As it's almost December which means it's almost Christmas, I thought I'd have a festive celebratory blog tour for my Serendipity novella series. It has parts one and three sat at Christmas, and part two takes place during the year between the two Christmases.

Here's the blurbs for the three novellas:

Christmas Serendipity: In a snowy small town in England just before the festive season, refugees of bad luck Christian and David find themselves thrown together at a friend’s non-family Christmas. Both men realize this may be just what they need, when they need it.

Serendipity Develops: David and Christian met a few weeks ago, and were thrown together last Christmas through a mixture of luck and fate. They felt an instant spark for one another, but now neither want to rush into bed until they're ready. David thinks he is, but Christian's emotions are all over the place. A stay in hospital makes David wonder if their relationship too much for him to cope with.

The Next Christmas: In a snowy small town in England, just before Christmas, garage mechanic David and office worker Christian are preparing to spend the festive period with Christian's parents. The parents who told Christian last year he wasn't welcome to their family festive celebrations since he told them he was gay. The parents welcome show the men to separate bedrooms. Will their love overcome prejudice?

They are available as 3 individual novellas, one box set ebook or a paperback all on my Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk home pages.

I will reblog the reviews and interviews here as they're posted. Here's the schedule.

Happy holidays!

Liam xx

This time I'm over at Diverse Reader talking about Wrong Room Right Guy and there's also a review too.

Below is the interview:

Can you tell us a little about the story please?

It’s about Simon, an English teacher who’s in the wrong job, who joins a writing group. He accidentally walks into the wrong room in a village hall where the writing group takes place and there he meets Darren, a sexy tracksuit-wearing man who’s at the village hall for a whole different reason. Simon can’t resist seeing Darren again and decides to tell a tiny lie – actually it’s a massive whopper of a lie – to continue seeing Darren.

Can you tell us about the main characters please?

Simon, I think, has a little bit of me in him. The story of him going to a village hall and walking into the wrong room actually happened to me when I went to my first local writers group. Read about it in Clare London’s blog in more detail. Simon is, probably one of my least likeable characters, not least because of the massive lie he has to tell to continue seeing Darren. I’m not going to make excuses for him, and to be honest, I know I wouldn’t be able to live with such a big lie, but for Simon, unhappy in his job, in his minor obsession with Darren, he thinks he has no choice, so he tells the lie. I’m not advocating writers lie to get experience things they can write about, because, at its basic level these are other human beings’ lives we’re talking about. However, a writer does always lurk with intent, making note of overheard conversations, watching life slightly from the sidelines, always wondering if any of it could make it into a book. Catherine Alliott, one of my favourite women’s popular fiction authors, gets most of her story ideas from people she meets at dinner parties.

Darren is a character with a very chequered past. He’s living with an addiction and trying to improve his life, to leave the addiction behind him. For this reason, his experience, shouldn’t be taken lightly. Darren is from a working class background and he’s quite conscious of this difference when compared against Simon’s solid middle class roots. After all, Simon has a ‘profession’ he’s a teacher, and Darren, in his mind, is only a handyman / plumber / plasterer.

Is this book more about writing than about romance?

I don’t think it’s a Romance with a capital R, so to speak – meaning the romance is the main theme in the story. I think the main theme in the story is Simon’s working out his place in the world, what he can do with himself, and that the romance comes from that is a lovely bonus for both men. It’s also about Darren’s journey from addiction and to accepting himself and his background for what he is, and not making excuses for it. And yes, it has a HEA, because, I always seem to write them, but, as with many of my other stories, it’s about the characters’ personal journeys, and the romance is part of that, rather than all of that.

Can you tell us about where the story is set?

