Hello, Delilah! Thank you for welcoming me here to share my new release!

So if 2024 was the year of saying hell, yes!, 2025 is turning out to be the year of hell, yes! (and I might also need to have my head examined…)

I’ll explain. I have so many projects in various stages that it’s brutal to keep track. My trusty spreadsheet does, thank God. Okay, so how’d I wind up writing Unlocked and Unlost? Well, I participate in a special promo every month. The creators of the promo (with prizes) gave us a theme per month: age-gap, sports, small-town, friends-to-lovers, fated mates, etc.

Great!

Except I didn’t have a friends-to-lovers book or a fated mates story. Did that stop me from signing up? Of course not! I just figured I’d write books I’d already committed to with these plot lines. Not really different than signing up for themed anthologies – and we all know how many of those I’ve done. Now, a friend who knows about such things said fated mates had to be shifters. I was like… OH. CRAP.

Never fear! I found a wolf shifter cover and asked Plot Whisperer for help! She wrote this extensive and really amazing plot. And I went…oh, wow. It’s awesome. But it didn’t speak to me. I wasn’t compelled. But I can write just about anything, so I figured I had my assignment.

One day, she and I were chatting, and she said how she’s read that raccoons could pick locks. She said I should write a raccoon shifter locksmith.

I said sure, and could he get together with a squirrel shifter, and could we set the story in my owl shifter universe?

She said, I don’t see why not.

An hour later, we had the plot for my novella.

Yes, that simple. We had a grumpy/sunshine, age-gap, opposites-attract, racoon/squirrel shifter gay romcom romance. Because…why not?

I wrote the story for another project, but that didn’t pan out, and I’d bought the most amazing cover and I figured…why not publish it? My editor loved it and said she’d never quite read something like it before. That’s the general consensus of early reviews – never seen this done in this way. Now, some adore the book and some find it irritating. I’m not supposed to read my reviews – but sometimes I can’t help myself.

Okay, so that’s the story! I have my fated mates. I also have probably the funniest story I’ve ever written. Something well beyond the angst I used to be known for. I don’t know how all my readers will react, but I do try to keep them on their toes.

Anyway, thank you for letting me visit today and share my news! I would love to give a prize to a commenter! Do you believe in fated mates? Have you read a shifter story? I’ll admit I’d read a few and dragons are my favorite, but my squirrel is pretty darn cute. Leave a comment and you might win a $5 Amazon Gift card. Random will pick the winner. Good luck!

Unlocked and Unlost

Kingston

I love being a locksmith. I help people fix their lives when things go awry. A badly sprained ankle has me laid up, but I dislike being idle, so a friend suggests I hire an assistant. Little do I know how truly chaotic my life is about to become. Although he’s cute, it never occurs to me just how important he might become in my life.

Ethan

I’ve held a series of jobs since graduating from business college, but none has captured my attention. Assisting a grouchy locksmith proves to be one of the more interesting challenges. When I discover something truly astounding about him, my entire world view changes.

Unlocked and Unlost is an opposites attract, grumpy/sunshine, age gap, paranormal shifter gay romance with a stodgy racoon shifter and the glorious squirrel shifter fated mate he didn’t see coming.

Links:
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Unlocked-Unlost-Gabbi-Grey-ebook/dp/B0F2GNDJ99
Add it to GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/230582161-unlocked-and-unlost
Universal Book Link: https://books2read.com/UnlockedUnlost

About the Author

USA Today Bestselling author Gabbi Grey lives in beautiful British Columbia where her fur baby chin-poo keeps her safe from the nasty neighborhood squirrels. Working for the government by day, she spends her early mornings writing contemporary, gay, sweet, and dark erotic BDSM romances. While she firmly believes in happy endings, she also believes in making her characters suffer before finding their true love. She also writes m/f romances as Gabbi Black and Gabbi Powell.

Personal links:
Website: https://gabbigrey.com/
Newsletter sign-up: https://sendfox.com/gabbigrey
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorgabbigrey/
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/gabbi-grey
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15456297.Gabbi_Grey
Amazon Author Central: https://www.amazon.com/Gabbi-Grey/e/B07SJVFX1M
Audible Profile: https://www.audible.com/author/Gabbi-Grey/B07SJVFX1M
Facebook (page): https://www.facebook.com/AuthorGabbiGrey

Happy Mother’s Day!

