Over a period of thirty years, three gay men struggle to define themselves and make their mark on a turbulent and unwelcoming world that is so filled with anger that love has become a luxury.
Blurb
Over a period of thirty years, three gay men struggle to define themselves and make their mark on a turbulent and unwelcoming world that is so filled with anger that love has become a luxury.
The townsfolk describe him as “prettier than a boy should be.” ELI APPLE is embarrassed by such remarks but soon learns to celebrate all the pleasures his beauty invites. He possesses the voice of an angel and the sound of his tender falsetto echoes throughout the green forests that surround his New England home. A rough, older boy, FERRIS COOPER, dazzled by the youngster’s loveliness and captivated by the hymns he sings, secretly follows him on his daily walks. And into both their lives arrives BENJAMIN BERGER, savior to one and beloved by the other. The adventures of these three men become entwined in a surprising tapestry of love and betrayal over the course of thirty years.
Straddling the worlds of music, religion, and art, and set in an era that begins with Ronald Reagan describing America as a “shining city on a hill” and ends with Donald Trump’s legacy of “American carnage,” these characters come of age while America is coming apart. They celebrate as gay marriage is legalized and suffer as gun violence explodes across the country. And when a deadly virus threatens and nations close their borders, they must struggle to survive in an America they no longer recognize.
Emulating the warmth and complexity of male friendships as portrayed in Hannah Yanagihara’s A LITTLE LIFE while also embracing the earthy sensuality of the same-sex couples in Garth Greenwell’s CLEANNESS, the characters in THE ORPHAN FROM SHEPHERDS KEEP are real and imperfect and utterly unforgettable.
About the Author
Lindsay Law has produced scores of television plays, dozens of films, in addition to a pair of productions on Broadway. Many of these works have been nominated for Emmys, Tonys, and Oscars. He was the Executive Producer for the PBS drama series, AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE from 1981 to 1995. He was the President of Fox Searchlight Pictures from 1995 to 2000. He lives in Litchfield County, Connecticut. This is his first novel.
If you enjoyed this book and the time you spent with these characters, help spread the word on-line, at your local bookshop, and directly with your friends. The author would enjoy hearing about your experience while reading this book and invites you to ask any questions you may have about this story and his story.
Luck and love await the D’Vaire family at the newest dragon resort.
Blurb
In these five previously unpublished short stories, the D’Vaires are invited to the newest dragon resort, the Deck of Cards.
King of Clubs: The King of Clubs restaurant boasts a menu ranging from flavorful steak to exotic fruits. Grab a seat at a table and dine with many of the beloved couples from the D’Vaire series.
Diamond and Dollars: The heart of this Vegas resort is the casino, and the D’Vaires are ready to discover if the odds favor them. Past the slots and tables is a vast shopping area, and the stores have plenty to tempt even the most discerning customer.
Goddesses Wild: The goddesses are keeping an eye on their treasured D’Vaires from the realm of the dead. Unfortunately, their jovial chat is interrupted by a sudden death with a few clues left to unravel.
Heathcliff’s Heart: Brynewielm Duke Heathcliff D’Vairefenix wants a quick beer, so he escapes to the Hearts bar with a book. When he gets there, Heath finds his mate. Young bartender Brinley Brimstone is saving every penny for an uncertain future. When the phoenix and fire mage meet, flames will surely follow.
Double Spades: For Bard Ashby D’Vaire, everything centers on his career, family, and garden. But Ashby is missing the love of a partner. It is with great reluctance that Seltivare Tristis takes a job at the Deck of Cards. But the elf’s misgivings are lost on his first night at work when he crosses paths with a jaguar hybrid who is determined to make his dreams come true.
Excerpt
Moving ahead of his family so he could open the tall door designed to look like an ace of hearts, Heathcliff smiled. “We’re D’Vaires. If we aren’t weird, we’ll get kicked out of the mansion.”
“That’s definitely not how that works,” Scheredin muttered.
Laughing, Heathcliff waited for everyone to walk into the bar. His chuckles died the second he followed them inside. Thanks to his elven ancestors, he’d lacked sexuality until that moment. To Heathcliff’s horror, his cock tented his trousers, and the sharp spicy scent of pink peppercorns consumed his senses.
