Samantha MacLeod's Blog, page 33

“You’ll need a copious supply of iced drinks!”

The fabulous Tina Williams of A Reader’s Review Blog gave Honeymoon five stars!

According to Tina:

“This sexy story packs one helluva sizzle and is a fabulous addition to Caroline’s and Loki’s romance…. The lovemaking scenes are off the Richter scale and you will need a copious supply of iced drinks!”

You can read the full review here.

There’s also an interview with me where I discuss The Trickster’s Lover, my inspiration for Loki, and the persistent appeal of mythology.

Thank you, Tina!!!

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Honeymoon: A Sexy Short Story

My erotic short story sequel to The Trickster’s Lover is officially available on Amazon!

I’m so happy I’m dancing around my kitchen in my pajamas.

Yes, just like this.

While this is technically a sequel, it’s also a stand alone story. So you don’t have to read The Trickster’s Lover to enjoy the hell out of Honeymoon. Although, you know, you’ll probably enjoy the hell out of The Trickster’s Lover too…

Here’s the beautiful, beautiful cover from the lovely Kit Foster.

Honeymoon is only available as an e-book.

But if it had a book jacket, this is what would be on the back:

Mythology expert Caroline Capello agreed to marry Loki, the Norse god of fire and lies.

She didn’t realize the most dangerous part of their marriage might be the honeymoon.

You can check out a teaser here, or just BUY MY BOOK!

This is EXACTLY how I feel right now!

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Thor, We’ve Gotta Talk

I straight up love Marvel’s version of Thor, even if he doesn’t exactly match the Norse myth Thor.

In fact, I love the Marvel universe so freaking much I teach a religion class where we read American Gods and the Edda before watching Marvel’s Thor (and, of course, I end class with The Avengers).

Yes, I have so much fun as an adjunct instructor I’m always afraid I won’t be invited back next semester.

Basically my department head.

But, after watching Chris Hemsworth as Thor about two million times, I’ve gotta admit I have a beef with the movie.

In fact, I’ve two beefs with this movie.

No problems with this scene, though!
Problem The First: Where are the Valkyries?!?

Lots and lots of action movies have no freaking women, aside from one helpless and usually underdressed love interest. Bonus points if she dies early to spark the hero’s blood-drenched quest for vengeance.

I mean, FREEDOOOOOM!!!!

Thor has a competent female lead who does not need rescuing, so bonus points there.

And she’s a scientist!

Plus, hey, there’s a female warrior! How diverse, right?

Yup, that’s Sif, the sword-wielding, ass-kicking Asgardian buddy of Thor. The name Sif comes from the original Norse myths, where Sif is Thor’s wife.

So Marvel took a feminine mythological figure and made her bad-ass, helping to increase female representation in the male-dominated Viking myths?

Not quite.

NOPE!

The Norse myths already have kick-ass female warriors. They’re called Valkyries, and they decide who lives and who dies in battle to join Odin’s warriors in Val-Hall, sometimes in gruesome, shamanistic, intestine-wearing ways (for more, check out this article).

Kick. Ass. Women.

So, instead of a group of magical witch-women deciding the fates of moral warriors, Marvel gives us… one woman.

What’s more, in the scene where Thor is trying to convince the warriors to join his incredibly ill-advised attack on Jotunheim, Thor says, “Who convinced everyone a maiden could fight as well as any man?”

This bothers me because it suggests Sif is an exception. Sure, she can fight, but she’s the first and only woman to do so. The other Asgardian woman are presumably off doing appropriately feminine things, like healing Jane in Dark World.

But woman who play an integral role in warfare are not the exception in Norse mythology. They’re essential, and they hold mortals’ lives in sway.

Plus, recent archeological evidence suggests Vikings had female warriors (check out TOR’s article here). Previously, skeletons buried with swords or other weapons were automatically assumed to be men. But guess what? Actually looking at the bones revealed about half the remains were females. That’s right, Viking women were buried with their swords.

So kick ass female warriors may well have been the rule in Viking societies, not the exception.

By making Thor’s flaxen-haired wife into the one and only warrior woman in all of Asgard, Marvel took ancient myths and made them more sexist.

That’s right. More sexist than the Vikings.

Problem the Second: Where are the Hispanics?

Marvel’s vision of Asgard does hold some ethnic diversity, namely Heimdall and Thor’s warrior buddy Hogun.

So that’s cool.

But my second beef with Thor isn’t about the lack of ethnic diversity on Asgard.

Or this. This was TOTALLY NECESSARY.

It’s about Earth.

Most of the movie takes place in New Mexico. And how many Hispanic characters do we see in a state that’s home of Santa Fe, a city twice as old as Boston? A state where Mexican ancestry dates back to before the Mayflower? What about Native American characters in a state that’s home to at least thirteen distinct tribes, and Native ruins dating back thousands of years?

Yeah, I think you know where I’m going with this.

And that lack of representation blows my mind. I mean, if Asgard was totally white, I’d understand. Norse gods come from cold, Northern countries. They don’t get much sun. I expect them to be pale.

But New Mexico? One of our most diverse, vibrant, interesting states? And there’s not a single Hispanic or Native character, not even the guy in the pet shop…

Or anyone in the diner…

Or even the yokels trying to pull Mjolnir out of the crater.

Personally, I think Stan Lee is worthy…

Now, don’t get me wrong.

I still love Thor, and Marvel.

But just because you love something doesn’t mean it’s without flaws. And, especially when those flaws subtly perpetuate some of the nasty -isms that have recently come to the front in our society (sexism, racism, etc), calling them out is the right thing to do.

So Thor, I’m calling you out.

*drops mic*

I shall now resume my smut writing.

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Pre-Order Honeymoon Now!

Honeymoon, my erotic short story sequel to The Trickster’s Lover, comes out this Tuesday!

Here’s the blurb:

Mythology expert Caroline Capello agreed to marry Loki, the Norse god of fire and lies.

She didn’t realize the most dangerous part of their marriage might be the honeymoon.

And you can read a teaser here.

Plus, if you’re this excited to find out what’s going to happen to Caroline and Loki next…

Yes, THIS excited!

You can pre-order a copy of Honeymoon here for .99!

Enjoy, my friends.

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Honeymoon Cover Reveal!

Loki and Caroline’s romance continues in the short story Honeymoon!

The fabulous Tina Williams of A Reader’s Review Blog is hosting the cover reveal for Honeymoon today! This is the second cover Kit Foster has designed for me, and I freaking love it.

Check out the beautiful cover here!

While you’re at it, you can read a Honeymoon teaser here.

Enjoy, my friends!

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Hang Out & Win Free Stuff!

Happy Monday, my friends!

Ahhhh, Monday…

Need a little help getting through your Monday?

Hey, let’s hang out!

I’ll be at Coffee Time Romance all afternoon today, chatting about The Trickster’s Lover as part of their Faerie Tales and Fantasies Book Brew. Check out my post here.

As if that wasn’t enough motivation, two lucky readers will win ALL THE BOOKS! Just visit Coffee Time Romance today, comment on one of the posts, and you could win an ebook from every author in the Book Brew.

Because nothing says “love” like coffee.

There – does that make Monday just a little better?

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Book Review: Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie

I’ve loved Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie since I read Midnight’s Children while backpacking across Europe.

So when I heard about this book I was like, “What the what? Salman Rushdie wrote a paranormal romance?!?” And I ran to Buffalo’s most awesome bookstore, Talking Leaves, to pick up a copy. Then we moved, so it’s taken me a while to get around to reading this puppy.

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights (or, 1,001 nights) is the story of jinn princess Dunia and her mortal lovers. Also, a war between the jinn and the human realm.

What’s not to love, right?

Well, I know it’s going to break Rushdie’s heart, but this book was a tremendous disappointment.

I’ll start with the sex. Or, the complete lack of sex.

Now, there are many fine books out there without graphic sex scenes. King’s Gunslinger. Camus’s The Plague. O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. I wouldn’t hold the lack of explicit erotica against those fine authors.

But sex is a major part of Rushdie’s novel. It’s basically what the jinn do when they’re not invading earth, and it’s a huge part of the relationship between Dunia and her two mortal lovers (more about that later).

And how much of this pivotal, plot-forwarding sex happens off-stage?

ALL OF IT!

I know I look at the world in a, uh, particular way, being an erotica author and all. But still. Sex is the reason Dunia is attracted to her modern-day lover, it’s a huge weapon in the war between the two worlds, it’s the jinn’s main reason for being incarnate, and all Rushdie writes is, “They had sex.” Or, “They had sex for days.”

So what’s it like to have sex with a jinn?

No. Clue.

Side note: I’m guessing there’s a clause in the Booker Prize Acceptance Paperwork that forbids the winner from ever writing erotica.

