Recently I read an awesome little contemporary erotic romance by the wicked talent, Delilah Devlin. Saddled has been in my nook for a few weeks and I’ve been waiting for a free minute to dig in. Now, I bet you thought this post would be my on-my-knees-kissing-DD’s-toes post, but I think I’ll surprise you. I’d rather talk about pushing the boundaries.

Without giving too much away, there was a scene in this book that had me shoving my nook across my pillow and calling my hubs in for some clarification (as if he’s the expert on ménage) (lmao) on the capability of a scene. Of course the “I don’t know, want to try it?” didn’t shock me—that’s a man for you—but the part that really got me was the boundary that had been broken. This is the first time I’ve read this in any book. (I can’t tell you what it is; you’ll have to buy the book) Then I started thinking about other novels of DD’s that I’ve read. Darkness Captured was another one of those that shocked me. There is a scene in that book with some foliage that made me a truly devoted fan. (Letting in on some of my deviant nature, lol)

Okay, so here’s what I’ve learned from my studying the fab Delilah Devlin’s writing:

1. If you are going to break a boundary, it has to work. It has to work in the world and it has to work in the flow of the book. Yes, Saddled threw me for a loop, but I was right back to reading it to find out what those two hot cowboys would do next.

2. If you are going to tease your writers with a boundary you plan on crossing, you better cross it in a big way and then deliver on the goods. Don’t give it to us, then cut it off. I want details, flavor, smells, and emotions. I want it all.

3. Know that not every book has to cross a boundary, but if you do it once, you’re fans/readers will expect it again at some point. This is what builds your loyal reader base. This is what keeps me coming back as a reader.

So, I’m sure that there are a million other lessons I could have learned about boundaries, but these were the three that stuck out. I hope you are now ready to dig into your own writing with new purpose and hint of the forbidden. Have a great weekend and a very safe Memorial Day!

When empath Piper Anast meets sexy, tormented vampire Bennett Slade, she stumbles headlong into a telepathic connection with his missing daughter—and lust.

As they close in on the evil creature holding his daughter—and each other—Piper’s powers turn deadly. She must face down demons she never knew she had if any of them are to survive her fury.

For more information about this book and to read an excerpt go here.

Buy here

Rachel’s writing career began at the impressionable age of twelve with a poem dedicated to the soldiers of Desert Storm. A dark macabre affair that earned her a publication in an anthology and many raised eyebrows from family and friends, she hid her poetry and artistic style for years…

Tucked away in the heart of Central Texas, with the loving support of her husband and three children, she dusted the cobwebs from her craft. Returning to those twisted regions of her mind, she creates dark urban fantasies and soul-searching paranormal romance.

To learn where love twists the soul and lights the shadows, visit Rachel at https://www.rachelfirasek.com/

The winner of the Mermaid Journal is….Melissa P! Melissa, send an email to me at del…@delilahdevlin.com with your snail mail address. Congrats!

For the rest of you, be sure to check back tomorrow. I’ll start TWO new contests that will run while I’m away.

An Inspiring Man at 20″

There was a time when I drove an hour and a half each way to spend time with a man. Many know of his extraordinary strength, courage, ingenuity, and sexual prowess. He was always naked and prepared to conquer me, which is why I can tell you he is beyond gorgeous and a true hero. However, one day I turned around, and lost myself to another.

HA! A bit flowery, but oddly true. Way back when for almost three months I went once a week to visit and study a 76″ sculpture called The Lansdowne Herakles. That’s right, he was originally known as Herakles until the Romans decided to call him Hercules, but enough about that. It was no hardship to study this particular sculpture and yet, no matter how wonderful he is, Herakles was not who inspired me to write Tied Up For Love, that honor belong to a lesser character who was broken.

When the work I needed to do was finished, I would leave the courtyard where Herakles stood and spend time with Marsyas. The sculpture is small at less than 20″ and has lost some bits, but he still packs a powerful punch. While his pose, arms stretched above his head, is seductive the story behind it isn’t so much. I won’t go into details as it plays a part in Tied Up For Love, although I will tell you he pissed off the wrong Olympian, and paid a big price for being the best.

The sculpture has been with me in photos I’ve taken over the years. That’s right, I continue to visit him, although he’s currently not on show – shame. Anyway, this is such a memorable piece that when I was sat down to write another installment in my Mythological Messes Redux series, I chose Marsyas. Not only was he cut off at his prime, but later artisans and mythologists messed up his origins, and his importance was lost.

The picture above [from the Getty Museum website] hung on the wall above my monitor and I wrote this man a seriously hot and somewhat kinky second chance.

Thank you, Delilah, for allowing me to share how a sculpture fed my need to write Tied Up For Love.

Filla is a nymph used to the raucous ways of a Dionysian festival and allows a handsome newcomer, Marsyas, to strip her down for a passionate interlude while tied to a tree. After time spent alone, together, she knows little about him beyond the physical. However, her feelings for him are growing until he brings her back for the next festival, and suddenly she’s not sure of anything.

