Friday 31 March 2017

Wicked Weekends

WICKED WEEKENDS


Title of book: Fiery 10-16


Name of author: Lea Bronsen

Genre: Dark romantic suspense

Length of book: 38k

Sexual orientation: MF

What’s hot?: Sparks fly in the firehouse locker room, when the heroine sits on the hero's lap

Blurb:

Runo Wiggins is a scarred man, the wounds etched into his psyche deeper than those on his skin. But he loves his job: fighting fires helps reenact his survival of a house fire as a teen, one that killed his mother and brutal stepfather.

Dawn Caravello is married to a psychotic drunk. She can take his beatings as long as he doesn't touch their children, and she'll do anything to put food on the table, even if it means stealing from the town hero.

When Runo meets the fiery Dawn, sparks fly. But he suspects she is victim of the same abuse as his mother was. As day turns to night, the past and the present blend in an exhausting, nerve-wrecking chase to prevent another death.

Buy links:





Title of book: Betrayal and Deception (Slade, Inc. Book 3)

Name of author: Mackenzie Williams

Genre: Contemporary erotic romance, BDSM

Length of book: 34,000

Sexual orientation: MF

What’s hot?: Sex against the hood of the car

Blurb:
Morgan White is thrilled that her relationship with her boss, Connor Slade, is getting stronger outside of the office. However, she is still waiting to hear those three magic words: "I love you". Connor just can't bring himself to say them. At least, not yet.

Their lives get complicated when Connor is involved in an accident. While he's recovering, Morgan takes on the responsibility to entertain Connor's college buddy, Max, who is in town for a few days.

Connor soon learns that something happened between Max and Morgan. They each blame the other person, and Connor is torn between believing his old friend or his new girl. Why would either of them lie to him? Are they both betraying him? How will he learn the truth?

Buy links:





Monday 27 March 2017

Writers' experiences writing gay, shifter or BDSM stories

The second in my series on writers’ experiences of writing gay, shifter or BDSM stories is from Samantha Winston who tells us her experiences of writing her first MM story.

Paradise Earth
 
Like most of my books, this one started as a short story, and then just didn’t stop. The characters took over, and it turned into a novella. It started as an apocalyptical short about Earth after an all-out nuclear war plus asteroid hit. My character was Even, a man from Mars. A man, but not human. He was a shifter. He’d come to Earth to help rebuild it from the ashes. He was a scientist. Alone. Aloof. He didn’t want to integrate or socialize with the few humans who were left – they’d nearly destroyed their planet; in his mind they pretty much deserved what they got. Enter Adam. An earthling – yes – but the attraction between my two characters was so sudden, so unexpected, it not only surprised me, but, like a hard gust of wind in a sail, it turned the story around and suddenly it was a love story set on a dying planet, between Adam, one of the last humans, and Even – alien and unique.

I’d never written m/m stories, so before starting off, I read. I read some amazing books told from the gay viewpoint. Some coming of age stories, some raunchy sexsexsex stories, and I read some bi-sexual tales as well. I wasn’t sure, as a straight woman, I could pull off a love story between two men and have it ring true. Well, one man was an alien, but still…out of respect for gay literature, I didn’t want to write anything that would be insulting or hurtful. It’s not far from writing for YA – you have a certain age, a certain responsibility, so you have to watch what you write. Or writing a religious romance – but the more I wrote, the more religion crept into the book, so that now I had a gay romance with definite religious undertones. Creation, the Apocalypse, Adam and Even – the ingredients were all there, and the story practically wrote itself.
I will say that it is one of my favorite stories. Because of its complexity, the different characters, the fiction woven with science fiction and mythology – in essence, I put in everything I truly love into this work.

If I had to offer any advice for those wanting to write m/m fiction it would be, don't be afraid to try, you may surprise yourself. In fact, this was the only book I wrote in that genre, but it continues to be a pleasure to read.

