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Naughty Gifts from a Dark Elf
Our blog theme for the two weeks heading toward Christmas is gifts from a dark elf. Well, coincidently, my newest book just released on Friday, December 6 from Ellora’s Cave. It has just the right amount of naughty and fun to do a dark elf proud. So from the dark elf to you, here’s my latest release, Thirteen Nights, Book 1 (Divine Temptation).
MAY YOUR HOLIDAYS BE JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF NAUGHTY
Book Description:
Annie’s always been different. An empathic Amazon, she hides her emotional anomaly beneath her legendary fighting skills. To avoid passing on her genetic disorder, she’s always avoided the Thirteen Nights Ritual—the annual breeding rite among the warrior races of the Greek Pantheon. Only months away from 30, she is now duty-bound to participate. When she meets Tai, a half-human warrior who revs her up beyond legal limits and nurtures the gentleness she’s had to keep secret, thirteen nights of pleasure don’t seem nearly enough.
As a half human, Tai has survived by being faster, more lethal, and a whole lot smarter than his brethren. While the male warriors accept him for his achievements, the Amazons have never given him a second look. Until he meets Annie, whose smile is warm and real and whose body shudders with desire—for him. Determined to have her, he hacks into the Thirteen Nights database and rearranges the pairings to make Annie his breeding partner. Together, their strength and tenderness combust into pure love.
But Tai’s actions are forbidden under Amazon law, subject to a death. To stay together and alive, they must take on the Greek Pantheon and win.
Buy Links:
Ellora’s Cave: http://www.ellorascave.com/thirteen-nights.html
All Romance: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-thirteennights-1370430-340.html
Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/thirteen-nights
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18996479-thirteen-nights
Excerpt
A strong drink in hand, she found her seat by matching the number on her name tag with the table number. Following the instructions on the card, she swiped it over the datapad and put her thumbprint on the screen where directed. That would tap into her medical records to ensure genetic compatibility. A bell rang in the distance and the first male slid into the seat. A small human. She smiled politely but knew that weak frame could never handle an Amazon lover. Humans were not forbidden, but strongly discouraged. Not all were as frail as this one, but humans usually wanted more than the Amazon vows permitted. The bell couldn’t come soon enough. Annie clandestinely hit the no button on the pad.
A giant of a man swaggered into the now-open seat, all testosterone and appetite. Linebacker shoulders, six-pack abs straining against a muscle shirt chosen to show them off, thighs so big they could choke a horse—and probably had. Elaborate tattooing covered his left arm from shoulder to wrist, detailing every victory, every kill. Similar markings ran diagonally across Annie’s back.
He touched his card to the pad and instantly his resume popped up on her screen. Black belts in karate, kendo and Kung Fu, expert sniper, awarded the Golden Shield—the Gargarean symbol for valor—six times, hobbies included hunting, archery and jousting. Okay, the man could kill, but who was he really?
“I’ll give you a good ride. You’ll be well-sated. I’ve fathered two already, one on a first-timer.” Typical Gargarean—built for show and incapable of mincing words. His eyes burned over her, intent blazing so fierce she felt the heat crawl across her skin. It was said the male warriors went celibate for six months before a breeding to build their lust to a fever pitch. From that look, she’d say it was true for this one.
She nodded, splaying well-manicured, fire-engine-red nails on the table. The male covered one hand, pushing his palm against the tips.
“Yes,” he rumbled. “They’ll feel good tearing through my back when you lose control.” He laid his left arm out in front of her, an invitation to test the strength of him, and show off his prowess. As expected, she walked her fingers along the planes and angles of his muscles, periodically digging her nails in to test his reaction to different pain levels—to see if he really could handle her and show respect for his military achievements. Those muscles would ripple well under her fingers and nails.
A Gargarean in his prime, proven in battle and the bedroom. She should want this. Damn the little voice in her head that told her that it wasn’t enough for the father of her child, so she rated him acceptable, not preferred. Some part of her she kept well-buried thought it would be nice to find someone with an interest beyond weapons and bloodletting. Someone who could handle, I don’t know, maybe a conversation. The next twelve nights joined at the groin could be a lifetime.
