If you’re looking for a VERY dark MM romance with Fight Club vibes, From Best to Bested is now available!
From Best To Bested
Publication Date: January 13, 2025
Genre: Dark MM Romance/ Fighting
Pitch Black Romance
Hero to Zero
Forced Proximity
Fight Club Vibes
Roman Grayson has turned his prison stint into an opportunity of fame by becoming the reigning champion in an underground fight club. But when he’s dethroned by a new inmate, Roman quickly loses everything that made his incarceration bearable. From the extra perks of being champion, to the authority of keeping fellow inmates in line, all the way to his best friend being forced to room with the man who stole everything from Roman.
In a desperate attempt to win back his title and respect, Roman challenges the new reigning champion to a rematch, but Ezra Delgado only wants one thing from Roman. His pride. Roman has more enemies than he can count in the form of hostile inmates, angry guards, and a corrupt warden who’d gladly see Roman dead so long as it made a profit. If he wants to survive, Roman will have to decide how much of himself he’s willing to sacrifice for Ezra’s entertainment.
Welcome to the tour for upcoming sapphic horror, Inked in Blood and Memory by Allison Ivy!
Inked in Blood and Memory
Expected Publication Date: December 3, 2024
Genre: Sapphic Horror
Eat the rich
“Family is complicated”
Sapphic (f/f) romance
2/5 spice level
Multi-POV
Vietnamese FMC
Plus size FMC
Mixed race FMC
FMC who wears glasses
New Year’s Eve Horror
Dark Academia
Estranged friends to lovers
Grownup “The Pagemaster” vibes
Recluse Sophie Vanguard’s winter cabin retreat turns ominous when blue flowers mysteriously appear. They’re everywhere. On her front porch, in kitchen cabinets, and even on her pillow. It isn’t long before chilling whispers echo in the halls, and her journal repeats seven unsettling entries.
Enter the bloodied and beautifully eccentric Ly Thi Ren. Though Ren seems familiar, Sophie refuses to believe the girl’s insistence that they are trapped inside a book.
In a land of fiction, truth and lies blur together, clear decisions are marred by doubt, and shared family trauma lurks just below the surface.
Can Ren and Sophie make it out alive? Or will they end up nothing more than words inked in blood and memory?
With elements of gothic horror, splatterpunk, romance, and fantasy, Inked in Blood and Memory is a self-aware LGBTQ+ horror that wraps its clutches around the reader and doesn’t let go.
Swearing (Not overboard. Three or four F-words and three or four other words.)
Gore/violence/body horror (not gratuitous and nothing sexual)
one scene of main character drug use (joint)
Brief suicidal ideation
Child endangerment
Self-deprecation in terms of weight (one paragraph).
We’re thrilled to present the adorable cover for upcoming novella, Winter Nights & Christmas Lights: A Sapphic Christmas Novella by Sofia Rose!
Winter Nights & Christmas Lights: A Sapphic Christmas Novella
Expected Publication Date: November 15, 2024
Genre: Holiday Romance/ Sapphic Romance
Tropes:
Sapphic, Billionaire Romance, Cozy Christmas Vibes, New Adult, Grad School, Academia, Sugar Baby/Sugar Mommy
Microtropes:
There’s a cute puppy, Meeting on a dating app, Christmas with the family, Set in Ireland, Moving to a new country
When Charlotte moves to Ireland, she has no idea that Aoife will sweep her off her feet just in time for Christmas.
Charlotte has just moved to Dublin for Grad School, hoping for a fresh start in a new city. It’s certainly not like the home in Florida that she’s left behind. While it’s exciting to be in a new city, Dublin is gloomy and rainy in the late fall. That is until Charlotte meets Aoife on a dating app. Will Aoife be the spark that lights up Charlotte’s Irish experience?
Happy release week to Alli Temple! Only Mostly Dead is the perfect ghostly tale for the spooky season!Only Mostly Dead (Afterlife Incorporated Book 1) Publication Date: October 21, 2024 Genre: Urban Fantasy/ LGBTQ+
Urban fantasy
Ghost & reaper
Odd couple
Sloooooooow burn
No one tells you how much paperwork there is after you die.