If you want to know the books I read before starting this, or are interested in gay fiction, may I suggest “A Boy’s Own Story” by Edmund White, “Becoming Nancy” by Terry Ronald, “Love, Sex, and Understanding the Universe” by Harrie Farrow, and “Tangled Sheets” by Michael Thomas Ford.



 Paradise Earth by Samantha Winston, published by Changeling Press

Samantha's website


Many thanks, Samantha. Look out next Monday for the third guest blog. If you wanted to read the first one, from myself, click here.


This series is to inspire people to write for my Balls & Chains series – a gay shifter series set in a BDSM club. If you are interested full details can found on Luminosity’s website. The first book in the series ‘To Claim a Mate’ is out in mid May.

Friday 24 March 2017

Wicked Weekends

WICKED WEEKENDS


Title of book: Lady of Seville (The Sword and the Rose series, #4)

Author: Louise Roberts

Genre: Historical Romance Adult Fictions

Length of story: 38, 406 words

Sexual orientation: Scenes of MF, MFM, FF, FFM

What's hot?: Threesomes in a bed, foursomes in a bed, threesomes in a stable!

Blurb:

Will Elena's secret relationship threaten to disrupt her marriage to Alfonso, or will it, in some unexpected way, strengthen the bond between all three?

Elena's father, Gregario has sailed away on the Santa Theresa immediately following the death of his favourite nephew, Iago, and the escape of Ferdinando to shores unknown.

The only sense of joy left at the Villa Sant'Angelo appears to be the preparations for her wedding to Alfonso.

Elena is ecstatic. With the two eldest sons out of the way, Alfonso remains the undisputed heir to the family's estates.

Since Christmas the previous year, she had successfully seduced her betrothed, ad their relationship has only grown stronger. Elena is a complex individual who requires constant stimulation to keep her joie de vie alive.

Secretly she begins an affair. It is a relationship that captures her imagination. But will Elena's secret threaten to disrupt her marriage to Alfonso, or will it, in some unexpected way, strengthen the bond between the three participants?


Buy links:




Smashwords (ensure Adult Filter is on) - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/707033





Title of book: Lost Together (#DOS part two)

Name of authors: Lydia Michaels and Allyson Young

Genre: Contemporary

Type of book: Novel

Sexual orientation: MMF

What’s hot?: Graphic encounters and challenging situations that breaks the rules of traditional romance

Blurb:

The second novel in the emotionally compelling trilogy, Degrees of Separation - three lost souls determined to find balance again...

December has vanished. Rejected by her troubled husband, Austin, and pushed, at his insistence, into the arms of his best friend, Cord, she's uncertain what the future holds. She loves her husband, regardless of his addiction, but she also loves his best friend. At odds with everything she believed to be her traditional reality, she flees the only home she's ever known.

Heartbroken, Cord does the right thing and confronts his reluctant betrayal of Austin after losing the woman they both love. He takes charge, dragging Austin back from the edge of oblivion, only to find himself plunged deeper into a life of heartache.

On a path to redemption, Austin must not only confront personal truths, but consider the sacrifices necessary to save his marriage and his friendship with Cord.

An unexpected reunion and exposed secrets will either derail or establish their future as one.

Buy links:









Title of book: Seamus's Mate (Alpha Protectors, #2)

Name of author: Elyzabeth VaLey

Genre: Paranormal erotic romance

Type of book: Novel (39k)

Sexual orientation: MF

What’s hot?: Steamy sex on a ledge in a cavern

Blurb:

Kaila is His. His Mate. Forever. 

When Seamus discovers Kaila is in danger he sets out to save her. He couldn’t care less that she doesn’t want him there. His objective in life is to love and protect her. Besides, she might refuse to be with him, but her body knows better. With both their lives on the line, she can’t say no to his aid, can she? 

For years, she has ignored her feelings. Kaila’s mission was supposed to be easy: enter the demon’s lair and save her sister. Then, he came along. For close to twenty years she has been fighting against the mating pull. She has avoided Seamus at all costs, but now they’re both trapped in hell and she has nowhere to run, except, maybe, into his arms.

