Monday, May 26, 2014

Writing Process Blog Hop


I was invited by fellow Decadent Publishing author Jessica E. Subject to take part in a "Writing Process Blog Hop!"

Jess posted about her writing process on May 15 and you can catch that on her Mark of the Stars web site here: http://www.markofthestars.com/wp/writing-process-blog-hop-jessica-e-subject-fairytaleretelling-scifirom/

The hop is a pass-along by invite only kind of thing. One writer invites another two or three and so on and so on, like a very old shampoo commercial. It's also an intriguing way to find out what some of your fave (or new-to-you) authors are working on and how they do it.

Everyone gets the same four questions to answer.

So Hmmm. Let's see.

1) What am I working on?

Many little irons are supposed to be in the fire, but some of them are being shoved to the back burner. The one I'm currently working on is "If You Can't Stand the Heat," a foodie romance for a new line from Fated Desires that, hopefully, will be out sometime in 2015. It's a contemporary with lots of food and no paranormal elements.

The story's about Lucrezia DiCicco,  trying to keep her father's Italian restaurant afloat, and Derek Dunne, the restaurant and food critic whose scathing review lands the eatery in the dumpster.

(But don't worry, paranormal peeps. I've got a super secret paranormal  already in the can,  contracted and edited, that will, hopefully, be released by Decadent Publishing sometime in 2015, for a new super secret Decadent line.)

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

In my Sleepy Hollow 1Night Stand series for Decadent, the hero and heroine have usually met at least once even before the all-knowing Madame Eve fixes them up. More usually in the 1Night Stand series, Madame Eve links up two total strangers who, in her mysterious and unerring fashion, are perfect for one another. 





But I like working with characters who have had interaction, and maybe even an extensive backstory together (as in LIGHTING, the first book in the Sleepy Hollow series) before Madame Eve works her magic on them and gives them a night of passion they'll never forget.



In my current release, IN FROM THE COLD, the heroine,  Geneviève Mortimer, is a will o'the wisp and a demon hunter, stalking the hero, Spook Raines, a burnt-out spy and fire-sex demon who doesn't know he's a demon. Their encounter in a Paris hotel room is so sizzling and smoldering neither can shake the other from their mind...and each calls on Madame Eve's exlusive 1Night Stand dating service for help. 




3) Why do I write what I do?

It's what I want to read, of course!

4) How does your writing process work?

Ah, here's the tricky one for me. I'm a total pantser, which means I do not work from an outline. All I'll  have when I start out is a character, and an opening scene. And I go on from there. I polish and repolish the beginning until it's in pretty good shape before I can move forward. And then repeat the process. It's slow going...but by the time I get to the end, the story's pretty much done. It doesn't go through many drafts or revisions before edits.


So...the people I've tagged to carry on the Writing Process Blog Hop are Catherine Peace and Julie Rowe. They'll both be posting on Friday,  May 30.

May 30 - Catherine Peace

 Catherine Peace has been telling stories for as long as she could remember. She often blames two things for her forays into speculative fiction—Syfy (when it was SciFi) channel Sundays with her dad and The Island of Dr. Moreau by HG Wells. She graduated in 2008 from Northern Kentucky University with a degree in English and is still chasing the dream of being super rich and famous, mostly so she can sit around in her PJs all day and write stories. When not being a slave to the people in her head, she’s a slave to two adorable dogs.  She is a reviewer for  Indie Books R Us Join her at FacebookTwitter or at her blogs,  Going from Nobody to Somebody and  The Pen Punks.

May 30 - Julie Rowe,  www.facebook.com/JulieRoweAuthor

Julie Rowe’s first career as a med lab tech in Canada took her to the North West Territories and northern Alberta, where she still resides. She loves to include medical details and a lot of adventure in her romance novels. Julie writes contemporary and historical medical romance, and fun romantic suspense. Her writing has also appeared in several magazines such as Today’s Parent, Reader’s Digest (Canada), and Canadian Living. You can reach her at www.julieroweauthor.com , on Twitter @julieroweauthor or at her Facebook page: www.facebook.com/JulieRoweAuthor



Saturday, May 10, 2014

IN FROM THE COLD on sale!



IN FROM THE COLD

99 CENTS!

And a Sleepy Hollow giveaway!

(Comment below for a chance to win the Sleepy Hollow anthology of five novellas, LIGHTNING, THUNDER, FROST, HEAT WAVE and BLIZZARD.)




 A 1Night Stand Story   
Spook Raines is a burnt-out spy who doesn’t know he’s a fire demon with a twin in Sleepy Hollow.
Geneviève Mortimer is a will o' the wisp who hunts demons to ease the pain of her troubled past.
When Madame Eve brings them together for a torrid 1Night Stand, will they be able to come in from the cold at last?

