Cover Reveal - Re-release "Buried Treasure"

What do y'all think of the new cover for "Buried Treasure"?

Hot in Fall Blog Hop - NSFW-ish

For my part in the hop, I'm sharing a sweet, sexy, NSFW-ish lil snippet from my m/m romance "Buried Treasure."

One lucky winner will get their very own pdf copy - just leave a comment below and be sure to include your e-mail. Good luck!!

Blurb:

After his last long-term relationship ended because of his nightmares, Mark closed his heart to the possibility of finding love again. He's certainly never considered Gabe, the orderly who works at Miller's Retirement Home where his father lives. But there's more to Gabe than meets the eye, and if Mark is willing to let Gabe in, he might just discover the most important buried treasure of all.

Excerpt:

Gabe glanced up from his coffee as the waitress sat a dainty little white porcelain plate adored with a large chocolate-frosted cupcake with rainbow sprinkles down on their table. He grinned at the conspiratorial wink Mark gave her before she walked away.

“What’s this?” Gabe asked.

Mark gasped and shook his head. “I can’t believe you don’t know what today is.”

Gabe frowned and checked his watch. Thursday, August 18. Nothing special happened on August 18 that he was aware of. “Um... is it Obscure Foreign Celebration Day?”

“Nope.”

“Your birthday?”

Mark shook his head again. He leaned back against the booth and folded his arms across his chest with a dramatic sigh. “I’m really surprised. I figured of the two of us, you’d be the one keeping track.”

“Keeping track of...?” Gabe raised his eyebrows. The cupcake, though it looked delicious, really was just an ordinary cupcake. The rainbow sprinkles were a nice touch, though.

“It’s our six month anniversary,” Mark revealed. He blushed and unfolded his arms, grabbed up his napkin and toyed with it. “The anniversary of our lunches, that is. Not us, specifically.”

“Why not us?” Gabe reached across the table and slid his hand over Mark’s, twining their fingers together.

“There isn’t an us, is there?” Mark looked up, his eyes wide and round, full of something Gabe couldn’t quite place.

Gabe’s chest constricted and his heart raced. He forced himself to draw a few deep, slow breaths. “There’s an us if you want there to be.”

“Is that what you want?” Mark’s forehead knit together, and he leaned in a little.

He chuckled. “I think it’s pretty obvious what I want. I’ve been chasing you for six months now, haven’t I?”

Mark’s studied gaze, his head cocked to the side, bottom lip caught between his teeth, made Gabe ache to know what was going on in his head—what thoughts were racing around in there, and how he could influence them. If he could. Mark pulled his hand away and Gabe felt like a fool as he clutched at empty air.

Mark picked up the cupcake and split it into two pieces, then sat half of it back down on the plate. The half he’d kept he broke into smaller pieces, and held one out for Gabe. Gabe reached for it, but Mark pulled it away and shook his head. Gabe frowned, but then the meaning became clear as Mark raised his eyebrows and teasingly wiggled the morsel just out of his reach. Gabe leaned over and opened his mouth.

Mark gently fed him the cupcake, fingers lingering on his lower lip. Gabe closed his mouth around the desert, swishing his tongue out to lick flecks of crumbs off Mark’s fingers. Mark shivered. Gabe plucked up the other half of the cupcake and offered a piece of it to Mark. The warm, wet heat of Mark’s mouth closed around Gabe’s fingers and his cock jumped to life, going instantly hard. He shifted in his seat as Mark’s tongue explored his fingers, wishing that exploration were quite a bit lower, and they were alone.

Mark let go of Gabe, sat back, and daintily wiped his mouth with his napkin. He cleared his throat. “Well.”

Gabe grinned. “I guess I have my answer.” He lowered his hand back to the table and grasped Mark’s again.

When Characters Hit Home

This is a recycled post. It originally appeared here, but it's been over a year, so I thought I'd dig it out and re-post it, for new folks.