Buy links:

Monday 20 March 2017

Writing gay/shifter/BDSM stories

WRITING GAY/SHIFTERS/BDSM

I am starting a new series of guest blog posts to inspire people to write for the new series I am co-ordinating ‘Balls & Chains’, which is a gay, shifter series set in a BDSM club of that name.



To this end, I am inviting authors to write on any of those areas and tell us their experiences of writing gay stories, shifter stories or BDSM stories.

For instance, why write gay stories if you are a heterosexual woman. Personally, I prefer to write women into my stories, but every now and then I like to write a story with two or more men as the romantic/sexual characters. But more interestingly, how do female writers understand what it is like from the male perspective, either emotionally or physically. There is only so much research you can do and I often wonder if my men are too feminine – or if I have gone the other way and made them too macho in my desire to have my heroes match up to my fantasy man?

I generally have one man who is dominant, maybe the Master in a BDSM relationship, as in my forthcoming book ‘To Claim a Mate’ which is to be the first in the ‘Balls & Chains’ series. The other man in this story is the submissive. This helps differentiate both men and what they want out of their relationship – one in control, one following. One in the role of the carer/the responsible one, the other loving being cared for.

Also, because it is a wolf shifter story, there were the dynamics of homosexuality in animals (as in humans) when the imperative is for male/female relationships in order to perpetuate the species. To my surprise, I discovered that homosexuality wasn’t unknown in wolves.

As for shifter stories – how does one write about shifters when they don’t exist (or if you are a shifter author, then it’s time to come out of the closet or the woods!)? How do you world build? Well, in this instance, I can let my imagination run riot and make up whatever I like whilst thinking of some traditional werewolf myths, eg, wolfsbane doesn’t kill in my story (although it is incredibly toxic to people in real life) and they use herbal pills to keep their wolf at bay when around humans.

I also draw heavily on the behaviour of wolves, whilst considering what it might be like to shift from human into wolf and suddenly have a different bone structure, different eye level and so on. In my story, the wolf shifters live in a city of humans so they have to keep their animal selves secret. That involved a lot of growling – and changing it into a cough – or scratching the wall when alone to indicate the presence of the alpha (territory marking). But when they are alone – then they could let out their wolves. However, that leads to another problem – when you live like a human most of the time, how easy is it to transform into another being (as Jared, the beta wolf in my story, found out)?

But that aside, I love writing BDSM stories in conjunction with shifter stories. The dynamics of alpha and beta wolves fit nicely with Doms and subs – at the same time as relishing the irony of wolves being free animals in the wild but in a BDSM setting the submissive wolf may find himself collared and chained.

When writing BDSM stories, if you don’t partake of the lifestyle, it can be reasonably easy to do as there are lots of places on the internet to research. However, it does help to have tools on hand. I had a panic when digging out my flogger to check how the motion of a flogger’s tails would work (when the Master in my story – Cole – is doing a demo) and a vibrator at the bottom of the box went off and wouldn’t stop!

I also pulled heavily from the interviews with Doms we did at Smut in Manchester last Autumn (for instance, they talked about drawing out the anticipation of the sub by either doing something different to what they expected or doing nothing).

This is the first time I have brought all three genres together. I’ve done BDSM and wolf shifters before, but with menage stories with a woman involved (eg, Collared by Wolves). And I’ve done wolf shifters and gay stories (eg, The Last Werewolf). ‘To Claim a Mate’ will be out in mid May and I am looking forward to other authors submitting to this open series.

In the meantime, watch this space look for other authors’ views on any of these topics.



Friday 17 March 2017

Wicked Weekends

WICKED WEEKENDS


Title of book: Relentless, Tortured Love#3

Name of author: Ravenna Tate

Genre: Erotic, contemporary, dark romance, May-December, BDSM

Type of book: Novel

Sexual orientation: MF

What’s hot?: Sex on a dining room table

Blurb:

For years, Blake the Snake, as he was known to his Alpha Chi Gamma brothers, took pictures of the conquests of auction winners having sex with their “prizes” at the fraternity’s annual Spring Bacchanalia. It was all in fun, until he stopped a young woman from being raped by the football player who had won her.

From that moment on, Blake Bombay’s life changed forever. He became obsessed with Kendra Kensington, and worked tirelessly to keep her safe. While watching her from afar, he plotted and planned for the day when she would be his. Trouble was, she didn’t know it. She never saw his face that night or learned his name. But that didn’t matter to Blake. She was his. She had always been his, and one day she would be with him forever.










Title: Claiming His Human (The Projects, 6)

Author: Doris O’Connor

Genre: Paranormal, Erotic, BDSM, Rubenesque, May to December

Sexual Orientation: M/F

Type of story: Novel

What’s hot?: Possessive, growly Bear shifter meets sassy human heroine, spanking, semi-public sex, bondage

Blurb:

Shifters defend their mates to the death...

Bear shifter Darius Longton never expected to find his mate in his favorite coffee shop, but one sniff of her scent in the air is all it takes for his bear to know the truth. This delicious, sinfully curvy redhead is his.
Too bad she’s human and far too fragile for his volatile bear.

Holly Trent cannot understand the instant attraction she feels for this man. One look from his heavy-lidded eyes is all it takes to set her knickers aflame with lust. However, she will not be another notch on his bedpost, no matter how much his voice alone makes her want to sink to her knees.

But when a customer gets heavy with her, everything changes. Darius’s defense of her places them both in terrible danger. Thrown headfirst into shifter council politics, it falls to Holly to save her mate.

Buy links:





Title of book: The Night Gardener

Name of author: E D Parr

Genre: contemporary romance short, with a paranormal twist

Length of book: 16,500k

Sexual orientation: MM

What’s hot?: Zachary Yarrow is hot stuff appearing shirtless and silently close behind Dane

Blurb:

Architect, Dane Lovell takes an off-season vacation in an old New England mansion, hoping to ease his broken heart, and spark his imagination. Impressed by the pretty gardens, he’s surprised by the sinister atmosphere of the river than winds through the estate. Dane settles down to his vacation and tries to immerse himself in his drawings. One night, the sound of the back door smashing open in the wind and rain shocks Dane from his work.

Spooky, gorgeous, and enigmatic Zachary Yarrow has brought logs for the fire.

He’s the estate gardener and brings with him not just passion and a love affair for Dane, but a strange, spine-tingling mystery.

Who is Zachary, and what will happen when Dane finds out?

Buy links:

On special launch price at Evernight Publishing

Wednesday 15 March 2017

NEW SUBMISSION CALL - Balls & Chains

I said I would let you know my exciting news linked to my latest WIP ‘To Claim a Mate’ due out mid May – and that is….. *DRUM ROLL*………

A NEW SUBMISSION CALL!!!



I proposed to Luminosity Publishing an open submission series this time (instead of an anthology), so anyone can submit at any time, there is no deadline.

‘To Claim a Mate’ will be the first in the series that is set in ‘Balls & Chains’ a gay BDSM club. But the difference is that shifters with a penchant for BDSM also set foot, but have to keep their animal nature secret from the humans. Here is the series blurb:

Welcome to Balls & Chains, a BDSM Club for gay men. Where humans walk, shifters are wary of treading in fear of their secret nature being found out. But cross the threshold, and they go into a world where alphas dominate and betas submit. In such a place, two worlds collide.

Submissions will come to me to read as I am the series coordinator. Here are a few details:

Length is anywhere from 10-80k.

MM or MM-Menage only

Stories must have at least one shifter as a main character from a dominant species, eg, wolves, bears, etc, no rabbits (sorry!) but the other(s) could be human or from another shifter species and must be over 21.

