There Are Five Dogs In My House

lap puppies

EDIT: Lesbia update here 🙂

Five.

Dogs.

Three of them are under six months old.

The chaos is everywhere, and it is beautiful.

Three of these dogs are ours. Two of them are not. A couple of weeks ago these puppies were dumped on the side of the road. They came to me with massive worm swollen bellies, little stick limbs and ear-piercing shrieks which would erupt from their throats every time they were left for even a minute because they were scared and they thought they were alone.

They’re not alone anymore. They have three older dogs to play with, they have a warm, clean bed to sleep in and these days the only times their tummies are swollen is when they’ve eaten too much.

I’ve fallen in love with these two little fosters. They live for affection. If you sit down with them for even a minute they will climb into your lap and fall asleep from sheer contentment. (As pictured above.) And they’re smart. Raptors from Jurassic Park smart. They don’t look like much and nobody is rushing to adopt them, which is a bad thing because not only do they not have ‘forever homes’ as yet, but every day they’re here they become more a part of the family. It’s going to be hard to see them go.

Puppies, like most juvenile animals, are pure expressions of joy. They’re so helpless and so trusting and so curious and such little embodiments of everything that is good in the world – which I think is what makes the notion of dumping them so viscerally abhorrent. Mistreating an animal isn’t just a case of cruelty, its an act which rejects everything that makes us good.

These are two of the reasons I’ve been busy of late, but I think it’s worth it. I thank you for your patience 🙂 And I promise there will be more updates in the not too distant future.

Leaving Rigel in Amazon Top 100 30 Gay/ Lesbian Erotica

Just like it says in the title really, Leaving Rigel has managed to break into the top hundred 30 books in the Gay and Lesbian erotica section on Amazon. How exciting! I was a little excited when I first posted this, when it was number 86 or so, but sitting at 30, well, that’s a significant higherness, it is.

This is all very exciting although, except for aside from the odd sex scene, it is hardly erotica. However I am coming to the conclusion that anything in which someone’s bottom is referenced as anything other than a surface for sitting on counts as erotica in the US. Also, I never think anything I write is erotica unless it is 90% sex. I have a high bar for erotic content.

I have been to the USA and I know that most Americans aren’t prudes, but instances like this make me want to fly over and just wander around making casual references to spanking and, in my imagination, watch people blush profusely and maybe fall over from the shock of it all. 

Also, why is Gay and Lesbian stuff incessantly lumped together? In many respects, I can’t imagine two interest areas more inherently separate than Gay and Lesbian. I mean, I know they’re grouped together by merit of being a departure from heterosexuality, but it is a little like going to a store and finding gravel and tampons stocked together simply by merit of not being cheese. Or going to a zoo and finding the guinea pigs in with the hippos by merit of not being gorillas. Or some other equally poor analogy.

Anyway, Leaving Rigel, currently #89 31 in Gay and Lesbian erotica! 

Oh, and there’s a new Lesbia post up too! Summoner PT 18: In the Closet

Oh, oh, and there’s sneak preview of the third Military Discipline up on LokiRenard.com for the maverick readers who make the leap from F/F to M/F and back again when the mood takes them.

Leaving Rigel *OUT NOW*

*THANK YOU* for your support everyone. There has been some really nice feedback and I’m really happy that this installment of the series has bought you some pleasure. 

As promised the next, and indeed, final book in the Rigel series is now finished and available!

You’ll notice that there has been a title change. I promise that not only does this book have a proper ending but that it is also not anywhere near as depressing as the title might imply.

So we’re ready for the blurb now, right? Yes? I shall begin the blurbling now:

leaving rigel

Hearts and bottoms are on the line!

In the aftermath of the charismatic albeit unabashedly promiscuous Rigel’s disastrous attempt at a proposal, both Rigel and her ex-girlfriend Sadie are left emotionally devastated and acting out in their own ways.

Meanwhile, gentle dyke Tank seems to be getting called off the romance bench by Sadie’s best friend, Kate, who is far too young for her – and far too straight, for that matter.

Is Kate really interested in Tank romantically? And what about Rigel, who wastes no time declaring her own undying attraction for Tank too?

Whilst Tank tries to navigate her way through that romantic minefield, she has Sadie to worry about. Bright, witty, no-limits Sadie, who seems to have slammed the lever down on her own self destruct mechanism, and who is going to need correcting in no uncertain terms.

Leave Rigel on Amazon!
Leave Rigel on Smashwords!

(Leaving Rigel will also be available on Kobo, Nook and the Apple store, however it will take a couple of weeks or so for them to become available in those locations.)

DD’s Review:

Thanks to DD for leaving this lovely review on Amazon:

Don’t let the title fool you! All the characters we have come to love in these series are here to stay! Do they all get a typical happy ever after? Well, let me put it this way. There’s nothing typical about Loki’s stories. But let me assure you, she wraps things up nicely in this sweet and romantic tale. I tend to get carried away and accidentally spoil things so I will keep this short.

I will just say this book contains some brilliant and witty dialog and some very heartwarming (yet never mushy) moments. It’s not that easy to find romance with witty and strong heroines and it’s even harder to find that in spanky stories. Yet that’s exactly what Loki Renard delivers once more. Not only that, but the ending proves something I wish were more common in romance: Sadie doesn’t settle for less than she deserves and she doesn’t mistake anxiety and danger for passion. She might be a brat but she is definitely a very wise woman.

Still comering…

I’m working on the next Rigel book, as mentioned earlier. Which makes this corner of the internet somewhat quiet. The good news is that the story has wrenched itself out of my hands and is tap dancing nonsensically on the desk, refusing all efforts to make it conform to narrative expectations. This is a good sign, as it means it is almost done.

On another note, today I discovered a descriptive term for one of those things that you know is a thing, but you can’t put words to it, so you can’t explain why it’s bad. Know what I mean? Yes No?

The term is ‘thought terminating cliche‘ – and its used to describe any phrase which is used to attempt to shut down further thought on or discussion of a subject. These things are everywhere in the consensus narrative – but, as some magicians have noted over the years, knowing the name of a thing gives you some measure of power over it. The next time someone dismisses a topic of discussion with some offhanded, inherently meaningless phrase, you’ll know exactly why it makes your palm itch.

Announcing the coming soonering of…

HEALING RIGEL COVER LITTLE The perhaps too long awaited sequel to Loving Rigel (once titled Operation Sadiemeister). This should be out by the end of the month at the very latest. Unless it isn’t. But I am pretty sure it will be.

So what is Healing Rigel about?

Hearts and bottoms are on the line! In the aftermath of Rigel’s disastrous attempt at a proposal, both Rigel and Sadie are left emotionally devastated and acting out in their own ways. Meanwhile, gentle dyke Tank seems to be getting called off the romance bench by Kate, who is far too young for her – and far too straight, for that matter.

Other books in the Rigel Series:

Obeying Rigel
Loving Rigel (Sequel to Obeying Rigel)

Prequels:

Training Rigel (Prequel to Obeying Rigel.)
Chasing Rigel (Sequel to the prequel. Yes. I know.)

I have…

A headache and I can’t sleep and though I’ve tried to write another installment of Lesbia, everything keeps coming out crazy weird – not in a great way.

But this made me laugh:

endless bread