Ally – Page 36 – A. L. Lester

Interview: Alison Lister

Let’s welcome Alison Lister to the blog today! Morning Alison! Can you tell us a bit about why you decided to come along?

I’ve just started off two new series’, with two different publishers. Stable Hand (The Braided Crop Ranch Series) came out in November from NineStar Press, and Various Persuasions (Persuasions Series) came out on March 23^rd with Pride Publishing. Ponyboy, (The Braided Crop Ranch #2) is out April 12^th. I’ve been a little busy.

What started you writing?

I have been writing since I was thirteen or fourteen. I received an honourable mention for a short play I wrote in high school for a playwriting contest and that made me think I might have some talent. I took a year-long, post-diploma program at the local college in Dramatic Scriptwriting which I thoroughly enjoyed. It wasn’t until I began to write erotic stories for publication that I realized there might be a market for my style and subject.

Where do you write?

I prefer to write in the living room of the small town-home I share with my husband and two kids. We don’t have the space for an office but the living room has half a wall of windows and a lovely view, and faces south-east. It’s pretty much a sun room in the morning and afternoon and I love it. I occasionally move up to the master bedroom or down to the finished basement, if someone wants to watch a loud TV show or a movie in the living room. I have a MacBook Air, so that helps me write wherever I can find some quiet. I prefer to write first thing in the morning. That’s when I am at my most productive. But I am able to write any time of day except at night.

What do you like to read?

I used to read a lot of classic literature – before I had kids and I had to time to get comfortable and wile away a few hours reading. Now I read mostly quick and hot romance novels, like the ones I write. My Kindle Fire is pretty full! I don’t like really dark or taboo stuff. I like to read and write low angst stories.

What are the three books you’d take to a desert island? Why would you choose them?

Middlemarch by George Eliot, Working Out the Kinks by Misha Horne, and Oliver and Jack in London Towne, by Christina E. Pilz (who writes as Jackie North, now). Middlemarch is dense and brilliant and really takes you to small-town England in the eighteen-hundreds. Oliver and Jack takes you to London in the same time period, and so many good things happen for Oliver and Jack who have been through so much by then. And Working Out the Kinks is such a hot, kinky story about two men who are meant to be together and bring out the best in each other, written in Ms. Horne’s signature style (that I love so much)!

Writing is an intrinsically solo occupation. Do you belong to any groups or associations, either online or in the ‘real’ world? How does that work for you?

I am pretty introverted, so I don’t belong to any groups in real life. I enjoy the groups I’m in on Facebook, where I can pop in and out as I please. I’ve met many great authors through these groups. We support and help each other.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I love to go for walks in nature, often on my own, but sometimes with my dog, Ollie. I like to watch movies. Lately, I’ve been watching my teens play through their favourite video games while I work on some knitting. Oh, knitting! I find it very meditative and relaxing. Interestingly, while watching my daughter play through Red Dead Redemption II, I was inspired to write my first queer historical erotic novel, 760 Miles, set in the Yukon in 1906. I’m editing the manuscript right now and hoping to submit it at the end of April for publication in 2022. It will be the first book in the Northern Horizons series.

Tell me a little bit about your most recent release. What gave you the idea for it? How long did it take to write? What did you enjoy about writing it? What did you hate?

Various Persuasions is a very meaningful story to me, because my protagonist is non-binary and choses to use male pronouns and is called Sir by the cis-male submissive they reluctantly take on at the beginning of the story. There is so much of myself in this character and it is true to something deep inside me. I’ve chosen to identify as non-binary now, since that is how I have felt my entire life. I often feel very, very masculine and I used to pretend that wasn’t the case. But I’m tired of pretending and I want to be free to be who I am. This story came very naturally to me and I wrote it quite quickly, then went back and thickened it up a bit, which is generally the way I write these days. Then Ponyboy, The Braided Crop Ranch #2, comes out April 12^th. (Stable Hand is book #1). This series follows different men who find themselves at a kinky pony play ranch in the Muskokas, and lets the reader experience pony play from a few different perspectives.

Various Persuasions

A non-binary Dom. An eager young sub. Service, orgasm control, bondage. An initial encounter leads to a synchronous exploration of identity and intimacy.

Nic Walker is not your typical Dom—physically female but identifying as male. And Vincent Blake is not your typical twenty-four-year-old straight guy—seductively submissive with a penchant for lacy underwear.