To all you mothers out there…

I was spoiled by my family, but my favorite gift has to be this one!

She’s holding a box of popcorn and a popsicle (my two favorite snacks!) and that white thing lying on its side in front is a little ghost—because I find them everywhere. LOL! I’m thankful my dd decided to give me gray hair rather than leave me bald.

Report Card

Last week…

1. 1. I worked on two authors’ edits.
   2. I found photos for the anthology of short stories I’m getting ready to release by the end of this month—my next Ultra Strokes book.
   3. I went to my optometrist to update my glasses prescription. Chemo did substantially change my eyesight.
   4. I’m feeling better every day. I feel stronger every day.
   5. I’ve continued painting and trying to catch up with #the100dayproject challenge. This was my favorite piece for the week.

This next week…

1. I will complete two authors’ edits and begin work on two more!
2. I’ll select short stories and begin assembling my next Ultra compilation for publication.
3. I’ll be attending my local art guild’s meeting this Thursday night! Woot!
4. I’ll continue trying to catch up with #thedayproject schedule.

Open Contests

Be sure to check out these posts and enter to win the prizes that are still up for grabs:

1. 1. April Into May (Contest) — Last day to enter! Win an Amazon gift card!
   2. Gabbi Grey: Found Family (Contest) — Last day to enter! Win a FREE book!
   3. Anna Taylor Sweringen/Michal Scott: Laura Wheeler Waring – A Missionary of Culture — This one ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
   4. Saturday Puzzle-Contest: Happy Astronomy Day! — This one ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
   5. Flashback: Lone Star Lovers — Four-Gone Conclusion (Contest–2 Winners!) — Win a FREE book!
   6. Word Search: My Summer Binge List (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
   7. Gabbi Powell: Finding Acceptance in Different Places (Contest) — Win FREE books!
   8. Story Cubes — Tell me a story (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
   9. Saturday Puzzle-Contest: Chickens — Win an Amazon gift card!

Our family is a bit obsessed with chickens.

Back when egg prices started to rise, we decided to raise our own chickens again. It’s been a couple of years at least now. We have mature hens that are producing eggs, and we decided to raise some more chicks this year to make sure we keep the population going. We have a pen with a shed we outfitted as a chicken coop, so they’re safe when we put them up at night, but they’re free to roam the very roomy pen area during the day. We feed them chicken food and table scraps. We’re lucky we’ve had few predator intrusions. This past week, we lost Barbara, who was sitting on a nest of eggs, to a predator, our first loss in quite a while—and yes, all the birds have names. We were sad about that because we were really looking forward to the chicks she was going to have. She produced smallish blue eggs.

The new chicks are being cared for in the basement of the house, so yes, I can hear them chirping in the distance. We have a box on stilts we built (er, the SIL built) and a warming lamp suspended over it. They are attended to several times a day.

We have a very diverse population of chickens because we love how they look and love the variety of colored eggs we get. We have Easter eggers, barred rocks, white leghorns crossed with black Sussex, Rhode Island reds, black and blue copper marans, sexlinks (weird name, I know), and red leghorns.

When the chickens are laying steadily, we produce more than we can eat, so we gift them to folks at my SIL’s police department, neighbors, my brother across the street. The eggs themselves are so much more flavorful than what you get in the grocery store, and the yolks are a brilliant yellow-orange. And yes, the outlay to set up a coup, purchase the chickens, and feed them is expensive, but my daughter and SIL, along with help from the children, all pitch in to share the workload. Most of the chickens remain in their enclosure, but we have three chickens, The Sandersons (yes, named for the witches in Hocus Pocus) and Raven (she’s all black), who jump the fence and like to hang with us outside on the patio.

To be clear, I have nothing to do with raising the chickens, but I do enjoy the results!

Anyway, the photo for the puzzle isn’t of our chickens—ours are like I said before, more diverse. However, I was thinking about the chickens as I was trying to come up with a topic for today’s puzzle, and the chicks were chirping loudly, so…

For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, solve the puzzle and tell me whether you have ever raised chickens or would if you could. I know some folks in the suburbs are getting those mini-coups for their backyards. Let me know if you like the idea of fresh eggs and critters in the yard!

*~*~*

My daughter was a little irked I hadn’t included pictures of our friendly trio, The Sandersons and Raven. So, here they are hanging out.

