Saturday the 2010 EPIC  Awards were held in the wonderful old city of New Orleans. There was much partying, sightseeing, eating, plot bunny births and drinking to be had.

Friday I had the experience of dining at one of the truly best restaurants I have even eaten at — The Commander’s Palace.  It was exquisite. The old house it was located in was gorgeous. The setting across the street from a huge mausoleum-packed cemetery was so atmospheric of New Orleans. The staff was friendly, knowledgeable, elegant and expert at their jobs. We even got a little ghost story with our $.25 luncheon martinis! (I only had two, I swear!)  The food was divine.   Turtle soup with sherry. Braised steak cooked just the way I like, with caramelized onions and seasoned side sauce for extra zing if you wanted it. The bread pudding souffle was heaven, especially with the Jack Daniel’s creme sauce poured in the steamy-warm center. The entire meal was perfection from start to finish. I couldn’t recommend this place more. A real highlight on the trip!

Saturday’s awards dinner was thrilling for MLR. Kirby Crow’s ANGELS OF THE DEEP took the erotic horror category, and MEXICAN HEAT by myself and Josh Lanyon took the erotic romantic suspense/mystery category. MH is published at MLR in print. The electronic format is with Samhain, so it was technically their win but it’s the same story so I’m running with it! lol. While accepting Kirby’s award since Kirby couldn’t be there, I did make a point of mentioning how wonderful it was to be allowed this year to enter our books in the proper categories instead of the previous years’ single GLBT category where romance, horror, mystery, paranormal, sci-fi and everything else competed against each other and only one GLBT book could win. We competed on level ground this year and took two categories home with us!

The trip was a great success. Especially because I got to spend more time with my friends Sandy Hicks, Ally Blue, Jet Mykles, Jade Buchanan, Rick Reed, ZA Maxfield, and Jolie du Pre! There is never enough time to be with friends in this fast paced world and I appreciate every moment that does bring us together. And I got to nudge several of  them about the manuscripts they are writing for me! *g*

As I prepare for my trip to Los Angeles for the 2010 Left Coast Crime conference, my newest release, L.A. Boneyard is getting noticed.

It’s been nominated for Love Romances Cafe’s 2009 Best GBLT Novel. I’m pumped. It’s also been nominated for the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel (Arthur Ellis is the biggest Canadian mystery award) and the Daphne du Maurier award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense.

Check out my web site for more information on this and all my other novels, http://www.pabrown.ca

“L.A. Boneyard is phenomenal! Full of suspense, murder, mystery and even explicit sex, Brown left nothing out! What more could you ask for in one book?” Read the rest of the review: http://bk-walker.livejournal.com/6013.html

“The crimes are as turbulent as the gay-cop emotions in this CSI-meets-butch-guys-in-love romantic thriller. Pat Brown has as
sharp an eye for crime-scene forensics as for the ins and outs of gay love among LA’s men in blue.”
—Richard Stevenson,
author of the Don Strachey PI novels

L.A. Boneyard, book 3 in the L.A. series, is getting rave reviews. To learn more and find reviews and buy links visit: http://www.pabrown.ca/laboneyard.htm

BLURB:

Evil is pursued from a shallow grave in Griffith Park, to the streets of West Hollywood into the dark heart of the gang-infested streets of East L.A.

Detective David Eric Laine is no stranger to violence and brutality, but even he is taken back at the sheer viciousness of the murder of two pregnant Ukrainian women. This was just the beginning of a baffling case which would lead from their shallow grave to a bucolic bungalow community in West Hollywood, tree-lined and tranquil, to the heart of the gang-infested streets of East Los Angeles, and points in between.

EXCERPT:

Friday, 8:20 AM, Vista del Valle Drive, Griffith Park, Los Angeles

Something had done a number on the corpse.

The early morning call-out had been brief and to the point.
Griffith Park. Shallow grave. Mutilated arm. Probably wild
animals.

