Congrats to Kris and Anne B, who each won a copy of The Cat and the Cradle by Jay Bell!

Congrats to Courtney S, who won In the Crease by Stephani Hecht! In the Crease will be released by Total-E-Bound on September 13.

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Contests

• Smexy Mandi’s giving away four sets of various types of romances. Each set consists of three current titles. Leave a comment before the end of today (September 10) for your chance to win.

• Over at Desert Island Keepers, Anne Rainey’s giving away a book from her backlist to two lucky winners. You need to comment on her Thursday, Friday, and Saturday posts for your chance to win.

• Julia Rachel Barrett is celebrating the release of her newest books with two contests! You can win your choice of any of her books, so go read how and where to enter by September 13.

• Tracy’s giving away Judith Arnold’s new “reality-based romance”, Meet Me in Manhattan. Leave a comment by 11:59 pm PDT, September 14, for your chance to win. (US/Canada)

• Amy Lane’s celebrating her 899th blog post with a contest – you could win sock yarn or the chance to select two of her characters for whom she’ll write a Christmas short story. Comment on the contest post by 11 pm PDT, September 17, for your chance to win.

• Book Addict Patti and her SIL are having a contest at the Taunt Society. For your chance to win all sorts of amazing book swag, leave a comment by 11:59 pm CDT, September 17.

• SciFiGuy’s giving away a BluRay copy of Stardust to a lucky US resident. Leave a comment with your favorite Neil Gaiman book or favorite fantasy film for your chance to win. Contest closes September 20.

• Dreamspinner Press is having an author trivia contest. Visit their blog each day during September for the new trivia question. Each day’s prize will be an ebook by the author featured in the question.

Bookity

• New releases: Lily (m/m romance), Katiebabs (romance), All About Romance (romance), SciFiGuy (fantasy), and Literary Escapism (UF/PNR new releases & news).

• There might still be time to vote in Jessewave’s Ugly Covers Competition! Totally and completely NSFW.

• Book linkity posts from Dear Author, Smart Bitches, and ReadReactReview.

• Some information about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), in which the US tries to get the rest of world to use DRM. Good for the European Parliamant for passing an anti-ACTA declaration.

• Another eloquent post about being a woman who writes m/m romance, this time from Lori (L. A.) Witt.

• How to paste a bookplate into a book.

• If you’re looking for some free Windows software for authors, Gizmo’s Freeware just reviewed several programs.

• Carolyn Crane on improving your author bio.

• From Awful Library Books, The Romance Writers’ Phrase Book, which mostly seems to feature phrases I would not recommend you use in your book…

• An amusing post at Deadline Dames about dating for novelists. My favorite line: “People with book-worthy personal stories are not necessarily the best people to date.”

• xkcd’s take on Emily Dickinson… Make sure you hover the cursor over the comic for additional text!

Ebookity

• You can read several good free m/m romances this week: Pleasures of Somerville Park (Object of His Affection, Book 2) by Ava March and A Lesson in Truth by Sloan Parker.

• You can download free public domain comics from the 1940s and 1950s at the Digital Comics Museum.

• Do you know why ebook readers are sized as they are? Sheepskin.

• An American Editor wonders if both Sony and Barnes & Noble have made strategic decisions that will cause them to lose the ebook market to Amazon.

• Amazon might be winning the price battle with publishers.

• Five reasons why best-selling authors are starting to go through epublishers instead of traditional publishers.

• A counter opinion piece to the notion that the internet and our constant connectivity is leaving us incapable of complex thought.

• Are ebooks bad for young children who are learning to read?

Learn, Make, Do, Think

• Font junkies – check out this free searchable database of 70,000+ fonts.

• Make a pre-addressed envelope with this print-cut-fold Google Maps envelope generator. (Thanks, cursingmama!)

• The scariest bridges in the world. (Thanks, Jase!)

• Alas, fungi are eating and destroying a lot of archived film. 🙁

• Yikes – I really can’t believe how much clothes sizes vary between manufacturers. I mean, Old Navy’s mens 36-inch dress pants were actually 41 inches?!

• An interesting post on why science research cuts will negatively impact all of us.

