Liz Everly's Blog, page 9

Sexy Saturday Round Up

[image error]Are you staying warm this weekend? Warm afghan? Check! Bowl of pop corn? Ya. Bonus points for a warm pet or a hot guy. Cuddle up mah friend with a little Sexy Saturday Round Up! We’ll keep you warm inside.

The tricky science of blending together when you both already have families 

Calling all Women Warriors! If you loved Black Panther then this is a new movie you’re gonna wanna see.

From Man Repeller: A No Effort Winter Outfit Hack You Gotta Have

From Lifehacker: How to play with testicles

From Women’s Health: The best natural lube for you.

Need more links? Sure ya do! Check out this links article in Slutever. ESPECIALLY check out their article on Phile, a new magazine. (And omg—the cover for issue 2. O.M.G.)

 

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Sexy Sunday Snippet: Fade to Black: Iris and Ezra by Holly Halsey Mayes

Sunday! More sexy happiness. Today we have a snippet from Holly Halsey Mayes’ contemporary romance, Fade to Black: Iris and Ezra.

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Book Blurb:

When thirty-five year old nursing student Iris Walker accepts a concert invitation with a self-proclaimed “Ivy League go-getter”, little did she know she would be attempting to escape from him by the end of the date. She runs into Ezra Black, a man in the woods behind the concert venue, and later discovers he is the lead singer of one of the bands. Desperate to ditch her date-gone-bad, Ezra helps her escape. Even though their encounter is brief, she quickly learns she can’t get him out of her mind. He can’t forget her either, and when Iris inadvertently leaves her ID on his tour bus, he takes advantage of the opportunity to see her again.

Even though Iris is attracted to him, he’s ten years younger than her and leads a busy life in the public eye. She’s divorced, with an eight year old daughter, and trying to regain custody back from her manipulative ex-husband. Dating a rock star isn’t going to help her case, particularly one tormented by the secrets from his past. Despite the different paths they find themselves on, Iris and Ezra are drawn into in a relationship that seems destined to fade away before it can begin.

Book Excerpt:

The locker room is empty. I change out of my clothes, which are still damp with sweat. I wasn’t initially going to use the steam room or sauna, but now that I’m done working out, I feel like it may be a nice way to wrap up my visit. Besides, who knows when I will get a chance to do this again?

I put on a fluffy white robe and head over to the hot tub first. These are separate for men and women, but the sauna and steam room are same sex. I lay my white robe on the chair and step into the hot tub, letting the warm water wash over me. On the edge of the tub, there is a pitcher of ice water with lemons, along with paper cups. I pour myself a glass and take a long drink.

Leaning back, I clear my mind. Even though the yoga was good for me, my heart still aches with sadness. I miss Ezra.

Stepping out of the water, I wrap my robe around myself and push open another door that leads to the steam room. The air is hot, but moist. I lay my robe down in a chair and wrap a towel around myself.

The steam room is empty so I sit on the corner bench and rest my forehead on my knees. I can’t get him out of my mind. It’s been two weeks, and my heart breaks every hour of every day. I can’t erase him from my memory—our late night conversations, his stories about the fans on tour, the places he’s seen. And the way he makes me feel when we’re together, the way he makes love to me, cherishes me. Moisture rolls down my face, from either sweat or tears, and a sob escapes me.

The door opens, causing the air pressure in the room to change as the steam rolls out. I sniff and wipe my nose with my towel. I keep my head down in a relaxed pose, and hope the person who came in leaves me alone—I’m not in the mood for conversation.

My mind strays to Ezra—his green eyes that get darker when he’s turned on, his slow sexy smile, crooked on one side when he’s teasing me, the one dimple that appears when he laughs out loud. It’s no wonder women go crazy for him. And he liked me, an older woman with a child and baggage out to here. The smell of his cologne haunts me, even in here. Did I make a mistake, letting him go? Pushing him away?

The steam jets spurt on, pushing hot air into the room, filling my lungs. I close my eyes and pull my towel over my face.

Warm hands press onto my shoulders, followed by heat—lips, softly placed on the center of my back.

Ezra.

He’s here.

I start to cry, my shoulders wracked with grief. Part of me is relieved, but at the same time, this is starting all over again with the loss. We’re postponing the inevitable.

“Why are you here?” My voice is choked up. I don’t look at him. I’m facing the wall, my knees drawn up to my chest.

“I miss you.” His deep voice echoes in the room, even though he’s trying to speak softly. “I miss the person I was when you were in my life.”

“Ezra, we can’t do this—” I start shakily, still amazed he’s here. He turns me around to face him. A towel is wrapped around his waist, hanging low. His chest hair, dark and glistening in the moist air, gathers around his navel into a trail that leads down beneath his towel. The steam vents have stopped, but the air is thick. He stands like a ghost in the mist before me. Perhaps I’m imagining him after all.

“I haven’t taken a full breath since you’ve been gone.” His eyes are pleading. His face is drawn, thinner, tired. Like he hasn’t slept in days. A lock of dark hair curls and falls down over his forehead. “Please, don’t send me away.”

My heart shatters and I let out a sob. He doesn’t hesitate, grabbing my hand to kiss my palm as he rubs his cheek against my hand, the scruff on his face lightly scratching at my fingers.

He leans me back on the hot tiles and loosens the towel from my body. For a split second, I consider the fact we are in a public steam room. He takes the lemon scented hand towel and gently lays it over my eyes. I can’t see anything, but the heat from his gaze and the steam in the room is like molten lava on my skin. I should tell him no. I should stop this, but in this instant, I don’t care—one more time, just one more time to be with him.

I smell lemon from the towel and mint as he lets out a breath before softly kissing me, licking and tracing the edges of my lips. He nips my bottom lip and gives it a tug. I kiss him back, hesitant at first, but he deepens the kiss, encouraged by my acceptance. When I reach my arms up, he backs away, leaving me lying naked on the tiles and blindfolded by the hand towel.