Love is found in the most unlikely places, but will it last?

eBook now available at All Romance.

Tilly Greene
WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!
www.tillygreene.com

ARe Cafe│Hot Thoughts Blog│Facebook│Twitter

I am slammed this morning—the six-year old is getting Citizen of the Month at her school and there’s going to be a special breakfast. Funny, considering she was kicked out of pre-school for misbehavior and spent three weekends in the high school detention center as a kindergartener for fighting. I’m not missing the breakfast!

So there will be no winner announced in the Mermaid contest this AM. I want to have the next prize ready to go and I have to look through a ton of entries here and Facebook. What I’m taking a helluva long way around saying is that you have one more shot at winning!

Post a comment here, or on Access Romance where I had to dash out another blog! So TWO more chances to win.

And as a side note, Her Soul to Keep is now ready for you to order! Be sure that if you do buy it, that you take a moment to tag, like and review it! I’d be forever grateful!

You can buy it at the following sites:
Buy at Amazon.com
Buy at Barnes & Noble
Buy at All Romance eBooks
Buy at Smashwords

Turn Around, I Forgot The Pig: Superstitions, Charms,
and How We Trick Ourselves Into Writing

by Michelle Moore and S. Reesa Herberth

Michelle

While I doubt that any of us are as bad as professional sports players (I, for one, have never worn the same underwear for a week!), we writers have our quirks. Quirks, idiosyncrasies, traditions… superstitions. Okay, we don’t really like to call them superstitions. That makes us sound so, well, superstitious. But I suspect everyone has some sort of a process they go through to get ready to write.

Like me, for an example. Before I settle in for an evening of productivity, I slip into a gold lame tuxedo jacket, braid some chameleon tails (naturally lost, of course) in my hair, and peddle a unicycle around the dining room table. Okay, not really. But there was a time when I couldn’t write a word without a bowl of Crunchy M&Ms at my side. Imagine my dismay and horror when Mars discontinued them. It wasn’t pretty.

Now that I have two novels under my belt, what’s my course of action? Am I as shortsighted in my choices? Well, as long as Starbucks stays solvent, I should be okay. Five days a week, I pack up my purple Dell mini, my purple thumb drive, my “Working Writer’s Daily Planner” and my little stuffed guinea pig and head to the neighborhood Starbucks. I do not leave without the pig. Let me repeat. Do. Not. Forget. The. Pig.

There are two acceptable tables, the preferred one is next to the mug display. The computer goes in the middle of the table, the planner goes on the window ledge, and the pig goes on the right hand side of the computer, sitting on top of my phone. Centered on top of my phone. I order the same drink, grande Java Chip Frappacino with four pumps peppermint and six scoops chips, and that goes on the left hand side of the computer on a napkin. Then and only then am I ready to write.

I’m insecure and I need some validation. Surely I’m not the only person out there with so many, err, issues. Help Michelle feel better about herself. Share some craziness. (Talking about yourself in the third person is not a requirement.)

—

Reesa

It only stands to reason that since Michelle and I write the same stories, and work at the same time, we’d have similar writing jinxes. I don’t -need- a grande skim caramel macchiato to write, but I’m not saying I’d ever turn one down. As outlined above, I clearly have to jockey for space on the table, but I’ve been known to bring my own little touchstones with me, namely a squishy pineapple stress toy that feels nice and bumpy in my hand when I need a moment of clarity.
Read the rest of this entry »

Do you agree? This was the first draft the designer gave me. “Let me know what you don’t like,” she’d said in the email. There wasn’t one thing I didn’t like. The cover captures the tone of the story perfectly. I’m sharing it today to let you know that tomorrow, I’ll be working on uploading the book to Amazon, Nook, All Romance and Smashwords. It will likely take a day or two for the story to be live, but what better things do you have to do than hit the refresh key? 😆

One night of pleasure…

His name is Viper—a dark mysterious enigma who rules the seedy, dangerous vampiric underworld. For one night, he will escape his murky prison and tempt an innocent.

…can last a lifetime…

Beautiful Mariah haunts him. Lures him from his den with a glimpse of his past. One she doesn’t remember. This night, he’ll be her dream lover. He’ll seduce her, make her fall in love with him—then leave her. Again.

One night of pleasure is all they must know.

Read an excerpt

Just a few announcements…

Today is THE LAST DAY to enter the Mermaid Journal contest. See last Tuesday’s posting for a picture of the pretty prize!

I’m also blogging at Everything Erotic today. I posted a very long, juicy scene. You won’t want to miss it!

Tonight, I’ll be in live chats at Writerspace. Join me, along with other authors from Ellora’s Cave at 8 PM EST. Then stick around to talk with authors from After Midnight Fantasies at 9 PM EST. Here’s the URL for the chat room: Writerspace Chat Room

Remember! Post a comment and be entered in the Mermaid Journal contest! ~DD

Short but Sexy

The short story is under-rated. When it’s good, it’s really good. A short story can pull you into its world within the first few lines, thrust you through intense drama and then surprise you at the end.

