New Release Blitz: Scorned Gods by Mychael Black #paranormalromance #vampires @changelingpress @GoIndiMarketing

 

Title: Scorned Gods

Author: Mychael Black

Publisher: Changeling Press LLC

Release Date: June 18, 2021

Heat Level: 4 - Lots of Sex

Pairing: Male/Male, Male/Male Menage

Length: 154

Genre: Romance, Fantasy, Action Adventure, Dark Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Suspense, Urban Fantasy, Multiple Partners, Multisexual & Pansexual, Rock Star, Vampires

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Synopsis

Music isn't all that Scorned Gods has to offer.

Iconoclast (Scorned Gods 1): Death metal group Scorned Gods needs a new singer. Firestarter's former lead singer Jason Summerfield and his lover Julian Kristados are back in the United States, and Jason is itching to get back on stage. What he gets, however, is far more than that -- and not all of it is good.

Delirium (Scorned Gods 2): Jason and Julian have acquired a new lover, Scorned Gods' bassist, Saul. But a cult of vampires is hell-bent on starting a war between mortals and vampires. Its first prime targets are psychic vampires like Jason's bandmates…

Shackled (Scorned Gods 3): With help from an Abaddon ally, Jason and his bandmates will have to act quickly to stop Harlan Yates. The escaped mortal, Daniel, is the unwilling beacon that can bring destruction upon them all.

Karma's Brutality (Scorned Gods 4): With their allies from Abaddon, Jason takes the fight directly to Yates. Jason and his bandmates from Scorned Gods are about to discover combat is not for the faint of heart. Not everyone will come out unscathed, but that's the nature of war.

Publisher's Note: Scorned Gods (Box Set) contains the previously published novellas Iconoclast, Delirium, Shackled, and Karma's Brutality.

Excerpt

Scorned Gods (Box Set)
Mychael Black
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2021 Mychael Black
Excerpt from Iconoclast

The door slammed shut, and Saul Calderon glanced at his bandmates. "Well, that was a waste of time. Now what?"

Twins Nicholas and Dana Reid both sighed, though Dana spoke up first. "Good riddance," she said. "There are other singers -- most with more talent than that jackass had. We can find someone."

"Hopefully in enough time to actually learn the songs," her brother grumbled.

Saul sat on the stool beside his amp, his bass resting on his lap. "Where do these fuckers come from? You'd think someone who claims to be a 'big fan' would actually know our songs."

"Hell if I know," Dana said with a shrug. She set her sticks on her snare and redid her fire-engine red ponytail. Although she and Nicholas were twins, they weren't identical. She looked nothing like her brother. "We need... new blood."

A shiver snaked its way up Saul's spine. None of them had fed in a few days, and although they didn't drink blood, the urge for it occasionally hit. Dana gave him a knowing look. She'd been the one to bring them together years ago. Back then, they'd only sensed kindred spirits who needed energy to survive. The music had been a happy accident. But even among vampires, their kind were pariahs. Rumors ran rampant about the band members' true natures, though no one knew the exact truth. Sometimes, they tossed in a random blood feeding onstage just to drive the crowd wild, but Saul preferred tantric energy to blood any day.

"Yo, dude!"

Fingers snapped in front of Saul's face, and he shook his head. Nicholas gave him a quizzical look.

"Sorry. Just... zoned out, I guess," Saul said. "Dana's right, though. We need someone new, someone this fucking city hasn't heard."

"Good luck with that," Nicholas said. "That idiot was number... shit, I don't even remember now."

"Maybe we'll get lucky." Saul wasn't sure he believed that himself, but it felt good to say, at least. His cell buzzed in his pocket, and he tugged it out to glance at the text message. "Huh."

"Who is it?" Dana asked.

"Some guy named Jason Summerfield. Says he sang with Firestarter."

"The pyro band?" Nicholas grinned.

Saul shrugged. "I suppose. I don't know of any other Firestarter."

"Didn't they break up a few years ago?" Dana began packing her things. "I caught one of their shows. If it's the same guy, he's fucking good."

Saul read the text aloud:

My name is Jason Summerfield. I found your ad and am looking for a new band. I just moved to town a few weeks ago, but I fronted Firestarter for several years in Atlanta.

"What have we got to lose?" Nicholas asked as he put away his guitar.

"I'll set up a time tomorrow then," Saul said.

While Noah and Dana finished getting their things together, Saul replied to the text.

Hey there. I've heard of Firestarter, though I never saw you guys live. I play bass for Scorned Gods. I'd like to meet and chat, see if you'd be a good fit. When's a good time for you?