He pulls my arms up around my head and his mouth travels downward as he traces around my nipple with his tongue, drawing it into his mouth and sucking before letting it go with a pop. I’m on fire from the inside out.

He continues his descent, kissing and licking down my stomach, pulling my knees apart, and lowering his head between my thighs. Using his fingers, he spreads me wide, licking gently from the bottom to the top. When he gets to my clit, he gives it a hard suck and I cry out.

~~~~

Get your copy now on Amazon.

~~~~

Holly Mayes is a native of Michigan and enjoys reading, writing, photography and spending time with her two daughters, husband, cat and dog.

She has been published for her short stories in the Lansing Community College Washington Square Review, the women’s online journal When Women Waken, and the Rescued Pets Anthology by Splattered Ink Press.

The post Sexy Sunday Snippet: Fade to Black: Iris and Ezra by Holly Halsey Mayes appeared first on Lady Smut.

Endorphin Rush: Last day of SFF VDay Deal!!!

Need to quell your post-Vday chocolate cravings? (I do. Seriously.) Here’s just the thing to distract you from binging at the candy store — this Valentine’s Day Speculative Fiction Sale is STILL going on!!!

It was supposed to run from Feb 13th to the 15th, but I just checked the link and lots of the books are still up. It’s like when you’ve eaten all the chocolates in the box your sweetie gave you for Valentine’s Day, but you look again and realize–there’s a second layer.  And you’re all like: Oooooooooh!  Almost every book I looked at was either still either free, or free on Kindle Unlimited or .99.  YAY!

Many of the delicious covers are making me drool (See Below) — Lot’s of stuff is there that I know I want to grab for my kindle right now. I saw a goodly number of Dragon Shifter romances if you’re into that — it’s such a hot SFF trend these days.

Go! Go now! — Get your next SFF Romance at the SPECULATIVE FICTION Valentine’s Day Sale TODAY before March is here and it’s all gone like the last chocolate in the candy box. —Okay, I **have** to stop talking about sugar.

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Sexy Sunday Snippet: Found by Annabelle Michaels

This week’s Sexy Snippet is extra awesome. We have a bonus interview Kris Michaels did with Annabella Michaels.

KRIS MICHAELS: Hi, Annabella! I have to gush for just a moment. I LOVE your writing. I’ve read every one of your books–twice, and I’m secretly doing a fan girl dance right now. So, while I settle down, why don’t you tell our audience a little something about yourself?

ANNABELLA MICHAELS: I was born and raised in a small town near Cincinnati, Ohio. I’m 44 years old and I’ve been married to my high school sweetheart for 23 years. Together, we’ve raised two amazing kids. My daughter is in her third year of college, studying special education, and my son is a high school senior/sophomore in college, studying software engineering. Our home is a bit like a zoo at the moment because we have 3 cats, 3 dogs and 40 rabbits, which explains why I lock myself in my writing cave all the time. LOL

KRIS MICHAELS: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

ANNABELLA MICHAELS: I’ve always been an avid reader, but I’d never really considered writing. Then one of my best friends started writing and she would often ask me my opinions on things, such as, what things I’d like to see in a story or what song the characters should dance to at their wedding, etc. It got my creative juices flowing and my own storyline started to unfold in my head. My friend encouraged me to give writing a try and to just write for my own enjoyment. So, I did and soon, I had taken off with an entire series.

KRIS MICHAELS: What drew you into writing romance?

ANNABELLA MICHAELS: I’ve always loved romance stories. From the moment the characters feel that first spark, to the second they realize they can’t live without that person; I love it all. When I decided to give writing a try, there was no question in my mind that it would be romance.

KRIS MICHAELS: How long does it take you to write a book?

ANNABELLA MICHAELS: It honestly depends on how much time I have to write and how well the characters are “speaking” to me. Generally, it takes me about a month to write everything and then another month to go through the editing process.

KRIS MICHAELS: Do you write full time? What is your work schedule like when you’re writing?

ANNABELLA MICHAELS: I WISH! LOL. Hopefully someday soon, I’ll be able to write full time. I own another business and on the days I work there (usually 2-3 days/week), I’ll write in the evenings after I get home. All other days, including weekends, I write as much as possible. Luckily, I have a very patient and supportive family.

KRIS MICHAELS: What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

ANNABELLA MICHAELS: Okay, I’m not really sure if this is a quirk or just my being inept, but my family makes fun of this all the time. I can’t type. Like, AT ALL! I haven’t had to do it since my high school typing class, so I lost that skill over the years. I AM, however, an outstanding hen pecker. I’m really very fast at it and it’s how I’ve written all my books. Sometimes, though, I’ll be in the zone and just furiously pecking away and my kids will shout from the other room, “Can somebody, please open the door and let that chicken outside?” Haha! Did I mention they think they’re comedians?

KRIS MICHAELS: What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

ANNABELLA MICHAELS: READ!!! That’s the one thing I’ve missed since I started writing. I don’t have nearly the time to read that I used to have, but I do give myself 20 minutes to read each night before bed. It’s my way of unwinding and getting lost in someone else’s world.

KRIS MICHAELS: How many books have you written?

ANNABELLA MICHAELS: There are 7 books in the Souls of Chicago series and I’m currently working on my eighth book, which is a spinoff from that series.

KRIS MICHAELS: What do you think makes a good story?

ANNABELLA MICHAELS: For me, it would be lots of emotion. I enjoy sex scenes as much as the next person, but I love a story that makes me laugh, cry or get angry, right along with its characters. If a story has a lot of depth, then I care more about what happens to the characters and when those intimate scenes occur, it’s like I’m right there with them.

KRIS MICHAELS: As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?

