MLR Press welcomes William Neale and his first book HOME is now available.

Title Home Author William Neale ISBN# 978-1-60820-212-6 (print) $14.99 ISBN# 978-1-60820-213-3 (ebook) $6.99 Release Date August 2010 Cover Artist Deana C. Jamroz Paperback: 211 pages

Lovers and Other Strangers by Josh Lanyon Recovering from a near fatal accident, artist Finn Barret returns to Seal Island in Maine to rest and recuperate. But Seal Island is haunted with memories, some sweet, some sad; three years ago Finn found his lover in the arms of Fitch, Finn’s twin brother. Since that day, Finn has seen neither Conlan nor Fitch. In fact, no one has seen Fitch. What happened to him? Did Fitch run away, as everyone believes? Or did he meet a more sinister fate? To put the past to rest – and see if there’s any chance of a future with Con – Finn must discover the truth. But the deeper he digs, the more reason he has to fear Con is the only one who knows what truly happened to Fitch…

Body Art by Jordan Castillo Price His lover has betrayed and swindled Ray Carlucci out of everything he valued, including a tattoo business. Hounded by creditors, weary of heart, he accepts the job of chauffeur and body man for the dying owner of a remote estate. The island, minus its wealthy summer colony, is colorless in winter and Ray thinks he understands why staff on the estate periodically desert. But, he’s baffled by, then drawn to, Anton, the eccentric artist who haunts the forest, bringing strange life to bizarre and disquieting sculptures amidst the ice and trees. When the body of a man who once held Ray’s job rises from the frosty earth, Ray wonders what part Anton’s wildness has in the escalating violence.

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Chapter One

If he had been painting the scene before him, he would have used only four colors: Permanent Rose alkyd for the pink streaks in the fading sunset and the reflections in the water; Dioxazine Purple alkyd for the shadows lengthening on the creamy sand, the crevices of the rocks, the glint and gleam of water, the edges of the pier; Cadmium Yellow alkyd to blaze from windows, for the dimples in the sand, to limn the rocks, to gild the tips of scrubby, windblown grass, more reflections in the water; Indigo oil for the tumbling waves, for the indistinct forms of the buildings beyond, for the swift coming night. (continue reading…)

MLR Press authors will be chatting all day  tomorrow, Saturday, May 9th over at the LoveRomanceCafe yahoo group.

They have the entire day set aside for us, so please drop by and chat for a bit. There will be plenty of excerpts from new releases and some soon-to-be released stories as well. Probably even a few old but still fabulous stories, too. Stop by any time. Stay as long or as short as you can. Authors will be popping in and out all day.

Over what can love and lust win? Can they win over betrayal? Espionage? Instability? Overthrowing a monarchy? James Buchanan and Jason Edding bring us two stories spanning the universe. Jason continues the Dark Robe Society’s story; Jack and Edge return and bring each other and us to the edge again while Toren and Tees share more than a common goal. James introduces us to Alad and Hirah, both out searching for something when they meet, are they the end of searching for each other? All the heroes are on an edge, but is it The Edge of Desperation?

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18:65hours army-standard

Gray mist undulated around him and Alad hunkered into his greatcoat, cursing the government, the military, the enemy, religion and pretty much anyone else he could blame for stranding him on this rock in the skanky armpit of the far side of the universe. He’d beg for sun, but none existed here, at least not in this season. Perpetual overcast served up with sides of absolute darkness and intermittent twilight haunted his days. He’d be so stoked when he found a ride off this shit-pit.