It’s set, in a fictional village, on the edge of London, just outside where East London ends and Essex begins. This, for the avoidance of doubt, is where I live. (I don’t live in a fictional part, I live in a real town, but it’s in the same neck of the woods!) I like how this area has both the rural aspects of small villages and the type of characters you often find in those – Clara Bell is very unapologetic about her country, stuff and nonsense ways. Plus, the area’s also near enough to London to give the characters access to the gay scene and all that entails with a short hop on the London Underground. And the area itself, is an interesting mix of the London urban and the countryside rural, making it feel very suburban. Suburbia gets a bad reputation as a boring place that’s neither the vibrant city or the verdant countryside. Only in suburbia would you easily find access to both a village hall full of addicts AND a writing group (a real clash of worlds which appeals to me), plus a large secondary school of children with a general disdain for English literature, and the semi-urban sportswear clad men like Darren mixing with a teacher like Simon. Suburbia, in my view, has alll of life as we know it. And in my own little way I’ve tried to show this with a slice-of-life style in this story.

How do you feel about re-reading old favourite books?

I’d love to do this more often, but there are so many un-read books that I rarely re-read. I do, however keep my favourites and often refer to them for inspiration and comfort. If I’m stuck for an idea I read extracts of old favourites and simply enjoy the pleasure of reading once again, hoping it will fire something in my brain I can use in my WIP. And it usually does!

Do you read right to the end of a book even if it’s not working for you, or do you abandon ship early on?

I have piles and piles of books in my ‘study’ (it’s the spare bedroom but it has a small sofa bed, so we refer to it as a study because it’s where I write during the day) covering the floor, two deep on the shelves, so I’m afraid I don’t have time or patience to plough on if I’m not feeling it with a book.

If I can’t follow the story, I do persevere and maybe flip back to the character list, or re-read chunks before. If it’s boring me I may start to skim read, particularly if there are large chunks of description rather than dialogue which I find, tends to keep the pace zipping along. But the worst reason why I’d abandon a book is if I didn’t care about the characters. If they irritated me, that’s fine, because it’s engendering a reaction in me. If they irritate me, I’ll read on to see if they get their comeuppance. If I love the characters, then I can’t wait to get back to reading about them. However, if I read and find myself not really bothered about what happens to them – whether they live or die, whether they get together or don’t – that’s game over for me I’m afraid. I simply abandon the book. I usually give a book 50 pages or so. If I’m not loving it by then, I pull the rip cord and jump ship. Harsh? Maybe? It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad book, it just means it wasn’t for me. You’ve only to go to Good Reads and find your favourite book and read all thte 1 star reviews, and then go to a book that didn’t work for you and read all the 5 star reviews to know that it is, when all is said and done, very subjective.
Liam Livings xx

Here's Meredith's review:

When Simon, an English teacher and hopeful writer, enters an NA meeting instead of a writing group... and not only stays but pretends to be an ex addict to get information to write a story; I kind of became confused. Not in the plot but in the morals. 
 
Personally I thought it was horribly deceiving and the respect I hoped to have for Simon dwindled. Now, on a creative level I thought it was clever to make this idea into a story.
Darren is a real recovering addict and when Simon starts to like him, he's plagued with what to do about the lies.

Here's where I ran into an issue. While I admire the author's creativity in the idea, the execution couldn't dissuade me from my personal thoughts about Simon's deceit. It weighed too heavily on me and the reader in me fought with the critic in me. I wanted to love this book but I just liked it. Simon, the character, just never became likeable to me and I couldn't forgive him.

Sometimes the personal feelings outrank the critical and this was such a case. 

I was so pleased with this 5 star review from Sue at Books Laid Bare Boys, and I've copied it below too:

When Simon decides to go to a writing class to escape from his mundane life, stepping in to the wrong room may have been a blessing in disguise.

He catches sight of the perfect man for him.
Not wanting to miss an opportunity he returns the next week and pretends to be a recovering drug addict.
This way he gets to know Darren and notes down some useful material for a storyline.
As the relationship develops, his lies become a problem.
Darren has been lied to before and Simon knows when the truth is revealed it could be tricky.
The fabulous Clara-Bell, who runs the writing class is on hand throughout the book with her wealth of advice and delicious meals.
The whole book is so well described you can almost feel the years old paint on the doors leading to the respective classes, you can smell the stews and plum crumble and I could definitely see Clara-Bell in my head.
And as for Darren in his vintage tracksuits and his vintage car, lets just say, I have been there, done that!!!!
5 out of 5 stars.
Sue x

Read more: http://m.books-laid-bare-boys.com/latest-reviews/wrong-room-right-guy-by-liam-livings/

Here's a lovely 4 star review from 2 Chicks and a Book, posted on Amazon.com. I really blushed when I read this. I never quite believe it when others tell me I'm a 'great author'.