ANNABELLA MICHAELS: I wanted to be a child psychologist and actually started out majoring in psychology in college. Then I found something else that was a better fit for me, and that’s what I do when I’m not writing.

KRIS MICHAELS: If I stranded you on a mountain top for a year in a cabin, with everything but internet or entertainment provided, and told you only had access to three author’s books, which authors would you read?

ANNABELLA MICHAELS: Oh, wow! That actually sounds heavenly. Haha! My three choices would be Charlie Cochet, Abigail Roux and T.J. Klune. Hands down, my favorites.

KRIS MICHAELS: Thank you so much for taking the time to visit with us today. If you love wonderful character driven romances with deep emotion, check out Annabella’s Soul’s of Chicago Series. I highly recommend it!

~~~~~

Found is part of the Hamilton’s Heroes series.

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Book blurb:

As a former U.S.A.F. Pararescueman, Jeremy O’Brien is used to following orders, no questions asked. So, when Micah, his boss at Hamilton Security, asks him to take on a special case, he readily accepts. Micah’s instructions are simple, find the man in the picture and bring him back to Chicago.

​Seven years ago, Zane Wilkinson left the hospital against doctor’s orders, only to suffer a final, devastating blow that left him with no choice but to leave the only place he’d called home. Feeling heartbroken and empty, Zane moved from town to town just trying to survive, while never letting anyone get too close.

​In a chance encounter, Jeremy finds himself crossing paths with a man who fits Zane’s description. His instincts tell him that he’s on to something, but Micah warns him that he needs to be absolutely sure. Jeremy sets a plan in motion that will allow him to get closer to the man he believes to be Zane. However, the closer he gets, the more he likes the man and begins to question why he was sent to find him.

Will Jeremy be able to follow through with his orders without becoming too attached? Or will he realize that in his search for Zane, he’s found so much more than he bargained for?

Excerpt:

The ache in my chest was something new. I’d never felt so much pain for someone else, but seeing him hurting actually caused my heart to hurt. Without thinking, I reached over and took his hand. He stiffened at first and I kept my hand loose, giving him the option if he wanted to pull away, but after a few seconds I felt him tighten his grip, just a fraction. We stayed that way, with his hand in mine, the rest of the drive. I stared out my window, trying to figure out what was happening to me.

I was no stranger to developing bonds with other people. After all, I’d been very close with my mom, and I’d even had the occasional boyfriend before. The men I’d served with in the Air Force and the guys I worked with at Hamilton security were like brothers to me. I trusted each of them with my life and they trusted me with theirs. Yet, sitting in that truck, holding his hand was the most connected I’d ever felt to another human being.

What had started out as a simple attraction was quickly becoming more, at least for me. How much more, I couldn’t say. Logically, I knew that getting involved with him was reckless, but I was also helpless to stop it. I still didn’t know why Micah wanted him brought to Chicago, or if he was in fact Zane. For all I knew, he could be wanted by the police, possibly as a hacker or a drug dealer, although my instincts told me that he wasn’t a criminal.

Regardless of all the unknowns, two things were perfectly clear: the man sitting beside me affected me more than anyone I’d ever met in my life and, reckless or not, I wanted to get to know him better.

~~~~~

Get your copy of Found now on Amazon.

Here’s what Annabella has to say about herself:

I am married to my high school sweetheart who let’s face it, is a saint for putting up with me all of these years. Together we have been blessed with the chance to raise two amazing human beings and so far we haven’t screwed it up; I’ll let you know for sure later. I am a business owner and spend more time laughing than actually working most days. I love watching movies, cooking, going to the beach and spending time with my family and best friends. I am an obsessive reader who is a complete sucker for a good love story, but loves to feel a broad range of emotions throughout a book. I think real life is hard enough and so my books offer twists and turns, but always with a happy ending.

Find her on Amazon and Facebook  and join her Facebook group, Annabella’s Sexy Souls.

The post Sexy Sunday Snippet: Found by Annabelle Michaels appeared first on Lady Smut.

Sexy Saturday Round Up

[image error]Hey people with vaginas! Hope you’re rocking the winter vibe with hot drinks, and fun scarves.  We’ve got a great Sexy Saturday Round Up for you today — from demon hunters, to Canadian ice dancers, from whiney asshats to tips on how to give a hand job — follow these links for some good time reading!

From Madeline:

How do books with strong women become #1 bestsellers? [Note, I posted this is so you could watch the video at the bottom . The author is very irritating in his facial ticks–well in every way, really–and his intro to the topic is irritating too.  But what he SAYS is interesting.

Score one against conservative sexists: No, you google ex-employee who thinks women are all categorically inferior – the U.S. Labor Association will not support your asshat views

From Jezebel: Are Virtue & Moir F**king or What?

From HEA:  You’re sick of door mat heroines too, aren’t you? Here’s someone subverting romance stereotypes with a female “Unlikeable Demon Hunter”

From Reductress: Study Shows Women Are Happier When Their Partners Aren’t Massive Douchebags

Love is love, right? Nope. Love is adapting to modern times, apparently.  Experts weigh in on how the face of love is changing.

But do they experience vaginal dryness? Female Killer Whales Go Through Menopause

Ever wondered how to give a smashing, glorious hand job? Lifehacker tells you how. 

 

 

 

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I’m off…

…to London for RARE18, an international gathering of people who love romance–authors, readers, bloggers, cover models… Here, have some man inspiration while I’m gone. Rumor has it Stuart Reardon will be there. I’ll be reporting back in March on all things RARE and wonderful! If I manage to smuggle out a cover model (or two), you’ll be the first to know. Pinky swear.

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Is he to die for or what?

