Tolkien Reading Day

Today, March 25 is Tolkien Reading Day (more about that here). Do you want to know a secret? I haven’t read The Lord of the Rings. I made it through The Hobbit, and started on The Fellowship of the Ring but about 200 pages in, I threw in the towel. I just…couldn’t. My most Tolkien fanatic friend said Keep going, it gets better, I promise, but I decided that 200 pages was more than enough to know I wasn’t a fan, so I put it back on my bookshelf and hoped its mere presence meant people thought I’d actually read it. 😀

Years later, I watched and loved the movies, but the point of the above story is to tell you I won’t be reading Tolkien today. Will you?

If your answer is no, if you’re like me and not a fan of the books, I have another suggestion for how you can honor this Tolkien Reading Day. One of my books has a nudge to Tolkien: in His Steady Heart, one of the main characters is named Pippin, after Pippin (Peregrin) Took the hobbit, but without the hairy feet 😁 So if you don’t feel like five million pages of high fantasy with evil creatures and sloooooooow walking and talking trees, may I suggest His Steady Heart? 🙂

Ashley Buchanan—Buck—moved back home to take care of his sick mother when he was 22. That was the first time he met Pippin, the neglected 6-year-old boy next door. Fifteen years later, Buck—a caretaker by nature—offers up his couch for Pippin, who needs a break from his mom and a quiet place to sleep.

Pippin Olander is a ray of sunshine despite his emotionally lacking upbringing and works hard to make a better life for himself. Even though he’s fiercely self-sufficient, he learns to accept help from Buck, his rock and only steady presence in his life.

Their friendship deepens and grows into something more as they spend more time together. But when other people try to throw a wrench in the works, when Pippin’s independence is triggered, can Buck and Pippin trust in the love they’ve found?

M/M Contemporary / 25604 words

JMS Books :: Amazon 

Don’t forget…

…that I have books available in the Kindle Unlimited program, so if you’re a KU subscriber you can read the books below for free!

UNEXPECTED CHRISTMAS | HIS STEADY HEART | ONE MORE CHANCE

Unexpected Christmas is for you if you can’t wait for the holidays. His Steady Heart if you. like me, is a fan of age-gap romance. One More Chance if you want two-for-the-price-of-one books about second chances, because who doesn’t love second chances? 😁

One More Chance is a box set containing my previously published books Cinnamon Eyes and Promise Me We’ll Be Okay, and it’s currently only available in KU, but will be released widely soon if you’re not a KU-user. I’ll post buy links as soon as I have them 🙂

New box set and Kindle Unlimited

I have a surprise for you! My fabulous publisher JMS Books and I have collected two of my previously published stories into a box set, and put it in Kindle Unlimited. It will be KU exclusive for the first three months and after that it will be released wide, so don’t despair if you’re a non-Kindle reader.

Which books am I talking about?

Cinnamon Eyes and Promise Me We’ll Be Okay. The stories are loosely connected but not an actual series, but I thought it would be fun to put them together in a box, because box sets are awesome and it’s a great value for money. Especially if you’re already a KU subscriber!

Blurb:

Two stories about second chances, correcting mistakes, and finding your way back to the one you love by best-selling M/M romance author Nell Iris, collected together in an exclusive box-set for the first time.

Contains the stories:

Cinnamon Eyes: Cory’s struggled with severe depression. Desperate to rebuild his shattered life, he seeks out his best friend Asher who he was in love with at fifteen, but who didn’t know it. Asher’s relationship with his father is difficult and now that Pops has cancer, Asher fights to be allowed to help. When they meet after sixteen years, Cory’s feelings are as strong as ever. But does Asher feel the same?

Promise Me We’ll Be Okay: It’s been sex-hundred and ninety-five days since Jude’s fiancé Vincent ended their engagement and broke Jude’s heart. Two years later, a traumatic event made Vincent realize he’d made a terrible mistake and now he wants Jude back. Their chemistry is as explosive as ever, but will they be able to work through the real issues? Can trust once broken be rebuilt?

