Liz Everly's Blog, page 74
October 31, 2015
Sexy Saturday Round Up
Happy Halloween! Got Gandy Candy?
We’re here to give you some sexy spooky fun while you’re cuddled up at home away from the rain, the tumbling scarlet leaves, and a thousand roving teens with pillow sacks waiting to pillage your candy bowl and TP your house. Enjoy….
From Madeline Iva:
Are you a good witch or a bad witch? The changing history of attractive witches in America.
This one from our very own RKB: Why so many younger men have erectile dysfunction.
What is your fav porn star going as for Halloween? Bet she wears one of THESE inappropriate costumes.
Whoever came up with the “Anna Rexia” Halloween costume got this tumblr blast from an anorexia survivor. (Never thought anything would make me long for sexy corn on the cob again.)
On the other hand, with a little imagination you can use bits of your costume as sex toys. :)
From G.G. Andrew:
Sometimes you just gotta chase guys. Especially guys like this marathon-runner who used his body as a dating ad during a race.
Stumped for a costume this weekend? Check out these easy last-minute ideas. Tinder profile, anyone?
Do people chew too loud around you? It may mean you’re a creative genius. Or just, you know, easily annoyed.
From Elizabeth Shore:
The secret to a great sex life? Coffee.
It’s Halloween! You want to watch a horror flick! Here’s a list of the top 10 best over the past 5 years. Get the popcorn going.
What to do when babies ruin your orgasms.
Celebrity bomb! Prince Jackson admits that the King of Pop might not be his biological father – although he’ll always still be his dad.
October 29, 2015
October 27, 2015
It Can Actually Happen! Getting Your Books Into A Bookstore
By If you’ve never been to a romance writer’s conference and RWA National seems like being forced to eat an eight-course feast when all you want are wine and tapas, I’d highly recommend New Jersey’s annual Put Your Heart in a Book conference. Year after year it draws top agents, editors, and industry big-names to this very well-run regional conference. This year, one of the best workshops I attended was given by two booksellers from Barnes and Noble, Heather Soligo and Jamie Biggs, along with Consulting Specialist Kit Little. The topic? For F**k’s Sake, How Do I Get My Damn Books in Bookstores? Or, as the workshop was actually called, The Secrets Authors Need to Know.
As everyone knows, and as Heather and Jamie readily admitted, there are corporate constraints that B&N booksellers are under on what they can and can’t do. For example, the books in prominent featured places throughout the stores are there because publishers pay up the wazoo for that placement. Still, there are small things the little guys can do to get themselves some Barnes and Noble love.
One interesting idea that Heather threw out there was to find out whether your local Barnes & Noble has a book group, and offer to speak with them if they do. Book group participants, as it turns out, love books. Who knew! And by extension they love authors. So if your B&N has a book group, offer to speak with them. Let the booksellers know far in advance that you’re doing so and it may well convince them to carry copies of your book. One caveat: your books must be returnable. If the only way to get a print copy of your book is via POD, you’ll have a much harder time. Most Barnes & Nobles won’t bring in POD, but there are actually a few who will. If your B&N is one who does, color yourself fortunate and take advantage. You know what else B&N likes, at least according to Heather? Free bookmarks. She said whenever authors send her free bookmarks she always puts them out in the store. How’s that for a nice little way of promoting your book?
Another way to convince a B&N bookseller to carry your book is if you can tie it in with a hot movie release or current event. So, for example, your local team is playing in the world series. You’ve written a baseball romance. Let them know! Or there’s an upcoming blockbuster movie starring Matthew McConaughey as a disillusioned Confederate soldier who marries a slave. You’ve written a civil war romance. Let them know! (Note to the wise: there actually is such a movie, called Free State of Jones, that’s set for release May 13, 2016. If you’ve got a civil war romance, get cracking).
B&N booksellers, just like everyone, are overwhelmed with work. They can’t brainstorm on ways to sell your book. But you can. Do the work for them, link your book to something that will help sell it and you’ll at least have a shot of getting their attention.
