Novels

Hero

Available now from Dreamspinner Press

Hal Porter is no man’s hero; he’s just another Los Angeles construction worker. So when he sees a building appear on what the day before was an empty plot of weeds—a site where people have been found dead—Hal knows a guy like him should steer clear of whatever is going on. But a vision at the building's window draws him inside, and there Hal finds Morgan, a magical shapeshifter held captive by a rival clan... and Hal’s the only one who can save him.

It doesn’t take Hal long to realize he’s in over his head, not only because the clan has powers beyond his imagination but also because he’s fallen in love with Morgan. There’s no escape for them now without a hero to break the curse, and Hal knows it can’t be him. But as Hal and Morgan work together, they discover gifts far more powerful than magic and that heroes aren’t always in shapes they expect.

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Special Delivery

available now from Dreamspinner Press

Sam Keller knows he’ll never find the excitement he craves in Middleton, Iowa—not while he’s busting his ass in nursing school and paying rent by slaving away in a pharmacy stockroom. But before his mother died, he promised her he’d grow up to be a good man, so he needs a stable career and a good husband, not a dead-end job and empty sex.

Then Sam meets Mitch Tedsoe, an independent trucker who makes a delivery to a shop across the alley. Innocent flirting quickly leads to an affair, and when Mitch offers to take Sam on a road trip west, Sam jumps at the chance for adventure with his fantasy man... but Mitch also comes with a past. A threesome with the other man in Mitch’s life would have been just another kinky ride, but somewhere between the Mississippi River and the Colorado Rockies, Sam falls in love.

But can a relationship born out of escape and indulgence become something that lasts? Will a fantasy man be willing to settle down into reality, or is the adventure and excitement Sam finds with Mitch just another stop on a delivery man’s journey? For better or for worse, eventually Sam is going to discover the answer, because no matter how far away he travels, eventually all roads lead home.
 

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Double Blind

available April 2010 from Dreamspinner Press

Poker player and professional smartass Randy Jansen believes in fate but doesn't let it rule his life. Whether he’s at the table or between the sheets, Randy always knows the odds, and he only plays the games he can win—until he meets Ethan Ellison. Ethan came to Las Vegas with a broken heart and shattered spirit, and when he sits down at the roulette table with his last five dollars, he means this to be one of his last acts on earth. But Randy ropes him into first one bet, and then another, and then another.... Pretty soon they’re playing poker on the Strip and having the time of their lives—and all this even before Randy gets Ethan into his bed.

But before Ethan can plot out a new course for his life, they’re drafted into the schemes of Randy’s former lover, a tricky gangster who needs a fall guy. To survive, Ethan will have to stop waiting on fate and start making his own luck, and Randy will have to face the demons of his past and accept that to win this round, he’s going to have to put up a big ante. It isn’t money going into the pot this time, either: it’s his heart, and Ethan’s too—because for better or for worse, the game of love has a double blind.

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Miles and the Magic Flute

available May 2010 from Dreamspinner Press

novel

When the forest behind a Minnesota pawn shop turns out to be the doorway into a faerie paradise, Miles Larson doesn't see any reason to complain. He's bankrupt, single, and living in a trailer in his backwoods hometown after being laid off from his big city job: yes, he could use a little downtime in a homoerotic dreamland.

But Miles soon learns that in the faerie world nothing is quite as simple as it seems. The beautiful faerie man who has captured Miles's heart might also be after Miles's soul. The frightening beast-man who chases him through the forest is actually a noble-hearted human under a terrible curse. And at the center of it all is the deathly beautiful Lord of Dreams, a faerie so powerful that if Miles so much as looks at his face, he will be lost in dreamland forever.

The only hope for Miles's escape lies in a magic silver flute, an enchanted instrument that holds the answer to the faerie lord's defeat. But even if Miles is smart and strong enough to wield it, will he dare? All dreams must stay in dreamland, and when the cold light of truth dawns, if there is no reality beneath the love he's found in the faerie realm, Miles will have to return to his own world—alone.

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The Seventh Veil

 
As a bisexual bastard born to a country stuck in antiquated mores and ideals, Charles Perry had learned long ago to set his sights low: all he wanted out of life was a drink, a dram, and a whore of each gender to share them with. But then the visions begin. Strange ghosts haunt his dreams, then follow him into his waking hours, and soon Charles has no choice but to seek help from an alchemist or risk running mad. The problem is, Charles is a bastard, but he still has House blood, which in the world of magic makes him a high prize. But Charles, it turns out, is even more unusual than most Etsey nobles. And what the alchemist discovers in his blood turns the whole world on its head: it brings his brother back from the dead, pulls a witch from her holy path, and in the arms of an exotic male pleasure slave, Charles will discover a destiny so huge it doesn’t seem possible.  But it’s true: Charles Perry, noble bastard, is the lost consort of the Goddess of All Creation. And as the forces of darkness converge on him, Charles must learn to channel his power to save the world, or risk becoming the pawn that destroys it.

Short Stories

Kissing the Dragon

available this fall from Dreamspinner Press in the Myths and Magic: Legends of Love anthology

Bao Fischer has never embraced his Asian heritage; in his mind, Korea was just a place where he was born, and he's American all the way. But when his recurring dreams of dragons bleed into real life and take him, his evil boss, and his coffeehouse crush into some strange alternate dimension, he has to embrace his cultural roots, and fast, or this dream come to life is going to turn deadly.

