You guys! “Love for the Cold-Blooded” is the 2nd Place Winner in the “Best Book Debut” category of the Goodreads M/M Romance Group Member’s Choice Awards!
I am incredibly happy and proud. Thank you so much to everyone who voted! I can’t tell you how much it means to get this kind of encouragement and affirmation from readers.
Congratulations to Roan Parrish, Avery Cockburn and all of the other amazing authors who won. If you’re a member of the goodreads group, check out the full list of winners here.
Love for the Cold-Blooded, Still Waters and First Contact have been nominated for eleven M/M Romance Member’s Choice Awards!
Thank you so much to everyone who nominated my books. I am beyond thrilled! While I don’t expect to win any of the awards, I feel that being nominated so many times is a wonderful compliment.
If you’re a Goodreads M/M Romance group member, you have until the 15th to vote. Here’s a list of my nominations with links to the polls. If you’d care to vote for any of my books, I’d appreciate it very much, needless to say!
Very soon — shortly before the year is out — I’ll be publishing a FREE, all-new short story featuring Ryuu and Hiro of Learning How to Lose, in Six Easy Steps. It will include hot sex, unexpected sweetness, roleplaying of the “hooker and john” variety, Ryuu being awkwardly sincere in strange moments, Hiro being surprisingly good at being a fake hooker, and more. (Also, Yo is a troll. But then, we already knew that. *g*)
Walk the Walk is something of a self-indulgence on my part; it’s a slice of life set after the Learning How to Lose trilogy, with a large percentage of hot sex included, and basically, I just wanted to write it. 😉
The story doesn’t have any real spoilers, but it does build on the characters and their relationship and history as established in the earlier books. Personally, I’d recommend reading the previous works in the series first, but hey — go where your reading whims take you!
Learning How to Lose is a Rainbow Awards 2015 Finalist, and an ARe besteller. Here’s the synopsis:
Losing is a thing Japanese pop star Ryuu Shiwasuda does not do — certainly not gracefully. Image is everything to hot-headed Ryuu. Sure, his macho bluster is only a cover for shyness and social awkwardness, but he takes it (and himself) very seriously.
So when gratingly cheerful punster Hiro Takahashi delivers the ultimate insult of letting Ryuu win at a video game, Ryuu is cut to the quick, and vows swift vengeance. Can’t be too hard to beat a dork like Hiro, right?
Wrong. As Ryuu chases after his elusive victory, he’s forced to add more and more items to the list of “things to beat Hiro at” — and is shocked to find that Hiro’s quirky charm is sparking never-before felt desires in him.
Ryuu’s life and career have no place for a male lover. But he’s already in too deep. Can he risk going all in? And what does he stand to lose if he doesn’t?
A reformed nix. A deadly hunter. And an uneasy truce that may destroy them both.
“Still Waters” is now up on All Romance and Smashwords, for free. I’m so excited that this story is finally available for everyone, and I can’t wait to hear what people will think.
Check it out if you’re interested in dark myth-inspired worlds, water shifters, ginger mermen, and/or two natural enemies (and alpha males) trying to work together to take down a common threat… only to discover a dangerous attraction along the way.
The story is also available on Amazon, but since it’s not possible to set the price at 0.00 there, it isn’t free yet. It will be, though. In a few days (hopefully), Amazon will price-match the story down to nothing, and then it will be free everywhere.
Several readers mentioned they found the original cover of “Love for the Cold-Blooded” bland – so I enlisted the talented, amazing and endlessly patient Joanna of Book Cover Master Class to design a new one. I am very happy with the result. Thank you again, Joanna!
Click on the image to check out the full glory of the dramatically posed hoagie – ahem, hero – with his imposingly billowing cape! The little mind control ray! The snakes! The jaguar! The cheeky minions peeking over the cape! And, of course, the heroically shirtless Silver Paladin, aka Nick!
(I’m only sad Nick isn’t slinging a Ghost Matter t-shirt over his shoulder. Alas! Clearly this was a day when he was forced to leave his lab.)
I hope this cover reflects the light-hearted, whimsical nature of the book, while also alluding to the superhero theme, flirting with its comic book origins, bringing out the affectionate parody / satirical homage element, and – not least – emphasizing that this is a book wherein readers can expect to find men without shirts.
The print cover is even lovelier, you guys. Just saying.
What do you think?
As an aside on the subject of cover models, let me just say: argh. Finding this one took a long and painful search (sifting through endless archives of half-naked men; I’m sure you can picture my suffering). He still doesn’t quite match my mental image of Nick, but he’s like the fictional movie version. In my mind, this is the underwear model who portrays the fictionalized character Golden Warrior in the films within the novel’s world.
Given my abiding love of the printed book, it won’t come as a surprise that I’m publishing my longer stories in both ebook and paperback form. Love for the Cold-Blooded is available already – and it looks great! (Sorry for the low-quality phone pic… it does look great, seriously.)
Even if nobody except me ever orders a paperback copy, it’s been well worth all of the work just so I can have one for myself.
In case anybody else would like to have a copy, though, I’m hosting a giveaway on goodreads. Why not sign up? With a bit of luck, you could win a free paperback copy of “Love for the Cold-Blooded”.
All of my titles are now available on Amazon! Well, to be exact, they’ve been available since just before the holidays… I merely neglected to announce it due to a complete lack of sleep, followed by a seasonal break for cookies, Scrabble and too much good food.
I am ridiculously happy and excited, as well as somewhat nervous.
Next up:
Making all five titles available on Smashwords and Barnes & Noble
Alex Gabriel 