EXCERPT:
Geneviève Mortimer crept down the quiet hotel hallway, careful to bank her glow…at least for the moment. She’d sensed the presence of a demon on the floor, but something seemed off about the male’s aura. A weird lack of evil, like an impenetrable force field surrounded his consciousness, his psyche. As if he thought he were…human.
Had he been brainwashed? Drugged? Raised by gypsies? By wolves? Wait. No. Scratch that last one. She didn’t get the were vibe at all with this one.
No matter, as a will o’the wisp and a POLO, Protector of the Legion of Shadows, tasked with watching over humankind and keeping the unwary safe from visitors from the demon realms to the human plane, she lured the black-souled to their demise. Going all shine-a-light and sparkly until the evil ones fell under her spell and followed her anywhere. She needed to find this guy. Pounce first, beam a little hypnotic wattage, ask questions later. Take him out before he did any harm. To humans, or innocents like her parents.
She sniffed. Getting warmer. Closer to the demon’s room. What would she find behind his door?
Ignoring the do not disturb sign, she jiggled the handle. Locked. But the absence of a key card wouldn’t be a problem for her, not with her brand of talent and the magick lock picks in her pocket. She got the door open in seconds and slinked into the room, masking her radiance, keeping to the shadows.
Holy shit. The scent of male arousal filled the air. Delicious, decadent, sublime. Total man candy, like nothing she’d ever smelled before. Calling to her sweet tooth. Her horny core. So intense, an ache blossomed between her legs. She closed her eyes and inhaled. Whoa. She could orgasm from the erotic scent of the guy alone. Was the dude going through breedspawn? Were all the rumors she’d heard of the full-on crazy, demon male mating phase more than myth? She’d sure never encountered anything as powerfully sexy as this.
Cripes. This sort of thing never happened to her. I’m a demon hunter, damn it. She remained professional always, despite her ditzy, scatterbrained reputation. Did her job. And did it well. She’d fooled even her closest friends, those who didn’t know about her role as a POLOS and didn’t guess the half of it. Those who thought she slut-flitted around the world searching for mischief, adventure and, most of all, pleasure, like some sort of fickle, commitment-shy, well, yeah sure, okay, will o’the wisp.

OMG! Hot, Hot and Hotter! Spook Raines is as hot as Max and Byrne but has no idea he’s a demon and caught by surprise by a Will o’ the Wisp Genevieve who hunts demons, well that is just the most interesting connection our darling Madame Eve could make for a one night stand. Their date on a yacht in the Hudson River is … well let me just say I am still sweating.  I need a very cold shower about now.
Aside from being a sizzling read, we get to see the other Raines in this one.  Loved seeing them again and those glimpses were not without heat themselves!
GO! Buy the books! All of them!!! They bring the mystery of the Hudson Valley to life in ways you could never imagine on your own!

Friday, May 9, 2014

Leigh Ellwood's A DIFFERENT CLASS



A Different Class by Leigh Ellwood

a 1NS Story from Decadent Publishing

M/M Erotic Romance, 11000 words
From Leigh: I am thrilled to be part of the Decadent family! The idea for A Different Class came about after an invitation arrived for an upcoming high school reunion. I asked myself what might happen if somebody felt reluctant to attend because of bad experiences and memories, and how one night arranged by Madame Eve changes everything.
Right now I am halfway into the follow-up to this story, another hot M/M. I hope you’ll pick up A Different Class, and if you enjoy it drop me a line on Twitter at @LeighEllwood. J
Blurb
FDR High Class of 2004 graduate, Glenn Carson contacts fellow alumni to get a list of who will be attending the upcoming festivities. One call to a disgruntled former student leaves him shaken—apparently, not everyone is looking forward to the reunion. Hoping to ease his frustration, he contacts the 1Night Stand service for a relaxing and passionate encounter.
Known as “Mumbles” to former classmates, Rod Maloney would prefer to focus on the present and his successful business. However, past tragedies continue to haunt him, so he requests Madame Eve find him a man to show him a hot time and help him forget his troubles.
Will their one night together lead to a reunion after all?
Buy


Excerpt
“Mr. Maloney? I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“Who is calling?”
The voice—deep and rich, anything but a mumble—intimidated him. Maybe the guy had been a jock, a several-foot-wide football player who helped the school win the championship senior year. He hadn’t attended many games and had skipped homecoming. “Um….” Right, we’re planning a reunion here. “I’m representing the reunion committee of the Franklin D. Roosevelt High School Class of 2004. You can probably guess our big tenth is coming up—”
“You know what? I’m going to save you the sales pitch,” Mumbles Maloney said. “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t give a shit. It’s taken me a long time to get past all the crap I put up with in high school, and if you think I’m going to show up at some rented ballroom all smiles as though the hell you assholes you put me through never happened, forget it.”
What? The man’s anger surged through him and sped up his heartbeat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“F*** you, f*** FDR High, and f*** every last piece-of-shit homophobe in that backwater town. I hope you all get cancer.”
Click.
Beth burst back into the room, waving a thick tome with a scaly blue cover. “Found it,” she chirped.
“Never mind.” Glenn pushed away from his workspace. Mumbles Maloney’s palpable rage lingered in the quiet of the small office, invoking a sense of doom in an otherwise dull place. He doubted he’d forget the voice for a long while. The man had pent-up issues with his former schoolmates, no doubt, yet for all the vitriol burning through the airwaves and sizzling in the veins, Mumbles had sounded…well….
Sexy.
About Leigh
I am Leigh Ellwood. I write smutty stories about people who like getting naked and having sex. Some have more sex than others, some have sex with people of the same gender, some have sex with more than one person, and still others have sex with toys and things that require the use of batteries. My stories range from a few thousand words to well past 70k. My books are available at Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, Kobo, and ARe.




