Friday 30 January 2015

Weekend Reading

Aliens, vampires or sauna owners! Take your pick.



Title of book: Captured (Titan Year 2)
 
Name of author: Tatum Throne

Genre: Sci-fi/Erotic gay romance

Description of main characters:

Alien, Luse Cohen: Eyes: blue. Hair: Black. Height: 6’5”. Weight: 220lbs. Tanned.

Human: Fallon Regan: Eyes: gray. Hair: Midnight Black. Height: 6'. Weight: 200. Muscular.

Setting: Earth, Deep Space, and the planet Turitan

Length: 37,048

Blurb:
As the Titan’s second-in-command, Luse Cohen has to bring males back to his home world to mate with the royal family. He picks three, but one triggers a hot attraction inside of him.
Face-to-face with the alien, Dr Fallon Regan feels an intense fear and fascination.
Luse must make a choice between the man he loves and the world he comes from.



What’s hot?: sex with aliens, anal sex and male pregnancy.






Title: Dante's Mate's Beyond the Angel Pack, book 1

Author: Maggie Walsh

Genre: Erotic romance, Alternative M/M, contemporary, menage a trios, paranormal, shape-shifter, vampire.

Description of characters:

Vampire Prince Dante Calebrese is 6'-4" 220 lbs of perfect muscle. Pale skin, brown eyes, jet-black hair, cut tight around the sides and back, but loner on the top. Looks about 35.

Dragon Lord Dare Davis is 6'4", 230 lbs of muscle. He is a warrior. Has chocolate brown eyes and shoulder length, wavy chestnut hair. With olive skin. He looks about 33.

Wolf shifter Dale Cole is 5'7", 130lbs. He has a slim, but muscled body. He has pale brown eyes and pin straight shoulder length black hair cut choppy around his face.

Setting: The Angel Pack Alpha house and Dante's coven house.

Length: 76,687 words

What's hot: There is a bed three times the size of a king bed and it is up on a platform.





Title of book: Sauna Lover

Name of author: Susan Laine

Genre: Contemporary/MM

Description of main characters:

- Shawn Wells: a small blond twink, slender to the point of skinny, always wears ridiculously tight and flamboyant clothes, blue eyes, 25 yrs old.

- Toby Macintyre: a cute brown-haired guy with lovely chocolate eyes and an engaging smile, the boy-next-door type, button nose, 26 yrs old.

Setting: A fictitious small town of Fair Haven in the Pacific Northwest

Length: 94 pages

Blurb:

When a development threatens the gay neighborhood of Trickstown, Shawn Wells jumps into action. His favorite hangout, bathhouse Hot Haven, is the heart of the community—along with its owner, Toby Macintyre. 

Surprisingly, Toby seems opposed to Shawn’s campaign. Even so, an unexpected attraction sparks between them. Shawn has to fight for the future of his community, his beloved bathhouse, and for Toby.

What’s hot?: Hot sex in a boat sauna




Wednesday 28 January 2015

Writing a New Genre

This is the sixth in my series ‘Writing a new genre’. Thank you, Tamsin Baker for taking part.


Manlove to…. None!… shock horror!

Hello everyone, thank you so much Jen for having me on your blog today.

I’m here to write about a change in my writing, and as a woman who LOVES jumping from genre to genre, I had to choose something significant to talk about. The biggest shift of the past six months for me has been from writing lots of manlove, to not including it at all.

I’ll take you back to the start.

Shortly into my erotic romance career I wrote an m/m contemporary romance and LOVED it. The journey, the romance, the heat. It easily became my best seller, so I wrote five more of them. When a friend of mine dared me to try a ménage, I changed an M/F vampire tale into MMF (First Bite).

