Recurring themes

My books seem to have several recurring themes: China, vacations, water, and gardens.

“Changing Cherry”, “Chinese Love Triad”, and “Terracotta Warriors” (releasing 30 March) are all set in China. I have spent some time in China on business and love their centuries of tradition, the polite, helpful people, their beautiful country. Also, I write a lot of two men/one woman ménages, and in a country with many millions more young men than women, because of their one-child policy, such ménages make excellent sense.

Everyone loves a vacation and vacations leave time for people to discover more about each other, spend long hours having fun together (in and out of bed) and are a great way to move the story forward. “Summer Sizzle”, “Vivienne’s Vacation”, “Huldah’s Two Hikers”, “Three for the Road”, and “Double Satisfaction” are all set during vacations. “Combustion”, and “Flash Flood”, include mini-vacations.

As for water and gardens, my characters love the beach, lakes, the countryside. The “Sex Odyssey” series is set in Resort City, a beachside town. “Dance for Three” has a hot beach scene, “Summer Sizzle” is set at the beach, and the heroine in “Flash Flood” gets caught in a tidal wave. “Tempting Tenealle” involves a courtyard garden, the gardens in “Double Satisfaction” are purely awesome, and “Huldah’s Two Hikers” is set on a hike through a national park.

My newest release, is “Strung Tight” the final book in the “Sex Odyssey” series. Jeff lives in the trailer Park at Resort City and Pete arrives there as a tour guide with a group of very demanding clients.

After a scorching night of sex and sin, two men need to make a decision in their lives.

Jeff works nights playing guitar at a strip club. Pete works days as a tour guide. Neither man is happy and both search for fulfillment. Can they find it in each other’s arms?

While the sex is great, and the orgasms body shaking, how can their relationship survive if they’re separated by time? Surrendering to wild emotions is easy. Real life is messy but the fight for love is worth it.

The two men gazed into each other’s eyes. Lust exploded like a visible force, and Jeff took two hurried paces to close the gap between them. Pete stepped into Jeff’s embrace and wrapped his arms around the taller man’s waist, lifting his face for a kiss.

Jeff gently pressed his lips to Pete’s, then swiped his tongue along the seam of the blond’s mouth. He opened and Jeff slid his tongue inside, enjoying Pete’s taste of coffee and mints and something spicy.

He trailed his tongue behind Pete’s teeth, and along the insides of his cheeks, then tangled it with the blond’s in an erotic dance, before sucking his tongue into his mouth.

They didn’t break the kiss until both of them were breathless. Even then Jeff nibbled on Pete’s lower lip and ran his hands up and down the man’s spine, wanting to get closer, needing to be inside him, right now, but not wanting to seem to be rushing or coercing the blond.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Promo Ho and Cabbage Rose Fairy contests continue! See details here! ~DD

Thanks to Delilah for having me on her blog again! I always love visiting here. And I went all fangirl when I met her at RT. (Hope I didn’t make a fool of myself!)

Yesterday my latest book came out. Restraining the Receptionist is a follow-up to Training the Receptionist. A lot of people tell me this series reminds them of the movie Secretary. (Not to be confused with Secretariat, which would be truly disturbing.) Secretary, which I loved, is about a lawyer who hires a troubled young woman. Their relationship turns intimate in a BDSM kind of way – it’s never spelled out in those terms, but they’re playing with the power dynamics of the boss/secretary relationship, and falling in love in the process.

I can see the resemblance, given the office setting and the BDSM element. But there are many differences. First of all, tone. Dana, my heroine, is sassy and quick with a comeback, whereas Maggie Gyllenhall’s character was on the depressed side. Maggie had only one boss, James Spader. He was more than enough, by the way. The two of them smoked up the screen.

But Dana has two bosses. In Restraining the Receptionist, she already has a strong, loving, trusting relationship with Simon, who trained her in the first book. But Ethan is the senior partner and not accustomed to taking second place. He’s going to pull out all the stops to win a place for himself in Dana’s heart. And when he sets his mind to something, watch out. But he’s taking a chance … what will happen to their blissful triangle when Dana and Ethan get in deeper than they intended?

Despite the major differences between my Receptionist books and Secretary, I’m honored by the association. And I can’t help thinking, what if they made a Receptionist movie? Who could do as good a job as Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader?

So, here are my picks. For the strong but tender, green-eyed Simon: sexy Clive Owen.

For the blond, blue-eyed, force of nature Ethan: the one and only Daniel Craig.

And for lucky Dana, I’m leaning toward Emma Stone. Someone with a lot of spunk, who can handle two dominant men like Simon and Ethan.

Of course, the only way they’d make a Receptionist movie would be as a training manual for how not to behave at work. But hey, I can dream, right?

Restraining the Receptionist is available now from Samhain Publishing. (Click on the cover to purchase!)

