The Eight Ball will help celebrate our eighth anniversary here at Torquere Press! Join us for the celebration!

We’re having a reader scavenger hunt with weekly gift basket prizes and a grand prize (this year, a brand-new 3G Kindle along with a CD of stories from each participating author), plus daily prizes of gift certificates to show our appreciation to you — our readers! Check our blog, http://glbtromance.blogspot.com/ where we’ll have a number of our authors visiting the whole month. We’ll post excerpts, hang out to chat, and talk about our stories.

In addition to the grand prize of the Kindle, we’re giving away gift baskets every week! Some are silly, some are smutty, and all are fun. The themed ones are: m/m, ménage, BDSM, and lesbian plus our authors have chipped in with extra goodies.

Here’s how to play. Visit our contest page, http://www.torquerebooks.com/contest/contactmain.html, and start scavenging for the Eight Ball answers. Visit the author pages and find the graphic somewhere on their site. An online form is set up, and we’ll randomly choose a winner for the Kindle from all of the correct entries. Plus, every day, readers will have the chance to win a Torquere gift certificate and a gift basket.

Help us celebrate our eighth anniversary and ask the Eight Ball your question… Like, will I win a prize from Torquere Press?

Torquere Press is compiling and re-releasing the stories that make up my Used, Rare…. world. Today the first compilation, Used, Rare and Limited Editions, is out, and in a few months the second set will be made available.

What is it, you ask? Well, all together they are six stories about Dave and Archie, Des and Wyatt. And Dave and Des. And Archie and Wyatt. As Dave puts it, it’s just one big poly, mostly kinky, partner swap.

With construction and books.

You can get it here.

Things I know that didn’t make it into the stories:

• Des’ uncle was wildly eccentric and dreamed of being the next Tesla. He actually was that smart, but lacked focus.
• Archie has a Mom, the kind of Mom that tends to take over and fuss and put up curtains. She’s not quite sure what to do with Dave, but she wants to hug him all the time. They avoid her for the most part.
• Wyatt’s intro to the scene was one of his own professors. Wyatt was actually a wild thing when he was younger, and liked to play head games as much as football. He’s been broken of that.
• Des’ intro to the scene was a woman named Cherise who knew what he could do long before Des had a clue.
• Dave usually giggles when he thinks of any of the other three being That Way They Are. He tries to keep it under control, but he giggles.
• Archie knows Dave giggles and will one day haul off and smack him on the butt for it.
• Dave will not like that.
• Des will be sad that Dave didn’t like it.
• Wyatt will feel more secure in his place.

I’ve been working away on a new novel called Prove It, which I hope to submit in mid April to Torquere. It’s the story of Warren and Silas and Tal, three guys who’ve been friends since they were wee little dudes. In fact, the first half of the novel is all about them growing up together and then it leads into The Crux of the Matter… what happens when love enters the equation and a lifetime of history leads to hard questions. When you know exactly how much of a jerk someone can be, can you give your heart to him, or does he really have to prove it to you first? I’m having a great time writing it, and I hope you’ll enjoy the backstory as much as the fun and fabulous adult content in the latter half.

I have a new short out at Torquere, staring Dean and Spencer from a couple years ago. They were in Everyone Loves a Wedding in the Family Matters anthology, and now they’re back in Walking Spencer. Very light kink with a hint of casual D/s, but not BDSM. Just a little bit of play.

My renovation is finally done and my house, while still dusty, is back in order. My term at the craft school is at about the midway point and I’m loving it. Looking forward to spring here on the east coast, though, and hoping that tomorrow it will be warm enough to get out for my first run (hahahaha — that’s what I call my walk/jog) of the year.

I’d say I hope to post more but that would be one of those sincere comments that lead to guilt when I look up months from now and think “oops”!

The best way to ask me short questions and get a short reply is via twitter — I’m much, much more on top of that. You can find me here: http://twitter.com/chris_owen Of course, if you have more in depth things to bring to my attention, by all means e-mail.

Okay, breakfast first.

Private eye, 1981 pre-AIDS, hard boiled with an air of noir. Love it. Wish I’d written it. Go read.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=241&main_page=index

Mother May I is out in both print and e-book.

The Blurb:

DB and Jesse from the Eye Spy books are back, and things are going well for DB Black Investigations, and DB himself. Business is, while not exactly booming, humming along nicely and there’s finally enough money coming in to hire a new full-time secretary, allowing DB to focus on the cases, and his ghostly lover Jesse. Things are looking up with Jesse as well, as every day they get a little bit better at this human-ghost relations thing.

Their latest client, Duke, is a bit of a jerk, but he’s got plenty of money to burn, along with a bad case of being haunted by his deceased mother. DB and Jesse soon discover that the old lady is trying to protect her money rather than her son, and she isn’t going to go gently into the light and what lies beyond for the dead. To further complicate DB and Jesse’s lives, DB’s mother shows up from out of town, armed with much love and lots of questions about DB’s personal life. Not only that, she’d love nothing more than to set her son up with a few nice boys she knows who are also single. What’s a man with a ghost lover to do?

***

I loooooove the DB and Jesse stories. They’re a ton of fun to write, and the characters are quirky and slightly nerdy. Just like me!

Anyway, check it out!

Turn the Other Cheek will be out in September — either the 8th or the 22. No date yet on Safe Words, but I have the comments from the editor and have to hand it back by the middle of July, so I would think mid-fallish, maybe?

Things are moving along!

Torquere: Memorial Day Sale!

Receive 20% off your next purchase at Torquere Books
(http://www.torqurerebooks.com).

Just put “mem2010″ into the coupon code when you check out and receive 20%
off your purchase.

Coupon good for one use only any time between now and 11:59pm (EST) Monday
May 31, 2010.

Go shop.

Anyway, just two quick things to share today. I’ve been getting a lot of e-mail lately asking about Turn the Other Cheek and where people can find it. That’s easy! Right now the story is running on Torquere’s Turn of the Screw serial service. It should be out as a complete novel by the end of summer.

Related to that, I really should have had that information in my FAQ. I’ll tuck it in there right now, but I’d also like you to shoot me other things you’d like me to include in the FAQ. As long as I’m going to update it, I might as well keep a running list of things that people feel should be there. So, fire away. You can either comment here or you can find me on Twitter (chris_owen), or you can always drop me an e-mail (chrisowen.net at gmail.com).