If you like books that help you escape during a tough time, you might like my Cecily Taylor Series about a high school girl who gets a chance to have her dreams come true when she ends up an extra in her favorite singer/songwriter Andrew Holiday’s music video. From there, she begins an acting and modeling career as well as dating the singer, but she soon sees what a different world Andrew lives in. Can two teens from different worlds make it work? You can pick up book one of the three-book series for free for a limited time.

Cecily has always had a huge crush on singer Andrew Holiday and she wants to be an actress, so she tags along when her friend auditions for his new video. However, the director isn’t looking for an actress, but rather the girl next door—and so is Andrew. Cecily gets a part in the video and all of Andrew’s attention on the set. Her friend begins to see red and Cecily’s boyfriend is seeing green—as in major jealousy. A misunderstanding leaves Cecily and her boyfriend on the outs and Andrew hopes to pick up the pieces as he’s looking for someone more stable in his life than the models he’s dated. Soon Cecily begins to realize Andrew understands her more than her small-town boyfriend—but can her perfect love match really be her favorite rock star?

***Pick up book one for free for a limited time. Book 2 and 3 of the series are in Kindle Unlimited:

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Can-Dreams-Come-True-Cecily-ebook/dp/B09VYS5G3S
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Can-Dreams-Come-True-Cecily-ebook/dp/B09VYS5G3S/

Amazon AUS: https://www.amazon.com.au/Can-Dreams-Come-True-Cecily-ebook/dp/B09VYS5G3S
Amazon CAN: https://www.amazon.ca/Can-Dreams-Come-True-Cecily-ebook/dp/B09VYS5G3S

Amazon GER: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Krysten-Lindsay-Hager-ebook/dp/B09VYS5G3S

About the Author

Krysten is an author, blogger, and podcast guest host for Michigan Avenue Media. She writes about friendship, dating, self-esteem, fitting in, fame, and values. Her work includes YA contemporary books, new adult, and middle grade fiction. Krysten’s book, Cecily in the City, won the 2023 Readers’ Favorite Award for best young adult romance. Her debut novel, True Colors, won the Readers’ Favorite award for best preteen book as well as the Dayton Book Expo Bestseller Award for children/teens. Competing with the Star is a Readers’ Favorite Book Award Finalist. Best Friends…Forever? is a 2019 Readers’ Favorite Silver Medal Winner. Landry in Like is a Literary Classics Gold Medal recipient and a 2020 Readers’ Favorite Bronze Medal Winner. Can Dreams Come True and True Colors are both Wishing Book Shelf Finalists. She received her BA in English and master’s degree from the University of Michigan-Flint.

Krysten’s work has been featured in USA Today, The Flint Journal, the Grand Haven Tribune, the Beavercreek Current, the Bellbrook Times, Springfield News-Sun, Grand Blanc View, Dayton Daily News and on Living Dayton. She is a frequent guest host on the Michigan Avenue Media podcast.

Follow Krysten:
Website: https://www.krystenlindsay.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/krystenlindsay/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@krystenlindsay
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/krystenlindsay/

Let’s play!

I bought this little brainstorming tool years ago at some writers’ conference. “Story Cubes” is a brainstorming game. You roll the dice, and whatever pictures appear face-up are the ones you use to riff off a story.

You can try to include all the cubes in your “story” or choose a few. The story you tell doesn’t have to be long or even any good. They all count!

To make this fun, I’ll offer a prize—a $5 Amazon gift card—good for purchasing one or two stories…
Have fun with this! Don’t overthink! Here’s the roll…

Hello, Delilah! Thank you for inviting me to discuss a topic near and dear to my heart. When I read my first ‘romance’ in 1986, the world was a very different place. I put romance in quotes because Judy Blume’s Forever doesn’t have a traditional happy ending. Or maybe it does. What’s traditional anyway?

Forty years later, I have a very different perspective on “romance.”

I put pen to paper first in 1996 to try to write my own romance.  I discovered I wanted to give my heroine a happy ending. Now, I was going to put her through hell first…but I’d give her a happily ever after (before I’d even heard that term).  I managed to finish a full novel in 2012 and sent that off to a publisher, believing, of course, they’d want my brilliance (spoiler alert – they didn’t).  Around that time, I got my first eReader.  My world exploded.  I had no idea such wonderful things existed! All these books! And some free! (Which I didn’t understand at the time, but I do now.)  I binged.  I found authors I’d never heard of. I found subgenres I’d never considered (hello, I see you BDSM).  One story I grabbed was by Ava March.

