A word from the amazing lady who not only writes but owns MLR: Laura Baumbach

 

I’d like to start by thanking Top2Bottom for inviting MLR Press to be here this month. It’s a honor and a pleasure to get the chance to chat with readers.  I’m Laura Baumbach, owner of ManLove Romance Press aka MLR. (Actually, Laura, it’s a bit over that now. LOL)

MLR Press started exactly seven years ago this month. I had been writing in the m/m erotic romance category for several years and was frustrated with having difficulty getting my work into print. I came from starting out in print with a small press and knew there was a huge readership of straight women and gay men who enjoyed our work.  But romance houses were more focus on ebook avenues. Frustration led to it becoming a personal challenge which, in turn, led to my creating ManLove Romance Press.

Without print ARC books for contests, review sites (back then when I started over a decade ago review sites didn’t want m/m much but some would take a print copy), RWA events, awards and many other events associated with our craft an author (and their category of romance) was left in the shadows. M/M authors were put at the tail end of things, especially m/m erotic romance authors.

So I took tackled the problem the only way I could after trying to convince my ebook publishers to do more print failed. I created my own press that does print and ebook. I worked every angle I could to get our work into RWA contests, romance review sites, gay outlets, Lambda events, ALA events, and any other outlet that would help raise the profile of m/m erotic romance and gay fiction.

Now, over a decade after I came into the field of writing m/m, we are on a more equal playing ground with traditional romance. Some of the best romance available to readers is in this category.  Building the press and working for equality in the romance community has become my goal. This is so amazing to me because I came into it just wanting to write a good story and share it with readers. You don’t have to be a fan of m/m to enjoy the stories, just a fan of love and romance.

MLR PRESS

Rough Ride (Rough Ride Series 2.5) by Laura Baumbach

Title: Rough Ride
Author: Laura Baumbach
Publisher: MLR Press
Pages: 25
Characters: James and Bram
POV: 3rd
Sub-Genre: D/s
Kisses: 5






Blurb:

James Justin’s family distanced themselves from him when they learned he was gay. Since then, he’s buried himself in his career so ‘friends’ are really just acquaintances. This holiday season would have been just another lonely time of the year. Except his new lover, Bram Lord, has no intention of letting that happen. Burly powerhouse Bram takes his cautious lover James on a wild ride through both their neighborhood’s slippery, snowy slopes and the even trickier winding trail toward love. Hot holiday heat

Review:

I have come to fall totally in love with James and Bram. These two characters know how to heat up the pages in their story and leave you with a smile of happiness on your face when you’re done. These two are back with a glimpse of what they’re doing on their first Christmas together. Not only do they take a high speed ride on tubes down the side of a mountain, they share a night of hot passionate sex with us too. Bram is still “Caveman” and James is still learning how to ask for what he wants…including adding the finest of details. I suspect he has a ways to go still, but let me just say that the words these two use, the things they do? WOW. I loved it.

Plot: Cute, short, sweet and tied up.
Characters: 3-D and loveable.
Sex: Please, this is James and Bram. You know it’s going to be fire hot.
Overall: Loved it and need more.

Reviewed By: Michele

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Dark of the Moon by Laura Baumbach

Title: Dark of the Moon
Author: Laura Baumbach
Publisher: MLR Press
Pages: 63
Characters: Harley, Matt
POV: 3rd
Sub-Genre: Paranormal
Kisses: 4

Blurb:

Recovering from a near fatal injury, vampire Harley Scott just wants some peace, quiet and a long night filled with darkness. The wilds of icy Canada sounds like the best place to make that happen– if he can make it past blizzards, werewolves, and — oh, yeah, a death squad of fellow vampires on his trail.

Review:

(This is a previously released book)

Dark of the Moon is a story about a vampire who is badly injured and in need of protection from a group of vampires who are out to destroy him because of his injuries. Harley was your everyday average vampire…um…prostitute. He’d jump from one john to the next seeking mainly blood from them as he fulfilled their sexual needs and one night something went terribly wrong when one of those johns decided to use Harley as the star in his very own snuff film.

After that incident he finds himself in a world of hate and pain, merely existing until he encounters a handful of humans who take him under their wing to get him to safety. Not to say they knew he was in trouble, I just think they were decent men helping someone out. Harley ends up in a small town, in a bar where he meets Matt, the sheriff and things heat up here very quickly.

We get to see how lively Harley is and how it takes a hell of a um…man to get him to see everything in a different light so to speak. He also learns the meaning of real love, how a pack protects its own, and how to trust once again.

This is a well told story, with a lot of Harley doing a lot of thinking in the pages. You get to know and understand him and his frustrations, and feel for him, cheer him on, and Matt as well. Matt is just…awesome. If you missed this story the first time out, don’t pass it up this go around.

