Laura Roberts's Blog, page 74

And the winner is…

Congrats to Katie W, winner of the Book Lovers Prize Pack giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I’ll also be contacting winners of the ebook giveaway today, so if you left a comment on my blog, check your email!

Thanks to all who participated in my International Authors Day week of giveaways, and be sure to check back soon for still more giveaways and book-lovin’ prizes.

AND…

If you’re in or around San Diego this August, come to my Book Lovers reading! It’s happening August 8 at the San Diego Art Institute, and includes art, food and a chance to mingle with awesome writers like Shawna Kenney, editor of the Book Lovers anthology. For complete details, check out my Facebook event page. See you there!

Related PostsHump Day Reviews: Book Lovers, edited by Shawna KenneySunset on Summer Fun Blog Hop: Enter to win a Kindle Fire or Nook HDNaked Montreal Part 2 giveaway winnersZemanta

GIVEAWAY: The Obsidian Collection Anthology

Continuing my posts for International Authors Week, here’s another giveaway!

Xpresso Book Tours is hosting today’s giveaway for the launch of The Obsidian Collection.

Who and what make up The Obsidian Collection? Glad you asked!

This is a collection of 9 “dark-love” novellas, with the tag line “The wicked have never looked so good…” Inside you’ll find:

Obsidian Escape by Rebel Adams: Just one look at the battered form of Whitney Geddings awakens a fierce protective instinct in Detective Jackson Ogden… but at what price?
Obsidian Liquor by Scarlett Dawn: Reporter Elizabeth Forter never expected one drunken challenge to leave her sexually satisfied and waking beside Daniil – the head of the Russian mafia.
Obsidian Faith by Bev Elle:Shanice Bailey’s epic faith in Trevor Kyle, the man she’s loved since they were both wards at the Baptist Children’s Home, is shaken when his sketchy foster father shows up on their honeymoon.
Obsidian Heart by Nicole Flockton: Will Erika’s holiday fling with Brandt bring him out of the shadows, or is his heartdestined for darkness?
Obsidian Sky by Lara Henley: When military man Brandon Michaels comes home to a town he no longer recognizes, his salvation may rest in Arabella Knight, a woman who has secrets that no one knows.
Obsidian Ice by Missy Johnson: Medical intern Cam Fletcher knew becoming a surgeon would be hard work, but what he wasn’t counting on was falling for his mentor – cocky surgeon Eric Langdon.
Obsidian Jewel by Angel Lawson: Professional thieves, competitors, and occasional lovers, Maya Clarke and Malcolm Kent, must work together for the job of a lifetime and try not to kill one another while doing it.
Obsidian Desire by t.h. snyder: Can one chivalrous act change Tyler Jones, a coldhearted man, or will desire burn through his soul and change him forever?
Obsidian Beauty by Emily Walker: Out of jail and finally ready to confront the man who left her there to rot, Abigail Rivers is upset to learn Benton Sellers has moved on with no regard for the sacrifices she has made for him.


BOOK TRAILER

GET THE OBSIDIAN COLLECTION

Add The Obsidian Collection to your Goodreads shelf, or purchase it at Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Kobo, CreateSpace (print), Scribd, or Smashwords.

THE GIVEAWAY

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway to win even MORE naughty novels, using the Rafflecopter widget below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And don’t forget…

There’s still time to enter my Book Lovers Prize Pack giveaway, for a chance to win great prizes — including ebooks from Buttontapper Press!

Related PostsGIVEAWAY: Sinful Rewards by Cynthia SaxNaked Montreal Part 2 giveaway winnersSunset on Summer Fun Blog Hop: Enter to win a Kindle Fire or Nook HDZemanta

Sweet Secrets by Constance Munday bakes up erotic romance

What will happen when dark secrets threaten a perfect recipe for happiness and newfound love?

Left on her own, Carrie Ann decides it is time to escape her past, empower herself and overcome her confidence issues by turning her secret hobby of erotic cake design into a business. Her world is then turned upside down when she bumps into dynamic and sexy Dominic. Unwittingly, Carrie Ann sows the seeds of disaster from day one, weaving a web of deceit, and before she knows it the lies are multiplying.

As news of her baking brilliance spreads, romance grows. Now, only one thing can ruin their happiness and that is Carrie Ann’s dark deceptions and the battle she is fighting within herself. Will she be strong enough to overcome a past that is set to destroy her dreams for the future and tell Dominic the truth, or will she lose him forever?

Sweet Secrets is available on Kindle, ebook and print from Totally Bound, Amazon US, Amazon UK, and all good book suppliers.

Excerpt

The sun warmed Carrie Ann Jude’s face as she glanced through the large plate glass windows of the airport. Planes rose into the sky like silver birds, their metal bodies transporting people all over the world on adventures. She tightened her grip on the straps of her handbag. She had been one of those people embarking on an adventure only two weeks ago, except her journey had not started just with feelings of excitement, but trepidation. She pushed her sunglasses up over her head and took out her paperback to flip through. It was hard to concentrate with so many thoughts dancing in her head.

