V.J. Chambers's Blog, page 4
January 28, 2023
The King’s Mistress
Amazon
Release date: May 25, 2023
Catriona of Lach is the high priestess of Gaen. When the northern invaders come with their cannons and their ships, they decimate her village and celebrate their victory between the priestesses’ thighs.
It could be worse. The invaders do pay the tithe, just like any other man would. Catriona is accustomed to being used by men.
But the invader in her bed is a king. He conquers her in more ways than one. He conquers her pleasure. No man has ever stirred her the way he does.
He’s married. He has two daughters with his queen in the north. He’ll never be hers, not truly.
But she climbs on his ship anyway and follows him to the frigid waters of his northern country, leaving everything behind.
This is a complicated love story about one woman, one king, one fae advisor, and one ancient, antlered god who’s not pleased at having his priestess stolen. Which man is endgame? Guess! She sleeps with all three, and sometimes the men sleep together, too. This is a story of blood and pain and sex and passion and the power behind the crown.
Bargains with her Naga Boss
Amazon
Release date: April 13, 2023
It starts as a joke.
Trading various, er, favors with her boss? Neither of them are serious. It’s nothing but verbal sparring, lobbing zingers back and forth across the kitchen, or at the counter when there aren’t any customers.
He’s too old for her, for one thing. And he’s a naga, which means he’s sort of doubly endowed, and what would she really do with two… two of those?
So how she ends up bent over a counter in the kitchen after the place is closed up, skirt lifted, doubly crammed full of his… those…? She doesn’t know how that happens. It’s definitely not worth the days off she made him give her in return. And it’s definitely not the sort of bargain that she would even make.
But, well, now it’s done.
And now nothing will ever be the same.
Hoofbeats: a monster romance
Amazon
Release date: February 22, 2023
The centaur arrives in town and builds a truly ostentatious house, big enough to take up an entire city block, throwing around his money as if it’s a calling card into society.
Miss Phoebe Llewellyn, daughter of the late Earl of Crisbane, knows high society sits high on a gated hill, and they aren’t admitting anyone. She knows, because she has been cast out. She is ruined, her virtue trampled long ago.
The centaur may think to rise, but he is little more than an oddity, a tidbit of gossip. Society will never accept him.
When she meets the centaur, he robs her of the ability to breathe. It’s the way he looks at her, the dark hunger in his eyes, the barely-contained desire there. No one has ever wanted her in that way. Savage, base yearning. Dangerous yearning. Terrifying yearning.
When he asks for her hand in marriage, she can’t say she’s displeased.
If she weren’t ruined, it would be out of the question. But she knows that she has no other prospects. So, marrying a new-money social climber and being lavished with his coin? She’s not dismissing it out of hand.
Even if the bottom half of him is a horse.
Even if she doesn’t see how one can… with that.
Even if the way he seems to want her borders on bestial madness.
This gaslamp fantasy monster romance is spicy, angsty, and dark. It’s got a fixation with horse analogies (mounting, breaking, training, etc.) If a reader will get her bridle in a twist about such things, she should beware.
January 12, 2023
Fake Dating the Orc Professor
Nothing happened.
Well, Astrid blacked out and woke up in a strange bed, which is not how she thought her twenty-ninth birthday celebration would go. She does not usually get that drunk.
She’s in the bed of an orc professor, who says he slept on the couch and that they didn’t so much as kiss.
She kind of wishes they would have. Look at him. Look at his arms—hulking arms encased in tweed, his powerful body barely contained by his tidy exterior.
Add to that the awkwardness of the orc’s mother unexpectedly stopping by and making the assumption that Astrid is her son’s new girlfriend, and it’s like something out of a rom com. Not to mention Astrid is not getting any younger, so…
A fake relationship?
A mortifying meet-cute?
It’s a guaranteed happily-ever-after.
Right?
A filthy-sweet poignant modern monster romance set in a small town and featuring one anxious nymph and one cinnamon-roll, glasses-wearing, bicep-bulging orc professor.
August 10, 2022
Fireseed: a monster romance
Amazon
release date: August 23, 2022
Buffy meets Bridgerton
This dragon doesn’t shift.
Miss Gissele Chapman’s dragon-slaying magic is growing weak.
Her life has always been chaotic, what with managing her secret slaying duties with her obligations as the daughter of a wealthy gentleman—hosting teas, attending balls, entertaining callers. But now, on top of everything, her magic is waning, and no one seems to know why.
No one, that is, except this red-scaled dragon that she still hasn’t killed. That is what a slayer does with dragons, even ones who call her ‘love’ in a lilting voice and go on about her scent and how enticing it is.
The dragon says he’s got the key to restoring her magic, and it’s straining against his scales right here, ready to spring free and service her.
But he must be lying, and anyway she would never do such a thing, because she is a very respected heiress, and she has a reputation to think of and girls like her don’t… don’t…
He’s a monster with teeth and claws.
He’s her enemy, and she kills his kind. They hate each other.
Besides, he’s… enormous.
It wouldn’t even work.
Would it?
This gaslamp fantasy features very proper characters driven by magical means to do shocking things. Secondary characters in the story pursue male-on-male and asexual relationships. If such things will give readers vapors, they should take necessary precautions.