When Characters Hit Home by DC Juris

People always ask me if I identify with any of my characters, what they've been through, etc. While I always have to answer absolutely, sometimes, I identify with characters a little too much. That's exactly what happened with my character Mark, from "Buried Treasure," whose father is in a nursing home.

When I was in junior high, my grandmother became terminally ill with cancer. Unbeknownst to the family, she'd actually had it for quite some time, and just never went to the doctor. That's how my family was – very hush, hush about things, never sharing, never talking. My mother and her sisters went into immediate action after the diagnosis, searching for all sorts of medical options. The bottom line was that my grandmother was in her late eighties with cancer in pretty much every organ. Although one of my aunts demanded chemotherapy, my grandmother's doctor refused, based on my grandmother's wishes.

Since grandmother couldn't take care of herself anymore, the family ended up putting her in a nursing home, completely unlike the one in "Buried Treasure." She was often left unmonitored with no one looking after her. Things went from bad to horrible when she started showing signs of dementia and Alzheimer's. We never knew which grandmother we were going to see – the one who loved us, or the one who thought we were trying to steal her things. The one who remembered us, or the one who demanded to know why we were lying to her, and where her real family was. The kind, gentle, woman, or the hostile, hateful one who threw things at us.

You see, my grandmother wasn't always the woman I knew her to be. In her youth, when she'd been raising my mother and my aunts, my grandmother was an abusive person, physically and mentally. By the time I came along, she'd drastically changed. She was caring, kind, never raised her voice. Which isn't to say that she didn't give it to you straight – you always knew where you stood in my grandmother's eyes. Sometimes, that wasn't such a good thing. LOL

That was the hardest part of watching her fade away – watching her revert to that person she'd been before. You could see the confusion in her eyes, sometimes. Like she didn't really understand why she was being mean either, just that she was, and you were in front of her. In the end, things progressed as can be imagined, and she passed away.

But, out of that emotional perfect storm, came wisdom and strength. Watching my aunts (not so much my mother) take what my grandmother dished out on a weekly basis, watching them persevere, unbending under the onslaught, watching them treat my grandmother with nothing but respect no matter what she hurled at them – verbal or physical. So when the character of Mark popped into my head, I instantly identified with him and what he'd been through with his father.

Despite the gloomy overtones at some points, I really enjoyed writing "Buried Treasure". Often times, my characters and I have a great deal in common, but usually not on childhood issues. In a way, it was like chatting with an old friend, reminiscing over things we'd seen and heard, laughing at things that most people wouldn't find funny (there is a certain humor to a wizened, eighty-eight year old woman fast balling a TV Guide at your head as though she's a pitcher for the Yankees, trust me).

I hope my readers like "Buried Treasure" as much as I do. I'm certainly happy to bring the story to you.

Blurb:

After his last long-term relationship ended because of his nightmares, Mark closed his heart to the possibility of finding love again. He's certainly never considered Gabe, the orderly who works at Miller's Retirement Home where his father lives. But there's more to Gabe than meets the eye, and if Mark is willing to let Gabe in, he might just discover the most important buried treasure of all.

Backlist Feature: Buried Treasure

Blurb:

After his last long-term relationship ended because of his nightmares, Mark closed his heart to the possibility of finding love again. He's certainly never considered Gabe, the orderly who works at Miller's Retirement Home where his father lives. But there's more to Gabe than meets the eye, and if Mark is willing to let Gabe in, he might just discover the most important buried treasure of all.

Excerpt:

“You know, you don’t have to come by every week.” Gabe wiped his mouth with a napkin and sipped his coffee to wash down the Danish he’d just devoured. He’d gone to a lot of effort to snag this date, and he was going to enjoy all of it, right down to the food. Not to mention the view. Even tied back in a ponytail, Mark’s hair made Gabe itch to run his fingers through it. He’s always admired men who were able to pull off having longer hair and still look entirely masculine. Although with his towering height and those bulky muscles—deliciously visible under his dress shirt—Mark couldn’t possibly look anything but.