When Nic’s Dominatrix friend Daphne encourages them to get together, she can only hope they recognize the compatibility of their desires and personalities.

Nic has been holing up alone in their townhouse for too long, getting over a bad ‘relationship’, and it’s time for them to start living again. When Nic meets Vincent, neither expects the tentative relationship to take off like a runaway train. But each layer of the attractive and seemingly vulnerable young man Nic exposes ignites their own desires and leads both on a path to revealing the most interesting parts of themselves.

Who knew piano practice could be a form of sexual service? Or that a pair of overpriced panties could inspire such devotion?

Through bondage, service, objectification and the purchase of large quantities of lacy unmentionables, as well as a few specific sex toys and devices, Nic explores how far Vincent will go to please them and how much of themself they will risk to have him.

Buy Various Persuasions now!

Find Alison online

Website : Facebook Group : Goodreads : Twitter

Out Today! As the Crows Fly

This is my obligatory blog-post for a new release…this time it’s As the Crows Fly, which is another short story—11,500 words—in the Reworked Celtic Myths collection. The stories are a loose set of contemporary stories set in Wales, and the seed of each one comes from a Welsh or Irish legend.

As the Crows Fly. A short contemporary gay romance. With Crows.

The seed for As the Crows Fly is the story of St Kevin. He is the patron saint of crows and ravens, which is why I chose him. He is said to have been born in 498 CE and died in 618 and spent a long time being a hermit in a small cave in Glendalough in Ireland, where a large teaching monastery eventually grew up around him. He liked animals a lot more than people and apparently once nearly drowned a lady who tried to seduce him. He didn’t succeed—she became a nun instead. He is said to have stood still for weeks when a blackbird made a nest in his hand and laid an egg there, waiting for the egg to hatch.

I didn’t put any of that in, because drowning your lovers is a bit off and standing still for weeks waiting for eggs to hatch is an unexciting story. I just took the crows bit and the animals bit and ran with it, and here we are!

I had fun writing it and I hope you enjoy the story.

As the Crows Fly

Paul Webster has come out the army after a twenty-two year stretch with a trick hip and no idea what to do with his life. He takes a few weeks walking along the Welsh coast to get his head on straight.

Kevin Davies is a veterinary nurse and an artist. He’s getting lonelier and lonelier in his cottage on the edge of the sea, kept company by his cats and a friendly flock of crows.

What happens when the two men hunker down together to wait out a wild March gale?

A 11,500-word short story in the Reworked Celtic Myths series. This time, there are crows.

Buy As the Crows Fly now

Holly Day: A windy day

Let’s welcome Holly here today, to talk about her new release, Blown Away!

Hi! Thank you, Ally, for allowing me to drop by on this super windy day! Is it windy where you are? No? But today is Big Wind Day, it should be windy 😀

To celebrate Big Wind Day, I wrote a story called Blown Away. We should get better at celebrating things. Did you know that according to social psychology researchers, even small celebrations will help us build resilience against setbacks and bad experiences? It’s true, celebrating things make us more mindful and aware of the now which boosts our well-being.

Having something to look forward to makes us more optimistic, and positive emotions allow us to handle stress better. So celebrate your wins! Doesn’t matter if they are big or small. Make a thing of the little things. Eat cake, high-five your partner, make a toast, light a candle or say a prayer – do something to celebrate the moment.

I believe each day should be celebrated, so I’m writing stories about them. I wrote Hop Hop, Carrot Top for Kiss a Ginger Day (January 12), Be Still, My Heart for Valentine’s Day (February 14), There Will Be Aliens for Extraterrestrial Abductions Day (March 20), and now we’ve reached Big Wind Day.

I figured there had to be something good coming out of the terrible weather, so I wrote about a bird shifter who’s stranded since he can’t fly in the storm. He happens to be in a grumpy bear’s territory, and who doesn’t want to be saved by a bear? Even if it’s a hungry bear who’s far more interested in cakes than he is in birds.

The rain was like thumbtacks against Espen's skin, and he wanted to roar. If the hadn't been carrying a bird and a shoe, he could've changed into fur. Fucking wolves--and leopard. If they hadn't walked into his territory, he could've been at home.

Excerpt:

Espen took a deep, calming breath as he walked up the stairs to fetch some clothes. It was easier to breathe when he was away from the bird. He hadn’t known he was allergic. And shouldn’t his eyes itch if he was?

