Kia Ora...

Nothing reminds you that climate change can't be ignored than hitting 20deg Celsius during what should be the coldest month of the year.

The hardest part of the job of being a writer is marketing. There is no one way to do it, and what one author might swear by another will say otherwise. Social media is a big part of it, but posting content to them all can take an authors time away from writing. Scheduling posts is great, but even that takes time...and if you create your own content/graphics that time spent on it only increases. So as authors we're always searching for quick and easy solutions - especially if you can't afford a PA to do it for you. I had planned to connect an Instagram account to a FB page...which sounds straightforward and yet it really wasn't... isn't.

Several hours of trying to figure it out and make sense of the instructions from both sites...and they're still not connected. Sigh.

Updates

• Runway Riot (House of Bolton 4 - MJ Green) is currently sitting at 25.7k words. I'd hoped to be closer to 30k by now, but some chapters write themselves easier than others.
• I've just put together a First in Series Yakuza Romance Boxset (Naomi Aoki) which includes: Dangerous Lessons (The Yakuza and the English Teacher 1), Deadly Game (Tokyo Nights 1), and Sagaki (Tokyo Nights Novellas 1) and I will be loading it up to all platforms soon!
• Have finally started creating paperback editions for my books... so far the publish button has been pushed for Deadly Games (Tokyo Nights 1) and Deadly Gamble (Tokyo Nights 2). I will be slowly publishing 1 or 2 a week as I get the files readied for print. How long it will take them to go live on the different platforms, I'm unsure?

Upcoming Sale

If you haven't grabbed a copy of Kings (Crime Lords 1) yet, then bookmark it today and then grab it once it goes on special... 30th Aug - 06 Sept.

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O Deadly Night - An MM Dark Romance Charity Anthology

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New Release from Ashlynn Mills

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Welcome to Greertown

Today's Welcome to Greertown excerpt comes from Flex (Golden Decks Casino 1) which is a spin off of the Crime Lords series though an unplanned one. Originally I'd planned for Flex to be the first book in a Sports Romance series based around the Tokyo Olympics...but then COViD happened. Many of the deleted scenes from Flex are actually taken from that original draft.

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Travelling for Competitions – World Cup Events

“Are you sure about this?” Ryan asked his parents, staring at the list of booked flights for the next competition in Cottbus, just outside of Berlin.

But it wasn’t the flights that had him concerned, but the extra week they’d booked for him and Nico in London after the competition. It wasn’t that Ryan didn’t appreciate the gesture, the idea of spending a week with Nico without having to worry about work or training—or as much training, certain that friends in any one of the London clubs would soon arrange a few hours of practice time for them—sounded brilliant. No, the problem came with Nico, not knowing how his boyfriend would view the generous gift his parents were giving them.

“It’s an early Christmas present, from all of us—Nico’s parents too,” Ryan’s mother answered. “Enjoy a romantic week together while you both still can. After the new year you won’t have much time to even catch your breath.”

Ryan sighed and rubbed his jaw knowing she was right. There were three months between the competition in Cottbus at the end of the month until the next one in Melbourne. After Melbourne they had two more competition to attend in Baku and Doha with little time in between them, there was no time to relax. Once they were back from Doha, they could catch their breath as they waited with fingers crossed to learn if they’d done enough to qualify for the Olympics in July.

“I really don’t know what to say, other than thank you, but it just doesn’t feel like enough.”

“Thanks, is all we need, but please make sure you ring Sofia and Alex to than them as well. Oh…and Nico doesn’t need to stress about trying to arrange the extra time off work as it’s already been organised.

Ryan nodded, folded the paper, and slid it into his pocket. He’d load the tickets onto their respective airline apps later. “Thanks for that. Not sure if that’s going to be make it easier or harder to get Nico to agree…but he can’t argue when everything’s been paid for already.”

“Which is exactly why Sofia said we should organise it first and tell you both afterward.”

He chuckled. “More like you’re leaving the hard part of all this to me.” It wouldn’t surprise him at all if that had been their intention all along. Ever since they’d been young, Rylan had been the only one able to sway Nico when he was in a stubborn mood…and money always guaranteed to bring out his stubbornness. But at least he had three weeks to convince Nico why they should accept the gift of a holiday from their parents without arguing over it.

*

“Have you got everything? Passport? Wallet? Spare underwear in your carryon?”

