Happy Friday everyone! I hope you are all staying safe and taking care of yourselves and your loved ones! Everything is fine in the Iris household: my husband is working from home and I LOVE having him home. I’m not one of these people who’s like gaaaaah my spouse needs to go back to work or I’ll kill them! On the contrary, I told my husband this morning when we met in the kitchen for coffee/tea break that I’ll be sad when he has to go back and work at the office 🙂
I know I’ve been pretty silent here lately and it’s only been a bunch of promo posts, but I’ve had loots of big crap going on in my life (aside for the whole pandemic thing) so I’ve been really stressed out. Most of it is worked out now, though, so hopefully my life will go back to normal soon. Or at least as normal as it can currently be, of course.
The weather has been lovely here for several weeks, so I’m spending a lot of time on my patio, enjoying the spring, the sunshine, and the warmth. Sometimes I’m writing (I won’t win Camp NaNoWriMo this year, that’s for sure!), but sometimes I’m just having a pot of tea and keeping in touch with friends and family. Out there, under the clear blue sky, with no social media or news sites open on any of my devices, life feels almost normal.
But no more lingering on the current world situation. Instead I thought I’d tell you about five things in a book blurb that will make me go “NOPE!” and put the book back on its virtual bookshelf and immediately forget about it. In no particular order:
- “[Name] isn’t looking for love” – this means the character will blow hot and cold and I just want to have sex but no relationship, and there will be some drama around the 75% mark that will make me roll my eyes, and nope. Just nope. All I want is the romance and I want the guys to want the romance, so this is a big no-no for me.
- The word “misunderstandings” – you know how I feel about misunderstandings by now, right? Talk to each other, people!!
- “Super muscular alpha jock guy likes to work hard and play hard” – come OOOON! This is so done to death and I just want the shy guy or the chubby guy or the ordinary guy or the nerdy guy or the cute guy or the gamer guy or the femme guy or…you get it…to find love. Basically anything except a chest-pounding alpha male guy. (unless we’re talking shifters and he’s an ACTUAL alpha, then it’s fine! 🙂 )
- When the blurb is five hundred words long – reading the blurb isn’t supposed to take ten minutes. Keep it short and simple, please!
- Anything with time limits – and with that I mean vacation romances or the likes. I don’t like the “will their relationship be able to survive when they go back to their normal lives?”-aspect of this trope. I want the “ever after” in the HEA. It’s not called HUTVE (happily until the vacation ends) is it?? 😀
Tell me: what things in a blurb will make you go NOPE! 🙂
I also want to share something awesome with you. Since my publisher and I made All I See free, it’s been climbing the (free) charts at Amazon. Look at this:
I mean…number 3 in Gay Romance and 432 in the entire free store?? That’s pretty awesome, isn’t it?! These are all the free lists of course, but still!! YAAAY for Theo and Kieran.
Theo and Kieran have been together for five years. They’re very happy…behind closed doors. Theo accepted from the start that Kieran isn’t out to his conservative parents and has a lot to lose if they find out about his sexuality.
But a moment of sadness at a wedding changes things. Theo is faced with a decision: live the rest of his life in secret…or break it off.
Or is there a third alternative?
M/M Contemporary / 4633 words
Nell Iris 