Kit Little, the Consulting Specialist, spoke at length about ways the indie bookstores operate and how we can break through. Here are a few of her suggestions:
When pitching to an indie bookstore, bring along a copy of your book. Seems almost ludicrous to have to point that out, but as Little says, “you’d be surprised.”
Have a professional business card with your contact info.
Have a “cheat sheet” that goes along with your book stating what the book’s about, and something noteworthy or unique that would help the bookseller sell it. Be able to explain it quickly and easily. In other words, have your elevator pitch ready.
Don’t necessarily talk about how many Amazon reviews you have. Amazon to the indies is like Whole Foods to small organic groceries. Talking up Amazon to an indie may not do much for you. In addition to the competition element, it’s well-known that many Amazon reviews are done by family and friends. So how exactly does that help the little indie bookstore trying to move your merchandise? Answer: it doesn’t.
Get your book with Ingram and Kobo. Independent bookstores have .
If an indie bookstore offers to carry your book, be sure to do them a solid as well and link their store to your Facebook page, your Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, etc. Promo them, they’ll promo you.
The last interesting tidbit was a state-of-the-industry comment from Heather. Print still sells, and she’s selling a lot more trade paperback romances than mass market. Romance buyers in particular don’t necessarily shy away from that $15 price tag on a trade romance. Romance readers are voracious book consumers. They usually buy multiple books at a time and when they love an author they don’t shy away from plunking down their hard-earned cash for those books. In other words, be friends to your readers. They’ll reward you over and over.
Now You See It? No, You Don’t: Notes on the Male Revue
This young fellow looks like he needs to practice the ol’ rip-swoosh.
By Alexa Day
I’m no stranger to the male revue. I’ve tucked my share of bills into my share of waistbands. My lap has been danced on. I’ve kept my hands to myself and … I haven’t. You know, depending on what’s allowed.
I’ve been around. It’s a privilege of being single at this age.
Sadly, I live in a place that has no male revue. This is a sexually repressed place that wants desperately not to appear sexually repressed, just like that one person we all went to high school with. Remember her?
Anyway, Facebook spread the word that the Magic Men (a shameless knockoff of Magic Mike) were coming to the Land That Male Strippers Forgot. Pretty exciting, right? I waited just a bit too long to buy the tickets — thinking that more of my friends would join me — and ended up in the nosebleeds of this smallish venue with esteemed colleague Shara Lanel and an intriguing crowd of women. Lots of women with a Specific, Acceptable Reason to be there (birthday, bachelorette, divorce, what have you). Lots of women in my age bracket who were happy to be there as long as no one looked at them. And lots of very young women who perhaps grew up in the Land That Male Strippers Forgot. This last group is very excited to be here.
None of the sisterly camaraderie I’m accustomed to at the finer entertainment establishments. But whatever.
We waited a good long time for the show to start. Then we waited through two video countdowns, a loud voice-over, and a lengthy monologue from the MC. And then the Magic Men took the stage to the deafening screams of this crowd of women.
They started with the raincoat dance — you know, the one from Magic Mike. And from there, the standard repertoire. Soldiers, firemen, cowboys, black vest dance (also Magic Mike). It’s a reasonably diverse bunch of fellows; at least I think it was. I was way up there, and honestly, it was kind of dark. And every so often, they’d pull a chair or two out onto the stage and invite a guest to sit up there for a closer look.
Not a lap dance. Just a better view.
Toward the intermission, the guys pulled six or seven chairs onto the stage and went looking for volunteers. I glanced over at the edge of the balcony and saw one of the Magic Men up there with us. Shara tapped my shoulder and pointed — sure enough, another one had come all the way up into the nosebleeds to cavort about with us. And before long, one of them was right in front of us. Seriously, I could have patted his head.