It's copied below:

The writing was great. I really liked the story. Now as far as the main characters go Simon was not my favorite. I tried to like him but couldn't. Now Darren he kept me in the book. Overall the story is a good read and Liam is a great author!

I wanted to share a wonderful review from The Geekerybookreview on Wrong Room Right Guy.
I've copied Jenn's review below:

3.5 Stars
This is one of those tougher reviews to write because how I felt at the beginning of the book versus how I felt at the end is completely different. I struggled with the first half of the book and Simon’s character and his oblivious nature, but in the end I did like him and found myself rooting for him.

Simon is an English teacher and is struggling with his job, the kids he teaches have no desire to learn or read and it frustrates him. Simon is looking for a way to be creative but neither his students nor the school works for has any interest in his creativity. He knows he wants to write but struggles with inspiration for that too, so at the advice of a friend he goes to check out a monthly writer’s group. Only he first wanders in the wrong room, it’s a Cocaine Anonymous group. He immediately notices the men in the room, a few even catch his attention. Eventually he finds the correct room and while trying to figure out how to get story ideas he comes up with a plan to join the Cocaine Anonymous group and use their stories to inspire his book characters. But Simon meets Darren, a recovering cocaine addict and he’s immediately drawn to him.

This is where I started having issues, Simon’s behavior thinking it was completely acceptable to be a part of that group and make up his own stories. I did struggle with this. He didn’t see anything wrong with it or question whether it was right. As Simon and Darren develop their friendship I felt for Darren knowing what was going to happen eventually. There were many times I felt Team Darren in this story and wanted Simon to really understand what he was doing.

Of course, as their friendship grows and real feelings emerge it’s time for Simon to come clean, and again had some struggles with that moment. But Simon does it and of course it hurts Darren, deeply. Things turned around a bit for me here, Simon really feels the impact of what he’s done and even seems to understand that it won’t be an easy fix, if there is one.

So, by the time I got to the end of this story I was rooting for Darren and Simon, for the understanding and learning and love to be there, and it was! I commend Liam Livings for writing a story that wasn’t 100% fall in love with, but one that actually made me think. There were real life mistakes in this story and struggles for both characters. Yes, there were moments I didn’t like, but it made the story real and more touching. I was happy in the end and had a smile on my face! I’m definitely looking forward to reading more from Liam Livings!

I've been over at The Novel Approach answering questions about Heat Wave Astoria. If you'd like something sizzling to warm you up on a cold winter's night, you could check out Brad and James' story.

I've copied the interview below too:

Can you tell us about Heat Wave Astoria, please? 
It’s a shamelessly romantic opposites attract story set in Astoria. Brad doesn’t do relationships, he prefers to keep things to one night. British IT programmer James is very introverted and doesn’t really do relationships with people, never mind boyfriends. They meet for one night and it kind of develops from there.

Where did you draw your inspiration for Brad and James?
Brad has parts of a few friends who are perpetually single and happy that way. He is also little snippets of things I’ve been told about men other friends have met on the gay scene. He’s not a judgement about whether sleeping around is a good or bad thing, it’s just the way he likes to live his life. Because no human being is all bad or all good, I wanted to give Brad a human gentle touch too. His relationship with his flatmate Rory and his friendships with the other residents of Astoria too. He’s very kind to the elderly residents of Astoria. As I said, Brad’s not meant to be bad or good, he’s simply an expression of a lifestyle many gay men choose.
James kind of sprang up from the total opposite of Brad. At the time I was writing the story, I’d just bought a new laptop to replace my old Windows XP one. The new laptop had Windows 7 on it (and still does, no thank you very much to Windows 10…) and the concept of a man working on an operating system kind of presented itself to me. I’d watched a film called Her, about a man who falls in love with his computer’s operating system (the film was a bit meh, in my opinion, but the concept itself I found interesting). I know some computery people and in my experience they tend to prefer the certainty of binary numbers than the messy complicated uncertainties of human beings. And pretty soon BOOM, I had James’ character worked out on paper.

