Role Reversal
By Vivi Andrews

Thank you, Delilah, for letting me visit today!

Gender roles in romance novels fascinate me. The hero is often the Big Strong Man who Denies His Feelings and the heroine frequently fills the role of Emotional Cornerstone of the Relationship. Those tropes are popular for a reason—the big strong Alpha male is sexy as all get out and the vulnerable, emotional heroine is relatable. Just what we want in our romance, right? To be able to admire his studliness and empathize with her feelings?

But not everyone in life fits neatly into their prescribed gender role and neither do every romance hero and heroine. I love characters that break the mold and I absolutely adore flipping stereotypes on their head. What if the hero was the emotionally centered one? What if the heroine was the stalwart pragmatist, ruthlessly denying her emotions?

In my current release, Serengeti Lightning, those are the questions I played with. Michael is utterly masculine—there’s no doubt about that—but he’s also deeply connected with his feelings. He’s passionate, impulsive and unashamed to live his life governed by the touchy-feely side. He sees the strength in owning his emotions. Mara, on the other hand, is trying to control every aspect of her life and make smart decisions. Decisions that have nothing to do with the way she feels. She’s the yin to his yang. The rational pragmatist who needs to be shown—just as many a tough-guy Alpha hero has been shown in the history of romance novels—that love isn’t a weakness.

I loved exploring the different dynamics of this relationship—the battle between the man ruled by his heart and the woman ruled by her head—but I also love the classic romance archetypes. What about you? Do you like a little variety or do you always gravitate toward certain types of heroes & heroines?

What do you think defines the masculine and feminine in romance novels? Do you look for different gender dynamics in books than you do in your real life relationships?

Vivi Andrews lives in Alaska and writes paranormal romance for Samhain & Carina to keep her warm during the long winters. For more about Vivi or her books, please visit www.viviandrews.com.

Love can be a force of nature.

Mara Leonard is through hitting the snooze button on her biological clock. The Three Rocks Pride schoolteacher is ready to get serious about starting a family, and she needs a serious man to make that happen.

Regrettably, that means crossing less-than-serious Michael Minor off her list of potential mates. Michael is impulsive and passionate, but his spontaneity leaks into shapeshifting whenever his emotions run high—a tendency he should have outgrown long ago. As a sex buddy, he’s delicious. Daddy material? Disqualified.

Michael is blindsided by Mara’s rejection. Nine years separate them, and his genetic malady means no one in the pride treats him as an adult. But if she thinks he’ll simply slink away to lick his wounds while she steps into the arms of another man, she has seriously underestimated him.

The tricky part will be convincing his over-analytical lover that he’s more than a disposable sex toy. That real bravery means tearing up her damn checklist and following her heart. And doing it without letting their explosive sexual chemistry expose the Pride’s secrets to the outside world.

Warning: This book features break-up sex, make-up sex, a lioness who’s a cougar and a hot young lion who’s grown up in all the right ways. Note: All electrical shocks are purely metaphorical.

My T-shirt contest is still running. See yesterday’s post for details! ~DD

Don’t you just love Halloween? It’s always been one of my favorite holidays. Christmas, of course, carried with it the excitement of church and school pageants, gifts and visits to family. But Halloween was just for fun. For using our imaginations, trying to scare ourselves silly. For stuffing ourselves with caramel apples, popcorn balls and home made cookies.

I remember the excitement of choosing just the right plastic mask and flimsy costume (the ones that tied in the back) from the dime store. Trekking through the lamp lit streets of our little town with my sisters and neighbors, peering through the mask and lugging my plastic jack o’lantern for treats. I remember cutting through a pasture near our home and then running like the dickens to get away from the cows pastured there. They were just curious heifers, but in the dark they were BIG, SNORTING BEASTS. Very different from the friendly companions of the daytime, who would come and eat from our hands. On Halloween night, shadows held monsters, witches rode the skies and anything was possible.

When my boys were little, Halloween meant trips to the fabric store to find just the right pattern and fabric to make costumes – dinosaurs with removable heads and dragging tails, alligators (same costume with a little ingenuity and a different head), Ninja turtles, cops, firemen, ninjas, Frankenstein and army rangers. All the fun of planning how to make parts move, look kind of realistic, and keep growing boys warm on a Halloween night in the Rocky Mountains. One year we held a carnival in the school – the whole town came. We played games, and the children trick-or-treated around the gym.

Now that all of us are too big to trick-or-treat and my school is too focused on surviving The Test to have time for Halloween parties and parades, I enjoy the little princesses and space-ninjas who come to my door to yell (or mumble, prompted by a parent a short distance behind) ‘Trick-or-treat!’