July 15, 2022
Stellar Urges, Alien Gladiator Kings, Book Five
A grizzled gladiator
We both know I’m bad for her.
My bite saved her life when she was an infant. It also bonded us together, mated us, created some perverse tie between us, even though I’m far too old her.
Now, I’m thirty-five and she’s twenty.
I’ve kept myself away from her for a long time.
But now I’ve got to go to her. She’s in danger, and she is mine to protect.
A human female
When I was a little girl, Sevren was my everything. My playmate, my babysitter, my confidante.
Then he abandoned me without saying goodbye. For my own good, he said. Because my body was maturing but I was still too young. Because he couldn’t handle what our bond made him want from me.
Now someone’s trying to kill me to get to him, and he’s back.
I hate him for breaking my heart.
But his presence has kick-started my biology, and now I’m in heat.
No matter how complicated our feelings for each other, or how many blaster beams are getting shot at us, the bond wants us to mate.
We won’t be able to fight that forever.
This age-gap, fated-mates scifi romance is for readers who’d like to explore an edgy Jacob-Renesmee dynamic on another planet with buckets of spice—including knotting, heat, teeth, and fur—and lots of blaster fights.
June 24, 2022
Cold Pinnacle, Phineas and Liam, Book Four
Release date 6/26/22
Haysle Dawson and Liam Emerson tried to use Phineas Slater to trap and capture Destiny Worth.
But they failed.
Now, Phineas is free again and they have been taken captive by Destiny Worth herself.
Separated, tortured, starved, they are lost in a nightmare from which they can’t seem to escape.
Because it’s not enough for Destiny have to imprisoned their bodies.
No, she wants their minds and hearts and souls.
Even when they get free, they will never be quite the same.
June 20, 2022
Wren Delacroix, Book Ten
Release date: 6/1/22
Hawk Marner has been murdered.
Wren Delacroix and Caius Reilly would be celebrating if it weren’t for the fact that they’re the main suspects for the crime.
They weren’t together that night.
Though both of them maintain their innocence, neither of them quite believes the other. It’s not as if they haven’t talked about killing him before. It’s not as if Hawk didn’t deserve it.
But with the due date for the birth of their new daughter looming, they decide to give each other the benefit of the doubt and look for other suspects. Unofficially, of course. Their connections to Hawk mean they’re not allowed to investigate the case in any official capacity.
It feels good to have a case again.
But their lack of trust for each other erodes everything they are.
And with the baby coming soon, they need to rely on each other now more than ever.
May 14, 2022
Stars and Spikes, Alien Gladiator Kings, Book Four
A human prize
I never intended to become trapped on a backwoods planet with a nightmarish, abusive cult, but here I am.
I have one chance to escape. I’ll volunteer to be a prize for this underground gladiator fight, be the winning gladiator’s every fantasy, and let him do anything he wants with me. Then I’ll beg him to take me with him when he leaves.
I don’t count on him being too honorable to take advantage of me. I definitely don’t count on him killing the cult leader.
A ruined king
I don’t know why I killed for her. It’s not the least bit like me. I’m not one for being tied down, not to women, not to responsibilities, not to anything.
So, when I find out that I’ve got to stop gallivanting around the galaxy and actually take over my throne? I’m not pleased.
She’s… she’s a rebellion. She’s a last gasp at some kind of freedom. She’s an obsession. She’s everything.
I’d do anything for her. Kill for her. Lie for her. Lay down my kingdom at her feet. And that?
That terrifies me.
This scifi romance teases its way around the ideas want, need, desire, possession, and obsession. It touches on risk, consequences, commitment, and the longterm remnants of trauma and abuse. HEA guaranteed, though, never fear.
May 1, 2022
Pride, Prejudice, and the Alien Prince
It is a truth universally acknowledged that when an alien species is in want of women, only human girls will do.
Elizabeth Bennet
The best thing I can say about being abducted by aliens is that I’m missing finals at my college. Otherwise, zero of ten, really, would not recommend.
I’ve been rescued by an arrogant prince who thinks I’m “only tolerable” but he and his species still want to breed me and the other girls he rescued. All their women are either dead or barren. He just thinks it’s better since he’s asking permission.
Well, permission not granted, buddy.
Keep your blue, gleaming muscles and your grouchy glares to yourself, okay? I’m much more interested in this charming alien from the royal regiment, who has all kinds of stories about you—not nice stories, either. All of you alien guys seem to have those delightful extras where it counts, so… arrogant princes need not apply.
Darce of the clan Firne
The thing about that freckled human is that I can’t stop thinking about her. She’s so willful and strong and exotic, like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
Of course, I can’t court her. I can’t go out to hunt and bring her back furs or ask to be one of her suitors. I’m a prince, and even on a dying planet, I have to marry royalty.
Besides, she hates me.
Just as well.
I have my duty, after all, and I can’t let Elizabeth Bennet get in the way of that, no matter how she tempts me.
But when he shows up—a man who betrayed me, who I once considered a brother—and thinks he can rival me for her affections? I may not have the right to claim her, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do everything in my power to protect her.