LAPD homicide detective David Eric Laine hoped it was
animals. He crouched beside the makeshift grave, behind the
screen of freshly broken branches and crushed vegetation,
studying the exposed arm with the manicured nails and winking
diamond ring; the animals had nearly worked off the bone.
Wondering what her final moments had been like. Knowing it
had been ugly. He looked beyond the grave, visualizing. Had he
raped her? Had that been the last indignity she had suffered,
before the ultimate one?

Overhead, dense black clouds roiled across the western sky,
a late Pineapple Express had roared in last night, straight from
Hawaii, promising more rain in an already wet spring. The
chaparral and Ceanothus had started their seasonal bloom, thin
green shoots emerging from what had once been desiccated
limbs. Under foot the moisture retaining hydro-mulch, spread
after the ravaging 2007 and 2008 fires, soaked his feet, chilling
his skin. The steady thump-thump of the LAPD airship called
in to do an aerial survey echoed his heartbeat, driving him
relentlessly, as unforgiving of failure as he was.

David scanned the ground, taking in the fresh horse tracks,
and the fading coyote spore. The animals had scattered when
the woman who found the body nearly rode her horse over
them. She stood with her shoulder touching her horse’s neck,
the animal’s reins still held in her gloved hand. Blindly she
touched the burnished chestnut coat, seeking comfort. David
turned away; he had nothing to give her. His promises were for
the dead. They didn’t ask for guarantees. They didn’t get angry
when he was called away in the middle of the night to do his
job.

“So what have we got?” he asked.

The first officer on the scene, Donald Lessing, pulled out his
notes, “I received a call at seven-fifty-six AM that a body had
been discovered in a shallow grave. My partner and I were
dispatched, and arrived about fifteen minutes later.” He
indicated his partner, a paunchy, silver-haired Asian, who was
adding a second loop of barrier tape to keep out the curious,
then indicated the equestrienne, “We found Mrs. Rosenfield
right about where she is now. She was pretty upset.”

“I’m sure the last thing she expected to find was a dead
body on her morning ride.”

“Yes sir.”

Nothing could be done to process the crime scene until the
photographers had taken their shots. Everything had to be kept
intact to preserve possible evidence. They had the time; the
body wasn’t going anywhere. In the distance, thunder rumbled.
He amended that, maybe they didn’t have so much time.

David studied the dark, crouching clouds, and wondered if
Chris would get over his snit long enough to close the windows
against the coming rain. Otherwise their newly refinished oak
floors were going to get a soaking. One more thing for Chris to
get pissed at. He retraced his steps and approached the horse
and rider.

He pulled out a notebook and twisted his arm around to
check the time, only to discover he wasn’t wearing his watch.
Right, he’d stuffed it into his jacket pocket after he’d left an
angry Chris in bed this morning. Chris always seemed to be
angry these days. He got that way when he was between jobs.
He drew out the Rolex Chris had given him for his fortieth
birthday and wrote the exact time, the crime scene location, and
his own name and rank. David studied the watch ruefully. He
had told Chris a gift like that was too extravagant, but Chris
wouldn’t listen. “You deserve it,” he had said. “You put up with
me for four years, didn’t you?” Still, David took it off when he
could; out of sight of Chris, who took it as a personal affront
when he didn’t wear it all the time. David was a Timex kind of
guy. Even after four years he never got comfortable with the
easy wealth Chris displayed.

Mrs. Rosenfield looked young. David doubted she was more
than twenty-five. Under normal circumstances she would have
been attractive–large, doe eyes, soft hair flying loose from
under her riding helmet. But now her face was pale, and her
eyes were glassy with shock. David pushed aside his sympathy
and assembled his cop face; the one Chris hated so much,
claiming it made him look cold and robotic. Well, there were
times when cold and robotic was the right way.

She wore a tailored riding outfit and boots that gleamed,
even in the sunless light. A pulse beat in her throat, like a
wounded animal.

“Mrs. Rosenfield,” he said. “I’m Detective David Eric Laine.
Could I have your full name, please?”

