing's specifications and he felt that his story credit made the cover too wordy. I happen to disagree but I am posting both here for the record.
Meanwhile, I still dream at night of Burke and Gabriel...these guys really got to me. Here is the blurb for the story:

Burke Matthews and his wily team of experts on board the salvage cargo ship, The Brigadoon, have hauled everything from Russian nuclear submarines to stranded catamarans. After having spent almost two weeks in the sunny port of Palermo, Italy trying to win the bid to salvage half a million gallons of oil from a distressed cruise ship half-sunk off the coast, Burke starts to worry about the trapped fuel in the ship's hull.

As families of the missing passengers urge the country's environmental minister to hold off the salvage as the search for their loved ones continues, Burke knows with each passing day, hope of life diminishes. There's another problem too. The Bella Donna has crashed in the middle of a marine reserve and is on the verge of fatally contaminating the water that also goes to the main water lines for the entire Amalfi Coast. It's an environmental disaster waiting to happen.

Allowed to drill finally, he is astonished to hear plaintive knocking from an engine room above.
He breaks down the door to find a sick, but very handsome French Canadian waiter trapped for twelve days. Gabriel Bergeron is one of the sexiest guys Burke's ever seen...and he soon learns as he visits the man in a local hospital, one seriously hung dude...

As for me and D.J., the collaborations continue. We have a new, twisty thriller, Haywire coming to Silver Publishing on July 14, a wonderful, tense and sexy cop drama, Orgasmic Texas Dawn right after that...
We look forward to working with John Bruno again soon. I long for a call from the evil genius saying, "You know, I have this idea..."
D.J. and I will be waiting...

Until then here is an excerpt from Moby's Dick, available now from Silver Publishing.

Burke Matthews shifted on his surfboard and gazed out to sea. Foamy waves rolled toward him in perfect sets. The sun suddenly shone, blue sky poking through the ash-colored cloud cover. Ah... It was the ideal day to surf and damn it, nobody was out here to drop in on his rides. He bobbed on a passing wave and sighed. He longed to be part of it all but the only problem was that he wasn't here to play. He was here to work. So far, for the third straight day, nothing was going right and his salvage company was losing money just waiting.

And waiting...

He stared at the capsized wreck of the $450 million cruise liner, the Bella Donna. It was eerie looking at the doomed ship that was so huge it was like a skyscraper lying on its side. He could see that all the doors to the top flight deck's guest rooms were closed. The silence, the lack of activity, was unsettling. Twelve days ago when the ship struck rocks off Salerno on the Amalfi Coast in southern Italy, he'd seen the images online of the four thousand passengers climbing over the exposed hull in a human chain, using fire hoses, bed sheets and their hands to make it to the lifeboats.

And now, two days of bad weather had turned the rough seas into an impossible task for Burke and his thirty-five man crew. He pocketed his satellite phone in his waterproof vest, awaiting word to begin the long and difficult task of pumping out the incapacitated ship's half million gallons of diesel and oil.

Even in his wet suit, Burke was freezing. He lay on his belly and circled the wreckage of the vessel on his trusty nine-foot pintail. He was still stunned that almost all the passengers had survived the collision. Submerged rocks had ripped a three-foot hole in the Bella Donna's side as she'd set sail late out of Salerno's picturesque Panino seaport at dusk. Rocks the captain hadn't seen. The catastrophe had sent the ship listing to the sea within minutes.

Eighteen people were still missing, presumed dead from the catastrophe that had rocked the popular Italian seaport and touched the hearts and minds of millions of people around the world. Among the missing were seventeen passengers and one crew member, last seen helping passengers off the ship.

From all accounts, the French Canadian waiter, Gabriel Bergeron, who'd made his first voyage with the Bella Donna, had shown incredible bravery in helping others to safety.

And now, he was among the missing.

Search and rescue crews had put their lives on the line to secure and scour the ship. The salvage mission was on hold until deep sea divers could gain access to the fourth deck, where six bodies of the original twenty-four missing passengers had been located.

Not all of the rooms had been searched. Some were fully submerged in water, making the task dangerous and the possibility of survival for the people they found negligible. Still, the search would resume once the weather improved.

In the meantime, there was an environmental disaster in the making. Two thousand three hundred tons of heavy fuel and two hundred tons of diesel oil remained on board and would have to be pumped out.

Burke's British-based salvage company, Durang, had won the bidding war to retrieve the fuel from the wreckage. Burke and his crew on the cargo salvage ship, the Brigadoon, had been in North Africa securing a drilling well that had come loose during a hurricane.

