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New Yaoi, M/M Romance Book Cover – Secrets

Yaoi, M/M Romance Character, Christian from Secrets

Okay, so it’s in the very early stages, but I’m working on the cover for my new Yaoi, M/M Romance book, Secrets. The first round of edits are done!

So far, all I’ve got is Christian’s face (because that’s always what I like to draw first). Here’s a picture, minus a few things I still need to add:)

So, who is Christian? He’s a bad boy rocker, who can be incredibly loving if you win his heart. He is charismatic on the outside and appears  confident and even a bit cocky, when in fact, he’s a broken soul struggling to become the man he should have been.

Girls swoon over him, especially when he’s onstage, but as he tells Logan, they’ve never quite held his attention.  He’s living a hard life of fast women, motorcycles and booze.

The Christian Logan fell in love with in high school was smart and studious, Logan’s best friend and next-door neighbor. But Christian lost his way after his father died. Logan’s not sure what to make of him now…

I posted an excerpt a few weeks ago: Secrets Excerpt

Twin Souls…My Favorite Subject! by Laura Tolomei

Never as on Valentine’s Day is it more pressing to find a soul mate, if one’s lacking of course. And how ironic if once found, it needs convincing that he or her is the one, which is what happened to Martin in To Seduce A Soulmate.

EXCERPT PG M/M

Martin stretched across the table. “Just answer me honestly. Before you met me, have you ever felt you recognized a complete stranger before in your life? Or felt an electrical current run through your body merely by standing next to someone? Or felt your heart beat so fast you feared it might fall out of your chest?”

With a heavy heart, Drake realized there was no point in lying so he had to shake his head in denial, long hair flying around.

“But you did the moment you saw me, right?”

Having felt all that Martin had described, if not more, Drake’s head reluctantly gave in to tentative nod in agreement with the devil’s insight.

“And you still need more proof?”

“I don’t think these signs mean anything. My first crush was surprisingly similar to what you just described…except the recognition part, but that may be a trick of the mind.”

Martin eyed him coldly. “Suit yourself, Pirate. You’re free to believe what you like and I’m not going to convince you. It would be a wasted effort. On my part, I’m just happy to know I’m not crazy.”

Read more on To Seduce A Soulmate

And just for the record, he wasn’t. Luckily, not all soul mates are so recalcitrant, though they’re tied in a dark circle of blood, betrayal and passion from which there is often no return, like in Divinitas.

EXCERPT PG M/M

Shaun grinned. It had taken a long training to remind Halifax who he was and now that it was finally time to explain, it felt odd, maybe because their positions seemed reversed if compared to previous lives. Shifting through past scenarios, Shaun briefly analyzed their timeless relationship, searching for answers. Somehow, Halifax had always been the seducer rather than the seduced. Reversing their roles was a necessary shift, the Druid knew it far too well, but he still had to get used to it.

“Please,” the blond missionary begged, “tell me about it.”

Where to begin? From the ancient walls of Egypt or the Persian prince’s golden bed? From our love…or the betrayal that followed Shaun wondered as images kept playing in the fire.

Read more on Divinitas

Well, maybe it’s not always so complicated. Take Leon and Sean’s case in Tasting Leon’s Mark, the passionate sequel to Re-Scue, soon to be released. where redemption came after all the moment they understood how their connection worked.

EXCERPT PG M/M

As usual, Sean’s insight took Leon by surprise. The more he knew the blond beauty, the more he found his intuition extraordinary. Even more surprising, his amazing brain learned fast to make the right connections. That he was learning more about Leon than anyone else before him was a reality, which perhaps justified the hunter’s need to challenge him as if wanting to be perfectly sure he was the one. And the fact the blond beauty’s lifetime experiences had given him the edge to alter their relationship and bring it to a new balance, however frail it might prove at times, was not conclusive enough.

As Leon’s Indian guru had revealed, his karma changed every time he understood the lessons that he had not grasped in the previous lifetimes. “Life is the soul’s testing ground,” his teacher loved to repeat. “Its ultimate goal is Awareness and you can’t reach it unless you truly deserve it. That’s why life is an endless learning process that doesn’t stop in one lifetime, but continues until the soul acquires perfection by understanding its faulty patterns and correcting them.”