Each new Gargarean who plopped down in front of her merged into the next one until she couldn’t distinguish among them. They all rang the same—deadly, dominant and completely interchangeable. She knew she was a desired partner, and would be many of these men’s first choice. The male warriors liked to boast about knocking up the first-timers, it was worn as a sign of their sexual prowess. The DNA compatibility test would have to choose one of them for her. She didn’t really care.
Lost in frustration, she didn’t register the newest candidate in front of her. The blue light on the screen identified him as Gargarean, but he lacked the giant muscular proportions of the male warrior race, that scent of pure dominance and heightened testosterone. Oh, his eyes revealed menace and the lethality of the warrior-bred and his arm tattooing was as detailed and complex as the bigger men who came before him. But he had the lean, muscled strength of a human soldier, the power he emanated more subtle and highly controlled. From the way her lower body pulsed, she liked it. A lot. When she eyed the screen with more focus, the mystery resolved itself. Tai, human father, Amazon mother, given to the Gargareans at birth. That explained his size. “How did you survive their training as a youth?”
“Your mind can bring you to places your body cannot.”
“That’s not a very Gargarean philosophy.” Or Amazon for that matter, even though she agreed with him. “How would your background play out over the twelve nights?”
“Each night more attuned to your needs than the next. You would be seduced across all dimensions, pleasured in the realm of mind, body and spirit.” He flashed her a smile that promised all kinds of sin, but those deep brown eyes, so tender and soulful, pledged warmth and humor. With that, her panties were drenched, her nipples bullet hard, and tingles ran up her spine straight into her brain. Swallowing, she struggled to pull it all back under control and explore this possibility in more detail.
“Your expertise is…” She lifted an eyebrow. “Cyber security.” She placed her hand on the table as she did for all the others. Instead of using his palm to test the bite of her nails, he ran his finger across her knuckles and down her thumb, a lingering caress that promised gentleness, not just a good, hard ride. When he offered her his arm, she did the same up his wrist to his elbow, watching lust flicker in his eyes as her fingers glided across his skin. “You’re not like your brethren, in many ways it seems.”
“No, but I think that’s the pot calling the kettle black and it pleases you.” His voice lowered a decibel, the sound a rough caress around her body. “Why? Most of your sisterhood reject me out of hand for my size, my human heritage, even my talents.” His gaze locked onto hers and held it in an iron grip. He might be small for a warrior of the Greek pantheon, but he made it clear he was no less potent and he wasn’t going anywhere without an answer.
“Because you’re different…like me.” She was not at all sure she should have confirmed his observation but she felt no deception coming from him. “It tempts me.” She gave him her biggest, sexiest smile.
“Choose me.” His gaze still tethered to hers, he glided his forefinger along her lips in a quiet tease. “I’ll make it worth it to you.”
“Claiming Hannah” has cyborgs!
Over the past few days Darker Temptations has been chatting about which robot/android/cyborg would I like to drop by for a visit.
My futuristic erotic romance has cyborgs. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg) “a cyborg is a being with both organic and artificial parts” and “the term cyborg is often applied to an organism that has enhanced abilities due to technology ”
Well, I would love my characters from “Claiming Hannah” to drop by. But since they are fictional, I will give you a peek into their world on Earth in the Year 50 A.A. (50 years After Armageddon). Here men and women are drafted into the Hit Association for life. They are trained to hunt down Breeder Slaves (clones) who escape their masters and run for the Free States to have a life of their own.
These drafted Hitmen and Hitwomen are turned into cyborgs. Their eyes, ears and brains (and sometimes other body parts) are enhanced so they can track down their prey. But sometimes they do fall in love…with the people they are ordered to kill.
“Claiming Hannah” (Ellora’s Cave) is one of those stories…
Hannah is a Breeding Slave. Created solely for the purpose of producing healthy offspring for an ailing human race, Hannah Roberts longs for freedom and fantasizes about the dangerous man she can never have. With her breeding status about to commence, her hunger for freedom explodes. Escaping into the night, she knows capture will bring her certain death.
Jacob is her Hitman. Trained to be a cold-blooded killing machine, the only light in Jacob Romero’s life is Hannah, a beautiful Slave whose sweet innocence brands his heart and awakens dark desires he never knew he had. Assigned to hunt her down and kill her, he’s seriously injured when he saves her life.
