Riverdale Avenue Books Re-releases “The Hot Streak” in Print from Romance Author, Cecilia Tan

“The Hot Streak is an interesting take on loving someone who is in the limelight. I enjoyed the book and found it to be an entertaining read.”—Coffee Time Romance

Riverdale, NY – June 20, 2014 – The innovative hybrid publisher Riverdale Avenue Books just re-released and published The Hot Streak from award-winning erotic romance author and baseball expert Cecilia Tan. This is the first time The Hot Streak is available in both print and ebook formats.

“If you loved ‘Bull Durham’ and ‘Fever Pitch’, then The Hot Streak is definitely for you,” said Riverdale Avenue Books’ Publisher Lori Perkins. “The last scene made me cry with joy and a little bit of envy. I could not put it down.”

In The Hot Streak, girl next-door Casey hits it big when she meets major league baseball player Tyler Hammond at a photo shoot and they start up a steamy romance. Traveling with Tyler, she’s living it up and enjoying all the hot sex she can get between games. But when Tyler’s on a winning streak, he thinks it is thanks to Casey—and she has to decide for herself: is this the real deal, or just a summer fling?

"Writing this book was a real indulgence for me," says the author, Cecila Tan. "I fell in love with baseball when I was ten years old. Baseball players were my Prince Charmings, stadiums were my Cinderella's castle, and The Hot Streak is my chance to tell a 'fairy tale' romance my way."

About Cecilia Tan

Cecilia Tan is the award-winning author of numerous works of romance and erotica, not to mention her baseball nonfiction. Her novel Slow Surrender won the RT Reviewers Choice Award for Erotic Romance. Her other romances include Mind Games, the Struck by Lightning series, and the Magic University series. Tan's erotic short stories have been collected in the books Black Feathers, White Flames, Edge Plays, and Telepaths Don't Need Safewords and she has also edited close to a hundred erotica anthologies for various publishers including Circlet Press, the publishing house she founded in 1992. She lives in the Boston area with her partner corwin and three cats.

Why Let Fantasy Writers Have All the Fun? Guest Post by Donna Minkowitz

I wrote Growing Up Golem, among other reasons, out of a profound envy of the work that fantasy writers do. Magic swords, evil usurpers, captive monsters straining to be free- aren't they the language of the soul? Just as important, aren't they fun?

The elements of fantasy are active in all of our brains, no matter what culture we come from, or what our politics are.

Impossible trials, shapeshifting lovers, child-eaters, kings and queens -- they are all there in their richness and glory, inevitably becoming part of the lens through which we see ourselves psychologically.

But I am a memoir writer, and the story I wanted to tell was my own sad, funny, freaky one. I always felt like my body and even my heart belonged to my mother, who wasn't physically sexually abusive, but definitely was verbally, and in the way she treated me in emotional terms as her lover, not a child.

And despite the way she might sound in that rather clinical description, my mother was alluring. She was brilliant, beautiful, and always talked to me about books. It was hard not to be captivated by her. And yet she made my sisters and me admire and praise her body, her mind, and her accomplishments so often that sometimes I wished my tongue would fall out rather than have to praise her just once more.

I felt like nothing and no one, unable to be desired, scarcely able to desire anyone because it had felt so shameful (and yet somehow inevitable) to want my mom.

But rather than tell this story as just another sad, heavy memoir about unpleasant things, I decided to tell it through the language of playfulness, fantasy, and myth -- the language in which we dream of impossible journeys, and creative transformations out of being stuck.

My mother had often "joked" with my sisters and me that she herself was God, and she had told us in all seriousness that she could do medieval Jewish magic from the Kabbalah. I decided to tell the story as though she had used Jewish magic to create me as a golem, a magical servant made of clay from Jewish legend.

I tell the real story of my life, but all as though I were a golem trying to do it, and pass for human. So, as a lesbian golem, I go and write for the Village Voice, I try to be a radical activist, I try to date real human women, but because I am only a fake person – an automaton made of clay – I am never able to have real power over my life.

But there is a very painful, difficult way that golems can become human, and eventually I find out about it…Thanks, fantasy writers, for giving me some of the tools to write this journey!
Donna Minkowitz

www.donnaminkowitz.com

Buy the book on Amazon: http://amzn.to/SXvmr9

YA Novel by Head of Lambda Foundation Just Pubbed by RAB/Magnus

The President of the Board of Lambda Literary Foundation, S. Chris Shirley, published his first book with RAB/Magnus Books. Playing by the Book was included in The Advocate's 10 Great Summer Reads and Kirkus just named Shirley "an author worth watching."

