Lez Keep It Real

New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Brockmann has given every penny of her earnings from her upcoming novel, All Through the Night, to MassEquality, an organization dedicated to preserving equal marriage rights in Massachusetts. The mother of a gay son, Brockmann takes equal marriage rights very seriously.

“As a Massachusetts resident, I’m proud to live in the first state to stand firm and recognize that “we-the-people” includes all the people,” Brockmann stated. When equal rights opponents tried to amend the state constitution to discriminate against gay citizens, she stepped forward, doing what she does best. She wrote All Through the Night.

“I’d supported MassEquality for years,” Brockmann explained. “I’ve attended rallies and candlelight vigils with my son, held signs on street corners, done phone banking, distributed fliers and canvassed for equal rights candidates. But none of that played into my strengths as a writer.”

Last January, Brockmann sold the holiday novella to her publisher, and is donating all of her share of the book’s earnings — advance, sub-rights and royalties in perpetuity — to MassEquality’s Educational Fund.

All Through the Night features the wedding of two of the most popular characters in Brockmann’s award-winning Troubleshooters series, gay FBI agent Jules Cassidy and Hollywood heartthrob, Robin Chadwick.

While gay marriage has been par for the course in Massachusetts for over three years, Brockmann’s novel, on sale in bookstores across the country on October 30th, will be one of the first to bring the ultimate happily-ever-after — legal marriage — to two gay characters in mainstream romantic fiction.

Publisher’s Weekly called All Through the Night “a winning, innovative run-up to Christmas.” Romantic Times BookClub magazine gave the book a high rating, calling it “a satisfying love story.”

Brockmann’s hope is that readers will embrace the story of Jules and Robin’s Christmas wedding, making it a New York Times bestseller as so many of her other books have been.

And as for those royalties into perpetuity? Brockmann laughs. “I can’t wait for the day that MassEquality gives me a call and tells me to send the next royalty check to Florida Equality. Or Texas Equality.” Brockmann believes that that’s just a matter of time. And until then?

“I’m beyond proud to support equal marriage rights in Massachusetts,” Brockmann said. “It means a lot to me that this book about Jules’s marriage will make it possible for me to dance at my own son’s wedding someday. I’m extremely happy about that.”

Published both in hardcover from Ballantine Books, and as a Brilliance audiobook read by gay singer/songwriter Michael Holland, All Through the Night by Suzanne Brockmann will be available on October 30, 2007, wherever books are sold (It’s available now, online!). To date, the author’s donation to MassEquality has exceeded a quarter of a million dollars.

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