• Changing where you study can help your memory.

• Why light bulbs burn out as you turn them on.

• Turn a tin can into a cool tea light holder.

• Free pattern for knitting small birds.

• A site to help you plan your next geek vacation.

• Make teeny tiny felt capes for LEGO minifigs.

Cool

• How did I not know that Universal Studios in Orlando now has The Wizarding World of Harry Potter?!

• Kinetic sculpture of a chair, walking.

• Behold, Cyclisk! Can’t you just hear the theme song from 2001: A Space Odyssey in the background?

• Cool photo taken by putting a pinhole camera on an LP.

• Blackboard rings.

• Nerdy pillows and iPad cases.

• Surely there’s a caffeine-loving geek in your life would enjoy a gravity-defying coffee cup?

• A happy song and the world’s biggest water balloon fight – guaranteed to make you smile. 🙂

• The Altoids Tin grill is adorable! (Thanks, Cheryl!)

Huh

• Whiskey made from urine?!

• Mashed potato wrestling.

• Toys with mental illnesses?

• How… lumpy. And I can just imagine what this will look like after a dog who enjoys chewing gets hold of it…

• I confess to loving the snarky post title for the Woogie iPod Touch Case…

• Watermelon slingshot fail.

• Why a McDonald’s hamburger and fries never rot.

• A calendar that you unravel throughout the year – this would not work for anyone with a cat.

• WTFery from Katiebabs.

LOL

• The second urban legend of knitting from Franklin, and Franklin on Gershwin.

• Oh oh, looks like some kitties plan revenge when forced to model knitwear…

• Another feline knitting critic.

• A bit of Australian humour.

• A gunfight, xkcd style – make sure you hover your mouse over the comic for additional text!

• Really, who hasn’t had a day like this?

• A modern philosophy?

• The “real” stories behind certain stock photos (no, none of your Misadventures favorites are featured).

• Just can’t come up with anything for dinner? This site might help inspire you…

• Kitties can’t spell.

• Acrobatic kitties! (Thanks, Jase!)

• Poor mistreated kitty!

• Traumatized black kitty.

• Runnnnnn!

• Color coordinated kitty storage.

• Transition from good to evil.

• Chaos?

• Why cats are awesome.

Teh Cute

• Baby mongeese, baby otters, and a very cute bun! (Thanks, Jase!)

• What happens when you let 100 cats loose in IKEA?

• Who knew squirrels could learn to purr?

• Kittens and a sink! Black leopard cub (with gnawed whiskers)! Kitten! Aardvark! Kittens! Melly and Scarlet! Baby badgers! Tree kangaroos! Snow leopards! Lions! Baby panda!

