Today I am so pleased to welcome Amy Lane to Joyfully Jay. Amy has come as part of the Coastal Magic Blog Tour to talk to us The Familiar Series. Please join me in giving her a big welcome!

 

Where to find the magic…

I am a writing anomaly.

I started out writing urban fantasy as an independent author, with a collection of characters whose sexuality was hard to define, during a time when anything with same-sex content was considered erotica, no matter what the intensity.

It was damned hard to classify me.

Before Kindle and the self-pub revolution, my editing was atrocious, and my marketing game nonexistent.

And for some reason, Jennifer and her sister Dolorianne, and their friends Amy and Tina read my first book, Vulnerable, in its original format, and loved it.

It was hard to classify—and so was I—especially when I branched into contemporary gay romance—but they enjoyed the new direction and followed me there.

And slid right down the rabbit hole into the wonderful world of gay romance.

When Jennifer started Coastal Magic—originally titled Old City, New Blood—I was thrilled to be asked to attend the conference. It was one of my first, back in 2013 and I was just getting my conference game on. I’m sure I made a thousand mistakes, being in public as an author, but hey—I was among friends, and I learned.

These days, Coastal Magic is one of my favorite parts of the year. There is a camaraderie in being with my fellow gay romance authors, and an excitement in discovering new authors of urban fantasy and paranormal romance. I have met so many amazing people there—Paige Tyler, Cathy Maxwell, Savannah Wilde, C.L. Wilson—not to mention visiting old friends like Damon Suede, Mary Calmes, Julia Talbot, B.A. Tortuga, and Karen Rose.

And Jennifer, Dolorianne, Amy and Tina, who were all drawn together by their love of reading are still at the heart of the convention. It’s about friends who love to read, who love to talk to their favorite authors, who love to celebrate fiction in all its forms.

I’ve come a long way from self-publishing urban fantasy without an editor—but I hope to return to Coastal Magic as many times as possible in the future.

And one of the things I always try to do is to bring some fantasy with me. Yes, I write mainly contemporary now, but I sneak in a little bit of fantasy or paranormal romance with me at least once a year. It was my first love as a genre, and as much as I love gay romance, you never forget your first.

So if you see me at Coastal Magic, look for my fantasy books—this year, it’s the Familiar series, featuring Familiar Angel and Familiar Demon so far. They may not seem to be my normal, but believe me.

When I’m on the Florida coast, I am perfectly at home sponsoring a little bit of magic.


Blurb

For over a century, Edward Youngblood has been the logical one in a family of temperamental magical beings. But reason has not made him immune to passion, and Edward’s passion for Mullins, the family’s demon instructor, has only grown.

Mullins was lured into hell through desperation—and a fatal mistake. He’s done his best to hang onto his soul in the twisted realm of the underworld, and serving the Youngblood family when summoned has been his only joy. Edward concocts a plan to spring Mullins by collecting a series of items to perform an ancient ritual—an idea that terrifies Mullins. He can’t bear the thought of losing Edward and his brothers to a dangerous quest.

But every item in their collection is an adventure in brotherhood and magic, and as Mullins watches from the sidelines, he becomes more and more hopeful that they will succeed. When the time comes for Mullins to join the mission, can he find enough faith and hope to redeem himself and allow himself happiness in the arms of a man who would literally go to hell and back—and beyond—to have Mullins by his side?


Bio

Amy Lane lives in a crumbling crapmansion with a couple of growing children, a passel of furbabies, and a bemused spouse. She’s been nominated for a RITA, has won honorable mention for an Indiefab, and has a couple of Rainbow Awards to her name. She also has too damned much yarn, a penchant for action-adventure movies, and a need to know that somewhere in all the pain is a story of Wuv, Twu Wuv, which she continues to believe in to this day! She writes fantasy, urban fantasy, and gay romance–and if you accidentally make eye contact, she’ll bore you to tears with why those three genres go together. She’ll also tell you that sacrifices, large and small, are worth the urge to write.