“Danielle,” she said. “Just call me Danielle.” Her gaze darted
toward the grave. “Who is it? Do you know–?”

“No, ma’am, Danielle, we don’t know that yet. Can you take
me back to when you first spotted something out of the
ordinary?”

“S-sure.” She visibly collected herself, her hand going out to
stroke her horse’s neck. “Toby and I were on our morning ride,
when these coyotes came racing right out under our noses–I
thought they were attacking us at first. You hear about how
bold they’ve gotten over the years.”

“Yes, ma’am.” What coyotes could do was frightening. What
people could do to each other was so much worse. “What
then?”

“Once they ran away I realized they were just as scared as
we were. I was going to head back home. I’m supposed to be to
work at ten.” She shook her head, a strand of hair falling over
her eyes. She swept it aside with a kidskin gloved hand. “I guess
I should call my boss. I don’t think I’ll be in today–” Her voice
broke.

“Yes, ma’am,” David said gently. “What was the first thing
you noticed before the coyotes appeared?”

“Toby spooked.” Rosenfield grimaced. “I guess when he got
wind of them. He nearly dumped me. That was when I saw the
arm. I screamed. That must have scared them away without
taking…taking it with them.” The grimace deepened and the
flesh around her mouth whitened.

More thunder cracked, closer this time. She looked around
uneasily.

“Anything else you can recall about your ride?” David asked
even more gently, knowing she was very close to losing it.
“Before you noticed anything amiss?”

“We rode by the Roosevelt Municipal golf course,” she said.
“I go that way all the time. Usually it’s so peaceful…”

“You see anybody on the links?”

“Two players, and a caddie.” Rosenfield squinted as she
recalled her morning. “I don’t pay much attention to the
golfers, unless they’re driving carts. Sometimes they spook
Toby.”

“Would you recognize the golfers if you saw them again?”

“W-what? You don’t think they had anything to do with
this, do you?”

“It’s just standard procedure,” David assured her. “Look, I
know this is tough. Even cops can have a hard time stumbling
across something like this. If you like, I can give you the
number of a victim’s support group. They can help you with
this, if you want.”

“T-thank you. I don’t think that’s necessary…”

David handed her the card anyway. “You might change your
mind. I hear they’re good.”

She slipped the card into her jacket pocket. He knew she
wouldn’t call. He’d seen it before. Misplaced pride would keep
her from seeking help. “What did you see then?” he prompted.

“I didn’t know what it was at first, then I thought it was a
mannequin.” She gave a short bark of laughter, quickly stifled.
“That someone had stolen a storefront dummy and was playing
a gag. It was only after I saw the teeth marks that I knew.” She
swallowed convulsively and David wondered if she was going to
be sick. The human arm had been heavily gnawed by strong
jaws. He distracted her as smoothly as he could.

“I need you to come down to the station, to make a formal
statement. I can send someone out to get you if you like–”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll drive myself. Will I have to go to
court?”

“I won’t lie to you. It depends on the D.A., and whether a
suspect is found, and it all makes it to court. But I’m sure
someone from the prosecutor’s office will be in touch with you
if it becomes necessary.”

David watched her stiffly remount her horse and urge it
back onto the trail. They broke into a fast trot before they were
out of sight. He very much doubted she would ever ride this
peaceful trail again.

Out of the corner of his eye, David saw a white Pontiac
Firehawk, splattered with debris from the previous night’s rain,
pull up beside the LAPD crime scene van. It was driven by a
lithe, dark-skinned Latino man, with that young urban scruffy
beard thing going on. Chris, always quick to adopt new fads,
had tried it once, until David complained that it was like kissing
five o’clock shadow, all day long, and he reluctantly shaved it
off.

