While The Cat’s Away Countdown – Day 4…

Tomorrow, you’ll get a chance to win Sanctuary—my one and only published story with Whispers, which released in 2005. For now, here’s what I kept on the old website as my “Story Behind the Book”.

I write so many vampires that it really becomes a challenge to find something fresh to say—especially something outside my MIK world, which has taken on a life of its own!

So when Whispers asked for a submission, and they wanted something paranormal, I decided to place my story in the “near” future about twenty years from now.

First, I imagined how the world might be changed if some of our current political issues weren’t resolved well. I’m such a pessimist I imagined the worst possible outcome—a modern Armageddon.

In the time before technology, people believed in magic. So I wondered how that might be inverted. When technology begins to fail, will the magical creatures crawl back out of the darkness? In my future world they do!

But how would humans exist? I looked out my window at my front yard, which borders a ranch and thought that a Texas ranch might be a pretty self-sufficient place if forced back into a subsistence mode. So I put my heroine on a West Texas ranch patrolling her borders to make sure the creatures of the night don’t invade, while trying to keep her people safe and fed.

What would be her greatest fear? Facing one of those creatures. So, naturally the hero has to be one. Their story isn’t new. I just hope I built a really interesting adventure for them to meet and fall in love.

While The Cat’s Away Countdown – Day 5…

I’m taking a break away from my personal blog to let any writers among you know about the Plotting Bootcamp that starts up next Monday. It’s something my sister and I have run very successfully for years.

What makes our class different from all the other plotting classes out there? We give you feedback every step of the way. You build your story from the ground up, and we help you through feedback on the exercises and through frequent live chats. We do this so well that we have many writers coming back again and again for help refining their latest work-in-progress.

Here’s the information about the class. I hope you’ll join us!

What you can look forward to during Plotting Bootcamp:

Learn a methodical approach to harness your creativity in order to produce an in-depth plot for your next novel! Sound scary? It is-when you’re staring at an empty page without a compass and a map to guide you through the novelistic jungle. Your DIs will lead you through four weeks of activities that will help strengthen your abilities to: capture the conflicts, the major plot line and subplots; deepen your knowledge of your characters; and conceive of and develop an in-depth, by-chapter description of your book. Elle and Delilah will accomplish this with weekly lessons, bi-weekly chats and daily online communication. Be ready for bivouac!

Interested? Click on this link to enroll!

Testimonials:

I would highly recommend this course to everyone who is even thinking about writing a book.
~Laurean

Thanks for all the insight. You taught me how to think as a novel writer after many years of banging out ad copy.
~Tim
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While The Cat’s Away Countdown – Day 6…

September’s Moon is the Harvest Moon. According to The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Wicca and Witchcraft, it’s “a time of protection, prosperity and abundance.”

There’s energy in this month. It’s time to harvest grain—which translated means September’s a time of prosperity. Winter’s beckoning, but for now you can celebrate.

I’ll be thinking of you. And missing my daily blog. Maybe. Depends on how well the ladies and I get along. Six days of togetherness? Don’t they say that three days is the rule—after which company and socks begin to stink? I know I mucked that one up, but you get my drift. Can’t wait to share pictures!

While The Cat’s Away Countdown – Day 7…

Remember to post a comment for a chance to win this book!

All Knight Long was released in March 2004, and is the third in the My Immortal Knight series!

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From In The Library Reviews: “Author Delilah Devlin’s My Immortal Knight series is a wonderful group of books that’ll keep the readers anxiously intrigued through out all the series.”

5 Angels from Fallen Angels Reviews: “Ms. Devlin knows how to use her words to draw you into her story. She has created characters that are easy to fall in love with. When you combine her excellent characters with the great plot, this story becomes a must read.”

A member of an elite police unit sworn to hunt vampires, Joe Garcia’s life is turned upside down when he’s transformed into one. On a quest for a cure, his search brings him to New Orleans in a last ditch effort to recover his humanity.

Professor Lily Carlson, a renowned expert in vampire lore, has a “condition” of her own. Her sexual libido has been in hyper-drive for months. Her only defense is to hide behind her glasses and tweed suits and stay as far away from men as possible. However, she’s thrilled to discover vampires really do exist when Joe shows up on her balcony.

Although Joe deflects her attempts to make him a case study and confirm a few vampire statistics, he is drawn by her powerful allure. When werewolves join the chase and track her through New Orleans, Joe’s cop instincts tell him there’s a mystery to solve. Intent on protecting her, he must seek help from the last vampire on Earth he wants to ask. While his hopes for deliverance from his fate dwindle, Lily’s life is forever altered by an unexpected “inheritance”.

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The small sign in the café window read: Welcome Vampires and Sanguinarians! (No blood products provided—none permitted on premises! The Management).

Joe Garcia snorted. Every human in the place was a walking, breathing blood product—a portable soda fountain for the Fanged Ones.

He pushed through the glass door and tried to dampen the hope that rose in his chest, causing his heart to beat faster and his hands to sweat. Thusfar, he’d met only disappointment in his long search. This might be just another dead end—the last one he could afford before his cash ran out and his credit card was maxed.

Professor Carlson was his last hope.
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While The Cat’s Away Countdown – Day 8…

If you’ve been following my blog, you know that I’m presently sitting in a cottage somewhere near Seattle with five other multi-pubbed authors, hard at work. Since we were told the lakehouse doesn’t have Internet connection, I preposted blog entries to keep you all entertained while I’m gone. And to keep you coming back, I’m offering chances to win some of the books I’ll be featuring here. So, be sure to stop and read, then don’t forget to post a comment to enter!

Tomorrow’s posting will include a chance to win All Knight Long, which originally released in March 2004. What you may not know is that I used to keep a page on my old website for every book, called “The Story Behind the Book”.

Here’s what I wrote back in November 2004 when Joe and Lily’s story first came out!

I love old B-horror movies.

Honestly, the cheesier the better! And I’m not talking about slasher movies. Give me a vampire lurking behind the curtains, or an alien pod-person chasing a woman with his stiff-legged gait. I’ll never ask why she can’t outrun him—because I know she subconsciously wants to be captured!

Growing up, I rushed home from school each day to see the latest episode of the horror-soap Dark Shadows because Barnabas Collins gave me the shivers. “The Blob” was my favorite movie—I watched it so many times I could quote the dialogue. If Peter Cushing or Vincent Price were in the cast, I was glued to the tube. Those were seriously creepy dudes!

I considered myself a vampire and werewolf expert. By the time I was eight, I could tell you every way you could kill a vamp or become one. Before I ever understood what sensuality and desire were, I thought vampires were the perfect boyfriends—attentive, snappy dressers, and they could disappear from your bedroom in a whirl of mist if your mom poked her head inside your room at night.

I also had a favorite fantasy. I knew I wanted to meet a dark, dangerous vampire, be tied between two stakes, and forced by him to become his girlfriend. My fantasy always ended with his teeth piercing my neck because my little imagination thought the excitement ended there!

Of course, my fantasies changed as I grew older—the details about what happened after the bite grew more important. I worried about rug burns on werewolves’ haunches, how a teenage vampire might shower off the blood and be in bed before his parents discovered him missing for the night.

I also watched King Kong again and again. There was something intensely thrilling about that large, hairy male ape and his one-track obsession with Fay Ray. When she was draped over his large, dark palm in her negligee, she didn’t look like terror was the only emotion she was feeling.

Now I’m an adult—perhaps a little arrested in the maturity department—and a writer. Since I never outgrew daydreaming about monsters who stalked unawakened virgins through dark, deserted forests—I’m free now to revel in my imagination. Daydreaming is now a profitable activity!

When I sit at the dinner table, I may wear a little smile because Joe Garcia’s search for his humanity led him some interesting places. I let the poor guy indulge in all his manly-monstery impulses. And the best part is, I can keep “living” in my alternate reality as long as I don’t end the series!

“Cowboy” is a calling, not a gender—and some of the toughest cowboys aren’t boys at all. “Cowboy” is also a legend, an attitude, and a state of mind. With stories that are edgy as shiny spurs and tender as broken-in leather, these lesbian cowboys work hard, play hard, and love hard, in the saddle and in the bed. They know what they want and take it, and give back as good as they get. The settings range from Australia to New England to the Great Plains and the Rockies and span the decades from the romance of the Old West to today’s torrid tales.

While The Cat’s Away Countdown – Day 9…

One little bit of news before I get to today’s release. Yesterday, right before I started packing, my new editor at Samhain offered me a contract on two related cowboy stories, Unbridled and Unforgiven. Now, I just have to come up with a series title because I know I have at least one more story to follow that thread. So put your thinking caps on! The stories all involve cowboys and are set in Texas!

If you’ve read me very long, you know I love to experiment, whether it’s with genre or sexual diversity. Today’s release features fifteen lesbian adventures from some of the best erotica writers out there, all centered around an American icon—the cowboy.

“Cowboy” is a calling, not a gender—and some of the toughest cowboys aren’t boys at all. “Cowboy” is also a legend, an attitude, and a state of mind. With stories that are edgy as shiny spurs and tender as broken-in leather, these lesbian cowboys work hard, play hard, and love hard, in the saddle and in the bed. They know what they want and take it, and give back as good as they get. The settings range from Australia to New England to the Great Plains and the Rockies and span the decades from the romance of the Old West to today’s torrid tales.

Contributors Radclyffe and Jove Bell depict today’s fearless femme rodeo riders, holding their own against the men in the limelight—then holding another woman close at night. Cheyenne Blue shows the conflict between traditional cattle ranching and the new environmentalism in the wilds of Australia while Delilah Devlin’s lesbian cowboy is every inch a woman and more than a match for any man. Sexy, steamy, and crackling with erotic energy, these stories are sure to rivet.

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Footsteps scuffed across the planked porch, and Ariana lowered herself beside me on the bench overlooking the paddock. From the corner of my eye, I noted the damp hair and the bare expanse of skin that shone like warm honey beneath a pair of cutoff shorts. She’d bathed and smelled faintly of flowers.

I intended only a quick glance at my companion, but my gaze landed on another thin tank top, this one buttoned down the front with the upper two opened. The shadowy wedge of skin between her breasts was bare. Nipples, unfettered by any bra, sprang against the pink cotton.

“Thought since it was just us girls…” she drawled.
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