19Mar/19

Virginia Festival of the Book

Looking forward to joining two of my fellow authors in Charlottesville Virginia this weekend for a panel on writing romance as a LGBTQI Author. Catch us at the Charlottesville Barnes and Noble at 3pm Sunday March 24th.

Samantha Boyette (What Happens When), D. Jackson Leigh (Ordinary is Perfect) and Radclyffe (Passionate Rivals) discuss the issue of diversity—ethnic, racial, sexual, and gender-related—in publishing, the similarities and differences between mainstream and LGBTQI romances, and the nuances of authentic character construction. Book sales and signing will follow. FREE to attend and open to the public.

15Mar/19

What Happens When

For Molly Kennan, senior year is already an epic disaster. It feels like the whole school knows she made out with Lily at that party, and now she’s accidentally outed herself as a lesbian. Her ex-best friend is trying to ruin her life, and school generally sucks. All she wants is to drown her sorrows in sweet potato fries, but she finds herself tongue-tied by the diner’s new waitress, Zia.

I’m so excited to announce the release of my newest book. This one is close to my heart in a lot of ways. I grew up in a similarly small town, and while I didn’t experience the issues with my coming out that Molly does, a lot of the worries and fears she has I’ve had. Like Molly, I was lucky to have great friends and family to help me get through.

Unlike Molly, I’m much older now, with two kids of my own and that keeps me away from blogging, reading, and writing as much as I used to. So for anyone out there who cares, I apologize for not being very active on this site. I’m going to try to do better. You can also follow me on facebook for slightly more interaction. The link is in the header.

I hope you will pick up What Happens When and that it will bring you as much joy to read as it brought me to write.

https://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/books/what-happens-when-by-samantha-boyette-2871-b

01Nov/16

Here’s the Thing by Emily O’Beirne, 3 stars

downloadHere’s the Thing has a lot of things I like in a book. Lesbians, duel time lines, and Australia. Okay, so Australia didn’t matter too much in this book, but I still enjoy it.

Half this book is about Zel finding and falling for Prim in NYC, while the other half is her recovering from a broken heart in Sydney after things don’t go so well with Prim and she has to move back to Australia with her parents. The two stories shift pretty much chapter by chapter. I generally love this in a book. This time, the Prim half of the story didn’t do it for me and it slowed my reading down. I don’t know if it’s because I pretty much knew their loved was doomed or what, but I just couldn’t get into that half.

Now, the part where Zel is finding her place in Sydney is great.  The author captured the stress of starting at a new school, making new friends, and hopefully meeting a new special someone perfectly. I sped through those chapters. I liked Zel, her family, and her friends. They all seemed much more real than Prim. Prim is basically that cool, angsty girl we’ve all fallen for, but she’s so closed off even from Zel that it takes a long time to care about her at all. By the time I cared, her part was basically over.

Overall this was a good read, but I would have preferred to read more about Zel falling for the next girl instead of reading about her falling for the last girl. Still, I’ll definitely be looking for more works by this author. I enjoyed her writing style.