DESERT ISLAND CASTAWAYS: D.G. Carothers

Our favorite  MM authors a.k.a. castaways are asked, what books, songs and luxury item would they take to a desert island?

This is a monthly series inspired by LezReviewBooks.com’s ‘Desert Island Books’, which in turn is based on BBC’s ‘Desert Island Discs’.

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Let’s welcome our April castaway, D.G. Carothers!

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DESERT ISLAND BOOKS:

Inevitably any book, movie, tv show, song, play etc I’ve seen/heard in my life has the potential to influence my writing. My writing is littered with various easter eggs of pop culture and randomness if anyone looks closely enough. I’m also a prolific reader and have been since I was little. I’ve read literally thousands of books over my lifetime. (I’m getting up there. :p ) There are authors that have impacted my life and left their mark on my mentality and imagination. I’ll list the first book I read of the author(s).

1. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman– A friend lent me his copy of the Dragonlance Chronicles with all three books in one huge tome when I went on vacation one year. I was eleven I think and from there I fell into the fantasy genre with a hunger that has never really been satisfied.

2. R.A. Salvatore – One can’t read fantasy in my opinion without reading Salvatore. He’s been my number one all time favorite author since I picked up the Dark Elf Trilogy in my teens. I have almost every single book in hardback and autographed. Some day I may even get to meet him lol If I ever get to go to a book con. To me Salvatore writes the best battle/fight scenes. It’s one of the things that made me fall in love with his writing, that and of course Drizzt ‘cause who doesn’t love Drizzt.

3. Terry Pratchett – Discworld is still one of the best series ever written in my opinion. The Color of Majic was the first book I read. I’m a completionist and I need to read things in order so I’ve read all the books as they came out. I think when I started reading them there were only fifteen published.

4. Quil Carter – I discovered LGBTQ+ books late in life. Seriously, I was thirty-five when one of my best friends told me I had to read this one series (not Quil’s it was a different author) and from there it was like a whole new world opened to me. Quil Carter is one of the authors that I fell in love with first. He’s also the one that to this day has given me some of the best advice I could ever get when it comes to writing. His Fallocaust series is phenomenal and a series that I think is very underrated. I need HBO or something to pick it up and make a TV series out of it. Out of all of them my favorite is still Breaking Jade.

5. Jordan Castillo Price – While I don’t think Jordan has ever written a bad book, my first love will always be Victor Bayne and the Psycop series. There’s something about him that resonates with me on a soul level. He’s so layered and complex. The character growth and progress over the series is fantastic. Often times we’ll see characters get stale over a long series and never show any kind of change or development. Jordan is masterful in not only the growth of Victor but also Jacob and the other supporting characters. Also, a side note: I only listen to the Psycop series. I never read it which is not wholly unusual for me. I either read or listen, but Gomez Pugh is phenomenal and I can’t have Vic without him.

6. Charity Parkerson – Charity is a dear friend and for me is total author goals. The first series I read of hers was Shining Armor which is a small series that was a spin off from another. Then I read Hellish and from there I dove off in the backlist. I have many favorites and her books are comfort reads for me. I usually suggest to new readers of hers to start with Sugar Fighter which is the first book of the Sugar Daddies series. It’s a good jumping off point in my opinion. I love her books because they’re short, her characters don’t blend together, and even though some may make me cry there’s always a satisfying HEA. Her writing has a way that grabs you by the heart, pulls you in, makes you love every single character (even the ones you want to hate), and leave you satisfied that I don’t see anywhere else.

7. Christopher Moore – My BFF, Gibs, turned me on to Christopher Moore and it was through audio actually. He’s one of the few authors that I’ve only ever listened to his books and never actually read them. I have probably about two or three authors like that. But he made me fall in love with audio books or maybe it was Fisher Stevens since he’s who narrated Lamb and a good number of his books. But Lamb was my first and had me dying with laughter.

8. Nicholas Bella – I fell in love with the New Haven series back when there was just season 1 and 2 I think. I love the whole concept of the paradigm that Nick created for that series. It’s one I reread often. It has just enough darkness, action, violence, sex, and love in it for me. I think he strikes a nice balance between everything while making a compelling story that keeps you riveted all the way till the very end.