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Altered States With Altered Carbon

With Altered Carbon, that great god of television glory—aka Netflix—has once again launched a binge-watching worthy series that’s smart, sexy, mind-boggling, bloody, engrossing, and, honestly, a total mind fuck. It crosses genres, subverts expectations, and sucks you in like damn and wow. It’s science fiction and romance and film noir and cyberpunk and futuristic and murder mystery and cop show and conspiracy action thriller all at the same time. It’s Max Headroom’s violent, sexual, mind-bendy grandchild. (Appropriately so then, Max Headroom himself, Matt Frewer, shows up for two episodes as Carnage, who runs a real death cage fight.)

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Carnage

Welcome to Altered Carbon.

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The world of Altered Carbon

WARNING: there will be mild spoilers ahead. I’ll do my best not to ruin the Big Reveals, because they should be experienced organically to properly appreciate the storytelling. But no promises.

THE STORY: In a cyberpunk future, the consciousness of every human being is now downloaded into a hard drive, called a “stack”, that is stored at the base of the skull on the brain stem. The body, now called a “sleeve”, has become merely the shell that encases the “soul stack” of a person. This means a person only truly dies, known as “real death” or “RD”, when the stack is destroyed, like a gunshot directly to the stack. It also means people can live for hundreds of years, changing sleeves along the way.

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It’s all in the bag

If the sleeve dies, a stack can be dialed up into a new sleeve, the person therefore inhabiting a new body. A person’s original body can be kept in cold storage while his or her stack is stored elsewhere, for example, when a man is imprisoned, he essentially “goes to sleep” for hundreds of years while his sleeve goes on ice. However, there’s no guarantee that sleeve won’t be used by someone else in the interim and possibly killed while being used, so that when you’re dialed up, it may not be into the sleeve in which you were born. Race, gender, height, weight, health—it’s all a lottery now. You get what you can afford. This is the same for damaged sleeves if you’re attached to your existing reflection. If your arm is injured and can’t be saved, you can get it replaced with an upgrade, bionic arm in moments—if you have the credits. People can also dial up “dead” loved ones, especially if those loved ones are “coded” not to be re-sleeve after sleeve death for religious reasons, and have them live again if, perhaps, not in the same sleeve in which they’d led their lives. (This makes for a hilarious re-use of a biker gangster as a Spanish grandmother and a Russian mobster.)

People can also “double sleeve”, essentially copying their stack and downloading into two different sleeves at the same time. While technically illegal, when you live forever and have unlimited wealth, the sky’s the limit. Literally so, if you’re one of the super rich.

Hundreds of years old, these “Meths” (aka Methuselahs), live far above the common man in sky palaces. Their wealth enables them to grown clones of their sleeves and constantly download themselves over the years into new sleeves that match their birth sleeves. They have a system that regularly uploads their consciousness into back-up drives that protect them against real death. They’re untouchable demi gods to which the lower classes only dream to rub shoulders against.

And one of them has just been murdered.

Enter Envoy detective Takeshi Kovacs who has been in stasis for 250 years and was just woken up by industrial magnate Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy) to solve the man’s murder. From the moment he awakens, Takeshi is plague by the attentions of Detective Kristin Ortega (Martha Higareda), a bad ass cop with a jones for catching Bancroft in what she is sure are corrupt and nefarious dealings—if only she can prove it. She also has a deeper connection to the sleeve Takeshi now inhabits, one that deepens the stakes for them all.

Tak was once a super soldier for the police force that menaces the outer worlds. When he’s betrayed by the unit to which he’d dedicated his life, he becomes an Envoy, a revolutionary operator with scary potent observational and investigational skills. Envoys were renown for being able to be dropped in on any world, into any situation, and quickly adapt and manipulate the environment and the people to their own ends—until they were betrayed and wiped out. Tak then became a mercenary, one who eventually was apprehended by his former commander, earning him a sentence of hundreds of years for his crimes.

Until Bancroft wakes him up.

Once an idealist under his battle scars, Takeshi has awoken to a world he doesn’t recognize, on a different planet than the one he was on when he went to sleep, and with the people he loved long lost to real death. He is now a grumpy tool only in the job for himself and the promise of a fortune and his birth sleeve as a reward for solving Bancroft’s murder. Except Tak can’t fight his true nature, the core of him that still cares no matter how much he protests to the contrary. And the list of people worming their way into his circle of protection keeps growing…whether he likes it or not.

Clearly, there’s a LOT going on in the ten episodes of Altered Carbon. And fan as I am of the series, it I have to admit, it ain’t all good.

THE BAD STUFF:

While the show runner on this one is a woman, that doesn’t mean, in a Game of Thrones world where rape is an acceptable plot device, there isn’t a lot of violence and nudity in Altered Carbon. There’s a whole hopping lot of both, though violence prevails most of all. This includes a naked fight scene a la Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises, where Ortega engages in a bloody knife brawl with a number of cloned sleeves. This is one case of nudity in Altered Carbon, though, where the nudity is designed to be empowering and deliberately used as a manifestation of the character’s head self-perspective and how she sees her body as a tool, rather than objectifying her for the male gaze. For more on this, check out this interview with actress Dichen Lachman about that scene and her character, Rei, who is the naked combantant. Be warned, it includes series spoilers galore.

There’s an argument to be made that the prevalence of nudity stems not from producers’ desire to curry favor with permanently adolescent fans boys, but rather an outgrowth from a society that has made the human form an interchangeable commodity. How can modesty persist when your body may be interchanged with another’s at any time?

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Sexy times for the sake of sex.

And yes, the violence is such that it may as well be another character in the cast. This is a world that uses virtual reality, where time has no constant, as a means of torture. Here, one can kill a victim over and over again in the most brutal and bloody of ways including chopping off limbs and removing innards, all virtually but while being connected to the physical body’s pain receptors, only to start a new VR session and begin again for a seemingly endless amount of time. A sleeve holds no inherent value; there are instances in Altered Carbon where people fight to the sleeve death for the promise of a sleeve upgrade as a reward. Naturally, that makes for an inherently violent world.