Carrie Ann was so deep in thought she hadn’t noticed the stunning youth about to sit down beside her. Wanting to be alone and not have anyone invading her space, she’d put her large bag on the chair next to her. Before she could say anything, he’d had his hand on it and, much to her consternation, had dropped it unceremoniously onto the floor. Then, not giving her time to move out of the way, he dumped a considerably weighty backpack on her foot.

“Ouch. Watch it!” she cried out, as he bumped against her, slopping his coffee over her hand. “That was hot.” She angrily snapped her book closed, noticing spots of coffee marking the pages.

“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry. Hi.” He had an American accent. “I ought to have asked if you minded if I sat here, but that’s me.”

She looked up to make a rude retort and found herself glaring into an impossibly green pair of eyes. She flushed. It was so embarrassing to be trapped by his compelling gaze.

“I’m so clumsy, everyone says it.” He held out his hand. “I’m truly sorry. My name’s Dominic, and you are…?”

How could she resist those eyes and his flirtatious expression? Carrie Ann took hold of his proffered hand and shook it unenthusiastically. “Carrie Ann.” What she could only describe as an electrical charge danced up her legs and ended with a pleasant fizz in the tips of her fingers and toes. He was very good-looking and his mop of shaggy blond hair that flopped into his face seemed to remind her of…

“Great.” He flashed her a grin. “I’m sorry. Let me get you another coffee.”

“No thanks, I don’t want one.” She was attempting to be more assertive, but it was harder than she’d thought. Actually, everything was so much harder out in the big wide world as she tried to cut ties to her past. Rommy, her father, so named because when he was younger he’d looked devilishy like a true Romany gypsy, had often criticised her for her submissive stance, which was ridiculous since that was what he’d wanted from her. The thought of him sent a creepy crawly shiver down her spine.

No one should feel like that about their father, but she did and she couldn’t help it. On occasion, she wondered if she would ever be able to get over him, shake loose all the hang-ups and phobias he had given her. It had not been abuse, but he had been good at keeping her under. She realised now she shouldn’t have put up with it for so long, she should have fought more for her independence when she’d had a chance to. But that was easier said than done.

The young guy hefted his bag and again knocked her. The nerve of it. She studied him angrily out of the corner of her eye. She had keen powers of observation—it was another one of the little skills she’d developed from being alone so long. Not having a lot to occupy her, she had become exceedingly observant. His arms were bare and muscular and covered in a frosting of tight blond hair. He also had strong, capable hands. Rommy would have said the man’s thighs were those of a rugby player. She had a thing about blond men, she reflected. Perhaps that was why she was instantly captivated by him. That came as a surprise and an interesting one, since anger and desire had a potent effect on her newly liberated self. It would be hard to be immune to his charms and it might be fun to test her boundaries yet again. She was woefully inexperienced with men. In a way, stepping out into the world was like learning to drive, and shy girls like her had to approach it slowly and cautiously and be prepared for any sudden unexpected turns in the road or emergency stops. She smiled to herself. She might have been confined to the house for years and had no experience of love first-hand, but she was living and breathing and had the same desires other women had.

For some reason she was shamefully hot and crossed her legs. It was utterly ridiculous being affected like this since Dominic was sexy and because of that was the kind of guy who wouldn’t flirt with her, well, not seriously. She tugged her skirt down over her knees. When she glanced up, he was watching her with a wry twist to his lips, as if he found her faintly amusing.

He gestured to the terminal board. “I guess you’re heading back to England.”

“Naturally,” she said. Carrie Ann wondered if she had a sticky label on her forehead, stamped ‘England’.

Nervousness made her feel hysterical. She would much prefer to be left alone with her thoughts, besides which it was distinctly embarrassing to have a man’s leg pressed against hers. He kept staring at her and she self-consciously stroked her lip. Why did he keep peering at her, like that? Besides the invisible label, there was nothing else that could make her seem even remotely interesting… was there?

At that moment a stunning girl strolled by and Dominic sized her up with interest, his gaze rippling up and down her from the tips of the high heels she was tottering in, to her layer-cut, multi-toned hair. Carrie Ann’s spirits sank further. She only had to dissect some of the women around her to realise she was at a distinct disadvantage where flirting was concerned. Let’s face it, she wasn’t even dressed for seduction. She was draped in her shabby comfortable skirt and she hadn’t even bothered with her appearance. As for what Rommy would have rather rudely termed ‘slap’—that was like attempting a recipe that was way out of her comfort zone. She’d only recently ventured down the makeup trail and she still didn’t like wearing it, although that might soon have to change, if her career plans took off. Makeup was weird stuff. It never looked right on her—the eyeshadow she’d tried made her dark brown eyes seem to retreat backwards so they seemed far too small, her freckles overwhelmed her complexion and her riotous mousy curls defied brushes, combs and tongs.