Excerpt: “Can’t I have a taste too, Lina? Please? We could share,” Antony begged, his voice bordering on a whine.
Benedict flushed, his body heating in unusual ways at the idea of being shared between these two beautiful vampires. He had never been attracted to another man before, but this one smelled divine. His arousal was evident and Benedict wanted to touch him.
Lina turned her head toward Benedict and narrowed her eyes, inhaling deeply. Her eyebrows rose high as a small smile graced her lovely face.
“You want him to join us?”
Benedict blushed deeply, the heat on his throat and cheeks embarrassing. He couldn’t hide his arousal from her, but he was worried about the unknown. Afraid of the strength this male possessed. What would he be made to do in a sexual situation with the two of them?

This was a natural shift for me, to go from a love between two men, to adding a woman to the mix. I would NEVER have dreamed of writing a MFM - after all, I was a die hard Manlove fan.

If you are new to ménage and don’t understand the letters, MMF means that the men are bisexual and the woman is heterosexual, therefore it is a full threesome in love and sex. Since I love to read and write gay erotic romance, I had to make my men in my ménages fall in love too. I wrote my Third Bite series (a regency vampire ménage series) and decided to try different sorts of ménage (because I like to try new things). I ended up with an MMF, an MMM and an MMMF vampire story.


They sold relatively well, especially the MMM (surprise surprise - manlove I tell you!) and I decided to try my hand at shifter ménage romance. I began Fighting Destiny as an MFM (The men are both heterosexual and the woman is too.)

I wanted to write a MFM romance, as I had been told that they sold better, and me being me, I wanted to push myself past my limitations. Within two chapters of writing my supposed MFM, my two heroes are panting and heaving, naked on top of each other.



Excerpt: “No, Tommy.”
Tommy arched his back and screamed out, but nothing changed. Jeremy grabbed his wrists and held them tighter. Panic began to swim through him.
“It’s not my fault.” He panted as he thrashed his head from side to side. Tommy was frantic in his arousal now. What would Jeremy think when he felt it? He was fully hard now, so there was no way of hiding it.
Jeremy dropped his head and bit into his neck, the move carnal as well as dominant.
Tommy shuddered and worked to slow his breathing down. Jeremy didn’t lift his head, just whispered into Tommy’s ear.
“I know, and I’m sorry. We’ll find her together.”
Tears formed at the back of Tommy’s eyes, and he blinked them away. There was the man he wanted. Fuck! He wanted to keep on hating Jeremy! It made things so much easier.
After another few minutes Jeremy rolled off him and got to his feet.
Tommy’s cock was fully erect, weeping pre-cum, and his balls hurt. How was he going to explain that?
He sat up, lifting his knees to disguise some of it and looked up at the tiger shifter. Jeremy had the longest, thickest cock Tommy had ever seen, and it was also heavily aroused. Wow, really?
He reluctantly looked up into Jeremy’s eyes, he shrugged. “I always get horny when I shift and run. You do, too?”
Tommy nodded and got to his feet. He couldn’t have come up with a better excuse himself.


Oops… ah well… so I wrote Fighting Destiny and Knowing Destiny as MMF… I couldn’t help myself.

I continued writing M/M stories, comfortable with the fact that I simply couldn’t write MFM, despite the fact that I’d been told that ‘it was a classic female fantasy and the best selling of ménage.’

Then I got an email from one of my publishers - Escape Publishing. They were launching a new continuity series and they wanted me to be a part of it. They gave me a character and asked me to do a threesome, preferably with two men, since that was the only type not already ‘taken’ by the other ten authors.

It was an MF romance, so this would be a MFM threesome for one night, not a ménage - so it was different (I really enjoy ménage because of the equal amount of love shared by the people) - but I got SO STUCK!

I had five months to write ten thousand words (something I could do in two weeks, easily, most months) and I put it off to the final ten days. I didn’t want to write a sex scene when the men didn’t touch and the female was the center. I’d failed before in attempting an MFM and I wasn’t comfortable doing it.



I forged forward, rewrote it three times, and finally succeeded with my story ‘Sienna: Secret confessions: The Sydney housewives.’


