Every Spec-i-men

Hallelujah! It's raining in Dareville. I am pleased to report that while I await edits on Dare to Dream, due through Phaze this fall, I have started the first all M/M Dareville work, Daring Red. I've also been tinkering with covers. See above.

I may end up appealing to Phaze's art director for assistance on this one. Red will focus on a side story in Dare to Dream which involves Red, the "other Marbury brother" (J.J. is the hero in Dream) and an old friend from Truth or Dare, Jared. You'll see some of Jared in Dare to Dream, and this story will also feature some backstory when our friends were preparing for college. Kind of like The Wonder Years, only everybody's legal and there's condoms.

Anyway, I want the cover to convey the difference in the two heroes. Where Red is an uptight businessman, proper and impeccably trimmed, Jared is laid back and casual. Red represents old media (he owns a newspaper) and Jared is new (he's a web genius). I got the idea, interestingly enough, from this cover:

In Her Day was one of Rita's early works, in my opinion a disappointing follow-up to Rubyfruit Jungle but not a bad story. The back cover bills it as a "lost treasure," revived presumably to capitalize on Rita's overall success - the way these old Janet Evanovich romances keep popping up. The protagonists, IIRC, are an older professor and a young waitress who enter into a tenuous romance. Throughout the book you're wondering what do they see in each other to make it so far, and if you're like me you might be satisfied (and not surprised) by the ending. I may have to pick up this one again to reacquaint myself with it.

As for Daring Red, the ending will be much happier, hopefully enough to please all the Dareville readers and M/M lovers out there. More later.