Any makeup she had used, she’d mistakenly plastered on to cover the freckles, and red lipstick—as Myra, the girl she had met at the ranch had pointed out—made her appear garish. Myra had given her a stick of lipstick termed nude and that did help, teamed with a tinted moisturiser. Myra was a brick, she thought grimly, pity she lived halfway across the world in Australia. She was also into baking, which had been a plus. It had been great to actually have a kindred spirit to talk with, to enthuse about her dreams to. Her heart soared and dipped. If anything was guaranteed to lift her spirits, it was the prospect of the new plans waiting for her when she got home.

“I don’t bite.” He touched her.

She jumped. He was smiling at her and trying to be funny by dipping his head and making puppy dog eyes at her.

She laughed, she couldn’t help it. “No, I guess not.”

He stretched out his long legs, settling back in his chair. “Did you enjoy it?”

“Enjoy what?”

“Your stay over here in the States. What were you doing? Was it business or pleasure?”

She was still guilty that she’d splurged a considerable amount of Rommy’s nestegg on the short holiday. It was the kind of thing her father, with his thrifty ways, would have termed profligate.

“All pleasure. Something trivial actually. I just had the Arlem experience.” She stared him in the eye, seeing if he got it or not. Most people knew about Arlem or they didn’t.

He broke into a grin. “Wow! You’re kidding. The Arlem experience, that’s way cool. I read about it in a Sunday supplement.” Brow creased, he seemed to be thinking. “But that’s where the weird people go isn’t it? You a teacher? You don’t strike me as weird.”

She felt a short sharp violent stab of indignation. “The people at Arlem are lovely. They specialise in helping people. People with problems.”

“Yeah, but it’s mostly mental problems isn’t it?”

“Not always,” she snapped. Goodness, he had no tact whatsoever. “And no. I’m not a teacher, I was a visitor.”

He shrugged and looked away. It was as if he hadn’t noticed her sharp tone. “I’ve just been to visit my mother,” he explained. “She lives in California and he—my dad—still lives in England. After that ordeal, there were a few things I wanted to stop off and see here before I headed back. I don’t know why I come back to see her because it winds me up so much. Dad’s worse though, so it’s the lesser of two evils. In case you wondered. They’re divorced although it’s a sham since neither of them abide by the rules. They frequently visit one another to have passionate interludes.”

“Really.” Carrie Ann was intrigued, as in her estimation, romantic folk like that only seemed to exist between the pages of novels. “How modern of them. They must like it and be very much in love to be like that. To want the continual spice.”

He didn’t seem to have heard her. “It’s not like a divorce. It’s like playing at a divorce. In fact, I reckon you’re right. They rather like it. It seems to add something to their love life.”

“I think it’s romantic. Fancy still loving a person when you’re half a world apart.”

“Yes. Quaint. A grown-up kind of game. My father’s version of Viagra. I often wonder if that’s why I’m so messed up. It would be hard not to be, with two parents like that.”

Carrie Ann fell silent. Dominic didn’t look messed up. He seemed the most confident and together person she’d met. Besides being wickedly good-looking. Come on. You deserve a slap on the wrist. He’s so young for one thing. Let’s face it, there’s no way on earth a guy like him would ever want to date you.

About Constance Munday

Constance is nearly always to be found with a pencil in her hand making notes for a new story. She has led a varied life and done many jobs from cup washer, lecturer, to new age healer but has always written since she was a child.

A major health scare recently, though, made her see life differently, and after years as a part-time writer, she turned full-time, because as she says — life is too short not to do what you love. She has literally climbed a mountain and made many sacrifices to pen her novels and now builds on a fund of wonderful encounters with intriguing people, plus her imagination, to write stories with strong characters and determined and adventurous women.

When asked what kind of genre is her favourite, romance is always the answer because to Constance, romance — whether hot and steamy or sweet and emotional — is always at the heart of a good story. She hopes her stories reflect all of life’s facets from the struggling mother at home who finds a way out of poverty, the ardent and often disappointed dieter, to the girl who triumphs over sickness or has the courage to embrace her rather naughty side.

Constance loves listening to snatched conversations, which often gives her a seed to start a story, taking walks, revelling in the mysteries of life and baking and dancing, when she isn’t tapping away at her latest novel, of course.

She loves her fans and their comments, so invites you to please drop a line and if you have a second, pen a review.

Find Constance online at her blog, Facebook or email her. You can also come join in the fun at her Facebook Launch Party on July 21.

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GIVEAWAY: Sinful Rewards by Cynthia Sax

Continuing my posts for International Authors Week, here’s another giveaway!

[image error]Xpresso Book Tours is hosting today’s giveaway for the debut of Cynthia Sax’s new novel, Sinful Rewards.

What’s Sinful Rewards all about? Glad you asked!

