I'm very pleased to share the cover of Don't You Want Me. 

It's about Tony, a Human League obsessed social worker who's given up men, since he was searching for love in all the wrong places. He mentors a colleague, Nick and their relationship moves from professional, friendly, to much more when they're forced to share a hotel room together. 

Tony is a secondary character in the Kev, adventures in dating series and he really begged me for his own happy ever after. He's also in my ensemble piece, The Regiment of Majestic Gays. 

I'll share the blurb once it's ready! 

This will be out in November 2020. 

Meanwhile, here's Tony! 

love and light, 

Liam xx

The Amazon fairies did their thing quicker than expected, so I was able to share Guarding the Prince a little earlier. 

Prince Olly of Meltivia was great fun to write. He's over the top, flamboyant, and single minded. Ezra, on the other hand, is quieter, doesn't talk about his feelings much at all - much more introspective. 

If you're looking for some fun, escapist, out for you, steamy royal gay romance, make sure to grab yourself a copy of Guarding the Prince! 

I was quite nervous about re-releasing this story. I wrote it in 2015 and it was published as a novella. Since receiving my rights back I was able to add in lots more content because there was no word limit restriction, as previously it was for a submission call with a max word count. In the end I added about 50% extra content, although the story, characters and setting remained the same. 

It was great fun revisiting Brad and James and being able to improve the story. I'm so pleased readers are enjoying it too!

You can read the GoodReads reviews here. 

If you're looking for some steamy opposites attract romantic fun, be sure to grab yourself a copy on Amazon. 

Liam Livings 
xx

I'm so pleased this is back out in the world. It's a steamy, opposites attract, small town gay romance.

It was originally written and released in 2015 as a novella called Heatwave Astoria. It’s now revised and enhanced as a full-length novel, with 50% extra content. The plot, characters and setting are still the same.

I enjoyed revisiting this story and these characters. As it was written for a submission call with a maximum word count, it was lovely to return to the story and layer in lots of the things I couldn't due to word count restrictions. I ended up adding about 20,000 words.

Here's the blurb:
British software engineer James, clings to carefully made plans in his perfectly unadventurous life. He avoids people-ing at all costs and has no need of a boyfriend. Forced to spend the summer at the Oregon office, his ordered world is thrown upside down.

Awkward in his home-made jacket, and melting in the heat, isn’t how James expects to meet one man tour-guide & player Brad, who’s keen to show James the sites of Astoria. Including his bed.
James's old habits are discarded, his carefully guarded heart opens, as a casual one nighter develops into much more. But James isn’t prepared to find a man who’s as kind and caring outside the bedroom as he’s wanton and inventive inside. Or to start falling in something for Brad, because James must leave at the end of summer.

I'll return to 'the story behind the story' in another post.

Meanwhile, be sure to grab yourself a copy on Amazon.

And isn't that cover perfect?

Love and light,

Liam xx

I'd like to put together a group of splendidly fabulous people who can help me share new book news on social media.

The plan is for me to email volunteers once a week in the run up to a new release with ideas about what I'll be posting about my new book during that week. And then you can share this on whatever social media you'd like. It will only be in the few weeks before a new release. Not all the time!

Who'd like to be one of Liam's Lovely #Lovers too?

• There will only be one email per week in the run up to new releases.
• You can stop doing it whenever you'd like, just let me know.
• You can post on whatever is your preferred social media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, however you currently hangout online would be great.
• As a thank you I can send you advance reader copies direct to your Kindle of my stories. If you have time it would be lovely for you to post reviews of these, but absolutely no pressure, it’s just to say thanks for being splendidly fabulous and helping me spread the word!

If you're interested can you email at liamlivings@gmail.com by 10 August pls?
Lots of love and light,

Liam xx

I have a new release out today and I thought it would be interesting to talk about the story behind the story.

What was the inspiration behind Wild for You?
One day I was waiting to board a plane with Himself and he’d been reading a newspaper. He mentioned a farm in England where they’d let the land return to nature and were now running a very successful eco-farming, free range meat, and holiday rentals business. I asked what that process was and Himself explained it’s called rewilding. I read the article and it seemed like an interesting setting for a ‘fish out of water’ townie character to try and do himself. This is the article https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/15/the-magical-wilderness-farm-raising-cows-among-the-weeds-at-knepp

Meanwhile, I started following someone on Instagram who I found very attractive. Although I have no interest in bodybuilding, I suddenly found myself wanting to watch this man weight lifting, or jumping up and down. I can’t imagine why… https://www.instagram.com/lexlederman/?hl=en If someone climbed into my head to create the perfect body type and build of a man I would find most attractive, you’d end up with a man who looks like Alex.