His lifetimes with Sean had always added extra pieces to their puzzle, inevitably changing their karma from one life to the next. Their new forms were the results of such lifetimes and through each, Leon had to admit, the real learner had been Sean. From the start, he had found the way to adapt to the hunter’s immutable challenge while working to change him, too, until his masterful plan had revolutionized their relationship.

Living together had been an important step in their development, one that Leon would have never taken if Sean had not forced the situation. Only then had the hunter understood who was and always had been the key of his development. So he had agreed to turn the page and end their bloody game, which did not seem to fit their evolutions anyway, considering how different they were from the original two who had started it in the first place. And to his amazement, he had not missed it, getting caught, instead, in a whole new sensual world.

Read more on Tasting Leon’s Mark

Read more about Re-Scue

The same that another of my favorite characters, Duncan and Chris, from my Virtus Saga, have been experiencing ever since they laid eyes on each other, for they, too, are soul mates, as confirmed by Lord Christopher Templeton’s words in The Sex Book 1:

EXCERPT PG M/M

All my father’s fault anyway, for wanting to send me, his third and youngest son, to the Caldwell’s to broaden my horizons, or so he claimed. Clinging to his two brothers, eight-years-old Chris had wanted to tell James Templeton it was a useless attempt for his convictions would never change no matter how far he went, but his young age had prevented any serious argument. Still, he was old enough to know what he wanted from life and women were definitely not on the list, in spite of what his father said or did.

Alas, nothing stopped the tragic—or rather blessed, as he later came to see it—chain of events. Exiled from his home, Fair Haven, little Chris had set out on a long journey, for which he had no taste or choice either, cursing the Caldwell’s at every step, along with anyone even remotely connected to them, until destiny had caught up with him at Black Rose’s last bend.

Twisting around the many hills leading up to the estate, he first heard a boy’s happy shout. “Ready or not, here I come.” Another curve and he glimpsed the back of him, dark head lit by Stella’s rays. “It’s no good running, Ylianor.” The boy kept yelling at a little girl. “I’ll catch you.” He seemed all set to go while Chris approached the last bend, but curiously something stopped him and he looked over his shoulder one second before Chris came into full view on the other side of the hill.

With a heart pounding so fast it could’ve dropped out at any moment, Chris had stared at the piercing black eyes transfixed, unmoving, unable to talk, think, breathe or do much else besides recognizing the dark-haired boy, though he had never set eyes on him before in his life. And that the other boy knew him, too, Chris read it clearly in the inquisitive gaze. So it happened, impossibility becoming reality as the unconscious tried to shed light on age-old connections that obviously neither had ever forgotten, though they seemed incomprehensible at present.

Read more on The Sex

Read more on the Virtus Saga

 

Laura Tolomei aka Lalla Gatta

Website: lallagatta.com

MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads

 

In Life and Blood Book 2: Holding onto the Past – Release Date and Sneak Preview!

After enduring a crashed hard drive which totally wiped out all of my data, including the first version of this book, I have finally rewritten the second book in the In Life and Blood series. I just received a release date of May 1, 2011 from my publisher. I’m now frantically working on the cover;) Anyhow, this book is about Sebastian and is told from his point of view. I had lots of fun researching Dacian (Ancient Romanian) life, finding slang words in Romanian and translating little bits of English into Romanian. For instance, did you know that a really big insult in Romanian is to basically tell someone to go back up in their mother’s womb where they came from? And they apparently talk about the penis a lot when swearing, LOL. Like, pula mea, which they use like an English speaking person would use as “fuck”, and literally means, “my cock”.

Anyhow, here’s the blurb:

With his one true love, Julian, at his side and a new son to look after, Sebastian’s grief-stricken past comes out of hiding to find him. As Julian and Nikolai struggle to understand what vampire life should be and strive to live a normal life, Sebastian fights with his demons to allow the freedoms they deserve. But with the queen’s band of chevaliers not quite under control and shadows lurking in the night, Sebastian’s fears escalate. Can Sebastian find the courage to let go and at the same time give Julian and Nikolai the protection they desperately need?