Alad stepped from slick twisted root to twisted root, a winding, treacherous and living shortcut from one ramshackle walkway to another. Things slithered through the oily water below. Tumbledown bars, whorehouses and low rent lodgings twisted off in dizzying directions, their location due more to where infrequent patches of solid land could be found than actual planning. All of it castoff MDU and MTO prefabs destined for the scrap heap, salvaged and pressed into service to make up the eyesore known as Desperation Alley—the no-man’s land between base and the up-rank civilian settlements. Missing panels patched by biopolymer sheets added off-color dissonance to the grays and muted blue buildings. Shadows flitted behind window openings covered with NatuResin tarps. Here and there, outmoded and damaged shipping containers served as pod barracks: racks of one-bod and two-bod bunks bracketed floor to ceiling for those too drunk or burning to stumble back to base. (continue reading…)

Unabashedly borrowing from the literary precedents set by John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation and Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Slovakian Boy is a kaleidoscopic account of handsome young Pavel as seen through the eyes of interested — sometimes too interested — parties of family, friends, and fans. William Maltese’s narrative of a boy’s determined reinvention of himself as a porn god is a sexy romp through a rarely explored realm.

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“Who said—and when did he or she say— that Czechoslovakia, of which Slovakia was then a part, was ‘a faraway country, populated by a people of whom we know nothing’? Want to give it a try, Drahoslav?”

“Neville Chamberlain, British prime minister, 1939.”

“Very good. Although it was actually 1938. And why is Chamberlain, otherwise, so infamous, Andrea?”

“He signed the Munich Agreement which allowed Nazi Germany to appropriate a large part of Czechoslovakia.”

“Yes, he did. And after the Nazis, the Russians. The end of Communism, called what? And why? Bohuslava?” (continue reading…)

In-the-closet detective, David Eric Laine has kept his desires secret. Until he meets Christopher Bellamere, proud and openly gay. When a series of horrific torture/murders of gay men leads the police to Chris David is torn between his attraction for the most beautiful man he’s ever met and his fears that he’s a vicious killer.

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Chapter One

Saturday, 12:25 a.m., North San Miguel Road, Eagle Rock, Los Angeles

THE JOHN DOE had been dead for days.

Flies buzzed around the corpse, crawling over sunken eyes and up collapsing nostrils. From the doorway LAPD Homicide Detective David Eric Laine could see the skin sloughing off dehydrated muscles. He held his breath against the stench. After fourteen years on the force he figured he had seen it all. But sometimes the doers still managed to surprise him with their brutality.

The body had been posed on its back, legs splayed on the blood-soaked rug, hands already bagged to preserve evidence. He knew death had occurred somewhere else. The lack of blood anywhere but on the carpet, and the body itself, confirmed that. Abruptly he turned away. John Doe wasn’t going anywhere; he could concentrate on evidence the killer might have left behind. (continue reading…)

Turner and Turner: One Good Turn

When his parents get a gander at the sex tape sent by a blackmailer, they offer Kendall Turner a few weeks of “rest” in a cushy clinic. No, he says, and hotfoots it across the lawns of the family estate. KT isn’t his own worst enemy anymore; there’s a new candidate for the title. Suddenly, Kendall’s on the lam, trying to outrun a murder rap. Helping – by locking KT naked in their motel room – is his cousin Turn. KT has some issues: he manages to censor himself only when he lies, he’s been in love with cousin Turn since forever, and he really would rather kill himself than get more rest at another clinic.
The Men of Smithfield: Gobsmacked

Physician’s assistant Mark Meehan’s impulse control takes leave when Mark finds his bank manager, who’s also his boyfriend, in bed with another man. Volatile Mark sets out to chase down his money and patch up his pride with the help of local law enforcement in the person of rock-steady state trooper Tony Gervase. But, Mark’s impulsive scheme for revenge infuriates Jamie and jeopardizes Mark’s budding romance with straight arrow Tony.

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Gobsmacked

by L.B. Gregg

February 11

I stormed into St. Joe’s at the height of the Ash Wednesday noon mass, still dressed in my scrubs. I pushed through the massive arched chapel doors, bringing with me a gust of cold February wind. Seeing Jamie’s pretentious car parked in front of the church, I lost my shit and had to take action. I figured Jamie was expecting some kind of absolution by appearing at this penitential mass. I could see him seated in the third row, his head bowed. That gloriously tousled mass of golden hair gleamed like a beacon of innocence next to the shining, helmeted up-do of his repressed, miraculously blonde mother. (continue reading…)