I can’t describe him terribly well, sadly — it’s really dark in the nosebleeds. But he was an attractive enough guy with his tattoos and close-cropped beard.
He asked me and Shara the question every male stripper in the world asks.
“Are you ladies having a good time?” he shouted.
And I couldn’t answer him. I just stared.
I think Shara must have convinced him that we were having an adequate time. He made a great show of undulating against the row of seats ahead of us. Then he gave us a hug — and I’m sorry, brother, but you caught me at the end of a long day at the end of a long week, and my own mother would not have hugged me before a shower — and moved on.
Behind me, a very young woman let up an ear-splitting shriek and fell onto her ass. I tried hard not to stare at her.
And that’s it. That’s all the excitement I could muster for these hard-working gentlemen. I touched one of them, and I couldn’t even lie to him about whether I was having a good time.
This was the cause of some concern.
Why couldn’t I find my usual joy in the fine male entertainers? What was wrong with me? Had I already enjoyed my last male revue? Was I on the way to the scrap heap?
Had I crossed over from being difficult to impress to being impossible to please?
More importantly, why had no one warned me this would happen?
I was still scared the next day, and so I told Denise Golinowski, a colleague and good friend, the story I’ve just told you. “It’s happened,” I said. “I’ve become impossible to please.”
She reassured me, as she always does when I’m wound up about something like this. “No, you haven’t. You just have discernment. You know what makes a good show a really good show.”
See? That sounds better than “impossible to please,” right?
And I did notice that none of those fellows used breakaway pants. Seriously, dudes, nothing is sexy about you taking your shoes off, removing your pants one leg at a time, and then replacing your shoes. You are burning up all kinds of music that way. But with breakway pants — that great rip-swoosh gets everyone screaming, am I right?
There is more cause for hope.
As I watched these guys rip their shirts open and throw them into the crowd, I was reminded of a Chippendales show in Las Vegas. I stood next to a wonderful friend, wide-eyed with delight, who caught a ripped T-shirt tossed from the stage. I still remember the joy on her face. It had less to do with the shirt (although that was a mighty big part of it) and more to do with the spirit of Vegas, the lighthearted, consequence-free, kind-of-naughty, just-us-girls fun that informed the whole trip.
She’s no longer with us, gone way too soon. But what a blessing to see anyone so happy, even once. Preferably often.
There’s a larger meaning, a depth, beyond the male revue. I will make that assertion with a straight face.
But until you fellows find some breakaway pants, I don’t know if I can be bothered to seek that depth. Just saying.
Are you following Lady Smut? We keep it magical.
October 26, 2015
Crazy, Sexy, Ghoulish: Goth Rom Com
by G.G. Andrew
Halloween is the scariest holiday of the year and the sexiest. Whether it’s meeting a mysterious masked stranger at a party, or clutching that hot guy while you’re watching a scary movie…Halloween offers us a chance to shiver, a chance to flip expectations playing naughty to our usual nice.
I’ve always loved tales of gothic romance like Jane Eyre and Rebecca dripping with dark, shadowy mystery. Women hold candles while they roam the halls at midnight wearing long white nightgowns. Handsome, brooding men lock away their secrets, like a mad wife hidden in the attic. New romance lines like Harlequin E Shivers keep with the tradition of dark, secretive heroes offering us sensible heroines “beguiled by male magnetism and allure against all better judgment.”
I wrote my novella Crazy, Sexy, Ghoulish out of this love for all things mysterious, spooky, and romantic. The novella is set in a haunted house during Halloween week. It features dark hallways, monsters, and romantic intrigue. With this story I enjoyed playing with genre in two different ways.
Unlike the classic gothic romances, it’s a lighter story, with zombie jokes and plastic vampire teeth thrown in–what I like to call a “goth rom-com.”