I expected to wake up on a cloud where angels played harps and fed me grapes. Instead, I’m a ghost stuck in suburban Toronto. The only one who can see me is an unemployed grim reaper who’d rather play video games.
Turns out the business of dying is a train wreck. But if there was ever a girl boss who could get it back on track, it’s me. All I need is a little help from my new undead roommate, whether they want to be involved or not.
Nothing at Afterlife Incorporated moves quickly and if I don’t find a way out soon there won’t be anything left of me to cross over. They say death can be easy, but being only mostly dead sucks.
Only Mostly Dead is the first installment in the Afterlife Incorporated urban fantasy trilogy. It features a slow—so slow—burn romance that may take several books to resolve. Be patient. Death is coming…eventually. AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
My thoughts: this was a lot of fun, probably more than death really is. After dying and not being “collected” and taken to the Afterlife, anyone would be a bit frustrated. But when your life’s work was helping others get their lives sorted out – well maybe the Afterlife needs your help.
Funny, reminiscent of Dead Like Me (that was a good show) with delightful characters and a rather magnificent cat (always a good addition), there’s a lot more to the life after death! Can’t wait for book 2!
We’re celebrating the upcoming release of Null and Void by R. Moody! Make sure to follow along for reviews and posts featuring this stunner!
Null & Void (Patrons of the Divine Book 1)
Expected Publication Date: August 15, 2024
Genre: Dark Fantasy/LGBTQ+
✨️ Forced proximity 💜 Hate to love ✨️ Feminine rage 💜 Found family ✨️ LGBTQ+ cast & diverse rep 💜 Morally grey FMC ✨️ Cinnamon roll MMC 💜 Hidden identity ✨️ Reluctant hero/heroine 💜 Court politics/political intrigue
After enduring a life of servitude, Mika, retired assassin and Null, thought she would live out her days alone…
But, once an assassin, always an assassin.
When Mika is sold as a slave—a fate she was promised would never be hers—hope for a solitary life is lost. Now destined for an impossible rescue in a foreign land, her only chance for survival is to fight the destructive rage simmering beneath her skin and learn to trust those around her.
As trust deepens on the journey and a charming new companion fights for her heart, Mika is forced to face the truth of who she is. In the end, she must choose to embrace it or let the rage win, and risk losing it all.
Null & Void is the first book in a new series featuring a harsh fantasy world, political intrigue, and a morally grey heroine caught in the middle.
Perfect for fans of Gild (by Raven Kennedy),Daughter of No Worlds (by Carissa Broadbent), and Graceling (by Kristin Cashore).
Note: please check the trigger warnings on the authors website
Welcome to the tour for Ritual Income by B.L. Brown, a witchy, enemies to lovers fantasy romance!
Ritual Income: Witch of the Demesne
Publication Date: August 2023
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Slow burn
Enemies-to-lovers
Grumpy x sunshine
Black cat energy
Dark secrets
Strong FMC
Golden retriever MMC
Shadow daddy
LGBTQ rep
Pan-rep
Diverse characters
Open door spice
A hipster witch takes on MLM Huns in this slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers, urban fantasy.
Every witch has her Way
Milla is a witch who wants to hide. Grieving the loss of her mentor, she retreats to St. Augustine where her only goals are to run her antique store and tend her demesne into obscurity.
But C.R.O.W. has other plans for the formerly wicked witch.
As if being saddled with a new apprentice and trying to get rid of the Aural Insurance Adjuster sent to observe her isn’t enough to deal with, a pack of multi-level marketing huns sets their sights on Milla, intent on burning her store to the ground. When a threat to the demesne, and the witches and mortals under Milla’s care, raises its ugly head it is up to her to decide:
Is living out her days as a nothing witch in a nowhere demesne what she truly wants, or is the formerly wicked witch ready to rejoin the witchy world of C.R.O.W.?
BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.
If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.
A reluctant necromancer, a man killed before his time, and the crime that brings them together.