Forbidden love always finds a way. Now fugitives, they hide in a deserted mansion where Hannah nurses the wounded Hitman she’s always wanted. Soon their passions ignite, throwing them into a sexual ecstasy neither can run from. Their forbidden love will face one final challenge. Escaping to a harsh new life in the Free States.
Publisher Note: Previously released by another publisher under the title of A Hitman for Hannah, this book has been extensively revised and reedited for Ellora’s Cave.
Here’s “Claiming Hannah’s” Book Trailer: http://www.ellorascave.com/claiming-hannah.html
And the “Forward” for Claiming Hannah:
Forward
Year 50 A.A. (50 years After Armageddon)
Compliments of Armageddon, radiation and pollution continue to plague the Earth. Disease, stem cell research and organ transplants are common. Treatment for certain diseases is often extreme, leaving many afflicted with side effects such as sterility. Human reproductive failures are at epidemic proportions.
Cloning from quality, radiation-resistant embryos becomes the norm, allowing non-reproductive couples to have access to healthy test-tube babies. However, studies reveal such babies aren’t as resilient to pollution or radiation as those conceived in a human host. Couples demand access to healthier children.
Hence a large amount of Copies or Clones, as they were known in the A.C.—After Christ—years are created. They are designer babies, genetically manipulated to produce superior-quality offspring and their sole purpose in life is to be Breeding Slaves or Studs. Rich, childless humans are eligible for the enhanced offspring of the Breeder Slaves. These superior babies will be integrated into society.
After a conditioning period of eighteen years, the Breeding Slaves and Studs are moved to privately owned breeding farms—a very lucrative business where a rich couple will pay quite handsomely to purchase a baby and watch their child’s creation from conception to birth by the two Copies they select. Certain factions protest the use of Copies for breeding purposes. It goes against human morals, they say. Copies are just as human as the rest of the people. They bleed blood, they understand and have emotions. They should be free to live in society as the rest of the humans. They should have the right to pick their mates, have their own children. To gain an education.
Activists fight for Breeding Slave and Stud rights. The government does listen to an extent. Strict rights are granted. Female Copies are educated and allowed to keep their firstborn until the child is eighteen when a master can either sell the firstborn as a Breeding Slave or set him or her free. And then there are the downfalls. Being a Breeding Slave must remain a life sentence. It is after all, why these enhanced humans have been created. To serve mankind. There can be no marriage between Breeding Slave and Stud or humans. If a Breeding Slave or Stud runs, he or she must pay a deadly consequence.
Elimination.
Hannah is a Breeding Slave and she’s running. Jacob is a Hitman assigned to eliminate her.
Neither has known passion or love.
Until now.
Glossary for Claiming Hannah
Hitman or Hitwoman: Men and women drafted into the Hit Association. Their draft is for life or death, whichever comes first.
Hit Association: A group of men and women drafted and trained to hunt down runners. They are given enhanced eyes and ears and other equipment to assist in their jobs.
Armageddon: In the year 2050 A.C. the Fourth World War begins. It rages for seven long years. After a rain of nuclear bombs completes the war, the ensuing pollution gives the world an ailing civilization that clings to the hope of a future using genetically designed healthy Breeding Slaves and Studs—Clones, designer babies, Copies—to produce offspring for them.
enhanced eyes: Infrared heat-seeking lenses embedded into the eyes and wired to the brain of Hitmen and Hitwomen drafted into the Hit Association.
enhanced hearing: Electrical implants embedded into the ears and wired to the brain. The unit enhances a Hitman’s or Hitwoman’s hearing.
tazer gun: Sends out green ray probes of electricity and shocks the intended victim into unconsciousness.
laser gun: Depending upon the strength of the ray, it can either severely burn or kill the intended victim. In most cases it is used on a runner.
runner: A Breeding Slave or Stud who decides the breeding life is not for him or her and runs for the Free States.
Breeding Slave or Stud: Designer babies produced specifically to be conditioned into being Breeders. As adults they will be paired with mates, creating healthy babies for the ailing human race.
Free States: A harsh, lawless, cold land north of the States border where runners gain their freedom. They must survive here using their wits.
States: Since Armageddon the States have been run by a harsh dictatorship government that is trying to repopulate the land with a superior race of humans. It uses any means necessary to accomplish its goals.