The Latino climbed out of the low-slung car. He surveyed
the scene of controlled chaos with dark eyes, taking in
everything in a sweeping glance, before he shrouded them with
a pair of Ray Bans. He looked like he just stepped out of GQ,
sharp creases on his wool dress pants and sedate black and blue
tie. He wore his gold detective’s badge on a chain around his
neck. David caught a glimpse of his Beretta nine under his
LAPD blue nylon wind breaker. Incongruously, he wore a pair
of hand-tooled black and blue Tony Lamas boots instead of the
usual military gear most new detectives favored. David wouldn’t
be surprised if he had a closet full of Levis and Stetsons at
home. He was a tall man, though not as tall as David’s six-four,
dark-skinned, with high cheek bones. His eyes were dark and
dangerous. Too dangerous for David’s taste.

The guy was going to spell trouble.

Already the eyes of the two female SID criminologists kept
straying his way. David had heard rumors about the guy, even
before he was assigned to Northeast; he’d ignored them at the
time, like he ignored all the trash talk around the squad room.
In the stories the guy was a wannabe actor. David had heard–
and dismissed–the story about his involvement with a
producer’s wife that had ended messily. The tabloid press had
been all over it. Maybe the guy had a problem keeping his dick
in his pants. Maybe he was only guilty of bad judgment. He
wouldn’t be the first. Cops and badge bunnies went together
like chili and fries.

David extended his hand and introduced himself. Might as
well give the guy the benefit of a doubt, he didn’t like it when
people jumped to conclusions about him. Being one of the few
openly gay detectives carried its own baggage. “Glad to have
you on board.”

“Thank you, sir,” the detective said. “Detective Jairo Garcia
Hernandez.” He pronounced it Yairo. “Most gringos call me
Jerry.” His smile was all teeth and David knew he was being
tested by the new D.

He’d nip that one in the bud before it went south. “I think I
can handle Jairo.” He gave the word a Spanish lilt. The guy
wasn’t going to catch this gringo ignorant of the language.
Good looking or not, he was just another rookie D.

Jairo saw the Rolex on his wrist and whistled. “Nice watch.
Your wife give you that?”

“No, I’m not married,” David said. Deciding to make small
talk, he ventured, “You?”

“Yes.”

“How’s that going for you?” Cops loved marriage; so many
of them did it so often.

“Fine.” Jairo grew defensive. “You gonna tell me that’s
gonna change? Already got that from my smart-ass sergeant
first time I showed up for roll-call.”

“It’s hard,” was all David said. “Marriage is a work in
progress.”

“So you were married? She divorce you?”

David shrugged. He finally slipped the Rolex off and tucked
it back into his inner pocket, over his heart. It would be safer
there, away from nosy rookies. “It’s complicated.” Then he saw
Jairo had noticed the plain gold band he wore on his left ring
finger. The gold band Chris had given him following the first
year they had lived together. He closed his hands into fists, but
made no attempt to hide the thing. What was the use? He was
almost as notorious in the LAPD as Mark Fuhrman.

Jairo’s disingenuous eyes widened. “You’re the… you’re
him.”

David saw something glitter on the ground at the entrance
to the crime scene, and crouched down to study it. It was a
bottle cap. Still, he signaled a photographer over to take a
picture. Sometimes the littlest things proved useful. Sometimes
they were just litter. All around them crime scene techs were
placing evidence flags, and doing their best to catch everything,
before the skies opened up. He was glad to see that the victim’s
hands had been bagged, covering the ring he had seen earlier.
“You can say it, you know.” David stood up and brushed debris
off his pants. “I’m the gay cop.”

Jairo flushed and looked away. “Yes, sir.”

Now what was that all about? Surely as soon as he knew
who his latest senior partner was going to be, Jairo would have
known all about David’s sordid “secret.” He would have found
all kinds of officers eager to share the scuttlebutt about who
he’d been saddled with. “That’s Detective, Hernandez.” David
was already beginning to miss Martinez, his partner of ten years.
He had been reassigned to South-Central, for the next six
months, to work a gang detail. They had forged a tight
partnership; a partnership that even David’s abrupt outing over
four years ago had not disrupted. David wasn’t looking forward
to breaking in the new kid, even if he was, as rumor also
claimed, top of his graduating class. Good grades, like good
looks, weren’t everything.