Examples of some hit short stories include Stephen King’s, The Stand, and 1408, both of which were made into hugely successful movies, and Edgar Allen Poe’s, The Pit and the Pendulum.

These days everything seems to want to be long. It’s as if some writers are in competition with each other, trying to see who can write the longest manuscript. But bigger doesn’t always mean better.

As author Mark Twain once famously wrote to his friend, ‘I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn’t have the time.’

In many ways, writing a short story is harder than writing a novel. There isn’t the opportunity to hope the reader falls in love with the characters within a few chapters. Instead, the character must be big enough to be believed in and adored within a few paragraphs. The story needs to have a plot and the characters need to have a past, but this information needs to be filtered in and not simply dumped in one big heap.

Writing erotic short stories is sometimes even harder than writing non-erotic stories. Of course, the sex is important. It has to be smoking hot and it needs to happen within a few pages. However, this doesn’t mean that the story itself should be lost, or that the characters have any less depth or background.

Generally my short stories start with a situation: a woman gets into difficulties while out for a swim in a rough ocean, a man returns to his parents home to find the girl next door is no longer a little girl, a business man is accosted by a hot air hostess while on a long haul flight. Once I’ve got the situation sorted out, then the characters start to build in my mind. I ask myself who they are, what are their likes and dislikes—their favourite foods and music—how do they like to dress? Then I start to look into their past. What has happened in their past to get them into their present situation?

I like to end my stories with a happy-ever-after or a happy-for-now ending, but my favourite type of ending is a twist, something even I didn’t see coming.

The great thing about a short story is that it has such immediate gratification, both for the writer and the reader. There isn’t the six months writing the first draft, followed by another six months of revisions, then another six months of submitting before you even hear something. Writing short stories are fun, and getting the acceptances are even better.

So get writing everyone. Craft your short stories with the love you give your novels, but remember if less has ever been more, it is certainly true in a short!

Author Bio:

M.K. Elliott is the author of the bestselling short story collection, Rescued. A British author, she was born in Devon, England, where she now lives with her husband, two young daughters, a crazy Spanish rescue dog and four hens. Though she has a degree in Zoology, her true love has always been writing and she now works as a full time author. M.K. writes everything from contemporary romance to steaming hot erotica, and her love of travel and adventure is her main influence in her stories.

Rescued is available to buy from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. If you would like to know more about M.K. then please visit her Facebook Page. Her short stories also appear in the Kindle blog and eBooks, Everything Erotic.

Desiree Holt is one of my favorite people. I met her when I lived in South Texas. Her appearance is deceptive. She looks sweet, like everyone’s favorite milk-and-cookies mama—until you get closer and note the maniacal gleam in her eyes.

I met her before she ever published and I had not idea she’d be such a powerhouse! I’m prolific, but she’s a human dynamo—and she just published her 100th book! Give her a warm welcome! ~DD

What do The Kingston Trio, Tex and I have in common?

The Kingston Trio recorded a centuries-old Irish air called The Gypsy Rover, about a whistling gypsy whose music is so seductive that the daughter of the castle’s lord runs from her home, her lover and her upcoming wedding to follow the gypsy rover. Her father “saddles his fastest steed and searches the valleys all over” in order to find her.

Texas is where I live-and breathe—so whenever possible I set my stories here. It seems the perfect backdrop for a story of a runaway bride, a wealthy and powerful rancher and a cowboy minstrel who isn’t quite what he seems. I love the song so much that I just had to write the story—and of course listen to the song while I was writing.

Buy it here: https://www.jasminejade.com/p-9285-hard-lovin.aspx

Leave a comment and you might win a free ebook.

Erin Braddock, daughter of wealthy and powerful rancher Rance Braddock, has been to hell and back. So has wandering cowboy minstrel Grady Sinclair. But the moment they meet chemistry ignites between them, erasing everything else. The sex is scorching, explosive, addictive. They can’t get enough each other. The same talented fingers that coax seductive music from his guitar coax powerful orgasms from her body. Seduced by his music as well as the sinfully sexy man himself, Erin runs away with him. Nights she sits in the bar listening to his come-to-me voice promising her the erotic delights he delivers on when they’re back in their room. But will the past follow them or can they build a future together, in and out of bed?

Gypsy rover come over the hill, down through the valley so shady
He whistled and he sang til the greenwoods rang and he won the heart of a lady

Erin Braddock slipped into the dark bar through the back door, squinty against the darkness and found her way to a tiny booth in the corner. The area was so small a second person would be hard pressed to find room in the space but that suited her just fine. She hadn’t come here looking for company. Unless it was the cowboy up on the postage stamp sized stage, alone in the spotlight with his guitar and his smoky voice. Ebony black hair curled down to the nape of his neck and a work shirt and worn jeans clung to his lean body like a second skin. The muscles in his arm flexed as he picked at the strings of the guitar, coaxing a tune from it.
Read the rest of this entry »