Freddie's Braindroppings

It's the big day! Well one of many upcoming "Big Days" I hope, but this is the big day that the cover for my December novella A Honeyed Light  is released into the world!  The cover was done by Aisha Akeju , my absolute favorite cover artist, and I'm just so enamored by it!  Here's the book's blurb: Kunal, relative newcomer to the strange town of Harmony, has his hands full preparing for Diwali. That should be enough to keep anyone's mind preoccupied, but Kunal can't really ignore that he's nearly thirty, single, and still buried in the closet. Out of town at a gay club one night, he bumps into Oscar, proprietor of Harmony's only sex shop, and figures his secret is now officially out. What he doesn't expect is a slow seduction, or to have to decide what it is he really wants in life. Read on to see the finished cover as well as a little cover breakdown. 

Hey folks, guess what? PRIVATE DICKS: PACKING HEAT is now available for purchase! You can grab it from a bunch of different places ! PRIVATE DICKS: PACKING HEAT edited by Samantha Derr Last week I talked about the inspiration for Kana, the love interest in the story. Today I'm talking about Robert Inoue as he's known to people at Black Suede. Robert's supposed to be a rich businessman who wouldn't look about of place in a fancy club that happens to have some unpleasant things going on in it. So I pictured someone who looks good in a suit, but wouldn't look out of place trafficking drugs in a night club. And I found the perfect face.

Hey everyone! If you didn't know, there's an awesome anthology hitting Less than Three's shelves on Wednesday 8/31 and yours truly has a short story in it. I may have mentioned this once or twice before... ;) PRIVATE DICKS: PACKING HEAT edited by Samantha Derr The life of a private investigator is never easy. Most often tedious, the job requires patience, diligence, and a touch of creativity. But some jobs come with a little danger, and some come with a lot, and the only way to safety is to fight as hard as the enemy. Private Dicks: Packing Heat is a collection of stories about private investigators not afraid to fight their way out when the heat is on. From Black Suede, Red Velvet by Freddie Milano: Black Suede is one of the most exclusive clubs in town, and one with a lot of secrets. The owner, Fujimoto, is suspected of drug trafficking, and James Tachibana goes undercover to get enough evidence to bring in the kingpin—and starts to get too close to Kana, Fuj...

July was hard, folks. I don't mean that in any euphemistic ways. It was busy as hell at work. Day Job is crazy in the summer because everyone's on vacation, half the office is not around, it's high convention season, and the workload seems never ending. Still I should have been making time to blog. But I'm getting back on track now with this new Writing Wednesday post: Why I Write HEAs.

Hi everyone! My post's up a bit later than usual today as I had some appointments and wasn't able to make the post until now. Today I want to talk about favorite books, but not favorite books to read, I mean favorite books as tools for writing. There is one clear winner out of all of the writing resources I've read over the years, and it's Rachel Aaron's 2K to 10K . So why do I love it so much?

Hey everyone! Back with another Fridays with Freddie post, up a little later than usual today. Today I'm talking about why I write what I write. First of all, it would probably help to make sure you know what I write before I start going on about why. I write diverse LGBT/queer romance often with fantasy, urban fantasy or paranormal overtones. Sometimes the romance takes a bit of a backseat to the overall plot, but it will always be there and it will always be queer and/or diverse.  Obviously I'm still growing my platform, so there isn't a lot already published that I can point to as examples of what I write, but that doesn't mean I can't talk about it. So let's talk about why I write it. I am a queer, plus-size, cisgender woman of color who rarely - if ever - has seen myself in the books that I read. I tend to read the same genres I write, and the reason is in the sentence right before this one. There are only a few liberties taken here; this is ...

Today I'm going to talk a little about settings. I'm going to feature the setting in my story Feint of Heart in Won't Back Down, a kingdom called Trysien. You don't get to learn too much about Trysien's history in Feint of Heart, but I'm planning to revisit the world and expand on it some. Here's what we do know: