Serafine Laveaux's Blog, page 2

Coming Soon - My Dark Angel

My first love has always been the wasted landscape of post apocalyptic fiction. The tribal societies that arise, the laws that fall to the wayside, and the general degeneration of mankind in its fight to survive. The brutality and carnage, the misery and suffering, it's like being in high school all over again.

I don't have a release date yet but am expecting My Dark Angel to be available in late April. It's a throwback to the old school bodice rippers, except Nadine murders a few assholes and there are no quivering flowers of womanhood in need of proud warrior spears.... here's a few snippets.


Funny thing, standing on a stage while people bid on you. Do you stand tall or cower? Do you glare defiantly or accept the hand you’re dealt and try to look appealing? I watched a lot of luckless folks make those decisions that day, and I still don’t know the answer. For the men, squared shoulders and defiance usually resulted in a one way ticket to the arena, but sometimes the puling and cringing found themselves in line for the ludus as well, slaves to more respected slaves for now, punching bags and training tools for later.For the women it didn’t matter. I saw scratching, screaming girls fetch as much as seasoned whores who stood with hips tipped forward and fingers spreading lips wide before the slobbering crowd. Except for very old, the destination was almost always the same. Not even the little girls were immune to the bids of the whoremasters. For now they could serve as maids; in time they would serve in a different capacity.
*********


He left me alone then, bound for his own long overdue shower and ignoring his earlier insistence that I never be allowed out of his sight. I pulled the oversized shirt on, clutching it to my face and inhaling the warm smell of soap and pine that seemed to be on everything he touched. My fingers barely came past the edge of the cuffed sleeves and the shirt hem fell to mid-thigh, but it was clean and warm and the first thing I’d worn since my arrival that didn’t have the dank, muggy cave smell embedded into it.The room was cool like the rest of the caverns, but my skin remained flushed from the hot shower and even hotter touch of Joshua’s determined fingers. As I sat on the edge of the bed I let my own fingers slip between my pale thighs to the warm, moist folds between, reliving the earlier moments when his soapy fingers had stroked and caressed the private, satin flesh. My bottom lip caught in my teeth as my head fell back against the numerous pillows behind me, and my eager fingers plunged and spread the velvet curtains to taste the swirling flood of need inside. I imagined my fingers to be his, teasing and stroking and caressing the desire soaked flesh that was rapidly swelling beneath the knowing touch of my/his firm fingers. In my mind he knelt between my spread knees, gazing up at me with burning desire as his fingers plundered my tight depths and his breath came in a ragged gasp.Except I didn’t imagine the gasp, and with a guilty jump my eyes flew open and I saw Joshua standing frozen in the doorway, wrapped in a towel with his attention riveted to my glistening fingers. Startled and embarrassed, I tried to sit up, tried to formulate some explanation or excuse although it was pretty obvious what I’d been doing. Even more obvious was the way his towel thrust forward just below his belly, the force of his arousal threatening to break free at any moment.“Joshua,” I stammered nervously, suddenly fearful of what I knew was about to happen.In two strides he had crossed the room, and then he was on the bed and stretched out possessively over me, one hand cradling my head as the other laid claim to the sweltering flesh beneath my trembling hand. This time it was my breath that caught in a startled gasp as a shudder wracked through me, set in motion by the familiar touch of his rough fingertips against my desperate flesh and the fleeting kiss of his lips against the sensitive curve of my ear.“You belong to me,” he murmured softly as his burning lips left my ear to brand my neck with his heated kiss. “Ever since I found you in that field, you’ve belonged to me.”My greedy hips strained upwards, pushing the pulsing flesh harder against the skilled fingers that sweetly tormented me in ways I’d never imagined. Wildly I clutched at his powerful arms, pulling him to me, desperate to feel our naked flesh come together even as he devoured the shivering skin along my neck. One determined fist wrapped tightly into my hair, pulling my head backwards and forcefully exposing my throat to his merciless assault.Below, a thick finger teased along my warm, damp entrance, and even as I tensed in nervous anticipation I felt myself open up in ravenous invitation. Suddenly fearful, I tried to speak up, to warn him that despite Dr. Rigden’s presumptions, this was all new to me.“Joshua, I…” but he reclaimed my mouth then, his full, dark lips engulfing mine as his tongue plunged between them and tangled with my own. The fingers that had teased now took, slipping into the deeper heat within with an eagerness I wasn’t ready for. There was a quick, sharp pain and I gasped in wounded surprise. Instantly his body froze, and he stared at me first in confusion, then amazement and wonder. Slowly, carefully, he withdrew his fingers and saw a faint red streak on one.“How is that even possible?” he demanded, but my pain had already slipped to pleasure and I burned to have his fingers inside me again. The only answer he got was my face buried against his damp chest and my hands impatiently pulling him back to me. For a moment I found myself marveling at the contrast of my pale hand clutching the polished obsidian of his sculpted chest, and then I abandoned his chest for the towel that continued to restrain his engorged cock, yanking it loose and flinging it to the floor beside us, setting the ebony shaft and flushed head free.Setting things free seemed to be coming something of an obsession for me lately.
 Keep an eye out for My Dark Angel to be released in late April!

