Archive for category the boy next door

a few newsy items

Feb 27

Posted by kate in books, conventions, the boy next door | No Comments

First, the Literary Nymphs gave The Boy Next Door 4.5 out of 5 nymphs.

Second, I will be appearing in public! I’m still working out my convention schedule, but I will for certain be at the Rainbow Book Fair in NYC with a gaggle of other Dreamspinner authors. That’s on March 26. I’m also planning to attend the GayRomLit Retreat in New Orleans in October. (Reader registration opens soon!)

Third, by now you’ve heard about Borders filing for chapter 11. There’s one store in NYC that is closing, the one on Park Ave and 57th Street, so I raided it yesterday. One of the great things about living in New York is that the book stores have a pretty impressive selection of m/m books, and at store-closing discounts, I felt a little like I won the lottery. (Plus I found a few Suzanne Brockmann reissues I hadn’t read yet.) Here’s a peek at what I bought (with special guest, my cat Molly):


Click to embiggen.

That’s a lot of naked male torso! Borders had a lot of other great books, but most of them I’d read already. ;-) Still, it was good timing on the paper books; I broke my Kindle this morning. Luckily, Amazon is sending a replacement, but not until Tuesday.

I’ve been thinking about writing a retrospective post—somehow, I managed to get three books published in a year, which seems like such an impossible feat—but right now I have books to read (and books to write!).

review roundup

Feb 9

Posted by kate in kindling fire with snow, reviews, the boy next door | No Comments

Reviews for The Boy Next Door are starting to roll in!

4-star review from Three Dollar Bill Reviews:

This is the kind of story I enjoy … I love how “down-to-earth” it is.

By the way, I am working on a sequel, which will be Neal’s story. I’m still writing it, so I don’t have an ETA on that, but it is in the works.

4.5-star review from Tj at Jessewave:

The characters of Lowell and Jase really came to life for me and their revived friendship and budding romance felt very real. But the road to love is not an easy one. Jase has a troubled ex-wife Karen, who is understandably hurt from Jase’s rejection of her, and tries to control his life by threatening his custody of their daughter. As much as I wanted to hate Karen, and at times I felt that she was a bit of a harpy, I could also understand her pain, a pain that anyone who has had an unrequited love will understand.

The Boy Next Door also made Loose Id’s bestseller list 2 weeks in a row, so thanks to everyone who bought the book. And thanks to the reviewers for taking the time to review! Book bloggers are seriously awesome.

And, bonus, a new review of Kindling Fire with Snow from Val Kovalin:

The author did a good job with the subtle, precise details (much of it through dialog) that communicated their opposite personalities and cultural backgrounds (introverted Jewish guy, extroverted Irish-American). Also, I was very impressed with the vivid details, including landmarks and street names, which made Brooklyn come alive as a setting for this engaging story about second chances. Recommended.

Pssst. The Boy Next Door is available here!

The Boy Next Door: First Week Roundup

Jan 29

Posted by kate in interviews, the boy next door | No Comments

What a week! Here are a few things I’ve been up to since the book came out:

I posted a short excerpt on the Loose Id author blog on Tuesday.

I chatted with Elizabeth Silver on Wednesday.

Yesterday, I wrote a post about setting for the Loose Id author blog.

So stop by, read, leave a comment if you like. Or just check out the book!

Available Today: The Boy Next Door

Jan 25

Posted by kate in the boy next door | 2 Comments

The new book is out today! Big thanks to everyone who had a hand in this one, from my beta readers to everyone who sat with me in cafes while I banged my head on a table hacking my way through a revision. You all know who you are. :-)

BLURB:

When Lowell moves back to his hometown to take care of his ailing mother, the last person he expects to see living in the house next door is his childhood friend Jase, grown up now and more attractive than ever. Jase had starred in many of Lowell’s teenage fantasies, but Lowell is convinced Jase is straight. And yet, as they rekindle their friendship, it begins to look like Jase might not be so straight after all.