Reading Update
Trinity Trespass by Val Kovalin. ebook. Excellent paranormal m/m romance about two demonic agents who have been sent to keep a unique demon-angel hybrid out of the hands of an evil angel. After the world “clicked” for me, both the fast-paced storyline and the complex relationship between the two agents kept me enthralled.
Talker by Amy Lane. ebook. Powerful m/m romance about a physically and emotionally scarred college student who befriends a much quieter student on the bus to track meets. If you’ve ever been, or known, someone who needed to be saved from themselves, this book will have a strong impact. (And I would say that even if I hadn’t had an influence on the music mentioned throughout the book!)
Bewitched by Bella’s Brother by Amy Lane. ebook. Very good m/m romance about a chronic graduate student and his best friend who spend the summer staying with her divorced brother and his young son, saving money to continue their graduate studies out of state in the fall.
Gayday! Gayday! (G-A-Y, Book 11) by Kim Dare. ebook. Steamy cute m/m romance short about a bratty submissive who keeps getting himself in trouble and calling his dominant straight friend to rescue him.
Night Watch (A Story of The Telling) by Eden Winters. ebook short. Very good short m/m romance that takes place about a year after The Telling, on the Fourth of July, as Jay tries to minimize the noisy holiday’s impact on Michael, who suffers from combat-induced PTSD. (Your purchase during September helps support the the GLBT Bookshelf.)
Cross the Mountain by P.D. Singer. ebook short. Cute short m/m romance about the guys from Fall Down the Mountain out cross-country skiing.
Pleasures of Somerville Park (Object of His Desire, Book 2) by Ava March. free ebook short. Very good free short historical m/m romance following up on Arsen and Henry from Object of His Desire.
Anagama Fires by Sarah Black. ebook. Very good short m/m romance about two potters, both nearly fifty, who’ve been together most of their lives… until the past five years. The more famous, who was the one who left, sends his nephew to his former lover to learn more about firing pottery. I did have a niggle about this one – the story took place over about a week. On the first day, puppies were born. A few days later, the same puppies were running around and getting underfoot! Whoops.
Indigo Knights 1: Squire by Jet Mykles. ebook. Very good m/m romance spin-off from the Heaven Sent series, about the straight singer who filled in for Brent in Heaven Sent while Brent’s wrist was broken, and who is now staying with Brent, Hell, and Brent’s intriguing cousin Izzy while he works on getting a new band together.
Just Desserts by Scarlet Blackwell. ebook short. Very good short m/m romance about a famous French chef and the equally famous British food critic who seems to have it in for him.
Unexpected Guest (Patient Eyes, Book 2) by Andy Eisenberg. ebook. Very good m/m romance about a recently divorced guy who’s staying in his mother’s old house and fixing it up to sell it for her when a gay couple (the guys from Patient Eyes!) move in next door. Getting to know them reawakens thoughts and feelings he’s buried for a long, long time. I enjoyed finding out how life was going for the guys from Patient Eyes and enjoyed that this book felt more cohesive than did Patient Eyes.
You Can Go Home Again by Drew Zachary. ebook short. Good short m/m romance about a guy who’s back in the small town of his childhood after being away for college and vet school.
Raven by Dakota Rebel. ebook short. Good short paranormal m/m romance about two vampires who own a gay nightclub (Raven) together, but have never gotten together themselves… (I wish I’d realized this was in Naughty Nooners, which I already owned, before I picked it up! Whoops.)
Masked by Lissa Matthews. free ebook short. Short kinky m/m story that sets up an intriguing situation between a dominant and a mysterious masked submissive… From a comment the author left elsewhere, it seems she does plan to write a follow-up story.
A Lesson in Truth by Sloan Parker. free ebook short. Cute short free m/m romance about a grad student with a crush on his advisor.
Thirty Days (Book 1) and Forever (Thirty Days, Book 2) by Shayla Kersten. ebooks. Good kinky m/m romances about a Dom whose beloved partner/sub died from cancer. As he starts to get back into the scene, his friends introduce him to a sub who had been badly abused and tortured (almost to death) by his previous master. These were hard for me to read at times because they kept reminding me of a friend, although I don’t think things got quite that bad for him before he got out…
Captive by Scarlet Blackwell. ebook short. Huh. So-so m/m romance in which something seems to be happening, but that might not be what’s happening at all. I got annoyed by that.
Green Lake by Anna Marie May. ebook short. So-so short m/m romance about a guy who takes a research assistant position in Alaska to get away from his wealthy, controlling family. Way too much story for the length of the book and, as Jenre noted in her review at Jessewave, the book was all telling, no showing, which made it impossible to connect with the characters.
Golden Boy (Book 1) by Claire Thompson. ebook. So-so kinky m/m romance about a handsome young mechanic so deeply closeted he doesn’t realize he’s gay until he sees an extremely compelling guy while out clubbing with a lesbian friend. That compelling guy turns out to be a prestigious Dom who slowly helps the mechanic discover his submissive side. I had some issues with this one. I really disliked the Dom. And the book pissed me off by ending in what felt like the middle.
Golden Man (Golden Boy, Book 2) by Claire Thompson. ebook. After it felt like the first book stopped in the middle, this book picks up… six months later. Some of the characters feel more like caricatures than like people, which was a problem in the first book, too. But ultimately, I didn’t like or trust the Dom after the first book and nothing in this book managed to change my mind. (Also, I think the cover is really weird.)

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“I found this book on the floor, so it’s my book now and I say you don’t get to read it, Mom.” -Mayhem