Belinda “Bee” Carter is a good girl; at least, that’s what she tells herself. And a good girl deserves a nice guy – just like the gorgeous and moody billionaire Nicolas Rainer. He is everything she wants in a man.

Or so she thinks, until she takes a look through her telescope and sees a naked, tattooed man on the balcony across the courtyard. Hawke is mysterious, the bad boy she knows will bring only heartbreak. He has been watching her, and that makes him all the more enticing.

But when a mysterious and anonymous text message dares her to do something bad, she must decide if she is really the good girl she has always claimed to be, or if she’s willing to risk everything for her secret fantasy of being watched.

Is her mystery man the reclusive billionaire with a wild side or the darkly dangerous bad boy?

Author Bio

Cynthia Sax’s stories have been featured in Star Magazine and on Real Time With Bill Maher. She lives in a world where demons aren’t all bad, angels aren’t all good, and magic happens every single day. Although her heroes may not always say, “I love you,” they will do anything for the women they love. They live passionately. They fight fiercely. They love the same women forever.

Cynthia has loved the same wonderful man forever. Her supportive hubby offers himself up to the joys and pains of research. He receives a daily briefing on what every character is doing. You can also learn what Cynthia Sax’s characters are doing by visiting her website at www.CynthiaSax.com or emailing her directly at Cynthia@CynthiaSax.com.

She loves writing fated to mate romances because this is her personal experience with love. She fell in love with my dear wonderful hubby at first sight and 20 years later, they’re still very much in love. This is what she wishes for her characters and  for her readers.

Excerpt

I allow my gaze to travel up the stranger’s body, over his thighs, groin, stomach, chest. A thick scar slashes through his right nipple and four letters are tattooed over his left pec – USMC – United States Marine Corps. He’s a military man, trained to protect, to kill. This should dampen my unseemly fascination with him.

I want him even more.

A larger tattoo stretches over his collarbone, the design depicting a sun framed by a pair of wings, the ink black and gray and achingly beautiful. The feathers are finely detailed, the softness appearing out of place on such a hard body.

The stranger’s spine is straight, his shoulders squared and his arms raised. A third tattoo encircles one huge bicep, the barbed wire in black ink serving as a warning. Danger. Do not enter. A wise woman would heed this sign.

I should heed this sign. I should look away. I can’t, my gaze drawn to him. The man’s chin is square, brown stubble shadowing his golden skin. His nose is flattened, his nostrils are flared, his—

I step backward, my heart pounding. No, my luck can’t be that bad. I look into the telescope once more. It is that bad. Military­ style binoculars cover the man’s eyes. These lenses are pointed directly at me.

He’s watching me. I move away from the window, retreating into the shadows. He saw me looking at him. He knows. Heat rushes over me, making the world spin. This stranger knows I’m a pervert. He knows I’m not the good girl I’ve allowed others to believe. If he tells Cyndi, Mr. Wynters, anyone…

I hold my breath, count to five, and release it, repeating the action until the fog surrounding me dissipates and my rational thought returns. He won’t tell anyone and if he does, who will believe him? He’s standing on his balcony naked. This fact alone disqualifies him as a credible source.

Not that gossip ever originates from credible sources. I twist my lips, disgusted with myself for making this error. This is why I shouldn’t take risks. I take one look through the telescope and I get caught. My mom has one wild night with a bad boy and she conceives me.

GET Sinful Rewards

Add Sinful Rewards to your Goodreads shelf, or purchase it at Amazon.

THE GIVEAWAY

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway to win even MORE naughty novels, using the Rafflecopter widget below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And don’t forget…

There’s still time to enter my Book Lovers Prize Pack giveaway, for a chance to win great prizes — including ebooks from Buttontapper Press!

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International Authors Day: Join me for a week’s worth of giveaways

Did you know that July 18 is International Authors Day? Debdatta from Bookish Indulgences with b00k r3vi3ws has organized this brand new yearly event in order to celebrate authors from around the world.

In honor of this cool literary event, I’ve got a giveaway (see below!), but first let me tell you about some of my favorite authors.

I’ve always been a huge fan of recreational reading, and as far back as I can remember, I delighted in going to the library to check out new books. I typically tore through these books quickly, and often ended up re-reading my weekly library stack, impatiently awaiting our next trip! Back when I was a kid, I loved to read books in series. I voraciously read anything by Judy Blume (Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret), Ann M. Martin (The Baby-Sitters Club), Beverly Cleary (the “Ramona” books), and even the Sweet Valley High series by Francine Pascal (which I later learned were actually ghostwritten by a team). I also enjoyed Nancy Drew mysteries, the Encyclopedia Brown series by Donald J. Sobol, and his Two-Minute Mysteries books as well.

Somewhere along the line I also discovered Shel Silverstein’s wacky poetry in Where the Sidewalk Ends, and Roald Dahl’s amazing characters like The BFG, Matilda, and The Witches.