A few minutes passed, and Saul walked Dana and Noah to the front door of his loft. Just as he shut the door, his phone buzzed again.

Anytime tonight would be great.

He texted back, How about eight?

Sounds great.

Awesome. I know a cool little coffeehouse downtown called Urban Joe's. Need directions?

Nah. I can find it. See you then.

Saul grinned. If this guy was as good as Dana claimed, maybe things would work out after all. He grabbed his laptop off the kitchen table and sat down on the couch. A quick Google search yielded photos, mp3 clips, and vids of Firestarter. Saul stared at a promo pic of Jason Summerfield.

"Holy shit, he's hot."

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Meet the Author

Myc has been writing professionally since 2005, solo and with Shayne Carmichael. Genres include pretty much anything (no steampunk yet), though Myc is well known for paranormal stories. When not writing, Myc is usually playing PC games, reading, watching Netflix, and spending way too much time on Facebook. Since the question has come up in the past, pronouns are not an issue. Myc is bio-female, mentally male, and 100% genderfluid, so any pronoun works!

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Release Blitz: Business and the Beat by Kellum Jeffries #LGBTQ #ContemporaryRomance @kellumjeffries @GoIndiMarketing

Title: Business and the Beat

Author: Kellum Jeffries

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 02/08/2021

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 33800

Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, contemporary, gay, pan, rock star/musician, family issues, band shenanigans, slime attacks

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Description

Rutherford Fitzhugh, shy, repressed financial advisor, is happy to stay in his professional and personal rut. But his world gets shaken up when his new boss insists the firm take on more exciting clients and assigns Rutherford to Mak, the brilliant bassist and chief songwriter for the mega-popular rock band, Memo to Myself.

Mak Makana, extroverted prankster goofball, hasn’t had a serious or lengthy relationship in years. He learned early on in his band’s meteoric rise to fame that a lover he’d fallen hard for was more interested in his fame than him.

The sparks between the two men are immediate and intense, despite their disastrous first meeting when Rutherford walks into a gooey prank Mak meant for a bandmate. Rutherford discovers that Mak isn’t the spoiled, shallow rock star he expected, and Mak finds that Rutherford has a hidden artistic and quirky side. They can’t keep their hands off each other—even as they work to convince themselves it’s just a fling.

Rutherford’s never been able to please his conservative, traditional Virginian parents—or get them to accept his sexuality—and the sudden paparazzi attention brings their disapproval on full force. Mak’s got a supportive family back home in Hawaii and another one in his bandmates, neither batting an eye at his pansexuality. But that early experience with a fame-collector makes him wary of opening up to anyone who’s not birth family or band family.

Mak and Rutherford’s very different lives threaten to pull them apart, but could it be they’re different enough to be perfect together?

Excerpt

Business and the Beat
Kellum Jeffries © 2021
All Rights Reserved

Rutherford’s morning started off with a reassuring sameness—same boiled eggs for breakfast, same dogwalk around his neighborhood, same quick skim of the Financial Times during his morning Lyft ride—and there was absolutely no warning that by noon he’d be flustered, turned on, and temporarily dyed blue.

He arrived at work his usual half hour early. It was calm and quiet then, and he had a few peaceful moments to sit with his first cup of tea of the day and start looking through his portfolio of clients, making sure he’d checked in with each of them recently enough to keep them well informed and happy. (This was a tricky balance; some clients were annoyed by frequent contact, some enraged by any lengthy absence of contact, and, of course, there were a few who would find something to be peeved about regardless.)

Rutherford wrote up a schedule of check-in calls to make and started looking through the first client’s current investments, checking on the returns and pondering the fact that said client had a child reaching college age soon. Would tweaking her portfolio in light of that be advantageous? And just when he was settling into deep thought, doodling flowers on his legal pad as his brain ticked over possibilities, Hurricane Jen blew into the office.

He winced—he liked Jen, somewhat reluctantly, but she was loud.

“Heeeeeeeeeey you!” she bellowed, and he sighed as his mental train of morning productivity not only derailed but fell spectacularly off a cliff, hit bottom, and caught fire.

“Hello, Jen.”

He’d wondered, the first few times she greeted him with a “Hey you,” if she was being intentionally rude to him since she seemed to remember everyone else’s name. But when he’d reintroduced himself after several weeks of this, she’d wrinkled her nose and said, “I swear I know your name, I’m sorry, I just— It just doesn’t seem like you! It’s so stuffy! Sorry, I don’t mean to insult your name, you probably love your name, and it’s certainly elegant and everything, and argh, I’m a dick.”

He’d blinked at her, astonished she thought his name too stuffy for him—he was well aware most people thought of him as, well, stuffy. (He was also astonished she felt comfortable blurting “I’m a dick” by way of apology, but the boss’s daughter had certain prerogatives.)

