Blissekiss Spring Fling has arrived!

What is spring but a renewal of life, a reaffirmation of vitality after the little death of winter? Much like a vow renewed, love rekindled. My second book in my To The Max series starts with just such a scene, with Max and Richard together again, despite the vicissitudes suffered in the first book.  You can find For Love of Max here. If you read all the way to the end of this blog, you'll find a way of winning a copy.

For those of you not acquainted with my boys, a little background: Max Montague is a forty-something gay man and he writes an advice column called To the Max. Oh, he's also a werewolf. Richard Burke is his long time lover and well-known photographer in his own right. Max's mother, Juliet, likes to set him up on blind dates. Of course he resists. You can see more of them in To The Max, from Dreamspinner Press. I can't tell you more, don't want to give away the first book!

So, here are my boys, happy, in love, and renewing that love in their backyard!

Now, where were we? Oh yes, Richard and I have our lips locked together like a couple of love-starved fools, and we're crying and laughing at the same time, and I've just agreed to marry him….

Yes, I did say marry, and I know there are those who will look upon us askance. Gay marriage is far from an accepted lifestyle in this country, even in this supposedly enlightened day and age. In fact it is not only frowned upon, but largely banned. And mostly by people who are afraid of us. Why? Good question. I won't even get into religious ethics, or a discussion of the Bible, nor Christian precepts. Let me just say that disliking or hating someone on the basis of their sexual orientation is just as wrong as hating them for the color of their skin, or for their religious beliefs. And forbidding people to legally wed for the same reason is simply wrong. Where do you draw the line? Mixed race couples, mixed religion couples? What happened to loving one another, regardless of who they are? We are not sinners, we are simply human….

Anyway, we are here and warm… and touching, and loving, and all of the bad air has been expelled, and all that is left is the love in our hearts, the love we bear for one another, which envelops us and cradles us gently. Now we truly begin….

Principessa, our darling King Charles spaniel and our only child, is running circles around us now, excited by our excitement. Her daddies are together again, and very obviously happy. We break the kiss to bestow caresses on our baby. She clambers in between us and we manage to cuddle around her.

"Max, I'm so sorry…"

"Shhh." I lay a finger against his lips. "No apologies, no regrets. Just us and the future. Our future. Together."

He nods solemnly. "I'll never leave you again, Max," he swears, "I'll never disappear without a word, I promise. I'm yours for as long as you'll have me."

"And I am yours," I echo, "'til death do us part."

Our lips come together with soft sighs, and sensual shivers that run between us like electrical charges. We haven't touched at all since the ill-fated night of the last full moon, and the undischarged desire we bear for one another is enough to jump-start a dead car battery.

"I've missed you so much," he murmurs into my lips, "I need you, Max, I always will…."

"And I need you Richard," I reply softly. "Nights without you are far too long… and lonely…."

He moves closer now, his tongue seeking and receiving permission to enter my mouth, his fingers winding through my hair. We are content to let our lips do all the talking. No need to rush, we have all the time in the world—now that we are together again, never to be parted. Our eyes locked in mutual admiration. Our hearts bound in mutual bliss. Our puppy becomes bored with us, and our apparent inactivity, and settles down for a nap, watching us with those big, brown spaniel eyes. We stretch out together in the grass, oblivious to what we might be doing to our three-piece suits. Stains are made to be removed, are they not?

He rolls me over to take the dominant position above me—I love when he does that, for just between us he does dominate and I do tend to submit—it's simply the natural order of our lives. He catches my wrists in his strong grasp, pulling them over my head, holding them against the soft grass, showing me who's in control—not that I don't know that already.

"Tell me what Max wants." He rubs against me suggestively; the material separating us only serves to enhance the friction between our hardening cocks in a delightfully maddening way.

"Max wants Richard," I respond promptly, predictably. "Max wants Richard to come back home, where he belongs… in Max's bed… their bed…."

"Our bed," Richard echoes, licking my chin softly, squirming against me.

God, I want him so badly.

Now for the fun part. Two lucky commenters will win a copy of For Love of Max!  Yes, two! It's spring, and love is in the air, right? Just comment and tell me the most unusual place you've ever been kissed (I'll leave that open to interpretation, btw lol), and don't forget to leave your email address, and please follow my blog! No email address, though, is an automatic disqualification.

All right, let the fun commence!  Happy Spring, let's do some flinging!

♥ Julie

New low price!

Now  you can get Max for less! The price of For Love of Max has dropped from $16.99 to $11.49! Take advantage of this to grab your copy now!

Available now at Silver Publishing!

















Don't forget, I'm hard at work on the third book in the series, A Time for Max!

Also, Dark Love has been drastically reduced, from $19.99 to $13.49!

Get your copy now!

I swear that the sequel is brewing in my brain, I won't leave Samantha and Eric stranded!

What Would You Do For Love Contest

In honor of the release of For Love of Max, the second book in the To The Max series, I’m holding a contest.

What would you do for love?