Somewhere in the bar was his mate. Desperate to find him or her, Heathcliff looked around. His gaze unerringly landed on a man with shocked blue eyes and brown hair glowing a little red in the bar’s moody lighting. Heathcliff’s phoenix screeched with delight and a desire to know everything about the ignis mage staring at them.
“Heath, what’s wrong?” Kieran asked.
Too busy staring at the man, Heathcliff barely heard his brother’s question. His mate was in dark pants paired with a black-and-white shirt with giant red hearts down the right side.
“Wrong?” Heathcliff repeated dumbly as he edged farther toward the mage. Although he wanted to run to the man Fate had given him, Heathcliff needed his body to calm first. The last thing he wanted to do was point his erection at his other half as they spoke. It was mortifying to have no control over his hormones, but Heathcliff understood the overwhelming attraction.
The sorcerer was pretty with his nearly pouty lips and the slight upturn of his nose. He’d enhanced his dark lashes and added a bit of liner to give his eyes a smoky look that suited a man born to manipulate fire.
“Heathcliff, why the fuck are you still standing near the door? What’s wrong?” Kieran demanded.
With some blood finally returning to his brain, Heathcliff blinked heavily and glanced briefly at a concerned Kieran.
“Ignis mage,” Heathcliff said. “Do you see him?”
“Tall hot guy with blue eyes?” Scheredin asked.
“Tall is relative, I guess,” Kieran murmured.
“Yeah, yeah,” Brexton retorted. “Our people are short. So, I’d guess the mage is maybe eight or nine inches over five feet. Tall to us. Not to the towering phoenix shifters with us. Anyway, what about the mage, Heath?”
“He’s my mate,” Heathcliff answered, though the reality of the situation was far from settling in.
Kieran cheered and the other three clapped, which drew the attention of everyone in the bar. The guests were family, so questions would be asked later, but Heathcliff didn’t care. His lone concern was learning more about the mage.
“Let’s go introduce ourselves,” Scheredin insisted as he led the charge toward the startled sorcerer with Kieran in tow.
To spare the man from being interrogated, Heathcliff followed his family, and his phoenix grew calmer the closer he stepped to the ignis mage. As astonishing and frightening as it was to find the other half of his soul, his beast’s instincts were already screaming for him to claim the man with a bite.
“Hi, I’m Scher, what’s your name?” Scheredin asked.
The ignis mage swallowed thickly and kept his blue gaze locked on Heathcliff’s face. “Hi. Yes, hello. Um, my name is Brinley.”
Heathcliff was desperate to touch him, so he stuck his hand out to shake. “Hi, Brinley. I’m Heath.”
“Brynewielm Duke Heathcliff D’Vairefenix,” Kieran muttered.
“Oh, nice to meet you, Your Grace,” Brinley said as he slid his elegant hand into Heathcliff’s. The touch of his mate soothed Heathcliff, and his anxiety dropped by several notches as he smiled at Brinley. The ignis mage offered him an enchanting grin.
It sucked to pull his arm away, but it would’ve been weirder to hold on to Brinley forever, despite Heathcliff’s phoenix begging him to do just that. Heathcliff introduced the rest of their group, and Brinley greeted them, but his captivating gaze kept returning to Heathcliff. He’d take that as an excellent sign.
“I know you’re working now, but maybe we could talk later?” Heathcliff asked, almost pissed at himself for nearly rushing upstairs to read a book. If Scheredin hadn’t talked him into staying out for an hour, he would’ve missed meeting Brinley.
“I’d like that very much, Your Grace,” Brinley said, pulling out his phone and giving Heathcliff his number.
“Please call me Heath.”
Brinley cocked his head. “Aren’t you going to give me your number?”
“Yeah, sorry, I swear I’m usually not scatterbrained, but I’m overwhelmed. I wasn’t expecting to meet you.”
“It definitely hasn’t sunk in for me that I’m standing here talking to my mate right now.”
“I nearly missed you,” Heathcliff confided, then gave Brinley his number.
“Yeah, my brother is desperate to read a new book and wanted to ditch us,” Kieran said.