“I, uh, I don’t love my name,” he’d said. “‘Hey you’ is…rather nice.” And since then, he’d been oddly fond of her.

Today, though, in addition to completely ruining his concentration, she was making him nervous. She didn’t come into the office all that often; she was in charge of schmoozing prospective clients, which kept her on the road a good deal. When she did come in, it tended to be for all-hands-on-deck things: staff trainings and the like. Rutherford snuck a look at his online calendar, but he knew before he checked there was nothing like that today. So why was she here?

“What brings you here today?” he asked, but she added to his worry by grinning and making a lock-turning gesture in front of her lips, then striding off to her dad’s office.

“Oh god,” Rutherford murmured to his computer screen. There’d been rumors flying around lately about the old man’s retirement. Rutherford had tried to discount them, but…he wasn’t so sure now.

MacKenzie from the next office stuck her head in his doorway, pointed the way Jen had gone, and did some frantic gestures he assumed were mime for “what is happening?” He shrugged, and she frowned and popped back out again.

He slid down in his chair, put his hands over his face, and whispered, “I hate change” into the dark of his palms.

And sure enough, a few seconds later, an “Everyone to the meeting room” alert popped up on the office IM.

Rutherford grabbed a pad and pen and headed for the hallway; bad news was always a bit more palatable when he had some paper to cling to. He met MacKenzie on the way, leaned down, and murmured, “Two pencils,” in her ear.

“Crap, thanks,” she said and grabbed the pencils out of her short Afro. Sometimes by the end of the day, she had five or six.

They reached the meeting room and grabbed seats. And once everyone had filed in, Jen patted her dad’s shoulder and said, “Don’t leave ’em hanging,” and Rutherford barely managed not to groan aloud.

Mr. Wozniak stood up, said, “Yep, I’m retiring. Nope, we’re not letting anybody go. Yep, I am going to do a shitload of fly-fishing,” and sat down.

As bosses went, he’d always been admirably succinct.

The room was silent for a moment, awkwardly so—what did one say in response to that? And then Jen stood up and talked about how her father had founded the firm on the principles of emphasizing ethics, hiring the best people, and treating them very well. How their employee retention rate (“and our long tradition of not getting caught up in hideous scandals!”) proved these principles worked, and how she planned to continue on the same path.

Oh, good, it was going to be Jen. Rutherford had worried the firm would be sold. Jen, while noisy, was at least familiar and liked.

He’d begun to relax a little when Jen’s speech took a turn.

“While most of you will keep your same client load, I do plan to shake things up a bit. I’m planning to start pitching clients in the entertainment industry—we’ve got a longstanding industry halo for ethical business, let’s add a little buzz as well.”

That certainly got a buzz going in the room at least, but she held up a hand. “I’ll share details with those of y’all who are gonna be involved. Meanwhile, let’s start planning a massive retirement party.”

Rutherford tuned out for the rest of the talk, sketching tiny birds in the margins of his legal pad while he mulled over what this might mean for him. He had every intention of staying. Surely, his job wouldn’t change significantly since there was zero reason for Jen to drag him, of all people, into the new “entertainment industry” focus. However, someone his own age taking over the company would certainly send his parents into another “We can’t believe you’re happy with this career…plateau” rant.

He sighed and then startled, realizing only when Jen’s hand landed lightly on his shoulder that people were starting to clear out of the room.

“Hey, you,” she said, grinned, and patted his shoulder. “Let’s talk.”

Oh no.

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Meet the Author

Kellum Jeffries is a bisexual Southern librarian, lucky enough to have a supportive fellow-writer partner and a fabulous dog. She knits socks, gives excellent shoulder rubs, and can touch her nose with her tongue. She loves to write about all kinds of people finding themselves, finding love, and finding the nearest Waffle House.

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Release Blitz: Wounded Martyr by Courtney Maguire

Title: Wounded Martyr

Author: Courtney Maguire

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: December 16, 2019

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 54300

Genre: Contemporary, LGBT, Contemporary, gay, rock star, musicians, tour, drug/alcohol use, addiction, friends to lovers, hurt/comfort

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Synopsis

Ice is an asshole, but he’s working on
it. He’s two years sober, no small feat when you front a heavy metal band
facing waning popularity and dismal ticket sales. But the pieces of a life torn
apart by alcoholism are finally coming back together. His band, Wounded Martyr,
has written a great album with the potential to launch them back into relevancy.
And Ricky, probably the biggest, most important piece, has finally forgiven him
for the wreck he made of their relationship. There’s only one problem.

