With a new HOT release STEEL EMBRACE coming out from Carnal Passions (a companion house to Champagne Books) this coming August, we'd like to take a look back at our literary journey over the next couple of weeks with this publisher, last week we took a glimpse at KILLER DOLLS. This week it's SNAKE DANCE.
The Story: SNAKE DANCE
On the planet Starling wRen defies her heritage so she can be with VeIper, an outcast bent on freeing his species from ethnic cleansing. Mong, a slayer, quells their ambition as he plots the subjugation of wRen and the death of VeIper.
EXCERPT ONE
Fear
Her huge pendulous breasts rose and fell, nipples alternating elevation with the cadence, and matching the rhythm of running, running filled with urgency and panic. If running could scream, this gait would yell, help! Wavy blonde hair beset with leaf and twig sailed. Her lovely face, once admired and coveted by male thirst was now marked by soot, that filth the result of her trudge through the marshland. Beneath that soil was true alarm, dread that foredoomed from what she must have been running. Deep-green eyes revealed their screech of terror to be real.
Evil encroached.
While ducking through the snarl of brush, a low-hanging branch lashed her massive breasts and proud nipples, tore flesh, and brought the flow of crimson, but that did not dissuade her fleeing nor bring any shriek of pain. Evidence of fatigue made her body deadweight. Sweat glistened upon the flowerage of her beauty. Other evidence of blood and rosy welts marked her tight thin waist, the dip of her spine and long strong legs that drew eyes quickly, today those legs under threat jumped and dashed.
Evil encroached. ****
If you'd like to read the first three chapters, please email us at writingteamcw@yahoo.com with KILLER DOLLS CHAPTERS in the subject line.
We'd love to hear from anyone interested in what we do. Anyone who writes us at angeliahartandzi@yahoo.com and leaves an s-mail address, we will send you a gift and add you to any future mailings.
Angelica Hart and Zi KILLER DOLLS ~ SNAKE DANCE ~ CHASING YESTERDAY www.champagnebooks.com
No, I’m not tooting my own trumpet on this occasion, I’m going to blog today about how I have enjoyed writing paranormal characters. It is the time of year for it afterall!
Firstly, thanks to Dawn, for hosting me today and secondly I’ll introduce myself a little. I’m Victoria Blisse, I live near Manchester in the UK and I’ve been writing erotic romance for the past ten years. I love to cook and especially enjoy baking, I sing in my church choir and I have a thing for owls. My house is starting to look like a cute, cuddly owl sanctuary!
Now recently I’ve found a soft spot for characters that are traditionally portrayed as the bad guys. I started with a werewolf. I must say, for a writer who is mostly accustomed to writing sweet but hot romances it came to me as quite a surprise when my new character was a werewolf. I tried really hard to ignore him. I didn’t know where to start writing a paranormal story but Lowell, bless him, was persistent. So Moon Shy was born.
It took a lot of planning but Moon Shy did come together and I thoroughly enjoyed writing about my reluctant werewolf and his struggles with himself, his love affair with Jenny and the rivalry with Desdemona, the evil werewolf. When I finished with Lowell, I knew that he wouldn’t be my last paranormal character.
Next, I picked a vampire. My inspiration came from the beautiful but stark Yorkshire moors as I traveled across them by bus to Whitby. Bram Stoker was inspired in Whitby to write Dracula and so it seemed serendipitous that the inspiration for my vampire came from the same part of the world.
The wonderful fun of being an author is that you can twist things any way you like. When you’re writing a contemporary story you’re tied down by many constraints which just aren’t there when you start involving fantastical characters. Although when you pick a classic monster, like a vampire you have certain rules that come with them and you have to choose which to keep and which to break. You could break all the rules but then how will people know your vampire is a vampire?
For me, I had to find a convincing way for my vampires to get the blood that they need to survive without killing people. I’m a nice girl at heart and don’t want to be cleaning up dead bodies left right and center. So it came to me in a flash of inspiration that my vamp could discover that blood taken when the human having an orgasm is more satisfying than if the human is petrified. So the ten second rule was born. Hugh, my first Vampire from The Point, would take blood from a human who was orgasming for ten seconds then pull away. He would get the sustenance he needed and the human would stay alive. Brilliant.