A gay romance.

Nothing earth-shattering happened when I read the story.  I thought, hey that was good.  What else does she have? And I read a bunch of others.  And then I found another author I was interested in and I moved on.  Being gay wasn’t a big deal to me.  Having gay friends wasn’t a big deal.  Hell, we’d already had gay marriage for about half-a-dozen years in Canada.

I kept reading and writing and trying to get published.

Eventually, I realized I needed help with that journey.  I met a freelance editor in a reader/writer chat and hired her.  She tackled the task of making me a better writer.

Even she’ll admit the task was an uphill battle.

What can I say? I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

She taught me.

Soon after we connected, though, she recommended a couple of authors whom she adored and who she thought I could learn from.  Authors of gay romance.  Completely unfazed, I grabbed everything those authors had as an audiobook.  And listened. And fell in love.  And then bought more. And listened more. And fell harder.

Somewhere along the way, that editor sent me back manuscripts with TONS of red ink.  But I read the comments, tried to learn from the corrections, and endeavored to be a better writer.

But my love of gay romance had been solidified.  Eventually, I joined a review blog, and, to this day, I write reviews for gay romances I listen to.

This all came naturally to me.  Being gay isn’t a huge deal in my world.  But I understand that it is for lots of people.  I am cognizant of the battle many have endured – and what struggles many still face.  I get that the world is a scary place.

What I’ve always tried to be is an ally.  I didn’t know much about that in high school, but I started to meet more people in university who showed me what allyship looked like.  I’ve endeavored to always be a safe space for people.  At work, I had a symbol in my cubicle that let co-workers know I was a friend to all members of the Rainbow.  I’ve tried to extend that to be as welcoming as I can to everyone.

What does this look like in my writing?  Remember that first romance I tried to write? Back in 1996? Still not finished and needs to be completely rewritten? The heroine’s best friend was a gay man who was in a committed relationship with another man. It never occurred to me that might be controversial.

Since then? Every character, aside from those who are purposefully portrayed as hateful, are casually or actively allies to gay folk.  Sometimes that allyship is proactive, and sometimes it’s just there in the background.  The point is, I know language can hurt. I’m always so careful.  And I have sensitivity and beta readers who try to catch my mistakes.  But I do my damnest to ensure I’m moving my writing forward.

Now, I write gay romances. I also write bisexual romances, lesbian romances, pansexual romances, and romances between men and women.  Truthfully, I write a lot.  What I try to do, under the pennames who write primarily male/female romances, is to find ways to make connections.  So if there isn’t a POC as a lead character in one book, you can be pretty sure I have them as secondary characters – often heading toward books of their own.  I often have queer characters – often heading toward books of their own.  These stories, though, give me the opportunity to show what active allyship looks like.

Two stories I’ve written recently fall into that category. Josette, from Josette and the Count could be forgiven if she was a little jaded.  The boy that the world always assumed she was going to marry turned out to be gay and chose her brother instead.  Now, Josette’s pretty swift and had, somewhere along the way, read the writing on the wall.  In fact, she wound up bringing them together and giving them her blessing.  Full-throated allyship.

Kendra, from High on Love, also has a gay brother.  An overbearing, impossible, annoying-as-shit brother.  He drives her nuts.  But she’s ticked off at him and no matter how irritated she gets, she would never use the fact he’s gay against him in any way.  And, in fact, when Noel meets someone he might actually not be antagonistic toward, sister Kendra is happy to shoo him in that person’s direction.  She loves her brother – she just wishes he wasn’t always trying to boss her around. (In truth, he’s got reasons for being overprotective, but that’s for another day.)

Casual allyship. Vocal allyship.  Friendship. Loving and caring.

These are all things my gay characters are so deserving of in their lives.

In fact, it’s something everyone is deserving of.

That’s my story of how I’ve been an ally since I first put pen to paper in any serious way.

Thanks, Delilah, for inviting me here to talk about another aspect of my storytelling. I would love to hear from your readers. What was the first romance they remember reading?  I tried Danielle Steele before moving to category romance where I stayed for years (hence the first book I ever tried to sell being a category romance). Let me know!  One lucky commenter – chosen by Random – will win copies of High on Love, Josette and the Count, and A Touch of Cowboy. (Or another book from my back catalogue.) Good luck!