To get your copy of Claiming Hannah:
Ellora’s Cave – http://www.ellorascave.com/claiming-hannah.html
ebook: Sony, Kobo, Ellora’s Cave, Nook, ibooks, Diesel, ARe
Kindle format: US, Canada, Japan, UK, Germany
I hope you enjoyed a glimpse into the future and some day in the near future – maybe next year – I do have plans for more stories of this world so stay tuned.
Hugs and Happy Reading!
The Best Book Evah!
Hey y’all, remember me? Danica Avet? Yeah, sorry I’ve been away for so long, but between real life going all bonkers and shoulder surgeries and deciding to self-publish something…can we say I feel a little crazy?
And then I saw the topic for the next two weeks and lost a little more of my mind. The best book or ebook…How can I possibly choose? I mean, what are we basing this on? Because there are a lot of books I adore for different reasons. If you’ve ever seen Mallrats, you can just imagine me saying this like Brodie trying to describe his favorite superhero or whatever that was.
Is it based on emotion? Because there’s one that immediately comes to mind called The Reluctant Dom. I bawled my eyes out for this book, sobbing so much that a family member asked me if someone else in our family hurt my feelings. Hello? I do not cry because my feelings get hurt. But this book broke my heart and healed it and broke it again and made me like it.
But on the other hand, I’ve read a non-erotic
romance that left me in tears after the first chapter. It was the first edition of the book which I read in the early 90’s and I’ll never forget that emotional train wreck. I loaned the book to my friend and never saw it again and when it was re-released several years later, it wasn’t the same. They took all the raw emotion out of it, I guess to make it more palatable but I still recommend it if you enjoy books that leave you in tears. Redeeming Love is actually an inspirational romance and it really does make you wonder if there are greater powers at work. I’ll have to see if I can find a used copy to see if the original is as good as I remember it.
But if we’re going off of books that are funny, and I love my funny books, there’s 
none better than G.A. Aiken’s What A Dragon Should Know. Oh Gwenvael is easily my favorite hero ever. Because he’s so ridiculously conceited and funny and I just love how well he’s written. There’s some serious stuff going on in this book, the series actually made my mom cry…y’all, my mom hasn’t cried for a movie since she watched Imitation of Life in the 60s. For her to cry for a book series…well, that should tell you how deep it can get, but I tell you now these books area riot when they’re not being deep and dangerous.
And the horrible thing is? I’ve only mentioned three books that I truly love. There’s no way I can get to all of them. Let me just say that when I cleaned out my bookshelves a couple of years ago to keep only what I couldn’t get rid of…I was left with 600 paperbacks. From historicals to paranormals to action-adventure romance, there are way too many out there for me to point to one and say “That’s the best book I’ve ever read.” Heck, I haven’t even mentioned Kresley Cole and she, along with Shelly Laurenston and J.R. Ward are the reason why I became a writer.
But one thing is for sure, one day I’d like my own books to be on the list of “best book evah”.
Have y’all read the three books I’ve mentioned or any of the authors mentioned here? What’s your favorite book by them?
Internet Time Suck – Luv my Pinterest!
I don’t know how I survived without my Pinterest. Does anyone else have this problem? LOL
My pinterest name is janspringer1 and I am a pinterestaholic. There, my deep dark secret is out!
I love pinning pictures onto boards. My favorite is collecting photos with similar color themes. Black Beauty, Sapphire, Emerald, Shades of Chiffon, Gold, Silver, Tiffany Blue and Copper Love, to name just a few of my color boards. My boards include themes such as birdhouses, autumn, leather & latex, man candy, christmas, the walking dead, kiss kiss and bondage, again, to name a few. At last count, if I counted right, I have more than 250 themed boards and I have the pleasure of following 2,700 pinners and am being followed by 1,800 pinners.
For my writing, I find the pictures are an inspiration. They inspire me to get ideas of where a story is going. My heroes and heroines are retrieved from my Man Candy and Heroine boards as well as from whomever is pinning hot looking hunks or interesting women at the time. I use pictures to decorate my heroes and heroines’ rooms in their houses, the cars they drive, bedrooms they make love in and even lovemaking positions.
If I see something I like, I will like it and/or pin it and I am thrilled when someone “likes” one of my pins too.
