Romance Relaunch & The Editing Girl

It's RELAUNCH WEEK for my newly updated coming out MM romance The Hit List! 🥳 Jamie thinks he's straight. But the return of old family friend Robert whom he last saw six years ago sets him on a road to self-discovery he never imagined he'd take ... NB This book is a reinterpretation of Jane Austen’s Emma, with a dash of Austen’s Persuasion thrown in for good measure! Robert takes the role of Mr Knightley (but of course) whilst our very own Jamie is a rather spiky but endearing Emma.

What you get:
*Second chance age-gap romance
*Coming out journey
*Family vs Love
*British MCs
*Slow-burn romance
*Low Spice but with ALL the emotions

Here's Jamie meeting Robert again for the first time in six years. Jamie is in the middle of trying to help a sick friend at his party and is knocked for six by his unexpected visitor. What on earth is Robert doing here now?

Later, here's Jamie finding Robert with someone else and being overcome with jealousy & regret ... 💔

And here's Jamie finally losing all control in his terrifying new world and kissing Robert. But what good will it ever do him?... ❤️

Finally, Jamie finds out that when he needs his old flame most, Robert is there for him ... But will this change everything for them both or is it really the end of the road? ❤️

Also this week, I’ve started the post-report edits for magical women’s fiction novel The Music of Flowers. And, already, Fleur & Julia are adding essential tension to their friendship story. Now the song of the flowers is certainly far darker & more dangerous than Fleur expects. And I’ve written a new scene in which Fleur makes another terrible mistake in her relationship with Peter.

This week's poem is called Almost Touching and is found in my poetry collection Learning to Swim. Sometimes the sky can be so beautiful. 😃

I’ve read Emmett by Aubrey Hawke: this is a very powerful and spicy MM romance and one of the best books I've read this year. The attraction between Emmett & Nash is off the scale, and I particularly loved the way in which what starts out as a game - at least for Nash - slowly becomes something much more life-changing and interesting. The description of mental illness (for Emmett) is very well done and very realistic indeed. I also very much enjoyed the way in which Nash opens up to the possibility of love and how that changes him from the inside out. And I also enjoyed the subtle description of a faith lost and found again, when it came to Nash. That rang true as well, and was a pleasure to read, particularly in this genre. It was, in essence, the kind of book I couldn't stop thinking about and which I both did and didn't want to finish - yes, it IS that good! I haven't read any of the earlier books in the series, but it doesn't matter at all. VERY highly recommended.

I’ve also read The Violin Maker's Secret by Evie Woods: the modern sections of this novel are totally charming and I really loved the stalwart violin loving trio, Gabrielle, Devlin & Walter - they are such strong characters and very different from each other too. However, I have to say that the historical sections of the novel with the voice of the violin are rather dull and have a sense of the author wanting to share her research to the point where I was bounced out of the real (modern) story too many times. That said, it's absolutely fine if you skip the history sections (as I did) and simply read the modern sections. The voice of the violin is perfect at the end, however, and that's the only place it should have been written, in my view. I also loved the gentle romance and the ending is very good indeed.

We’ve also had a night out at the theatre to see Our Man in Havana. It was totally crazy and very much tongue-in-cheek, plus the 4 actors taking on all the roles were fabulous and we did enjoy it.

Have a lovely week, everyone.

Anne Brooke Books