Crazy, Sexy, Ghoulish also twists the usual gender roles. Instead of the hero being dark and mysterious, I made the heroine, Nora, the one who’s potentially mad, bad, and dangerous to know. Nora is a haunted house diva, acting out various creatures of the night to scare guests like the famous online horror geek Brendan. Yet Nora is hiding a secret of her own: she’s a monster. Back in the day, she was one of those popular, mean girl who tormented Brendan all throughout middle school. Nora only learned the error of her ways later on, after getting a nasty facial scar of her own.
Crimson Peak is the latest film to offer that gothic/romance/horror sensibility we crave.
On the flip side, Brendan is the innocent hero with a dry sense of humor and a pair of awesome shoulders. He’s drawn to Nora against his better judgment, while owning his special brand of horror-loving geek-ness.
It’s a play on the gothic thang, but subverted. Why should guys get to keep all the dark secrets?
Crazy, Sexy, Ghoulish is available on Amazon. Check it out HERE.
Also check back at Lady Smut on the first Friday of every month when I’ll be regularly posting about all things smexy as the new girl for Lady Smut’s ‘Friday Roulette’. Til then, fang bangers.
October 24, 2015
Sexy Saturday Round Up
Hello autumnal adore-ants! All hail the glory that is fall. Whether you’re rolling around with pumpkins and orange-red leaves in the field, or sipping on your pumpkin-latte in a cafe, we’ve got the latest for you in smexy fun this week, so read on McDuff, and let the LadySmut rumpus begin.
From Madeline:
Charli Howard’s angry at the modeling agents and she’s not gonna take it anymore.
Rough, tough, and in the buff? Do people actually wear pj’s anymore?
Make sure to bring this along with you on your next flight: Sex tips for joining the mile high club.
Just in time for Halloween. It’s a game show, no–it’s a horror show–no IT’S BOTH. It’s HELLEVATOR.
Yes means yes–but it’s tricky for high school students.
Homecoming queen AND star of the football team? Yes, Virginia, you can have your cake and eat it too.
From G.G. Andrew:
Does grammar turn you on? It does many online daters. Better go check the spelling on your profile.
Want to know what happened with Luke and Lorelai? Gilmore Girls may be coming back– to Netflix.
Colin Firth alert: Bridget Jones’ Baby begins shooting.
From Elizabeth Shore:
Vaginal matters in all their glory. Welcome to The Frisky’s Gyno Diaries.
Raking in the bucks: the 10 richest YouTube stars.
Sex tips from a Playboy bunny.
Ever been called a bitch? Gloria Steinem says here’s what you say back.
At last! For the first time in five years, Adele has a new song and video out.
October 23, 2015
Meet Carolyn Crane, Annika Martin Wandering in Dark Forests: Our Right to Imagine and Fantasize
CAROLYN CRANE and ANNIKA MARTIN have thrilled the world over with best-selling and award-winning books. CAROLYN writes romantic suspense, urban fantasy, and other tales of love and adventure. ANNIKA writes love stories about criminals–some of them are dirty and fun while others are dark and intense. I had the good fortune to run into her at the RT Booklovers Convention last spring. Yes, her. I can confirm that she is, indeed, one person—sweet, smart and oh, so imaginative.
For one, if you’re like me, you’ll read her Kinky Bank Robber series and be thoroughly disappointed during bank visits when a band of sexy, incredibly skilled, modern-day pirates do not kidnap you and they do not whisk you away so they can worship your glorious self in private. (Do you hear that Bank of America? Get on it, K? You need a new marketing campaign anyway.)
In the meantime, CAROLYN/ANNIKA stopped by LadySmut today to give us an inside look at what’s on her writing docket, why she writes under two names, and what’s behind her exploration into darker erotica.
ELIZABETH SaFLEUR: Welcome CAROLINE/ANNIKA. Thank you for being here. First up: Our readers are dying to know, how did you decide to write under two names? Do you find it hard to keep track of each?
