And indeed it is. We are recently returned from a fabulous four-day weekend with family and friends in New Orleans, where we listened to live bagpipe music, ate crawfish etouffee on a hot dog, drank gin in our champagne, won a dance contest, and “discovered” (read: meticulously searched the map for the precise location at the behest of our cool guidebook of) Faubourg Marigny Art and Books on Frenchmen Street, which was, as its name suggests, utterly FAB. Jammed with classic and experimental queer fiction and erotic art and rare, yellowing editions of novellas by respected mass-market authors penned under their way-famouser gay sex-lit pen names — the one I really really wanted, by a guy who’s inspired me since early days, was $225, and I just couldn’t bring myself, although I considered it longer than I had any right to — this venerable corner cave even tantalized my husband to select as his souvenir of our trip the first book I’ve ever seen him buy. Granted, it’s one loaded with hot photos of naked guys, but the place that can sell any book to the guy who doesn’t even read most of the text messages I send him is doing a bang-up job at bookselling.

Watching the most devoted non-reader I know peruse his new purchase that night in our room — seeing, in other words, with my own two eyes that there really is a book out there for everybody — I was inspired to participate in Read an E-Book Week on Smashwords again this year. Through Saturday, March 7th, my novels are all 50% off on the Smashwords site, and my much beloved (by me) yet widely unheralded (by everyone else) erotic retelling of Hansel and Gretel, The Sugar Shack, is free! (with a promo code, which they give you right on the order page. Note that Smashwords has an adult content filter, which you will need to turn off in order to find anything by me at all!)

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Hansel is an aspiring photographer with a greater passion for the half-naked models he works with than for his art. Gretel is a Drag Superstar—or will be, she’s convinced, the moment she’s discovered by…anybody. One night, out in the tony gay-borhood The Woods, they stumble upon The Sugar Shack, a second-story nightclub they’re both delighted to discover, Gretel for the nightly drag shows of which she’d thrill to be a part, Hansel for the vast free buffet. They meet the club’s owner, local drag legend Sugar Rush, who offers Gretel a spot on stage vacated by a last-minute no-show. When she wows the crowd, Sugar offers Gretel a trial spot on the Sugar Shack’s lineup, and invites Hansel to drop in anytime, and to bring his appetite with him.

Gretel is a smash, and jumps at the eventual offer of a permanent gig. Hansel’s a hit, too, at Sugar’s private table upstairs in The Cage, where he lets Sugar flirt with him while he eats everything he can reach. He enjoys the attention almost as much as the loads of free food, but he’s about as gay as they get, and can’t see himself falling for a dude that looks and smells like a chick, even if she is gorgeous. She’s also an inveterate chubby chaser, Gretel points out to him one day, and her apparent mission to fatten Hansel up seems to be proceeding apace. Spending time with Sugar, Hansel’s horizons expand along with his hips, but will he ever see her as more than just his Sugar daddy?

Find out for free between now and March 7th on Smashwords!