For a show with so much female bad ass representation, it’s still driven by a moody, growly, maladjusted white man, one who all the women he comes into contact with want to bone, no matter how badly he treats them. It’s a film noir construct, the Bogey hyper masculine hardliner disdaining all the Bacall femme fatales that rotate into his sphere but banging them nonetheless. Even in a futuristic society where the consciousness can be transported from form to form, women are still portrayed stuck in the past.

THE GOOD:

THE MAIN CAST:

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Joel Kinnaman, late of The Killing and the forgettable Suicide Squad, anchors Altered Carbon with his big presence. Seriously, the guy is huge and his normally beanpole form is ripped and cut and beautifully bulked out for this role. Hoo. Shah. He broods and grumbles and bad asses through the entire series, but he also brings out Tak’s tortured sweetness, an idealism that even 200 years of cold storage hasn’t fully frozen out of him. It keeps popping up to conflict him when he wants to be a cold, ruthless operator, but he can’t quite keep his heart from getting in the way.

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As Ortega, Martha Higareda plays the perhaps typical cop with a mission, but she does it by distaining a typical approach and instilling Ortega with a man’s attitude and vocabulary. She doesn’t play a lady cop; she plays a cop and has an attitude that would do John McLain proud. Ortega takes on the unlikeable heroine mantle with pride and spews ferocity and anger and complexity all over it.

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James Purefoy, a personal favorite in everything he does, oozes through his scenes with smarmy confidence, exuding the charm and power of the wealthiest man on several planets, sprinkled with the comfortable arrogance of someone who genuinely believes himself to be a god. As in the TV series Rome, his…erm…talent is on display here, including The Purefoy, as I like to call it, once again making a casual on-screen, full-frontal appearance. No, I did not hit the pause button, nor did I screen cap it, and I’m sticking to that.

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But truly, the one who steals the show is Chris Conner as Poe.

Once Tak accepts Bancroft’s case, he embeds himself at The Raven, a hotel run by an AI (artificial intelligence) named Poe, as in Edgar Allen. Poe hasn’t had any guests for hundreds of years, due to the AIs reputation of getting obsessively attached to their guests. Tak genuinely couldn’t give a shit about this and sets up shop at The Raven. Good thing too as Poe almost immediately proves his worth when Tak is attacked before he can even register as a guest.

Poe is an absolute delight. Snarky, smart, sweet, ruthless, loyal, dedicated, and oh so funny, he’s the land-locked sidekick/valet/butler Tak’s been missing in his life. Alfred to Tak’s Great Detective. As an AI, he’s tied to The Raven, but he can move about in VR (and does) and adds a rich depth and complexity to what’s nominally a bunch of ones and zeros. For a programable entity, he’s the most human and most humane one of the bunch.

THE ROMANCE:

Yes, there is romance. As mentioned earlier, Ortega has a prior connection to the sleeve that Tak is put into, which takes the idea of a love-triangle and really fucks with it. But Tak is also nursing a broken heart from this lost love, and his hallucinations, a side effect of being re-sleeved, keep her front and center in his journey. As Tak and Ortega get closer and the complexity of their connection deepens, the emotional risks of their relationship add texture and stakes to the on-going mystery and the threat of the enemies stacking up against them. It’s no surprise that in the end, Tak’s big heart, and not only for Ortega, is nearly both their undoing.

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Sticking close together.

THE MULTICULTURALISM:

Altered Carbon, like Max Headroom and Firefly and Blade Runner before it, builds its world on an Asian heavy multiculturalism. Set in a re-envisioned San Francisco, called The Bay, there are flying cars and neon signs and prevalent blinking screens that never turn off, pummeling the eyes with images and adverts that recall pretty much every science fiction show of the last 20 years. People speak all kinds of languages and understand one another. There’s no Farscape-esque universal translator either. Ortega speaks to her partner in Spanish and he replies in Arabic. There are subtitles; we can read them. There is no spoon feeding required. Tak’s Japanese/Croatian lineage speaks to the show’s inherent multicultural nature too, even if the tone-deaf move of folding an Asian character into a white man’s sleeve stomps all over that same multiculturalism with a pair of Kovacs’ combat boots.

THE STORYTELLING:

The storytelling is complex and deep, but so well paced. Nothing is revealed too soon, but once the revelation is made, one can look back and see the layers being laid in past episodes. That’s bloody hard to do and especially in a visual platform as rich as this show where there’s always something to see on the screen, nothing is wasted, no image thrown away in building the rich texture of this show. One of the appeals of the Harry Potter franchise from a craft perspective is how deftly Rowling plots the series over the length of the seven books; events happen in book five for which Rowling lays the groundwork in book two. Altered Carbon does that too, enough so that when I finished the series, I wanted to immediately watch it again so as to see those touchpoints again, this time with the benefit of foreknowledge of what was to come.

Accompanying this deep plotting and detailed planning is a respect for its audience that is rare to find in entertainment today. In Romancelandia, writers often debate the idea of dumbing down our storytelling, our writing, in order to reach a wider audience, a significant percentage of whom may not have a large vocabulary or an extensive reading and comprehension ability. I deal with this a lot in my day job where much of which we’re producing needs to reach an incredibly large audience, as in millions of people, whose lives may depend on being able to read and comprehend our message. As a writer, I think it’s my job to enhance my stories with complex writing, words that enrich as much as the story they form. If my readers have to look up a few words, then I’ve done my job right. (This is much less an issue in historical romance where a certain complexity of phrase and flowery language is expected.)

