Theater professors and spouses, Nicky Abbondanza and Noah Oliver, are on their honeymoon at a Hawaiian resort, where musclemen in grass skirts are keeling over like waterfalls. Things erupt faster than a volcano when Nicky and Noah, along with their best friends Martin and Ruben, try to stage a luau show. Nicky and Noah will need to use their drama skills to figure out who is bringing the grass curtain down on male hula dancers—before things go coconuts for the handsome couple. You will be applauding and shouting Bravo for Joe Cosentino’s fast-paced, side-splittingly funny, edge-of-your-seat entertaining fourth novel in this delightful series. Curtain up and aloha!Buy links: Amazon | Smashwords | B&N
Praise for DRAMA QUEEN, the first Nicky and Noah mystery by Joe Cosentino from Lethe Press (Divine Magazine’s Readers’ Choice Award for Favorite LGBT Mystery, Humorous, Contemporary Novel of 2015):
"Without doubt the funniest book I have read this year, maybe ever" "brilliant" Three Books Over the Rainbow
“I cannot stop laughing. Drama Queen is Hardy Boys-meets-Murder She Wrote-meets-Midsummer Murders, with a side of parodic, farcical, satire.” “Who-dunits don't come more whodunnity than this.” Boy Meets Boy Reviews
Praise for DRAMA MUSCLE, the second Nicky and Noah mystery by Joe Cosentino from Lethe Press (Rainbow Award Honorable Mention):
“reading these books is like watching a fabulous comedic, murder mystery, action, adventure, romantic film.” “I was giggle snorting and laughing so much I had to stop reading. Joe Cosentino's writing is absolutely flawless. He's a master storyteller and will keep you guessing and utterly riveted until Drama Muscle's highly satisfying ending. This is an absolute gem of a book, and series.” Divine Magazine
“Joe Cosentino has done it again! He has created another brilliant masterpiece for us all. A cozy sleuth mystery combined with humor and attractive themes.” Danielle Urban, Universal Creativity Inc.
Praise for DRAMA CRUISE, the third Nicky and Noah mystery by Joe Cosentino from Lethe Press:
“Superb fun from start to finish, for me this series gets stronger with every book and that’s saying something because the benchmark was set so very high with book 1.” Three Books Over the Rainbow
“Joe Cosentino does it again with Drama Cruise, the third Nicky and Noah mystery. I loved the humor, drama, and theater work inside. Plus, the romance and murder investigation keep readers turning the pages. Absolutely, must read this latest book in the series.” Urban Book Reviews
Interview with Author Joe Cosentino
at the release of Drama Luau, the fourth Nicky and Noah comedy mystery
Welcome, Joe Cosentino.
Thanks. It’s great to put in my two cents on Tammy Two Cents.
You’ve written twenty books in
two years. How do you find the time to be a college professor/department head
and do all this writing?
I write in the evenings. Being a little tired helps loosen my
creative energies and flow. Plus my spouse has gone to bed, so the house is
quiet. It’s a great outlet for me after a long day. Now you know why there are
so many murders in the Nicky and Noah mysteries. Hah.
Where do you write?
My spouse and I had our house built. I have a cozy (no pun
intended) home study with a window seat, fireplace with a cherry wood mantel
(like Martin Anderson the department head in the Nicky and Noah mysteries), a
cherry wood desk and bookcase. It’s hard for me to leave that room.
What is your writing process?
I go to sleep at night with a pad and pencil on my night table,
since I get my best ideas when jolting from sleep at three am. I approach my
writing in the same way as acting. I start with character biographies and ask
questions about each character. Who do they love, hate, fear? What do they
want? What is standing in the way of them getting what they want? What was
their history? Then I get them talking to one another and the magic happens. I
write an outline, but I deviate from it constantly. My spouse reads my second
draft then I write my third draft, which goes to the publisher. The fourth
draft is after notes from the publisher’s editor.
How do you get your ideas?
In the case of my current release, Drama Luau, from a trip we took to Maui. The sights, sounds, and
smells are all in the book. Since I was an actor, playwright, and director,
it’s not a surprise that many of my ideas are theatrical in nature. As a
college professor, it also isn’t too surprising that many of my plots have to
do with the wacky world of academia.
Is it hard to write comedy?
For many people it is incredibly difficult. Thankfully not for
me. I’ve always thought funny. I remember directors telling me as an actor to
stop making my scenes so funny. I didn’t realize I was doing it. I think I get
this from my mother. For example, for Christmas one year my mother said to me,
“Tell me exactly what you want so you don’t have to return it like usual.” I
replied, “A red dress shirt.” She answered, “I don’t like red. I’ll buy you a
blue one.” I put that in my A Home for
the Holidays novella.
What are the rules for writing
a good comedy?