The Boys of Pleasure

(available soon from Syzygy Magazine)

Sid’s done with one night stands and the heartache they bring, and he’s not going to let the rocky patch that moving in with his good-boy boyfriend has brought throw him from his goal of making a long-term relationship work. But when a night’s respite at a local club has a hip-swinging, sexy Irish folk guitarist winking at him from the stage and buying him drinks, Sid’s resolve is tested. He knows he should find comfort and safety in settling down. But when bad boy Doug is so determined to seduce him, it’s hard to remember that a lifetime of compromise really is better than one incredible night of pleasure.

Free Reads

Believe in Love

Short story in honor of Valentine's Day 2010. [read full story here for free]

Find You

A woman falls in love with a sculpture in the window, then finds that somehow it has fallen in love with her, too. [ read full story for free ]

 Works In Progress

The Wounds in the Walls

novella

Pete Eason's been hit by the downturn in the economy just like everyone else, so when he gets the word that some guy named Mike Clarke needs a day laborer to clear our a rural Missouri house, he doesn't ask too many questions before he takes the job. But Pete quickly learns that there's something funny going on at this site. For one, Pete's the only laborer Mike hired, and from what Pete can see, this place needs a bulldozer, not a Dumpster. Mike doesn't so much as hand Pete a shovel, either—he just asks him lots and lots of questions, and he seems to be hinting that the place is haunted. Pete doesn't feel any goosebumps, and he sure as hell doesn't see any ghosts. He's dying, though, to know what all the gashes in the walls are about.

Mike can't see the gashes, and he's frustrated that Pete can't see the ghost standing right beside him, because the whole point of bringing Pete here was to release the trapped spirit in this place, a spirit that by rights Pete should be able to see better than anyone. Maybe, he thinks, he's made a mistake. But before MIke can nudge Pete a little harder, the front door disappears, the walls begin to heave, and the ghost which has always been nothing more than a shade is suddenly aggressive flesh and blood—and Mike doesn't think he's made a mistake anymore. He knows he has.

One Night

novella

Adam Klein has come to Los Angeles to seal a killer financial deal for his fiancé's father and seal his personal and professional future. The trouble is, lawyer David Selbrooke knows Adam’s most dangerous secret, and one night on the town just might destroy the illusion Adam has worked so hard to create.

Two to Tango

For Ed Maurer, life's just one big adventure with new opportunities waiting around every corner. Sure, his life may have taken a little downturn now that his neck injury has benched his semi-pro football career permanently, but he'll bounce back, because he always does. He's going to start by getting involved more with the St. Paul community center he's always used for a gym. It'd be all good, in fact—if he could just get Laurie Parker, the bristly, pessimistic dance and aerobics instructor, off his back.

But a bargain Ed makes with Laurie in jest quickly turns their perceptions of each other upside down; one minute Ed is helping Laurie coach a difficult couples dance class, and the next Ed is staying late to refine his rumba and distracting himself at work with visions of Laurie in tights. The problem is that being with Laurie is forcing Ed to admit there are parts of his life that aren't so rosy, that like Laurie life has really kicked him in the teeth and he should probably take a few minutes to mourn. Laurie hides in solitude the same way Ed hides in a crowd; neither one of them has faced the heartbreak of their past, and for some reason dancing together brings out the pain for both of them. And to make matters worse, just as the two men start a tentative relationship, controversy at the community center embroils them both. Before this dance is over, each of them will have to face what they have lost, but to win they'll have to do something even more difficult: learn to rely on one another. Their way to happiness is full of complicated steps, and while any fool can dance, it takes two to tango. 

(This blurb's a work in progress. I'll make that last line more catchy once the story's more in place.)

Temple Boy

novel: sequel to The Seventh Veil

Aurel has never known any life but the secluded cloister of the Temple of God in the remote, monk-controlled country of Mantua, and like other temple boys, he devotes his days and nights to the prayerful service of the Creator. But there is something different about Aurel. Aurel has lived his whole life at the Cloister, but no one seems to know when he arrived, or even when he was born. There is no sexual contact allowed in the monastery, and yet somehow even the most devout of men seem unable to stop from throwing themselves at Aurel, and Aurel can’t seem to find a way to resist them. But things really get hairy when the statue of the Great Whore, the Enemy of God comes to life and declares to Aurel that he, the Devil himself, is actually God, and that Aurel has been put here to help him. And as if this blasphemy is not enough, soon giant stone beasts are running him down at mass, witches are dropping out of the sky, and a sad, headless man whispers of lost love to Aurel in his dreams. It isn’t until a band of vengeful amazons drag him into the desert hills, however, that Aurel fully understands what is happening. Aurel is a boy of the temple, true enough, and he is the most powerful, holiest servant of them all. The problem is, the Devil is right. He’s been in service to the wrong one. All he has to do now is figure out which God, if any, is real.

Small Town Boy

novel

Growing up in the shadow of the Waters farming empire is a tall enough order for any man in Eden, Iowa, but as the heir to his homosexual uncle’s land and legacy, John bears so much scrutiny the only way to get through the day is to keep his head down and his mouth shut. Then one winter’s night, a gay British widower comes to town with a teenage daughter who’s hell on wheels and a head full of ideas that make the small Iowa town shudder. Suddenly John isn’t the most scandalous man in town. It won’t stay that way for long, though, because when John looks into Will Pryce’s wicked, beautiful eyes, he knows what his uncle meant when he said that life without love isn’t a life worth living. In the arms of Eden’s Antichrist, John finds a home his hometown could never give him. But after years of struggle against a world determined to leave it behind, the town of Eden isn’t any kind of paradise. The same spirit that lifts John’s heart up fills the hearts of others with dread, and the shadows of suspicion and hate in this small town are dark and long. A good Iowan, John isn’t one to raise a fuss when things go wrong. But if he doesn’t find the strength to stand up for the life he believes in and the man he loves, John may just find that nothing in Eden will ever be right again.