Altered Carbon doesn’t dumb down to its audience. The show presents complex word-building from the outset and it doesn’t waste time spoon-feeding the audience as to the nuts and bolts of things. We are plunged right into the muck of things and as the show presses on, it expects its viewers to keep up or catch up. That’s not to say it doesn’t give us a map; the trope of dropping someone new into the situation as a proxy for the audience is used in episode one to bring us all up to speed, but the information we need is parceled out as part of the storytelling without any recapping or “As you know, Bob,” retreads along the way.

THE IMPLICATIONS:

Nearly a week after viewing, my mind is still buzzing with all the implications and raised by Altered Carbon. The show raises questions of the nature of the soul and the value of a bodily form. When a soul can be kept in a hard drive and uploaded at random, what then makes it a soul rather than simply more data? Morality reforms in a world where sleeves can be killed and then the victim dialed back up to testify against his or her murderer. Where a person can voluntarily agree to have his or her sleeve killed for sport with the promise of an upgrade for the trouble. Where death suddenly has several degrees.

It’s a referendum on torture and an examination of whether love can last over hundreds of years. It’s a dissertation of gender identity: when your spouse can be dialed up into a sleeve of the opposing gender, are you still attracted to each other. Do you still love that woman who is absolutely unchanged except for the fact that she now wears a man’s shell? Do you recognize her soul inside that sleeve?

What makes memory when that memory can be obliterated by dying before the next upload. Is any event truly real if the memory of it is destroyed before the backup kicks in?

Overall, I found Altered Carbon to be compelling television. Underneath its science fiction, film noir trappings is an exploration of identity and morality and the nature of self and the soul that still has my mind spinning right round, baby. Right round.

Follow Lady Smut. We’ll mind-fuck you in the very best of ways–but only if you ask really, really nice.

Kiersten Hallie Krum writes smart, sharp, and sexy romantic suspense. She is the award-winning author of Wild on the Rocks, and its follow-up, SEALed With a Twist. She is also a past winner of the Emily Award for unpublished novels.

A member of the Romance Writers of America, the New Jersey Romance Writers, and the Long Island Romance Writers, Kiersten has been working in book publishing for more than twenty years in marketing and promotion. At other times in her career, she’s worked back stage for a regional theater, managed advertorials for a commerce newspaper in the World Trade Center, and served as senior editor for a pharmaceutical advertising agency.

Writer, singer, editor, traveler, tequila drinker, and cat herder, Kiersten avoids pen names since keeping her multiple personalities straight is hard enough work. Born and bred in New Jersey (and accent free), Kiersten sings as easily, and as frequently, as she breathes, drives fast with the windows down and the music up, likes to randomly switch accents for kicks and giggles, and would be happy to spend all her money traveling for the rest of her life. Find out more about Kiersten and her books on her website www.kierstenkrum.com. 

The post Altered States With Altered Carbon appeared first on Lady Smut.

Sexy Sunday Snippet: An Actor’s Guide to Romance by Catherine Curzon & Eleanor Harkstead

Happy Sunday Sexies! This week we have some hotness from Catherine Curzon’s single title pairing, An Actor’s Guide to Romance.

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Book Blurb:

For twenty years, Adam Fisher and Thomas Fox have been the best of enemies. From their first meeting at drama school to shared stages, shared bills and a competition to amass the most illustrious awards, they have been the names on every theatregoers’ lips. Separately they can sell out an entire run in an hour, so when they’re cast as lovers in London’s hottest new play, the tickets are gone in minutes.

But for rakish Adam and gentlemanly Thomas, the small matter of their first on-stage kiss is causing a headache for everyone. Over a bottle of wine on one rainy night in the city, these two acting legends will do whatever it takes to banish their first-night nerves. After all, as everyone knows, the show must go on!

Excerpt:

This was more than the script called for, more than their history of arguments and jibes and rivalry called for too, and it was Adam who broke the kiss first. He gazed at Thomas through eyes that shone with desire, his lips parted in a perfect, tempting pout.

“The first time I read the script,” he purred, “I thought how much better it would’ve been if they went to bed at this point, don’t you think? Our brave young playwright missed a trick there.”

Thomas panted, trying and failing to make sense of what had just happened. And what Adam was saying. Bed?

He rested the tip of his nose against Adam’s, staring into those beautiful blue eyes, his mouth fallen open as if the kiss had robbed him of the power of speech.

Since Thomas was an actor, the silence didn’t last long.

“I think you’re right. Damn right.” Thomas swallowed, grinning as he stroked Adam’s back. “What this play needs is a love scene. A proper one with naked, tangled limbs…” He brushed his lips against Adam’s. “Lots of sighing… Perhaps a headboard banging against a wall as well. Do you agree?”

“The way I see it, we need to really work through this tension between us.” Adam nodded gravely. “Twenty years of rivalry haven’t done it, so we could just see if a very sweaty, very dramatic fuck achieves what awards and curtain calls can’t. You might still hate me at the end of it, but you’ll be very happy at the same time.”

“I’m pretty happy now, to be honest.” Thomas brought his other hand between their bodies and cupped it over the bulge of Adam’s erection. “As are you, I notice. Now—if my co-star wouldn’t mind leading the way to the bedroom, we can get this love scene blocked out properly.”

“This is a one-time, gala performance. A royal command, if you like. One night only.” Adam took Thomas by the hand and led him from the sitting room. They passed along a hallway decorated with bright oiled canvasses showing splashes of color and seaside scenes, alongside vintage posters of long-since-forgotten productions. Then he pushed open a doorway and told Thomas, “After you!”

Adam’s white, metal-framed bed was heaped with quilts and cushions and Thomas wanted to grab Adam and dive at it with him in his arms. It looked antique, like the rest of the furniture, complementing the busy William Morris wallpaper.

“What a glorious room for a romp!”