“I can handle this on my own, thank you,” Heathcliff told Kieran.
About the Author
Jessamyn Kingley has published over forty titles and refuses to pick a favorite among them. With an extraordinary passion for her characters, Jessamyn eagerly crafts new tales and avidly re-reads them whenever her schedule allows. Jessamyn shares a home in Nevada with her husband and their three spoiled cats. When she is not writing or adding new ideas to her thick stack of beloved notebooks, she is gaming with family and friends.
All Ryan wanted was to leave his ex-boyfriend at home and go to his childhood best friend's wedding as a single man. The only problem was that apparently he was the only sane person he knew. His actor ex didn't want their break-up on social media until it would be good PR for him. Meanwhile the bride, and childhood best friend, was so rigorously superstitious about bad omens that the wedding would have been cancelled already if someone hadn't 'seen' an extra magpie at the engagement party.
So Ryan had agreed to keep the break up quiet until after the honeymoon. It did mean he had bring his ex as his plus one to the ceremony, but it would only be a few more weeks. That couldn't hurt.
Only problem is that now Ryan has to try and stop his ex turning their break-up into a soap opera, convince the hottest man he's ever seen that they can kiss without it being cheating…and make sure the bride didn't find out about any of it.
Maybe he needed some of that good luck she was hoarding?
Excerpt from Bed Hopping
“Oh, you can’t tell her,” Jenny said from the other side of the counter. She shook a plastic bottle of mayo vigorously in one hand. “She will lose her goddamn mind.”
It wasn’t the reaction that Ryan had hoped for. He pulled a dubious face and rubbed the back of his neck.
“It can’t be that bad,” he protested.
Jenny mugged incredulity at him as she flipped the cap of the mayo bottle and turned it upside down. She squeezed a wriggly line of mayo over the curry-yellow chunks of chicken she’d already thrown onto the roll.
“Are you kidding me?” she asked. “You think that your best friend—your astrology symbol tattooed, magpie saluting, psychic consulting BFF—is going to take it in her stride that love is dead?”
She smacked the bottle down to punctuate that and raised her eyebrows expectantly at him for his input.
“OK, no, not when you put it like that,” Ryan said. “But it’s not like that. I just broke up with my boyfriend—”
Jenny wagged a greasy blue-gloved finger at him to stop him there.
“You mean, your soulmate,” she corrected him, with jazz hands for emphasis.
“I do not,” Ryan said. “If he was, I’d not have broken up with him.”
That objection was dismissed with a rude noise. “It’s not about you.”
“I…wow, sorry,” Ryan said. “There’s me thinking it was.”
Jenny shrugged as she grabbed some red onion and tossed it onto the sandwich. Then she took a beat to consider her creation and added some sweetcorn. Ryan started to object but gave it up as the yellow kernels sank into the mayo. He was hungry, and he would rather have unwanted sweetcorn he knew about than one stray left behind to surprise him.
“OK, obviously you think it’s about you,” she said. “From Clem’s point of view, though, it’s about her and her relationship. That psychic saying her and Greg are soulmates is the basis of their relationship.”
“That’s…they love each other,” Ryan objected. “They have weathered so much in their relationship and—”
“Yeah, but only because they’re soulmates,” Jenny said. She picked up the top of the roll and smacked it down on the toppings. “Remember when Greg went to Newcastle to work? Clem told me that the only reason she made it work was because that psychic told her they were endgame.”
“OK, so the psychic was right about her and Greg, but wrong about me and Devon,” Ryan said. “We’re broken up. She’s going to have to come to terms with that eventually.”
“Sure,” Jenny said. Paper crinkled as she pinched, folded, and tucked it around the sandwich. “If you’d broken up, like, six months ago! You can’t drop it on her a week before her wedding, one of the biggest decisions of her life, that the psychic was full of shit. It’s going to look like the worst omen in the world. She will definitely panic and call it all off.”
Shit.
Book Title: Stag Weekend
Length: 45 000 words
Tropes: Forbidden romance, Giveaway the Bride, Lost Wedding Ring, Stag Party
He'd go to his sister's wedding, he'd keep his head down, and the whole family would finally have something other than his disastrously brief engagement to talk about. It was going to be the fact that none of them liked his new brother-in-law, but that wasn't Simon's fault.
