Remember reader “MC” from Tuesday’s post? She sent me this. Completely made my day.
Oh…my…god, what can we say
Boy-oh-boy, you sure made our day!!
We read your blog, and now do believe
You are who you are, but there is still no reprieve
Say what you must, but we know you’re the best
Your writing is divine, you surpass the rest
Delilah dear Delilah, your fans we all wait
With bated breath and a hunger, only you can sate
Look at your plan and do what you must
But please write the books, that are filled with such lust
Long or short, we will accept what you do
Because if we don’t get a book, it would make us all blue
Your devoted fans that is us, and this is our prayer
To read your next book, which you do with such flair
Is that not the cutest thing? I’ll keep her on speed-dial for the next time I need help with a spell!
In the meantime, it’s nuts out there isn’t it? Earthquakes, tornadoes, raging rivers, controlled floods… Watched a movie last night, The Final Storm, a sort of End of Days tale about a troubled farm family, so isolated they couldn’t figure out what was happening around them until the stars began to wink out, one by one, and the next Big Bang exploded. Exciting times. I hope none of you reading this have had to leave your homes to move out of the way of the water.
Two notes:
* I’m also blogging at Wild & Wicked Cowboys. Click in the link and come see the yummy photo I posted!
* The Mermaid Journal contest continues. Any comment you make today here and on W&WC, will count in the drawing!
The Mermaid Journal contest continues! Post a comment today for another chance to win! ~DD
Thanks so much for having me, Delilah!
My May release Past Midnight is the first book in my sexy new DeKnight Trilogy from Berkley Heat. It’s the emotional tale of a couple who had the perfect life until they lost their son, and their struggle to find each other again. Here’s a brief blurb.
A devastating blow rocked Erin and Dominic DeKnight’s marriage, and now only extreme sexual games can soothe their emotional pain. But their most daring erotic adventure is just ahead, and it could ultimately destroy everything they hoped to save.
When I tell people that I do research for my erotic romances, they always think I mean sex research! No! I have a very vivid imagination for that. Though I write contemporary erotic romance, my characters can’t be having sex all the time. There’s got to be a story, too! My editor loves what she calls my “business” books. I’m an accountant by training, and I spent 20 years working in Silicon Valley, so I love incorporating that business world into my stories (see, there is more than sex!). The Fortune Hunter trilogy was set in a mining equipment company. And the background for the DeKnight trilogy is a small company which manufactures ultrasonic testing gauges. You see, Erin and Dominic own this firm together. In order to give my readers a real feel, I interviewed my neighbor, Teresa. She and her husband own a company very similar to DeKnight Gauges, Inc. It’s just amazing what ideas come when you simply listen to people talk about what they do. I have to thank Teresa for giving the story direction from the business point of view, helping me add a little corporate intrigue (stolen patents). The other two books in the trilogy will center on two of their employees, one their accountant (or course), and the other a single mother reentering the work world after a divorce.
Research doesn’t stop with the business side of things. I sent Erin and Dominic on a train ride, and in order to get those details correct, I took a trip on Amtrak’s Zephyr from San Francisco to Reno. My family went with me, and we had a great time. I was able to get all the details I needed, including a tour of the sleeping car given to me by a helpful porter.
This past weekend, I went to Las Vegas, again with my family, to research a trip my lovers take in the third book of the DeKnight trilogy, Anything Goes After Hours. My mother said I made her walk 9 miles so I could take photos of the Grand Canal in the Venetian, the indoor Paris cityscape, the Bellagio’s conservatory, and much much more. She drew the line at going on the roller coaster in New York New York, though. We did see “Menopause, The Musical” at the Luxor. Mom adored it!
So just because I write erotic romance, don’t think I skimp on the research! The truth is research actually helps shape the story, taking me in directions I wouldn’t have thought of without it.
Past Midnight is available online and in local your bookstore and also in e-format, Kindle and Nook. Book 2, What Happens After Dark will be out in Nov 2011 and Book 3, Anything Goes After Hours will be coming in April 2012. Don’t miss an excerpt.
I also invite readers to visit my website, www.jasminehaynes.com, and my blog, www.jasminehaynes.blogspot.com. I’m currently doing a free read on the blog, a chapter a week of Kinky Neighbors, a naughty little foursome tale.
I got two fan letters yesterday that made me smile, but also made me reconsider my plans, because they are pretty representative of the kind of fan mail I’ve been getting lately about my Dark Realm series.
Hi There !!