And I still enjoy scaring myself – just a little – with a spooky movie or story. Sometimes I even spin them myself. I think a good romance should be like a Halloween costume – it should fit the mood you’re in this season. Do you want to be a princess this year, honey? Or a warrior who can kick the ass of any man she meets? Or how about a cowgirl ridin’ the range with a handsome cowboy? Or perhaps someone a bit edgier – a vampire, or even a demon queen?

You don’t even have to dress up, girlfriend. Just curl up with a great story, and let that new romance carry you away into a world where magic is still possible.

And here’s a great place to start … my Samhain Free Read, Touch Not the Cat.

Her new neighbor is as irritating as he is hot, but is he also dangerous?

You can read the first half on the Samhain website. To get the exact web address, which will be up by October 15th, visit my website at http://www.cathryncade.com . And stop back by to read the oh, so satisfying conclusion. I’ll be posting additional pages each week until Halloween. Trick or Treat!

Okay, so I know that according to the schedule that I gave you before I left that Vonna Harper was supposed to be here, but Vonna and I got our wires crossed. She appeared here in September, and I thought she wanted a second date here, but ah well.

This works out anyway because I have WiFi connection here, and this won’t take long. I have a book coming out with Berkley in January, a futuristic story entitled Ravished by a Viking, and I’m trying to do some different things to get y’all excited about it. I was talking to an artist friend of mine about some of the things I’d like to do, like T-shirts and art for the website, and she did a couple of water colors for me that depict places in the book.

Here’s the first one. This painting comes from her interpretation of a scene I wrote where one of the characters is describing her first view of Skuldelev Castle, the hero’s home. Don’t you think this would look lovely on a T-shirt or coffee mug?

What I need now is some text to go along with the picture. Of course, I’ll want to add my website logo to the bottom of the picture—very small and subtle. However, I want some kind of banner across the top that has a message that reflects something about the story.

I could just put “Skuldelev Castle” across the top, but I’d love something a little more exciting. So, I’m offering you a chance to do some brainstorming. I’ll even offer a prize. Like a free T-shirt—first off the printing press as soon as I finalize the art work.

Following is the back cover copy for the book so you know what the story is about. Have fun! Post your ideas here, and if one of you comes up with an idea that you spin off of someone else’s posting, well I guess I’ll have to give away two shirts!

What a Viking wants, a Viking takes…

When his younger brother goes missing, Dagr, Viking warrior and Lord of the Wolfskin Clan, will do whatever it takes to get him back. But nothing could have prepared him for Honora-a feisty, intelligent woman who is nothing like the women of his world-women who are content to serve their men in all things. Drawn to her despite her recalcitrant nature, Dagr is determined to show her who’s boss both in bed and out.

When the two enemies-turned-lovers join forces to find Dagr’s brother they are thrown into a rousing adventure full of danger, intrigue and erotic abandon. Can their passion truly unite them or will their different worlds lead to destruction for them both?

And here is the description of Dagr’s keep from the point of view of his future sister-in-law, Birget:

The journey to Skuldelev passed in silence. Strapped into the back seat of a small, two-man snow-eater, she watched the endless drifts of white, stirred only by the shifting winds and blowing toward the frozen sea that bordered the lowlands they crossed. In the distance, the jagged peaks of the Keel Mountains sawed into the face of Sunni, the sun goddess, stretching the shadows of night to cloak the mountains and the city fortress of Skuldelev at its base.

A shiver rippled down her spine. The day’s happenings had passed in a whirlwind, and only now did it strike her that this might be her home for the rest of her life—this foreign, craggy, monstrous castle where men as rugged and unforgiving of weakness as their clan-lord lived.

Taste of the Forbidden
By Cari Quinn

Big thanks to Delilah for allowing me to guest blog here today. I’m a big fan of her work!

I debated about a good topic for a while and decided to go with one that’s on my mind a lot. What makes the forbidden so alluring? Whether it’s an illicit office romance, like in my latest release, Personal Research, out now from Ellora’s Cave, or an affair with a hot younger guy, there’s just something hot about doing what others tell you not to. Is it the thrill of discovery? The possible consequences? Or maybe just busting stereotypes? So many of us live with a “good girl” label and that can be incredibly stifling. The chance to throw off the shackles of propriety and go where your pleasure leads you, repercussions be damned, can be pretty alluring.

I’ve never had an office romance but I’ve certainly noticed a couple of my co-workers in a more than friendly way. I never pursued it because unfortunately, I always think way too much about what happens after. A messy breakup can make the workplace a much more difficult place to be. But still, the idea is tempting. There’s something so sexy about tossing aside your concerns and just going for it – after all, isn’t that what makes fiction, especially erotic fiction, great?

