Conveniently enough, you can use this coupon to pre-order Blood Bathory: Be Not Proud! It’s now available for pre-order for $6.99 (pre-coupon), and it’ll be available in print from Amazon as well.
The coupon is good through August 14. Blood Bathory: Be Not Proud comes out on August 31.
Yesterday, I wrote about Blood Bathory 3, which is coming out at the end of this month, but we’ve got some other books coming out in the near (and far) future.
On November 2, the next book in the Herc’s Mercs series will be released. Herc’s Mercs: Where Angels Fear to Tread is a more action-packed adventure with our leading men trying to escape the war-torn streets of a city under the siege of a military coup.
We’ve got two books coming out in December! On the 15th, Dreamspinner Press will release Striking Sparks as part of their new Dreamspun Desires line. Two former high school rivals reunite during a BBQ cook-off, and the old sparks of rivalry — and attraction — start flying once more.
Also in December, we’ve got a lighter holiday story coming out from Torquere Press. From A to Z focuses on two men who meet under highly unusual circumstances and begin a holiday romance.
And looking ahead into June, 2017, we’ve got Breaking Bonds, which will be another release in the Dreamspun Desires line. A resort owner in the mountains of NC is desperate to keep his resort open, and he finds unexpected help from an executive chef on vacation.
We’ve also got a manuscript in the editing stage that we’ll be submitting this fall, and of course, we’re working on new stuff as well. We’re trying to keep a fairly steady pace so our output doesn’t drop like it did last year. It’s been tough with our schedules — especially mine — but I think we’ve done pretty well. 😀
At last, the release date for the third book in the Blood Bathory trilogy is nigh! It will wrap up the story arc that’s run through the previous two books. There’s room for us to return to the Blood Bathory universe — and we have a couple of ideas along those lines — but we aren’t leaving any big loose ends dangling.
For the first two books, I found inspiration for the characters I wrote (Evan and Tyr) in Evanescence songs. I hadn’t heard of the group until I heard someone perform “Bring Me to Life” at karaoke. I was sitting in a position that let me read the lyrics on the screen, and they gave me an epiphany about Evan. I’d been struggling with his characterization, but when I heard that song, I thought, “That’s Evan”. From then on, I knew who he was, what he wanted, and why he returned to Will.
After that, I bought a couple of Evanescence albums because their music is grand and gorgeous, if a bit overdramatic for someone my age. My teenage self would have eaten this with a spoon if they’d been around back then. At any rate, it wasn’t difficult to find Tyr’s song once we started working on Blood Bathory 2. “My Immortal” summed up where he was in his grieving for Aaron (who had only a cameo in the novel, but I found a song for him anyway: “Swimming Home”).
I wanted to continue the tradition of connecting an Evanescence song to my character in Blood Bathory 3, but there isn’t really one that fits him. Instead, I found a song for Ari’s character, Antonio: “My Heart is Broken”.
It captures his loneliness after losing Raphael, the Dark Guardian he was bonded to five hundred years ago. Part of his heart and soul were lost when Raphael died, and he still feels the loss of his “dark angel” to this day.
Part of Antonio’s journey in Blood Bathory 3 will be deciding whether he can move beyond his grief and take a chance on loving a man who is different from the man he lost or whether giving his heart away during such dangerous times is too great a risk.
Blood Bathory: Be Not Proud will be released on August 31 by Torquere Press!
A Taste of Honey is now available from Torquere Press! We took a break from writing about big, badass mercs to write something a little lighter. A Taste of Honey is more of a romantic comedy set during a Southern family reunion, and we had fun putting a different spin on the “fake girlfriend” trope.
Boone is just trying to avoid his mama’s matchmaking by bringing his crossdressing friend to the reunion, but a glimpse of Rob’s white lace panties makes him question whether he’s as straight as he thought.
This is one of our shorter, lighter works, but it was a fun little palate cleanser after the heavy adventure-and-angst of the Herc’s Mercs series and the third Blood Bathory novel. 😉
As Ari posted a few days ago, we’ve got another Herc’s Mercs book in the pipeline. We don’t have a release date for it yet, but we’ll update here when we get it.
Currently, we’re writing an epilogue for The Quality of Mercy, which is a sequel to Finding Forgiveness that focuses on Carlos Hernandez. In Finding Forgiveness, Carlos mentions his regrets over losing a former lover because his eyes and his feet wandered too much, so we’re giving him a chance to try to win back the man he loves. Once we finish the epilogue, that manuscript will be in my editing queue.
Next up, we’re working on a second book for Dreamspinner’s Dreamspun Line with a goal of getting it finished and submitted by June.
After that, we’ve got a holiday story to write, and then it’ll be on to the next book in the Herc’s Mercs series! So many plot bunnies, so little time.
When most people hear the word “plagiarism”, they think of verbatim lifting of sentences, paragraphs, or even entire documents. That kind of copy/pasting is the most common type of plagiarism, and it’s the type that plagiarism checkers are built to catch. But it’s not the only type of plagiarism.
Plagiarism.org offers a fuller definition of plagiarism that includes stealing not only words but ideas, and it specifically references literary theft.
Identifying plagiarism that doesn’t involve word for word copying is tricky when it comes to fiction. After all, “there’s nothing new under the sun” is a cliche that gets bandied around quite often. “A restless and special young man longs for something more than he finds in his mundane life and jumps at the chance for adventure when an unexpected mentor arrives.” Am I talking about Luke Skywalker or Harry Potter?
Using such broad plot points isn’t considered plagiarism because it’s generic enough that you can tweak the details in any original direction you want. But when your details are similar to someone else’s work, well, then you’ve got a potential problem.
Especially when someone can go through your work and find about 20 plot and character related similarities while just skimming. I can’t imagine what might turn up if a close reading was involved, but I’m willing to find out if I have to.
Why yes! We’re dealing with a case of idea plagiarism. We’re not going to name and shame (yet) because we’re trying to reach a resolution through Amazon, which involves generating a lot of documentation to create a solid paper trail. Kristi at Torquere has been really helpful during this process, and we’re grateful for her assistance in this upsetting matter.
I think it’s important to remember that the gay romance novel writing world isn’t that big. We found this person because their work was reviewed, and the description jumped out at us as being similar enough to warrant further investigation. This author is self-published, so perhaps they thought they’d avoid detection because they aren’t affiliated with Torquere Press or Dreamspinner Press, where our work has been published. Or perhaps they weren’t aware that stealing details and specific concepts is considered plagiarism along with stealing words.
I don’t know. I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt that they acted out of ignorance rather than malice, but either way, we aren’t going to let it pass unchallenged.
Ari McKay & Rachel Langella 