What's Coming Next

First off, I will have a new collection in print coming out in May. The date on these releases is always flexible, just depending on when the book gets uploaded and is printed and ready for sale but it will be in May. The title is Daring Directions and it includes four stories: Homeless in Heaven, Last Train to Clarkdale, A Different Drummer and A Game of Hearts. All of these are somewhat unique and even "off beat" stories although I'm sure my normal voice and style is very much there. They've been out in electronic form as individual releases for some time but I felt they fit together to become a print collection. To me, they are just kind of special! I loved all these characters, for all their quirks and oddities, for the twists and turns they led me on as they shared their stories. I think you will too! I'll let you know as soon as it is available and will l have a few autographed copies to sell at the new release discount (25% off list) plus postage. There will probably be one or two up for grabs as a giveaway prize, too.

Here are the blurbs:

Homeless in Heaven: Homeless for over two years, Merl has hunkered down to endure a second winter in Eden, Colorado. He has lost the ability to trust or accept kindness as anything but a sneaky attempt to weaken him for an attack.   Knowing he should seek to get back into the mainstream, he lacks the will to try. Nate has led a sheltered and privileged life as the only child of wealthy older parents, now deceased. He is working on a photo journalism piece about the homeless people in Eden when he first encounters Merl. Can he win Merl’s trust and cooperation in an effort to provide positive long term help to other homeless people in the area?  Even more important, can he forge a real partnership with the suspicious older man?

Last Train to Clarkdale:  For Clay, always a misfit and bullied at school, contact with the railroad and railroaders in the small town where he grew up was a lifeline. He went on to a career in the industry although not out on the track. Some odd compulsion draws him back to his long departed home despite the painful memories he has of the place. A chance meeting with Jon and sharing an afternoon’s tourist rail trip results from his impulse.  He gets an instant crush on the big, bluff man, but what can a geeky clerical type rail fan offer a famous world traveling scenic and wildlife photographer like Jon?

A Different Drummer: Jest has been on his own since his mid teens and still blesses the chance that let him realize his dream of playing percussion in a band, one who has become his surrogate family. Greene has struggled to build himself a life far from the undisciplined communal community in which he grew to his mid teens. Traveling aimlessly, he meets Jest and the other members of Taken By Storm. He’s intrigued but terrified of slipping back into a disorderly world like that of his childhood.

A Game of Hearts: Losing the love of his life, DeVore became a recluse. At one of the few social functions he steels himself to attend, he meets an amazing young man. Can he find new life and new love? Tim Hardesty was a preemie and always frail. As a teenager, an organ transplant was the only thing that could save him. Now grown to manhood he is still struggling to break away from family ties and find a purpose for his life. It’s a thrill to meet an idol whose powerful photographs move many. But is this attraction his own or coming from the stranger’s heart now beating in his chest? Sometimes to win in the game of hearts, you have to risk terrible pain and take fearsome chances. 

Reminder--Midnight Cowboys available Sunday! (M/M Adult situation)

Midnight Cowboys by Deridre O'Dare  http://www.amberquill.com/store/p/2168-Midnight-Cowboys.aspx

I'm really excited about the next PAX, Ooh to be back in the 1960s! That turbulent decade was such a powerful turning point in the lives of those who lived it, especially if it came at that impressionable time in their lives, catching them in the middle teens to late twenties. The events and social changes of the times probably marked the rest of their lives. I can't wait to get the other four stories in this collection!

I really tried to capture some of this angst, mystique and atmosphere in Midnight Cowboys. I am pretty sure that Riki and Jerry both became different men than they might have been without the experiences they had which I laid out in the story. As with all of my tales, the main characters became very real to me and I truly had a sense that they were dictating their story to me and I simply took it down and maybe played with the words a little bit as I did so.

Here is one more excerpt, a pretty hot one. They've been to a party and both are somewhat drunk and also high, Jerry on pot and Riki on coke.

 ***

Once back on campus, they staggered up the three flights of stairs, leaning on each other’s dubious support.

