I’m excited to share the brand-spankin’-new cover for The Tutor which should be available in July.

I’ve really enjoyed writing this gothic romance and playing with all the standard tropes but switching them up. I hope readers will enjoy it just as much as I have. I plan to post teasers over the next few weeks prior to release.

Glimmers of The Sound of Music, The Enchanted Garden, Jane Eyre, and every “true” ghost hunters show you’ve ever seen make this story feel familiar. Gay love makes it unique.

 Typesetter Graham Cowrie sees an ad for a position at a Yorshire estate and decides to make an upward career move by passing himself off as a tutor. How hard can it be to teach a few subjects to a pair of nine-year-old boys? But on his arrival at the ancient house on the moors, he finds the staff creepy, the twins odd, and the master of the house absent.

 His first meeting with brooding, stern, but oh-so-attractive, Sir Richard doesn’t go well, but with no other prospects vying for the teaching position, Graham manages to keep it. His mission becomes clear, break through the walls of reserve both father and sons have raised and attempt to bridge the gap between them.

 But strange sounds, sights and experiences keep Graham on edge until he finally admits Allinson Hall is haunted. The entities residing there have very different agendas and Graham works to appease them while figuring out a way to protect the broken family he’s grown to care for.

Here’s an opening excerpt:
“When I first saw Allinson Hall looming dark and foreboding in the distance, I feared I approached a lunatic asylum rather than a family home. The sprawling gray building appeared hewn from the great rocks that littered the moors, and as ominous as the threatening clouds overhead.

What a lovely place to raise children, I thought. Little did I know that an even bleaker darkness than the house possessed resided in the manor’s owner, Sir Richard Allinson.”

After fully intending to blog on a regular basis, I let almost a month slip past without a post. What can I say? It’s summer.  But I have been working. Summer and I have nearly completed our latest collaboration temporarily called James and Declan. We may title it The Cleric and the Businessman, or we may think of something better. Are people tired of our “… and the …” titles or does it let them know immediately it’s a Summer and Bonnie collaboration?

James Fletcher is content in his position of church curate in the village where he grew up. Shepherding the parishioners during times of joy, need, doubt, or sorrow suits his caring temperament. And if he sometimes dreams of having a deeper connection with a man who truly knows him—all of him—that is an impulse he must ignore and sublimate.

Declan Shaw, a hard-nosed businessman who solves problems at his family’s far-flung enterprises, is exhausted from his traveling life. For the first time, he wonders if he might ever settle down in a home to pursue a few desires of his own. Might he explore his secret love of cooking, or perhaps have a relationship that lasts longer than a night?

Declan arrives in town for his annoying cousin Kip’s wedding and first meets James standing over Kip after delivering a well-warranted knee to his balls. Intrigued by the mild-mannered country parson’s surprising grit, Declan enlists James’s aid in learning more about his aunt’s onset of mental illness and whether his uncle might be mistreating her.

After repeatedly crossing paths, the two men come to an intersection and must decide whether to take the forbidden trail of passion, and if they might continue to travel on the road of life in the future.

On my own I’ve been writing The Tutor, a gothic which has been so much fun. Cover to come soon and the book may be ready by July. Here’s the blurb for that one:

Gothic romance with a twist.

Glimmers of The Sound of Music, The Enchanted Garden, Jane Eyre, and every “true” ghost hunters show you’ve ever seen make this story feel familiar. Gay love makes it unique.

Typesetter Graham Cowrie sees an ad for a position at a Yorshire estate and decides to make an upward career move by passing himself off as a tutor. How hard can it be to teach a few subjects to a pair of nine-year-old boys? But on his arrival at the ancient house on the moors, he finds the staff creepy, the twins odd, and the master of the house absent.

His first meeting with brooding, stern, but oh-so-attractive, Sir Richard doesn’t go well, but with no other prospects vying for the teaching position, Graham manages to keep it. His mission becomes clear, break through the walls of reserve both father and sons have raised and attempt to bridge the gap between them.