First off I love your style of writting- ABSOLUTELY amazing! I have finshed the fourth book “Darkness Captured”. I have a quick question, pls tell me there will be a book on Marduk! He is Breathtaking.
Thank You and HAPPY WRITTING !!!
JG
I wrote her back to say that since Avon won’t be publishing the series any more, would she be willing to buy a sequel as an eBook? Then this came a few minutes later.
Hi Ms. Devlin,
I have read your first 3 books of the Dark Realm Series…and am currently reading the 4th, Darkness Captured (I’m on chapter 4). My friend JG just emailed you asking if there will be more books….and you replied below…..I just want to tell you I would definitely purchase your books as ebooks….heck, if you write it down on napkins or toilet paper I would buy that!!!!!! Your books are FANTASTIC….I love your style of writing….please, please continue this series!!!!!!
Sincerely,
MC
MC didn’t believe that she was really talking to me, so I told her I’d post her letter here to prove it. Hi there, MC!
Argh! I’m looking at my plan for the year, and it looks like I could tackle it this fall. It won’t be as long as the other four DR books, but it will be longer than my usual 25k eBook, because DR fans really loved the deeper world building and I can’t do that in short format. I’ll probably cuss every bit of the way because I find it hard to self-motivate to write a story that long. I’ve needed the fear of an editor’s deadline to keep my ass in the chair. So thanks, JG and MC, for the awesome emails! Grrr…
In the meantime… I have to choose a winner for the Voodoo Doll contest (the pic’s on last Tuesday’s blog). Who gets that ugly little mug? Laura Bowles is this week’s lucky winner! Laura, send me an email with your snail mail addy and I’ll get your doll into the mail.
This week’s prize is another of the pretty journals I purchased from one of my favorite curio shops. This one has a picture of a very pretty mermaid on the cover. Be sure to post a comment to enter the drawing. And you can post here or on Facebook over the coming week to increase your chances of winning!
Today’s your last chance to enter the Voodoo Doll contest (see last Tuesday’s post for a picture of the prize)! Post a comment here today for another chance to win. Then if you want still one more chance, head to After Midnight Fantasies where I’m blogging today as well! ~DD
I’ve been working hard on the next Lone Star Lovers book, and because I can’t seem to get my head out of the story (that’s a good thing!), I’m keeping this short today, and simply posing another of my questions….
If, with your safety guaranteed, you could experience something considered
very dangerous, what would you want to experience most of all?
* A new release! Click on the cover for Begging For It—if you haven’t already purchased your copy. (Thanks to whomever starred it on the EC website! I still need a review or two to tell other readers what to expect!)
* 50 pages on a new Lone Star Lovers story, for which I still seek a sexy title. Any suggestions? Pie features in this one. Apple pie in particular, but so do four lusty cowboys!
* I began working on the opening scene of a new vampire novella. It’s very rough, not very interesting. I have to find the spark and soon so I can zoom through the story when I wrap up the cowboy thingie this week!
And I saw THOR! Loved it! I suppose it could have been better, but I enjoyed it. It was a fantasy thrillride with plenty of humor, danger and angst. I really loved the lead actor (lovely, lovely body!) and Natalie Portman was suprisingly funny. I hope they plan sequels. Guess we’ll have to see if the movie does well enough over time to warrant it. In the meantime, they’ve given me my Norse fix and a face for my blond Viking in Enslaved by a Viking, HAKON! I’ll need that face in my mind when I write his story.
And remember, there’s still time to enter the Voodoo Doll contest. Drop a comment! A picture of the prize is in Tuesday’s posting!
I was in a girly mood the other night and downloaded several new songs to my iPod…
Familiar Taste of Poison by Halestorm I Get Off by Halestorm I Kissed a Girl by Katie Perry S&M by Rhianna Rolling in the Deep by Adele Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri
And because I couldn’t download all the girlstuff without adding a little testo to the mix: Diamond Eye (Boom-Lay-Boom) by Shinedown
The one getting the most rotation on iPod is Jar of Hearts, so I was curious about the video. I love it–up until the point the dancers come in. I love the incubus-like element to the story. I’m also suffering tattoo-envy.
So what are you listening to lately?
Remember, the Voodoo Doll contest continues. Post a comment for a chance to win!
The Voodoo Doll contest continues! Post a comment today for another chance to win!