As I graduated from the children’s section of the library, I began reading lots more mysteries, especially The Cat Who… series by Lilian Jackson Braun — most of which were passed on to me by my cat-loving aunt, who bought each paperback in the series. My aunt also passed along other books like Anne Rice’s vampire novels, and even Madame Bovary.

Besides storming the library and devouring my aunt’s recommended readings, I also enjoyed exploring my parents’ bookshelves, which contained Catch-22 by Joseph Heller and Oliver Wiswell by Kenneth Roberts — a writer with the same name as my father. (Although he jokingly referred to it as “my book,” my dad isn’t actually the famous historical novelist. He does, however, have a lot of great stories that should be turned into a book someday!)

My middle school also gave me plenty to read, including The Pearl about 3,000 times, Something Wicked This Way Comes (turning me onto Ray Bradbury), Johnny Tremain, The Count of Monte Cristo, and even a few Shakespearean plays (I definitely remember reading Romeo and Juliet and wondering why a couple of kids my age would ever want to get married, ew!).

In high school I tackled books like Great Expectations, Fahrenheit 451, The House on Mango Street, Red Emma Speaks (a collection of Emma Goldman’s anarchist writings), and even the enormous unabridged English translation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. I read a lot of British authors during high school, perhaps as a result of the curriculum but also due to a common teenage interest in dystopian literature. Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm, as well as Huxley’s Brave New World influenced much of my world-view then. Poets like T.S. Eliot and Louis MacNeice, and humorists like Douglas Adams also took up residency in my brain. (Not to mention the Monty Python songs my BFF Jenna enjoyed singing between classes, which still haunt me to this day!)

In college I majored in Philosophy and read works from Plato and Aristotle, Descartes, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Baudrillard, Walter Benjamin, and even Eastern philosophers like Lao Tzu (or Laozi), Confucius, Mencius, Sun Tzu (Sun Zi) and Vyasa (the scribe and incarnation of Vishnu to whom the Bhagavad Gita is attributed). I found that I preferred Existentialism, and began to explore the works of more international authors like Salman Rushdie, Milan Kundera, Jeanette Winterson, Leonard Cohen, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. I also enjoyed reading poems by Dorothy Parker that suited my dry sense of humor, as well as her barbed book and theater reviews, which eventually inspired me to begin a little magazine of my own.

And now? My favorite authors still wander all over the map, from David Sedaris’ humorous essays to Paul Auster’s postmodern rambles to Jorge Luis Borges’ and Murakami’s magical realism to Anaïs Nin’s erotica to classics I like to re-read every year or so like Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I love novellas, mysteries, books that play with language, authors that break the rules and bend genres. I love fraud memoirs, like JT Leroy’s Sarah and James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces. I love weird and wonderful books, and the authors who made them great.

In short: I still love reading, and always wish I had more time to devote to it. But, like any author, I must eventually pull away from reading and turn back to writing my own books. Hopefully at least some of the greatness of the writers I’ve read throughout the years sticks with me and inspires my own stories to aim higher and give readers something new to ponder.

The Giveaway

To celebrate International Authors Day, I’m giving away a super awesome Book Lovers prize pack!

One lucky prize-winner will receive everything in the pack, which includes:

A signed paperback copy of Book Lovers: Sexy Stories from Under the Covers (which contains my short story “Open Letters to Famous Writers”)
A “First Lines in Literature” mug
An Oscar Wilde action figure, and
A bag (12 oz.) of Lectores Coffee

Click to view slideshow.
AND!

I’m also giving away copies of my ebooks to the first 10 people who comment on this post. You can pick your favorite from amongst these titles:

The Vixen Files: Naughty Notes from a Montreal Sex Columnist
Naked Montreal: A Novel of Sex and the Underground City (Part 1)
Naked Montreal: Porn Stars and Peccadillos (Part 2)
69 Sexy Haiku
The Montreal Guide to Sex
Ninjas of the 512: A Texas-Sized Satire

HOW TO WIN

To win one of my ebooks, just comment on this post with the book you’d most like to win and why. (Winners of this contest can be based anywhere in the world .)
To win the Grand Prize, just follow the instructions in the Rafflecopter widget below. (Winners must be based in the U.S. for this contest.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

DON’T FORGET TO HOP!

For a chance to win even MORE prizes, don’t forget to visit the other blogs in the International Authors Day Blog Hop. All authors are offering unique prizes on their individual sites, plus there’s a chance to win a $15 Amazon Gift Card from the hop’s organizer, Debdatta.

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The Naughty Nine debut and giveaway

Xpresso Book Tours is hosting a giveaway in honor of the Naughty Nine Boxed Set’s debut.

Who’s in the Naughty 9? Glad you asked!