He moved around to stand beside the grave again. A tarp
had been laid over the torn earth to protect against the coming
storm. He thought he could still see the outline of the arm. He
glanced sideways when a flash of lightning illuminated the dense
brush. He almost felt sorry for the boots who was going to have
to guard this site all night.

He turned back to face the grave and its nameless victim.
Jairo came up to stand beside him. David kept his eyes on the
tarp, ignoring the man beside him.

“I’ll find him,” he promised.

Like that’s anything new.

January 17, join James at Kink On Tap the smart sexuality netcast for the kinkily inclined.

Tired of the pulp eroticization of sexuality? Annoyed by the self-aggrandizement of sex bloggers? Want a more thoughtful, heartier, smarter approach to sexuality, society, culture, feminism, and queer activism? These are the droids you’re looking for.  Kink On Tap is more than just a netcast about sexuality; it’s also a community of people for whom intelligent conversations about sexuality and how sexuality relates to other aspects of their lives is a motivating force for Doing Good.

The show will air live on Sunday, January 17, 2010, 8pm Eastern-5pm Central http://live.kinkontap.com/ you can log in, listen and chat in real time during the show.

I know I haven’t been a particularly good boi this year, but I haven’t been a complete asshole either.  So, on the theory that only those who ask get, I have a small Christmas list.

I was wondering if you could cram a couple of more hours into the day.  Between the Evil-Day-Job, the Spawn, eating, sleeping, Dommeing…I really need a few more hours to fit writing in.  Yeah, I’d be trimmer if I cut out the eating part, but then I’d pass out while roaring down the 101, flip the bike and it just wouldn’t be pretty. 

Do you think the elves could develop plot bunny birth control?  I’d like to finish one project before a dozen ideas for other’s are born.  It’s not so much that I mind the overabundance of story lines, it’s just that they tend to mature and hop off somewhere else to find their destiny as card-sharks or pole-dancers before I can catch them. 

Intravenous Caffeine.  You of all people have to understand the glory of the concept. If you can’t add any time to the day at least I could be hyper and amped at later, or earlier, hours.   

Maybe you could manage for all the ultra conservatives to wake up on Christmas morning with the sudden realization that if they put all the energy they use fighting against things like Marriage For All, Inclusive Hate Crime Bills, repeal of exclusion of GLBT in the military and expansive Reproductive Health and Sex Education, into say solving world hunger….shit, can you imagine what they could accomplish?   That’s probably pushing it huh?

Alright, well, then maybe Santa, you might manage to get a few people to just make another person’s day a little brighter with a smile, or by opening a door, or just telling the poor wage-slave behind the Micky-Ds counter, “thanks.”  If we could start there, I’d be happy.

That’s about it.  Don’t bust the elves too hard and maybe get the reindeer a new whip, ‘cause we all know they like that crack across their rumps.  Take care,

Love

James

An Opinion Piece

by

Jardonn Smith

These days it seems anybody can hang a sign on their web address door and proclaim themselves to be reviewers of books.

Many are book lovers who shell out the bucks and are inclined to express their likes/dislikes, regardless of their abilities to coherently analyze reasons for their likes/dislikes.

Others have signed up at review sites so they can get free books to read, their purchase price being their agreeing to review the books, again regardless of their abilities to coherently… (see above).

Still more have a hidden agenda, either to purposely promote authors in their little clique, or purposely denigrate authors not in their little clique. Some of these reviews are written by authors themselves with an agenda impossible to hide: trashing books written by their competition.

What are the poor readers to do? How do they determine which review sites are truly giving them honest opinions, so they can decide where to shell out their hard-earned money for books they will enjoy? It’s a crap shoot, no doubt, but I can honestly vouch for one specializing in male on male erotic romance.