Ashton.

It was to be expected. As his best
friend and bandmate for almost twenty years, it’s only natural they should find
each other in the loneliness of the road. Ricky knows about their one night
together, but he doesn’t know that Ice can’t stop thinking about it, about his
long body and whiskey-flavored lips, and the guilt of it has him on the brink
of backslide. Now that Wounded Martyr is poised for a long tour, Ice must find
a way to resist temptation or risk blowing their last chance and destroying his
relationship with the two most important men in his life.

Excerpt

Wounded Martyr

Courtney Maguire © 2019

All Rights Reserved

Everything hurt.

Hiding in our dingy dressing room
toilet, back pressed against the wall between the sink and the urinal, I read
wall graffiti to take my mind off my sore joints. Black Sharpie marker slander
tucked between worn band stickers. Jake is a pussy. For a good time, call.
Someone had scrawled SUX over a Wounded Martyr sticker in the corner. An old
one. Apparently, we’d played here before. I couldn’t remember.

House music vibrated through the wall,
and I pressed my shoulder blades into it. I gave a no-smoking sign the finger
and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of my pocket. This used to be my favorite
part, the anticipation in the moments before we hit the stage. Now, I shook
with a mix of adrenaline and dread that made me queasy.

“Ice!” A familiar voice cut through the
din followed by a rapid knock on the door. “Dude, you in there?”

I popped a cigarette between my lips.
“Fuck off, I’m taking a shit.”

The door opened anyway, and in slipped
Ashton. Ash. Hair in his face and dark liner around his eyes. Deep lines framed
his mouth, but his too-long limbs made him appear perpetually boyish. The way I
would always see him. The sixteen-year-old kid playing bass in his garage.

“You can’t smoke in here.”

I scowled and shoved the cig back in the
pack.

“Dante is going to lose his shit if you
don’t get out there,” he said, closing the door behind him. Dante, our
self-appointed fearless leader. If he wasn’t such a goddamned great guitarist,
I’d kick him in the teeth.

“Dante can suck my cock.”

“Pretty sure he’s not into that.” We
shared a laugh before his eyes pinched in concern. “How’s the voice?”

“Tired,” I answered on the tail end of
an exhale.

“You can make it, man.” He stepped
toward me. “Just three more shows, and we’re home.”

“Have you seen the house?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it full?”

He pressed his lips together, and those
lines around his mouth deepened.

“Shit.”

“Don’t sweat it.” He squeezed my arm.
“It’s a big house. It would be hard for anyone to fill. Besides, we’ve played
smaller.”

I nodded, but my stomach dropped into my
toes. Sure, we’d played smaller. I remembered playing crowds of twenty people,
ten of whom hated us. But we were eighteen with nowhere to go but up, and
nothing to lose. It felt different now.

Ash’s expression softened. “What do you
need?”

A drink.

“A blow job from John Stamos.”

“You and me both.” He hooked his hand
around the back of my neck and pressed our foreheads together. “You’ll be
great,” he said. “You are great. Just another day at the office, man, you got
this.”

I leaned into him and released a long
breath. Just another day. Another day I got to play rock and roll. Living the
dream, most would say. But even dreams didn’t last forever.

“What the fuck are you two doing in
there? Put your dicks away, and let’s go,” Dante’s gruff voice shouted from the
other side of the door. Ash shot me a mischievous grin and dropped to his knees
just as the door swung open. “What the fu—”

“Be right out, Boss,” I said, but he’d
already stomped off, spitting and cursing the whole way back to the dressing
room, his bright copper skin dark with an angry flush. I gave Ash a kick with
my heel, and he rolled over backward, tangled in his own legs and howling.

“Homophobes are fun,” he said between
gasps.

“You’re a prick,” I said, but I was
smiling, my earlier dread carried away in the stream of his laughter. Dante had
left the door open, and the house music pounded through me, ringing the tuning
fork inside. It was still there, thank God. I offered Ash a hand and hauled him
up.

“Ready to go?” he asked, his hand still
wrapped in mine.

“Let’s get to work.”

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Meet the Author

Courtney Maguire is a University of Texas graduate from Corpus Christi, Texas. Drawn to Austin by a voracious appetite for music, she spent most of her young adult life in dark, divey venues nursing a love for the sublimely weird. A self-proclaimed fangirl with a press pass, she combined her love of music and writing as the primary contributor for Japanese music and culture blog, Project: Lixx, interviewing Japanese rock and roll icons and providing live event coverage for appearances across the country. Her first novel, Wounded Martyr, is a 2019 RWA® Golden Heart® Finalist in the Contemporary Romance: Short Category.

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