A Snippet Scene with The Camino Club Characters Diego & Shania!

In September 2020, I shared an outtake from my then upcoming novel, THE CAMINO CLUB, with the YOUNG ADULT LITERARY JOURNAL, VOYAGE!

I’m sharing that snippet here today. If you read THE CAMINO CLUB, you will remember the Queimada ceremony my group of teens experienced in Fonfría. What you would not have read was a cute moment that happened with Diego and Shania after the Queimada.

If you haven’t yet read THE CAMINO CLUB, it’s never too late to start! You can buy it wherever books are sold! Or check your local library! OR, there will be some buy links after the outtake which I will share below:

Diego Nelson in Fonfría, after the Queimada

After we drink the amazing potion Rosa and Paulo concocted, we dance our asses off until we’re all glistening with sweat. It’s the best. Even though I know the alcohol was burned off when Paulo lit the cauldron of potion aflame, I feel like I’m buzzing on a high. We all are. Glazed eyes everywhere. High on life, we are.

When I can’t dance anymore, I get Shania’s attention and nod towards the door. The cool night air beyond would be perfect right now. It would definitely douse the drink of fire that banishes evil. Ha.

Shan gives me a thumb’s up and we make our way to the door. People are everywhere, dancing in a conga line, worming their way around the room like an electric current of wonder.

“Whoa,” Shania says as we explode out into the night. “Sweet. That was so much magic, Diego. I want to live here forever.”

I don’t know if she means in Spain, in Fonfría, or in this moment, but to be honest, I’m good with any of the above.

“What is that gorgeous scent? Do you smell it?” She looks around, tries to find the source of the fragrant scent that fills the night around us. She’s hopeless. The entire outside wall of the dining hall is buried in bougainvillea.

“Do you think perhaps it could be the miles and miles of bougainvillea right over there?” I ask. “I don’t know, I mean, it could be something else?”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re a smartass, mister?”

I smile, take her hand and walk her over to the wall of flowers. She’s right. Their scent fills the air. And the moon is still close to full. The clear sky out here still gives us an entire universe of stars.

I break off a small bunch of the flowers and offer them to Shania. She brings them to her face and inhales deeply into the purplish bouquet.

There’s a loud screech from inside the dining hall, followed by cheers, laughter, and clapping. Shania looks at me. “Paulo.” The conga music wafts out into the night. I’ve never felt so electric in my life.

“Dance with me,” I say. I take the flowers from her hand and tuck them in behind her ear. I hold out my hands and Shania laughs. “What?”

“Nothing, Diego,” she says. This is everything I want right now. Out here in the near darkness, half-lit by the moon and bubbling over with all these emotions. Conga beats spill out around us. “I’d love to dance with you.” We dance, and it’s glorious. Better than the heat of the potion, the theatrics of Rosa and Paulo, and the spectacle of the Queimada ceremony combined. I’ll never forget this moment.

Here’s the link to the original posting of this outtake, as it appeared in VOYAGE. Please visit this amazing YOUNG ADULT LITERARY JOURNAL and show them some love!

As promised, some purchase links for THE CAMINO CLUB, along with the GOODREADS link:

Now be a doll and run along and grab your copy! I’d love for you to read this award-winning book!

Hey Canada! THE CAMINO CLUB sale alert! 99 CENTS!

Okay, I have news…not the news I’m dying to share with you about BOOK OF DREAMS, but news all the same!

THE CAMINO CLUB is on sale at Amazon CANADA!

Now would be the time to pick up your copy if you haven’t done so already! Before the sale goes away.

AMAZON CANADA – THE CAMINO CLUB

Act fast! Like, run don’t walk to Amazon and get your copy now! Make THE CAMINO CLUB your PRIDE READ for PRIDE MONTH!

SYNOPSIS: After getting in trouble with the law, a group of wayward teens are given an ultimatum: serve time in juvenile detention for their crimes or walk the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage across Spain over the summer holidays with a pair of court-appointed counselors. Although they come from diverse backgrounds, the unlikely friends try to make the best of their situation. The pilgrims grow closer on their journey, but they may not make it to their destination—the Cathedral in Santiago. If they do, will they each find what they’re looking for, and will their newfound friendships endure?

If you have already read The Camino Club, please consider telling your friends! I’d love to see this story of my heart reaching more readers!

Pride Month 2022 – Pride Reads!

Happy Pride Month to all! It’s time to consider reading books with LGBTQ+ representation!

I’m currently reading HOWL by Shaun David Hutchinson and LOVING it! Highly recommend! It’s such a subtly told powerhouse of a story about struggling to find oneself while fearing becoming something other than oneself…while at the same time punching back against bullying and biases. Really, such a deep read. Written for the Young Adult market.