What about you? Have you ever tasted the forbidden and gone back for more? Have you had an office romance, pursued someone much younger or older than you…or heck, anything else “forbidden” you can think of? I’m curious about those who live on the wilder side than me. And heck, a writer can never get too many ideas! 😉

Want to read an excerpt of Personal Research? (Click on the cover!)

Buy Link
Cari’s website
Cari’s Blog

Romance or Porn?
By Cindy Spencer Pape

First of all, I’d like to thank Delilah for having me here today. I’m with her at Romanticon, but I promise I’ll try to sneak in for a few minutes tonight to reply to comments!

So, about that porn business…

Oddly, I don’t particularly object to the word porn. After all, one woman’s porn is another woman’s romance. It’s just a word. Sticks and stones, remember? Except that words can and do hurt, of course. But when your teenaged son introduces you to his buddies by saying, “This is my mom, she writes porn,” the word quickly loses any sting. My kid is bragging, you understand. He’s horribly proud of my success, even while not wanting to read a word of my “chick books.”

My books range from steamy to heavily erotic. I’m in a position to be open about that. My husband’s career is secure, my sons are too old to care and young enough to be impressed when they see a book with mom’s name on it. I could care less what my neighbors think, and my relatives gave up on me a long time ago. So what you see is what you get. If you buy an Ellora’s Cave Exotika or “Quickie,” you’re gonna get a lot of sex and a fairly light plot. That’s the nature of the beast. The names alone should tip you off. On the other hand, if you buy one of my Carina Press or Cerridwen Press books, you get a complex paranormal romance with a moderate dose of smoldering sex. And that’s how it’s labeled. Take the hint—all of the books are rated by their publishers. And if you’re still not sure, I’ve happily answered emails of the people who have asked. I want the readers to be happy—I’m never going to steer someone to read a book that will make them uncomfortable. But hot doesn’t mean poorly written. I agonize over each and every sentence of a Quickie as much as I do one of my “Spicy” cowboy stories for the Wild Rose Press.

E-publishing lends itself to hotter, more explicit literature. People like buying their super sexy stuff on-line. No disapproving sales clerk shaking a finger, and a lot of towns don’t have a store that will even carry the really steamy stories. As the song (click here to see a video that will make you laugh your ass off, if you have a sense of humor about this sort of thing) says, “The internet is for porn.” That’s a fact of life. In the world of e-books, hotter sells better. And I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m in this business to hopefully make a living some day.

So I write what the market demands. Does that make me pornographer? Depends on your definition. Does that make me a slut? My husband only wishes. I call myself a romance author, and tell people I write very steamy books. I refuse to write anything that degrades women or men, or is just sex for sex’s sake. Even in my quickies, you’re going to find an HEA, limited though it may be due to space. Humans (or vampires, werewolves, gargoyles, etc.) are sexual creatures, and sex IS a big part of romance. I have no problem taking you behind the bedroom doors. If you don’t care for that in a story, I have some lovely friends who write sweet romances, and I’ll be happy to send you to their web sites.

So, on that note, this week I have two new releases out: Motor City Witch, from Carina Press is a paranormal romance with a few hot sex scenes. (Click here for more information.) Just for Jess, from Ellora’s Cave Exotika, on the other hand, is HOT! One female vampire, three sexy males and a private island retreat. Oh, yeah, this one isn’t for the faint of heart. If you like your romance to sizzle, though, check this one out:

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Just for Jess
Immortal Cravings, Book Three

Vampire Jessamy Maitland is a classic workaholic, until her friends team up to buy her a weekend with the incredibly sexy vampire Dermott McMahon on his luxurious private island. Dermott is determined to get Jess to kick back and relax, so he’s enlisted the help of three lion shifter friends.

Jess finds herself faced with three days of no phone, no computer and four sexy, horny males, all determined to wait on her hand and foot and show her a scorching good time. Naked. Together. In ways she’s never imagined. With those odds, what’s a vampire to do? There’s nothing for it but take them up on their offer and discover that sometimes it’s okay to play.

The name of yesterday’s winner is at the bottom of this post!

This will be my last post until I’m back from Romanticon. I have the following authors lined up to keep you company while I’m gone:

Oct 7 – Vella Munn
Oct 8 – Cari Quinn
Oct 9 – Cathryn Cade
Oct 10 – Cindy Spencer Pape
Oct 11 – Vivi Andrews

Have I mentioned how nuts my life’s been this past couple of weeks? My daughter has moved back home and I have two little ones underfoot. It’s quite an adjustment. I’ve had too little sleep, too much noise (who knew I’d become that grumpy hermit?). Heck, EC’s big party weekend will seem like a restful vacation after this.