Playing by the Book is about seventeen-year-old high school newspaper editor Jake Powell, fresh from Alabama, who lands in New York City to attend Columbia University's prestigious summer journalism program. For Jake, it's a dream come true, but his father, a fundamentalist Christian preacher, smells trouble. And his father is rarely wrong.

Jake navigates new and unfamiliar ways "up North,” starting with his feelings for a handsome Jewish classmate named Sam. What Jake could keep hidden back home now rises to the surface in the Big Apple. Standing by his side are a gorgeous brunette with a Park Avenue attitude and the designer bags to match, a high school friend who has watched Jake grow up and isn't sure she's ready to let him go, and an outrageously flamboyant aunt who's determined to help Jake find the courage to accept love and avoid the pain that she has experienced.

“Playing by the Book adds an important new voice to Young Adult fiction. S. Chris Shirley has written a highly personal story about the intersections of sexuality and Christianity that he's ideally suited to tell. The novel's protagonist,  Jake, reminds us that coming out as gay remains a big deal for people raised in religious fundamentalism,” says Magnus editor Don Weise. “It's not an easy path, as Playing by the Book makes clear.”

Alex Sanchez, author of The God Box and Boyfriends with Girlfriends says, “In Playing by the Book, S. Chris Shirley tells a story I loved curling up with, featuring one of the most endearing teen protagonists I've read in years.”

Provocative and moving, Playing by the Book is a feel-good novel about the joy and heartbreak we encounter in the search for our own truth.

About S. Chris Shirley
Chris is an award-winning writer, director and President of the Board of Lambda Literary Foundation. He directed Roger Kuhn’s music video, “What’s Your Name,” which aired nationally in the US and made the annual MTV-Logo Top 10. He also wrote and directed “Plus,” an award-winning short film that played at film festivals internationally.

He graduated from Auburn University where he served as photo editor of The Auburn University Plainsman. He later received a graduate degree from Columbia University and studied filmmaking at New York University. He was born and raised in Greenville, Alabama, and now resides in Manhattan. Playing by the Book is Chris’ first book. Visit Chris online at http://schrisshirley.com/.

'Gay Twilight Published by Riverdale Avenue Books/Magnus

 Venomoid: The Night Code Saga: Book One by J.A. Kossler is the First Book of the Series

Riverdale, NY – June 7, 2014 – Riverdale Avenue Books’ LGBT Imprint Magnus Books has just published the first title in The Night Code Saga, Venomoid which Riverdale Avenue Books Publisher Lori Perkins describes as a “Gay Twilight.”

The world of the The Night Code Saga features paranormal creatures governed by a secret police force, the IPO, that ensures vampires, zombies, and others follow all required public safety regulations. Among the officers is seventeen year-old Lorin, the IPO's most skilled cadet. His co-workers distrust him and, in extreme cases, barely tolerate him. As a vampire, he must follow the rules--including turning a blind eye to the IPO's practice of torturing prisoners--or face death by sunlight exposure.

On one intense dragon-hunting mission, Lorin encounters Lex, a handsome but flesh-eating paranormal who is quickly intrigued by the young vampire. Lorin fears this hunter, but as an unexpected friendship unfolds between the two, an even more unlikely romance blossoms. The problem is Lex is on the IPO's radar, and when they capture him for scientific experimentation, Lorin must risk his life to overthrow the organization he's always feared in order to save his love.

Magnus Books Editorial Director Don Weise calls Venomoid “a harrowing and yet tender love story told with great compassion and enthusiasm. Readers will be rooting for Lorin and Lex from their first encounter.”

“I have always been an avid reader of young adult literature, especially fantasy and paranormal romance. However, in reading the genre, I had never come across a gay protagonist, and very few characters who were not both cis (gendered) and hetereosexual,” said J.A. Kossler. “LGBT representation is important to me, and I hope that my contribution to the young adult genre will help fill the hole for younger readers who, like me, were looking for LGBT protagonists.”

Buy the ebook for $6.99 at Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com or the print version for $16.99.

About J.A. Kossler

J.A. Kossler is the founder and owner of Explorer Games, a company that creates and manages a collection of online computer games. Among them is Aywas.com, a colorful world full of fantasy creatures, and Felisfire.com, a genetics game based on breeding winged cats. Both websites' communities—tens of thousands of members—are primarily young adults, and have expressed interest in their administrator's work. When not writing or working, J.A. likes drawing, conceptualizing new games, and taking care of dozens of pet snakes.