“I…hate…these…fucking…stairs.” Riki ground out the words between breaths. The mixture of coke and beer seemed to have depleted his natural energy. “Ain’t no stairs at Tolbert’s place. We need ta move.”

“Maybe,” Jerry replied. “I gotta think on it with a clear head.”

They stumbled into their room, and Jerry kicked the door shut behind them. Riki looked around, disgust on his face. “Ah, fuck it. I’m horny. No way can I do those steps again, though. If I could, I’d go back to the Panther or somewhere…”

“So’m I,” Jerry admitted. “Horny, I mean.” Then he surprised himself with his next words. “We can do something about it right here if you want.” They were still standing close, Riki’s arm across Jerry’s shoulders and Jerry’s around Riki’s waist.

Riki stared at Jerry, struggling to focus his eyes. “Say what? I mean us, you and me?”

Jerry shrugged, not quite comfortable now that it had been said when they were still so close. “Well, we could. Shit, if I could suck that fat, stinking, old oil man, I guess I could do you.”

Riki laughed. “Oh yeah, there’s that, huh? I don’t think I stink, but I’m about as drunk as he was. Won’t pass out, though, not yet. Okay, I’m game if you are.” He pulled away far enough to unbuckle his belt and lower the zipper on his jeans. Pushing them down off his hips, along with his shorts, he flopped back onto a chair. “’N if I don’t pass out, I’ll do you after.”

Put up or shut up, Hoffman. Jerry dropped to his knees in front of Riki. Even if he’d seen his friend nude the other night at the hotel, this was different. Riki’s cock stood up stiff, almost brushing his lower belly. It was dark with blood, twitching with each heartbeat.

When Jerry wrapped his hand around it, the strangeness didn’t hit him as it had with the oil man. The scent he inhaled, though musky and male, was not offensive. He stroked a couple of times, experimentally, getting the spirit of it.

More on Midnight Cowboys!

Okay, we have a  PAX cover now and I can tell you the other four stories. They will all be out on April 19 so you do not have long to wait. The titles are Laurel Canyon by AJ Llewellen, Silences of Fallen Stars by Vivian Dean, The Stonewall Inn by DJ Manly, Woodstock gave Me You by JD Walker and Midnight Cowboys by yours truly. Here is the collection cover:

Another excerpt coming up in the next day or two and you need to check our PAX blog   http://amberpax.blogspot.com/ the next two weeks for more and to get special tidbits from each author about their contribution to the collection. A blast from the past indeed!!

A fave story of mine and a Special Sale!!!

This is not necessarily one of my best sellers but when I look at my back list, I always go to this one right away. It was special to  me when I wrote it and remains so. Grab a copy at 50% off now between April 8 and 14.  Click the link below!

50% Overall Discount Sale -- All Deirdre O'Dare E-Books

http://www.amberquill.com/store/m/137-Deirdre-O-Dare.aspx

Take it Easy by Deridre O'Dare ISBN:978-1-60272-315-3

http://www.amberquill.com/store/p/713-Take-It-Easy.aspx 

Genres: Contemporary / The Arts / Some Lesbian Content 
Heat Level: 3 
Length: Extended Amber Kiss (13k words)

Blurb: 

Stormy Alcott supports herself, her two children and her mother by working as an independent cross-country trucker. When low fuel forces her to get off I-40 in Winslow, Arizona, she sees and picks up a passenger who turns out to be a musician down on his luck. Together they make some amazing music. Is a career change in her future?

Tom Holden, newly back from military duty in the Middle East with the Tennessee National Guard, hopes to catch up with his old band in Las Vegas. His truck breaks down, leaving him stranded in Winslow. Before a violent summer storm hits, a lady trucker gives him a lift. Can the inspiration she provides help him make it to the big time?

Excerpt: (They've just come onto a bad wreck near the Arizona-California line here.)

"I guess I could try and turn around and go back to Kingman, but I don't see much use in it. Not much we can do but wait. "

He flashed a grin at her. "Yeah, no forty-acre field here, is there?"