Domestic Discipline and Peeps

The Hickory Switch is now available through Blushing Books! This Christian domestic discipline romance is a departure from my usual work, and follows Doris de Vris from The Evolution of Emma Adler after she leaves home and marries a preacher who introduces her to the hickory switch.

The old man has been ill lately, as old dogs are wont to do. Blind, nearly deaf, and now with some horrible stomach illness no doubt resulting from gobbling up something foul that he sniffed up in the yard, he does little more than lie in bed groaning or rushing to the back door (or refrigerator or washer and dryer depending on which direction he gets himself going) and begging to go outside lest he embarrass himself horribly on the kitchen floor. The first night of his misery, our exchange student suggested I put him outside because he was gross. It was 32F with snow on the horizon. Needless to say I pointed out I'd had him ten years, and her seven months, and if anyone was going to be sleeping in the yard it would not be my sick and blind and arthritic buddy.
The house is blissfully silent at the moment, thanks to her being on a senior class trip and him being over his projectile defecation. This is good news in more ways than one, although I fear I have discovered the source of Old Man's misery.


We had an early Easter egg hunt for some kids and I succumbed to the cheery yellow sugar coated marshmallow bunnies more than once. Now I'm the one groaning in the corner and begging to go out.

Damn you sugary marshmallowy bastards!

The Rising Yangtze

This is from my Sex and Honey collection. I'm a total documentary freak, and saw one about a young girl living on the banks of the Yangtze as the waters rose and her family was forced to leave. Her story stuck with me, and then one evening this story came from her. 

The Rising Yangtze  Xue silently picked her way through the tall reeds along the bank of the river, her tiny bare feet leaving only faint impressions in the soft, sucking mud. Yesterday the river had been much further down the steep hillside but today it lapped the edges of the worn trail she and her friends had spent the past fourteen years making. She was saddened to know by tomorrow it would devour their secret trail entirely, only allowing the tallest of the reeds another day to taste sunlight before they too were submerged.The Three Gorges Dam was a source of pride for most of the Chinese people but Xue hated it. The completion of the dam meant the waters of the Yangtze would rise over ninety meters, and as it was drowning the grasses and trails so too would it bury the home she had spent her whole life in. Even now her parents were busily dragging their pitiful belongings up the steep banks to the new apartments the government was relocating them to.  Xue knew she should be helping them and that she was being selfish, but today was the last day she would have to see her best friends and spend time in the spot they had called their own since they were small children. Dragging her spoiled little brother’s bed up the steep hillside held little appeal.

If you like this, check out Sex and Honey on Amazon, available in paperback and Kindle format! :)

It isn't because it sells

The other day a friend of mine said something that rather pissed me off. She said she very much liked my writing, but wished I wouldn't insist on putting "so much sex in it."

"But I write erotica," I pointed out.

"Exactly, and I get it you know, I mean it's like they say, sex sells and you're just writing what sells."

Um, no I'm not. I don't write a story and then try to cram as much sex in as possible because I think it will help it sell. I write a story and my characters cram in as much sex as they can convince me to include. (and in the world of erotica my characters are friggin prudes if you ask me) If it were up to me I'd be writing stuff like the Walking Dead and Mad Max, but these characters that get into my head are horny little bastards and they aren't shy about it. They want to screw, a lot, and they want you to hear all about it.

Sure I could cut it out of the story, but if I did then my characters would sulk and refuse to talk to me. Believe me I know. I have a massive, mainstream post apocalyptic fiction novel that I've been working on for over a year, and part of what's taken so long is that I'm trying like hell to keep my characters dressed and in their own pants. That tends to piss them off and they go silent on me for months on end.

The other snotty remark I've come across online is that writing sex isn't really writing. Really? It's one of the most basic human experiences, something we all go through, and yet it can be one of the most difficult to describe because it's something unique and personal to each of us. I can *see* exactly what my characters are experiencing, but how do you put it into words? More importantly, how do you do it without sounding like every other tired old cliche that's been done to death? Just because my characters like to screw doesn't mean I can just sling out the prose with one eye closed. It's a challenge to make the words become visual, and to dismiss erotica as just textual porn is arrogant and short sighted. I've read some really amazing work by very talented authors, and if it had not a lick of sex in it they still would have been outstanding reads.

The sex just made them 100% complete.

Sorry Dawn

Blushing Books will be publishing "The Hickory Switch" yay! So I thought I'd get onto Dawn the Vampire Fucker but no. I should know better than to make plans.

Instead I'm working on post apocalyptic erotica this time. Which makes sense actually, if you know me. I'm one of those crazy survivalists, except since I don't have the gay hate, anti-choice, and religious issues I'm kind of an oddball in the realm of gun toting, food and toilet paper hoarders.

Speaking of which, I need to get more TP.