Reviewed By: Michele

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Walk Through Fire by Laura Baumbach

Title: Walk Through Fire
Author: Laura Baumbach
Publisher: MLR Press
Pages: 32
Characters: Caleb, Drew
POV: 3rd
Sub-Genre: Paranormal
Kisses: 4

Blurb:

Caleb’s vampire lover has been cursed by none other than the Duke of Hell. For over one hundred years he’s tried to free Drew, and has failed to defeat the demon champions. With Drew starving and going insane, Caleb doesn’t have much time left. What would you do for love? Sacrifice yourself, your immortal future, even your lover’s life?

Review:

Walk Through Fire is one of those stories that just grabs you by the heart right at the start and refuses to let it go until the very end. Thankfully this is a short story. Caleb is a desperate vampire, who for the past 157 years has had to endure the same battle against the demon champions in hope that he will save his lover, Andrew from them, to set him free.

Through the whole story you are kept on the edge of your seat hoping this is the time he wins this war at his chance for happiness. I cheered him on with each turn of the page. I loved the description that Laura sets up for us within these pages and even am awed over how well she fleshed out these characters in such as short amount of time.

Reviewed By: Michele

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Roughhousing (Rough #2) by Laura Baumbach

Title: Roughhousing
Author: Laura Baumbach
Publisher: MLR Press
Pages: 260
Characters: James and Bram
POV: 3rd
Sub-Genre: Contemporary
Kisses: 5






Blurb:

James and Bram are back in this sequel to the bestselling A Bit of Rough! They’ve been dating a while, now, but James is still unsure about his feelings for Bram. He’s rushed into things before, and it’s always backfired on him, so James wants to take it slow. Bram is so forceful, though, so sexy and convincing that it’s hard to stand fast against him. In fact, Bram is the one steady thing in James’ life, when everything else seems to be shifting like sand under his feet. His job is getting stressful, his apartment is getting dangerous, and James knows he’s teetering on the brink of change, but is unsure what to choose. When a project at work seems to have fallen under Bram’s influence through the old boy network, James decides to back off and tell Bram they have to cool down their heated relationship. Bram is willing to accommodate James–to a point. But what happens when self-assured Bram has had enough of James’ insecurity? Taking up where A Bit of Rough left off, Roughhousing opens up Bram and James’ relationship, following along as they become a real couple, and face the troubles that come from trying to blend two lives and two independent personalities. Their need for each other burns as hot as ever, but will that be enough to build a life on?

Review:

Leave it to Laura Baumbach to bring us more of the characters we just can’t seem to get enough of, right? And she does it so well that I put the two books back on my TBR list for a re-read. I don’t know that I’ll ever get enough of Bram, James’ ‘Caveman.’

This story picks up as the other left off. The two men are still seeing one another but this one brings us the internal struggles within James and his fears of his past. Here he is, falling head over in love with Bram but he feels it’s too fast, just like the rest of his ex’s. And because of that he attempts to pull back, we see a lot of internal struggle over this and not only see but hear the pain he’s in. However, it just seems that fate has something different in store for him because every time he tries, something happens to pull them together again. We have the evil neighbor of his who tried to rape him in the first book show up for a bit in the beginning of this one with a friend and try to break in his apartment. Williams is his name if you recall and other than that one incident, it’s his only part in this book. In the last that awful man brought angst by the buckets, this one? Not so much. Of course the fact that he did show up when he did, forced James to find another apartment and since Bram is soo protective he doesn’t approve of anything James can find. So, he does move in or rather he does stay at Bram’s for a bit until he can find a place because he doesn’t want to rely on the other man for anything. He’s very independent. And doing his very best to give Bram a reason to break up with him but Bram is not having that.

James ends up finding his own apartment, in what he thinks is the perfect place, as Bram does since James is not bending on the moving into his own place thing. They can’t find a thing wrong with the place, until something horrible happens to James one night and Bram is called to rush to the hospital.

This brings James back into Bram’s care. Now, let me tell you, Bram? He’s every woman’s dream man perfect in every way. He is not afraid of emotions, not afraid to talk, not afraid to love. I would like to order one Bram please?

Sex scenes are awesome, as I knew they would be and these two are like bunnies. Expect to meet a member of James’ family who refuses to wrap her head around James and Bram as a couple. She steps into the scene and I wanted to rip her out. But hey, that’s just me. James has an important project handed to him from his boss and this action causes another issue for him and Bram, so the story is freckled with small bites of angst and reasons why James needs to really grow up a bit before he’s ready to take Bram on as his fulltime lover.

I loved this story, as I did the first one and I’m hoping Laura finds a moment to give us more of these two and perhaps a bit of William’s? Just to stir things up of course.

Reviewed By: Michele

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