She socked him on the shoulder. "Go on with you. I don't need no forty acres to turn my rig around. Twenty will do just fine."

At the instant her fist impacted his solid bicep, his hand closed around her wrist. All at once the cab filled with a humming tension. Energy arced between them, eyes to eyes and skin to skin where his callused fingers shaped a bracelet around her arm. She relaxed her hand and spread it across the heat of his taut muscle absorbing the masculine power he radiated.

After a moment, he tugged, shifting her balance until she fell toward him. He released her wrist, but only long enough to close his arms around her. She settled against the comfortable breadth of his chest, a slow sigh leaking out of her lungs. I'll move, pull away in just a minute, but this feels so damn good... Before she completed the thought, his mouth found hers, and coherency flew right out of her mind.

He tasted of coffee and mint gum, and he kissed like a master at the craft. She didn't even think before she opened to the teasing probe of his tongue. He edged a hand up between their bodies and palmed her breast. Her whole body shivered at the touch as her nipple pebbled inside her bra, straining at the silky lace fabric. It felt like heaven, but was still not enough. Nowhere near enough.

"Can't get a room, but the sleeper behind us has a real nice mattress." She cringed at the inane remark, but it was said and it made the point.

"Lead on, sugar. I'm right behind you."

Stormy felt exposed when she climbed down from the cab and opened the sleeper door, Tom right behind her.

I might as well be standing naked in front of the No-tell Motel. Oh, hell, for all anybody knows, we're married. It's nobody's business anyway. It's been too long since I got laid and I need this.

The sleeper had no wasted space. It held a double bed, which took about all the room there was. She crawled onto the mattress and toward the back corner, leaving room for Tom to get up beside her. He shut the door behind them and stretched out. She flipped on one small light, the one she sometimes read by, and turned to face him.

He toed off his boots and laid them down in the six-inch strip of floor that edged the bed.

"Don't want to get mud on your pretty quilt," he explained. "It looks like the kind my grandma use to make. She lived up in the hills outside of Nashville and pretty much clung to the old ways."

"My gran made this one," Stormy confessed. "She's been gone quite a while, but she left a bunch of pretty handwork behind. I use this to keep her memory alive and a little bit of her here with me."

"You can't beat a good ole southern hill lady unless it's a good young one."

She caught his insouciant grin out of the corner of her eye.

Oh, man, he's got a line and charm as thick as peanut butter. Stormy kicked off her athletic shoes and dropped them beside his boots. Before she was done, he laid her back with two sure hands and rolled up to prop on his elbow looking down at her.

"Is that your real name, Stormy? How'd a pretty lady get stuck with such a moniker?"

"Yeah, 'bout as real as it gets. My birth certificate reads Stormy Jane Alcott. I took back my own name after my louse of an ex took off. Wasn't about to call myself Stoker any longer. If I could, I'd change my kids' names, too. As to how or why, Mama used to tell me it was a real dark and stormy night when I made my appearance and she just thought it fit. Always did have a bit of a temper..."

Excerpt 1 from Midnight Cowboys--adult language

Midnight Cowboys by Deirdre O'Dare, to be released April 19, 2015 from Amber Quill Press !! ISBN and buy link coming soon!

This introduces and covers the initial meeting between Riki and Jerry as both arrive at college and discover they are roommates.

Crockett State College,

South West Texas

September 1967

Richard “Riki” Robards shoved the scuffed door open before he skidded to a stop. Grim and austere barely described the room he viewed. He’d seen sweeter jail cells. Oh shit, oh goddam fucking shit. And I’ve gotta share this grody overgrown closet with a roommate?

He stepped aside as Sanchez shuffled in with the fourth load of Riki’s stuff and dumped it in the middle of the dark, dreary room.

“Tha’s it.”  Sanchez, the senior Robards’ current man of all work, huffed out an aggravated breath. “I’m goin’ home now.”