On with the sneak peak (unedited) :

“Sebastian!”

His shoulder jerked backward. Julian came into focus through wet eyes.

“Oh my God, what’s happened?” Julian, in a sweatshirt and jeans, threw his arms around Sebastian and held him tight. “Talk to me.”

Sniffling, he wrapped his arms around his lover. “My angel, you are here and not dead.”

“What? Of course not.” Julian kissed the side of Sebastian’s head.

He left the door open. Anger fluttered up his spine. He shoved Julian away. Glaring at his lover, he said, “What the hell were you thinking leaving the door open like that?” He swiped at the wetness on his face.

Julian’s eyes widened in surprise. “What?”

Nikolai raced from the edge of the wall toward his bedroom.

“You left the house wide open. Anyone could have gotten in here. Anyone.” He placed his hands on his hips.

“B-but we were just, just outside. I was showing Nikolai an owl and—“

“Never, ever leave the house like that. And don’t ever go outside without my permission.” He pointed at Julian.

Anger spread over Julian’s face. He gritted his teeth. “Don’t you tell me what to do. If I want to go outside I will. My days of being imprisoned are over.”

Stunned, he took a step back and placed his fingertips on his forehead. “Uh, I’m, I’m sorry, Julian. I didn’t mean it that way.” His anger morphed into relief. He looked around the room a moment. “I was afraid something happened to you both.”

Julian’s stance relaxed. “No, it didn’t. We were just looking at a damn owl in the tree out back.” He looked down at his feet and back up at Sebastian. “Nikolai was all excited about it.” He studied Sebastian. “Sebastian, you were crying when I walked in. I don’t ever think I’ve seen you cry before. What’s going on?”

He turned around and looked at the black and stainless gas stove, hiding a new wave of embarrassment and guilt as best he could. “It’s just that the situation, the door being open like that, reminded me of how I found my mother’s corpse all those years ago.” Solid hands gripped his shoulders and turned him around. He gazed down into his lover’s beautiful, blue-grey eyes.

Wisps of long, chestnut-colored hair surrounded Julian’s face and spilled out over the dark sweatshirt covering his shoulders. “I’m so sorry. Tell me about it.”

He shut his eyes a second and shook his head. “It’s all right now. You are safe.”

A hurt look spread over Julian’s face. “But we’re One now, you and I. I want to know what happened to you. I want to know all about you.”

He let out a long exhale. I must tell Julian something for my behavior. “It was during the Hun wars. I found the door to our home open. It was obvious that there had been a struggle. I found her on the floor, a terrible wound in her head. I was a newly made vampire and I tried to save her with my blood, but I couldn’t.” Remorse wound around his heart again. And so I drank her blood instead. He took in a ragged breath of air.

“I feel it, Sebastian. I feel how much this saddens you still.” Wrapping his arms around Sebastian, Julian pulled him in close. “I love you and I promise nothing like that will ever happen to me. I’ll be careful. I can protect myself. Especially when it comes to Caesar.”

“No, you can’t.” He breathed in Julian’s musky scent, all clover and spice, relishing in his embrace. “He is far more dangerous than we thought.”

“Why do you say that?” Julian’s lips found Sebastian’s, placing a lingering kiss over them.

A prick of alarm raced inside him. Stupid, do not say such things. “No reason in particular. I just want you to keep your guard up until this whole incident with your old coven is resolved.”

Julian released Sebastian and stepped back. “You know I will. And now I have my sword back in case the Templars need me.” He smiled at Sebastian.

He’d make sure that would never happen. “So you found it at the door?”

“I sure did.” Julian twisted and came back around to face Sebastian. “I think we scared the crap out of Nikolai.”

Relief rained down on Sebastian and a wide grin spread over his face. “I think you’re right. It was our first fight, my angel.”

“And I’m sure it won’t be the last.” Julian let out a short chuckle. “Let’s go and find him.”