He grabbed a T-shirt, a hoodie, and glanced at a pair of jeans. They would be way too big. He grabbed a pair of pajama pants instead. As soon as he entered the living room again, his heart was beating like crazy. Frowning at the bird, he rubbed his chest. Was it an allergy?

“Here. I fear you’ll drown in them, but put them on and we can move you closer to the fireplace until you get warm.” His stomach grumbled. “Food.”

“What?”

“I need to eat. Hot dogs?”

The bird looked in his direction, but not exactly at him. Espen frowned. He had a candle. Was he still unable to see? He took a step forward and the man’s eyes snapped to his. That was better. He liked it when the man was looking at him.

“What’s with hot dogs?”

“We’ll cook them in the fire.” He gestured at the fireplace. “It’s fast and easy.”

“You want to… eat? Oh…” His gaze jumped between the fireplace and Espen. “What’s your name?”

“Espen Urso.”

The bird snorted. “Of course, it is.”

Espen frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “What’s wrong with my name?”

“Nothing. It’s very… bear-ish.”

“Of course, it means bear.”

“It means Bear Bear.”

Heat climbed Espen’s cheeks. It was a ridiculous name, but many shifters named their children after the species they were. “What’s your name?”

“Arvid Rai.”

Espen frowned. Jay, he would’ve understood. Or Blue, Blue would’ve been a good name for him. “What does it mean?”

The chuckle, Espen would say it was self-conscious. “Arvid means free or eagle—” Ha! It was a bird name. Though the difference between a blue jay and an eagle was significant. “And Rai means storm.”

“Well, Mr. Eagle Storm, would you care to move closer to the fire?”

Seconds went by, Arvid’s gaze sliding up and then down his body, making Espen shiver. “You’re not gonna… attack me?”

Espen jerked. “Attack? You’re injured!” He gestured at his arm. It must hurt like hell. “And I’m hungry.” He turned toward the kitchen, needing some space. The poor thing thought Espen would chase him like the imbeciles in the forest had. Grumbling and growling, he dug around the dark freezer for some hot dogs. He had roasting sticks in the closet in the hallway.

Placing a plate with the hot dogs on the coffee table, he went to grab the roasting sticks. As he passed he noted that Arvid had put on his pajama pants. He grinned as warmth spread in his chest.

“I… eh… think I need some help with the shirt.” He flinched as he spoke.

“Sure. Let me grab…” He opened the closet and dug out the bag with his hiking stuff. With two roasting sticks in one hand, he walked the three steps, bringing him up to Arvid’s side.

Blown Away by Holly Day

Espen Urso would rather stay inside and enjoy a nice, sweet cake than be out in the worst storm of the year. But there’s a group of alpha shifters trespassing, and he needs to defend his territory and keep the people in his village safe. A group of wolf shifters he can scare off, but when he realizes they’ve hurt a defenseless little bird, he loses his patience.

Arvid Rai is having a bad day. He’s an omega on the run, with a group of alphas on his tail. If there hadn’t been a storm, he could have easily flown away before the stupid wolves got their hands on him, or the angry bear noticed he was in his territory. But there is a storm, and the idiot who grabbed him broke his wing, so now he can’t fly anywhere. Still, he deems it best to stay with the growly bear rather than having the other alphas fight over him.

Espen has never believed in the myth of omegas, and it isn’t until he takes Arvid in he realizes how much trouble he’ll be in when shifters from near and far learn he has one in his home. Will he be able to keep Arvid safe from other shifters? Is it even possible to defend his territory with an omega in it?

M/M Paranormal Romance: 13,628 words

Amazon :: JMS Books :: Everywhere else!

About Holly

According to Holly Day, no day should go by uncelebrated and all of them deserve a story. If she’ll have the time to write them remains to be seen. She lives in rural Sweden with a husband, four children, more pets than most, and wouldn’t last a day without coffee.

Holly gets up at the crack of dawn most days of the week to write gay romance stories. She believes in equality in fiction and in real life. Diversity matters. Representation matters. Visibility matters. We can change the world one story at the time.

Connect with Holly @ https://lnk.bio/xpae or visit her website @ hollydaywrites.wordpress.com

Coming Soon: Sylvia Marks!