I’ve put lots more info on Luminosity’s website, eg, background to the club and the shifter world building. I am very open to changes to this background, for instance, in Book 1 the club owner is Master Andy – but he could be away on leave and someone else take over, or you could open a franchise of this club elsewhere in the world and so on. As for the world building for being a wolf shifter (the first book has wolf shifters) I have said, for instance, that silver doesn’t kill but irritates, but your wolf shifter could have a mutation that makes silver exceptionally dangerous. Of course, this is for wolf shifters – if you choose to write about bear shifters you can have a different world build. Just give me a good reason for the changes you make.


Hope there is enough info but – alternatively drop me an email to Jennifer.denys@yahoo.com with any queries.


I’m really excited about this series so hope to have some great stories.

Friday 10 March 2017

Wicked Weekends

WICKED WEEKENDS


Title of book: Degree of Resistance (Pacifica Rising 1)

Name of author: Nicola M Cameron

Genre: Sci fi/Cyborg romance

Type of book: Novel

Sexual orientation: MF

What’s hot in your story?: Sex in a gorgeous little cave on a carpet of moss and grass

Blurb:

A perfect society hiding a terrible secret. An innocent man condemned to cyborg slavery. A brilliant woman determined to set him free.

Freelance tech Evie Contreras belongs to the Employee class of the Pacifica Protectorate, the “perfect society” that rose from the ruins of the West Coast. But Evie knows about Pacifica’s festering core and the secrets that keep it in power. And when she discovers that Pacifica has turned her fiancé Ben into a cyborg soldier/slave, she will risk everything to rescue him.

Saving Ben is the first step in a deadly game between Pacifica and a shadowy resistance group known as Rubicon. In return for Rubicon’s help, Evie must retrieve a hidden artificial intelligence that may hold the key to protecting Earth from a deadly new disaster.

Assuming the protectorate doesn’t find Evie first…

Buy links:


  • Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N2A25GG
  • Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N2A25GG
  • Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/705076
  • Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/degree-of-resistance-nicola-m-cameron/1125853898
  • iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/degree-of-resistance/id1209817265?mt=11
  • Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/degree-of-resistance
  • Print: https://www.createspace.com/6938559




Title of book: Wise Wolf and his Colorful Coywolf (Pariah Pack, #5)

Name of author: Susan Laine

Genre: Paranormal

Type of book: Novella

Sexual orientation: MM

Blurb:

Randy Walker has issues. He’s a lone coywolf in a group of wolves, he’s an Omega in a pack that already has one, and his past abuse complicates matters. He’s nineteen, but his mate is a century old. He’s uneducated, but his mate is a scholar. And he’s recently rediscovered his sense of smell, only now it seems to be malfunctioning. 

Kade Colton is the Zeta of his pack, a historian, and a chronicler. Two months ago, he found his mate and started teaching him lessons. They bond over a shared passion of learning. Then, former members of the pack who left during a crisis return. This causes schisms in the ranks. One is the Tau, a spiritualist Kade despises. And in the adjacent national park, a rogue coywolf pack tempts Randy to join them and be with his own kind. 

With so many obstacles in the way, can Randy and Kade have their happily ever after?




Wednesday 8 March 2017

Eroticon 2017

Eroticon 2017



My overwhelming impression of this year's Eroticon was that there were a number of people from other parts of the world, e.g., USA, Canada, Australia, Europe - and some had even flown in flor this event! 

But I don't know why I say that with surprise because looking back at previous blog posts on Eroticon events I've said the same thing. In the light of this, my 7am train from York seems rather pathetic!

I've missed the last two years (clashed with other commitments) so I was looking forward to saying hi to authors I had met at previous conferences. There were a number of SMUT groupies, e.g., those of us who regularly attending Smut events held in the North of England, and it was great to see them. And even better I managed to catch up with several people I hadn't seen in a few years. But I was surprised to see so many new people - and at least three I spoke to were at their first Eroticon.