Excerpt: “Feeling good?” Brad asked as he fucked her harder, making sparkles of pleasure explode inside her belly.
She looked down and saw Brad’s blue eyes widen as she concentrated on the muscles of her pussy and squeezed him tightly. She may be the one being fucked, but she loved knowing that she had power over the men too.
Sienna nodded. “Yeah, it feels awesome.”
She would have enjoyed the moment of triumph longer if Charlie hadn’t spoken and distracted her.
“You ready, babe?” Charlie asked her and she nodded, fear filling her despite the trust she had in her man. This was way out of her comfort zone.
He removed his fingers and pressed his hard cock against her arse. Brad kissed her then, drawing her into a kiss so fierce and passionate she felt only a slight stretch and burn as Charlie pressed his cock into her and continued forward. Filling her until she could feel his belly against her arse.

So, I had broken the mold and during the process had a new inspiration, my perfect pairs shifter series. The idea was to have a pair of un-identical twins that are perfect compliments to each other.

I knew the best way to stop my boys falling in love too, was to make them brothers, it was a trick I’d seen happen a lot with other ménage stories (especially shifter stories.) The men were always related, so there was absolutely no man love going on.


I began writing Prowling the Vet and couldn’t believe how easy it was to keep the boys apart - brothers!


Excerpt: “What are you doing?” she asked him as she spun around to face the blond Viking towering over her.
Brandon gripped her arms and pulled her against him, the strength of his body undeniable as her belly quivered in anticipation of what he would do with her.
“Showing you…”
And with that enigmatic statement he kissed her. His lips were hot and soft, strong, but unhurried.
Push him away! You don’t even know this guy! But her fingers were already moving toward his chest and up into his short hair. She moved her hands around to cup his scalp and moaned as his tongue slipped into her mouth. His sweet, orange taste overwhelmed every sense. Her knees weakened and she sagged against his large, strong body.
He pulled back and Laura’s eyes sprung open. Brandon was staring down at her with shock written across his face.
Tyler stepped up next to them and somehow managed to take her from Brandon. One minute she was in the Viking’s arms, and the next moment she was with a dark angel.
“What’s happening?” she asked, blinking slowly. Tyler had the most angelic face. She traced her fingers along his smooth jaw, dreamlike calm coming over her.
Never, even in her wildest dreams, did she imagine a man like this would want to kiss her.
“My turn.” He swooped in and kissed her with the most incredible passion. He kissed her slowly, exploring her mouth with his tongue and lips. It was completely different from the strength and possession she’d felt behind Brandon’s kiss, but it was just as amazing.

That was the cure J The sex scenes were heaps of fun to write because I could make the woman the center and focus on her, it felt more like two MF scenes happening at once, rather than the much harder to orchestrate MMF scenes.

The love story was different too - you didn’t have to worry so much again on the balance, because the brothers already had an existing relationship and a great understanding of each other. Again, it was like writing two MF romances, whereas with an MMF, you had to make sure all three people loved everyone the same.

I wasn’t sure I could manage it, but I did, and now I’m writing the third Perfect pair book and it’s coming along well.

My biggest test will come when (and if) I attempt a ménage where the men aren’t related, but I am more confident that I can now succeed in writing a MFM ménage.

Thank you all so much for visiting
All the best
Tamsin Baker




Many thanks, Tamsin. Next month it is the turn of Marion Webb-De Sisto on writing horror.

Monday 26 January 2015

Men for Hire - an anthology

Marvellous news – I am about to start a new development in my writing career – that of coordinating an anthology!

I proposed an idea to one of my publishers, Luminosity Publishing, who opened their doors last year and have yet to do an anthology – and they accepted! I have used one of my story ideas ‘Men for Hire’ – the concept being that a woman called Jennifer Archer runs a firm in London that hires men out for whatever reason (not sex since it isn’t about running a brothel!) – but in the course of the work they have passionate sex and may even fall in love! So that leaves it wide open for authors to come up with ideas of what these men might be hired to do….