Second, I have to admit I didn’t dig Rushdie’s style this time around.

Sure, when I read Midnight’s Children I thought he was a genius. He may well be a genius, sex scenes aside.

But here I found his faux stream-of-consciousness writing irritating, and his clever run-on sentences that took up an entire page confused the hell out of me. Plus, many of his philosophical musings felt like they’d been shoehorned into the story, interrupting the action.

Does this make me low-brow?

Probably.

It also meant I spent most of the novel slightly-to-mostly confused, and being confused meant I didn’t connect with the characters.

So when the world was ripped apart in poetic, page-long sentences, I was like:

So what?

Because I didn’t really give a damn about any of the characters. Or their love stories.

And that’s another thing!

The love stories. The book is billed as a love story, and yes, there is some love. The most convincing love story is between Dunia the jinn princess and the medieval philosopher Ibn Rushd. And it lasts, oh, five pages. The first five pages of the book.

The rest of the novel?

Characters just fall in love (or screw each other). Why? Well, Dunia falls for the humble, older gardener Geronimo because he looks like her former lover Ibn Rushd. And Geronimo falls in love with Dunia because she takes on the physical form of his deceased wife, which is not even a little bit creepy.

Also not creepy? Geronimo is Dunia’s descendant, a great-great-great-great-great grandson of Dunia and Ibn Rushd. Romantic, right?

And that’s not the only problematic love story. The depressed, filthy rich woman who owns the estate where Geronimo is the gardener also falls in love with Geronimo. Why Well, from what I can tell, it’s because A) Women are fickle and make no sense, and B) Few things are more attractive than a man in his 70s.

Like I said, one big, steaming pile of disappointment.

If you’re bound and determined to be highbrow, you can check out Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty-Eight Days here.

Or, if you just want to look highbrow, you can buy a hardcopy of Rushdie’s book and wrap that dust jacket around an actual thought-provoking, philosophical, paranormal romance like Janine Ashbless’s Cover Him With Darkness or Rachel Alexander’s Receiver of Many.

Or, you know, my book.

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Write What You Want, Damn It.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written an advice post. But hey, if there’s one thing people love, it’s unsolicited advice! So, to celebrate NaNoMo, I’m going to jump right in and tell you what I think.

Here’s today’s writing advice:

Write Whatever the Hell You Want

As I mentioned in my interview with Eliza David, I’ve always known I wanted to be a writer. I wrote compulsively in high school and took every creative writing class I could at Colby College.

Rule number one in most of those creative writing classes? No genre fiction. 

Granted, I still wrote some pretty crazy stuff (including a short story about Superman having a drunken one-night stand). But that prejudice against genre fiction stuck, and when I graduated college, I basically froze like a deer in the headlights.

Sure, I still wanted to be a writer.

But I didn’t just want to be a writer. I wanted to be THE BEST WRITER EVER.

Pulitzer or Bust, baby!

And every time I had a story idea (which tended to be crazy, sexy stuff) I’d immediately dismiss it. NO GENRE, my brain cried!

So I didn’t write a goddamn thing from 2003 until last year.

That was stupid, and here’s two reasons why.

Genre Fiction is Awesome

When I was a teenager back in the late 90’s, fantasy was lame. Granted, I never had a problem admitting I loved fantasy, but you couldn’t be one of the cool kids if you liked D&D. (At least, I think that was the case. I was never cool enough to know…)

But nowadays?

Dun Dun Da Da Dun Dun Da Da DUN!!!

Thanks to the Lord of the Rings movies, HBO’s Game of Thrones, and many other fine examples, genre has gone mainstream.

And now, dude, if you don’t like genre fiction — you’re lame!

Honestly, Literature Has Always Been Weird

Hey, you know what’s a crazy idea for a novel?

Some dude wakes up in his bed, and he’s turned into a giant cockroach!

Crazy, right?

Or, some guy meets the ghost of his father and learns he’s been murdered. But instead of avenging his dad’s death, the guy just mopes around being mean to his girlfriend and contemplating suicide.

I spent twelve years waiting to have a Serious Idea for a Novel. It never happened, and honestly, my Serious Novel probably would have been crap. Some of us are destined to write about middle-aged Jewish men in New York city with crazy ex-wives (Saul Bellow’s Herzog), and some of us are destined to write about sex with Norse gods.

I know what I’d rather read.