The rules of the contest are simple. You have one week to leave a comment on my blog; also you need to follow the blog. Tell me what would you do for love? As you’ll recall, Meat Loaf said he’d do anything for love, but he won’t do that. If there’s something you won’t do, I’d love to hear that too.

The winner will receive a PDF of For Love of Max!

Contest ends June 11th, winner will be announced June 12th.

For Love of Max - a preview

On Saturday, June 4th, the sequel to my first published novel, To the Max, will be released as an ebook, the print version to follow shortly thereafter. This is a milestone for me, my first sequel, so naturally I'm rather excited about it.  I'd like to give you a little background about how the books came to be, and what they're about. Maybe later in the week, we can get Max himself to say a few words.

I met Max Montague in a rather unusual way. He was the voice in my head that was vying for attention. Which, as it turned out, is not typical Max behavior. But I didn't realize it at the time. In fact, all I did realize was that he was a gay werewolf and he seemed very nce, and I felt that he had a lot to say. But at the time I was researching something else, so I patted him on his head, and promised him I'd get to him after that.

Well, that didn't work. He kept on taking up space in my consciousness til finally I said okay, let's just take a few notes here, keep the fellow happy, and get back to them later. I sat down wtih a pad of paper and a pen and began to write what basically became the first chapter. Names of people whom I had no idea who they were, the people in Max's life.

Now I do know where some of the names came from, in the jumbled clutter of the recesses of my mind.  Max - I just liked the name, but not Maxwell as in Maxwell Smart, but Maximillian, as in Maximillian Schell, the actor. My daughter Sarah was reading Romeo and Juliet at the time, so that filtered into my consciousness - which accounts for Montague and Juliet, and the Shakespearean influence extended to Ophelia as well. Sebastian is the name of a character that my friend Kitty once played in a game we were in, an HP game - he was the father of future Hogwarts student Theodore Nott. Kitty herself is represented by Max's friend Catherine, or Cat as he calls her. See?  Kitty - Cat. Richard? I love the name, perhaps it comes from Richard Sharpe, a great Sean Bean series. St. Louis is a no-brainer - I live here, and I used to work in St. Charles, where I put Max's cottage. Terranova Fisher comes from two things - my kids were about to take a test at the time called the Terranova, and Fisher is a play on fisher of men, as in the pope, or a general religious reference, apt for a minister.

Max's story unfolds both in present time occurrences and in flashbacks. I know he meanders and wanders a bit, as the mood strikes him, but there is method to his madness. I don't think he's that difficult to follow, and I do label his flashbacks with dates - I have an entire timeline in order to keep everything straight.

Max is 44, Richard about a year older. Max's mother is more cool with his being a werewolf than being gay, and she likes to set him up on blind dates. Rachel is his best friend, the girl next door. I forgot to mention that she is named after Rachel Weisz, the only female celebrity I've ever roleplayed, and Sheldon comes from the Sheldon Concert Hall here in St. Louis - I hear it has perfect acoustics, but I've never been there.  Yet. Max and Richard have been together for over twenty years, but Richard has a tendency to wander off and disappear at times, without explanation. Max always takes him back when he returns, without question. The first book deals with that, as well as Amy Rose Banneker. I named her after two characters that someone I intensely disliked roleplayed, Banneker comes from House on Haunted Hill, the remake. Amy is an old friend of both Rachel and Max and she has a thing for him, despite the fact that he's gay and always has been - she's the source of great pain and aggravation to Max and Richard. Then Juliet, Max's mother, begins to date a homophobic minister, Terranova Fisher. Makes for some interesting times.

The second book, For Love of Max, begins immediately after the end of the first one.  **********spoiler alert, if you've not read the first one, look away now********************  Max and Richard are engaged to be married, all's right with the world once more, but.... Isn't there always a but just when you think your characters have found happiness? Yep, there is. Max is confronted with someone from his distant past, as well as evidence of a growing prejudice against what he is, and an attempt to throw him out of his lycanthropic closet.

In the first book, Max's lycanthropy is not actually an issue, and we see little of it. There is more in the second book. Unlike a lot of other werewolf heroes of novels, Max is not an Alpha. He's a guy, just trying to get by, and hold on to what he has, particularly his lover. He's older than some too, in his forties. Hey, not everybody is a teenager or in their twenties, you know? Check out this beautiful cover by Reese Dante. Isn't it gorgeous? Max and I are damn lucky to have her.

There is a lot of me in Max - we share a number of things. Yet he is also himself. I love him dearly, flaws and all. Who's perfect, after all?  No one. So I didn't try to create the perfect hero, just a human one. Well, other than the werewolf thing.

For Love of Max is available at Silver Publishing.  I'd love to hear what you think of Max, or the premise of the series, or anything else! Like I said, I'll try to get Max to say a few words, maybe Thursday, since I'm guest blogging elsewhere. I might turn this blog over to him. And for those who are wondering, yes, there will be another book, because I love writing about Max. I hope people love reading about him.

Max says we should have a contest and give a copy away. What do you think? Is anyone up for that? Let me know!

♥  Julie.