And if you leave me a comment – I love comments! –
I’ll put you in the drawing for a $5 Amazon gift certificate.

CONQUERING FEAR

I am a true April Taurus—earthbound, practical, stubborn and temperamental. My life is ruled by fear. In true “bull” fashion, I tend to meet it head-on. It’s what drives me, not a weakness but a motivator.

I’ve always been a tomboy, preferring horses to boys growing up. I belonged to the Wilderness Challenge Club in high school (Wisconsin Academy in Columbus, WI). Whitewater rafting, caving, rappelling, canoeing, if it meant sunburn, mosquitoes and getting dirty—that was where you’d find me. Very glamorous stuff. Now, I’ve always been afraid of heights. Like—freeze atop a 6-ft ladder scared of heights. We won’t even mention airplanes. Sedatives. LOTS of sedatives…

So, the first time I went rappelling was at Devil’s Lake, from atop Devil’s Rock. Guarded by all manner of…rattlesnakes. Saw two, sunning on the rocks. So there I was on a snake-infested rock atop the world. Beautiful view. Wasted on a sixteen-year-old in a cold sweat. See, the secret to rappelling is to WALK down the rock face. Anyone who’s walked across a floor knows the easiest way to do that is to be perpendicular to the floor surface. So if the floor surface is almost entirely vertical, that means the walker gets to be the one who’s…horizontal. And that translates into standing backwards at the edge of a cliff, the true ground several hundred feet below, and LEANING back against a rope-and-nylon-harness-affair into thin air until you’re lying down on NOTHING—and then walk down the wall.

Sure. Uh huh. (Never said I was a BRIGHT kid. Well, okay, I was. Straight A nerd.) And Mr. Snyder was right there like some hairy bearded cheerleader from Buffy saying stupid things like, “It’s easy. You can do this. Nothing stops you. Just leeeeeean back and walk down.”

But it was my best friend stating “Don’t be such a chicken shit” that got me going. Okay, it took me 20 minutes of whimpering like a toy poodle in a thunderstorm before I leaned back enough to start walking. Reaching the bottom to more Buffy reject cheering felt like conquering Mount Everest.

That’s how I tackle life. I let fear motivate me into moving, defeating, conquering. It can either stop you or get you going. Being a Taurus, stubbornness gets me a long way through life. As a writer I try to let the quality bleed off into my characters. Set them up against a bad situation some would consider impossible, but the character just takes a deep breath, says “Who if not me?” and forges on to start, to try. And so the stories go.

Renee
http://reneewildes1.wordpress.com

About Renee:

Fantasy Romance Author Renee Wildes writes the “Guardians of Light” series for Samhain Publishing. She lives in central WI with hubby, 2 kids, a calico cat, a black Chow, and 2 half-Arab mares. She still considers herself a tomboy, although she hasn’t hoofed it down Devil’s Rock in years. Nowadays, writing, reading and scrapbooking occupy her time—when she’s not prying her kids out of a tree or off the roof… Her latest book, Dust of Dreams, comes out in paperback on June 8, 2011. Riever’s Heart will be out in ebook on Sept. 27, 2011.

The Promo Ho and Red Ribbon Fairy contests continue! See details here! ~DD

Writing…it really is just YOU

Writing is hard work. It’s grueling, mentally exhausting, sometimes stressful, anxiety ridden and SOLITARY! Well, unless you’re a NYT bestselling author with an agent, publicist, editor and an assistant or two LOL.

Even then, it’s still just you sitting at that keyboard creating and weaving stories. It’s all on you to come up with the next idea and execute it the way you see it in your mind and within a given timeframe. No-one else can do that part for you. It’s all on you to draw your inspiration from somewhere and wield enough discipline to keep going all in the face of increasing competition and possible rejection. Oh, and of course, none of us just write with nothing else to occupy our time.

There’s family, other jobs, LIFE, which sometimes just gets in the way! In addition to being THE ‘creative director’, an author also has to worry about sales and marketing, branding and advertising, business planning and strategy, epiracy, going to conferences to continue to improve on the craft of writing and to network, and…probably a hundred other things. At least! I have to say for me…I love that part about being an author.

Yep, I like to be in charge. I’ve been the boss before and I really, really like it J. It’s gratifying to know that it is just you. You’re the one in control of your own writing destiny, you’re the one steering your career, you’re the one who gets to make all the decisions. It’s kind of like being the CEO of your own little (perhaps VERY small J) empire and it requires you to learn and utilize a wide range of different skills. I just LOVE being an author!

Do you love YOUR job or do you yearn for something else, secretly or otherwise?
Do you have a dream job you’d prefer?