Elisa Rolle’s My Reviews and Ramblings

 

Not only is this classy lady from Padua, Italy a reader of manlove romance titles, her appetite for them is voracious. Ms. Rolle devours an incredible number of books weekly, and not only does she gain keen insight from what she’s read, she shares her thoughts via her self-written book reviews. Elisa favors no particular publishers or authors. She has no rating systems for books she reads. Her reviews are detailed, well-organized, and invaluable to not only her fellow-readers, but the authors as well. I’ve lost count of the comments I’ve seen on her site from authors who tell her she found personality traits in their characters even they didn’t recognize existed. I am no exception. Ms. Rolle’s review of my Danube Divide taught me much about the men in my own story.

So, any manlove fiction lovers out there looking for ideas on what next to read, Elisa Rolle’s site is a must-visit-daily for you, and as if reviews weren’t already enough, lately Elisa started what she calls The Inside Reader where authors and readers list their all-time favorite LGBT books.

That’s where one of our own comes in. Just check out the names on this list which includes William Maltese.

The Inside Reader: Geoffrey Knight

 

Yes, we claim him. William is ours. One of our MLR Press authors, and we intend to never let him go.

 Los Dias de Los Muertos:  Los Angelitos, Los Muertos, Los Santos.  The days of the dead run from the switching of the day from October 31—Halloween—to November 1 – All Saints Day through Midnight November 2.

Don’t fear dying, fear not having lived. ~anon 

Today, Nov.1, is All Saints, known in Mexico as La Dia de los Angelitos, the angels. It is the day to honor the dead children.  The dead come home to be feasted by their families, graves are cleaned, painted and dressed with marigolds, and the lives of those before us are remembered.

It is far from a mournful tradition.  Families picnic in the grave yards to be near those they love.  Skulls and skeletons are not gruesome objects of fear but reverent icons to remind us that this is just one world and another awaits.

The path back to the living world must not be made slippery by tears. ~anon

Originally the festival was Aztec in origin, took a month and was held in August.  That month and the celebrations were in honor of Mictecacihuatl – she who died at birth, the Lady of the Dead.  When the Spaniards came, the Catholic Church moved the celebrations to All Saints Day under their “if you can’t squash it, subvert it policy.”  They sanitized out the goddess and put in all their saints. 

Guess what, she’s back.  In the great Mexican tradition of the Cult of the Virgin Mary and the technique of subversion learned so well there is a new Lady of Death.  La Santisima Muerte: the Most Holy Lady of Death, incarnation of the Virgin Mary and heir to the throne of Mictecacihuatl. The worship of her has spread across the urban areas of Mexico and into the US to be assimilated by other Latin American communities as well.  She is considered the patron folk-saint of drug dealers, prostitutes and cops.

And she, La Huesuda (the Lady of Bones), and Los Dias De Los Muertos figure prominently in my recent release Personal Demons. 

Here’s an excerpt from Personal Demons:

Without much warning, Chase came face-to-face with the scene. Rodrigo, Chase recognized his mug from the pictures, lay on his stomach, head turned to the side, and one arm flopped across his back. The other flung out to the side and rested across the ring of marigold blossoms that circled his body. Flies crawled across glassy eyes, and crosses in white and red painted Renaldo’s face and down his arms. Each line ended in a dot, an arrow or a fork.

Well-rehearsed, the LAPD team of specialists did their dance around the body. At the periphery, a coroner’s crew waited with their bright blue body bag to take custody of the corpse.

A woman, her hair pulled tight back and wearing a better suit than her male counterparts, caught sight of them. In fact, she and Chase were the only two wearing actual suits, everyone else barely qualified as business casual. She said something to a trio of techs before picking her way toward Chase and Enrique. After introducing herself as Detective Wyatt, exchanging the brief necessities of rank and protocol, she filled them in. “We figure he was shot first over there,” Wyatt waved one manicured hand back the way Chase’d come. “About fifteen feet and crawled back this way. They shot him twice more as he crawled. The last bullet, the one to his head, likely killed him where he ended up.”

“Why do you figure a they?” Enrique spoke the question Chase’d been thinking.