There is so much humor in the world. Key into it and write about
it. Don’t impose the humor on the story. Let it come out in the scene
naturally. Life is funny. Trust that.
What are the rules for writing
a good romance story?
The writer and reader must fall in love with the leading
characters while the characters are falling in love with each other. It’s that
simple.
What are the rules for writing
a good mystery?
A mystery should have more than mystery. Like any novel, it
should include interesting characters, a strong plot with lots of twists and
turns, and a satisfying ending. Getting there should be half the fun. So don’t
forget the romance and humor. And give the clues early!
For anyone who hasn’t read them (and they
should!), tell us about the Nicky and Noah mysteries.
The Nicky
and Noah mysteries are set in an Edwardian style university founded originally
by a gay couple (Tree and Meadow) whose name the university bears: Treemeadow
College. The clues and murders (and laughs) come fast and furious, there are
enough plot twists and turns and a surprise ending to keep the pages turning,
and at the center is a touching gay romance between Associate Professor of
Directing Nicky Abbondanza and Assistant Professor of Acting Noah Oliver. As in
an Armistead Maupin novel, the characters are wacky, surprising, and endearing.
In the first novel, Drama Queen
(Divine Magazine’s Readers’ Choice Award for Favorite LGBT Mystery, Humorous, and
Contemporary Novel of 2015), college theatre professors are falling like stage
curtains (while Nicky directs the college play production), and Nicky and Noah
must figure out whodunit and why. In the second book, Drama Muscle (Rainbow Award Honorable Mention 2016), Nicky is
directing the college’s bodybuilding competition, and bodybuilding students and
professors are dropping like barbells. In Drama
Cruise it is summer on a ten-day cruise from San Francisco to Alaska and
back (which my spouse and I also did). Nicky and Noah must figure out why
college theatre professors are dropping like life rafts as Nicky directs a
murder mystery dinner theatre show onboard ship starring Noah and other college
theatre professors from across the US. Complicating matters are their both sets
of parents who want to embark on all the activities on and off the boat with
the handsome couple. In each book Nicky and Noah eavesdrop, seduce, role play,
and finally trap the murderer, as pandemonium, hilarity, and true love ensue
for a happily ever after ending—until the next book.
Has the Nicky and Noah mystery series been
well received so far?
Reviewers
called the books hysterically funny farce, Murder
She Wrote meets Hart to Hart
meets The Hardy Boys, and a
captivating whodunit with a surprise ending. One reviewer wrote it was the
funniest book she had ever read. Who am I to argue?
Is it challenging writing a series?
It’s a joyride!
I feel as if I am visiting with old friends. I also enjoy watching the leading
characters and their relationships develop. As Nicky and Noah fall more deeply
in love with each other in each book, I and the readers fall more deeply in
love with them. It’s also great fun developing minor characters from earlier
books, like Martin Anderson’s husband Ruben, into major characters in later
books. Ruben was especially a blast since we get to see his dry and wonderful
sense of humor, devotion to Martin, and mystery solving chops. Finally, I enjoy
creating new characters/suspects in each book to relate to the regulars.
Tell us about the storyline in Drama Luau. But no spoilers please!
Now in Drama Luau, Nicky is directing the luau
show at the Maui Mist Resort and he and Noah need to figure out why muscular
Hawaiian hula dancers are dropping like grass skirts. Their department head and
his husband, Martin and Ruben, are along for the bumpy tropical ride. In
addition to the sexy hula dancers, we meet a handsome Hawaiian detective, a
Bloody Mary type housekeeper, a cigar chomping hotel manager, the hotel owner
and his senator wife who give new meaning to the term family values, and a cute
young waiter who wants to be a hula dancer more than an anti-gay politician
wants a dark backroom in a gay bar. Nicky and Noah have the time of their lives
solving this one, and also find their relationship in for quite a change. And
the ending is quite a shocker!
Are your books available as audiobooks?
The
award-winning Joel Leslie did my Dreamspinner Press novellas. Michael Gilboe
and Chip Hurley were brilliant performing my Drama Queen and Drama Muscle
audiobooks respectively. Drama Cruise
releases in a few months performed by the versatile Brad Enright. Charissa
Clark Howe is doing my Jana Lane mysteries.
What’s next for Nicky and Noah?
Book five, Drama Detective,
releasing in six months!
Your Dreamspinner Press
novellas (An Infatuation—Divine
Magazine’s Readers’ Choice Award 2nd Place for Best MM Romance, A Shooting Star, A Home for the Holidays, and The
Naked Prince and Other Tales from Fairyland) were so well received, the
first two winning a Rainbow Award Honorable Mention. What do you say to people
who loved them and might be surprised that the Nicky and Noah mysteries are
quite different?