“I remember how you hated my digs at RADA—you said they looked like a Turkish brothel!” Adam laughed and turned to the dresser. He took a cigarette lighter and ignited it, touching the flame to the candles that stood there, each as irregular as the next. “I’m still embracing Turkish brothel chic, though it’s a lot less damp these days!”

Just as Adam spoke, the rain began to fall hard against the windows and hiss against the sill outside.

“That rain tells me that we’re still in London.” Thomas bent to loosen his shoelaces. He kicked off his brogues and pulled off his socks. “But Turkish brothel—oh, yes, perfect for our daring actors as they explore the inner depths of their characters.”

“This doesn’t make us friends, you know, or lovers. It just means we get all that unhealthy competition out.” Thomas wasn’t sure who Adam was trying to convince, but from the need he felt and the outline of Adam’s erection in his linen trousers, it wasn’t working. “Then a simple on-stage kiss will be no challenge.”

“Oh, of course, Adam—this is textbook Stanislavski.” He began to unbutton his shirt with one hand and caught Adam around the waist with the other. “Always go to bed with other members of the cast. Even barmy old Brecht recommends it.”

Was that sarcastic enough? Thomas wondered, as he ghosted his lips across Adam’s cheek and brought them to settle on his mouth again. He felt Adam’s hands brush against his own to take over unbuttoning his shirt, felt the fabric fall away and those same palms brushing over his naked chest.

“The curtain rises,” Adam whispered against his lips. “The moon hangs low above the horizon.”

Then, his voice trailing into a breath, Adam abandoned Chekhov in favor of another kiss, even as he eased Thomas’ shirt from his shoulders and let it whisper onto the floor.

Still deep in their kiss, Thomas popped open the buttons of Adam’s shirt one by one. He slid his hand between the folds of fabric and took Adam’s hardened nipple between finger and thumb. He felt the heat of his rival’s—no—his lover’s breath, heard the hint of a whimper deep in his throat before Adam gasped, “You’ve found my weak spot, you old fox.”

~~~~

Get your copy now direct from Pride Publishing or Amazon.

~~~~

Catherine Curzon  is a historian of 18th century royalty. Her work has been featured on many platforms and she has also spoken at venues across the UK. She lives in Yorkshire atop a ludicrously steep hill.

Eleanor Harkstead likes to dash about in nineteenth-century costume, in bonnet or cravat as the mood takes her. Eleanor lives somewhere in the Midlands with a large ginger cat who resembles a Viking.

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Sexy Saturday Round Up

[image error]By Elizabeth Shore

Where in the world is February going?! We blinked and suddenly the month’s half over. But that’s not a bad thing. Before too long we’ll be doing more than just dreaming of spring, we’ll be living it. In the meantime, do some living this weekend and curl up with some great reads we’ve gathered up for you. Happy Saturday!

How do you explore your kinky, exhibitionist side? Here’s how.

A guy’s guide for giving you a blended orgasm.

Well, this is handy. Lingerie created specifically for oral sex.

The latest fashion trend taking the world by storm? Why, vagina wigs, of course.

What the flu does to your brain.

If you want to know about hot consent, just ask a romance novelist.

Breaking things off kindly by caspering. It’s like ghosting, but nicer.

From Madeline:

He’s Philippino and he’s HAWT — Who else wants to suck up all the goodness of The Good Place’s Manny Jacinto?

Stressed? Disinterested? Erotic — from Lifehacker: How to identify your partner’s libido type.

Why do we hate it so when some super-hot dude gets shackled for life? Idris got engaged. Sigh.

Lady Smut’s BEDROOM OLYMPICS: all the olympic news relating to sex, gender, and romance:

Got giant penis-headed men? The Olympic park does.

On The Ideological Front: From The New Yorker: The mesmerizing spectacle of North Koreas Army of Beauties.

This is the horniest Olmpics ever! Too bad gold medals aren’t handed out…

 

 

 

 

http://www.marieclaire.com/culture/a1...

 

https://io9.gizmodo.com/a-dildo-maker...

 

I know what I want go see around Valentine’s Day –and it ain’t 50 Shades.

 

https://www.vogue.com/article/black-panther-reviews-celebrities-react-raves

 

https://www.xojane.com/entertainment/...

 

 

Does Everyone Have a Friendship Complex, or Just Me?

 

 

Summer’s a long ways away—beach wave hair is not!

https://wellnessmama.com/5054/beach-w...

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Illicit Reading Fun: Hot Stepbrother Romance W/ Rheanna of Cammo Style Love

by Madeline Iva

Hi Readers! Gonna kick of V-day week with a new mini-series at Lady Smut — Illicit Reading Fun! Spark your romance palate with some smoking hot books you might not have tried before.  Today, Rheanna Christine from Cammo Style Love and I are talking about STEPBROTHER ROMANCES.

Let’s Address the “ick” factor and get that out of the way.  Okay, so there’s the dude that’s part of your family that you’d never be into– EW! –cause he’s your frickin’ brother–full, half, step, and/or adopted.  On the other end of the spectrum is the hot guy who came into your home for a couple years cause his dad was married to your mom for a few years.  No, you didn’t grow up with him.  No, he doesn’t feel like a sibling.  He’s just someone you have a tenuous connection to.  And if there’s chemistry there–strong sexual chemistry and feels—what then? It’s a bit gross and almost-incest-y in concept to go for it.  Certainly winding up in a relationship for reals with your stepbrother is not something you’d rejoice in explaining to anyone else, or wanna shout from the rooftops, but feeling it can’t happen is just making it h-o-t-t-e-r.  What are you supposed to do????

That, my ladies, is what Stepbrother Romances are all about.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF STEPBROTHER ROMANCE 

I actually have no idea what the real origins of stepbrother romance are.  But here’s the story I tell myself:

[image error]1995:  CLUELESS is released and becomes mega-popular.  There’s a huge scandal across the land that the heroine of the movie, Cher, played by Alicia Silverstone, winds up with her former step-brother, Josh, played by professional cutie actor, Paul Rudd.