Pinterest can be found here: http://www.pinterest.com
For tips on how to use Pinterest:
http://www.themomcreative.com/2012/03/10-tips-for-using-pinterest-well.html
If you’d like to follow one, several or all of my boards, my pinterest name is janspringer1
http://pinterest.com/janspringer1/
Hope to see you there.
Happy Pinning!
jan
My Fierce Demon Love
MANhandlers, meet Abs of Delight! The nipple ring is just icing on this particular cake.
I love demons. Well, Gena Showalter’s demons. Not her personal demons… Maybe I should start over.
Today I’m going to blab about the best sidekicks EVAH. Having been a fan of paranormal romance (PNR) and urban fantasy (UF) for years — though I won’t disclose how many years — means I’m always looking for good books, preferably long-running series. I’m sort of picky about voice. It’s my pet peeve to get a flat voice or a voice I don’t connect with. It’s not the author’s fault, typically, but just my little quirk. Anyhoo, it often seems as if I’ve read everything I could possibly read. Then I find something new. Gena’s Lords of the Underworld series is the freaking best thing I’ve read in ages. No, it’s not new. Yes, I’m ashamed I hadn’t read it sooner. The point here is that I found it and have fallen in love with every…single…alpha hero. I’m talking almost-leave-my-lover-for-a-fictional-character love.
One of the best parts of the series, though, is that each warrior is paired with a demon high lord (i.e. Paris = Promiscuity, Toren = Disease, Amun = Secrets). These demons serve as a type of sidekick, influencing the hero and driving their behavior. It’s a great pairing because it gives each warrior such a distinct motivation because his will isn’t always his own. Every demon has a unique personality as well, and it’s interesting to see the interplay between man and monster. While the monster influences man, so does man influence monster. The author gives you the distinct impression that each demon might be just a little better than he was simply by being affiliated with his warrior. The warrior has ethics the demon lacks. It doesn’t always matter, but as each warrior battles his own story arc, you see how the two must work together to conquer whatever challenge has been set before him.
The other thing I truly love in this series is that the characters carry forward in every book, demons included. I have no idea how Gena manages as well as she does, but you never lose sight of any single character. It’s a remarkable talent she has to keep every character in every book while still allowing the hero/heroine to have their story. I’ve never felt cheated out of the hero’s/heroine’s story, even as I celebrate the recurring roles of the men I’ve fallen in love with.
Who are your favorite sidekicks in literature, movies or TV? I’m always interested to find out what people like about characters!
Jan’s Writing Space(s)
My Writing Space(s)
Oh! This subject is near and dear to my heart. When I first decided that writing was going to be my full-time career, I began writing literally all over the place.
Peppermint Creek Inn was my first ever finished book. The writing seed burst with this story idea and I began to sketch it out long hand while my dad and I were travelling in Northern Ontario, Canada, on one of our “ghost town” hunting trips to a place called “Jackfish”. (one of the settings in Peppermint Creek Inn)
During this time, my writing space was in the car, in the tent, by the campfire, sitting on picnic tables with the Coleman lantern and yes! even in my kayak during leisurely breaks while floating in lakes and along rivers.
Then as the story evolved, a trilogy began to emerge. I would think about the trilogy (Kiss Me & Intimate Stranger) while I worked on an apple farm. At night I wrote the ideas in notebooks.
Long hand writing continued at a yoyo pace around temporary office and factory jobs. During down times I went to the cottage up near Minden (no electricity at the cottage). While there, I used my Alpha Smart or wrote long hand while sitting on the lawn chair on our dock during heat waves or lounging in a hammock on a cliff overlooking the lake, and finally during the winter months on cottage visits, I sat indoors beside a cozy antique wood stove or on sunny afternoons outside on a lawn chair on the frozen lake and for company build comfy little fires built on pieces of metal to help prevent the melting ice from killing my fires. Back in civilization, I pounded the keys of my computer or laptop getting all the handwritten information in.
A Hero’s Welcome, A Hero Escapes, A Hero Betrayed, A Hero’s Kiss and the first couple of Outlaw Lovers stories where all sketched out long hand in fat notebooks while sitting in my car during cold winter evenings. Why outside? My mom babysat and I escaped the noise into my car, driving down to Lake Ontario, parking in abandoned parks. It was spooky, but it was also fun flipping on the car heater once an hour to punch through the chill and watching my stories emerge. During the days, I would pound the information into my computer at home.