That reminds me of my gay friends who say they have only one
“type” of man they like. Variety is the spice of life. I’d ask them to give the
Nicky and Noah mysteries a chance. As my mother said to me as a kid about pea
soup (now one of my favorite foods), “Just try it, you may like it.”
And how about your New Jersey
beach series?
NineStar Press published Cozzi
Cove: Bouncing Back, Cozzi Cove:
Moving Forward, and Cozzi Cove:
Stepping Out, and Cozzi Cove: New
Beginnings about handsome Cal Cozzi’s gay beach resort on a gorgeous cove.
I spent my summers as a kid on the Jersey Shore, so it’s a special place for
me. The first novel was a Favorite Book of the Month on The TBR Pile site and
won a Rainbow Award Honorable Mention. I love the intertwining stories so full
of surprises. Cozzi Cove is a place where nothing is what it seems, anything
can happen, and romance is everywhere. Some reviewers have called it a gay Fantasy Island.
Tell us about your
Jana Lane mysteries published by The Wild Rose Press.
I created a heroine who was the biggest child star ever
until she was attacked on the studio lot at eighteen years old. In Paper Doll Jana at thirty-eight lives
with her family in a mansion in picturesque Hudson Valley, New York. Her
flashbacks from the past become murder attempts in her future. Forced to summon
up the lost courage she had as a child, Jana ventures back to Hollywood, which
helps her uncover a web of secrets about everyone she loves. She also embarks
on a romance with the devilishly handsome son of her old producer, Rocco
Cavoto. In Porcelain Doll Jana makes
a comeback film and uncovers who is being murdered on the set and why. Her
heart is set aflutter by her incredibly gorgeous co-star, Jason Apollo. In Satin Doll Jana and family head to
Washington, DC, where Jana plays a US senator in a new film, and becomes
embroiled in a murder and corruption at the senate chamber. She also embarks on
a flirtation with Chris Bruno, the muscular detective. In China Doll Jana heads to New York City to star in a Broadway play,
enchanted by her gorgeous co-star Peter Stevens, and faced with murder on stage
and off. In Rag Doll Jana stars in a
television mystery series and life imitates art. Since the novels take place in the 1980’s, Jana’s agent and
best friend are gay, and Jana is somewhat of a gay activist, the AIDS epidemic
is a large part of the novels.
How can your readers get their
hands on Drama Luau, and how can they
contact you?
The purchase links for Drama
Luau are below, as are my contact links, including my web site. I love to
hear from readers!
Thank you, Joe, for sharing with us today.
It is
my joy and pleasure to share these stories with you. So grab your plate at the
buffet table, and take your front row seat for the luau show. The grass curtain
is going up on Drama Luau!
Excerpt from Drama Luau, Nicky and Noah
mystery, by Joe Cosentino
The
olive-skinned, barefooted muscular men wore loincloths (malo), coconut
necklaces, shell bracelets and anklets, and flower (lei) head garlands. With
the powerful emerald mountain behind them, the dancers (‘olapa) aerobically
executed hand signs, knee sways, and foot stomps toward the turquoise sea
(makai), as their deep, full voices chanted to the goddess of the ocean
(Namakaokahai). The lead dancer (alakai) and the dance captain (kumu) moved
front and center executing their tree in the breeze hand gestures. The dancer
helper (kokua) made gestures to the ocean waves behind them.
“Stop!”
The
‘ukulele, steel guitar, and bass accompaniment ended. The dancers slouched and
looked toward the rows of tables and chairs facing them.
“Kimu,
stand further upstage.”
“Nicky,
they don’t know what upstage and downstage mean.”
“Thanks,
Noah. Kimu, stand behind the other
dancers, so Kal and Ak are the focus of the dance.”
That
was me, Nicky Abbondanza, Associate Professor of Directing at Treemeadow
College, an Edwardian style private college in the quaint state of Vermont. My
husband and the love of my life, Assistant Professor of Acting at Treemeadow,
Noah Oliver, is by my side, right where I like him. Why am I directing a luau
show at the Maui Mist Resort in Hawaii? Our honeymoon in Maui was a gift from
our parents. But when the customers of my parents’ bakery in Kansas became
glucose intolerant, and the clientele of Noah’s parents’ dairy farm in
Wisconsin found themselves lactose intolerant, Noah and I were left tolerating
the bill. So my department head and his husband hit the internet and found this
luau show directing job, which came with free airfare, hotel, and food for two.
Enticed by the gorgeous tropical location and the gorgeous luau dancers, Martin
Anderson, Professor of Theatre Management at Treemeadow College, and Ruben
Markinson, director of one of the top gay rights organizations in the country,
decided to tag along and keep us out of trouble. Since Martin and Ruben are our
best friends, that was more than fine with Noah and me.
