Just a couple more reviews for Healing Heart:

one from Night Owl Romance, that gives it four hearts out of five and says "Healing Heart is a story of journeys," which I like;

and one from Literary Nymphs that gives it four nymphs out of five and says "I found this sequel to Dark Heart a delightful read." Yay.

Couple of early reviews for Healing Heart, in case you're interested -

Rainbow Reviews likes it rather well, while

Dear Author finds that the slavery issue gets in the way of the story. Which I take as a slap on the wrist, because it shouldn't.

Aaaand it's out! This very day as ever was, Healing Heart goes on sale from Loose Id!

Please to form orderly e-queue. And enjoy...

(And let me know what you think: I do this for you, y'know. Yup, you. The one with the pink bedsocks, you...)

What the subject line says, basically: here's the cover for the next Amaranth novel, Healing Heart. Please to clicky to embiggen; you know you want to...




Om-nom-nom, say I. It's by Anne Cain, of course. I do dearly love what she's doing for this series.

One day, I swear, I will post actual content...

For now, though: here's a new review of Dark Heart. With a couple of reservations about the slave/master dynamic (but, as she acknowledges, that is deliberate on my part), and otherwise a great deal of cheer: "...this is a wonderful story. The prose is engaging and the author's voice as told in first person through Tam is instantly captivating ... The world building and characters draw the reader in immediately and carry the journey to the end, leaving hope for a sequel."

Hope shall be contented, sort of. It's not exactly a sequel - though Tam and his Master Luke do indeed feature - but Healing Heart will be out from Loose Id in just a couple of weeks now. August 25th, I think. Can't wait...

SarahF at "Dear Author" has reviewed White Flag, and enjoyed it: "It’s a gentle little book, evocative of French wine-country, beautifully descriptive of Matt’s special wine, piercingly emotional when necessary." And then she jumps off from that into a discussion of romance, what it is and why we read it: "And what White Flag shows for me so beautifully is that all romance is about self-negation. All romance comes down to the conflict and the compromise to make the relationship work, in real life as well as in fiction." Go read, it's worth it.

Hee. I promise I won't keep the count up (past the first few dozen, anyway) - but I will keep pointing you at reviews, when they're as flattering as this one at Rainbow Reviews. She may not be convinced that the relationship's going to last, but "This is a wonderfully lyrical and beautiful romance ... The writing itself is evocative and brings the French countryside alive just as the two men are vivid and captivating... The prose shines and creates a lovely and romantic story that will delight and satisfy." Lots more at the link, but that'll do me.

Well, that was quick. White Flag has had its first review, from elisa_rolle, hurrah! She found the book more fey than I think I intended - "it mixes the dreamy atmosphere of a fairy tale with the naughtiness of an erotic romp, and the author is so good in blending them, that you almost don't realize when the fairies (no pun intended) are suddenly turning into little devils" - but that's the fun about fiction, everyone reads a different book. She sees the meeting of two worlds as almost literal, where I only saw two young men with very different experience and ambitions. Yay...

White Flag is out! Today!

"Charlie is a travel writer, a nomad who will never settle down; Matthieu makes wine in the family vineyard, and never wants to leave. Must it be love that dies, or will one fly the white flag of surrender?"

Here's a link to the publisher's web page, should you want to, y'know, buy it...

Here's the cover for the contemporary m/m novella, White Flag.



It's the sweet romantic story of an English travel-writer and a French winemaker, a rolling stone and a stay-at-home boy. Complete with a chateau and a canal and a boat and horses and, oh, everything...

The cover's by April Martinez, and the book will be published by Loose Id. Real soon now. As soon as I have a date, I'll let you know.

Just to let you know, I just signed contracts on two more books for Loose Id. One is a contemporary novella, White Flag, a thoroughly unkinky gay romance set in the vineyards of France, designed to make you go "aaahhhh..."

The other is - finally! - another tale in the Amaranth series. Called Healing Heart, it features characters from Dark Heart but is not really a sequel; it's a distinct story, about a young healer and a slave boy he encounters, a terrible plague and its consequences.

That should be available in late August or early September; White Flag will be out before that, possibly as soon as next month.

Heh. Clearly, I am no good at this blogging thing; I keep writing books instead...

Anyway. Just an update: last month, I sent my editor a new Amaranth novel, and we wait to hear what he thinks.

And last week, I wrote a novella. 20,000 words in eight days, which is finger-numbingly fast for me. Also, this one's a straight contemporary m/m romance, without the hint of a kink in it. Aww. Whether it's any good, I do not know; that's why we have editors, to tell us these things. The poor boy now has two Thom Lane manuscripts on his desk.

I'll let you know.

Sorry, folks - didn't mean to fall silent for so long. I was in hospital for a while there, and then my main computer blew up and was hospitalised itself for two long months. I still had the laptop to work on, but, um - *confesses* - I couldn't remember my LJ password, so I couldn't actually log on here.

But I'm back, I'm sorted. That won't happen again.

Quick catch-up for you, books-wise, as people keep asking about a sequel to Dark Heart. There are, of course, three answers: yes, no, and maybe.

Yes, I am writing more books about Amaranth, the mages, the Wayfarers' Guild.

No, none of them is a direct sequel to Dark Heart, tho' Tam and Lucan do appear; I have other people's stories to tell at the moment.

Maybe one or two will be out this year. That's not actually in my hands, except for the tricky bit of getting them right before I even let the publisher see them. I got, ooh, ninety per cent through one, and set it aside for a while; I'm now halfway through another. Frustrating, I know, but bear with me...

Meantime, as I cannot offer you a book, let me offer a review instead: here's SarahF's take on Dark Heart, as published in Dear Author. With space for comments at the bottom, should you feel inclined...

This time, "Dark Heart"'s been noticed by Fallen Angel reviews. You can read the whole review here. Money shot:

"Thom Lane invokes deep feeling from the very first page and ... the main character, Tam, is a very loveable character."

The "..." in there is because I cut the phrase "even though Dark Heart is hard to read", because I'm really not sure what she meant. She said the book was well written, so it's not that. *shrugs*

"Dark Heart" has been reviewed, in "Literary Nymphs"! Four and a half stars, and you can read the whole review here.

Money shot: "If you enjoy a bit of adventure and erotic sex mixed with your magic, then you should enjoy Dark Heart."

Yay, my book is published! Dark Heart is available now from Loose Id, for a mere $5.99. In all sorts of different formats, so there must be something that will suit.

Tomorrow, I'll post up an extract to try to lure you in (sheesh, I am so obvious...); today I'm just basking in the simple happy pleasure of it.

Oh, and I have my first fan, and my first feedback! ("I just loved Tam, his personality just shined through so much... I really could just see him in the story... and I really LIKED him... and the world he lived in, well... I want to go back again! The story was so vivid, and the pace just right, the plot, and... just everything made this a standout book.") I love the internets, the way it's so easy now for readers to touch base with writers about their work.

*basks some more*

Hi -

I'm Thom Lane, and I write erotic fiction.

Specifically, I have a book coming shortly from Loose Id! It's called "Dark Heart", and it's a gay bondage fantasy, which in code-letters I guess would go m/m, BDSM, LGBT. If there's a code sequence for "it all takes place on a secondary world where slavery is commonplace", I don't know what that is.

I will post more about this ("you don't say, Thom...!"), but for now, here's the cover: the lovely luscious cover, from Anne Cain...




[Click for biggerishness!]