Jase has problems of his own: his troubled ex-wife has allowed him full custody of their daughter on one condition: he never exposes her to his affairs with other men. The arrangement works just fine until he starts falling for Lowell and a whole new world of possibilities opens up for him. But how can he have a relationship with a man and still keep his daughter?

BUY NOW at LOOSE ID!

The Boy Next Door

Jan 23

Posted by kate in the boy next door | No Comments

Welcome to New Book Week. The Boy Next Door will be available this Tuesday from Loose Id. More details to come on Monday night or Tuesday morning. (I’m fighting a serious case of holy-crap-is-the-weekend-really-over-but-I-still-have-so-much-to-do-itis right at the moment. It’s tempting to give up and go to bed. ;) )

Also, I’m gonna be around the interwebs all week doing little promotional things, so look out for me (I’ll make a big wrap-up post Friday-ish).

I’ve updated the book page to include a short excerpt for your reading pleasure. And here’s the lovely cover by Valerie Tibbs.

This book was in the works for a long time and I’m really excited that it’s finally getting published!

what makes a romance novel

Jan 20

Posted by kate in navel gazing, the boy next door | No Comments

It’s funny. I made a resolution-y commitment to blog and twitter and all that this year, and then I got slammed by a project at my day job that has zapped all my time and energy. In an effort to at least hold up my commitment to blog once a week, here are some disconnected thoughts:

I’ve been thinking some about what constitutes a romance novel. Given what a wide range of stories fall under the umbrella “romance,” I think the only connecting thread is the focus on the development of a romantic relationship culminates in a happy ending. Other than that, I think all bets are off. Now, I love romance and I love mysteries and suspense thrillers, so it’s probably not at all a surprise that romantic suspense is my favorite romance sub-genre (to read), and in those novels, the couple usually meets under trying circumstances and spends the novel not only falling in love by trying to stay out of danger.

Maybe this is only on the brain because my younger brother is getting married this summer, so he and his fiancée get asked the “Oh, how did you meet?” question a lot, and the answer is pretty mundane (college) and I imagine that’s pretty true for most couples? A lot of my coupled friends have similar stories; a mutual friend introduced them or they met at a concert or they both participated in the same after-work activity. It’s pretty rare for a romance novel to feature a couple who just, like, meet and go on dates. At least in the books I’m reading. I think if someone wrote the story of a typical couple, readers would complain that there wasn’t enough conflict. (And they’d probably be right.)

Which begs the question, how much should romance novels resemble real life? People cite fantasy escapism as a reason to like romance novels. I like books that deal with hard truths, gritty settings, difficult circumstances, those sorts of things—corrupt cops, reformed criminals, heroes with troubled pasts, yes, yes, yes—but at the end of the day, no matter how “true to life” those stories are, they aren’t really true to my life, so I can get absorbed in the story of someone who overcame incredible adversity but then put the book down and be back sitting in my nice warm bed in my cozy apartment.

I was the kid who always had a book in her hand. (This hasn’t really changed; my shopping weakness is handbags, and my main criteria for evaluating them is whether they are big enough to hold a book or two, or at least my Kindle.) I went through phases (see my note on binge reading); I liked adventure stories as a tween, for example, I think because they were the sort of books you could get pulled into enough to block out the world. I read a lot of historical fiction in high school. Perhaps the cliché about a book taking you places you couldn’t go otherwise applies.

There’s still something of that in me as a reader. I’m not a big fantasy reader in the high genre fantasy sense, but I like the “fantasy” element of romances—they exist in a world where big things happen and everything works out. Maybe the two main characters meet in college, like my brother and his fiancée did, but they meet under unusual circumstances or there’s a huge roadblock or one of them has to overcome some deep secret from his past, etc. etc.