CAROLYN CRANE/ANNIKA MARTIN: Hey, first of all, thank you so much for having me here! Your blog rocks. [[Thank you. We kinda like it.]] Okay, ahem. LOL. Are you thinking about a second pen name, my friend? Because, beware!! Oh, it’s hard to work one author name, let alone two.
ELIZABETH SaFLEUR: Don’t I know it.
CAROLYN CRANE/ANNIKA MARTIN: I’m not entirely sure I’d recommend it. I took the Annika name because I worried about the reactions of my freelance clients and impressionable nieces and nephews, and even Carolyn Crane readers.
So, while I was first writing The Hostage Bargain, I would say to myself, You can be as dirty as you want–nobody will know! Truly, that made me feel more free and allowed me to take risks I wouldn’t have taken. I had such crazy fun writing it.
Now, however, I’m out and open with both names more or less. I think about collapsing them, but it’s too late.
ELIZABETH SaFLEUR: Of all the writing genres available to writers, how did you settle on yours: erotic romance, romantic suspense, and urban fantasy?
CAROLYN CRANE/ANNIKA MARTIN: As far as genres, I tend to go wherever my personal interest is and what I feel the most energy around. That’s how I pick what characters to write next in a series, too—whoever kind of pops for me. It’s not strategic at all.
ELIZABETH SaFLEUR: The Taken Hostage by Kinky Bank Robbers series is super hot, fun, unique, and did I mention, hot? How did you come up with this story? I’m picturing you standing in line at the bank, thinking, hmmm, I wish someone hot, dangerous and adventurous would burst in right now.
CAROLYN CRANE/ANNIKA MARTIN: Thank you so much!! That is so funny because I do think about the gang when I go to the bank now.
But, no, I didn’t dream it up at the bank. The inspiration is more out of being obsessed with tales of people exiting their lives and living as new people with new names and radically different lies. So that led to my big what if…what if you got taken hostage by really hot, dirty-minded bank robbers, and then you didn’t ever want to go back? If you said, hey, I’m keeping this new life of ménages and bank robberies. I had to work hard making my heroine not an asshole to do it, though. For there to be compelling reasons for her to stay gone.
ELIZABETH SaFLEUR: In other words, you’ve written themes that some writers fear to tread: dubious consent, non-consent, and captivity. Some say this genre is growing more popular. What had you explore these areas?
CAROLYN CRANE/ANNIKA MARTIN: I don’t know if the audience is growing—it’s so hard to determine these things. I just write what I want to, and I am writing more “dark,” including a six-part, dark mafia saga. Also, Skye Warren and I have begun the new Prisoner book (though it got “back-burnered” due to other projects).
I enjoy writing and reading dark stuff because it challenges me and it makes me feel conflicted and wildly alive. I love how dark romance takes us into forbidden and taboo areas, lets us explore, experience and even enjoy things that are not okay in real life. It’s the grown up version of wandering into the dark forest and then coming out. That, to me, is the beauty of fiction—to take you places you can’t, won’t, or shouldn’t go in real life.
I know some people have a problem with it, but to me, women have a right to the full imaginative expression of their fantasy life, and dark fantasies can be a deep, ancient, and very genuine part of that.
I love how it challenges my feminism, too. There would have been a time where I would’ve said, Hey, this fiction is wrong for women. But these days, I’m all about women having a right to every iteration of their imaginative life, and never having to apologize for that. Women have a right to the stories they want and they have a right to step out the door into a culture where they are safe and respected. Women get to have both.
ELIZABETH SaFLEUR: Amen, sister. Along those lines, do you have a favorite writing “moment?”
CAROLYN CRANE/ANNIKA MARTIN: Oh, that would be when I dreamed up Simon from the Disillusionists series. He was this great teacher for me as character. I set out to make him an enemy for my heroine. I wanted somebody scary and unpredictable and threatening and just horrible.
But then Simon, total badass that he was, ended up being one of my favorite characters of all time—and a reader fave, too. When I released the need for the reader to love this guy, it allowed him to be his own wild self. The whole Simon thing was such a great lesson for me in how to think about characters. He eventually got his own novella, Devil’s Luck.
