Anna Zabo

Isaac gathered the cards at the center of the table. “So, you and me, and Karlsson and Sidorov—Sido?”


I’d never seen Elias roll his eyes quite so hard. “It’s Elias, or Karly.”


Isaac’s sheepish grin was lovely. “Okay.”


Nikki leveled another glare at me before shifting his attention to Isaac. “You can call me Nisha here.” He gestured to the four of us.

So, one thing about hockey is that everyone pretty much has a nickname. Take the Penguins. Evgeni Malkin is Geno or G. Kris Letang is Tanger (though his glove says Legend and yes there’s a story behind that). Sidney Crosby is.. well, he’s Sid. Marcus Petterson has been Dragon, but is now Petey (as are all Petterssons, it seems) and that caused some confusion when Jeff Petry joined the team, because he was also Petey, but is now JP. Anyway… nicknames.

So, yes, the boys on the Griffins have nicknames, too. Some, like Nisha, have more than one. Names are important, and a sign of the closeness of a relationship, or the formality of a situation. You’ll see some of this come out in Scoreless Game.

Without further ado, here are the main ones mentioned in the Rookie Mistake (will update sometime after Scoreless Game comes out, since adding those might constitute spoilers):

Name	Nickname
Elias Karlsson	Karly
Nikolai Sidorov	Sido, Nisha, Nikki
Julien Landry	Lans, Jules, King
Isaac Rivera	Rivs
Brock Paxton	Paxy
David Larfield	Larry
Jack Davidson	Davy
Valdis Ozols	Ozzy

Once upon a time, LA Witt and I got an idea for a hockey romance. That was Rookie Mistake. Halfway through writing that book, we knew Julien and Isaac’s teammates, Elias and Nisha, were going to have a book of their own. Scoreless game is that book.

We knew their romance wouldn’t be easy, and boy, it was not. They love each other so much, but are completely oblivious to the other’s adoration. There are reasons for this, of course. The book is also an exploration of how the events of Rookie Mistake and the very large shift in the status quo of their lives culminates in all that’s been hidden bubbling up to the surface. As the book opens, their friendship is teetering on the edge of annihilation. And they fall over that.

But their love… well their love for each other is what saves them. We promise.

It will be release on March 1, which at the time of this writing, is a scant two day away (though the physical forms of the book are available now).

Blurb

At nearly thirty-one years old, Pittsburgh Griffins captain Elias Karlsson’s hockey years are numbered. Everything is changing around him, including his eleven-year friendship with Nikolai Sidorov. Elias would give anything for Nisha to be a permanent part of his life, but their once bedrock-strong bond has broken into a million pieces, and Elias doesn’t know why. More than anything, Elias wants his friend back, but if that isn’t an option, maybe it’s time for him to look outside of hockey for someone to be there with him when hockey isn’t an option anymore.

Nisha’s world is splintering apart. He’s been in love with his two best friends for years, but now one of them has someone. The other, Elias, is searching for everything Nisha wishes he could give him… but he’s looking for it in anyone but Nisha. The farther his friends slip away, the deeper the loneliness sinks in and the bleaker his empty future looks. What can he do but numb the pain in the only ways he knows how?

On the eve of the season opener, Nisha’s unexplained absence threatens the cohesion of the team and puts him and Elias on a collision course of strong wills, broken hearts, and shattered trust. In the end, they may lose the very thing that matters most to them both: each other.

Scoreless Game is approximately 180,000 words, including a bonus short story. This asexual-pansexual romance is book 2 in the On the Board series.

CW: on-page struggles with alcoholism and binge-drinking, suicidal ideation, toxic family dynamics, acephobia

Buy Link: Amazon

So, I unexpectedly co-authored a book with L.A. Witt at the end of last year/beginning of this year. Wasn’t planned at all. She moved it Pittsburgh recently, and we started going to hockey games together. She got an idea, I got an idea, we mashed them together, and Rookie Mistake came about.

It was not the book we expected to write when we started, but Isaac and Julien had their own plans. 150,000 words later…

Rookie Mistake will be out on June 28th, just in time for the post-Cup off-season!

Here’s the blurb and cover:

Rookie forward Isaac Rivera is still finding his footing in the big leagues where he’s no longer the best player on the roster. It’s a whole new world, especially now that several of his hockey idols have become teammates. Friends, even.

There’s one who’s more than a hockey idol, though… and he might end up being more than a friend.