It’s sort of like how, if all of your knowledge of New York City came from watching police procedural television series’, you might think the city was still a violent cesspool, which it really isn’t. Fiction is so often more extreme than real life, or different enough from our lives that we feel safe observing it.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. A lot of my characters are ordinary folks who get caught up in extraordinary circumstances. In my latest (out next Tuesday!) we have Lowell, who until recently lived in a studio apartment in NYC and worked as a graphic designer. His new next-door neighbor is Jase has a mundane office job. Ordinary guys who are connected by a shared past. Lots of extraordinary things happen in the novel—without giving much away, I can tell you that Lowell and Jase both have plenty of baggage, with plenty of roadblocks in their way. Because these guys can’t just be neighbors… what kind of romance novel would that be? ;)

so I have a new book coming out…

Jan 12

Posted by kate in the boy next door | 1 Comment

I am what I think of as a binge reader. I’ll latch onto a genre and read only that genre for a couple of weeks, as many books as I can get my hands on. Like, I’ll read three or four regencies in a row. I went through a two-month period once wherein I only read Westerns. I currently am reading a lot of detective novels.

Apparently I’m this way with writing, too, although less so genre than theme. I seem to be going through a phase where I really like to write second-chance stories, especially those that involve two characters who knew each other well in the past—as lovers or as just friends—and then meet again after a long absence. I’ve always liked stories like this and I’m not sure why. I suppose there’s the idea of The One That Got Away, although there isn’t really anyone like that in my past. (Sure, there are a few people I’d like to see again, flubbed moments I’d like to do over, and I occasionally think about that one guy who just had bad timing, but there’s no one person that I yearn to meet again.) And yet, it’s a theme I seem to revisit a lot. Exhibit A: Seth and Kieran.

Exhibit B: in my upcoming book, The Boy Next Door, Lowell moves back to his hometown in Connecticut. He doesn’t realize until after he’s bought his house that his next-door neighbor is his childhood best friend—and the subject of a few of his teenage fantasies—Jase. He and Jase drifted apart when they got to high school and led very different adult lives, but they find as they rekindle their friendship that they have a lot more in common than it seemed at first glance.

The book will be out on January 25th! You can sneak a peak at the cover here.

it’s christmastime in the city

Dec 20

Posted by kate in holidays, the boy next door | No Comments

For the first five years I lived in New York City, I worked in an office near the corner of 42nd Street and 5th Avenue. If you need a landmark, the New York Public Library is right there (the iconic building with the lions out front). I was also right down the street from Saks and Rockefeller Center, so the whole area was abuzz with activity during the holidays. It was a boon and a bust simultaneously. I have a hard time with big crowds, and there were times when I’d be out to lunch and I’d look up 5th Avenue and see that sea of people crowding the sidewalk and feel overwhelmed. On the other hand, I still think there’s something magical about the city at this time of year, and I’d see glimpses of that and feel some measure of joy. I like things that are simple: someone changing the glass in the chandelier that hung at the entrance to my office building from white to red and green; a guy playing “Silver Bells” on a trumpet for pocket change; the way the lights reflected off all those glass office buildings in midtown.

I’m thankful I don’t work in the middle of everything anymore, but I miss it sometimes, also. Still, there’s something kind of charming about Brooklyn during the holiday season. All those brownstones with tasteful wreaths or garlands out front makes my neighborhood feel very Victorian to me, like I’ve walked into a new movie version of A Christmas Carol. Sure, you get the people who have Santas hanging off their balconies and plenty of tacky flashing lights, but there’s this one house near my office that’s just gorgeous, with old fashioned decorations hanging from the gas lamp in front of their front stoop.

It’s nice to think about that, as I’ve felt a little grinchy this year. Saturday, I went with a couple of friends to the Central Park holiday market, a European-style open-air market near Columbus Circle. Sometimes there’s magic to be found there, too, but mostly I was too distracted by the crowds and my need to find some last-minute gifts to find it.

I’ll start looking for it again, though.

—

In book-related news, my upcoming novel The Boy Next Door went off to the proofreader a few days ago. I saw the initial cover mock-up, too, and it looks great! (I’ll post when I get the final.) That will be out from Loose Id on January 25th. It’s about a man who moves back to his home town and winds up living next door to his childhood friend (and teenage crush). I’ll have more to say about that as the release date gets closer. A LOT of work went into this novel, so I’m glad to see the light at the end of this tunnel, and I’m really excited for it to finally be published.