So there was that.

And alongside this, I had recently discovered retro category romance novels. A friend had kindly given me a box-full of ones she was looking to get rid of. I even made this picture to show the variety of their covers in a heart shape. Because, in case you didn’t know I am all about the romance!

I started to think about how an author who wrote romance, could find himself with the challenge of rewilding a farm, and being completely clueless. And obviously, the neighbouring farmer would look like the guy in the Instagram link. So my brain immediately clicked to some tropes I love writing: opposites attract, friends to lovers, hurt comfort. And then I had the story!


What was the hardest part to write in Wild for You?
I tend to write little description in my early drafts, adding it in layers as I self edit. But because Wild for You is set in a farm on the outskirts of a small town, I needed to include that from the start. It was almost as if the farm and small town are characters in the story. I think the hardest part to write was the slow burn between the characters. It’s a sort of push and pull between them both being attracted to one another, while becoming friends, alongside their internal conflicts keeping them apart.

I wanted to keep the attraction between them natural feeling, as it grew, while also being something they both resisted. Balancing that was difficult.

I usually ensure my main characters have a friend they can discuss their feelings with. This was easy with Luke as he lives with his sister. However, for William, he’s left his London life behind, so knows no one. Although he is in contact with his late husband’s family, as an ongoing connection to him, he doesn’t want to discuss his feelings for Luke with them. So William is more reflective and quiet, which meant I had to ensure his introspection was balanced with him doing things because long periods of reflection alone can sometimes slow down the pacing.


What were the characters like to write?
As soon as I had their jobs clear and what they looked like, I thought about their conflicts; what internal issues / would from the past, would keep them apart.

I wanted there to be a reason for Luke the farmer to help William the author, so I thought being recently widowed with a mission would make William determined, while also needing some help. William’s biggest conflict about why he can’t be with Luke is the memory of his late husband. William worries it’s too soon, that he should grieve his late husband and by being with someone else he’s somehow denigrating the love he felt.

With Luke, he was clearly going to be the big strong gruff type of man who’d run a farm. Plus I wanted him to be completely opposite to William in terms of interests and appearance bc who doesn’t love an opposites attract romance? Luke, although not shy of attention, but having witnessed his parents’ marriage dissolving before his eyes, he’s thrown his energies into the farm with his love live remaining non-existent. He’s managed this long without a relationship, so why would he want one now?

But William is, at heart, a total, head-over-heels romantic, because he writes and reads all the romance...


What helped you make the decision on how to write the sensual scenes in Wild for You?
I enjoy writing a variety of levels of sensuality. It depends on the story and the characters. Because Wild for You is a slow burn, friends to lovers, I didn’t want to let Luke and William have a quick ‘happy ending’ too soon. I wanted to tease and allow their sensual feelings for each other to grow as their friendship blossomed too. I wanted them to work together help each other. William is grieving, so he’s angry, upset and determined to the point of being a bit blinkered. Luke is cynical about love and relationships, plus a total workaholic who gets his attention from social media likes and comments. But as their friendship grows and they can no longer resist, I felt Luke and William had earned their sensuality together towards the end of the book. I went back and ramped up the heat in these scenes because it felt right, since they’d both been edging themselves and each other for the rest of the story… I hope you enjoy it!

It's available in Kindle Unlimited, so you can read it for free if you have a KU subscription. It's also available to buy as ebook and paperback.

https://mybook.to/WildforU

I'm so happy this is now out!

As it's my first historical romance I thought I'd answer some questions about why I've started writing in this different genre of gay romance.

What was the inspiration behind Finding Home?
I watched a soapy Australian TV drama set in the 1950s, called A Place To Call Home. I loved the gentle feel of it. This combined with how difficult it would have been to be gay then made for interesting ‘what if’ questions for me.

What was the hardest part to write in Finding Home?
The relationship between the men while they were in public. Although I’m used to not being too demonstrable in public with my boyfriend, I’ve never known a time when it was actually illegal to be gay. So how did men signal to one another they were that way inclined?

