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Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas! This year, I am participating in the Rainbow Advent Calendar once again! It’s my favorite part of the holidays � sharing my love of MM with new and returning readers, and joining other MM authors in giving away holiday cheer!

Just as in 2018 and before, Alex Jane has put together an excellent free advent calendar for MM readers. You can find the , where Alex will share all of the stories � one or two a day, every day in December, from some of your favorite authors!

You can also join the advent calendar partyÌý! Like and share, comment, and support other MM readers and authors. We love hearing your feedback!

This year’s story isÌýHis for the Holidays. What happens when Mason gets snowed in a cabin with his best friend’s brother, just days before Christmas? 11,500 words of steam that will melt the blizzard, that’s for sure. I hope you love it as much as I loved writing it!

Find His for the HolidaysÌý!

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And before you go, check out some of the other fantastic authors in the giveaway! [image error]

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Today’s the day! Not long ago, I committed to join the Rainbow Advent Calendar, hosted by Alex Jane. The game is, each day from December 1st through 24th two LGBTQ+ authors will post a story � at least 500 words, but as long as novel length � that will be available for free the duration of December. One post will happen each day at 6am GMT and 6pm GMT, and we were sworn to strict secrecy about our day.

And today’s my day!

I’m delighted to share with youÌýWhiskey and Wishes, a 10.5k word short story that takes place in theÌýYoung Spades universe and even features an appearance by Young Spades themselves, as well as one of the side characters.

This story follows Jeremy and Kyle, who meet at a bar and jump into a one-night stand. But what happens when neither of them has the heart to say it’s over the next morning?

To read other stories in the advent calendar,ÌýÌýorÌý.

And to find out what happens with Jeremy and Kyle, click on !

Title: Whiskey and Wishes

Word Count: 10,500ish

Rating: Explicit

What to expect: professor/student, one night stand, HEA

I hope you enjoy!

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It’s here! It’s finally here! Shane and Ari’s story can be found on Amazon Kindle and KU !

You can enter to win an e-book copy of Pulling Strings !

And if you’re so inclined, the sequel,ÌýFacing the Beat is up for pre-order !

Have you checked it out yet? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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It’s been a minute since I’ve blogged, but I’ve been working hard at getting the Young Spades series read for release, and starting the series that will come after. Young Spades is still slated for a fall release � September 5th, October 1st, and October 31st.

In the meantime, I made a big purchase for myself � I bought Dragon Professional Individual v15. For those who aren’t familiar, Dragon (by Nuance) is speech recognition software, in which you can dictate, transcribe recordings, and voice edit as you go. Here’s my experience with it.

First � the price. It’s not cheap. It’s less expensive on Amazon than from the retailer, so if you’re comfortable with Amazon, that’s my recommendation. I set up a price alert on CamelCamelCamel to let me know when the price came down to something I could tolerate. It emails you when the price hits your goal. Right now it’s high for the disc and much lower for the download, but I ended up getting the disc because it was a few bucks cheaper. The lowest I’ve seen them both is the upper $170s. Camel will also tell you all-time low, if that helps you to set your price alert target.

In any case, I ended up with the disc, and when it arrived, I stared at the box for several hours before opening it. It’s an expensive piece of software, and what if I hated it? Once I opened it, I stuck the disc in the drive and hoped for the best. This was about 6pm.

It took a while. A long while. This is theÌýone thing I wish someone had warned me about Dragon. I knew it’s a big program and would be a set of files. But I didn’t realize it would take SO LONG that I actually stopped the install several times, thinking nothing was happening. I started and restarted my computer over and over. I even tried using the code to switch to a digital download. Eventually, I stuck it in at 9 for about the fourth or fifth time and just figured I’d let it do its thing. And it did.

By 10, it was 1/4 installed. I turned off my sleep settings on my laptop and went to bed. The next day, there it was!

There’s a super user-friendly tutorial that launches upon first use. After that, you’re set to go. I had to explore a little, discover some nooks and crannies, figure out the tricks for the thingsÌýI prefer, but I think I’ve got it figured out now, about two weeks later.

The verdict? I love it. I’m not at the promised land yet, in terms of production speed, but I can tell that it’s helping.Ìý And I flat-out enjoy the simplicity and ease. The UI is easy to navigate. My ONLY complaint is that I have to hit “Paste unformatted textâ€� to get it into Scrivener, rather than just hitting the “Transferâ€� button, or else it makes manually typing in the same document format incorrectly. That could be user error though! Either way, it’s minor and not enough to stop me from recommending it.

As I get more adept, I’ll post more details about my experience.

Does anyone else out there use Dragon? Tell us your thoughts!

Book 1, Pulling Strings will be out on 9/5. Have a blurb, shall we?