What significance did the secondary characters have for the story?
Because it’s a novella and the maximum word count for the submission call was 40,000, it meant I couldn’t have lots of sub-plots and secondary characters. I had to keep the story to the two main characters and their burgeoning romance. However, nobody – even an introvert who prefers his own company than others, like James – has no-one to talk to. James has his colleagues at the IT software company, but his real confidante is his brother. I thought it was more likely he’d open up to a relative than a friend, plus James’ brother understands James and his ways and can provide gentle counsel to him when James is confused amid a sea of Brad’s and his emotions.
Conversely, Brad is very extrovert and basically knows everyone in Astoria. His house mate Rory has known him for a long time, knows what Brad is like and provides, I hope a second sensible opinion for Brad as he finds himself going down a path he never thought he’d tread.
In a novella of this length, the secondary characters are important to provide colour and variety to the story, but they all need to reflect additional parts of the main characters’ personality. It would have been lovely to write scenes with Rory and her life, and have them discussing her problems, but this novella isn’t about that story, it’s about Brad and James’ story and I hope you enjoy it.

Why did you set it in Astoria, which is unlikely to have a heat wave?
During 2012 the BF and I went to the Pacific North West of America and Vancouver, Canada on holiday to avoid the Olympics in London. Yes, really! We drive through Seattle, Portland and spent a delightful few days in Astoria. It was on the way between the bigger cities we planned to visit and when I found out it was where they’d made some of my favourite films, I just had to visit. I was utterly charmed by its small town atmosphere. There were quilting and antique shops everywhere and everyone seemed to know all the locals when we ate in the restaurants.
I also remember noticing it seemed pretty gay friendly – two men started talking to the BF and me in a restaurant, asking us how our ‘vacation’ was going and did we like Astoria? As a massive Gilmore Girls fan, it kind of reminded me of Stars Hollow!
I wanted to combine all those factors of the setting into Heat Wave Astoria. The story was for a submission call and it had to be set around a heat wave. Honestly, I didn’t even think about whether there could be a heat wave in Astoria, but I did want the heat wave and the town itself to be a significant part of the story. I saw Astoria and the heat wave as almost like another character that would force Brad and James together, but also keep them apart because they may not end up together…
Happy reading, Liam Livings xx