Sylvia Marks is a minor character in Inheritance of Shadows. She’s a doctor, who was part of the Scottish Women’s Hospital at Royaumont, France, during the First World War. Down entirely to the encouragement of my lovely editor Lourenza Adlem, she is now about to have her own trilogy set in the little English village of Bradfield in the early 1920s.

Cover: An Irregular Arrangement, four people in 1920s dress.

I don’t have a title for any of the books yet, but I’m sure something will spring to mind before too long!

You can read about other inhabitants of Bradfield if you are a subscriber to my newsletter, in An Irregular Arrangement, a 10,500 word free story.

Read on to find out a bit about Sylvia and her friend Lucy.

Excerpt

“Sylvia! Are you coming?” Lucy called up the stairs.

Sylvia Marks is coming in July! 1920s England! Lesbian Romance! Mystery! Paranormal Shenanigans!

“Nearly ready, just a moment,” Sylvia’s voice was muffled. “My hair isn’t behaving.”

Lucy trotted up the stairs to her bedroom. They were going to be late for the beginning of the film at this rate.

“Let me help,” she said.

Sylvia sat in front of her mirror, mouth full of hairpins and arms cocked up behind her head, shoving them into her coiled hair.

“It’s got to look half-way neat if I’m going to take my hat off,” she said.

“You can keep your hat on,” Lucy said.

“It always seems rude to the people sat behind me,” Sylvia said. “The seats aren’t very well laid out.”

“Hang on, then,” Lucy said.

She stood behind Sylvia and wrested her hands away from her head. “Give me the brush,” she said.

Sylvia’s hair fell in a curtain to below her waist and was thick and wavy. It was brown, a delightful range of shades from light to dark. Some of the women at Royaumont had cut their hair—bathing facilities had been rudimentary—but Sylvia had kept hers long, wound up in a chignon every day.

She handed the brush from the dressing table back to Lucy and Lucy began to run it through from crown to ends. It didn’t really need much brushing, Sylvia had already done that, but she used the brush to gather in all up into one hand, a heavy tail of soft raw silk in her palm. The faint scent of rosemary that she had always associated with Sylvia was from her hair, Lucy realised.

Sylvia removed the hairpins from her mouth and watched Lucy in the mirror. Her eyes were soft. “No-one’s brushed my hair for years,” she said quietly.

“It’s beautiful,” Lucy said.

She began to wind it into a rope around her hand, twisting it up onto Sylvia’s head as she went. She pinned as she twisted, making a flattish coil that would sit easily under Sylvia’s beret. She focused on what she was doing, getting it right. The hair was fine and thick against her palms and she could hear Sylvia’s breathing slow and soften.

As she tucked the last pin in, securing the ends, she said “All right?” and dropped her hands to Sylvia’s shoulders.

Sylvia met her eyes in the mirror and nodded. She was relaxed and pliant under Lucy palms.

The moment hung in time.

Sylvia arrives on 10th July from JMS Books!

Ofelia Grand: The Egg Hunt

Happy Easter, everyone, and thank you Ally for letting me drop by. I’m in the middle of re-publishing a number of old stories. And two days ago, The Egg Hunt was released.

The Egg Hunt is an Easter story that takes place in Nortown. The thing with Nortown is that almost everyone there is a lumberjack. When I first started writing these stories, it was to make fun of all the clichés. Don’t get me wrong, I care for my characters and their hardships, but I played a lot on stereotypes.

The Egg Hunt was first released in 2016, and the M/M genre has developed since. There weren’t a lot of vampire daddies or Mpreg stories back then – they existed, but not to the extent they do now. And this was before the Amazon top lists were overflowing with the ‘I shagged my step daddy’ stories. And, to each their own, but I want to say thank heavens because I could never write those kinds of books. So instead, I wrote grumpy, toppy lumberjacks with ‘oh, so responsive’ bottoms.

Now, The Egg Hunt isn’t as stereotypical as the other stories taking place in Nortown, but it has the attributes. Tom is a closeted lumberjack, and Jason is a bartender from ‘the city’.

Jason is in Nortown to visit a friend, but their dogs fight, so he gets to stay with Tom instead. At first, Tom isn’t pleased, but soon he realises it’s quite nice to not have to spend the holiday on his own.

Do you have any special Easter traditions? When I was a kid, Mum always boiled a crazy number of eggs on the morning of Easter Eve – in Sweden you celebrate all holidays on the eve. On Christmas, we open the gifts on Christmas eve. Anyway, Mum made eggs, and the entire family gathered and painted them. Then we ate them.