Nico closed his eyes and counted to ten. “Yes. I have everything. Now stop asking!” He could handle Ryan’s nerves over travelling when his boyfriend wasn’t a big fan of flying, especially long distance. Or at least Nico thought he could. Except in the past, he’d only needed to put up with it once they’d met up at the airport whereas this time Nico had been stuck with the constant reminders, the packing…unpacking…and repacking of suitcases for the last five days. To say his temper was wearing a little thin would be an understatement. He almost wished someone had thought to book them first class tickets, a little privacy that they wouldn’t get in economy and then Ryan could’ve spent the flight making it up to him.

“Just need to make sure we’ve thought of everything,” Ryan hissed, checking his carryon for the seventh time this morning. “It’ll be a little late to realise we’ve forgotten something once we reach Auckland.”

“Once. I forgot my charger cord once,” Nico snapped back. “And it isn’t like they are hard to find. And besides, why are you wanting to head off so bloody early? The flight to Auckland doesn’t leave for another three hours.”

“Need time to check our bags—”

“Which can be done right up until ten minutes before our flight! A flight we’ve already checked in for.” Thank God for online check in, he dreaded to think how early Ryan would’ve had them at the airport otherwise. “And we’ve also check in for the international flights too!”

“You can never be too prepared,” Ryan muttered, wandering away in a huff.

“Agreed…but this isn’t my first international competition, nor is it yours. So…what is it you’re really worried about?”

And Nico wasn’t going to take ‘nothing’ as a suitable reply because there was something niggling at Ryan and making his usual nervous demeanour worse. He strode toward his boyfriend, catching him by the arm and steered him back to the couch, pulling Ryan down with him as Nico sat.

Ryan sighed, leaned forward, and scrubbed his face. “Something that I’ve never worried about before. I mean it always lingered there in the back of my mind, but I never had cause to really worry about it…the danger I might be in. That we might be in.”

“I don’t understand. What danger?” Nico was confused. They weren’t travelling to a country besieged by war or under constant threat of terror attacks, and he just couldn’t imagine what this danger Ryan alluded to was.

And there must have been something he was missing as Ryan turned to him with an incredulous expression painted onto his face. “We’ve got a three-hour stopover in Dubai.”

“And we won’t be leaving the airport.”

“That doesn’t mean we’ll be safe,” Ryan hissed. “You think they’ll care that we’re only tourists passing through? Do you honestly believe that we’ll be safer inside the airport than on the streets outside?”

“I still don’t understand. We’ve travelled through Dubai together before and it never worried you like this?” Nico knew that being queer wasn’t approved of in Dubai or almost everywhere in the Middle East, but they’d only be there for three-hours—in an airport surrounded by lots of other foreigners.

“Because last time we weren’t dating!” Ryan jumped up and paced the floor, hands tangled in his hair. “Because last time I didn’t have to spend three ours resisting the urge to touch you, to kiss you…to simply hold your hand while we drank coffee. I never had to worry that the way I looked at you might draw unwanted attention our way… that any tough might make someone questions whether our existence broke their stupid laws!”

Nico didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know how he could reassure Ryan when everything he said was true. Angry at himself as well for not realising it sooner, but then it had never crossed his mind before…not even when they’d attended competitions in parts of the world where they weren’t welcoming of people like them simple because of who they loved. But Nico also knew that the more Ryan worried about it, the more his emotions would show on his face.

“Ryan…it’s just three hours. I’m sure we can manage to keep our hands off each other and resist the urge to spend quality time in a bathroom stall—actually I’m not a big fan of that in the first place.”

“Don’t be so flippant.”

“I’m not.” Nic sighed. “But it’s only three hours. Look…I get the danger, even if it’s not something I’d thought of before—oblivious to it when I really shouldn’t have been—but there are other places that are just as unwelcoming, ones where we’ll be forced to compete in…so, let’s save our worry for then.” Nico rose from the couch, crossed the floor to Ryan, and wrapped his arms around his lover before burying his face in the crook of Ryan’s neck. “And I’m sure there is plenty I could do to distract you from your worries.”

“I’m sure I can too…but we’ve got to get to the airport.” Ryan pressed a kiss to Nico’s forehead before letting him go as the doorbell rang. “And our ride is here.”

“I still don’t get why we need to head out so bloody early,” Nico grumbled as he grabbed his bags, and headed for the door.

*****************

Flex (Golden Decks Casino 1)

• Best Friends to Lovers
• Competitive Gymnasts
• Underground Fights

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