Mark jerked his head up to look at Gabe, glaring. “That’s odd coming from someone in your position.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you visit weekly. Some of our residents don’t ever get visits, just phone calls on birthdays and holidays, and some don’t even get that much.” Gabe inclined his head and frowned. “But it’s hard on”—the heat of a blush filled his cheeks at the choice of his own words, and he cleared his throat—”it’s difficult for you, never knowing which dad you’re coming to see. It is stressful for you and him. Besides, not to sound cruel, but it’s not as though he enjoys your visits when he’s like he is today. Not that you can predict it, of course. Maybe you can call ahead? I can...” Gabe trailed off and cleared his throat, hoping Mark hadn’t noticed his slipup. An orderly wouldn’t be answering the phone, after all, and he wasn’t ready to tell Mark the truth about his real role at Miller’s. Not just yet. “I mean, the girls at the front desk can tell you how things are going.”

“That might work.” Mark nodded. He pulled off another chunk of doughnut and popped it into his mouth. “I just feel guilty not putting in the effort. We’ve already lost so much time together over my decisions.”

Gabe snorted. “You didn’t decide to be gay anymore than I did. Evelyn came by yesterday, by the way.”

“My sister was in town?” Mark’s eyes went wide and his mouth turned down into an almost childlike pouty frown, bottom lip sticking out just so.

“She didn’t stay or anything. She said she was passing through on a business trip,” Gabe offered, hoping to soften the blow that Mark’s sister had been in town and hadn’t bothered to see him. “She dropped off some early birthday cards from her kids.”

“She didn’t visit with dad?” Mark’s frown deepened. He shifted and looked out the window, absently stirring his coffee.

“She can’t stand to see him like that.” Gabe gnawed on his bottom lip. Watching patients fade away wasn’t always the worst part of his job. Sometimes, watching their families splinter apart was even worse. He wished he knew some magic words to heal the growing rift in Mark’s family.

“Yeah? Well, neither can the rest of us.” Mark pushed his coffee cup away and glanced at his watch. “I have to get going.” He pulled out his wallet, tossed down some money, slid from the booth, and walked away.

Gabe heaved a sigh. He’d known Mark would be a difficult catch— the man was aloof and seemed to be one of the most antisocial people on the planet. Though there was surely a reason for Mark’s private nature, Gabe suspected that something else lurked on the inside, underneath all that bravado: a soft-hearted, passionate man. And even better, Gabe knew in his gut that Mark was someone he could reveal his own hidden secrets to, and finally not be rebuffed. He quirked an eyebrow as Mark came back to the booth.

He hovered for a moment, driving a hand through his hair. “Thanks for the coffee.”

Gabe shrugged. “Thank yourself. You paid for it.” He pointed at the cash Mark had left.

“Yeah. Well, thanks for the invite, anyhow.” Mark lingered at the table, and Gabe couldn’t help but seize the opportunity.

“Wanna do this again? We could make it a weekly thing, you know? Get together for lunch every Wednesday.”

Mark frowned. “Wednesdays are bad for me. I do the dad thing,”

“Right.” But Gabe wasn’t about to give up that easily. “Thursdays, then? Or Fridays? Or Mondays? Tuesdays, even?” He smiled what he hoped was the sweetest, most irresistible smiles in the world and batted his eyelashes at Mark. “Please?”

Mark’s frown deepened and he glanced again toward the door of the café and back several times, and Gabe half expected him to start pacing like a caged animal. Mark sighed and nodded. “What about just next Thursday?” Another quick look at the door. “I don’t want to get your hopes up if I can’t commit. You know, because of a work conflict or whatever.”

Gabe grinned widely. Success! “Sure. Next Thursday to try it out. You never know, you might find once a week of me just isn’t enough.” The comment earned him a half-hearted chuckle before Mark strode away, pausing at the door to cast a look over his shoulder.

Gabe waved, grinning as Mark left. He sat back and sighed. So. He’d managed to chip at that frosty exterior of Mark’s after all. He downed the rest of his coffee in four gulps and signaled the waitress again.