Besides, as it turns out, high-brow literature is full of crazy ideas and highly improbably circumstances. And guess what? Real life is full of crazy ideas and highly improbably circumstances, too.

So, baby, don’t fear the genre.

Write whatever the hell you want.

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Sunday Snog!

Happy Sunday, my friends!

Author Victoria Blisse is celebrating her 250th Sunday Snog AND raising money for a good cause; namely, FPA, the sexual health charity. You can make a donation here.

I’m going to join in the fun by offering an excerpt from Persephone Remembers the Pomegranates, one of my current works in progress. I figured a kissing scene with Hades would fit the season…

Enjoy!

*

There was a man watching me. He was tall and pale, his dark hair falling to his shoulders. His eyes burned with a strange intensity, and his full lips curled into a smile. I gasped and pulled my hand from between my thighs, my cheeks burning with embarrassment. I’d thought I was hidden, here. I’d thought no one could find me.

I didn’t recognize him, not then. I later learned he’d gone to great lengths to make himself as attractive as possible. He needn’t have bothered; I always found him attractive. In any state.

“You’re very beautiful,” he said. His voice was resonant and strangely thick. I did not then recognize the sound of his arousal, the way it made his strong voice even deeper.

I smiled. As I said, I was very young.

“I don’t think I know you,” I said, coming to my feet. He was quite tall; even standing I came only to his chest.

“Forgive my intrusion, then,” he said. “I am Hades.” He bent and took my hand in his, kissing me gently.

I shivered as his lips touched my fingertips. Hades. Of course I knew who he was, but he was nothing like I’d expected. The man in front of me did not seem stern or fearsome. And he was not cold, oh no, not at all. His lips against my fingers made my entire body burn.

“Am I dead?” I whispered, my breath catching in my throat.

He smiled and moved his lips to the inside of my wrist, covering my skin with his soft, warm kisses. My pulse hammered against his mouth. His lips traced the length of my arm, making my skin flush and my nipples harden under my chiton. He felt so good I was half convinced I’d imagined him, that by bringing my hands to my sex I’d somehow summoned this gorgeous man to satisfy me.

He stopped once his chest was next to mine, and he turned to smile at me. “No,” he whispered. “You are not dead.”

My body curved to fit against his, and I met his dark eyes. My hand traced the length of his arms, feeling the strength of his muscles beneath his cloak. His body trembled slightly under my touch, and he sighed softly, almost imperceptibly.

“May I kiss you?” he asked.

I nodded. My heart hammered against the cage of my chest and heat poured off my body, slicking the space between my thighs. Without speaking, I leaned into him, tilting my head to meet his. His lips were cool against mine, his body stiff as I wrapped my arms around his waist. But he yielded as I embraced him, moving his hands up my back, opening his mouth to welcome my tongue.

I’d thought I had kissed before. I’d thought Erata had given me all he had, had kissed me in all the ways a man could kiss a woman.

I was wrong.

Hades’ kiss was gentle at first, soft and sweet, opening to me with shy hesitation as I explored him. Then I rubbed my hips against his, enjoying the feeling of his arousal. He moaned inside my mouth, and his kiss changed, became wild, became hungry. He pressed into me as though he wanted us to fill the same space, to share the same skin, as though he’d die if he couldn’t taste me. His tongue filled me, sending shivers down my spine, and his fingers gripped my hips, clinging to my body.

He stopped suddenly, pulling back as though I’d hurt him. He stumbled backward and I reached for him, grabbing his wrist.

“Don’t go,” I said, breathless.

*

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The Woods: A Flash Horror Story

My first horror story. Happy Halloween, my friends!

The Woods

“You’ll wanna stay out of them woods.”

I nodded. I’d spent the last twenty minutes listening to a litany of advice from our new neighbor Mr. Gagnon, a hunched-over old man who looked like he’d spent most of his life outdoors.

“The woods,” I repeated. “Stay out. Got it.”

I glanced toward the house, where the kids raced their bikes up and down the driveway. The trees beyond our backyard did not seem particularly ominous; they were just spindly oaks and maples, probably growing on land that had been logged at least half a dozen times. What was his problem? Lyme disease? He didn’t look like the sort who would be worried about ticks.

“Uh, thanks for all the advice,” I stammered. “Listen, I’d better go help with the boxes. Lots of work, moving in.”

The old man grunted and offered his hand. His handshake was surprisingly firm, like gripping solid oak.