My recently read Pride reads were pretty fascinating looks into growing up with gay dads. One from a Canadian woman whose father gravitated to the Toronto gay village area and one from an American woman whose father gravitated to the Castro in San Francisco. Loved them both! Poignant, sad, funny…all the feels. Highly recommend them…even as side by side reads:

CONFESSIONS OF A FAIRY’S DAUGHTER – GROWING UP WITH A GAY DAD by Alison Wearing

FAIRYLAND – A MEMOIR OF MY FATHER by ALYSIA ABBOTT

I too write Pride books. Here are 3 that are available now!

Billions of Beautiful Hearts (Interlude Press/Duet Books) is a young adult story with two nonbinary teens finding love online during the time of Covid Lockdown. The Camino Club (Interlude Press/Duet Books) is a young adult story with six teens walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route across Spain as atonement for their crimes back home in Toronto. It features a gay narrator with lesbian rep. Pride Must Be A Place (Muse It Up) is a young adult story with Ezra Caine and his friends coming together to create their small-town high school’s first Gay Straight Alliance. Ezra discovers along the way that he can find happiness, love, and safety in the places he once feared.

KEVIN CRAIG AUTHOR PAGE on AMAZON USA

KEVIN CRAIG AUTHOR PAGE on AMAZON CANADA

I also have upcoming PRIDE reads! One of which you could definitely PRE-ORDER during Pride Month! YES, I’m talking about BOOK OF DREAMS again!

Here’s the synopsis:

Gaige’s curiosity gets the better of him when he discovers a bookstore on an abandoned street where no bookstore should be. He steps inside and is immediately enthralled by its antiquarian sights and smells. But one book in particular calls to him. It isn’t long before he gets a bad feeling about it, but it’s already too late. The store’s aged bookseller gives him no alternative: once he touches the book, it’s his—whether he wants it or not. It’s bought and paid for and there are no returns. The book leads Gaige on a horrific descent into the unknown. As he falls into the depths of its pages, he loses blocks of time, and his friends become trapped inside ancient cellars with seemingly no means of escape. Gaige soon learns that the ancient bookseller is a notorious serial killer from a previous century, and fears that he has fallen into a predicament from which he may not escape. When all seems lost, he finds the one person he can turn to for help—Mael, a sweet teen also trapped inside the book who didn’t fall for the bookseller’s tricks. Together, they race against time to protect Gaige from joining a long string of boys who vanished without a trace inside the Book of Dreams.

AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD! Also, put Book of Dreams on your Goodreads shelf!

It’s Pride Month. Whatever you choose to do with your reading time this month, just consider spending some of that time reading and supporting LGBTQ+ fiction!

HAPPY PRIDE!

Cover Reveal for My Upcoming Novel BOOK OF DREAMS – But You Won’t See it Here! LGBTQ READS…

Today is the COVER REVEAL day for my upcoming novel BOOK OF DREAMS!

I’m so excited to be able to share the cover of this LGBTQ young adult novel that falls somewhere between horror and contemporary in the genre scale (here I go again, mashing genres)! Coming May 24th, 2022, from Duet Books, the YA imprint of Interlude Press, Book of Dreams is the 3rd of 4 Duet Books projects! The fourth, to be released in 2023, is a YA contemporary with a nonbinary lead…Where is Ethan Sinclair.

Book of Dreams has been a long time in the making. In fact, I began writing it back in 2014 at the Muskoka Novel Marathon (this is a yearly 72-hour novel writing marathon that raises money for literacy programs in the Muskoka region of Northern Ontario).

The cover reveal will NOT be taking place here on my site. Below is a link to the site hosting the reveal. You’ll have to click over to that site to see the book cover!

Designed by CB Messer, I really feel that the cover captures the mood and aesthetic of the story so well! The main character, Gaige, finds Book of Dreams on a shelf in a bookstore on a deserted street where no bookstore should be. In a sea of spines in blacks and greys and beiges and muted tones, one shiny book stands out among all the others. Inextricably drawn to it, Gaige seals his fate once he reaches for it. The cover that CB Messer came up with encapsulates both the shininess of the book and the portent of bad things to come once it falls into Gaige’s possession. I love it! CB Messer knocks it out of the park, just as they did with the cover of my previous Duet Books novel THE CAMINO CLUB!

LGBTQ READS is a phenomenal site! It covers all LGBTQ literature, from MG LIT to NON FICTION to YA to ADULT to POETRY to CHILDRENS to HISTORICAL…literally everything. It’s the number one resource for LGBTQ literature on the web. Once you’re there, I urge you to take a look around. It’s a fabulous site!

And today, I have the honor of having the cover for my new baby revealed there! I couldn’t wish for a better place to have host this cover reveal. Thanks to LGBTQ READS and to my amazing publishers at INTERLUDE PRESS and DUET BOOKS for making it happen!

