GENRE: LGBT Erotic Romance Anthology
LENGTH: 63,287 words
RATING:

Raise your rainbow umbrellas high and celebrate!

Enjoy this enchanting, entertaining and thought-provoking collection, a heartfelt expression of what it means to be queer in Britain, past and present. All these stories reflect the iconic sights and national character of the British Isles: a taste of our idiosyncrasies and eccentricities, but also an unashamed representation of the love, loyalty and laughter of our people.

Including a wide range of style and subject, this is the perfect way to sample different authors and to find both existing and new favourites. Follow the British way of life from historic villages to modern cities, from the countryside to the sea, through history and with a fantasy twist, in gardens, churches, campus and the familiar, much-loved local pub.

The stories cover universal themes of romance, desire, remembrance and reconciliation. The authors range from multi-published to up-and-coming, and they all share a passion for their characters, whether through great drama, erotic excitement, humour -- or a combination of all three!

Contributors include: Alex Beecroft, Jennie Caldwell, Stevie Carroll, Charlie Cochrane, Lucy Felthouse, Elin Gregory, Mara Ismine, Clare London, Anna Marie May, JL Merrow, Josephine Myles, Zahra Owens, Jay Rookwood, Chris Smith, Stevie Woods, Lisa Worrall, and Serena Yates. Edited by: UK MAT (UK Meet Acquisitions Team).

This anthology is a souvenir of the 2011 UK Meet, an occasion for GLBTQ supporters to get together in a relaxed setting to celebrate and chat about the fiction community they love. Funds from the sale of this anthology will go towards future UK Meets, to which all are welcome. Please visit the website for details, or contact UK MAT through the publisher.

EXCERPT FROM "Making Camp" by Clare London:
Note: may contain sexually explicit scenes of a homoerotic nature.

Saturday morning, I awoke to a trumpet call from Hades itself, or that’s how it sounded: a wailing scream, a shriek of hate and despair, ripping through the dawn.

Heart pounding with shock, I scrabbled out of my (borrowed) sleeping bag, cursing whoever had twisted the zip up between my arse cheeks while I slept. The traffic had been so bad the previous evening, we’d arrived really late at the campsite, and there’d been no time for anything except putting up the tents and crashing out. This morning, I barely remembered where I was, let alone why I wasn’t waking to decent rock music on my digital radio alarm. I blundered into the side of the (also borrowed) tent, breathing harshly, wondering if oxygen were available for those with an allergy to polyester. My elbow thumped the tent pole at the doorway and the whole structure shuddered around me.

When I lurched outside, the fresh air hit me like chemical warfare, my bare toes curling up with the shock of grass underneath them so early in the morning. There was a sudden flurry of black feathers as birds launched themselves from the nearby trees. I stared at the world through dilated pupils, panting, expecting to see the Four Horsemen charging in on some satanic version of a tractor.

Instead, only Max was there, crouched outside his own tent, his back to me. He was dressed in just his shorts and he looked completely at home, stirring away at something in a pan, its surface bubbling and the sharp tang of its sauce catching in the back of my throat. I peered over at the pan, suspiciously. Was he going to eat that? From what I could see, it looked like it’d been vomited up by the Beast of Exmoor.

As I groaned and grasped the tent pole for extra support, his head whipped around. “What is it?” He looked concerned. “The crows wake you up?”

I never got time to reply with something witty and face-saving because we were both distracted by a strange creaking sound. Max stood up, abruptly, still clutching the spoon, globules of sauce dripping from its end. His eyes widened. The only other warning I got was the flapping sound of a loosened flysheet, and then the heavy rustle of canvas crumpling down on itself.

I stood there, staring resolutely and helplessly forward, listening to the dull twang of the poles springing free behind me, bouncing against each other, scraping down the seams of the tent. Then the muffled clang of them hitting the ground.

I thought I’d knocked each peg securely into the field the night before, but ... maybe I hadn’t.

There was a final thump and everything went quiet again. I didn’t dare turn around. I coughed from grass seed in my throat. A stray acorn rolled past my foot. Max’s gaze shifted down from over my shoulder to a point barely six inches from the ground.

“Shit,” he said, thoughtfully. “Looks like the guy-ropes weren’t tightened properly.”