Since
you can’t see us, I am thirty-six, tall, with dark hair, green eyes, a Roman
nose, cleft chin and long sideburns. Thanks to the gym at Treemeadow College
(named after Tree and Meadow, the gay couple who founded it), I am pretty
muscular. One minor thing. Actually, it’s pretty major. I have a nine
and-a-quarter by two-inch penis, which causes Noah to tell everyone we are
“going clubbing” when we have sex.
Noah
is handsome with wavy blond hair, crystal-blue eyes, porcelain skin, and hotter
and sweeter buns than any found in my dad’s bakery. Martin is short, thin, and
bald. As an incredible gossip, he resembles an alien looking for a good piece
of news to bring back to his home planet. Ruben is tall, thin,
distinguished-looking, with salt and pepper hair and two large eyes watching
over Martin. Though Ruben would never admit it, like his husband, Ruben revels
in the dish too.
I
said to the dancers, “The opening (ho’i) number will be fine. Let’s move on.”
Whereas
the first dance was an introduction to the dancers, the second number, in honor
of the creation gods (Kane and Lono), is a sensual dance, where the muscular
dancers get to flex, grunt, and gyrate.
Sitting
next to me at the front table opposite the stage, Noah rested a hand on my
knee. “Did my character work with the dancers pay off?”
I
nodded. “They all seem like characters to me.”
Noah
squeezed my hand as the five dancers came on stage, now wearing grass skirts.
Kal (short for Kalani), at twenty-five, is tall, strikingly handsome, muscular,
the leader of the pack, and he knows it. Ak (Akamu), at thirty-five, was once
the stallion of the troupe, but a receded hairline and wrinkles had transformed
Ak to dance captain. As leaders, Kal and Ak take focus in the dance numbers,
either dancing downstage center or up center on the platform in the shape of a
volcano. Pretty ironic since Kal and Ak are ex-lovers and ex-friends.
Current
lovers Keanu (dancer helper), at medium height with a growing paunch, and Ahe,
young, small, and cute as a button, took their places midstage and looked at
each other adoringly.
Finally,
Kimu, at medium height with a bull dog face and protruding belly, stood
farthest upstage. The only straight member of the troupe, Kimu, said, “Are you
girls ready to dance?”
Keanu
left his lover, Ahe, and approached Kimu. “What a surprise, Kimu. Liquor on
your breath.”
Leader
Kal added, “Yeah, Kimu, during the last number you were wavering more than the
palm trees near the stage fan.”
Kimu
answered, "Hey Kal, is it true that you gave Keanu a pity lei?"
These guys are worse than the divas I
work with in the theatre. “Can we please start the number?”
Bestselling author Joe Cosentino was voted Favorite Mystery, Humorous, and Contemporary Author of 2015 by the readers of Divine Magazine for Drama Queen. He also wrote the other novels in the Nicky and Noah mystery series: Drama Muscle (Rainbow Award Honorable Mention) and Drama Cruise (Lethe Press), Drama Luau; In My Heart/An Infatuation & A Shooting Star (Rainbow Award Honorable Mention), A Home for the Holidays, The Naked Prince and Other Tales from Fairyland (Dreamspinner Press); Cozzi Cove: Bouncing Back (TBR Pile Book of the Month/Rainbow Award Honorable Mention), Cozzi Cove: Moving Forward, Cozzi Cove: Stepping Out, Cozzi Cove: New Beginnings Cozzi Cove series (NineStar Press); Paper Doll, Porcelain Doll, Satin Doll, China Doll, Rag Doll (The Wild Rose Press) Jana Lane mysteries; and The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (Eldridge Plays and Musicals). He has appeared in principal acting roles in film, television, and theatre, opposite stars such as Bruce Willis, Rosie O’Donnell, Nathan Lane, Holland Taylor, and Jason Robards. His one-act plays, Infatuation and Neighbor, were performed in New York City. He wrote The Perils of Pauline educational film (Prentice Hall Publishers). Joe is currently Head of the Department/Professor at a college in upstate New York, and is happily married. Joe was voted 2nd Place for Best MM Author of the Year in Divine Magazine’s Readers’ Choice Awards for 2015! Coming next: Drama Detective, the fifth Nicky and Noah mystery.
Web site: http://www.JoeCosentino.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JoeCosen
Amazon: Author.to/JoeCosentino
GIVEAWAY: Post a comment about why you love a good gay mystery. The one that tickles our gay feathers the most will win a gift audiobook of DRAMA QUEEN, the first Nicky and Noah mystery, by Joe Cosentino, performed by Michael Gilboe, published by Lethe Press.
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Thanks for the great excerpt. I look forward to reading more.
ReplyDeletedebby236 at gmail dot com
thanks for the chance...sounds good
ReplyDeletejmarinich33 at aol dot com
Thanks for the interview!
ReplyDeletelegacylandlisa(at)gmail(dot)com