Aristotle “Ari� Dineen, Jr. thinks he doesn’t deserve love. Ari has bipolar disorder and parents who don’t understand his challenges. Falling in love isn’t on the playlist for a guy like him, someone running from his past and so uncertain about his future.

Shane Beckett doesn’t have time for things like love. He’s busy � giving music lessons, finishing his senior year, and oh yeah, he’s the lead singer of up and coming indie rock band, Young Spades.

A cup of beer, a music history class, and a pack of cigarettes changes everything.

As Ari and Shane are about to find out, despite having a lack of time or the confidence to believe they can make it work, love has a way of pulling them in and rocking their worlds.

Facing the Beat will be released 10/1, andÌýTuning it Out will be released 10/31. Below are the covers.

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If you’re interested in more info, or signing up to receive an ARC,Ìýsign up for myÌýÌýARCs will only be available to newsletter subscribers and other reviewers, but I will share lots of info on the blog and home page as I am able.

You can find it

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I went to seeÌýLove, Simon last night. It is a YA rom-com/coming-of-age film based onÌýSimon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli. The book itself was fantastic â€� I tore through the back 75% of it in one sitting. It was sweet â€� achingly so â€� and the mystery of who Blue is was well-concealed until the reveal (at least, it was to me…but I am admittedlyÌýnot the quickest to pick up on these things). I rooted for Simon throughout the book, and was delighted by the ending. It was, in a word, perfect.

So you could say I had high hopes for the movie.

Now, I will give this a disclaimer: a few years ago, I had a revelation. I realized that movies based on books are just that –Ì�based on books. They are not books. So there will be things left out, things added, things changed. And I came to terms with that. I am at peace. I didÌýnot expectÌýLove, Simon to be exactly the same as the movie. What I expected was a love story that left me cheering for the protagonist, a love story so sweet my teeth hurt by the end of it, and a love story that did justice to the importance of coming out as a queer teenager in a perfect world. (Because â€� and it is revealed very early on â€� Simon’s world is all but perfect. He has very open, liberal parents, super supportive, amazing friends, and is comfortable with most parts of himself, with one glaring exception.) This was definitely going to be an idealized version of a coming out story. I was okay with that.

I am rambling.

The short version of this is that I gotÌýexactly what I wanted, expected, and needed fromÌýLove, Simon. It, too, was perfect.

Okay, not perfect. I have a few minor complaints. And I’m certain that critics will soon find a way to shredÌýSimon in the way they can often tear apart things. There were some issues â€� it was, absolutely, a scrubbed-clean version of what it’s like to be queer and to come out as a teenager today. That wasÌýintentional, if the director is to be believed (and I do believe him). The movie is portrayed as a sort of callback to the 80s coming-of-age genre. With the obvious difference that Simon is gay.

This is the first teen queer love story to be put out by a major studio. The important thing is that teenagers will see themselves in Simon and know that their stories are being told. That they areÌýworthy of having their stories told.

So what is it about? I will try to do this with as few spoilers as possible. Simon is a regular teenager who lives near Atlanta, Georgia. His school has an anonymous Tumblr, and in late summer/early fall, one of his classmates makes a coming-out post. The classmate attaches his email address, and a nickname (Blue), but nothing else. Simon immediately emails Blue, confessing that he, too, has the same secret.

They begin exchanging emails, and Simon falls in love with Blue. Hard. He spends a good amount of time trying to figure out who Blue is. In his carelessness, Simon accidentally leaves his emails with Blue where another classmate can see, and is quickly blackmailed into manipulating his friends so that these emails aren’t released to the whole world.

It doesn’t go well.

Eventually, Simon’s secret is revealed, in less of a rip-off-the-bandaid way and more of a rip-out-your-heart way. Things just get worse from there for poor Simon.

Of course, this being a romance, thingsÌýdo work out, in the best way possible. In my theatre, people applauded at the romantic crescendo.

My friend, who attended with me, cried during some heartfelt moments between Simon and his parents. I can understand why she identified so strongly with the parents. But I was laser-focused on Simon. I wanted his story to be my story. It wasn’t, and it never will be, but it gave me such an overwhelming sense of hope, optimism, and joy.

Love, Simon is the love story that needed to be told, and I’m so, so grateful for it.

Please go see the movie. Do yourself a favor and see it. Support this endeavor. Show the world, and the studios, that we support queer teen love stories. The more we support them, the more studios will make them. And if you can’t go, buy tickets for the teens in your life who need to hear these stories told. Who need to hear, in the words of Simon’s mom, “You’re still you. And I still love you.�

I could say so much more, but I’ll leave it here. Marie and I are headed out tomorrow night for another viewing (her first). I hope you’ll tell me how you felt about the movie once you see it!