Now, if you would like to see the cover in all its creepy glory, head on over to the >>>>> COVER REVEAL BY CLICKING THIS LINK RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW!

INCLUDED WITH THE COVER REVEAL IS A SNEAK PEEK EXCERPT! READ SOME OF THE FIRST CHAPTER TO BOOK OF DREAMS WHILE YOU’RE THERE!

Follow LGBTQ READS on Twitter to keep up with the latest LGBTQ literary news.

Follow the amazing Dahlia Adler who runs LGBTQ READS.

Here’s a LINKTREE, with various purchase options, where you can pre-order BOOK OF DREAMS. Alternatively, you can order it pretty much wherever books are sold.

Original Artwork by Jarom Verdonk – Artist’s rendition of Jack Chalek, the villain in ***BOOK OF DREAMS***.

Add BOOK OF DREAMS to your GOODREADS SHELF HERE!

Want to help spread the word about my COVER REVEAL??? I would GREATLY appreciate it! Please, instead of sharing this post…please consider sharing the LGBTQ READS post! I want the spotlight to be on THAT site today! Thank you so much!

Huge Sale on All Interlude Press and Duet Books Titles and Merch! Nov 25-29, 2021!

Queer Book Sale!! 50% off EVERYTHING in the Interlude Press online store! This includes PAPERBACK BOOKS, DIGITAL BOOKS, and MERCHANDISE!

Which means it includes all the DUET BOOKS titles, including MY THREE TITLES!

Get The Camino Club ebook, The Camino Club paperback, Billions of Beautiful Hearts, and the PREORDER of Book of Dreams in either format! for 50% off this weekend…no matter the format you choose!

SO MANY GREAT AUTHORS TO CHOOSE FROM! You can’t go wrong choosing any of them! From Julian Winters to Jude Sierra. From Kate Hazel Hall to C.B. Lee. From Joy Huang-Iris to Rudy Foster. From Celeste Castro to F.T. Lukens! You get the picture…every single book is on sale. 50% off for both the print and the ebook. THURSDAY NOVEMBER 25th, 2021 to MONDAY NOVEMBER 29th, 2021!

Go directly to the INTERLUDE PRESS ONLINE STORE HERE!

To shop exclusively in the DUET BOOKS YOUNG ADULT IMPRINT SECTION OF THE STORE GO HERE!

This coming THURSDAY to MONDAY! 50% off of EVERYTHING IN THE STORE! (only at their online store!) The 50% discount will appear in the cart at CHECKOUT!

Pride and Summer – Redo!

You may have noticed a couple of new covers if you recently visited My Amazon page. Both Pride Must Be a Place & Summer on Fire are now sporting new clothing. (-;

Unfortunately, my publisher, MuseItUp, had to make a tough decision and close their doors. It was a great pleasure working with the folx at MuseItUp! We had a long relationship. They were the publisher of both my debut novel and my sixth novel. I’m grateful for the time we spent together!

I now offer the SAME stories wrapped in newer clothing.

Here are the new covers:

PRIDE MUST BE A PLACE – Ezra Caine is gay. He’s sort of out at school but not at home, where he fears the wrath of his father’s bigotry. When Ezra’s flamboyantly out friend Alex Mills takes one too many beatings from homophobic bully Will Carter, Ezra finally snaps. Fed up with the situation at school, he decides to do something about it. With the help of his BFF, Nettie, and some unlikely allies, Ezra rallies to create their small-town school’s first gay-straight alliance. The Rainbow Alliance Club is formed. But the changes don’t come without hiccups, one of which being a messy scandal involving Alex and a gay hook-up app. As Ezra and his friends attempt to sway their school into an alliance of tolerance and acceptance, Ezra experiences a few surprises of his own on the home-front. He also learns the hard way that friendships out of convenience aren’t always a good idea, just as some enemies might not be as bad as he originally imagined them to be.

SUMMER ON FIRE – Zach Carson is a loyal friend. But is loyalty enough to keep best friends together when one of them sets fire to the rural barn they use as the local hangout? Zach, Jeff Barsell and Arnie Wilson struggle to pick up the pieces when news spreads that a body was discovered in the burnt out shell of the neighboring home. When the word murder is used by the local police, the stakes grow even higher. When the police start searching for their most likely suspect—none other than Jeff’s older brother, and nemesis, Marty Barsell—the boys decide to join forces and come up with a way to prove his innocence. But just how innocent is Marty Barsell? When Marty admits to being at the scene of the crime, the three friends enlist the help of Zach’s annoying sister, Sherry, as well as the sympathetic town eccentric, Ms. Halverton. But can they keep it together long enough to save Marty, and themselves, from eminent catastrophe? Summer on Fire is the story of friendships, and the lines we are asked to cross in order to keep them.