Why was this the first historical romance you’ve written?
I’d always shied away from historical romance because I worried about the research needed. I also enjoy popular culture, so writing something without those modern references felt less like myself. However I realised I could include popular culture references from that time too, which was lots of fun. I also worried that it would be harder to give the men a genuine happy ever after if it was set in a period in the past. Because for me a HEA is critical. I won’t write a story without one since I’m such a romantic at heart. I also used to mistakenly believe that historical romances would feel like a history lesson to read, or have lots of historical detail serving not much purpose to the story. But having read some of my friends’ wonderful historical category romances I found this to absolutely not be the case. The historical setting is a background, the place in which the story happens; the romance, the characters are just as important as in a contemporary romance.

Was it harder to write a historical then you’d previously thought?

There was more research to do. There were issues such as language to ensure the phrases used were appropriate to the characters at the time. It wasn’t as hard as I’d anticipated, but it was certainly more difficult than writing contemporary. With contemporary I rarely do much research – except for the jobs of the characters, or perhaps the setting – so this felt more involved certainly .

What were the characters like to write?
Once I had the vision of each character’s physical appearance in my head, and their job, I worked out their back story. Their back story clarified their emotional wound and therefore their conflicts and issues with a relationship. Layered on top of this was the wider societal issues of being gay when it was illegal. Which was interesting as an external conflict to add to the characters’ journeys.

What helped you make the decision on how to write the sensual scenes in Finding Home?
I always believe a sensual scene should, just like any other scene in a story, move the plot forward, develop the character, or develop the romance. I’ve written a range of sensuality in my stories from complete fade to black, as in a young adult novel, to detailed and at length explicit scenes. For me, it has to feel right for the characters and the story. As the feeling of the story was like a gently dramatic heart-warming TV drama, and being gay was illegal, it felt appropriate to me for the sensual scenes to be private and between the two main characters. Hence I wrote the unresolved sexual tension, the tightening of trousers, the kissing, the emotions, but ended the scenes at that point.


Finding Home - A Sweet Historical Gay Romance

• 1950s
  
  
• opposites attract
  
• small town
  
• hurt / comfort
  
• forbidden love
  
  

Read in KU today.

https://mybook.to/FindHome

 I'm delighted to take part in a week of super  bargains for super romance craft books.

Everything from how to write romance, how to write romantic comedy, how to pitch your idea, how to write short fiction for kindle, how to write a commercial novel. Plus my book on marketing for romance authors. 

All of these books will be on sale between 10 to 15 March. So if you're umming and aahing, this is the time to grab yourself a bargain.

My book is reduced from £4.99 to 99p for the ebook and I've also cut the paperback price from £10 to a snip at £6.

Happy reading!

Here are the buy links:

Nina Harrington - How to Write Short Romancehttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Write-Short-Romance-Kindle-Books-ebook/dp/B00UDP3XBUB00UDP3XBU

Liz Fielding - Little Book of Writing Romancehttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Fieldings-Little-Book-Writing-Romance-ebook/dp/B006YQCE5I/B006YQCE5I

Kate Harrison - Pitch Powerhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Pitch-Power-discover-makes-irresistible-ebook/dp/B081HDC6F3/B081HDC6F3

Liam Livings - Marketing the Romancehttps://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07DW9R6GJ/B07DW9R6GJ

Jane Holland - 21 ways to write a novelhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/21-Ways-Write-Commercial-Novel-ebook/dp/B00TRPN8I0/B00TRPN8I0

R Baxter and J Lovering - How to write Rom Comhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Write-Romantic-Comedy-Rhoda-Baxter-ebook/dp/B07RL6YR7W/B07RL6YR7

Liam Livings xx

Looking back at the list of books I’ve read that I keep at the back of my diary, I’ve read 40 books in 2019. This broke down as follows:

• 4 m/m romances
  
• 2 autobiographies
• 3 writing books
  
• 5 women’s popular fiction – romantic fiction
• The rest were contemporary at the time they were written (some were written in the 1970s – 1990s) category romances. Some were erotic, some were American, some were sweet, but they were all books where the main focus of the story is the developing romance between a man and a woman.
  

I have lots of 4 and 4.5 star books in my list, but as with previous years I’m only going to mention those I rated as 5 stars.


My Thoughts Exactly – Lily Allen: honest, unapologetic while admitting to her own many and various mistakes, inspirational, raw. I love all of her music and this was wonderful as it helped with context and background to her life while she wrote her albums (all of which I own. Obvs). Splendid.



Next of Kin – Joanna Trollope: an unflinching portrait of a farming family and the complexities within. Far from sugar coating living in the countryside, this shows all the challenges, warts and all. The funeral scene at the start, and a later scene were particularly emotional. But overall, uplifting.