I’m up typing this at 6:54 AM because I’m getting one the rugrats ready for school. We’ll be standing at the end of the drive in about ten minutes, waiting for the bus. It’s her first day in a new school, and she’s understandably nervous. “Will they like me?” “Does my hair look funny?” I didn’t have to tell her to brush her teeth—she did it by herself because she didn’t want her breath to stink. How do I know? She asked me to smell it. *sigh*

The littlest one is the creature who causes me the most lost sleep. She doesn’t have a schedule. And she wants to sit on my lap all the time. Guess I’m built for comfort.

So, I’m back from the bus. She didn’t seem all that nervous when she boarded. Hopefully, she’ll have nothing but wonderful experiences today so that she’ll look forward to going again tomorrow.

Back to that contest… Did y’all enjoy the excerpt? Hope so. I stayed with my cousin in Seattle last year and thought his quaint little house with it’s shared back alley would work well for a peeping Tom story. Not that Garrett wanted to be that man, but he really couldn’t help himself. Jayne was relentless.

The winner of the free download is…Jennifer! Congrats, Jennifer, and be sure to send me an email so I know where you want that book sent!

If you haven’t checked out my Coming Soon page in a while, there’s some new stuff. I think you’ll like what’s coming. See ya Tuesday!

If you post a comment today and you’ll be in the running
for a free download of this book!

This is a quick fly-by today. Have to run. Want to get a pedi/manicure this AM. Have to buy some travel-size toiletries to pack for my trip. Just two days to Ohio! ~DD

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“…Loved the characters, loved the conflict, loved the scorching hot sex…I do give high praise to Ms. Devlin. Her writing leaves me breathless and her heroes are simply delicious.”
9 of 10, Seriously Reviewed

He didn’t know the nightly peepshow was just a naughty invitation…

Garrett knows what he’s doing can get him into trouble, but he can’t help himself. Every night, as he arrives home, the blonde across the alley gets busy with her boyfriend with the blinds open. He’s spent the past two weeks getting an eyeful and falling deep into lust.

But when Garrett sees a man in a black ski mask sneak into his sexy neighbor’s bedroom, he doesn’t know he’ll be the one captured.

Jayne has a nice life with a nice lover who sees to her every need, but she’s still drawn to the lonely man across the alley. She’s been sharing her deepest fantasies with him from afar, but is ready to up the stakes. When she talks Richard into enacting a dangerous scenario, everything works out as planned. Only Garrett’s not happy about being played. And he’s got reservations because she already has a lover and he’s not into threesomes. Guess she’ll just have to convince him otherwise.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Tuesday

They were going at it again, and he was gonna get arrested. Which would be pretty damn embarrassing, considering he was cop.

Like clockwork, the couple across the alleyway started banging the minute his car pulled into the garage.

The street along the back of the parallel rows of one-story houses wasn’t much of a buffer. Driveways spoked off the narrow, paved road. Only twenty feet separated his garage from the bedroom window across the way.

Last night, he’d loosened the garage light bulb to make sure it didn’t give him away when the door slid up. Tonight, he flicked his car’s overhead lamp switch off so that the light wouldn’t beam the moment he exited. Carefully, he closed his car door, pushing it with his hip to muffle the click as it locked, walked around to the back then sat with his butt against the trunk to watch the show.

They had to know anyone walking by could see every damn thing—every drop of sweat, every short curl of pale blonde hair. She faced the window, clutching the bottom windowsill, her breasts bouncing every time Boyfriend slammed her ass.

God, her tits were Grade-A prime. Cherry nipples, topping creamy mounds.

Her blue eyes closed, her mouth rounded, and he knew when she came because she always wore the same expression—her cheeks growing rosy, her eyebrows drawing together tightly and the corners of her mouth curving like the cat that licked the cream.

And if the wind hadn’t been whistling through the alley, he would have heard the whimper she gave when Boyfriend milked the last little contraction of her orgasm.

Fuck. He needed his own woman. Maybe she had a twin. Because he sure as shit wouldn’t be satisfied with anyone who wasn’t her, Jayne Peabody—Jayne Hotbody as he’d begun to call her. He’d had her plates run so he’d have a name to assign the woman who’d played a starring role in all his fantasies this past couple of weeks.

They’d finished and Boyfriend was pulling her into his arms, wrapping them around her belly and cupping those beautiful breasts as she snuggled against his chest.

It was time to leave. The show was over for the night.