Wyatt glared, like she thought Enrique yanked her instead of just asking the first obvious question. Her response was clipped with the efficiency of a woman used to being treated as slightly inferior to the men she outranked. “Rodrigo’s a big guy, a bad ass, ballsy guy. One man wouldn’t have been enough to intimidate him into coming down here. Drag him down, neither.”

This time Chase, keeping his tone as neutral as possible, asked the question. “What if he walked down on his own?” Or they had enough guys to make it impossible to fight.

“Hard to see someone who doesn’t want to be down here,” Enrique folded his arms over his chest, “being dragged down here.”

“Think he was meeting someone?” Chase asked the question of both detectives.

“I’d bet on that…” Wyatt’s mouth went tight. “Not a hundred percent thing, but damn good odds.”

Enrique paced a few steps, looking at the body from various angles. “I think someone he trusted lured him down, maybe.” Looking to Wyatt, his tone said he was asking her opinion, not overriding her. Careful not to disturb the ring of flowers, he squatted near Fuertes. “Or maybe someone he didn’t trust, but that he had to meet even if he didn’t want to.” Enrique turned his attention back to the corpse.

“So, Ochoa,” Wyatt studied Enrique as he studied Fuertes. The cool, calculated once up and once down echoed a woman used to sizing up co-workers as potential opponents. “What’s with the flowers? And the X’s all over him? You know about this shit right?”

“Some of it. The marigolds are a Mexican thing. Americans leave roses on graves, Mexicans leave marigolds. Why they’re with Fuertes, I don’t know.” Enrique’s gaze flicked up. “Those,” he traced the air indicating one of the marks on the dead man’s skin, “are the symbols of Eshu.”

Without thinking, Chase responded with a, “Bless you.”

That rated Chase a glare from Enrique and a snort from Wyatt. “I didn’t sneeze.” Enrique coughed. “Eshu, also Exu, Echu or a bunch of other variants, is a deity in a lot of Afro-Caribbean religions.”

“Eshu?”

“Eshu is the devil…sort of.” Standing, Enrique crossed his arms over his chest and thought for a moment. Slowly, like he felt a little embarrassed at knowing what he knew. “Okay, the quick and dirty version. Religions of the Caribbean come from slave religions that got all mixed up with Catholicism. The master said pray to his god, and he was likely Spanish or Portuguese. So, his god had saints who all meant something and you prayed to them. It wasn’t so hard to say this saint of water is this god of water, at least if you didn’t want to get beaten for praying to your old traditional gods. Stick their statues in with your symbols and everyone thinks it’s cute that the dumb slaves like the statues.”

“And Eshu is the devil?” Wyatt didn’t sound like she was buying.

Without seeming to take offense, Enrique shrugged. “Eshu is like Lucifer because he’s always in conflict with Ologun the creator. But in many Caribbean religions Eshu is also the only one who speaks directly to Ologun. If you want something done, you ask Eshu…” he smirked. “Just be careful of what he asks for in return.”

You can buy it here!

The site should’ve been an author’s dream. All these threads talking about books, places to get them, the excitement of waiting for new releases, discovering something new. Hours after a book is released, there’s a good chance you’ll find it there.
The problem is, the people who frequented the site have no intention of paying for the books. They’ll click on the links, go to fileshare sites, and download the books.
As one of the members once said, “…why pay for the books when you can get them for free?”

Walking the e-plank

Whether published in e-format or print, there’s a good chance many writers will have to deal with piracy.
For Ginn Hale, author of Wicked Gentleman, the problems have been twofold.
“The first is the amount of my creative time that has been wasted by the endless cycle of having to write and request that a link be taken down only to have it pop back up under a slightly different name,” said Hale. “This can go on and on for weeks, until I just give up in frustration.”
“My second problem is that it’s made my first experiences with the readers of digital works a very negative one. I want to believe that most readers of e-books and electronic works are honest people, but being constantly pirated — and being told that I should be happy about it because it’s promotion — hasn’t done much to buoy my optimism.”
Like Hale, other authors have been frustrated by the pervasive links. (continue reading…)