My job in this project is to read all the submissions (if we get thousands I might have created a ‘rod for my own back’!) and to choose which ones best fit with the concept and the other stories. I am excitedly looking forward to that! (Of course, Luminosity gets the final approval but based on my recommendations). The downside is it will be my job to tell those I am rejecting and give them feedback. But it will be a fabulous opportunity to learn another side to the business of writing novels.

The questions people have been asking me so far have shown me what things people need to know, eg, royalty percentage, numbers of stories per anthology, how long their stories will be contracted to the publisher, if we were splitting the anthology into different types of sexual orientation – down to plot queries like American authors being unfamiliar with UK slang/lingo or UK settings.

In answer to those questions:

  • Royalties: 40% from the Luminosity website. (Split equally between all authors) 50% net from distributors. (Split equally between all authors)

  • 5 stories max to allow the successful authors a decent royalty on book sales

  • 2 years contract

  • Yes to splitting into different anthologies if we get a lot of different types of submission: one MF, one MM and one ménage.

  • No reason their characters cannot be Americans living in or visiting the UK. But I would also suggest using plain speech for English characters if you are not familiar with English slang.

  • Lastly, I was asked if the ‘men for hire’ firm was international! I’ve said I would certainly read any submission where they had the owner of the firm visiting the USA (or other countries) and was asked for her expertise whilst there. Or she opened another branch in another country. Try me! If it’s a good enough story and it works with the other ones they could be successful.

  • Actually, I was also asked if the owner of the firm needed to be included as a character – I said it depends on the story. I can certainly envisage stories where the ‘man hired’ turns up at his workplace without having to go through an interview at the firm….

The scope is deliberately wide. I want to see unique and erotic situations in this anthology. The plot should be strong, even though it is short, the characters notable, the romance powerful, and the sex PASSIONATE!


If you are interested the deadline for submissions is 1 April and the link for more information is here: http://luminositypublishing.com/submission-calls/

Friday 23 January 2015

Weekend reading

Take your pick – hot nights in Toronto, Nashville or shifter terriority. Enjoy!



Title of Book: Scorpio Awakens

Name of Author: Lilith Darville

Genre: Erotic Romance

Description of Main Characters:

Connor, 5'10", 140 lbs, gray-green eyes, medium brown hair with longish curls

Katherine, 5'3", 105 lbs, small bone structure, chestnut brown eyes, black curly hair, mulatto - French and African-Canadian

Setting: Toronto, Ontario

Length: 70,324 words

Blurb: 

A submissive emerges and explores her hidden desires!
 If you ran into a lover from your youth, one who had stolen and then broken your heart, would you run?
Seduction isn’t necessary. We’re both Scorpios. Our sex is electric, just like the promise of what we started so many years ago. Will she run again?
What's Hot: This book contains scenes that will stimulate your sexual imagination including ménage, dominance and submission, sex toys, etc. Feed your fantasies!





Title of Book:  Love Me Tender

Name of Author: Paisley Cruz

Genre: Contemporary Erotica Romance

Description of main characters:

Carter- 25, 6'3", Dirty blonde hair, with super sexy green eyes.

Kadee- 22, 5'3", long dark wavy hair with dark seductive eyes.

Setting: Nashville, Tennessee

Length: 62,612 or 169 pages

Blurb:

Number one, no picking guys up in bars. Number two, no one night stands. Number three, no relationships. Number four, study and stay focused and number five, don't fall in love. These were the rules that Kadee swore by. That is until she met Carter Landry and now she's breaking all her rules.

