All the Colors of Love, my first and most recent* gay romance, is finally available to readers everywhere thanks to persistance, lots of support, and Harmony Ink Press!
Blurb:
It sucks being the son of a super villain. At home, Harry spends half of his time getting medical treatments and the other half tied up in his father's underwater lair. It was different when his mother was alive, but she disappeared when Harry was six. He can't seem to stay out of trouble at school, and his new roommate, Antonin, thinks he’s a spaz, but somehow Harry has to find a way to stop his father's evil plans.
Antonin Karganilla wants to become a comic book artist, but other than that, being gay is the most normal thing about him. His uncle is an aquatic plant man, his aunt is a molecular biologist back from the dead, and his mom is an overprotective pain in the butt. Antonin's in boarding school and it's starting to look like he and this Harry kid might have a lot in common... and that means a whole new set of problems.
And here's an excerpt:
THE most fucked-up thing of all was that Harry almost felt relieved to find himself once again beneath his father’s thumb. Like returning to familiar surroundings after a whirlwind tour of a bizarre and fabulous land. He knew what was expected of him now.
He and Antonin boarded a Sears jetliner out of Brussels. Before this, Harry had always been carted around on one of the Old Man’s microjets. He’d never been on a commercial jetliner before. How could something so big—three levels, each with at least a hundred rows in four sections—feel so small? The air had a flat, recycled smell, and people jostled him in the narrow aisle as everyone tried to heave their luggage into the overhead compartments and find their places. Antonin had taken advantage of a last-minute cancellation and gotten them seats in one of the side sections.
“You take the window seat,” Antonin told Harry as he tried to maneuver his suitcase over his head to reach the luggage compartment. “You’ll want to say good-bye to the sun.”
Harry took Antonin’s suitcase from him, put it in the compartment, and shoved his duffel bag in after it. He didn’t protest Antonin’s offer, eyeing the tiny seats dubiously. At least this way, if he was smashed up against someone, it would be Antonin. Maybe Antonin would fall asleep, and his head would just kind of accidentally wind up on Harry’s shoulder… and maybe Harry would pretend to fall asleep too, and he could rest his head on top of Antonin’s and let his hand just sort of droop down, onto Antonin’s thigh…. “How long is this flight?” he asked.
“About three hours.”
“Is that all?”
I'm ridiculously proud of this book. It changed the whole direction of my career. At the start of this post I called it my first and most recent book.* Why?
Well, way back when, in the early naughts, I wrote the first draft of this story and it was the first time I'd written a gay romance. The experience was unlike any other writing I'd ever done at that point. I had more fun with it than with my previous books. I felt free. At the time I was as surprised as anyone else to discover that my true calling was to write about guys in love with other guys, but I knew there was no going back.
Sadly, when I pitched the book to my big seven editor, the first thing he asked me was, "Do they have to be gay?" Things didn't get better from there. My agent didn't think there was much market for gay romance, since most romance readers are women (I got that a lot in those days, and sometimes still do). After it recieved one rejection he declined to shop it further.
If it had just been this one book, I probably would have let it go and gone back to writing strong female protagonists. But it was so much more than that. While all of this was going on I had also discovered slash fanfiction, and realized that I was not the only woman who loved gay romance. I can be quite stubborn when my heart is involved and I knew that I was not going to be working with this editor and this agent for long, because the vast majority of books I'd be writing from that point on would also be gay romance.
I fired the agent and started exploring markets for gay romance. At the time, there wasn't much. Erotic romance epublishing was still relatively new and also had not yet twigged to the fact that there was a big market for gay romance among female romance readers. And when those markets did open up, well, since they were erotic romance, I could hardly send them my YA story. But I did start writing gay erotic romance and publishing regularly.
I set All the Colors of Love aside for several years, thinking that the book that had changed my life might never find it's own market. And then the tides shifted, and people woke up to the fact that young gay people need books that reflect who they are. And Harmony Ink and other LGBTQ YA imprints started springing up. And one day I looked around and realized, hey, there's a market for this book now.
And here we are. :)
I want to thank everyone who's been by my side through this journey. You know who you are, and I hope you know that your support and belief, in me and in Colors, made today possible.
This provides such awesome context for the story. I had no idea you'd such a journey to get this published. Congratulations on the release!
Posted by: Thursdayeuclid | September 12, 2013 at 12:09 PM
Thx Thurs!
Posted by: Jessica Freely | September 12, 2013 at 12:27 PM
Well I for one am very happy that you persevered with your m/m writing, be it adult or YA. I believe I have everything you've written and absolutely love them all.
Fan-girl gushing moment here. ;-)
Posted by: Kat | September 29, 2013 at 11:22 AM
Oh wow, Kat, you have no idea how nice that is to hear. Thank you, thank you!
Posted by: Jessica Freely | September 29, 2013 at 11:30 AM
Oh, and I should add that I fully intend to continue writing both adult and YA gay romance. In fact, the story I'm working on right now is the next installment in the Freedom Series, and is quite definitely for readers 18+.
Posted by: Jessica Freely | September 29, 2013 at 11:33 AM