This is an adult romance boxed set, featuring books “where danger and passion collide.” Inside you’ll find:

Stop in the Name of Love by New York Times Best Selling author Nina Bruhns
Deathblow by New York Times Best Selling author Dana Marton
A Girl, A Guy And A Ghost by Patricia Mason
Everything He Never Wanted by Mary Leo
Red Rock Rises by Taylor Lee
Dirty Little Secrets by New York Times Best Selling author Julie Leto
Sex is Murder by Rita Heron
Saved by Lorhainne Eckhart
Snowbound by USA Today Best Selling author Karen Fenech, and
Secret Identity by New York Times Best Selling author Jill Sanders

A NAUGHTY EXCERPT FROM EVERYTHING HE NEVER WANTED
Billionaire Antonio Milani came to London to recover what is his: a rare, signed copy of Oliver Twist. Instead, finds himself falling for the woman he suspects is involved in an international ring of book thieves.

Despite his distaste for what she’d done, he immediately went hard gazing at the long line of her magnificent back, all her luscious curves and her naked butt. She seemed much rounder and with more delicious curves in the soft glow of moonlight peeking in through the sheer curtains on the window. Her legs were longer and more muscular than he remembered, but then he didn’t remember much about that night. Plus there was something on the small of her back, right above her sweet butt, but he couldn’t make it out. Even her hair had a much deeper tone to it, although there were dark shadows over the upper part of her body and he couldn’t really see much above her shoulders.

He closed the door behind him and stripped naked figuring he’d get the sex out of the way, then in the morning she’d return his book and he’d be out of there before breakfast.

An easy, sensuous exchange, one they would both thoroughly enjoy.

Within moments he slipped onto the bed and wrapped his arms around the woman who liked to play with fire.

As soon as he nuzzled her sweet neck, taking in her musky perfume, she said, “I sleep with a gun under my pillow, and my hand is on the trigger. I’m an excellent marksman, and if you don’t leave right now I’ll put a bullet in your head.”

Antonio jumped out of bed and was out of the bedroom faster than his thoughts could catch up to his mouth. “Wait! What? Holy crap, woman! It’s me.”

“Me who?” a voice shouted from the bedroom as Antonio stood in the middle of the living room, shaking from fear, his heart beating faster than a humming bird’s, adrenalin gushing through his veins. He felt as though he was going to pass out, but then he took a couple deep breaths and regained clarity.

“The house guest you invited.” He dashed behind the sofa, as if it could serve as some sort of protection from a screaming bullet.

An unfamiliar face peeked out from the doorway, the rest of her body hiding behind the wall, then she disappeared back inside the bedroom.

“That’s impossible.”

“Okay. Okay. I’m confused. I don’t know who you are, or what you’ve done with Jackie, but please just throw me my clothes and I’ll get out of here.”

His clothes flew out of the bedroom, along with his shoes, one at a time, without the girl showing her face. Antonio ran up the short hallway and quickly scooped up everything, but couldn’t seem to manage getting anything on. He was shaking too much. Instead he ran back down the hallway holding his things in a tight ball in front of him. “Look, I don’t know who you are, but I’m a … friend of Jackie’s. She invited me.”

“How do I know you’re telling me the truth? You just broke in.”

“I didn’t break in. She gave me the key.”

He couldn’t believe he was having a conversation with someone who had just threatened to kill him.

After a long silence, the girl said, “What’s your name and how do you know Jackie?”

“Antonio Milani. I met her in New York. We … I … I’m here to retrieve something that belongs to me.”

“Shit,” he heard the girl say.

“Everything okay in there?”

“You’re that Antonio Milani?”

“Is there another one?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Good, because I thought I was special.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He tried to placate the gun toting lunatic in the bedroom, but he really needed to know who she was. “Who are you?”

Antonio’s potential shooter slowly came into view at the end of the hallway. She flipped on a light switch and he could see that she was wearing stretchy tights that showcased bunnies in various colors hopping down her legs, and a white tee with a huge bunny with floppy ears that seemed to outline her full round breasts. Her thick auburn hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail on the top of her head. Her empty hands were at her sides.

No gun of any kind … just bunnies.

He let out the breath he’d been holding. His shooter wore bunnies?

GET THE NAUGHTY NINE

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THE GIVEAWAY

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Canada’s award-winning literature is even kinkier than mine

If you’re on social media, you’ve probably seen this book cover floating around today:

Like any good skeptic, at first I was convinced it was a fake. A book about a woman who sleeps with a bear? C’mon. (I mean, granted, the latest trend in current-day erotica is monster sex, but let’s be serious.) A Canadian bestseller? Geez, it only needs to sell 5,000 copies to garner that particular accolade. But then I saw “Winner of the Governor General’s Award,” and I thought “quit playing, McClelland and Stewart!”

The weird thing is… this book really did win the Governor General’s Award in 1976.

That’s right:

A book about a woman who sleeps with a bear won Canada’s highest literary honor.

Investigating further, I discovered a podcast by Toronto comedian Sara Bynoe, in which excerpts from the book were actually read to a live audience. The podcast is called “Say Wha?!” and the premise is “We read it, so you don’t have to.” (Which is, by the way, an amazing premise for a podcast.) Audience members are encouraged to shout out “Say WHA?!” at the parts they find most unbelievable and/or unbelievably offensive.

