The lovely Fiona Glass hads been featuring writers' desks on her blog. This time it's mine!.

Thanks to the multi-talented alex_beecroft I have an author logo.



I feel like a real grown up, now. :)

In the June Issue of The Samhellion.

I was musing about how holidays can be such an inspiration.

Cheyenne Publishing (the new publisher for the print version of Speak Its Name) has a whizzy new website here. Be warned - there's a picture of me on the authors' page.

The wonderful Mel Keegan's brainchild, GLBT wiki, has its press release today. It's a fabulous place to get information about authors, books, publishers, the lot!

The ghosts of the past will shape your future. Unless you fight them.

Lessons in Power comes out in e-book on September 8th, 2009, and in print next summer.

Cambridge, 1907.
After settling in their new home, Cambridge dons Orlando Coppersmith and Jonty Stewart are looking forward to nothing more exciting than teaching their students and playing rugby. Their plans change when a friend asks their help to clear an old flame who stands accused of murder.

Doing the right thing means Jonty and Orlando must leave the sheltering walls of St. Bride’s to enter a labyrinth of suspects and suspicions, lies and anguish.

Their investigation raises ghosts from Jonty's past when the murder victim turns out to be one of the men who sexually abused him at school. The trauma forces Jonty to withdraw behind a wall of painful memories. And Orlando fears he may forever lose the intimacy of his best friend and lover.

When another one of Jonty’s abusers is found dead, police suspicion falls on the Cambridge fellows themselves. Finding this murderer becomes a race to solve the crime…before it destroys Jonty’s fragile state of mind.

Sneak preview behind the cut. ( Read more... )

Am 'on deck' at Coffee Time Romance reader's retreat, where I've posted a snippet of my upcoming MLR story.

The spiffing new covers will remain!

erastes, lee_rowan and yours truly have decided to migrate "Speak Its Name" to another publisher. So, come August, you'll be able to find the print version with Cheyenne Publishing and the e-book with Bristlecone Pine Press.

It's really exciting, especially as we've known the owners of both presses for ages through the Macaronis.

Lessons in Love has been re-edited, slightly changed and - I believe - improved. It relaunches on August 14, 2009

New tagline: He didn’t think he had a heart. Until he lost it.

Reworked blurb: Jonty Stewart is handsome and outgoing, with blood as blue as his eyes. When he takes up a teaching post at the college where he studied, his dynamic style acts as an agent for change within the archaic institution. He also has a catalytic effect on Orlando Coppersmith.

Orlando is a brilliant, introverted mathematician with very little experience of life outside the university walls. He strikes up an alliance with Jonty and soon finds himself heart-deep in feelings he’s never experienced. Before long their friendship blossoms into more than either man had hoped.

Then a student is murdered within St. Bride’s. Then another…and another. All the victims have one thing in common: a penchant for men. Asked by the police to serve as their eyes and ears within the college, Jonty and Orlando risk exposing a love affair that could make them the killer’s next target.

All very tentative at the mo, just at contract stage.

The Shade on a Fine Day - which is the working title for an Austenesque short (about 22k words) and contains a ghost - will be going into an anthology titled (at present) Among the Living, from MLR.

Charlie says "Ooh, er, missus. Ain't life amazing?"

...I was biting my nails and having panics, because 'Aftermath' was being released. My first published effort, almost as bad as having my first child. (TMI, Charlie...)

To celebrate, I'd like to send a goodie bag to someone (bookmarks, postcards, pen, soldiers in kilts - or at least pictures thereof). Will draw name out of hat tomorrow. E-mail me at cochrane.charlie2@googlemail.com.

Charlie's all of a lather at getting a five star review at Speak Its Name.

"...readers who enjoy a slow burn and exquisite knife-edge sexual tension will appreciate it hugely. Cochrane can do no wrong"



Thank you, erastes.

" The plot is simple but written with finesse and draws you in from the first page."

Literary nymphs

The Macaronis will be at the Reader's Retreat at Coffee Time Romance for the whole of June. I think the event will be located here - I'll be popping in and out with the rest of the crew, but my main day next week is Wednesday 3rd. Do come and throw buns/ask questions/talk to me about rugby players.

The lovely James at QueeredFiction is currently running a competition, the prize being a copy of the print edition of the anthology.

All you have to do is sign up for a newsletter that will provide news releases on QueeredFiction titles, extracts and reviews. (It won't be used for any other promotion or activity - I can verify that as I've been signed up for ages.)

Competition closes 7th June 2009.

Listed at Amazon for release on June 7th.

Ain't life exciting?

"Fans of historicals, mysteries, and sweet romance should pick up Lessons in Desire." joyfully reviewed

So I ring up the Jersey library to ask some questions about parish titles I need to clarify for the re-edit of Lessons in Desire. By the end of the conversation, they've asked me to send them a copy of the book.

Me: "Would you like it signed?"
Lovely lady: "Yes, then we can put it in our display case. And do come and see us when you're next in Jersey."

Am dead.

I would like to thank Mrs Cochrane for letting me write a little something here today. I’m Dr. Jonathan Stewart, Kildare Fellow in Tudor Literature, St. Bride’s College, Cambridge. My dearest friend Dr. Coppersmith says that’s a bit of a mouthful, and suggests I just say ‘Jonty Stewart, romantic idiot’. Mrs Cochrane suggests I slap him, which is uncharacteristically aggressive. Generally she’s a nice author (educated at the right university) and although she leads us into stormy waters at times, she pilots us safely home. I just wish she hadn’t made Orlando snore.

Among the adventures she’s let us have, I particularly enjoyed our trip to Jersey – such a lovely island with glorious beaches (our beach is in that userpic thing). I didn’t get sunburnt looking for green lizards, unlike my creator who is old enough to know better but doesn’t. I’m looking forward to future adventures, such as playing rugby against Orlando, visiting Bath and seeing my mathematical friend wearing black tie and tails and dancing with ladies again.

People have asked me how I’ve put up with Dr. ‘imaginary numbers’, especially in our early days when he was a bit of a stuffed shirt. (I hope he doesn’t read this.) The answer’s simple. Love. I could never leave him, honestly, although I’ve contemplated murder once or twice. Like Mrs Cochrane, who says that if she’d done in her old man she’d be a free woman by now. I think my own dear Mama would have expressed similar thoughts, if they hadn’t had the hangman’s noose back in those days.

Now, Mrs Cochrane says that you might have a question or two to pose me. If you leave them in the comments here, I will try my best to come up with a truthful and thoughtful answer. If I can't find one of those I'll write the sort of piffle my dunderheads come up with.

This is the timetable I have for the rerelease of the books from Samhain- all dates to be 100% confirmed. We're on Jersey for the first two so will be promoing just a few miles away from Jonty and Orlando's beach.

(E-book dates, print 10 months later.)

Lessons in Love August 14 2009
Lessons in Desire August 21 2009
Lessons in Discovery September 4 2009
Lessons in Power September 8 2009
Lessons in Temptation December 8 2009
Lessons in Seduction February 2010
Lessons in Trust May 2010

The good opinion of one's peers is worth a fortune. I'm so glad alex_beecroft enjoyed Lessons in Discovery.

"And I think the combination of extra darkness and angst, and the more complex mystery makes this one the best yet. A real feel-good read, thoroughly recommended." Read Alex's journal