ELIZABETH SaFLEUR: What is next for you, writing wise?
CAROLYN CRANE/ANNIKA MARTIN: I’m working on four projects. One is this torrid dark mafia tale, a six-part saga that will release in quick succession early 2016. I’m also collaborating on an M/M spy mini-series with my critique partner, Joanna Chambers, and I’m seriously in love with this project—it is super over the top. The Kinky Bank Robbers #4 should be done soon-ish, and Skye Warren and I should be winding up the new Prisoner at some point.
ELIZABETH SaFLEUR: Yay for us! You’re a prolific writer. How do you write so fast? (And can we buy whatever special “fast” formula you have?)
CAROLYN CRANE/ANNIKA MARTIN: It’s funny that you would call me fast because I feel like the most glacially slow writer. I manage to get out an average of two books a year (this year it’s one!). It was not uncommon for me, after my slow first draft, to trash 50-75 percent of that book for a full do-over and many meticulous rewrites. Behind the Mask took eight months!!
I would read every book on fast writing there is, too, and feel like a loser.
This fall, a few tools have helped my speed shoot way up (for me). 2016 is going to be a massive year of releases. Since you asked and writers like to geek out about this, I will tell all!
Tools that have wildly helped me include doing a serious outline. I got the technique from James Patterson’s Master Class. It utterly revolutionized how I outline. I thought I outlined before but whoa!! He spends a ton of time basically telling the story in an encapsulated form over and over—an interesting little “nugget” paragraph for each chapter. Now I’m spending two weeks on an outline alone and it’s allowing me to make those blunders (where I trash half the book in disgust) in the outline phase. This has been a game changer for me.
In her excellent book 2k to 10k, Rachel Aaron talks about needing to really generate excitement about the scene or chapter you’re going to write, so I’ve been trying to build serious hooks for myself into every chapter at the outline phase. If I’m not fabulously excited about every chapter, the outline is lacking.
Also, I started forcing myself to lay down 1,000 words before I check email or social media. I can now write 3,000 words a day—sometimes 4,000. Previously, 2,000 was an amazing day. More importantly, I’m not going down wrong roads and tossing weeks and months of work. I feel like I can write a book in two to three months now. That is huge for me.
ELIZABETH SaFLEUR: And it will be huge for your fans. Everyone, be sure to, stay in touch with CAROLYN/ANNIKA via her social channels below to get notices of her hot new releases.
Show CAROLYN/ANNIKA some follow/like love:
CAROLYN’s Facebook page
ANNIKA’s Facebook page
Speaking of staying in touch, don’t forget to follow us at Lady Smut, where you’re allowed to indulge in all the fantasies you can cook up.
Oh, and speaking of wonderful indulgences, don’t forget to pre-order our own Isabelle Drake’s latest, OFF THE RAILS. It’s never too late for that ultimate do-over.
October 22, 2015
Beth Kery’s Bad Behavior
Click to buy
by Madeline Iva
We’re talking bad behavior this week on Lady Smut. At least, I am, because Isabelle Drake’s book about a girl behaving badly is available for pre-order this week, and to celebrate that, I wanted to talk about Beth Kery’s books with their different flavors of bad girl-ishness.
Now, I am a good girl. I mean, like, in high school, my friends could get permission to do anything if I was along for the ride. It’s like parents saw this invisible halo around my head. But as many a good girl does, I look over the fence at the other girls behaving badly and get a tad wistful from time to time. What better way to have vicarious fun (without the hangover, even!) than to read a great romance novel about a woman behaving badly.