To purchase copies of either of these novels, you can visit MY AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE RIGHT HERE. Maybe consider grabbing a copy of PRIDE MUST BE A PLACE for #PrideReads! Pride month is almost over.

Please note that if you already have copies of either of these books–THE CONTENT IS THE SAME. ONLY THE COVERS HAVE CHANGED.

Billions of Beautiful Hearts is OUT!

My cute little short story BILLIONS OF BEAUTIFUL HEARTS about two teens who find a way to come together during the time of Covid lockdown is now out in the universe! Much thanks and gratitude to my readers who made this a #1 New Release on Amazon this week! My two nonbinary teen characters also thank you! I don’t think I have to say this, but representation is so important. I’m glad Wen & Kaye have made their way out into the world…and I’m excited that they’ve been well received. Thank you all who supported this short story!

Click the image below to go to Amazon to pick up a copy of Billions of Beautiful Hearts!Billions of Beautiful Hearts is one of four short stories in the COME WHAT MAY series…and I can promise you that the other 3 are quite lovely. One of the perks of being involved in this project is that I was able to get early reads on the other 3 stories. You’ll want to pick them up! Links below for the other COME WHAT MAY stories:

GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING by CLAIRE RUDY FOSTER is already out and available!

AND ALWAYS COMING BACK by JUDE SIERRA comes out Tuesday Feb 16th and is available for pre-order now.

SUNNY PASTURES by LILAH SUZANNE comes out Tuesday Feb 23rd and is available for pre-order now.

THANK YOU!

The Camino Club Cover and Buy Links

The cover of THE CAMINO CLUB was revealed earlier this week and I am 100% in love with it. Not only did CB Messer capture the beauty of the Milky Way in this cover, but they also nailed the Camino vibe with stamps, arrows, shells, backpacks, and footprints. This cover IS the Camino de Santiago! I could not possibly be happier!

You can head over to CB MESSER to see other gorgeous CB Messer covers and illustrations.

See the cover reveal at LGBTQ READS. There’s an excerpt from The Camino Club at the link as well: THE CAMINO CLUB COVER REVEAL AND EXCERPT AT LGBTQ READS!

Before I drop all the purchase links for places you can go to pre-order The Camino Club, I just wanted to add that the stamps in the background of this cover are the actual stamps Michael and I collected on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in Spain last September when we walked the route to Santiago de Compostela. One of the things pilgrims do is carry a stamp book with them on their journey. They get stamps at churches, restaurants, hotels, hostels, albergues, etc…to prove that they have made the journey. Once they get to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, their stamp books are verified prior to them receiving the compostela (certificate) which states that they have walked the pilgrim’s path. MY STAMPS ARE LITERALLY ON THE COVER!!

thumbnail_Camino Club (IPG)

Here’s where you can pick up your pre-ordered copy of THE CAMINO CLUB:

THE CAMINO CLUB – After getting in trouble with the law, six wayward teens are given an ultimatum: serve time in juvenile detention for their crimes, or walk the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route across Spain over the summer holidays with a pair of court-appointed counselor guides. When it becomes clear the long walk isn’t really all that much of an option, they set out on a journey that will either make or break who they are and who they are to become.

USA PRE-ORDER LINK: THE CAMINO CLUB

CANADA PRE-ORDER LINK: THE CAMINO CLUB

INDIEBOUND BOOKS PRE-ORDER LINK: THE CAMINO CLUB

BARNES & NOBLE PRE-ORDER LINK: THE CAMINO CLUB

BOOKSHOP PRE-ORDER LINK: THE CAMINO CLUB

BOOK DEPOSITORY PRE-ORDER LINK: THE CAMINO CLUB

PRE-ORDER DIRECT FROM INTERLUDE PRESS (In this link, find out how you can pre-order the paperback and get the ebook package for free: THE CAMINO CLUB

I made a playlist for this novel. Songs I listened to while I wrote it. It’s on SPOTIFY.

Listen to THE CAMINO CLUB playlist on SPOTIFY!

11 Wonderfully Diverse YA Novels with LGBTQ+ Representation! Pride Must Be A Place Now on Wiki Ezvid…

Check out this Wiki Ezvid List on which Pride Must Be A Place is being featured! Pride is in some great company on this list of YA novels with diverse LGBTQ+ representation! Watch the accompanying video to get a snap-shot of Pride‘s synopsis! CLICK ON THE HEADLINE BELOW TO WATCH THE VIDEO FEATURING THE 11 BOOKS:

11 Wonderfully Diverse YA Novels About LGBTQ+ Characters

Love BOOK LISTS? There’s a lot to love on Wiki Ezvid then. Check out some of their FICTION LISTS HERE!

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You can pick up a Kindle copy of PRIDE here.