Later, as my writing career took off (thank you to Ellora’s Cave!!!) and sales rocketed, I bought more stories and produced more stories and I was able to buy 4 acres of land in cottage country. I continued writing at the cottage and also commuted back and forth to my piece of paradise land to sit and write while on a hammock with pesky mosquitoes buzzing around my head.
Then I ordered a modular home and had it put onto my property. Outside my house, my writing spaces included a lawn chair with laptop and that same hammock (mentioned above). Inside my new two-bedroom office home, a sunny bedroom with computer was my office.
Edible Delights and Sinderella were outlined during a 4 day power outage following a heat wave while working longhand on my back deck in August 2006.
These days I continue to work in several places. My favorite is a nice quiet room over my garage, where scented candles flicker and bookshelves hold my nearest and dearest paperback books. I still write long hand as ideas pop up. To give my hands a break, sometimes I use Speech Recognition (Dragon Speech) and I have a nice printer and a couple of laptops and a computer now.
But those first few years while starting out writing in the car, are still nearest and dearest to my heart.
Hugs and Happy Reading!
Erm… I’m a bad blogger. But GIVEAWAY!
So this morning, something dawned on me.
HOLY CRAP. THERE IS A BLOG CALLED DARKER TEMPTATIONS AND I AM SUPPOSED TO BE POSTING THERE EVERY SO OFTEN. WTF HAPPENED?
So here’s what happened. I got a new phone. And, said new phone is not programmed with the neato little reminders that old phone was. You know, the ones that pinged me every other Friday and said “Hey, Moron, go do your blog.”
So, this is me, grovelling and apologizing. I’m really sorry that I flaked out for a couple of Fridays there. It wasn’t intentional, promise!!
So, since those reminders also told me WHAT I was supposed to blog about, I’m sort of flying blind for this post.
“What? Regina winging it? That’s never happened.” *takes off sarcasm hat*
So, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you guys something free to absolve my guilt. (Hehehehee. Here, kids! I’ll make up for bad parenting by giving you too much stuff.)
I’ll pick one random commenter and send them one FREE ebook! You can pick any of my Ellora’s Cave releases. Here, I’ll just leave you links here in case you want to go ahead and pick out your favorite. 😉 Just click the cover and it’ll take you to the Amazon page.
I’ll run this contest through midnight on Sunday, July 9th. That gives you all weekend to comment! So talk to me below, and tell me how I should punish myself for flaking on my poor Darker Temptations. 🙂
Lora Leigh…
Lora Leigh.
For those of you who love erotic romances and romantic suspense, you’ll probably know who I am talking about. I started my erotic romance writing career cutting my teeth on reading every book that came out by Lora Leigh.
Her books (and a few other pioneering Ellora’s Cave authors) inspired me to write erotic romances. Lora Leigh’s books introduced me to daring ménages and adult toys. She made me fall in love with hot, sexy, heroes and strong yet vulnerable heroines. When I first read her “August” trilogy – Marly’s Choice, Sarah’s Seduction, and Heather’s Gift (Ellora’s Cave) I was soooooo hooked I couldn’t think straight. Instinctively I knew these were the types of books I wanted to write. Her stories were unique and they affected me physically. They aroused me, seduced me and teased me into reading more and more from her.
As she wrote more stories, I became a ferocious Lora Leigh reader. Harmony’s Way, Submission, Seduction, Wicked Sacrifice to name a few.
Hers are the types of books I ache to write. I aspire to be like Lora Leigh. I doubt I will ever be as good a creator as she is, but if I can come close, I will have achieved a cherished dream. Lora Leigh is the author I want to write like and if I ever get a chance to meet her or have the luck to work with her some day, I will have experienced another passionate dream and I will die with a smile on my face. *grin*
Here are some more stories by Lora Leigh.
and
https://www.ellorascave.com/index.php/authors/index/author/slug/lora-leigh/
Happy Reading!
jan
Muppet-flailing, Fangirling and Restraining Orders
Alright, my fellow MANhandlers. I searched through many files to bring you this week’s delightful pic. Too delish.