The Point was born as a place for this to happen. It’s a trendy bar and nightclub with a VIP area and assorted bedrooms behind the scenes for vamps and humans to interact. All of my Point Vamp books have a connection to The Point which I thank my husband for as he came up with the name. It came to him in a dream, funnily enough.
So I enjoyed writing my vampire so much I decided to do another one and Stopping Point, the second book in the Point Vamp series is out now. Whereas Hugh was an older, more experienced vamp, Josh doesn’t even realise he is a vampire at first. He has to learn everything from scratch from his sire, Cara who is somewhat flaky shall we say and flits in and out of his life with little notice.
And I’ve written a couple of short stories involving my favorite creatures of the night too. You can find To Comfort a Vampire at Total-E-Bound and that is a free story for you to download. Also my story First Time Fang Bang which is in the Just One Bite contest at All Romance Ebooks currently is a hot threesome story featuring two exotic vampires and one not so innocent human. If you pop over there you can read it in pair three and I am appreciative of any and all votes, thank you!
And now? Well now I’m looking at writing Point Vamp Book three which I already have a tentative idea of. Talking of which I better get on with it. An author’s word count is never high enough, I can tell you. There’s always more to write.
So what do you like to see in a vampire tale? Do you like the traditional evil monster or the vampires with souls which are developing these days? What would you like to see more or less of in vampire stories? I look forward to reading your opinions on the matter.
Josh is a vampire he just doesn't quite know it yet.
He is confused and his voluptuous sire, Cara is far too busy being mysterious to really help him unlock the secrets of his Afterlife. However, he pieces it together by himself and decides to turn his best mates into Vampires too. This doesn't quite go to plan but he does discover The Point and its unique, ten-second rule.
Cara does not approve of Josh visiting The Point but that night she turns up at his door bloodied and much more dead than usual, and accepts Josh's help to escape from her much older and much crazier Sire Leopold. How is Josh going to defeat an older, wiser and more powerful vampire? He hasn't a clue but for Cara he is willing to find out.
I am at Alex Beecroft's blog today and for the first time, my inner book addict is coming out to play. Come on over and check out what she has to say and find out a little more about me. :)
When star pitcher and shapeshifter Jason Falco buys a small apartment building, he sees it not only as an investment but as a place to escape the demands of major league baseball.
That is, until he meets his tenants--a sarcastic unemployed vigilante vampire; a wereraven with a morbid sense of humor; a werewolf thief who sells security systems; and two witches with an owl who work as phone sex actresses. Not to mention a beautiful, all too human nurse. But with all the hooting, howling, and hollering going on, how's an all-American shapershifter supposed to sweep a girl off her feet?
Sneak Peek Excerpt:
Strolling away from her car with competing thoughts swirling through her brain, she fumbled in the dark for her back-door key. Suddenly, her feet went out from under her and she found herself hurled to the ground and pinned by some foul-smelling brute. A moment later she realized she had hit hard pavement with her head.
Unable to find her voice right away, or even process what had happened, she lay there, dumbstruck. The moon reflected a glint of metal nearing her face.
“Shhh… Don’t scream and I won’t hurt you—much.” Maniacal laughter followed. A hand fumbled with the buttons on her coat.
Oh my God. What is it they tell you to do in case of rape? Oh, yeah,scream!
Merry inhaled deeply and let out a blood curdling scream. She didn’t even recognize the voice as hers. Suddenly her throat tightened and she recognized another threat—her asthma.
She remembered being told to fight but not struggle. They liked it when a woman struggled. Gouge out his eyes! Punch his nose up into his brains. Fight like your life depends on it.
As she tried and failed to get near the bastard’s face, her assailant grabbed her wrists in one hand and pressed the sharp knife to her neck with the other.
He hissed, “Shut up! I told you to shut up!”
She pushed his arm away from her and freed one hand. Grabbing anything else she could get a hold of, she tried to yank him off of her.
His jeans must have hung low on his hips, because she grabbed onto the waistband of his underwear. Riiiiiip.
The perp yelped. His eyes flashed in horror and she realized she had just given him a world-class wedgie.
Dear God, I’m going to die. I’m going to be raped and killed in a back alley on my first night as an independent adult. I’m never going to fall in love, get married, hug my children, or live in a McMansion.