What’s hot? One hot night in Nashville





Title of book: Claiming Hope

Name of author: Suzette Rose Cauler

Genre: Erotic Paranormal Romance

Description of main characters:

Hope Davis, 29  Hazel eyes, wavy golden-blonde hair, 5 foot 7, graphic designer, human

Adam Black, 33, blue eyes, jet black hair, 6 foot 4, muscular, 5 o’clock shadow, wolf shifter

Levi Black, 31, green eyes, dark brown hair, 6 foot 3, muscular, full, sensual lips, wolf shifter

Setting: The wolf shifter territory of River’s Bend

Length: 84,279 Words

Blurb: Hope Davis always plays it safe, but brothers Adam and Levi Black make her want to take a risk. That is, until she learns they’re shifters and she’s they’re fated. Will Hope find the courage to love again? Can the brothers keep her safe among the shifters of River’s Bend?

What’s hot?: A sexy game of tag

Wednesday 21 January 2015

Character Profile

This month’s character profiles are from my second book to be published ‘The Submission Challenge’ – the first in ‘The Doms & Acquaintances’ series (which has cross-over characters to ‘The Friends & Acquaintances’ series.




Name – Rebecca (Becca)

Book – The Submission Challenge

Love interest – Jon

Age – 27

Hair/eyes – Very long straight black hair/Deep blue

Height/weight – Petite but curvy

Looks – Very attractive

Other – She runs an art gallery with Jon’s sister, Ellie. Is a Taurus – very controlling and independent



Name – Jon

Book – The Submission Challenge

Love interest – Rebecca

Age – 30

Hair/eyes – Dark hair/Grey eyes

Height/weight – About 6ft, well muscled and hunky

Looks – Handsome

Other – Brother to Ellie – he is a Dom (and a lawyer)



Blurb: When independent Rebecca derides her best friend’s brother for being a Dominant he scoffs that she could never understand the lifestyle. With money involved Jon challenges her to be his submissive for 24 hours, with all that being a submissive entails. Not one to back down from a challenge, Rebecca agrees determined to show him she could be submissive yet remain detached emotionally.

During the challenge Jon works all his Dom tricks to try to make her lose, including insisting she be naked constantly, touching her intimately and various BDSM techniques like bondage. Some she finds harder to accept than others.

As the weekend continues they realise they are attracted to each other. But just as worryingly Rebecca comes to enjoy giving control to someone else while Jon enjoys having someone who doesn’t submit easily. But things aren’t that simple.

Review from Amazon:  "I have read so much rubbish recently! I usually prefer US writers of erotica but the last few books I have read have been by British authors. Some have been co-written and I have been wondering why it takes two people to write such drivel. I am happy to say Jennifer has renewed my faith in UK writers. This was a lovely story and I want Jon for myself. Lucky Becca! The book was well written and edited and I read it quickly because I wanted to find out if it was a HEA although from the tone of the story I thought it would be. Just my kind of book. I loved it."

Buy links:




Monday 19 January 2015

Something you never knew about me

Something you never knew about me…. I love my pets!

Okay, so that’s not something new really… but here are some never before seen pics with me and my pets.

My first pet was a budgie called Fred – at least, he was in the household when I was a toddler (not sure when my family got him) and he died when I was about 7 so don’t remember him much or have any photos.

The first pet that belonged to me was a Jack Russell called, Susie, and we got her for my 7th birthday. However, she managed to get out of the house and got run over (by my poor father who didn’t realized the dog was out and had followed him!). So while we were away on holiday in Bournemouth visiting my sister (we lived in Essex) we bought another Jack Russell who I named Susie…. (I was very original then!). Here is me and Susie with my young niece.

I do have a story that links Susie to Fred the budgie – the latter had a cage on a pole and Susie used to delight in running around the cage barking madly. Fred, however, got his revenge. He used to wait until Susie was snoozing in her bed, fly to within a few feet of her, squawk loudly then when she woke up and rushed after him, he would fly away singing, ‘Na na na nan na!’ At least that’s what it sounded like to a 7 year old. Every now and then his claws would get stuck in the carpet and his song would become a strangled one of distress when he saw a slavering dog bearing down on him until Mum quickly grabbed Susie on her way past mum’s chair!

