Big, amazing, thrilling news: The 2015 Rainbow Awards have been announced and I’ve done, er, rather well.

Best Gay Book 1^st place tie: The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal (with Amy Lane’s Beneath the Stain).
Gay Paranormal Romance 1^st place: The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal

I want to take a moment here. The Secret Casebook is a gay Victorian occult detective romance rooted in British folklore and Victorian pulp. It started off as a squib, a short story for an anthology, but the characters wouldn’t go away. It led to a collaboration with Jordan L Hawk (Remnant, still free!) which remains one of my most enjoyable writing experiences ever. And then when I wrote the whole Casebook it turned into a story about stories, and writing, and hiding, and the toll taken by concealment and social injustice. In some ways it’s a pulp paranormal romance romp and in some ways it’s very serious indeed, and it’s a novel in short stories which is not exactly usual anyway, and to be honest I’ve always felt grateful to my editor Anne Scott and publisher Samhain for letting me have my head and do it, because I couldn’t have blamed them for asking, ‘what the hell is this?’ (They didn’t just let me have my head: they gave me a gorgeous Kanaxa cover. Can’t ask for more.)

And now it’s walked away with two wins in the Rainbow Awards including joint Best Gay Book, which…wow. So there you go. I’ll just be over here purring quietly for the next month.

And furthermore…

Gay Historical Romance 2^nd place: A Fashionable Indulgence
Gay Fantasy Romance 4^th place: Jackdaw
LGBT Anthology 3^rd place Charmed & Dangerous (including my story, ‘A Queer Trade’).

I’m immensely proud of and honoured by all of this. Huge thanks to my editors and publishers (Samhain, Loveswept, JCP Books), and I recommend checking out the full Rainbow Awards results for what I can only describe as a massive and magnificent shopping list. So many excellent books, so much work put into this by judges and organisers, and publishers and editors and cover artists (let alone the authors). It’s a privilege to be part of it.

In other news (but still me me me, sorry), the blog tour for A Seditious Affair begins tomorrow, with the book publishing on 15th December. I have done lots and lots of posts about stuff, and there’s giveaways running, so do check the stops out. Links go to site homepages.

Just Love Romance          09-Dec                 Excerpt

Ellie Reads                         10-Dec                 The Past and Points of View

Boys in our Books            11-Dec                  A Kink without a Name

Sinfully…                             12-Dec                Putting the Romance into History

The Breakfast Octopus   13-Dec                 Interview

All About Romance          14-Dec                 Mind Your Language. On getting historical vocabulary rightish

Ever After Romance        15-Dec                 Standalones and Overlaps: telling several stories at once

Joyfully Jay                        17-Dec                 Historical attitudes and Regency Radicals

I will probably mention it when the book publishes. *cough*