Tag Archives: gay fantasy

The City of Seven Gods is a 2016 Foreword Indies Finalist!

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I received some great news today that I’m mighty proud to share. The City of Seven Gods was chosen as a finalist for Foreword Indies Awards’ 2016 Best Book of the Year in the fantasy category. That’s a real nice honor for a little author like me. Over 2,000 titles were entered for competition, and the fantasy shortlist includes just fifteen. I’ve never received recognition from Foreword before, and it’s kind of cool that The City of Seven Gods qualified for both their fantasy and LGBT categories and was singled out for fantasy, bring a little queer into the fantasy “mainstream.”

I wouldn’t have minded if the book got a finalist spot in both categories, though that would have been greedy. 🙂

Here’s some info and buzz about what I can now call a critically-acclaimed, sleeper novel. The story takes place in the fictional world of Qabbat’lee, where a young priest and a barbarian mercenary must refashion themselves after their lives are uprooted by betrayal.

Kelemun was bought from his peasant parents to tend the inner sanctum of the house of Aknon, where wealthy men pay mountain sapphires to behold the beautiful servants of the god. Chosen to bring offerings to Caliph, Kelemun captures the fascination of the young prince Praxtor who has never been denied anything his heart desires.

Ja’bar was hired to roughhouse wayward proselytes for the high priest Aknon-Horheb. In Qabbat’lee, it’s good paying work for a Stripeling, a jungle savage in the eyes of the city natives, and if he’s stingy and stays out of trouble, it will buy him a plot of river land.

But the splendor of Qabbat’lee is a mirage disguising a grotesquerie of corruption. When Kelemun and Ja’bar’s threads of fate entwine on a night of chilling betrayal, their only hope for redemption and survival may lie in one another.

“★★★★★ A fascinating look into mythology.” ~Kaelan Rhywiol

“★★★★★ One of my favorite reads of 2016. A brilliant story…and a must read!” ~Frédéric Michaud, for The Jeep Diva

“Peters delivers another world rich with details from the ancient past, and with a compelling LGBT twist.” ~The Novel Approach

Foreword will announce its 2016 Best Book winners in June. In the meantime, you can pick up a copy at the Bold Strokes Books webstore, or any of your favorite booksellers. 🙂

 

 

Visit Prism Book Alliance for a CoSG special feature and giveaway

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Just dinging a little media alert about my latest release The City of Seven Gods.

Brandilyn and her staff were kind enough to host a guest post and giveaway over at the LGBT fiction fan site Prism Book Alliance.

My post takes readers behind the story, and inside myself really. It’s titled: “On Writing about Taboo Topics.” I talk about the sources of inspiration for the book, and it’s also a bit of a confessional.

“I’m always excited to have a new release out, but I have to admit, I had some trepidation about reader reactions to my latest title. It’s only hinted at in the blurb, but the co-lead characters are a temple prostitute and a freed slave of a foreign race.”

You can read the full guest post here, and if you drop a comment at PBA, I’ll enter you into a raffle for a free e-book copy of the book.

Good luck, and many thanks to PBA for helping to spread the word!

Notes from the Underground

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A Wordle or “word cloud” created from Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground, retrieved from acetinc.com

I thought I’d pop my head out of the social media manhole where I’ve been hiding these past few weeks. I’ve never been a wiz at keeping up a dynamic presence here and over at my other haunts like Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads. The month of August was particularly sketchy for me since I had deadlines for two projects.

That does make for some exciting news…

via GIPHY

I finished the last round of proofreading, and Banished Sons of Poseidon is in its final stages of production. Advance Review Copies (ARCs) should be available real soon. The book, a sequel to The Seventh Pleiade, releases on October 13, 2015.

And, I completed the manuscript for a farther upcoming release titled The City of Seven Gods. It’s another ancient world-themed novel with less magic and more Game of Thrones-ish drama, not for the kids table at Thanksgiving dinner. The book was picked up by Bold Strokes, and it’s on the production schedule for an April 2016 release.

Other than that, I’ve snuck in some tennis watching (Go Federer, winning a master’s event in Cincinnati!), and beach-going, and weekend barbecues. Of the latter, I have the mosquito bites to prove it. I’m writing this post while scratching away at my ankles. Grrr…

Oh, I also discovered Terry Pratchett! Well, just his books I’m afraid, may he RIP. I sped through Dodger this summer and was blown away. That’s the way books should be written IMHO: ferociously clever, utterly transporting, satisfyingly tragic and triumphant (and with far less adverbs).

So what did you do this summer?