Josette and the Count

An interior decorating job in a genuine ancient Romanian castle was supposed to be the opportunity of Josette Fogal’s life. Instead, she winds up pregnant, dumped, and running home to Mission City to stay with her brother while she sorts out the mess of her life. As the birth of the baby nears, Anton Deva, her baby daddy, shows up at her doorstep—asking for a second chance. Josette has a lot of big decisions to make, and not much time to get them right. Anton’s the kind of tall, muscular, debonair man she always falls for and he’s saying all the right things, but can she ever trust him again?

Links:
UBL:  https://books2read.com/Josette
Amazon US:  https://www.amazon.com/Josette-Count-Cedar-Valley-Short-ebook/dp/B0F3MPSPNN
Add it to GoodReads:  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/230969899-josette-and-the-count

High on Love

Kendra Barker’s a long way from her Canadian home. Her road trip has landed her and her 1983 Harley in Cataluma, California, but she only plans to stay long enough to rest, maybe make a few dollars, and enjoy the Strawberry Festival. As a bonus, the one place she finds to stay is an empty apartment with a super sexy landlord.

Javier Fernandez has been cruising through life on autopilot. His marijuana shop is doing well. His mother is, for the most part, under control and managing her job as mayor of his beloved Cataluma. Now, he just needs to get this pesky Canadian woman out of his head. He gave her a place to sleep, and he very much wants to be in her bed, but come the end of the weekend, she’ll be moving on. Javier doesn’t do one-nighters and he doesn’t want to deal with a broken heart. Long-distance, and cross-borders is a recipe for disaster, right?

High on Love is a 39k word small-town interracial romance novella with a tattooed heroine, a stoic hero, and the love affair that’ll change their lives forever.

Links:
UBL:  https://books2read.com/High
Amazon US:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BZ2M8Z4G
Add it to GoodReads:  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125352653-high-on-love

About the Author

Gabbi Powell has been a lover of romance since she first put pen to paper in the eighth grade to write her first romance.  She writes her novels while living in Beautiful British Columbia with her trusty ChinPoo dog a as companion.  She also writes gay romances as Gabbi Grey and contemporary dark erotic BDSM novels as Gabbi Black.

Personal links:
Website:   http://gabbipowell.com/
Newsletter sign-up: https://sendfox.com/gabbipowell
Bookbub:  https://www.bookbub.com/profile/3142441314
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/authorgabbipowell/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Gabbi-Powell/e/B08T8NTQNY
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21065056.Gabbi_Powell

I know some of you don’t watch TV. You prefer reading to television. And binge-watching series is a relatively new thing. When I was younger, I had to keep track of what day a TV show aired and keep my calendar free for that date and time to watch it. Shows like the OG Star Trek, Lost in Space, Dark Shadows, were hard-wired in my calendar, but I still missed episodes! I had to watch Buffy during its first run from the time Spike entered because I missed the previous episodes, but once it went into syndication, I had to pay attention again to when the reruns ran to watch the entire series. It was a PITA, but soooo worth it. However, I’m still a Spike girl.

These days, it’s so convenient to watch an entire series, without missing an episode, and without the week-long gap or seasonal months-long gap to keep the storyline fresh as I watch. I love it. And I have a list of shows I want to watch this summer, beginning to end, as well as seasons of shows (Dark Winds, The Bondsman—Kevin Bacon, ya’ll!). It’s a goal list. And I’m sure not many people keep such a list, but I do. I have another list of movies I can’t wait to watch once they go into streaming, but that’s a topic for another day.

The last couple of years, I watched every single Star Trek series, other than Discovery. I’m in the final season and can’t say why I haven’t buzzed through it. Maybe it’s because I stopped watching Discovery to watch Strange New Worlds. The latter is so much fun, it was impossible not to make the jump. I’ll be rewatching it this summer because sometime soon, maybe in the fall, the next season will drop, and I want to be ready.

I have a summer watch list that’s a mixture of new shows and shows that I feel some nostalgia about, like The Time Tunnel. I keep a list because my attention span is so bad, and frankly, I love lists.

My list is featured below in the word search. For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, solve the puzzle, then tell me whether you have a list or single show you intend to binge-watch this summer! Have fun!