There were a lot of “Say WHA?!“s on this episode, despite the intimate audience size.

Interestingly enough, Sara also called up the Canada Council for the Arts to ask them just who in the sam hill was responsible for choosing this smutty book for the GGs. You’ll never guess who the judges were, so I’d better just tell you:

Mordecai Richler, Margaret Laurence and Alice Munro.

Is your mind blown yet?

Mine is. I mean, I knew Montreal was a sex-crazed, porn-filming, stripper-loving Sin City of the North, but to think that all of Canada is so down with kinky sex that they chose a book about bestiality as their best novel of the year back in the 70s, well… I think Canada may be a little too kinky for me and my fragile little mind!

Seriously, though, this has given me a whole new perspective on Canadian Literature. It also raises the question: why the hell is a book featuring a sentient vibrator (as in Leonard Cohen’s Beautiful Losers – one of my favorite books) such a shocker if books about women who fuck bears are considered treasured members of the literary canon?

Indeed…

What else might be lurking in the GG backlist?!

I’m almost afraid to ask.

Then again, this is good news for Canadian erotica writers, right? I mean, if you can win a GG for writing about having sex with a bear, think of all the other transgressive shit you could get away with!

Yes, this sure does open up a whole new world of possibilities. My only regret is that I’m not a Canadian and therefore can’t win a GG for my own smutty writing. Le sigh!

P.S. If you’re not boycotting Amazon, there are currently copies of Bear available starting at just $8.42. Go on. You know you want one.

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Erotic comedy: an interview with Heather Lane

I recently discovered that one of my fellow Iron Writers is also an erotica author, so I asked Danielle Lee Zwissler about her naughty alter ego, Heather Lane. Heather has been published in several holiday-themed anthologies, including Merry Christmas Erotica, The Sexmas Collection and New Year Nookie, and is also the author of Paper or Plastic?

Here’s what she had to say about writing dirty.

When did you start writing erotica, and what inspired you to do so?

I started writing erotica in 2011. I wrote a trio of stories and turned them in to Books to go Now! Publishing. Shortly after my submission, I received an acceptance letter! I wrote the stories for fun. My husband and I do a writing exercise each night, and the three stories that I sent in were formed by three “first sentences” that we came up with.

Who are some of your favorite erotic authors?

I don’t actually read much erotica, although I have a few fun ones that I have read in the past. One is a guy who writes erotic comedy such as myself. His name is Guy Randy. I also bought a few other books from some talented indie authors and, of course, I’ve read E.L. James’s 50 Shades of Grey.

Since you also write romance, how do you decide whether a book will include erotic themes or not?

I have to say all of my romance novels have eroticism. I think it’s important to create characters with true human characteristics. I just try not to be too graphic when it’s a romance novel. It’s less about the sex, but more about the touching. Little soft touches here, kisses on the neck, etc.

What turns your characters on the most, in your latest story?

In The Long Ride Home there is a scene where they are having phone sex. To me, that is one of the kinkiest things you can do, describing every touch, every feeling. In my latest romance, everything is a turn-on because the characters have waited a LONG, LONG time.

In my latest erotica the characters are turned on by costumes. (You had to ask, didn’t you?) There is a costume party, and later the characters agree to meet once more, but blindfolded to conceal their identity. The turn-on is not really knowing who you are having sex with, fewer inhibitions.

What do you think makes a good erotic story?

To me, it’s all about the storyline. I can’t watch porn unless the storyline jives. I’m not even joking. I can’t stand watching erotic scenes when they don’t make sense. Erotica also has to have good names for genitalia. I can’t stand when authors mention “throbbing manhood” five hundred times. Get creative with it, but also just be real. This is literature that is supposed to get you in the mood or take you to a fantasy, not put you to sleep.

What’s your favorite euphemism for genitalia?

Ha! I just mentioned genitals above. I’d have to say “hot box” which I read in a story off of Wattpad. And for a man, I’d say “pulsing baton.” (I kid you not!)

For more erotica from Heather Lane — plus romance from Danielle Lee Zwissler — check out her website at danielleleezwissler.com.

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Best apps for iPad writers

I’m the type of writer that loves to try new things, so when I first got an iPad for my birthday a couple years ago, I immediately started hunting for writing apps.

There are some that are pretty standard, like Pages, but being the cheapskate thrifty type of woman I am, I was more interested in the free apps. How would they stack up against writing behemoths like Microsoft Word, which we all use daily on our desktop computers?

Here’s a list of the best apps I’ve personally found for the various types of writing I do on my iPad.

Best All-Around Writing App

Dubbed “The World’s Sexiest Writing App”

My favorite writing app, by far, is Daedalus. It’s not free (breaking my original criteria), but at $4.99 it’s well worth the price.