Julien Landry is a powerhouse on the ice. In eight years, he’s become one of the league’s top defensemen and the heartthrob everyone wants to bed. But fallout from a painful mistake as a rookie, followed by years of rough-and-tumble hookups, have him itching for something more.

When a connection sparks between him and Isaac, he discovers what he’s been missing: someone he can trust with his body and his heart. As long as Isaac and Julien keep the heat between them off the ice, what could go wrong?

But Julien’s past is never far behind him, and when it comes crashing in, he might lose everything—his career, his friends, and the first person he’s ever really loved.

You can pre-order a copy at Amazon.

The entire Takeover series has been re-released, with beautiful new covers by Cate Ashwood, and a very light edit. If you already own these ebooks, there’s no need to buy them again.

The first book, Takeover, also contains the short story A Private Merger, which can also be found here.

Currently, the ebooks are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, so they’re only available at Amazon. I’ll take them wide again at some point, but they’ve never been in KU before, and it’s a whole different batch of readers.

They’re still available in translations and as audiobooks.

However, there are now paperbacks, which should be available at all retailers, soon! They just need to wind their way through distribution channels. I have no idea how long that takes, but you’ll be able to order them from your favorite independent, soon.

A quick note to state that the Takeover series is temporarily unavailable as ebooks. I received my rights back and will be republishing ebooks of these titles, as well as publishing paperback versions (for the first time ever in English).

Audiobook versions and translations are unaffected.

It’s taking a little bit to reformat the books, but I’ll have them up as soon as I can. I also intend to include Takeover: A Private Merger as a bonus story in Takeover. Other than cleaning up typos I see, I’m not significantly changing the text.

I do have new covers, though! Here’s the first one, designed by Cate Ashwood:

The news is out! I’m part of a multi-author kinky m/m series called Bold Brew, which is set around the Bold Brew coffeeshop, in a small fictional town in western Pennsylvania. Each book in the series intersects in some way with this LGBTQ+ inclusive coffeehouse that serves as a gathering spot for the community and is especially kink-friendly.

For more information about the series as a whole and all the books, please check out this series and cover reveal post at Joyfully Jay! It lists all the books and their release dates. You can also enter a chance to win a gift card.

We also have a series Facebook Page where we’ll be talking more about each book, the characters, and having some giveaways, too!

My contribution to the series is Cinnamon Roll, because I really really wanted to write about a cinnamon roll sadist. It’s also a twist on a second chance romance, in that both men have been wanting each other since they first laid eyes on one another, but for reasons, they’ve never gotten together.

Then they get the chance.

This was the story that got me back into writing after a long dry spell. I threw everything I love into it. Pining. D/s. Pain play. Snark. Sexy men. Hockey. Fine dining. Service Tops. Pastries. Coffee. Bondage. Orgasm denial. A really amazing basement. A French-Canadian with longish, dark hair.

The book has some angst, but over all, it’s a fairly low-stress super hot and sexy read that’s got a lot of kinky sex. I did include representation notes and content warnings in my Goodreads review.

Here’s the cover and blurb for Cinnamon Roll!

This cinnamon roll has plenty of bite!

Maxime Demers has had an eye on Tom Cedric for a while, watching him flit from one awful man to another. So when Tom pins an ad to the community cork board at Bold Brew, Max can’t resist reading it. Tom’s looking for a play partner—someone who’s not a jerk—and Max knows he could give Tom what he needs. But first he’ll have to get the man to talk to him.

Tom Cedric thinks Max is way out of his league. He’s handsome, intelligent, speaks a billion languages, and can make a person kneel with a single look—too damn good for someone like Tom. But he can’t resist the temptation to talk to the man he’s had a crush on since the moment he laid eyes on him.

The connection between them is immediate, hot, and tempting, and when Max needs a replacement helper for an impact demo he’s giving, Tom jumps at the chance. A demo should be safe, right? A few hours. Clothing on. No stakes. Neither man is prepared when that spark ignites, and Tom is absolutely unprepared to discover the sweet man behind those dominating looks.

Cinnamon Roll is a stand-alone novel in the Bold Brew shared universe, centered around an inclusive coffee shop in a fictional small city. Each steaming hot coffee shop romance can be enjoyed alone, but collect all ten for the most fun!

This twist on a second-chance romance is 90,000-word cup of steaming hot scenes, a dusting of angst, plenty of fluff, and a guaranteed happy ending!