Had an amusing incident when Dad and I took Susie to the local park which had an ornamental lake (I was about 13). Dad suggested I run across the bridge and call her from the other side – meaning for her to follow me across the bridge….. however, when I called her name she jumped straight into the water!!! And promptly got stuck in the reeds and Dad had to take his shoes and socks off and wade in to rescue her! LOL. We played together all the time!




Susie lived until I was 23 and it was heartbreaking when she died as I’d had her so long (even though I had long since moved out). Actually I used to go home at the weekends and Dad would drive me back to the station on Sunday evenings. When he got home Susie would be sitting in her basket facing the wall and would refuse to have anything to do with him for the next couple of days as she thought he was taking me away!! This went on for two years before she accepted the situation. *sigh*

My first pet I bought myself when I was living in Bournemouth was a budgie, Kelly. Here were are (when I was in my ‘blonde’ phase).




He lived about three years and after that I always had two together. So I next had Fluffy and Muffet. (Fluffy didn’t last long but Muffet travelled over three hundred miles with me when I moved to the Lake District and I got Charlie soon after as a mate for her), then when Muffet died I got Dixie. Now Charlie was a gay budgie. He was in love with my friend’s budgie (Yankie). When the two of them got together Dixie (and Yankie’s cage mage, Billie, got thoroughly ignored!!). I gave up on budgies after Charlie and Dixie died aged 11 and 9 as I’d had enough of their squawking!



At the same time as I had budgies I also had hamsters, having been in the pet shop one day and on an impulse decided to buy one (along with cage and relevant accessories!). My first was Snuffles (who travelled to the Lake District along with the budgies above).



Since hamsters only live a few years (the longest living was Max at just over 3) I had a succession: Wuffa, Frodo, Sooty, Pipkin, Annie, and Max (see picture).








One of my hamsters (can’t remember which now) was abducted by aliens.
Really! They were in their ball (as below) and I realised after a while that I hadn’t heard them banging about so I went searching for them. No sign. I did another search. Still no sign. I then searched cupboards including ones I had closed on my initial search and there they were – in a cupboard!! A clear case of alien abduction!! LOL




I loved the hamsters but missed them terribly when they died – often quite quickly - and gave up after Max died.






In addition….. I decided one day to buy a guinea pig! Her name was Scraps (see pic which was actually taken a few years before the one with Max above) and she lived a good life (died about 7). But guinea pigs don’t do a lot apart from poo for England! Scraps, Max and the last two budgies moved with me when I came to York.





There, all of them being quite elderly, they gradually died in the first year or so until I was left with Scraps and when she died I was suddenly without a pet for the first time in a long while. So I dashed to the pet shop to get another guinea pig… and fell in love with Gimli the lop eared rabbit.

Now, Gimli was very much a boy. He loved playing football and could dribble
the ball around the room better than many of the world’s best footballers! Although every now and then he would stop and hump it (what can I say?!)




Unfortunately he died quite young and his replacement was Lucy who disdained the football. “I’m a girl,” she would give me a look! She much preferred playing in her castle (well, eating her castle!)




My current bun is Holly (just a year old) who is the most mischievous of all the rabbits having eaten her way through the wire in my fridge freezer, telephone and other items necessitating new equipment, but also the most loving! She will sit on the arm of my chair and push her head between my shoulder and chin. *awww* I also had an escape drama (no aliens this time – at least, not that I am aware of) when she managed to get out of her rabbit run and ran in the opposite direction towards the prickliest, most inaccessible part of my garden whereupon she sat and grinned at me! Only the lure of food brought her toward me… I now chain the sides of the rabbit run together with reinforced steel! (You can see the look on her face above - "How can I get out of this one?"!!!!! Picture: courtesy of Janine Ashbless)