That left nothing for Riki to say except, “Gracias. Hasta luego.” He knew Sanchez did not care for him, but that was okay. Neither did his family, really. Riki was on his own now, anyway. Taking a step through the door, he caught sight of his reflection in the streaked mirror hanging over a battered chest of drawers. He addressed the image aloud.

“You gotta make it work this time, my man. You’re down oh and two here. It’s either become a college student for real or head for boot camp. No other choices.”

For an instant he saw himself with a shaved head and baggy camouflage uniform. The picture was not pretty. No, his party was over. Family purse strings had been tightened with a severe hand. And a Robards, he had been informed, did not run off to Canada as an alternative to military service. If he even attempted it, he’d be disowned completely. This time he’d better buckle down to produce decent grades and acceptable behavior. Or else. After failing in one college and being expelled from another he was running out of options.

Exhaling a ragged sigh, he stepped aside at the sound of footsteps closing behind him. He turned to see a slender fair young man stumble to the door, holding a box balanced on his right shoulder while he dragged a clumsy, abused-looking suitcase with the other hand.

“Hi,” he said, in a low, somewhat hesitant tone.

“Wish I was.” At that, the other man’s eyes widened for an instant before he schooled his face to a neutral expression.

“Yeah, right.”

The new arrival glanced at the number on the door and then gave a nod. “You picked your side yet?”

Riki shrugged. “I’ll take this one, the right.”

“Okay.” The newcomer dumped the box onto the desk in his half and propped the suitcase against the foot of the second single bed. He took a couple of deep breaths. “Those stairs are a bummer. Just one more load, though.”

For a moment the two of them stood, taking each other’s measure. The newcomer wore a light yellow Oxford shirt, button down collar and all. With it he had on neatly pressed khaki slacks and… penny loafers?  Did anyone really still wear them these days? Riki suppressed a smirk. Holy shit, a real preppy type nerd, dork or something, like square squared. Still, despite the uncool attire, the guy wasn’t bad looking.

Part of Riki wanted to launch into a sneering attack but something held him back. Maybe a vague sense of self preservation. No use making an enemy of someone you had to live with, even a guy who might be induced to help with your homework or do papers for you. Fast as a riff on his Strat, Riki shifted mental gears.

“Hey, I’m Riki. With two “I’s”, like Jimi.

“Err, Hendrix you mean?”

“Yeah, the man, the hip one, the killer.”

“Okay, cool. I’m Jerry.”

After a beat, Riki surprised himself. “Need a hand with your shit?”

“Nah, just one more load. My typewriter and another box. I can deal with it.”

***

Jerry clattered back down the stairs. He moved his rusty VW away from the loading zone before he grabbed the last of his stuff. With his portable typewriter under one arm and a second box tucked against his right side, he headed back up to his new home. Wow, college was really going to be different. He looked around at other students arriving, lugging their assorted shit into the dorm.

Most were in wide-legged blue jeans and bright t-shirts or flashy cowboy attire. Well, this was Texas, after all. A few were dressed like he was but they were the minority. Across the parking lot, in front of another dorm, the incoming students appeared mostly female. Big hair, really short skirts or those grandma looking long dresses. Foxy, most of them, but even from here he could hear them, most cussing up a storm. Back home girls didn’t do that, at least right out in public. Every second word seemed to be “fuck.”

Holy shit, he’d never ever said that word in front of a woman or a girl! Good thing Mom and Grandma were not here. They’d be ready to drag him right back home to Piney Creek. All at once he recognized that his education was not all going to be academic. He’d fallen into a brand new world here, a world light years from the conservative little town where he’d spent all of his nineteen years. He thought about his new roommate and grinned.

Riki, huh. Some name. Riki was one of those in jeans, elephant legged and long, right down over whatever he had on his feet. On top a black t-shirt with glitter and those psychedelic flowers and stuff all over it. Good looking, too. Almost black hair down over his shoulders and a wicked grin.  Jerry was sure he’d seen a guitar case and a big amp in the heap of the other guy’s stuff. Maybe he even played in a band. Oh man, that would be outta sight!         

And that was how it all began…