I almost told Leslie what Mr. Gagnon said about the woods, but she was on the phone with her mother, arguing, so I kept my mouth shut. We were so busy over the next few months I forgot all about Mr. Gagnon’s bizarre warning.

Until the cat disappeared.

Sylvester was a fat, old tomcat, only good for shedding on the couch and spitting up hairballs next to the bed. He’d developed diabetes, and Leslie gave him insulin shots every morning. Stupid waste of money for a damn cat, if you ask me, but of course nobody asked me.

“Have you seen Sylvester?” Leslie asked, her brow furrowed over the kids’ lunch boxes.

I shook my head.

“You don’t think he got out?”

“I can’t imagine him moving that fast,” I said, but all I got was a thin, pale smile.

“I let him out.”

We turned to see Sarah, our nine-year-old, in the doorway. She met our gaze with her new defiant frown, an expression that made me dread the next ten years.

“Oh, honey, you let him out? Why?” Leslie said.

Sarah shrugged, climbing into her seat at the kitchen table. “He wanted to go out. He was meowing at the door.” She added a few mewling cries of her own, for emphasis.

“Don’t worry,” I said, wrapping my arm around Leslie’s shoulders. Of course, telling Leslie not to worry was like telling fire not to burn. “I’m sure he’ll come home soon. He knows where his food is.”

I was backing out of the driveway when I remembered Mr. Gagnon, and what he said about the woods. I glanced at the trees behind our house. The maple leaves were just turning, tinged with red and yellow in the bright September sun. Just trees, I thought. Not even woods, really.

Sylvester did not come back that night, nor the next night. After a week we had a little funeral service for him in the backyard, at Leslie’s insistence.

“It’ll be good for the kids,” she said. “It’ll help them process.”

Timothy didn’t seem to need much help processing. He was only four, and he spent most of the service hitting the fence with a stick. Sarah took it harder. That night I told Leslie over and over that Sarah would be fine, she’d get over it, and Sylvester was an old cat anyway. But that night I stared at the ceiling, remembering the look in Sarah’s eyes, and I wasn’t so sure this was the kind of mistake a kid got over.

Two weeks later we lost the dog.

The cat was old and sick. But the dog… She was only four, a young, healthy, painfully stupid springer spaniel named Daisy. Both kids were crying by the time I got home, and Leslie was beside herself.

“She just ran off for a second, I swear,” Leslie told me, her voice trembling and her eyes red-rimmed.

“Ran off?”

“Just into the woods. You know, like she always does. But she always comes back, Mike!”

I glanced through the living room windows at the woods. Almost all the trees were bare, now, their black branches scraping the evening sky. The shadows pooling around their trunks did seem very dark, almost thick.

I swallowed my apprehension. “She’ll come back,” I said, knowing full well the goddamn dog was gone forever.

One month later Mrs. Lindley called me out of a meeting, her pink lipsticked mouth pressed into a tight line. “It’s your wife,” she said, gesturing to my phone. “At least, I think it’s your wife.”

I picked up the receiver. It was Leslie, sobbing hysterically. I could barely make out her words, but it hardly mattered. I knew what she was going to say.

The woods.

The children had gone into the woods.

It was dark by the time I got home, and it shouldn’t have been dark. I left the office as soon as I hung up the phone. It was too early for the sun to set. I slammed the car door shut and listened. I could hear Leslie’s voice, echoing through the woods.

“Timothy!” she screamed. “Sarah!”

I followed the sound of her voice. There’s only a quarter mile of trees before Elm Street; we saw the survey maps when we bought the house. Only a quarter mile of oaks and maples. That’s not enough space to lose someone.

The ground beneath the trees was dark. Very dark. I followed the sound of Leslie’s voice, but it got fainter and farther away. And the trees got bigger, much bigger, so big I couldn’t wrap my arms around them. Some dim, distant part of my mind realized the woods behind our house should not hold such mammoth trees, just as it should not be this dark.

Only a quarter mile.

I should be able to hear Leslie’s voice.

I stopped, panting, staring up into a tangle of dark branches soaring far overhead. The woods were silent, absolutely silent, a tense, waiting, hungry sort of silent.

“Leslie!” I screamed. “I’m calling the police!”

I would like to say I did not run out of the woods, but that would be a lie.

The house is still dark. Far too dark. The sun should have come up by now. My cell phone claims I have no service, and the internet is out too. The darkness presses against the windows, rubbing its shoulders.

I wonder what happened to the damn cat.

I wonder how much longer I can stay here before I too go into the woods.

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