Massive squee!

As if to make up for the news about the frozen shoulder, I have something to squee about this week.  I’ve just signed a contract with Samhain to publish Shining in the Sun!

(Not the real cover, just my usual temporary mockup 🙂 )

Blurb

Handsome and wealthy Alec Goodchilde has everything a man could want in life except the freedom to be himself.  Once a year, he motors down to an exclusive yacht club on the Cornish coast and allows himself to take the summer off from a life he thinks of as a trap.

Once a year, poverty stricken surfer Darren Stokes allows himself to take the summer off from his life of grinding overwork and appalling relatives, financing his holiday by picking up the first rich man to show an interest.

When Alec’s car breaks down, leaving him stranded on the beach where Darren is surfing, he is transfixed by the thought that Darren is the summer made flesh.  Freedom, wrapped up in one lithe package, dripping wet from the sea.

But Alec is so deeply in the closet that he hasn’t even admitted to himself that he’s gay.  And Darren is recovering from last year’s disastrous fling with a rich guy who turned out to be more than he could handle.  He’s sworn to himself never to get in that position again.

A rich boy/poor boy holiday romance set in the beautiful sea-side county of Cornwall in the UK.

Squee!  I’m really excited by this because it’s a m/m contemporary and a complete change of subject matter from everything I’ve had published before.  I was worried no-one would want it because it was such a left turn from my usual stuff, so it’s fantastic to have it accepted 🙂  My editor, Anne Scott, got back to me within a day of submitting it, and is already talking about a publication date some time in June 2010.  She is so efficient as well as being really thorough and brilliant to work with, and her enthusiasm makes me squee.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this, whether by telling me that Tony’s name made you think the character was lower class, or that the original title, Boys of Summer, made you think of baseball.  And special thanks to all my amazing beta readers, without whom this would still have been a bit of a shambling wreck.  You rock!  *Hugs*  😀