Diana DeRicci

Posts Tagged ‘News’

Mark Palastine lives across from a neighbor who will change his life. A man he’s only seen, and crushed on, in images, a model by the name of Jimmy Saldana. When Mark is an unfortunate witness to the meltdown of Jimmy’s love life through the personality mags, his heart goes out to the other man.

And then they meet…

Available at:

Rainbow Ebooks

All Romance Ebooks

Kindle

B&N (Link coming soon!)

Excerpt:

Mark saw Jimmy a couple more times that week, but only once with his boyfriend, thankfully. Once he was walking around the living room talking on his cell phone in just underwear. That fueled dreams and fantasies for days! After the first week, Mark began to feel bad always looking for Jimmy. It wasn’t right. He should have privacy in his own home, except…

Jimmy never closed those damned blinds! Never! Mark swore a blue streak when he caught a flash of skin and like a bad wreck couldn’t help but watch as the two men chased each other around the apartment with cans of silly string. So he wasn’t just a boyfriend, he was a friend.

After two months of it, Mark had convinced himself to ease off on the obsession. Jimmy was out of his league and always would be. He didn’t have any more voyeur episodes either. He actually felt pretty good about that. If Jimmy was free-spirited and an exhibitionist, it didn’t mean Mark had to watch, even if he knew he’d love it.

Then something changed. Walking past the newsstand on his daily commute from work, he spotted the screaming in font headline on the cover of one of the tell-all rags. “Patton Vorga engaged!” Mark’s mouth fell open. He’d never known the man’s name, hadn’t cared. But the man in the picture next to the obviously pregnant woman was Jimmy’s boyfriend!

Usually oblivious to the snark and gossip, he bought the tattle-tale newspaper and stuffed it into his messenger bag, scurrying with the crowd to get home now to read it.

Inside his apartment, he plopped down to his couch and ripped it open to the right page, reading. There was usually a nugget of suspicion if not full truth in any gossip, and if she was carrying Patton’s child… Mark bit his lip, his stomach heaving. He leaped to his feet and rushed to the window.

Jimmy wasn’t home. God, as much as he wanted Jimmy, he didn’t want him hurt, and if this was true… After five minutes, and no sign of life in the other apartment, he left to change out of his work attire. He tossed the crumpled newsprint on his bed and stripped to an A-shirt and gym shorts. He’d relax then go for his evening run. He was sure everything was okay with Jimmy. No, it wasn’t Mark that would comfort him, but he had to believe the gossip rag was just speculating. Jimmy was an upstanding guy, charitable worker and had never been slandered.

Mark shook his head. “You know way too much about that guy,” he muttered. He just didn’t want to see Jimmy crushed by an asshole.
He balled up the newspaper and tossed the pages into the recycle bin, calling it done then spun to gather his keys to go run. And was stopped in his tracks by the flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye.

Jimmy was home. He was storming back and forth across his living room, vanishing into his bedroom then reappearing, as though the lavish apartment was just too small to contain him. The phone was plastered to his ear and he was gesturing broadly and angrily.

“Oh, hell.” Mark paused by his fishbowl window and watched the world beyond. The agony was clear even through the distance. Mark’s chest ached with the pain he knew the guy was enduring.

Jimmy froze in the living room and shouted into the phone then threw it. A heartbeat later, he followed in the same direction only to return with the trashcan in hand. One, two, three photo frames were pitched into the can.

Mark put his hand to the glass. “Oh, baby,” he breathed. “I’d never do that to you.”

Rainbow Ebooks

All Romance Ebooks

Kindle

B&N (Link coming soon!)

Okay, so it’s been a little harebrained around here lately. I have a recent Father’s Day story out, and another paranormal coming on June 27th! Woot! The upcoming book is a re-release of Feel The Fire, with a hot new cover and some tweaked editing. If you haven’t seen either of these, just click on the covers for info. I make things easy around here. LOL

Another tangent for the adventurous… Happy Ending Press! This is slowly coming together. I’ve been working on a short serial for a couple of months now and I have the first ready to go, the second in edits and the third about to be covered. Wow! See what happens when I’m left unattended… More trouble! These stories will be available through your favorite retailers and as a direct purchase through this site. When they finally get released into the wild, wild world, I hope you enjoy them.

Oh! I’ll be speaking at Texas University this Thursday morning. Kind of cool, huh? Next month, I’ll be at a book signing in Austin. I’ll post info on that as it gets closer, and don’t forget about Authors After Dark in NOLA in August! What a summer!

Can I get a drink over here?

First I want to thank everyone who came to visit during the Hop Against Homophobia blog hop. Less duplicates and my posts, there were 21 comments!!  To round it off, that means a donation of $25 will be made to True Colors!! http://www.truecolorsfund.org/ Thank you so much for commenting.

Now for the books winner….. I’m giving away my DeRicci beach book trio: Glitter, The Charlie Factor, and Doing Love Right (PDF). Via Random.org….

THE ARTISTRY OF THE BI-POLAR BRAIN!

Unfortunately, I don’t have a listed email for you, so please contact me. (I think that’s the first time I’ve had a first commentor win too!)

Again, thank you to everyone for participating in the hop, for sharing stories and for showing support. Your sharing may have just been what that one person needed to read to know they’re not alone out there.

While I always hope a story connects with readers and does well, when they actually do… It takes me by surprise, because what is magic in one book is bullcorn in the next. So waking up this morning and seeing this absolutely made my Monday. To the readers who’ve enjoyed The Charlie Factor and my books, I thank you.

I am with some awesome company here.

TOP 10 LISTS

1. Determined Mate
2. Not My Wolf
3. Touch My Wolf
4. Unexpected Mate
5. Why I Love Geeks
6. Out There in the Night
7. Scared of Spiders
8. The Heart of Texas
9. Beg Me
10. The Charlie Factor

1. The Charlie Factor
2. Love and Rockets
3. Love Transposed
4. Taking You Home
5. Bound by Honor
6. Finder Tolan
7. Taken
8. Nothing Ever Happens
9. American Love Songs
10. Out There in the Night

For more about my books, please check out the excerpts here, or at my publishers. Without readers, authors are only writing to hear themselves talk.

I’ve been doing and going all day, and I’m getting a little slap happy. Just a wee bit. So when a friend pointed this out, it went in one ear and out the other, because I didn’t GET what she meant. Uh yeah. Note to self: Ask!

So anyway, it looks like The Charlie Factor is winning himself a few fans. (You go guys!)

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/category145.html

All Romance Top Reader Rated

1. Taking You Home
2. The Charlie Factor <—–
3. Love Transposed
4. Broken Destiny
5. Bound by Honor
6. Finder Tolan
7. Taken
8. Nothing Ever Happens
9. Out There in the Night
10. Accompanied by a Waltz

I’m stoked!