Thursday, May 1, 2014

Sara Daniel's ONE NIGHT WITH THE GROOM



New Release Spotlight – One Night with the Groom
By Sara Daniel



One Night with the Bridal Party is a subseries of Decadent Publishing’s popular 1Night Stand line. One Night With the Bride and One Night With the Bridesmaid share the same opening scene where the bride’s mother presents each woman with a one-night stand a week before the wedding.
Meanwhile, the poor jilted groom has been twisting in the wind since his bride left him a year before. Fear not! He’s about to meet up with the woman from his past who still holds his heart captive, despite him spending fifteen years trying to forget her.

One Night With the Groom
As if trying to save the family farm and pay her mother’s medical bills isn’t enough struggle, Luciana Cortez discovers her brother has used the last of the mortgage money to buy her a one night stand. Even if she wasn’t appalled at the prospect, her farm chores leave her too exhausted for sex. The silver lining: she’s also too busy to think about the man who’d once pledged to marry her then abandoned her.

Working on an important business deal, CEO Blake Wellington doesn’t think twice when he steps out of the limousine…until the car leaves. Instead of the business he needs to attend to, he’s on the doorstep of the farm where his past love Luciana lives. Without cell phone service or transportation, he must rely on her for help, a move that threatens to awaken his long-dead emotions.

As they attempt to gain closure over the ache and secrets of their past, neither are prepared for the onslaught of emotions that jeopardize everything they’ve worked their whole lives for. When the night is over, they must heed their responsibilities and go their separate ways, even if it means a lifetime of heartbreak.

EXCERPT:
“Blake.” Her heart bled as if she’d stabbed it with a pitchfork. She dropped her hand from her stomach to her side. “What are you doing here?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea.” His lips curved in a crooked smile.

Aching to wrap her arms around him, to kiss his sexy mouth, to soak in his presence while grinning at him like a fool, she took a step back. She might not be hallucinating, but his sudden appearance had the power to drive her over the edge of insanity and longing. Her heel caught on the threshold at the opening of the barn, and she stumbled.

He reached for her, but she steadied herself on the doorframe, holding out her other palm to ward him away. She couldn’t handle seeing him, let alone skin-on-skin contact.

“Give me a minute,” she begged. “I’m kind of shocked to see you.” Kind of, ha. Completely would have been an understatement.

His smile faded. “Good shocked or bad shocked?”

“I don’t know yet.” The dead tree beside the barn creaked in the wind. She’d let her fear over it falling on the barn or, worse, in the other direction keep her from cutting it down, but the nasty gusts made her regret the decision.

“Keep me posted on which way it goes. I’m already skittish about getting shot at.”

“You won’t be unless you touch me, in which case I’ll shoot you myself.”

“Fair enough.” He pocketed his hands and stepped back.

The distance helped. So did the fact he didn’t call her bluff. Luciana’s limbs shook too much to pick up any weapon. At one time, she’d been furious with him for abandoning her when she’d needed him most. Although he’d bowed to her parents’ pressure and hadn’t fought to save their future together, her emotions had faded to regret and resignation.

“So, you decided to drop in after fifteen years without a word, and you don’t have a clue why?” Okay, maybe her anger hadn’t faded.

“I didn’t come to see you.”

“Ouch. Thanks for being straight with me, rather than sparing my ego. I think.”

He winced. “I didn’t mean an insult. I’m supposed to be in Des Moines to consider a potential property for my company to add to their hotel portfolio. But the limo took me here instead and then left me.”

Limo. Hotel portfolio. If he hadn’t been out of her league before, he’d traveled far beyond her social realm. “So, are you one of those ‘if I build it, they will come’ visionaries?”

“No, I’m a market-feasibility, make-sure-every-aspect-is-viable-before-I-sink-a-penny-into-it type of executive. I don’t have a reason that makes any sense for why I showed up here, and my cell phone isn’t getting reception. If I could borrow your landline to make some calls, I’ll get out of your hair as soon as possible.”

He hadn’t come to see her. He’d arrived by mistake and wanted to get far away without further ado. Once upon a time, they’d shared a rare, special love. She remembered it and regretted losing it, even if he didn’t.


Sara Daniel started writing One Night with the Bride and couldn’t stop. So, she wrote One Night with the Bridesmaid next.  Her latest release is One Night with the Groom. She’ll let you guess what the next title in the One Night With the Bridal Party series will be! Connect with her online at:
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