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The whole series will be in Amazon KU for 90 days, then each author has the choice to go wide. I’ll also be releasing this in paperback.

You can preorder Cinnamon Roll on Amazon. It’ll be $2.99 for pre-order and for the first week of the release, then the price will go up (since it’s a 90K novel).

It’s been more than a year since I blogged here. Sorry about that.

Part of the reason for my absence was sheer burn-out after writing and releasing Reverb. I love that book, but it did take a lot out of me to write, so much so that all I managed to write after it until this fall was a 10,000 word short story for an anthology.

I’m not going to get into what happened with the anthology. It was released, then pulled, and the rights to the story returned to me. I ended up self-publishing the story, Weave the Dark, Weave the Light. It’s on Amazon in KU. I designed the cover.

Fire witch Ari Zydik has always had a tenuous connection with their magic, and opening themself up to the whims of the universe on Samhain, desperate for a connection to anything hasn’t helped. A chance run-in with a stranger while ice skating leads to a tenuous relationship with Jonathan Aster, an immortal and powerful being—one Ari feels compelled to conquer and dominate. But as Midwinter looms, can Ari tame the fire of an ancient star?

This year was rough for so many of us. I’ve been lucky that my dayjob is easy to do from home, though I very much miss my co-workers and working down in the city. I also miss hockey games and seeing my friends. I’ve been walking every day just to get out of the house and remind myself that the world and other people exist. All of us regular walkers have gotten used to seeing each other.

But I did have a personal tragedy this year. My father passed away from late-stage Parkinson’s in October. (His obituary is here.) Thankfully, it wasn’t Covid, so I was able to travel to my parents’ house and say goodbye. I was there when he passed.

Then I learned my literary agent was leaving the industry. After much thinking about it, I decided to go it alone for a bit, and see what I could do self-publishing some of the books I want to write that tradition publishing doesn’t want to chance publishing.

And strangely enough, the stress of all that unlocked my ability to write. The first thing I wrote was a piece of fanfic. It’s RPF Hockey fic, and if you have an Ao3 account, it’s here. (You have to be logged in to see it.)

Then I wrote an entire novel, mostly in November. It’s an m/m romance that’s pretty kinky, low-ish on angst (for me), and has quite a lot of sex. It’s kind of a twist on a second chance romance. The guys in question have orbited each other for years, run in the same circles, have been interested in each other, but have never actually talked. The title is Cinnamon Roll, and the book will be out in April. I’ll tell you more about it later in January.

I also got the rights back to my novel Outside the Lines, and I’ve edited out some binary gender thinking (damn internalized transphobia) and will be re-releasing that later in January. I ended up trying my hand at fully designing a cover, and I think it turned out pretty well. It’s very bright and happy!

Some other thing that happened this year: Takeover came out in Italian.

And Close Quarter came out in German.

Also, all three of my Twisted Wishes novels are out in audio, read by the incredible Greg Boudreaux (Greg Tremblay).

Basically, 2020 wasn’t the best year, but I’m hitting 2021 with new energy and a plan to bring you a lot more books on my own terms. One thing the past year has taught me is that life is too short not do work on what you enjoy.

So, in 2021, I’m writing what I love, and hopefully, you will love them, too.

Happy New Year!

 

There’s just a few more weeks until Reverb releases! And today, I have a little sneak peek!

Continue reading “Reverb Excerpt” →

According to GoodReads, I read 55 books this year. One of them was a DNF, though, and some of them were re-reads. Still, not a bad number, considering that I also wrote a bunch and held down my day job. Oh, and I went to a lot of hockey games.

Of that batch of books, here’s what really knocked my socks off, in no particular order!

(Do remember that these are only from the books that I personally read this past year and only my opinion. Your mileage may vary, as they say!)

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Untrue by Kris Ripper

It’s not a secret that I’m a fan of Ripper’s work and I’ve espoused zir work before here, and this book and series (The Scientific Method) in particular. There’s something about Will, Hugh, and Truman that is so real. I swear these guys and all the people surrounding them could walk of the pages and exist. It’s been kind of amazing watching them grow and change over the years.

Untrue ripped my emotions apart and put them back together again. I had my heart in my throat and couldn’t breathe all that well for the first half of the book. Yes, the book is about being untrue to your partners, and the aftermath, and how Truman, but also Hugh and Will had to face their own issues together and reveal what they hide from each other so that they can have each other and their love into the future.