When disaster struck the Bella Donna, Burke and his crew had come straight to Italy and petitioned H.R. Triton, the shipping company that owned the Bella Donna, as well as Italy's environmental minister, Giovanni Russo. Signore Russo had heard of Durang's salvage record and hired Burke's team on the spot.

So far the fuel tanks were still intact. Burke had informed Signore Russo that the sensors he and his crew had placed on the ship the previous morning showed that the Bella Donna had moved nearly five feet overnight.

He'd tried to put a positive spin on it, that it was possible the ship's vibrations had caused the slippage as it settled against the reef. However, he had been honest in his appraisal. He thought she was on her way to sinking.

Fast.

"As far as we have been able to gage, the ship is sinking about half a centimeter, or about point one nine inches an hour," Burke had said.

"This is important news. The Coast Guard reported something similar. They are worried about the storms predicted for this afternoon. I'll get back to you within the hour, Mr. Matthews," the minister had promised.

Burke believed him.

"In the meantime, if Marco de Magna contacts you, refer him to me."

"Yes, sir," Burke had said. "I will." He'd almost added, with pleasure, but stopped himself.

Please leave a comment to qualify for a free ebook of Moby's Dick...

For more information on A.J. check here: www.ajllewellyn.com
For more information on D.J. check here: www.djmanlyfiction.com



Wednesday 9 May 2012

Raise Your Glasses - blog hop tour



Scarlet Blackwall is kind enough to host me tomorrow over at her blog (HERE).

We are all trying to promote our newest releases and to celebrate this great event, I am going to give away one copy for free to a lucky winner. To enter the contest, all you have to do is go over to Scarlet's blog and comment on my post.

At the end of the day, I will collect all names, drop them into a hat and then draw one lucky winner. You can choose the format, as long as it is supported by SILVER.

Being Human is now out for purchase: HERE.




Tuesday 8 May 2012

Available for pre-order

You can now pre-order the following two books!

OVER THE RAINBOW, book 1


Missing: Prophesized warlock to the King. Has anyone seen him? Please contact your nearest guard station if you do find him.

Aidan never knew he could do magic until a cat dared him to have sex. His life truly must be tragic if even felines knew he was too pathetic to find someone to share his bed with. Unfortunately for him, the cat turned out to be his familiar, leading him not only to his First Time but also to King James, who in turn refuses to let Aidan slip through his fingers again.

For there is a prophecy: James can only truly unit the lands and bring prosperity to all if he has his trusted warlock by his side. Roping Aidan into coming home with him wasn't the happily ever after everyone had expected. Instead, it set in motion a chain of events which would lead both Aidan and James further away from home than they could have ever imagined.

Pre-order HERE.

OVER THE MOON, book 2


In Over The Rainbow, Aidan discovered the ancient Watchtowers. His discovery ignited a race against time to have them restored before the first Watchtower’s dire warnings come true. There is an enemy lurking out there in the distant shadows and only the long forgotten protection those towers can provide, can save them all.

But will he be able to unravel the mystery in time? Will the first meeting between King James and Prince Alric go off without a hitchor will they, on top of everything else, also have to deal with strife on their home shores?

And why does Aidan keep on stumbling over Moon references? Everywhere he goes, the bloody moon pops up, almost as if something, some unknown force, is sending him a message but surely this can’t be right…for the moon is nothing but a distant rock in the sky and surely there are no means of getting there…right?

Pre-order HERE.

Q&A with Kai (Being Human)

Being Human is now out with SILVER (purchase link HERE).

Love is never simple, especially between an angel forced from Heaven, a Guardian of Earth, and the Devil. The forces of Heaven and Hell are rising, but all Kai can think about is the human who owns his heart.



Interviewer: What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Alex?

Kai: Idiot? (He laughs before he continues) No, seriously...I don't know. Thinking of Alex always makes me (there is a pause where the fallen angel looks shifty before he makes eye contact again) I don't think I can say that out loud.

Interviewer: What about Lucifer then? Rumor has it, you two were an item once...is there any truth to it?

Kai: Errr...can we talk about something else, please?

Interviewer: Of course...how about you tell me then about your fall from Heaven. What was it like?

Kai (sighs, looks put upon): It wasn't pleasant. I was meant to die after all...it's a miracle I survived...

Interviewer: Right...how do you find being human then?

Kai: Interesting. There's definitely more to it than I thought.

Interviewer: Because of Alex?

Kai: I think there's a human expression for your state of mind. (Kai laughs) I believe, you call it one track mind?

Interviewer (looks sheepish, slightly flushed but isn't denying it): How is being with Alex, who isn't just an ordinary human, working out for you? Did you find the adjustment hard? You went from being a powerful being to...to being human...this aught to give you some pause, right?

