Venery Series

“I swear. Give me one more chance and I will make the most of it.” From the author of The Fish Tales comes the long-awaited second book in the Venery series. A Charm of Finches follows Javier Landes as he retires from escorting and invites love to be his friend. He meets an art therapist named Steffen Finch and what starts as casual deepens into a passionate relationship—everything Jav has ever wanted, and everything he fears losing. Stef’s business card reads Curator & Sailor. His creativity and insightful nature have made him into a talented therapist, the one to call for tough cases. His professional success can’t conceal a deep need to connect with someone, but Javier Landes is the last person Stef expected. Geronimo "Geno" Caan is Stef's most challenging case. To cope with his ordeal, he's allowed an alter-ego called Mos to make decisions, and now lives a double life within a web of lies. Under Stef’s navigation, Geno uses art to express what Mos forbids to be spoken aloud. But as Geno’s attachment to Stef gradually extends to Jav, the boundaries between professional and personal begin to blur. Over the course of a year, Jav, Stef and Geno form an unexpected and unconventional triangle, revealing how men make love in times of war and how love is a great wisdom made up of small understandings. A Charm of Finches is an epic tale of survival and secrets guaranteed to make you think and feel and remember.

A single, drunken misunderstanding is all it took for Javier Landes to be thrown out of his home at the age of seventeen. His keen survival instincts and power of imagination guide him to a career as one of Manhattan’s top-paid escorts. Shrewd and street-smart, Jav has no interest or faith in love, and familial loyalty is a thing of the past until he is named guardian for an unknown nephew in an upstate town. Reunited with his late sister’s son, Jav is not only forced to confront the long-buried pain of his childhood, but he comes face-to-face with a fascinating couple he’s met before: Alex Penda and Valerie Lark. Val and Alex evolved from childhood friends to casual lovers and finally to husband and wife. Along the way, each crossed secret paths with Javier Landes, walking away slightly changed. Now in their forties, their marriage is fiercely passionate and unshakeably devoted. But when Jav reappears in their town, a rekindled attraction causes an unexpected reaction, and nothing in their shared life can be the same. Winner of the Grand Prize in the 2017 Writer’s Digest Awards, An Exaltation of Larks will take you across fifteen years and two continents, exploring both the business of sex and the price of love.

"Come here, you moron." For fans of the Venery series, author Suanne Laqueur offers a compendium of love scenes—unpublished chapters, character sketches and assorted reflections about Javier Landes and Steffen Finch. A treat to skim through, skip around and linger over at leisure. Like caviar. For people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they will like. Contains adults in adult situations using adult language and a f**k-ton of gratuitous boning. No socks required. Batteries sold separately.

Pelippé Trueblood is a giantsblood—one of the great mariners of House Tru. Raised on the mighty ship Cay, he’s chosen at nineteen for a perilous voyage predicted in ancient prophecy. Young and unseasoned, Trueblood fears the gods may have picked the wrong man for the job. Worse, prophecy demands he be accompanied by Fen il-Kheir, and nothing in Trueblood's life at sea has prepared him for this dangerous new crew member. Fen is a kheiron—a creature with the ability to shift between man and horse. With a dark past, little love for humans and less love for ships, Fen proves a reluctant passenger whose secrets about Trueblood could jeopardize not only the voyage, but the future of the world. A feud of the gods. Ships built by giants. Spice that makes the world beautiful. Flying horses. Murder and misery. Belonging and bravery. Sailors, centaurs, warriors, queens, courtesans and storytellers. A tapestry of mythology and human experience, The Voyages of Trueblood Cay is both Javier Landes’ love letter to his life, and Suanne Laqueur’s most adventurous love story.

Juleón "Jude" Tholet has survival in his DNA. His father, Cleón, lived through imprisonment and torture during Pinochet's military coup in Chile. His mother, Penny, risked everything to gain her husband's freedom and flee the country with their newborn son. But as a closeted gay teenager growing up in Vancouver, Jude is targeted by a neighborhood bully called El Cóndor, culminating in a vicious hate crime that forces the Tholets to flee their country again. Jude cautiously rebuilds his life in Seattle, becoming an accomplished pianist, but his his wings have been clipped and he cannot seem to soar in his relationships. Only family remains a constant source of strength and joy, until a DNA test reveals something that shocks all the Tholets: Jude is not their child. Stunned by the test results, the Tholets must dig into their painful past, re-examine their lives in 1973 Santiago and the events surrounding Jude's birth story. It’s a tale rooted in South America’s Operation Condor. It spreads through Pinochet’s terrifying regime of detention camps, torture, disappeared civilians and stolen children. The journey forces Penny Tholet to confront the gaps in her memory while Cleón must re-live an ordeal he’s long kept hidden away in a secret world. The tale ends with Jude digging through his genetic code in a quest to find his biological parents. Are they alive? Or are they among Los Desaparecidos—the Disappeared Ones? Suanne Laqueur’s third book in the Venery series explores the desperate acts of love made in times of war, and the many ways family can be defined.

So this is another f**ktn of gratuitous boning with the Venery boys. That’s it, that’s the blurb. If you’re new here, you’ve been warned. This is pure, shameless fluff. It doesn’t fit anywhere or take the place of anything in the Venery novels. It just is what it is. The bathroom was steamy and dark, a lit candle on the edge of the sink. Jav lolled in the tub, his hair slicked back. Stef brought in more candles and poured out two shots of rum to chug, then more generous tots to sip. He sat on the bathmat and read out loud. Jav rested an arm on the ledge of the tub, cheek on his bicep, damp fingers playing with a fold of Stef’s shirt. The walls of the little room drew close. Even the fixtures seemed to lean on their elbows and listen. “This is nice,” Jav said softly, drawing up Stef’s neck and behind his ear. For people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they will like. Contains adults being nice to each other in adult situations using adult language.