Samhain Publishing Ltd. Weblog

Court Appointed

Court Appointed

Blurb:
Jackson knows he needs protection from a stalker, but the last thing he wants is to want his bodyguard.

A Serving Love story.

After receiving several suspicious “gifts”, His Honor Jackson Benedict is assigned an agent for protection. He’d be fine with a bodyguard…if he was anyone but the man who enters his courtroom looking hotter than any man has a right to look. Thank God Jackson’s robe hides his interest.

Trey London is more than happy that Jackson has practically been handed to him on a silver platter. If his job requires he stay close to one of the country’s youngest federal judges, it’s no skin off his back. The closer the better, actually.

But someone else is getting closer, too, and when the gifts turn into attacks, Trey is forced to trade his status of new lover for that of protector. He’s not about to let anyone come between him and his judge.

Warning, this title contains the following: explicit, nekkid, sometimes robed, m/m judge on bodyguard sex, and graphic language.

I hope you enjoy Court Appointed. Let me know!
annmarmck@yahoo.com

Annmarie

Best First Line Contest Winners!

Thank you again to everyone who participated in the Best First Line Contest. The response was amazing and certainly more than we ever expected. As we’ve gone through the rounds, it’s shown me quite dramatically just how subjective and different each editor’s tastes are. From almost 300 entries down to just 10 was tough work. I don’t know about the other editors but I enjoyed every round, seeing what would come next.

Though we did end with only ten people who will be invited to submit their manuscript for this contest, Samhain will be re-opening submissions in the next month and everyone is invited to submit at that time , whether you moved on from the first round or not.

We ended with ten winners, since we currently have ten actively acquiring editors. Below, I’ve posted the editor’s name and who they chose. When you are ready, please visit our submissions page and follow the submissions guidelines/instructions given there. Please include the name of the editor who’s invited you to submit. Congratulations to all of the final winners, I can’t wait to see what comes of these manuscripts.

Without further ado…

Best First Line Contest Final Round!

This contest is closed to new entries! Only those whose entries are posted below are invited to post again.

This is it, the final round of our best first line contest. We’re moving forward 22 lines, who will post a total of five lines each. Next Monday, July 9th, I will post the ten people who have been chosen by the editors to submit their work for consideration of publication at Samhain.

I did say ten! And if I happen to hire any more editors between now and next Monday, that number will go up. Just as a note, all of you who entered the contest over the past weeks will, of course, be welcome to submit your work to Samhain Publishing when we reopen to submissions this summer.

I’ve made one small change to the directions so please read carefully. Below, I’ve posted the comment # and the line. If your line is one of those posted, you have until noon on Friday to post, in the comments, the genre of your book and then your five lines. You must post both the first four lines, as well as the fifth line, but no more than that or your entry will be disqualified. You may not change the first four lines. They must be as posted in the first through fourth rounds. Please be very careful when posting—look for typos and errors before posting your entry. Please remember that this contest is for unpublished, uncontracted work, as the “prize” is the chance to submit the work to the requesting editor at the end of the competition.

Best First Line Contest Round Four!

This contest is closed to new entries! Only those whose entries are posted below are invited to post again.

We have just over 35 entries moving on to round four. There is only one round left after this before the editors make their final choices, and we’ll be moving no more than 20 lines forward! Even with the smaller number of entries to choose from, still no line has been chosen by all 7 editors. However, less lines did get one vote only; over 50% had at least two votes (versus only about 30% the last round). I’ve noticed some editors have their favorites, and I’ve been a little tempted to guess which 7 will be the winners to see how well I know my editors ;)

Below, I’ve posted the comment # and the line. If your line is one of those posted, you have until noon on Friday to post, in the comments, your four lines. You must post both the first three lines, as well as the fourth line, but no more than that or your entry will be disqualified. You may not change the first three lines. They must be as posted in the first through third rounds. Please be very careful when posting—look for typos and errors before posting your entry. Please remember that this contest is for unpublished, uncontracted work as the “prize” is the chance to submit the work to the requesting editor at the end of the competition.

Best First Line Contest Round Three!

This contest is closed to new entries! Only those whose entries are posted below are invited to post again.

We have just over 50 entries moving on to round three. Some interesting stats from round 2: The line from round one that was chosen by the most editors (5 of 7) was chosen by only one editor to move on to round three. No line in round two got chosen by more than 4 of the 7 editors.

Below, I’ve posted the comment # and the line. If your line is one of those posted, you have until noon on Friday to post, in the comments, your three lines. You must post both the first two lines, as well as the third line, but no more than that or your entry will be disqualified. You may not change the first two lines. They must be as posted in the first/second rounds. Please be very careful when posting—look for typos and errors before posting your entry. Please remember that this contest is for unpublished, uncontracted work as the “prize” is the chance to submit the work to the requesting editor at the end of the competition.

Best First Line Contest Round Two!

This contest is closed to new entries! Only those whose entries are posted below are invited to post again.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the first round of the contest. We never anticipated such an amazing response. You made the choosing tough!

We have approximately 90 entries moving on to round two. There are currently 7 acquiring editors at Samhain so they are the judges of who moves on to the next round. I assembled all sorts of interesting statistics from this first round of judging that I’ll share at a later date but the most interesting one is this: No one line was chosen by more than five of the seven editors.

Below, I’ve posted the comment # and the line. If your line is one of those posted, you have until noon on Friday to post, in the comments, both your first and second line. You must post both the first and second line, but no more than that or your entry will be disqualified.

Hint: Watch your spelling, punctuation and grammar. We are!

Best First Line Contest is Now Open!

This contest is not open to Samhain authors
As stated below, you may only enter once. Anyone entering more than once—including those who use different names—have had and will have their entries deleted.
We have had to delete entries that have contained more than one line.

MAKE SURE YOU READ THE RULES BEFORE POSTING!

You’ll find the description reposted below. The most important thing here is to post your first line—and only your first line. Please do not post as “anonymous” but use some type of name/nickname isntead, and make sure to leave a valid email address so we can contact you if you are one of the final winners. Last, be sure to check back next Monday to see if you were chosen to move forward and post your next line!