AS IF! 

In fact, no one minded at all that these two had once been steps years ago –and for her dad–several wives ago.  What’s an ex-stepbrother? Is he still a relative? The big point is no one cared! And once people caught on that this was a remake of Jane Austen’s Emma, people could see this as a modern updating of that classic story.  (In Emma, the heroine and hero have siblings who married each other.  So they’re sorta related–by marriage.  Clueless uses our modern world to create the same kind of situation.)

Fast forward to:

2007 – 2012 GOSSIP GIRL Serena, played by Blake Lively, winds up being a step-sister to Chuck, an ex-boyfriend.  A high-school guy she had sex with.  Then his dad dies.  At the same time, Serena moves on romantically and becomes involved in Dan, played by eternal cutie Penn Badgley.  However, they break up.  However, Serena’s MOM has also moved on–to her old ex-flame, Dan’s DAD.  They marry, and now Serena is yet again in a step-sibling situation with someone she once was boinking.

Did the nation go crazy? Nooooooo — not exactly, but Gossip Girl’s secret sauce was all about pushing buttons in order to create teen melodrama based on values that would make any right thinking parent cringe.

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I’ve posted before on my helpless self-loathing & fascination for this horrible yet addictive show. Sigh.

Moving on:  2012. Suddenly, just as Gossip Girl is shutting down, the stepbrother romance thing–which had been gearing up back as early as 2009 was a phenom.  Stepbrother romance is a thing.   By 2014-2015, it’s everywhere.  It’s got all these variations and permutations.  Yet Lady Smut–always in the know–has never talked about Stepbrother romances before.  Well, at long last the time has come.  Bonding with Rheanna Christine at the Washington Romance Writer’s Luncheon over the last few years, I asked her about some of her illicit joys in reading steamy romance and she named Stepbrother romances.  Of course, since she is the blogger for Cammo Style Love–it should be no surprise to peeps that her fav flavor of Stepbrother romances is military.  She recommended to me a book called STEPBROTHER HERO by Krista Lakes.

Here’s what Rheanna had to say about STEPBROTHER HERO and Stepbrother romances:

RHEANNA CHRISTINE: So, I stumbled across this book quite accidentally during one of my usual “free and cheap” searches on Amazon. I am a particular fan of military romance and this book popped up in the search. First reaction was horror, second reaction was curiosity. And I think this book came at a very pivotal time for me in my romance reading journey. At this time I was sticking mostly with sweet romance and faith based romance. I was really nervous about reading romance in general, which makes me laugh now.  I read the back cover and realized that “stepbrother” was kind of a loose description so I decided to jump right on in.

MADELINE IVA: What have you seen around and about in our culture that makes the stepbrother thing just darn fine and not really ‘ish’ if you think about it–for you?

RHEANNA CHRISTINE: Well, I loved Clueless, but I don’t know that I really even picked up on that! I mean I knew they were related by marriage but it was such a far removed relationship. But that is really all secular culture can get away with I think. There will always be some things that are taboo no matter what. But in books I feel like you can get away with more. There was that weird moment in Star Wars that everyone always giggles about– [ The moment where Princess Leia kisses Luke Skywalker in front of Han Solo–only to have it revealed two movies later they’re twins. –MI] –as well as the satirical remake of The Brady Bunch where Marsha and Greg have a little kiss. One of the movies that always pushed the boundaries for me was in the movie CRUEL INTENTIONS. [Another high-school remake of a classic — Dangerous Liaisons–MI] Sarah Michelle Gellar plays a sex-obsessed high schooler that likes to get it on with her step brother. But its also one of those technically they are step brother and sister thing…so it feels just naughty enough to intrigue but not actually naughty.

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1999 — another teen remake of an old classic.

MADELINE IVA: I really enjoyed STEPBROTHER HERO.  Classic erom–the hero is smokin’ hot, and the sex is fabulous.  I appreciated the struggles that they had–and I appreciated even more that they were all middle class with the real struggles that ordinary folks face financially.  I felt this aspect was authentic and real–while still presenting us with the enjoyable moments, plot twists, and feels we expect out of romance.  Is the key lynchpin of Stepbrother romances that they’re really not siblings — not in terms of time spent growing up together or emotionally?

RHEANNA CHRISTINE: So they only ones I’ve read are written like this–where they are related by a technicality. Krista lakes has a series of three books that are about the step brother romance. I just downloaded another one, by Selena Kitt called STEPBROTHER BEAST. Like Krista’s book, it popped up on my radar because it involves a military man as well. Krista does billionaire romance, small town, and even tries her hand a modern spin on Pride and Prejudice. She’s a great writer.

MADELINE IVA: Thanks for chatting with me, Rheanna! There you have it — readers!

Want to find out more about books that Rheanna likes? Check out her BLOG and here’s her GOODREADS page.  Dive in!

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Rheanna and I also discussed her love for romances where the heroine gets preggers. *Cough* *Cough* Just sayin’. ; >

And click on STEPBROTHER ROMANCE if you wanna buy a copy — I warn you though, I was only able to get a paperback and went into a bit of stickershock over the price. :/

Meanwhile, Rheanna mentioned a few other tasty novels you might enjoy, including another stepbrother romance–but also a few other fun suggestions.

Roommates: A Stepbrother Romance

Military: Worth The Fall

Dirty Little Virgin –this is an erom with submissive elements

If you wanna go down that Step-sibling rabbit hole–here are some Goodreads pages that will help you help you find “the good stuff”.

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/84527.Stepbrother_Books

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/step-brother-sister

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/step-brother

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/step-siblings

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/23946.Step_Siblings_or_Related_in_Love

 

 

 

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