I remember being a little sad when I had to destroy an egg I was especially pleased with.

Mum had also hidden carton eggs filled with candy all over the house. And she had, and still has, lots of small porcelain eggs she filled with sweets of different kinds. The entire Easter weekend, we were on a constant sugar high LOL.

In Nortown, the inhabitants of the town get together for an egg hunt in the forest.

Available now, The Egg Hunt. "What should I expect at this egg hunt? Tom gave him a quick glance. "You know how egg hunts work, right? We're here to help Jen prepare, hide eggs for people to find, and then in a couple of hours, everyone will show up. Kids, pets, adults--most of Nortown's population will stroll into the woods and search for eggs." Tom laughed.

Excerpt:

Jason hurried past Tom between the trees. Even though he’d helped hide the eggs, it was hard to find any now. He stopped by a fallen, moss-covered trunk, where he was almost certain he’d hidden three small chocolate eggs, but he couldn’t spot a single one. Someone might have made it there before him, he guessed, but he didn’t think so. Everyone had started at the same time.

He heard Tom snigger behind him.

“Did you take them?” Jason gave him a mock glare, which quickly morphed into a smile. It was almost as if he were being pulled towards him.

“I might have hidden them elsewhere, but then again, so might Jen.”

“You moved my eggs?”

“Of course! I couldn’t let you win.” Tom reached for him but stopped himself and stepped back. Jason fought a sigh. He wanted Tom to touch him. It was stupid, but he wanted to be close to Tom, wanted to smell him, to laugh with him.

“Oh, lookie here.” Tom stretched up between two branches and took down a real egg that had been coloured purple. “Now if you find one, we can have that egg tapping.”

Jason huffed and continued farther into the woods. He would find an egg, and he would win the egg-tapping thing. An unguarded feeling of freedom shot through him as he searched both on the ground and up in the trees for colourful eggs. He didn’t really care if he won—the insight should’ve been shocking; Jason always wanted to win. He still wanted to find an egg and play the stupid game with Tom, but only to see his warm eyes sparkle.

“A-ha! Got one!” He picked up a red egg and ran towards Tom. As he dashed between the tree trunks to where he’d last seen him, he almost ran into a little girl who was trying to reach a large plastic egg filled with sweets that hung too high in the tree for her. “Here you go, darling.” He took it down for her and hurried along. Where the fuck had Tom gone? He’d been right behind him mere minutes ago.

He could hear voices and laughter everywhere, but not Tom’s.

The Egg Hunt

Jason has one rule when it comes to holidays — work his shift behind the bar and then find a willing body to distract himself with. One night is long enough to satisfy his needs and still walk away with his heart intact. It has worked out fine for most of his adult life, but this Easter, he’s trying something new. He’s leaving the city to visit his friend Aiden, who recently moved in with his boyfriend in the middle of nowhere, but one unfortunate incident leaves Jason without a place to sleep.

Tom doesn’t just not do relationships, he rarely does hook-ups, either, and never too close to home. Living on his own without attachments is easier than having the whole town knowing about him. As the holiday approaches, his lonely house grows even quieter than normal — at least until his friend Tristan dumps an arrogant bartender in his lap.

As soon as Jason lays eyes on the gruff lumberjack whose home he’ll be sharing, he knows who’ll warm his bed for the weekend and help chase away any pending holiday gloom. Too bad Tom doesn’t want to get with the program. As much as he wants to let Jason close, he won’t risk outing himself for a weekend fling. Will Jason trust Tom not to break his heart if he stays longer than a couple of days? Will Tom value their relationship higher than the town gossip?

Contemporary M/M Romance: 34.031 words

Buy The egg hunt:

JMS Books :: Amazon :: books2read.com/TheEggHunt

About Ofelia

Ofelia Gränd is Swedish, which often shines through in her stories. She likes to write about everyday people ending up in not-so-everyday situations, and hopefully also getting out of them. She writes romance, contemporary, paranormal, Sci-Fi and whatever else catches her fancy.

Her books are written for readers who want to take a break from their everyday life for an hour or two.

When Ofelia manages to tear herself from the screen and sneak away from her husband and children, she likes to take walks in the woods…if she’s lucky she finds her way back home again.

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