Kai (shrugging): Sure. Thankfully though there wasn't much time for me to feel sorry for myself. Events kind of spiraled out of control...it helped. And now, I might still sometimes catch myself trying to draw power but most of the times, I'm fine. Glad to be alive, you know?

Interviewer: Thanks for coming in. It was a pleasure talking to you. Hope we can do it again some time soon.

Kai: Sure...sure...the pleasure was all mine. (then he smiles)

Upcoming Blog Hop - Raise Your Glasses



The Raise Your Glasses Tour will commence Thursday, May 10th! We are celebrating our May 5th releases from Silver Publishing and offering up free copies of our new books. So make sure you enter the contest on all four days to increase your chances of winning!

Thursday, May 10th: Scarlet Blackwell hosts Anna Marie May
Friday, May 11th: Anna Marie May hosts A.J. Llewellyn
Saturday, May 12th: A.J. Llewellyn hosts H.L. Holston
Sunday, May 13th: H.L. Holston hosts Scarlet Blackwell

Monday 7 May 2012

Darkest Hour - upcoming book

I just got my brilliant cover for Darkest Hour. The book isn't due until September but I just had to share the awesome cover!


And here is the (still unedited blurb, so any mistakes are mine) blurb:

Leif hoped that his second coming out, wasn’t going to end in death and mayhem, like the first time did. But long lost relatives with ties to organized crime, conspiracies and his dead sister’s lover have other plans…

Coming back home to the town which had cost him his family, wasn’t his first choice but for a dear friend? He would jump through fire if she required it. However, when she insists he’d team up with Mark, his dead sister’s lover, things start spiraling out of control. Long lost family with ties to organized crime, conspiracies and someone out to finish what they started years ago, will change Leif’s life in more ways than he could have ever possibly imagined.

Everything comes to a head on an author retreat where the famous L.M.M, author of countless successful novels and Leif’s alter ego, is about to come out of the closet and announce to the world who he really is. Will his second coming out end in death and mayhem like it did the first time around?

Being Human - Review

Being Human was reviewed by Pixie and received 4 STARS. You can view the review HERE.

Review: Kai is rescued by Lucifer just before the last of his grace is stripped from him. Why he was attacked, he isn’t quite sure, but now he is mainly human and as a prophecy begins he is drawn towards Alex, the human who bond them. Alex is a Guardian and he is attracted to the angel, Kai. Before Kai was out of reach, but now with Kai being human he is within Alex’s reach. But, he has been burnt in the past and with a new threat rising, he fights the attraction.

I really enjoyed this story of Heaven, Earth and Hell and the prophecy that brings them all together. Kai and the human, Alex, have somehow managed to accidentally bond and it has far-reaching consequences. When Lucifer rescues Kai from death and gives him hints as to what is happening it sets Kai on a path with Alex and the beginnings of the Threefold war. Alex is determined that Kai is not for him, but when Kai disappears it is Kai that makes him realize that nothing is forever.

When I came across Alex, my first impression was that he was a bit of a twink, but he proved to be nothing of the sort. Kai is the gentler sort, as he is a scholar, but he shows his mettle when it is needed most. The relationship between them isn’t easy, because even though Kai wouldn’t mind giving it a try, Alex is wary of a relationship. Lucifer hovers on the outskirts at first, as he had something going with Kai before he was banished.

I enjoyed the storyline and the twist of the Prince of Light and the Prince of Darkness was great and Kai and Alex have a couple of clashes, but figure out their relationship in the end. They are also hot together, although I did hope Kai would punish Alex for being an idiot (at least a little bit). This really is a really interesting storyline of how an adversary has played Heaven, Hell and the Earthly realm to begin a war that was prophesized thousands of years before. I am really looking forward to the next story in the series.
I will have to recommend this one to those who love angels, fallen angels, prophecies, hot sex, danger, stubborn men and a great ending.

Thursday 3 May 2012

Being Human - 05 May 2012, available for pre-order!

Love is never simple, especially between an angel forced from Heaven, a Guardian of Earth, and the Devil. The forces of Heaven and Hell are rising, but all Kai can think about is the human who owns his heart.

Love's the key to salvation.


Or is it? If Kai hadn't once loved Lucifer, he might not have started down the path towards Armageddon. Nor would he have met Alex, a Guardian from an ancient blood line who now holds to the key to his heart.

As the forces of Heaven and Hell rise, Lucifer returns with an old prophecy and a legacy that could mean their salvation. But life is never this simple. Amidst new terrors rising from the shadows, and old family secrets being revealed, will the blossoming love between Kai and Alex stand the test of time? Or will it fall victim to the darkness slowly rising around them?

Only time will tell if love truly conquers all…

Release Date: 05 May 2012
You can pre-order now and get it the moment it is released by following this link - HERE.