It was a simple plan that really couldn't go wrong. Not unless Simon did something really stupid, like wake up the morning after a stag weekend with a stranger in his hotel bed and no idea who it was.
That was the sort of gossip that was hard to beat.
Book Title: Dick Move
Length: 20 000 words
Tropes: Rule of funny, best friend’s ex, ex complications
Themes: Accepting you’re worth more than you think, letting go of an ex, small town romance
When Danny Shaw's ex dumped the job of returning some...personal items...to a short list of his previous conquests on him that seemed like imposition enough. Until he opened the bag and found that the items in question could best be described as extremely intimate and disturbingly detailed.
But when life gives you a bag of hyper-realistic sex toys, modeled after penises your ex knew and admired, what else is there to do but find the biggest dick you know and ask if one of them is his?
Meanwhile, all Will wanted was a quiet night out. Not that he was going to turn down a chance to spend time with Danny, even if it did lead to some weird conversations.
An Island Confidential Novella
Book Title: Wanted – Bad Boyfriend
Length: 76 000 words
Tropes: Fake dating, opposites attract, secrets and lies, small town romance.
His mother. His best friend. The barmaid at the local pub. Everyone is determined to find Nathan Moffatt a boyfriend. It’s the last thing Nathan wants. After spending every day making sure his clients experience nothing but romantic magic, the Granshire Hotel’s wedding organizer just wants to go home, binge-watch crime dramas, and eat pizza in his underwear.
Unfortunately, no one believes him, and he’s stuck with lectures about dying alone. Then inspiration strikes. He needs the people in his life to want him to stay single as much as he does. He needs a bad boyfriend.
There’s only one man for the job.
Flynn Delaney is used to people on the island of Ceremony thinking the worst of him. But he isn’t sure he wants the dubious honor of worst boyfriend on the entire island. On the other hand, if he plays along, he gets to hang out with the gorgeous Nathan and piss off the owners of the Granshire Hotel. It’s a win-win.
There’s only one problem—Flynn’s actually quite a good boyfriend, and now Nathan’s wondering if getting off the sofa occasionally is really the worst thing in the world.
Giveaway
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TA Moore is a Northern Irish writer of romantic suspense, urban fantasy, and contemporary romance novels. A childhood in a rural, seaside town fostered in her a suspicious nature, a love of mystery, and a streak of black humour a mile wide.
Coffee, Doc Marten boots, and good friends are the essential things in life. Spiders, mayo, and heels are to be avoided.
Genres: Contemporary MMM prison romance (leans into literary with a strong romantic core)
Tropes: Grumpy/sunshine, found family, hurt/comfort, healing from grief, obsessive devotion, fake dating, prison husband, marriage of convenience, wrongfully imprisoned, morally gray characters, polyamory that heals
Themes: Trauma recovery, self-loathing to self-worth, redemption through love, the violence of tenderness
Heat Rating: 2 out of 5
Length: 82 000 words/320 pages
It is a standalone book and does not end on a cliffhanger.
Samuel has spent years building walls. Not the prison’s concrete ones, but the kind that keep lives from bleeding into each other. As the prison’s self-appointed librarian, he’s carved out a fragile peace where silence is his shield. The inmates call him The Ice Queen—a title he wears like armor. After a lifetime of being preyed upon, he knows better than to let anyone close. Then Eli arrives like sunlight through bulletproof glass. A wrongfully convicted pediatrician, and unbearably kind, Eli is everything Samuel knows to avoid, so when he steps in to protect the man, it’s supposed to be a one-time act of mercy. But Eli’s husband has another plan. Nathaniel—who looks at Samuel like he’s something more than a convict—makes a request that shatters everything: "Be his prison husband. Love him where I can’t." It’s a lie that should be easy. Samuel’s an expert at deception. But the longer he plays the role, the more the lines blur: Eli’s warmth seeping into his frozen bones, Nathaniel’s quiet strength, the whispered secrets of Eli’s daughter who trusts only him. Now the man who built his life on solitude hoards these moments like contraband. Some loves rewrite your sentence.