Felipe Galvan’s life as an investigator for the Paranormal Society has been spent running into danger. Returning home from his latest case, Felipe struggles with the sudden quiet of his life until a mysterious death puts him in the path of the enigmatic Oliver Barlow.
Oliver has two secrets. One, he has been in love with the charming Felipe Galvan for years. Two, he is a necromancer, but to keep the sensible life he’s built as a medical examiner, he must hide his powers. That is until Oliver finds Felipe murdered and accidentally brings him back from the dead.
But Felipe refuses to die again until he and Oliver catch his killer. Together, Felipe and Oliver embark on an investigation to uncover a plot centuries in the making. As they close in on his killer, one thing is certain: if they don’t stop them, Felipe won’t be the last to die.
Kara Jorgensen (she/they) is a queer, nonbinary oddball with a penchant for all things antiquated, morbid, or just plain strange. While in college, they realized they no longer wanted to be Victor Frankenstein but instead wanted to write like Mary Shelley and thus abandoned their future career in science for writing. Kara melds her passions through her books and graduated with an MFA in Creative and Professional Writing in 2016. When not writing, they can be found hanging out with their dogs watching period dramas or trying to convince their students to cite their sources.
My thoughts: I really liked this book, I loved Oliver and just wanted to give him a hug, thankfully he has Gwen and eventually Felipe for that.
Investigating a nun’s death is a little awkward, since the church frowns on their kind, but the sister isn’t just a nun, she has a gift and someone was willing to kill her to steal her secrets.
Oliver and Felipe are thrown together by circumstance and then when Oliver accidentally brings Felipe back from the dead, and might be the only reason he’s still alive, they can’t resist the pull between them, so they don’t.
But they’re still on the case, especially after Oliver’s lab is broken into and he and Gwen attacked. But why would anyone want some medical curios?
A fun and clever adventure with a sweet romance at its centre.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
It is the year 1715, and Thomas True has arrived on old London Bridge with a dangerous secret. One night, lost amongst the squalor of London’s hidden back streets, he finds himself drawn into the outrageous underworld of the molly houses.
Meanwhile, carpenter Gabriel Griffin struggles to hide his double life as Lotty, the molly’s stoic guard. When a young man is found murdered, he realises there is a rat amongst them, betraying their secrets to a pair of murderous Justices.
Can Gabriel unmask the traitor before they hang? Can he save hapless Thomas from peril, and their own forbidden love?
Set amidst the buried streets of Georgian London, The Betrayal of Thomas True is a brutal and devastating thriller, where love must overcome evil, and the only true sin is betrayal…
A.J. West’s bestselling debut novel The Spirit Engineer won the Historical Writers’ Association Debut Crown Award, gaining international praise for its telling of a long-forgotten true story. His second novel, The Betrayal of Thomas True, is published July 2024.
An award winning BBC newsreader and reporter, he has written for national newspapers and regularly appears on network television discussing his writing and the historical context of contemporary events.
A passionate historical researcher, he writes at The London Library and museum archives around the world.
My thoughts: set in the world of molly houses, secretive clubs where gay and bisexual men gathered when homosexuality was illegal and men could be hung for the crime of sodomy, The Betrayal of Thomas True relates in slightly Dickensian ways, the story of young Thomas True, who runs away to London from Highgate (then a village outside of London) to stay with his relatives, a macabre uncle and aunt and cousin Abigail, his pen pal. They run a chandlery – making candles, and Thomas asks to apprentice rather than return to his parents.
He meets The community of “mollies” that gather at Mother Clap’s, discovering his place and his true desires there. Unfortunately the men who congregate there are under threat and with a Rat passing their names to the authorities and their friends being killed.
There’s a playfulness to the language – and certainly in the nicknames the mollies use for themselves in their community, as well as in the characters’ daytime names. As Gabriel and Thomas hunt for this Rat, as their friends are arrested and prosecuted, executed and murdered, and as the two fall in love; they see horrors, confront assassins and venture into Bedlam to rescue one of their number.