Which leads us back to Beth Kery’s books. The first Beth Kery book I ever read is called Bound to You: A One Night of Passion NovellaBOUND TO YOU, and it was written under the name of Kery’s alter ego, Bethany Kane. It’s got a heroine bounding off the forest trail (naughty, naughty) at Shawnee National Forest, so that no one knows where she is, hiking alone (tsk, tsk). Only the hero who can hear her singing as she tromps along is able to figure out straight for the old sink holes left from a closed mine in the area. The hero is actually blind himself and winds up with her down in the hole. Are they too dumb to live? No, not really. She’s just sorta hapless, and he knows what’s what about the whole situation, but in his eagerness to help her and being blind, he was a little challenged when it came to her rescue.
The rest of the book is just one big excuse for her to get it on with a guy she just met. She’s scared of the dark, it’s cold, and she’s freaking out. But she’s also gettin’ a bit excited by this handsome man who’s clever with his fingers, and getting some nookie is a great way to release some of the tension and divert her anxious mind. As we all know, boinking a total stranger maybe three hours after you met him is within the range of bad behavior all rightly, though it’s a very common fantasy.
I’m often at war with this trope, because on one hand: scorching zipless fuck–yay! On the other hand: stranger danger–boo!
Kery’s masterful stroke relies upon on our innate stereotyping bias of the handicapped, whereby we assume all blind people are good at heart. All the stranger danger goes away, and we enjoy the heroine having her stranger cake and eating it too. (Literally.)
Addicted to You (One Night of Passion Book 1)
Click to buy.
The second book I read by Kery was another Bethany Kane novel called Addicted to You (One Night of Passion Book 1)ADDICTED TO YOU. And here Kery steps it up a notch. The hero is spending his time alone, blind drunk — so drunk he ends up falling over and attacking the heroine almost the second she enters the door. They have sex and then he passes out, remembering nothing when he comes to again. That’s a bad boy for ya.
The heroine desperately wants him, but there’s the sting of knowing he was her best friend’s husband. Best friend is now dead, alas, and the tamped down flame between the two rages in the house.
From the drunken movie director’s point of view, he’s done a caddish thing. He’s now sleeping with his best mate’s little sister. Ow. Oh, they’re being baaaaaad.
I just have to note that this book has almost hands down most cray-cray sex scene EVAH. (Absolute cray-cray oscar still goes to Lisa Valdez’s scene in Passion. You know which one I’m talking about. Pop!)
What we have here is sexy, scruffy Irish director who has this wild side to him that his dead wife never could entirely tame, caught in a house with a young sex kitten, and it’s getting out of control.
As in: at one point she goes down on him and for whatever reason, she’s kneeling there doing him, but his upper body is hidden behind the top half of a dutch door. Are you picturing that? He can’t bear to look at her or something, but slurp slurp slurp. My eyes! My eyes!
I think I’m the only one here who is like WTF? My friends–everyone I know who read this book– LOVES this scene. I can’t figure out exactly why, but I’ll grant it’s memorable.
It’s soon after this in the book that I fell under Kery’s spell. I loved the inner grinding gears of the hero. He doesn’t want to be who he is down deep–but the heroine is bringing it out in him. And that down deep guy–what does he wanna do? He wants to drive the heroine crazy with sexual pleasure, like so crazy it almost hurts. He wants to mark her with the pleasure of their boinking so she’ll never, ever forget it.
What romance reader doesn’t love a hero with that kind of single minded devotion? It’s just this romance sweet spot and Beth Kery hit it with that book.
Click to pre-order
All this talk about bad behavior brings us right back to the bad behavior of Isabelle Drake’s naughty heroine in OFF THE RAILS who decides she’s going to make an impression at her high school reunion. Instead of skulking back with little to show for ten years after high school, she’s going to invent a new life and career for herself in just a few weeks. It’s available for pre-order. Here’s a blurb —
High school reunion—three words that threaten to derail Madison’s life. Now she has only eight weeks to find the perfect guy, the perfect job, or a way to pretend she has the perfect life.