The title of this post was written on the side of a caravan in a site near Clacton on Sea, Essex and it made me smile. I’ve spent many happy weeks of holiday in caravans in Cornwall and Wales since I’ve been an adult. I like how it gives me access to some beautiful countryside at an affordable price.
So, I’d read a lot about writers retreats all over Europe and really liked the idea of time dedicated to just writing, talking writing and being with authors. The things that stopped me booking was that they were often £500 or more and usually tended to be for a week which would have required a week’s annual leave from my day job I couldn’t really spare.
There must be another way – I thought.
And then it hit me, I could organise a short, basic accommodation writing retreat to get around the two issues above. I combined this with my love of caravans and my desire to go on a writing retreat and so the budget TOWIE style Essex writers retreat idea was born.
We hired an 8 berth caravan – 1 double bedroom, two twin bedrooms and room for two to sleep in the living room – for Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. The entire caravan cost £244 to hire for the three nights, so between 5 of us it worked out very reasonably.
We all arrived from Friday afternoon to Friday evening but could have checked in from 3pm.
Yes, the kitchen was so small it could only contain two of us at a time for fear of accidental body touching. Yes, there were two toilets and a small shower. Yes, I slept in the living room area on a sofa bed contraption. But, it was all about the writing and it was budget.
So, I joined 4 other mm romance authors to spend the weekend in a caravan by the sea writing. To make sure we actually did write during the weekend I had designated times during the weekend for quiet writing and we all, pretty much, kept to these. I scheduled 2 hours Friday evening, three hours Saturday and Sunday morning and then four hours Saturday and Sunday afternoons. It was a total of 16 hours’ writing time over the whole weekend.
Between us we wrote about 46,000 words including my 14,000. Yes, I was surprised when I double checked, but according to my little WIP word count note I keep, that was right. I’m not posting everyone else’s word counts because it wasn’t competitive, it was just quietly encouraging and supportive.
It was so interesting to see how others’ writing ‘process’ worked and it was very encouraging to my productivity to only hear the quiet tapping of fingers on keyboards.
There was no internet of any description – mobile phones or wifi – in the caravan. This, I think helped our writing productivity. Knowing this, I didn’t even bring my laptop, I went low tech and just brought my Neo for first drafting of the Christmas novella WIP.
I sat with the Neo on my lap on the sofa – there’s something quite opulent about writing reclining like that and I often write in bed too. Clare London and Jay Rookwood sat with Barbie the pink laptop and a tablet / keyboard respectively at the table, joined by George Loveland who tapped away on his Neo, proudly transferring its words onto his netbook after each session. AE Ryehart tapped away in her room on her laptop, joining us for tea and coffee making sessions in the kitchen.
It wasn’t all writing. There was plenty of time for fun too! We went to Brightlingsea for a walk along the beach and food by the tower and sea water pool. And on Sunday we visited Clacton for the push penny machines, amusement arcade a walk along the pier and then beach with lots of ice cream obviously.
Personally, I love the sea and find it a great inspiration for writing, even in winter. I deliberately chose a location near the coast for this reason because I wanted somewhere interesting to spend time when we weren’t writing.
We had readings – only if people wanted to read their work out – gave feedback on the work; we helped each other with stuck plot points (the ending of my Christmas novella was basically plotted in that caravan and for that I’m very grateful); we discussed writing processes and what we enjoyed reading and writing.
With all the drama and fighting and anger in the mm romance genre which seems to erupt with remarkable regularity online, the weekend in the caravan without the internet, concentrating on what’s important (writing and friendships with other people), it reminded me how lucky I am to write and have friends in the mm romance genre. I reflected on this on the Monday morning we checked out by 10am, as I walked along the sea wall looking at Brightingsea over the water and on the lovely drive accompanied by Erasure Pop 40 Hits all the way home.

Would I do it again?
Absolutely. It was all I’d hoped it would be. Fun, productive, budget, and an opportunity to get to know better some of my author friends. Because the caravans can be booked separately, it only requires a small number of authors to commit to it to get one caravan booking filled – as we did. It can also grow incrementally too; if there was a rush of authors all wanting to come too, we could easily book 2, 3, 4 caravans, each with a lead person to book it. We could request that our bookings were near to one another and mix together during writing time or social times. It is all very flexible. The caravan sites are now closed until spring so there won’t be anything until next year now. However, I’m definitely interested in repeating this in 2017. Where I do it is up for grabs, but as it’s a long weekend I expect it’ll be somewhere weekendable from the London area where I live.
If you’d like to be kept in the loop with future plans, do let me know by commenting below or send me a PM or email. I think it would be such fun to get a larger group of us spread over 2 or more caravans.
Until next time,
Liam Livings xx

In other news, I’m pleased to announce there are still places on the Real People Write Books workshop I'm running with fellow romantic novelist and ex-teacher, Virginia Heath. The workshop, Write That Novel Workshop on Saturday 21 January 2017, in London.

It’s designed for people who don’t want the expense or time of a residential writing retreat and are done with reading books and websites about how to write. It’s interactive, activity-led and fun-filled with plenty of useful tools for you to take away and use on your own writing.

For details of what it includes, and how much it costs, see this page. I’d love to see you there,