This blog cycle, we’re talking about the author we’ve always wanted to be. This is a hard one for me because there are a so many authors I I seriously admire. Picking one would be like trying to pick my favorite MANhandler pic. Can’t I just love them all? Okay, okay. Let me think…
It’s no secret that I love Diana Gabaldon with a crazy passion that probably alarmed her a little the first time I met her. I’m 6’1″ and a naturally exuberant person. She’s probably 5’3″ and incredibly soft-spoken and even a bit reserved. It’s impossible to be as tall as I am and not feel like I’m looming over such petite people. And then, when the conference coordinators have her seated to meet her fans, I have to either bend over to shake her hand or kneel in front of her. Of course I knelt. What did security think would happen? Yeesh. Anyway, Diana’s literary voice is rich and varied, and I’ve coveted the almost melodic “sound” of her storytelling since I read the first page of Outlander. I’d love to create the passion in readers that she’s cultivated over the last twenty years. I’d also like to find myself still writing after that long. Above all, I’d like to look back over the stories that will create my legacy and know I touched readers, gave them respite from the world’s demands if only for a while and helped them fall in love with my characters the way I have.
Another un-secret is my passion for absolutely anything written by Larissa Ione. When we started chatting on social media and privately, there was some very private Muppet-flailing and a few total fangirl moments. When she first emailed me? I may or may not have screamed, depending on your definition of “scream.” She’s been amazing to me, and I want to do the same for other authors who are finding their way through the difficult world of publishing. But back to the point of this paragraph — I’ve found that, the more I write, the harder it is for me to read. I can’t turn off my internal editor. It seems like I’m always rearranging scenes, catching typos, counting the “to be” verbs — all the things we authors aren’t supposed to do if we want to find success. With Larissa’s books, I get sucked into the vibrant world, the relationships, the (hawt) sex, the storylines. I admire her ability to write such clean, crisp stories. Her creativity is off the charts. The way she crafts her worlds and scenes engage every one of the readers senses. That, that, is what I want to look back and know I’ve done.
Finally? I have to be very frank and admit that I want to be me. What I spend my days doing is a total dream come true. There’s no way to describe the feeling of getting that first contract, landing a superstar agent, having your editor call you (insert your definition of “spastic” here), or finding out your book received an awesome review from Romantic Times magazine. All of these things and more have come to mean more to me than I can explain. I love what I do. I’m passionate about it. It’s everything I ever dreamed it would be. It’s also infinitely more difficult, unbelievably frustrating, guaranteed tear-inducing at times and worth every damn minute.
There’s no one author I want to be, but the two listed above are people whose talent, compassion and magic I admire and aspire to. If I could mash their skill together and mix it in a potion, I’d drink it right down. At the very least, I’d end up with a restraining order. At best? I’d be everything I want to be. Instead of scaring these two lovely ladies, I think I’ll just bust my ass and do my best to follow in their footsteps. It might take longer, but it’s the only way I want to get there. Plus I don’t have bail money. 😀
Who are the authors that inspire you? If you could be any author in the world for a day and experience what it’s like to have their skill, who would it be?
Purveyor of Smut
I’m supposed to be writing about my favourite love/sex scene, but how can I possibly chose just one? (Not least because my memory is terribly unreliable and I can’t actually think of one in particular…) So rather than talk about an actual scene, I’m going to talk about my favourite writer of smut.
As Lauren Gallagher, Lori Witt writes heterosexual, bisexual, and lesbian romance and erotica. Her books range from the downright filthy (Between Brothers and The Princess and the Porn Star) to erotic romance that wrings your heart as much as it gets your engine revving (the sublime All the King’s Horses is a favourite of mine for this)
Then, as L.A. Witt, she writes gay romance and erotica, including the hot (in all senses of the word) Market Garden series with Aleksandr Voinov.
All genres of her books involve actual plots, and characters that engrave themselves on your heart. Her sex scenes go from subtle teases of the senses to flat-out, expletive-ridden explosions. Some times in the same damn book. And then there’s the way she toys with your emotions…
In short, Lori is my go-to-author when I want romance with hot sex scenes that touches more than just down there. If that’s the kind of thing you like, her website is here.
Darker Temptations 