Madison is less than thrilled when the invitation to her five year high school reunion arrives. When she refuses to RSVP with a yes, her best friend Tia reminds her of a pact they’d made—they’d use the reunion to show up everyone from school. But Madison can’t show up anyone. She isn’t the super famous superstar she’d bragged that she’d be. She’s an unemployed singer with no boyfriend and no job. Her only option? Find a way to fake the perfect life.
Eight weeks isn’t much time. But it is long enough to get drunk and enter a bikini contest, redefine the term date-from-hell, get caught in an awkward ménage and win a bar fight. But will all this bad behavior help Madison snag the blond, blue-eyed geek who was foolish enough not to notice her in high school? No matter what it takes, she’s going to find out.
It sounds delicious, doesn’t it? Why don’t you go buy that bad girl right now?
And follow us at Lady Smut where we’ll relish vicarious naughty romantic adventures, even if we aren’t having them ourselves.
October 20, 2015
New Jersey RWA And Other News
Hi Sexies! I’ve been away at the New Jersey Put Your Heart in a Book annual conference so haven’t had time this week for a proper post. But look for me next week and in future posts when I’ll give you the low down on all the news (from the conference) that’s fit to print, including tons of great book promo tips, ideas for getting your books in bookstores, and making your sensual writing more evocative.
In the meantime, this sexy hunk was hanging around my pictures folder, so I figured I’d include him in this post to keep you all company. Til next week … :-)
Playboy Without Nudity: Does This Mean No More Secret Stash?
Don’t grasp your pearls just yet, dear. I think Playboy will be even sexier.
By Alexa Day
I’ve often said that I’ll know I’ve made it when I get a Playboy interview.
So I wasn’t really sure how I felt about the news that Playboy is about to stop publishing nude photos in its print editions. (That transition has already occurred online.)
Don’t misunderstand me, now. My appearance in Playboy was never going to include the nude pictorial. As freewheeling as I am, nudity is a hard limit for me. The rest of the world can be as naked as they want in front of as many people as they want, but I tend to be very, very choosy about who gets to see me in a state of undress.
No nude pictorial for me. Just the interview, with that row of black and white photos at the bottom of the page.
See, I really was reading Playboy for the articles. I enjoyed the short fiction, and the lifestyle pieces were like getting a peek at a different world. If the Playmates of the Month were intended to be the typical “girls next door” (before that image achieved a sort of weird vulgarity), then the prose seemed to come from a place of glossy sophistication, slick and silvery and populated by only the most fascinating people.
So why was I so conflicted about losing the nudity?
Well, without that sort of sexual content, what is left for Playboy? In her Salon article, my Lady Smut colleague Rachel Kramer Bussel explores this question. Isn’t nudity what sets Playboy apart from GQ and Esquire and any number of other lifestyle magazines?
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
The motive for removing the nudes makes a great deal of sense. The world is full of nudity, in all its various sexual permutations, for better or for worse. It’s average. It’s even — dare I say it? — a little boring.
By pulling the nudes, Playboy endeavors to set itself apart from a sex-saturated world, while better establishing a foothold among its literary peers.
We will soon, in essence, all be reading it for the articles. Playboy is counting on it.
But what will become of that juvenile rite of passage? Is the internet the home of today’s secret initiation into a world of explicit content?
Should we look on it and despair? I think so. Seriously, aside from the occasional bright spot to be found with Cindy Gallop’s Make Love Not Porn, there is little cause for hope.
But by removing itself from that race to the bottom and joining a different class of publications, Playboy stands ready to win big. Indeed, if the increase in online readership is any indication, Playboy is winning already.
click to buy
What say you? Does the thought of sneaking a peek at the nude pictorial make you feel a little nostalgic? Is the end of an era, the start of something big, or both?
Did you ever want to bare it all for the camera? Sound off in the comments.
And follow Lady Smut. We make it so, so good to be bad.
For bad behavior with the best results, get yourself in line for Off the Rails by Isabelle Drake. If a little misbehavior gets a girl a long way … what might a lot of misbehavior get her?
