New Growth for Stone Acres, California

The Foothills Pride gay romance novella series set in Stone Acres, California, was never planned to be a series.

No, in fact, it was planned as a single novella, What's in a Name?

I had retired from teaching English composition part-time at City College and had always promised myself that when I retired I would become an author. I'd been a book reviewer for quite a few years and had often thought to myself, "I could have written a better book than that," which, granted, is a pretty puffed up thing to say when I hadn't even published a book before.

Notice, I didn't say I hadn't written a book before. I had. I'd written nine of them, tried to get agents for two of them, self-published one of them, and let the rest sit on a bookshelf behind my writing desk like tombstones.

But for some reason, I kept writing. It definitely wasn't because of the accolades my work was getting.

So I wrote a novella and sent it to Dreamspinner, who miraculously bought it. Their claim that they were where dreams came true was no idle boast as far as I was concerned.

Because I'm ever the optimist, I wrote a second novella, Redesigning Max, and sent it in. Was I really an author? Had I finally stepped into another writing realm? The answer was yes, yes, I had.

I just signed the contract for #5 in the Foothills Pride series: yesterday. Relative Best will release, as will a paperback edition of the first four books in an anthology edition, in late summer/early fall 2016. I'm happy, proud, and busy. I'm an author.
For those who want to know, Relative Best is the story of Ezekiel Bandy, owner and proprietor of Bandy's Finest Hotel which backs up to Stonewall Saloon in Stone Acres, California. Zeke is intrigued with Victor Longbow, who's looking for a photo of his Navajo ancestors to validate his existence. But complications at the Bandy Hotel complicate Zeke's search for love just as Vic's obsession does his.

Until then all four books (What's in a Name?, Redesigning Max, Behr Facts, and When Adam Fell) are available online wherever eBooks are sold.