Vacay

Officially starting my vacation with my boys today. Won't be online much for the next couple of weeks. Might pop in a few times, but not enough to answer emails or such.

Hope everyone's enjoying the summer! Or winter, if you're in Australia.

Lisabet Sarai Winner

Here's a message from Lisabet Sarai:

Hello, everyone!

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and comment. I just got back from an overseas trip and I'm trying to catch up on the tour and the prizes at each stop.

And for this stop - the winner is (drum roll please!) - Vita! She wins a copy of the GAYMES M/M anthology, which includes my story Crossed Hearts. Congratulations!

But there are lots more chances to win! I'll be checking out the other posts that came up while I was traveling, and drawing the winners, soon. 

****

Congrats Vita!

The "Gay Accent" - It Exists!

The Scarlet Letter

A few months back, I read a blog entry by Zathyn Priest on the "gay accent". Up until then, I didn't know it was an actual accent. You may be thinking "No way. The whole idea of it is just offensive." It exists though and Zathyn talks about a theory as to why some men have it and others don't.

The thing is that Zathyn himself has that accent and has always had it. It increased when he hit puberty and he's always been very self-conscious about it, trying to eradicate it from his speech. So while some men who try to acquire it or have it and accentuate it, there are some who have it and hate it. Not surprising if they get bullied or mistreated for having it. An interesting fact is that there are gay and straight men who can have this accent, so it's not really based on the sexuality.

Anyway, Zathyn worked more on that blog article and posted the revised piece in the first edition of The Scarlet Letter, which is a newsletter for readers and writers of GLBTQ literature. They have all sorts of interesting material there and I'll be writing some articles for it in the future.

I'd like to quote a bit from Zathyn's article on the "gay accent":

"I started feeling extremely self-conscious when I spoke to people.  To sound like I did was distressing and I despised it.  It wasn’t a choice and I certainly wasn’t putting the accent on.  Many guys aren’t at all worried about it and, like I said, some even accentuate it.  For me, I wanted to curb it as much as possible.  It took about three years of continuous effort to get rid of the accent enough for me to gain confidence again in my speaking voice.  It meant being aware of inflections, of making a conscious effort to drop pitch, of taking stock of the way I pronounced different words, etc.  Naturally, as I’ve aged, my voice deepened more and I’m lucky enough to have a husky quality to it that helps counteract some more of the accent.  Even now, when I speak, I have to make that conscious effort to keep the accent to a minimum."

So, when you hear about a bullied teen being asked by the school to "tone down" their "gayness", it's not unlikely that they're talking about the accent. To that, Zathyn says:

"You may as well ask someone who doesn’t speak English as a first language to drop their French, German, or whatever accent."

Also, check this guy on YouTube. He talks about flamboyancy of gay men.

Absolutely Eric Reviewed by Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews

I hardly ever share reviews of my books on this blog, mainly because I don't want to come off as if I'm bragging (for the good reviews). Instead I just quietly add the links to the book pages (in the tab under the big naked-guy-book-ends picture at the top of this blog) and maybe share them on my Facebook fan page. However, this blog is supposed to be about my ramblings and book news/updates, so I figure that while I don't want to make a new post for every single review, I could pick out a snippet from one and link the rest below. I'll be posting these for each book over the next few days. 

Here's the latest review on Absolutely Eric, rated 4 stars by Gennie Gee at Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews . I swear I must have looked like a cartoon character as I read it (eyes growing larger and larger with each paragraph). Looks like she really understood where I was going with this book.

Here's a snippet:

"Absolutely Eric is the second of Erica Pike’s Boston Boys series. Eric was an integral part of the first book, A Life Without You, and I couldn’t wait for his story and for Eric to meet his match. This is a book that I both love and hate. There were times my skin crawled and just wanted to look away, but couldn’t because I cared too much about Eric and his wellbeing. In some ways it was like watching a crash, you know what’s coming and that it’s going to be awful, but you just can’t look away."

Here are other reviews for Absolutely Eric:

Dark Divas Reviews (4.5)

Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews (4)

Booked Up Reviews (4)

Jessewave (4)

Manic Readers (4)

Randy's Book Bag Reviews

Pants Off Reviews (4)

The Romance Reviews (4)

Hearts on Fire Reviews (3.5)

Joyfully Jay (3)

Here's the blurb:

Eric Wesley is short and snazzy, hot and happy. Or thats what he thought. After three years of living on the wild side hes tired of being a playboy and wants to find love.

Eric, however, has never been in love before and doesnt see that the guy whos been gazing at him all summer might be Mr. Right. Alexander Centauri isnt only style-less and clumsy, but also terribly awkward. After a miserable date, Eric plants Alex on another guys lap and goes after Mr. Wrong who looks so right.

When Eric realizes his mistake, it might be too late.

Pants Off Blogoversary!

Woohoo! It's a one year blogoversary at Pants Off Reviews. I'm particularly fond of this review site because the owner was the first to give my first book, A Life Without You, a very positive review. Plus, I like Darien Moya's blogging style, always so fun. 

Anyway! She's partying all week with giveaways and other stuff. Today is my contribution to her blogoversary, an e-copy of A Life Without You, to one commenter on HER blog (not here, though you're always welcome to comment on my blog, it just won't get you into the contest). The contest ends on July 24th.

Blurb:

Jesse's like a bar of soap: the tighter Adam holds on, the faster Jesse slips away. Or that's how it feels to Adam. It doesn't help that Jesse has a girlfriend back home and claims to be straight, but there's no way with all the sparks and physical intimacy flying between the two roommates.

When Adam believes he has reached his ultimate happiness, the bedroom walls come crashing down with a visit from Jesse's girlfriend.

Now Jesse has to decide if he can come to terms with his sexuality, while Adam has to learn to accept that Jesse might never be able to crawl out of the closet.