About Kaily:

Kaily Hart, a seemingly straight-laced mother of four left corporate America and a high-powered, lucrative career to be a stay at home mom. Ha! That lasted about four weeks, during which time she realized she had a deeply repressed dream —to write. And romance at that! By day, Kaily plays conservative wife and soccer mom, but at night crafts hot and steamy tales of romance and love with gorgeous heroes who wouldn’t dream of leaving the toilet set up. Ever. She’s smart and sassy, at least in her own mind, and is trying her best to bring the alpha male solidly back to contemporary romance, one hot story at a time. Two years ago she never would have thought she’d be doing this, but now that she is? Well, you couldn’t pay her enough to do anything else.

Kaily’s books, PICTURE THIS, PAY UP & PLAY ME are all currently available from Ellora’s Cave and other ebook outlets.

If anyone would want to contact me (which I would love by the way) or just keep up with what I’m doing, you can find me all over:

Web – www.kailyhart.com
Blog – http://kailyhart.blogspot.com/
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/kaily.hart
Twitter – http://twitter.com/kailyhart

The Promo Ho and Red Ribbon Fairy contests continue! See details here! ~DD

TIMELINES IN SERIES BOOKS
—more important than you’d think!

Well, summer’s here, at least it is in the steamy part of Florida that I call home. My orchids moved months ago to shady spots outdoors, the DH’s tomato plants are just about burned up from the sun…and I’m fantasizing about cooling myself off at the beach or in the pool. BEST RECEPTION, my latest contemporary BDSM, came out last week—I hope it went to Memorial Day picnics or into vacation to-be-reads with lots of eager buyers!

My good friend Delilah asked me to talk about the writing process, so I’ll try to put into words my convoluted method for writing series since I’m now working on PRIME DEFENDER, the last of four books in my Necessary Roughness series for Ellora’s Cave. First, about this time last year, came the idea for a spinoff from my Gridiron Lovers series—one that would deal less with football and more with the BDSM club where the guys go to play. That took very little effort because I loved Jimmy Bronson, a secondary character in COACH ME. I wanted to give him his own story—a big, lovable guy with a very unusual fetish that readers heard a hint about from Coach and his lady love.

So…I had my hero for one of the books. A person would probably think I would then sketch out the other main characters for the books. I didn’t, though. Since Jimmy had this unusual fetish—and since I had decided up front that each of the books in the new series would explore an unusual BDSM practice, I picked three I found interesting. Then I sat back and did some research, trying to figure out what might cause different people to be dominant or submissive, why some would get turned on by things that would scare others away…and more.

Once I felt I had the psychology of my chosen kinks sorted out in my head, I sketched out a series proposal for my editor—descriptions of each hero and heroine, a brief idea of how the story lines would go in each book and a separate synopsis for each book. What I also should have done was establish a formal (written) timeline for the series. If I had, I would have avoided many revisions made necessary when my eagle-eyed editor noted inconsistencies among the books. But I didn’t, and I digress…

Next, I started writing the books—one at the time, because I rarely bounce back and forth from one work in progress to another. SACKMASTER, the first, came out last fall; END RUN in February; and BEST RECEPTION last month. I’d hoped to have them released closer together, but two things came in the way: the publisher’s decision to release a seven-book series of mine alternately with the Necessary Roughness books, and my aforementioned stupidity at having written myself into a corner by writing the Necessary Roughness series books as solo titles, not parts of an integrated, planned whole.

The series will come to a close with PRIME DEFENDER, which I set after the other three stories in order to avoid any lingering, head-scratching problems like the ones I encountered earlier. It’s been a learning process. I’ve brought away the knowledge, if I ever again propose a series with multiple books sharing a tight time setting, that I need to outline the action in the first book and verify the consistency of action in subsequent ones, in order to save myself a great many unnecessary headaches.

Hopefully, this book will go well, and I’ll be able to take a breather at the beach before the weather gets too hot to venture out from air conditioning. Thanks for inviting me to your home on the web!

Ann Jacobs
www.annjacobs.us

Hello everyone! First let me say thank you to Delilah for letting me guest blog here today. Usually when I guest blog I have a clear idea of what I’m going to say or do but today I don’t. Instead I’m going to send you all on a treasure hunt. Below you’ll find a list of websites and things that I’m looking for. Find them all and I’ll enter you in a chance to win all four of my books.

Ok, let’s begin.
1. What is the title of my cowboy series?
2. Who is the next book in my cowboy series about?
3. What are the titles of my paranormal romances?
4. Name the blogs I participate in.
5. My latest release is….
6. Auburn Football or Alabama Football? I’ll give you a hint! ROLL TIDE BABY!

All right everyone. Here are a few websites to help you with your search:
http://www.wildrosepress.us/wilderroses/
http://www.sirenbookstrand.com/
http://saydegrace.com

Ok, remember to comment and that if you get them all right you’ll be entered to win free digital copies of all four of my books. Have fun y’all and thanks again to Delilah for letting me take over today!!

Sayde

The Promo Ho and Red Ribbon Fairy contests continue! See details here! ~DD

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 http://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.