Having tested a bunch of free apps that purport to do what Daedalus actually does, I’m happy with the way this program is both straightforward to use and pleasing to look at. It doesn’t offer too many distracting features, like thousands of fonts and text sizes, to keeep you from the important goal of actually writing.

With a focused setup where you can write in plain text or HMTL mark-up, you can just get straight to work and worry about formatting later.

The best part of Daedalus is that it easily exports to your email at the tap of a button, or can be saved as a TXT, PDF, RTF or ePub file straight to Dropbox for easy integration with your desktop computer. You can even print out your work right from the app with a wifi enabled printer. Classy.

In short, it’s perfect for starting stories, writing blog posts, generating lists of ideas, or just jotting down a To Do list for the day. It’s my go-to writing app, and I love it.

Best Brainstorming App

So far, the best brainstorming app I’ve found is The Brainstormer. Designed to look like an old-timey barnstormer plane, you get three wheels to spin to find out your story’s motivation, setting and characters in the Classic Brainstormer Word List. You can spin each wheel separately, or hit the dice button to spin them all at once, Vegas jackpot-style. When I used the dice setting, for instance, I got “Letting Go, intergalactic, pirate.” When spun individually, I came up with “Fidelity, Islamic, mechanic.”

You also get an Imagined Animals list for free, which when spun gave me “Majestic, scarab, piranha.”

In addition to spinning ’round and ’round, you can also post your brainstormed lists straight to Twitter or Facebook, or email them to yourself so you won’t forget.

Need more? For just 99¢ a piece, you can also download the Character Creator or the World Builder to help round out your fiction.

A great little app for kickstarting your creative process, available for just $1.99.

Best Name Generator

Can’t think of a good name for your main character? You need a name generator!

The best free name generator I’ve found is . It’s the simplest app around: tap to roll the dice and you’ll get a first and last name. It doesn’t let you set male/female, so you’ll just have to keep rolling until you find the gender you’re looking for, but that’s a minor drawback for a totally free app.

The maker of this app, Thinkamingo, also offers several other writing apps that might catch your interest — especially if you’ve got younger writers in the house — including Story Spark, Lists for Writers, Story Dice, and Spooky Story Dice.

Fantasy Name Generator

If you’re looking for a name generator that will offer a truly astounding variety of fantasy names, including:

Pirate
Jedi
Stripper
Soap Opera
Mafia
Fantasy
Spy
Rapper
Superhero
Wild West
Ninja
Wizard
Drag Queen and
Blues

Then your best bet is .

It may not be the best for naming characters in your fiction (depending on how realistic your writing is), but it’s definitely a fun free app to get your creative wheels turning.

Best Name-Research App

If you’re the type who is likely to fall down a K-hole when researching names online, you definitely need to save yourself from this fate with .

As the Nametrix website notes, “Babies Need Names. But Maybe Not Stripper Names.” This app provides a great start for all your name-related research (unless, of course, you need a stripper name — in which case, may I recommend Neveah?).

This simple app gives you rankings for your chosen name, including the year of the name’s peak popularity, its current popularity ranking, “P-star Quotient” (how many adult film actors share your name), and related names, based on compiled demographics.

Laura, for instance, had its peak popularity in 1968, is currently ranked #322 in girls’ names, has a low P-star Quotient (110 out of 5,508 actresses share my name), and has such related names as Amy, Elizabeth, Erica, Jennifer, Emily, Angela, Robyn, Alyson and Alyssa. Informative!

For $1.99 you can upgrade to the full version, which tells you what career your baby will likely grow up to have, given the name you’ve chosen, as well as the likely political leanings of your kid.

This is definitely a useful tool, whether you’re expecting kids, naming characters, or just interested in finding out how people tend to act based on the monikers their mamas gave ‘em.

Other Apps

I’m still looking for a good word tracking program. The freebie I found from WordTracker only allows you to track one project at a time unless you upgrade to unlimited projects for $2.99. This seems a bit high to me, given that it’s just a simple word tracker that’s being manually updated with your daily word count, so I’m still on the hunt for something better. (I’m currently eyeing Word Count Dashboard at $1.99, which has a pinboard style setup that’s brightly colored and motivational, along with some unique progress reports and summaries.)

What are YOUR favorite writing-related apps?

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Cleaning my writing studio

I’m currently in the process of trying to clean off my desk and reorganize my work space so that I can actually find things like the copious handwritten notes I’ve got buried in different notebooks or floating around on loose pieces of paper. I also need to clear a space on the wall for the map of Paris I bought on eBay, in order to help me visualize different locations for The Case of the Cunning Linguist.

To that end, I’m trying to inspire myself with a picture from the last time my desk was actually clean. This is what it looked like when we first moved in:

You can actually see that this desk is made of wood! Even my computer’s desktop looked so nice and clutter-free! And there was room for my cat, Ned, to sun himself in the window!

So, as I clean up this mess, why don’t you guys tell me: what does your writing space look like? (Pix, please!)

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