Subtitle: Marlys's Great L.A. Adventure (yeah, that's what the "M" stands for--I'll never give up the "J" willingly, but if you're sneaky enough, you can find out)

Sunday, December 3 in West Hollywood. The drive up from my brother's house in Murrieta was uneventful, apart from a few major slowdowns (on Sunday? damn, doesn't the traffic ever lighten up in So Cal?). My mother, who was acting as my driver and photographer (thanks, Ma!) and I found a too-good-to-be-true parking spot about a block from the bookstore, and since we had almost an hour to kill, found a bakery and had a snack.

Then we wandered over to A Different Light. The poster Ken at Seventh Window had made for the signing looked great, so we took a picture:


The event was a blast. A very nice woman, Margaret, was waiting when I got there to have me sign a book for her. She had wonderful things to say about The Price of Temptation, and was looking forward to Discreet Young Gentleman. Okay, I basked. Money is nice when it happens, but the best reward for writing is hearing that someone really connected with your work. Thank you, Margaret! I'm only sorry I didn't realize I'd be reading Sunday night (my fault--I should have asked Billy at ADL what the plan was), or I would have asked you to stick around.

I signed a stack of books that had been pre-sold through the ADL web page (you'll be able to tell where your copy was in the stack by the clarity of the signature), chatted with Joel the store manager and Vladimir his able assistant. They set up a table and some chairs, and I read a couple of excerpts from DYG. I'm getting better at speaking in public, but I still read too fast...


There were some nice questions from people in the audience, then I got to meet some terrific people:

Michael Shinafelt, the journalist who interviewed me for the December Blade. He's also the sex columnist for Men magazine, and one of the funniest guys I know.


Sean Platter (see also his web page here), the artist who does the covers for my books. Sean's very busy these days--right now he's exhibiting over at Antebellum, so if you're in the L.A. area you can check out his work in person.


And speaking of Sean's covers, remember this?


These are a couple of the shots Sean used for reference when he created the cover for The Price of Temptation:



The models are Luca DiCorso and his boyfriend Drew, and I was pleased to meet them both at the bookstore, along with their friend James. Luca, who was Men Magazine's Man of the Year for 2005, is busy with fashion modeling and his Naked Yoga studios these days, while Drew is working on a screenplay. I'm happy to report that they are both just as nice as they are gorgeous. Here's a picture of me with Luca, and I'm kicking myself that I didn't get one with Drew as well (although if you scroll back up to the photo of Michael above, you can see half of him on the right).

I also got to meet gay erotic romance author James Buchanan, and he, Michael and I went out for a drink at the Abbey afterwards. The evening was a pleasure all around...until my mom and I went to find my brother's car.

And it wasn't there. Remember that too-good-to-be-true parking space? Yeah, it really wasn't true. We barely had time to debate whether it had been stolen or towed when we noticed parking enforcement officers on the other side of the street. They told us we'd needed a permit to park there, and gave us the phone number and address of the lot where the car likely ended up. I made a point to be nice about it, even apologetic--it was my mistake, after all--which paid off a few minutes later when we were sitting at the bus stop across the street. The parking officers stopped and picked us up, and actually gave us a ride to the tow lot.

Which just added to the impression I'd already got earlier: everybody's nice in L.A.