Amazon link

 

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But wait. There’s more! My May-December story His Steady Heart is also available in the KU program now. This book isn’t exclusive to KU though, so it’s still available to buy through all the normal book stores, but if you’re a KU subscriber and haven’t read it, now you can for no extra charge! 🙂

Amazon link

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That means I now have three titles available in KU. So if you’re a subscriber and haven’t read them, now’s the time 🙂

Unexpected Christmas | His Steady Heart | One More Chance

Sunday book recommendations

Happy Sunday everyone! Today, I thought I’d recommend a few books to you that I’ve read lately (I feel like reading, cooking, and listening to music is all I do these days, how about you?)

So if you, like me, read a lot during these difficult times and are looking for recommendations, here are three books I read and enjoyed this last week.

Beautiful Boy by Grace R. Duncan (buy link) was a re-read, the first time I read it was in 2015, but I love it even more now. It’s a BDSM story with some hardcore scenes, but it’s also loving and sweet and emotional. Just like I love my stories.

Afflicted by J.M. Snyder (download link) is free, super short, and emotional. It’s a glimpse into a relationship and it left me wanting more…in a good way.

His Favorite Color is Blood by K.A. Merikan (buy link) is the antithesis of what I usually read. You know by now that I love short, sweet, fluffy, and the primary focus being on the relationship…everything His Favorite Color is Blood isn’t. It’s long, kinky af, and the non-relationship-related plot takes up a big chunk of the story. The relationship between Grim and Misha is glorious though (kinky kinky kinky…I seriously can’t stress this enough!) and that’s what kept me glued to my e-reader. I had to take a break at 71% because it was getting hella intense and I felt like my heart would give out on me. So I posted this in K.A. Merikan’s reader group on Facebook, and let’s just say that Kat Merikan’s answer didn’t really calm my frayed nerves 😆

As you’ve noticed by now, I didn’t die of heart failure, but it was close 😀

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If any of you have any recs for me, leave them in the comments. I’ve been on a age-gap or BDSM spree these last few weeks, so if you have a book that fits that description and that’s also emotional and focusing on the relationship, I’d be super happy!

Take care and have a great Sunday!

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Don’t forget about the Smashwords’ Authors Give Back sale, where my books are at least 30% off, but many is 60%. Here’s the link to my author page where you can browse my books.

And if you, like me, has been craving age-gap lately, may I suggest His Steady Heart?

Wrapping up 2019

In 2019, I’ve had eleven individual releases and my stories have been featured in three anthologies.

Think about that for a minute.

Yes, one book is a re-release, so “only” ten new stories. Two are under 10K words. The longest book is only 34032 words and a collab with Kris T. Bethke so I only wrote about half of those words because she wrote the rest. But it’s still a lot. It’s still 185 685 words in one year.

I wrote and published my first fantasy and paranormal stories in 2019. And my first M/M/M story. I wrote about 40+ characters, about age gap, about a fluffy bunny shifter, about a party boy who wanted more in life. I wrote about a homophobic family and an awesome ex-wife. I wrote about star-crossed lovers and about the fear that can grip you when you’re at risk of losing the love of your life.

All that…and I still found the time to move across the world.

I mean. Look at this:

So maybe I don’t need to feel bad for not writing much the last three months of the year (because of the move from Malaysia back to Sweden)? And maybe, we can all agree that this many releases in one year is a bit…excessive?

That being said. OH MAH GAWD, I released eleven books this year. How awesome am I?

Have you read them all? Which one was your favorite?

Thank you, all, for this year, I could never do this without you. I hope you will stay with me for the next year, maybe even for the next, new decade.

Happy New Year to you all. Don’t commit to resolutions you’ll break before February, and if you celebrate the coming of 2020 with a glass of champagne, think of me 😉

Buy links:

Awakening & French Songs | Snowed In: Nen and Anani | All I See | Diving In | His Steady Heart | 9 Willow Street | Team Luker | Of Autumn Leaves and New Beginnings | In My Arms Again | Red Popcorn Strings and Gumball Rings | Four Christmases

Legendary Loves vol 2 | Most Wonderful Time of the Year | 2019 Top Ten Gay Romance