Georgian London’s dank underworld, it’s sinister demi monde is explored in fascinating and intelligent detail. Despite the darkness of Thomas’ London life, there is some brightness and colour in his misadventures. I found the book thoroughly enjoyable and was sad to reach its end.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Mark Vogel is like the older brother Stefan Riley never had, until one day he disappears, and Stefan has to adapt to life without him. But, one year later, when he runs into a girl who looks near-identical to Mark, Stefan becomes obsessed. He discovers that other boys have disappeared, too, dozens over the years, most of them students of the Royal College of Saint Almsworth, many of them troubled or unruly before their disappearance.
What is happening to these boys? Who are the handful of women on campus who bear a striking resemblance to some of those who went missing? And what is the connection to the mysterious Dorley Hall?
Stefan works hard to get into the Royal College for one reason and one reason only: to find out exactly what happened to the women who live at Dorley Hall, and to get it to happen to him, too.
A closeted trans girl attempts to infiltrate a secret underground forced feminisation programme.
Content note: this story engages with some reasonably dark topics, including but not limited to torture, manipulation, dysphoria, nonconsensual surgery, and kidnapping. While it isn’t intended to be a dark or dystopian story, the perspective characters are carrying a lot of baggage, and the exploration of the premise might be triggering for trans readers.
Alyson lives in a very small flat in a very large city, and writes fiction with trans themes and characters. Her Twitter is twitter.com/badambulist
My thoughts: I have a lot to say about this book, many questions (which hopefully the rest of the series will answer) and will need a book club or something to discuss this with.
It is very good, incredibly thought provoking and at times shocking (please check all the trigger warnings before reading). As well as being a clever thriller, it’s a fascinating discussion about gender, misogyny, social norms, and who has the right to carry out justice.
Stefan is looking for his missing friend Mark, including getting into the same university, where he hopes to find answers about what happened. What he finds instead blows his mind. Dorley Hall is not at all what he thought, yet, in a way, it is everything he hoped.
There’s also the residents of the dorms, young women dealing with growing into their own skins, with finding their places in society. The flawed society we live in, where women are judged on their appearance, Aunt Bea, the woman who oversees Dorley Hall has some rather antiquated ideas about feminity and what makes someone feminine.
Honestly it’s a good read, if at times quite challenging and it will definitely leave you with lots of thoughts. But that’s never a bad thing. If you want to talk in detail about it – let me know!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
In an alternative Elizabethan London, Fang awakes from his death to discover he is not quite human anymore. In fact, despite having somehow acquired the power of immortality, he’s also not quite vampire, zombie, werewolf or any of the other supernatural beings who roam the twin cities of Upper London and its underground counterpart, Deep London.
A jaded traveller from the Ming Empire, Fang is desperate to find a way to reverse the spell and get on with being dead when he stumbles upon Lazare de Quitte-Beuf, a theatrical Frenchman who is afflicted with the same mysterious condition. Thrown together by the curse they share, the two men set out to undo the strange magic that binds them. As they are drawn further into the shadowy world of Deep London, they unearth a dangerous plot which they appear to be right in the middle of…
And, surely, when in grave danger, the worst thing they could do would be to fall in love, wouldn’t it?
My thoughts: this is very very funny, very silly and just a bit brilliant. I loved it.
Fang is cursed not to die, he gets stabbed a fair bit, but nothing seems to kill him. He’s fed up, tired and a long way from home. Lazare also gets cursed but nothing (except maybe not getting cast in Kit Marlowe’s play) gets him down, he’s basically happy all the time. Thrown together in an attempt to undo their curses, successfully avoid getting arrested and finding themselves in Deep London, literally under the city, with a small dragon called Amber (I would love a small dragon pal), Nell the apothecary and a little girl who is very scared, they’re on the adventure of a lifetime and right in the middle of a total lunatic’s scheme!
It’s just a lot of fun, there’s so many fantasy (and romance) tropes and little references and I just had a ball reading it. The first in a new series, it’s an absolute treat.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
Happy release week to Alli Temple! Only Mostly Dead is the perfect ghostly tale for the spooky season!
Only Mostly Dead (Afterlife Incorporated Book 1)
ramblingmads 