But strange sounds, sights and experiences keep Graham on edge until he finally admits the Hall is haunted. The entities residing there have very different agendas and Graham works to appease them while figuring out a way to protect the broken family he’s grown to care for.

A lot of authors participating with plenty of free reads available. Click on the image to reach the landing page. My giveaway book in the event is Summer Break.

It’s the summer after high school graduation. Rich kids plan for college. Poor kids like Eric, struggle to survive and wonder how to improve their lives. While his best friend, Josh, is off at a Young Leaders convention, Eric’s long-held passion for Josh’s girlfriend, Brianne, ignites.

Their summer sizzles for an incandescent moment — until Josh returns. The three must figure out if they can resolve their conflict and save their friendship before going their separate ways. And Eric must find the will to make a change in his future.

Warnings: cheating, explicit sex, and a ménage scene. Story previously included in an anthology, Hot Summer Nights.

I’m intrigued by the music and culture of Appalachia. Mountain country was my inspiration for Scarred Hearts, a novel about a WWI veteran and a dirt poor mountain girl who find healing love together against a backdrop of Prohibition violence. In the book, Lettie and Shadow tell each other local ghost tales and Lettie sings a song about a murder. These stories and the song are all Appalachian legends I found online. The macabre seems to be an intrinsic part of the culture and I thought added a nice flavor to the book (which you can find at Amazon, B&N, etc.)

I’ve recently discovered a folk singer, Rhiannon Giddens, whose voice I absolutely love. I bought some of her songs, one of which is the folk tale Little Margaret, a creepy ghost story about a woman who pays one last visit to her lover on his wedding night. Here’s a not-well-shot but audibly fantastic version of Rhiannon singing it on Youtube.

So my husband and I got into an argument over this expression. I noticed a billboard that said “Another thing coming” and complained about it being wrong. It’s supposed to be “another THINK”. He said it looked right to him and that was the expression he used. I countered by saying I was absolutely positive I was correct, because the expression could be used as follows: “If you think you’re going to get away with that, you’ve got another think coming” meaning think again! Can you tell my mom used this expression often?

Fast forward a couple weeks later and we heard this usage in a song: another thing coming. I started to doubt myself. I should never doubt myself about such things, but it seemed the whole world was against me in the use of this expression. Today, I finally remembered to look it up and here’s what I found:

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/another-think-coming.html

Of course I immediately had to send a link to my husband because, while I’m quite willing to back down over big things we argue about, I will go to bat for nitpicky details that don’t matter.

If you don’t feel like clicking the link, the short of it is “another THINK coming” is the original usage as I believed. Here’s a quote from the article:

“The earliest real example of the ‘thing’ version of the phrase that I’ve found is from the New York newspaper The Syracuse Herald, August 1919:

“If you think the life of a movie star is all sunshine and flowers you’ve got another thing coming.”

The paper’s local rival, The Syracuse Standard, outdoes that by several years, by printing the ‘think’ version in May 1898:

“Conroy lives in Troy and thinks he is a coming fighter. This gentleman has another think coming. It is probable that McCoy will next meet Joe Choynski.”

‘Another thing coming’ is just a mispronunciation of the original phrase. The source of this mistake is probably the duplicated ‘k’ sounds of ‘think’ and ‘coming’. When voicing ‘another think coming’ the two ‘k’ sounds are merged and what we utter phonetically is ‘thingkumming’. There’s very little difference in sound between that and ‘thing coming’. The ‘thing coming’ speakers may also have been influenced by a sneaking feeling that ‘another think coming’ is ungrammatical. Actually, a little consideration shows that it is perfectly grammatical, although it is a rather unusual form of speech – we would normally use the word ‘thought’ in this context. The split-second choice of how to pronounce a word doesn’t give time for such considerations and many people have just opted for ‘thing’.”

So, there you have it, because I CARE enough to spread wisdom. And we don’t need to talk about the fact that I used to sing the lyrics to Elton John’s Rocket Man as “Rocket Man, burning all the shoes off everyone” (even though I knew it sounded insane) and that my husband corrected me with “Rocket Man, burning off my fuel up here alone” which, you know, actually makes sense.