The knife pressed into her flesh, and the warm trickle down her neck meant he had pierced the skin. Should she scream again? Would he just kill her and leave her rather than rape her? Or would he, ewww, kill her first, then rape her? Oh, my freakin’ God!
As she contemplated what would be the lesser of all possible evils, the man flew off of her and landed a few feet away. At first, she didn’t see anyone else.
When she blinked, two shadowy figures stood over the gasping pervert. One of them clamped his boot on the would-be rapist’s neck and pointed a gun at his face. The other one hurried over to Merry and helped her up.
“Thank you. Both of you. You saved my life!” The man holding her elbow seemed preoccupied with her neck. Awareness rolled over her. She recognized the dark-haired man who had been leaning against the wrought iron fence, watching her move in. Again, he wore all black, but the concern on his face completely changed his ominous air. His dark chocolate eyes were warm and almond shaped, much like her own.
“He missed your carotid artery. You’ll be okay.”
Merry touched her neck. Thankfully, his diagnosis seemed true. Blood simply trickled from the wound, it didn’t gush.
“I saw you yesterday,” she said. “Do you live in this building?”
“Nearby,” he said, then he turned his attention to the other man, a tall blond with broad shoulders—also dressed in black. “Konrad, here, is one of your neighbors. Hey,” he called to the tall blond with the massive shoulders, “leave him to me and take her inside.”
“Good idea, Sly,” the striking Viking said. His white teeth glistened as a grin spread across his face. His canines seemed larger and more pronounced than in most men. Light facial hair and a short goatee softened his jawline. He had heavy brows of the same color. His ears were slightly pointed and poked though his almost waist-length hair.
The dark-haired man called Sly moved with lightning speed, holding down the assailant.
The guy protested, vehemently. “No, please! I’ll do anything you ask. Just let me go.”
The blond Konrad changed places with Sly and escorted Merry to the back door. She glided along beside him, numb, as if in a dream.
As soon as she had ascended the concrete steps, before she stepped through the door that Konrad held open for her, she turned and caught only a glimpse of the scene she had left behind. Sly knelt beside the stranger and leaned over by his head. Konrad placed his hand on her lower back and hurried her in, closing the door on a male scream that emanated from the dark alley.
All Romance E-store and Smart Bitches have teamed up to have a Sizzling Summer Giveaway this Summer. The details are as follows:
From ARe Newsletter:
Summer and romance reads go hand in hand, and ARe has joined with Sarah from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books to bring you the hottest reads for this season with Smart Bitch Sarah's Sizzling Summer Book Club.
Here's how it works...
Sarah will announce her book club picks about every two weeks throughout the summer on SBTB and (here's the best part) All Romance ebooks is offering a 50% rebate on every one of Sarah's book club picks. When you purchase the club pick book on ARe or OmniLit, the rebate will be applied to your account in eBook Bucks at checkout.
After about 2 weeks, Sarah will host live chat sessions to discuss the book. The chat times will be rotated so those in different time zones can participate. Sarah is taking suggestions for July so leave a comment on her blog or email her at sarahATsmartbitchestrashybooksDOTcom.
Get out the iced tea, because at Smart Bitches and ARe, it's gonna be one hot summer!
This story illustrates how strong and supportive our community has become. Time and again we're blown away by how generous our readers and authors are when it comes to supporting charitable efforts. The idea for this endeavor was sparked by TeddyPig of The Naughty Bits Blog fame. When he read about the case of Greene V. County of Sonoma et al., it bothered him. It really bothered him. Teddy went to the website of the organization representing Clay Greene in the case, the NCLR, and he made a donation. But he didn't stop there. He spent the next several days drumming up support for the cause, and one of his first steps was to reach out to us.
The story of Clay and Harold made Teddy remember a book he'd purchased from us, Henry and Jim by J.M. Snyder. Teddy suggested that perhaps we might be willing to donate a portion of our proceeds from the sale of Henry and Jim we received a pledge of 25% of the proceeds on all JMS Book titles, and we agreed to match it. to the NCLR for the month of May. We contacted J.M Snyder and heard back within hours. Not only was J.M. willing to donate 25% of the proceeds from the sale of that title,