Then her eyes opened, and Garrett Masters could have sworn she looked right at him. He cussed softly, straightened and raised his arm, pulling down the garage door and shutting off the sight of her mouth stretching into a wide grin.

* * * * *

Wednesday

This time he was ready. He popped the beer top, lifted his drink into the air to silently salute them, and decided to watch the goings-on across the way like a spectator sport. He’d even devised a scoring system.

Ten points for the first orgasm. Five to fifteen for each successive multiple, depending on how hard Boyfriend had to work. But Jayne didn’t need much encouragement to slam quickly through three. All her partner had to do was angle her face toward the window and her eyelids drooped, her kitten smile curled.

Boyfriend turned her toward the bed, bent her over, and Garrett straightened because this wasn’t a view he’d had before. Her pretty white ass, sweetly curved, her dark pink sex framed between her closed thighs. Fuuuck!

Boyfriend walked out of sight then returned with leather straps.

Garrett swallowed down the beer and crushed the can in his fist.

Boyfriend bound her legs together and strapped her hands to the sides of her thighs, forcing her to remain bent. Then he tied a blindfold around her head.

Jayne’s bottom wriggled, but moisture shone on her sex, dribbled down the backs of her thighs. And that was before Boyfriend bent to pick up something from the floor.

When he straightened, he brandished a short riding crop.

“Fifty,” Garrett breathed, his stomach beginning to roil as he watched the other man swat her buttocks in quick succession, leaving reddened welts, which she apparently enjoyed by the loudness of her groans and whimpers. However, when he dropped the whip and turned her toward the window, tears streaked down her cheeks from beneath the blindfold.

Garrett stiffened, ready to charge over there and break it up. But Boyfriend gripped her hips and forcefully slammed against her buttocks, thrusting deep. Her lips rounded, tears trickling into her mouth as she came.

Garrett shuddered, his breaths coming quick, wondering what the fuck he was doing watching this, watching another man torture a woman into orgasm, his own body slamming toward a climax that shocked him with its ferocity.

Boyfriend removed the blindfold. Jayne’s eyes opened, gleaming through the darkness, seeming to pull him deeper into her twisted, kinky play.

This wasn’t for him. He’d never laid a hand on a woman and damn sure couldn’t stand by watching it. He couldn’t do this anymore. The sweet, funny tenor of the sessions had changed to something darker, something grim and decidedly too rich for his blood.

Before they’d finished, he slammed the door down between them.

* * * * *

Thursday

“For the love of…”

He tried to keep his gaze averted this time, hadn’t bothered sneaking out of his car. But one glance and he was caught.

Boyfriend’s tall, lean body was turned sideways and he held his cock in his hand.

Jayne Hotbody stuck out her pink tongue and licked around the crown, and then clasped her mouth around it and sucked.

Boyfriend’s eyes closed tightly and he fisted himself, pumping as she bobbed forward to meet his fingers, then pulled away.

She braced a hand against his hip then turned to give Garrett one of those kittenish smiles, her blue eyes seeming to plead for him to watch. Was this her way of apologizing?

Did her boyfriend even have a clue what she was doing?

Garrett’s day had been a ball-buster and the last thing he’d wanted was to be left with an aching hard-on no amount of one-handed pocket pool could relieve, but she seemed to be inviting him to join. To watch as she blew Boyfriend and teased the hell out of him.

Well, hell. He was tired of watching and being left aching. He opened his utility belt, unbuttoned his pants and eased down his zipper. When he drew out his cock, he stared down at himself, musing that this time he really would get arrested with his dick in his hand.

Then he glanced up.

Jayne wasn’t smiling. She was licking her lips, her chest billowing faster. She grabbed Boyfriend by the hips and turned him so she could blow while she watched Garrett.

Her gaze didn’t leave his cock as he began to work himself. He gripped his shaft firmly, gliding his hand up and down, sliding his thumb over the top of the crown at the end of every pull.

Watching her watching him and blowing What’s-his-face was more intimate than anything they’d shared before. He felt more connected, as if he were having sex with her instead of jerking himself off in the out-of-doors while he played the Peeping Tom to his naughty neighbor.

Boyfriend gripped her head and flexed his muscular hips forward and back, stroking into her hot little mouth. Garrett dropped spit to feel moisture and imagined her lips surrounding him.

Tension gripped his balls and he rocked on his heels, forward and back, while his arm tensed and pistoned faster.

When he came, white cum spitting from his dick, he glanced up to catch her suctioning, swallowing boyfriend down with his head flung back and his flanks quivering.

Hot damn…

He stepped back, reached for the handle and slammed the garage door down.