Joshua and the Cowgirl – Sherryl Woods: Financial wizard city slicker man, fish out of water, opposites attract, cowboys, a ranch, a mischievous independent single mother cowgirl. These sort of tropes, I now realise having read may category romances, are completely my jam. And I am so much here for it.



Lace 2 – Shirley Conran: In some ways this was better than the first one. Strong female friendships. People who have it all, lose it all and then get it all back again. Intertwined storylines. Sumptious locations. I loved all. Of. This.



Romancing the Beat – Gwen Hayes: for anyone who’s interested in story structure and the genre expectations of romance – this is a must. Having read Reading The Romance by Janice Radway, which goes into the ‘science’ of why women (it was women who she spoke to in her extensive 80s research) enjoy reading romance – this was a good way to break it down into story beats / scenes. Think of it more like a recipe list, you can expand, contract, mix up a bit, rather than a pre flight checklist and it’s great to ensure your romance stories have all the right ingredients.



A Summer to Remember – Sue Moorcroft: the inhabitants of Nelson’s Bar on the north Norfolk coast were delightful. It made me want to move there – I know Nelson’s Bar is fictitious – but the sense of community, quirky characters, wonderful contrast to the city, were all very alluring. It was lovely to see how my garbled emails with suggestions for the gay couple were useful, in their own story arc.



Girls Behind the Scandalous Reputation – Michelle Condor: wilful rising star actress, buttoned up lawyer. I was SO HERE FOR THIS that it almost hurt!



An Image of You – Liz Fielding: opposites attract of a chauvinistic photographer for ‘those sort of calendars’ and a heroine forced to work with him. Add in camping in the outback and you’ve got it all there for a splendid category romance. Up to Liz’s usual standard.

Hope you had a wonderful year reading whatever books bring you joy,
Love and light,

Liam Livings xx

It’s been a busy year. I’ve returned to self publishing after one novella and one re-release. It felt right for my two Christmas stories because I wanted the flexibility of being able to write them in September October and have them released for November.
I’ve written many words, not in any small part helped by learning to dictate fiction using Dragon.
And lots of meeting supportive, uplifting, kind author friends too!

Thanks to everyone who’s read, reviewed, interacted with me on the socials, published my books, helped me self publish them, helped me with a writing conundrum, or simply lifted me up when I felt down. You’re all splendid people.


Publishing
Released 6 books – 4 from publishers and 2 I self published and one novella
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48501349-the-regiment-of-majestic-gays
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43837924-kicking-up-my-heels-in-heels
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46378297-love-on-the-dancefloor
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43548468-unlocking-the-doctor-s-heart
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48911104-mistletoe-kisses
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48799643-bear-best-friend
The Christmas novella is here http://www.liamlivings.com/blog/my-rainbow-advent-calendar-story-plus-one-elf


Writing and self editing ready for submitting / publishing except otherwise listed
Wrote 7 stories including:

• The Surgeon and the Farmhand 63,000
  
• Millionaire Himderella - Freddie and Piero 50,000
• Pastiche Becomes Him 102,000
• Frangipani Kisses 64,000 (1st self edit completed)
• Mistletoe Kisses 33,000
• Bear Best Friend 36,000
• Four Funerals and a Wedding 58,000 (part way through first self edit)
• Plus One Elf 12,000

TOTAL: 418,000 words written in 2019


Events

• Attended Society of Authors event in Leeds on a panel on diversity in romantic fiction
  
• Delivered a workshop on maintaining sexual tension in romantic fiction, at the RNA Conference, with Virginia Heath
  
• Attended or organised 2 budget writing retreats with friends, one less budget writing retreat in Crete with friends and one solo budget writing retreat in Suffolk
• Attended a RNA Rainbow Chapter meeting in London and organised and attended one at the RNA Conference
  

Other
Taught myself to dictate fiction using Denise my Dragon and a microphone. Which meant I could write a novel in a week – Four Funerals and A Wedding the experience of that is here, plus links to my other blogs about dictating fiction http://www.liamlivings.com/blog/how-to-write-a-novel-in-a-week-using-dragon-dictation-and-how-i-won-nanowrimo-in-6-days
Started as one of the RNA’s diversity and inclusion officers to work with the rest of the organisation to promote the variety of its members and the romantic fiction they write
RNA New Writers Scheme – read and appraised 4 manuscripts
Did 10 submissions, resulting in rejections, requests for full manuscript, or acceptance
Self edited 2 other stories that had been languishing on my laptop, now ready for submission or publishing – Revenge! Marrying The Boss are their working titles at the moment, but subject to change

Love and light,

Liam Livings xxx