I’M NOT MY CHARACTERS BUT MY CHARACTERS MAY BE PEOPLE
by Cat Johnson
There’s been some noise in the romance community lately which only reinforces my opinion that non-writers truly do believe erotic romance authors are—or at least do all the things their book characters do. Of course that’s ridiculous. First of all, unlike my heroine in UNRIDDEN where in New York State just an hour from Manhattan am I finding bull riders to have threesomes with when I rarely leave my PJs or my laptop long enough to go out and buy food for my family? Second, if I wrote murder mysteries would they assume I was killing people for research? Of course not, but apparently researching sex scenes is a different story in people’s minds.
So no, I am not my characters, however my characters are often people. Not verbatim but at least in part based on or inspired by real people. Case in point Jared, the hero of my latest release of the same name, the fourth book in the Red, Hot & Blue series with Samhain Publishing.
Jared was written into JACK (Book 2) and JIMMY (Book 3) in the Red, Hot & Blue series as a side character, the younger brother of SpecOps Jack and Jimmy Gordon who chose his first love, horses, and stayed home to run the family breeding farm while his brothers were off saving the world in the military.
Writing the character of Jared was a pleasure. I mean, who doesn’t love a man who loves horses? And the image of him working his farm, shirtless and glistening in sweat, wearing not much more than cowboy boots and jeans, is pretty nice too.
So who inspired Jared, you may ask, since I already confessed I don’t get out all that much. It was the son of the farmer who delivers my hay. See! I didn’t even have to leave home to find him. Gotta love when characters fall in your lap like that. Seeing that hay truck pull up with 200 plus bales stacked high and tight, and the farmer’s son jumping up on top of all that hay to fling the bales (weighing at least 30 lbs each) two at a time through the hay door high up in the wall of my barn, was some nice inspiration.
If I didn’t have to stack those bales once they hit the floor inside I would have just stood and ogled him. I guess I did pay too much attention to the vision since I nearly got pummeled by a few bales flying in from above when I wasn’t paying attention. It was a bit like that game Frogger but I didn’t write that part into my story. In the book the heroine isn’t sweaty, hacking and covered in dust like I was. Oh no, my heroine gets to enjoy the scene from afar. See how we authors create a fantasy from the facts? You’re welcome! LOL.
Anyway, I know what some people are thinking about me and the farmer’s son all alone and sweaty on my 5 acre farm—but no I was not alone here with the farmer’s son. His dad was here too, helping stack those bales and huffing and puffing pretty heavily, enough to make me wonder if I still remembered my CPR training. You see the son was here because his dad had recently had a heart attack. But when you make a living being a farmer, you’re back on the horse—or the hay truck—or you don’t pay the bills. So there you have it, life is not nearly as nice and clean or hot and sexy and we write it, and aren’t you grateful for authors taking those liberties.
Check out the newly released JARED (Red, Hot & Blue, Book 4) available in eBook now.
Everything is just right…until she turns his life upside down.
It doesn’t take anything fancy to make Jared Gordon a happy man. A slice of his mama’s pie, a pretty girl, a well-bred horse. Life on the farm is just how he likes it. Simple. Until a big city girl blows into town like a tornado hitting a trailer park.
Quintessentially small-town Pigeon Hollow has everything LA producer Mandy Morris needs for her new reality show. A smoldering deputy sheriff, a quirky diner owner and a horse farm complete with a hunky horseman. If her own instant attraction is any indication, Jared will have the female demographic glued to their sets.
Except the red-hot cowboy is cool to the idea of cameras in his face. And the harder she negotiates, the deeper he digs in…until their head-butting strikes sparks that fans a prairie fire of unexpected passion. She doesn’t usually mix business with pleasure, but as Pigeon Hollow’s charm works its magic, the youngest Gordon brother has Mandy rethinking many things.
Like happiness doesn’t have to end with the word “cut.”
Warning: Contains one hot shirtless cowboy taking a city girl for a roll in the hay…and a few other places.
This book has been previously published and has been revised from its original release.
* A new release! Click on the cover for Begging For It—if you haven’t already purchased your copy. (Thanks to whomever starred it on the EC website! I still need a review or two to tell other readers what to expect!)
And I saw THOR! Loved it! I suppose it could have been better, but I enjoyed it. It was a fantasy thrillride with plenty of humor, danger and angst. I really loved the lead actor (lovely, lovely body!) and Natalie Portman was suprisingly funny. I hope they plan sequels. Guess we’ll have to see if the movie does well enough over time to warrant it. In the meantime, they’ve given me my Norse fix and a face for my blond Viking in Enslaved by a Viking, HAKON! I’ll need that face in my mind when I write his story.