Where Death Meets the Devil by L.J. Hayward

This book and this series have blown me away. Set (mostly) in near-future Australia, it’s a slow burn romance between Jack Reardon, a super spy sent to infiltrate an organization that’s helping terror groups, and Ethan Bade, a highly skilled assassin who blows Jack’s cover. The book alternates from Then to Now, a year later, when Ethan comes back into Jack’s life.

The rest of the novellas and Book Two continue Jack and Ethan’s story.

I think the thing that surprised me the most about these books is how much I fell for Ethan, who is supposed to be a remorseless, cold-hearted assassin, and is actually a cinnamon roll with a very battered heart of gold.

Grumpy Fake Boyfriend by Jackie Lau

This book was just FUN. The book delivers what the title promises—a grumpy fake boyfriend who is also an author and who falls in love with his best friend’s little sister while pretending to be her boyfriend so that she can spend the weekend with her friends (including her asshole ex) without feeling like a third wheel, or having them feel sorry for her. Or her ex being smug.

Just the way these two interact is fun, and the sex is hot. I keep thinking back to it and feeling warm and happy.

The Wolf at the Door by Charlie Adhara

Kind of a different take on werewolves, wrapped in a romantic suspense. Cooper Dayton’s FBI career was ended when he was attacked by a werewolf. Now an agent at the Bureau of Special Investigations, investigating paranormal activity, he’s partnered up with Oliver Park, a werewolf and an agent of The Trust, a werewolf oversight organization to investigate a strange string of missing persons.

Cooper doesn’t trust Park at all, but can’t deny his utter attraction to the other man. This one was insta lust with a slow burn on anything happening. It’s mysterious and moody and lovely. The second book, The Wolf at Bay, delves more into Cooper’s past and strengthens the ties between Cooper and Park.

I can’t wait for the third, which promises a glimpse into Park’s past.

One-Eyed Royals by Cordelia Kingsbridge

I’m addicted to the Seven of Spades series. This is the fourth of five books in the series. You can’t read it without the others, and pretty much, there’s a ton of content warning with this series. It’s violent. There’s death. There’s addiction shown in all it’s horrible light. The MCs aren’t always the best people.

But oh man, it’s so so so good. This penultimate book sees the MCs at odds with each other all while a serial killer toys and toys and toys with them. The end is stunning and sets up for the final showdown.

If anyone spoils a Chip and a Chair for me, I will salt the earth for the decedents to the tenth generation.

Darkling by Brooklyn Ray

This is a darkly delicious New Adult paranormal romance about two members of a circle of witches who are on the cusp of both coming into their powers fully and realizing that they’re utterly in love with each other. Ryder is a fire witch, but also a necromancer. Liam is a water witch. They’re best friends who grow into lovers all while Ryder’s dark magic starts to become uncontrollable.

The only way to fix it is for Ryder to die and come back. But there’s no guarantee he will.

The second book, Undertow, continues the story of Ryder and Liam and their circle as the events in Darkling unlock a whole bunch of other stuff. I am looking forward to more books in this series!

A Tiny Piece of Something Greater by Jude Sierra

This was wonderfully beautiful and hopeful book. It’s also, at time, raw and heartbreaking, but in a gentle way. Jude’s writing is almost dreamlike. Soft and calming. This is very much a New Adult book about two young men on the cusp of the rest of their lives and how they find love and acceptance with each other.

It’s also a book that deals heavily with the reality of living with a mental illness and how that affects, your relationships, and your life. It’s real and raw, but hopeful, so hopeful, and full of light. Reid isn’t his illness, but it’s a part of who he is, and Joaquim accepts that fully, even though it’s hard sometimes. There’s no stigma here. No platitudes, either. And that, by itself is a breath of fresh air.

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If you want to see what else I read this year, my Goodreads list is here.

Hi all! It’s my birthday week, so I’m giving you a present! I’ve been sitting on this cover for a while now, but since the buy links for Reverb are starting to appear, I figure NOW is the time to show the cover to you!

When I saw this, I literally squeaked. This is so very Mish. Let me know what you think!

Reverb will be out May 6th, 2019! It’s m/f, and a take on the bodyguard trope. Mish is a  pansexual cis woman. David is a queer trans man.

Not all the vendors have links yet, but right now you can pre-order here:

Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Apple Books