9. Nazri Noor – Nazri is total Urban Fantasy goals for me. I love all his books. The first series I read was The Darkling Mage of which Shadow Magic is the first. One of the things I love about his books is that they are almost pure UF. There are a few series that have a romance subplot and that’s about it. The others might have a very thin romance subsub plot but otherwise it’s all about the overall story that is happening with the main character. It is getting easier to find Fantasy and Urban Fantasy books that don’t have romance in them that are LGBTQ+ (and are not YA) but the number of authors I know of are few. I may be looking in the wrong places and I’m sure there are some that are out there that I’ve never heard of and I’d love to find them and get to know them. Hehehe

10. Dahlia Donovan – After Fantasy and Urban Fantasy, I love mysteries and in particular I love cozy mysteries. Dahlia writes fabulous cozy mysteries but also neurodiverse characters that are well written and underrepresented. Being neurodiverse myself and the wide range of things that can be covered in that label I’ve found that it’s hard to find characters that are not stereotypical. I truly appreciate the characters that Dahlia creates and the kinds of people that they represent.

DESERT ISLAND PLAYLIST:

I have very eclectic music tastes that span the globe. I like everything from British rock to French folk to Jpop to Scottish bagpipe music. Most of my stuff is stuck in the 80s and 90s since those were my formative years lol. My drive playlist for example (which I only use for road trips and even then its rare. I almost exclusively listen to audiobooks any time in the car.) has Awolnation, Candlebox, Drowning Pool, Franz Ferdinand, Gnarls Barkley, The Gossip, The Hives, Live, Howie Day, Lollipop Lust Kill, Lords of Acid, Mindless Self Indulgence, Oasis, Three Days Grace, Within Temptation, Danzig, Stone Temple Pilots, Three Doors Down, Dionysos, All American Rejects, Hot Hot Heat, Nirvana, Madonna, Prince, Janet Jackson, Imagine Dragons, Fatboy Slim, E-Rotic, The Killers, Florence and the Machine, Korn, Coldplay, Groove Coverage, The Bangles, Puscifer, Hot Chocolate, My Chemical Romance, Marilyn Manson, Aerosmith, Daniel Powter, The Beatles, Type O Negative, Go Betty Go, The Weekend, The Neighborhood, Disturbed, Pink Floyd, Bullet for My Valentine, James Blunt, Alkaline Trio, Black Box, The Bloodhound Gang, Boyz II Men, Leonard Cohen, Michael Jackson, The Offspring, The Righteous Brothers, Smashing Pumpkins, Snow Patrol, Beastie Boys, 30 Seconds to Mars, Muse, Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murpheys, Concrete Blondes, Linkin Park. That list was a lot longer than I thought it was going to be lol.

LUXURY ITEM

A tablet with a few terabits of memory and an unlimited power source. As long as I can have my full library of books and audiobooks I’ll be golden. I listen to audiobooks all day while I work the day job. I’m a business analyst for a fintech company and spend a lot of my time testing an application that I support and doing technical writing which drains my soul but it pays the bills. Lol I also listen to audiobooks while I cook, drive, clean, and just about anything else that requires half my attention. Then every night I read at least 3 hours before I go to sleep to wind down from the day. So, I really can’t live without my books. hehehe

ABOUT D.G. CAROTHERS

Within the shimmering guise of a mortal walks D.G. Carothers, a dragon of cunning intellect. A weaver of LGBTQIA Romance and Urban Fantasy tales, this enigmatic being revels in crafting narratives that dance between realms.

D.G. stands resolute in their commitment to unfurling tales unfettered by constraints. For in their eyes, love transcends all boundaries, a truth woven into the very fabric of their creations.

​Website | Goodreads | Amazon | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok

A big thank you to D.G. Carothers for joining us on this month’s Desert Island Castaways!

Check out our other Castaways:
Natalina Reis
V.L. Locey
 J.P. Jackson
A.E. Wasp
Elle Keaton.
Elouise East
J.K. Jones
Colette Davison
B.A. Tortuga
Casey Cox
Amanda Meuwissen
A.M. Johnson
Becca Seymour
Alexa Piper
Rick R. Reed
C.P. Harris
K.L. Hiers
A.E. Lister
S. Rodman
Kaje Harper
M.A. Church
Karenna Colcroft
Aiden Ainslie
J. Hali Steele
Kristian Parker
H.L. Day
D.K. Girl
Jackie Keswick
Crea Reitan
Beth Bolden
Chloe Archer
Paulina Ian-Kane
Sam Burns
David Lawrence
Lance Lansdale
Marshall Thornton
Joy Lynn Fielding
Ellie Thomas
Megaera C. Lorenz
Kit Barrie
Dann Hazel
Ashlyn Kane

Hope you enjoyed this post. Don’t forget to check out next month’s Castaway.

What books would you take with you to a desert island?
What’s on your desert island playlist?
Who would you like to be the next Castaway?

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