A devastating queer romance about the families we carve from our own ribs, and the love that refuses to let us stay broken.
Excerpt
Twenty minutes later he kicked Eli’s bed. It had been a day and a half since the library incident, and he hadn’t spoken a word to him since. He’d thought Eli’s perseverance would continue, but maybe the man was learning about personal space. He knew he ought to be happy about that, but the change unnerved him. He didn’t like things that didn’t come with explanations.
Eli didn’t open his eyes. “Hi, Samuel.”
“How’d you know it was me?”
“Your particular brand of hospitality.” The man paused. “Also, you smell like Reese’s cups.”
“You can smell that from here?”
He took a somewhat discreet sniff of himself, but all he could detect was the shitty prison detergent.
“Hunger sharpens the sense.”
He was appalled. “You still haven’t—It’s been 48 hours!”
“I’ve done 100 hour fasts before.”
That boggled the mind. “Why?”
“To rest my gut after glutenings, mostly,” Eli said. “Why is it that you can ask questions of me, but won’t answer any of mine?”
True to form, he ignored the question and upended his new purchases onto the bed. Eli’s eyes sprang open. “What—”
“No more fasting.”
Eli picked up one of the packages on his chest. Sardines.
“They’ve got Omega 3’s, right? That’s good for inflammation. There’s some salmon there, too, in those pouches.”
Eli sat up. Packages and pouches slithered off him and onto the bedspread.
Suddenly nervous, Samuel found himself rambling. “I wasn’t sure if your commissary account was up and running yet, and the stuff I gave you before were things you couldn’t eat, so I—”
The man was smiling. Not smirking, not grinning—and Samuel knew he was in trouble.
“You’re amazing,” Eli said, as if he hadn’t just ruined a man’s life. “Thank you. And you’re right. My commissary account still isn’t linked up yet.”
As if that wasn’t enough, Eli then swept a space clear on the bed and pointed his invitation. It was the smile Samuel would blame later. He sat where indicated, more pliant and cooperative than he’d ever been in his life.
Eli was impressed. “This is a better haul than I was expecting. I might actually survive on this.”
Samuel was beginning to come back to himself. It was easier now that Eli was sorting through the food, like the spell of that smile had been broken—or at least weakened.
“Who’s Nathaniel?”
Eli flashed him a grin. “My murderer-hating husband.” He ripped open a bag of trail mix. “Don’t suppose I could trouble you to eat the M&M's out of these for me?”
He expected the man to dig in, but Eli only ate an almond, a cashew, and a peanut before setting the package down. That broke his brain a little. “Aren’t you hungry?”
Eli brought the pouch of sardines up to his mouth and ripped it open with his teeth. “Labels are useful, but they’re not foolproof. If I haven’t reacted in half an hour, I’ll eat a little more.”
Samuel knew that if he’d gone more than two days without food, he’d have gnawed his own leg off. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Hmm?”
“You knew you couldn’t eat what I bought you, and you knew they’d continue to keep screwing up the special meal thing. So why didn’t you come to me? We could have done this two days ago.”
Eli fished a sardine out with his fingers. The slimy things looked repulsive, and the smell alone was enough to knock someone out. Eli caught him staring and tilted the pouch toward him. “Pardon my rudeness. Would you like some?”
He had to swallow bile. “Your husband’s never going to kiss you again.”
About the Author
October Arden writes emotionally raw queer stories that live somewhere between literary fiction and romance. Their work explores fluid identities, found families, co-dependent devotion, and complicated love—often through the lens of characters who are chronically ill, neurodivergent, or quietly self-destructive. These are stories for anyone who's ever felt unwanted or unseen, where even the most damaged hearts can find a home.
October loves hearing from readers, so feel free to reach out, ask questions, or suggest what you'd like to see next. You can also join the newsletter to stay in touch—and as a thank you, you'll receive a free copy of Starting with Cake, a quietly unhinged neurodivergent love story full of snack cakes, janitor uniforms, and the kind of care that sneaks up on you. Find out about new books and other extras at octoberarden.com