So Eroticon is under new management, and they did it very well. I attended some terrific sessions:

Auto (erotic) ethnography by Meg-John Barker. In other words, understanding ourselves through sexual fantasies or erotic writing. Whether we read or write erotic work we are doing so in a very safe environment, e.g., although I enjoy some aspects of BDSM, I don't personally get anything out of pain play. But I can vicariously enjoy it through mine or other writers' characters. There was lots more to reflect on in this session with an engaging presenter.

Sex in Flash Fiction by Malin James gave some very useful tips such as being sparing with adverbs and adjectives. That is a good tip for longer writing (and one I am very bad at as I love my adverbs) but even more essential in flash fiction. Lots more to consider such as use active words, choose nouns and verbs well, and so on.

Pitching 101 was by Girl on the Net who is a journalist. Very dynamic presentation and aimed primarily at people writing articles for magazines etc, but some good tips for authors such as, consider your unique selling point. I know one of mine is the humour in my stories. In fact, I seem to include it even when I don't intend to. One reviewer said they liked the humour in 'Submissive Training' - my thought on reading that was "what humour?" LOL. It is clearly the essence of me.

Plotting the Erotic Story by Ashley Lister was incredibly useful and I wrote reams of notes as he took us through the 8 stage plot device. He did point out that there is no wrong way or right way, but that this was a tool to guide us if we wanted it. So the eight stages were: stasis (the setting), the trigger (something beyond the control of main character which sparks the story), the quest (e.g., getting the girl/guy), the surprise (conflicts, challenges to getting the girl/guy), critical choice (protagonist needs to make a crucial decision), climax (the highest peak of tension in story. Could be final sex scene), reversal (change of status of characters, eg, realisation of climax leads to personal revelation), resolution (return to fresh status. Characters changed, wiser, enlightened, complete).

The final session (well, the final one I attended. The event was continuing into the evening and the next day) was my favourite. The topic was the History of erotic writing and obscenity in Britain by Kate Lister (no relation to Ashley, *slap my hand for making assumptions*) and was fabulously fun. I am an historian and I will go into any session that starts of History of....!

She showed tons of images/excerpts of Roman/Greek life/literature through the Middles ages and Victorian era and told us of specific dates in history in the UK where we started having issues with erotic writings through to the famous case of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ in the 1960s. But on a serious note she finished with the ‘about-to-be-implemented’ digital economy bill which may affect us all in the UK.


Well done to the organisers and all the speakers.

Monday 6 March 2017

New book - To Claim a Mate

Great news! I have a novella coming out in mid May being published by Luminosity Publishing. This is the first longer story I have written in two years. No particular reason – I was just finishing off a trilogy of short stories (the Alien Manhunt series), I also had two stories in anthologies (Men for Hire and Love & Lust in Space), I did an Xmas story (Naughty Christmas Wishes – which I only intended to be a quick read) and Dark Captive originally started off being conceived for an anthology.

Anyhow – my latest story is ‘To Claim a Mate’, an MM story about wolf shifters set in a BDSM club called ‘Balls & Chains’.

Here is the blurb:

Cole Linley is a gay wolf shifter.  In order to appease the alpha within himself, he has taken up the BDSM lifestyle and become very experienced. This placates his wolf to a certain extent, but his dearest wish is to find a mate - male, of course. Except, the question is, how to find one in a city surrounded by humans where other wolf shifters are rare.

Then, one night, he enters Balls & Chains, a BDSM club he frequents, and immediately senses another of his kind. And not only that, it is the scent of a potential mate, Jared Gray. There is only one problem - Jared is collared by another Master.

Jared’s relationship shows all the signs of an abusive relationship. Can Cole get him away from the other Dom and show Jared the delights of BDSM when done properly and what it means to be a beta wolf to Cole's alpha?



Also watch this space for more exciting news I can’t reveal yet! *wink*