Tentatively named "Dark Angel". Or my dark angel. Or a dark angel. Or yellow 0163. I just don't know right now.



Here's the first page or so. :)


My name is Nadine Hollis. I’m twenty-eight years old, I think, though we haven’t tracked birthdays for a long time, not since the Meltdown anyway. Carly did for the first few years, but when the dust finally settled and reality took hold even she stopped caring. It’s hard to look forward to being another year older when you just spent the last one hiding out, hoping to make it through the day without being captured or raped or killed. Or worse.We did better than most, me and her, hiding in abandoned buildings and only coming out after dark, but everything’s eventual and our luck ran out between a ’67 Chevy and a burned out office complex. They were scavengers of the worst sort, moving fast and light and on top of us before we ever saw or heard them. They took Carly down fast, wrapping her in a blanket like a spider webbing a fly. She was only twenty-two, delicate and beautiful despite the grime and dirt, and they knew better than to damage the prize. Next thing I knew they were carrying her off like a rolled Persian rug and reeking, hairy arms were wrapping around me while someone else put a pillowcase over my head.Nearly a decade of surviving together in the dark amid the ruins came to an end in half a minute.
They called themselves businessmen, which is like calling a two-bit politician the President or a King. They were slavers, scavengers preying on the unwary and unprotected, and any warm body would do regardless of age or sex. Small children could be sold for menial laborers, old women as cooks and house maids. Men could be sold to the corporations for workers, or to pit bosses for the illegal but ever popular blood sports. And girls? Use your imagination.Looking back I wonder if things would have been different if they’d known we were both virgins. Given our age they never thought to check, but if they had they might have treated us better. Certainly we would have been held back for a special auction and bid on by only the most wealthy investors. Instead we were ear tagged and caged with the rest of the women and girls, slated for sale at the auction in Canton.Yeah I said ear tagged. We were cattle to them, profitable cattle who cost nothing to acquire and next to nothing to feed. You don’t name cattle. You give them numbers.I was Yellow 0163.

Where the hell did YOU come from?

A funny thing happened on the way to Dawn's novel. I got sidetracked by Emma Adler's nemesis, Doris de Vris. Out of nowhere, a new book emerged. I'm already a quarter of the way done with it and clearly see every chapter laid out before me. Did not see that coming at ALL.

Wanna know what else I didn't see coming? It falls under the genre of Christian Inspirational/Domestic Discipline. You know, the kind of books where the women are all spanked like children by all the men in their lives as a means of discipline only, no sex or BDSM or none of that sticky, icky business whatsoever.

Part of me is just peachy fucking keen about this development, because I hated Doris de Vris. I went to church as a kid with stuck up spoiled bitches like her, and the idea of her getting hooked to a paddlin' man suits me just fine. The story is good too, plenty of tension and drama and both Doris and her spankin Sparky grow a lot by the end of the love story, and it IS a love story, from me, who has spent the last few days fretting that I don't have any romance in me. It's just, well it's so .... unexpected.

The other bizzaro part is that I'm atheist. I grew up in a very religious home, but I haven't been a believer since I was oh, ten or twelve. If you'd told me two days ago I'd ever, in my lifetime, write a Christian Inspirational romance I'd have laughed until my Diet Dr Pepper snotted out my nose.

I kinda feel like a sell out for writing it, but it wasn't by conscious choice that it's happening. The story gurgled up from some back corner of my brain, all finished and ready to go and wrapped up in a pretty yellow bow... I can't resist yellow bows... and it demanded to be written.

So, I'm writing it, and screaming carpal tunnel be damned. I expect it to be all down by Friday evening. Maybe then I can get back to Dawn, the orgasmic vampire slayer.

Dawn's Dilemma

The question of the day is, can I write a romance? It's not my bag of tricks you see, not that it would be any leap of logic to come to that conclusion if you've ever read any of my scribblings. My girls are love 'em and kick 'em to the curb sorts. Chloe may have loved Chuck but when he failed to stand up for her, she was out the door and fucking up his car before you could say wet shifter. Emma Adler is about her evolution from downtrodden, cringing doormat to the sort of girl who will kick your ass and steal your boyfriend.
And Dawn? Dawn is the ultimate black widow, the one the wannabes bow before and offer up gifts in hopes of getting to hang with her on Friday night. She fucks vampires to death for pete's sake, and I know it sounds horribly comic bookish to write it like that but Dawn is a weapon designed to kill the undead and there's nothing comical about her deployment. If anything, it's a bit gross. She isn't Buffy who kicked their asses while delivering witty quips just before plunging a wooden stake into their hearts. Dawn's power is triggered by a lust for revenge, and rather than fight her enemies she draws them helplessly to her like moths to a trailer park bug zapper. 
Vampires are not sparkly, benevolent beings who help angst riddled teens cope with high school. Fucking hell. They are the evil undead, think David from Lost Boys and Angelus from Buffy, or Ann Rice's Lestat, or Camilla and Goth of the Nosferatu clan. Ugly, giddily vicious, and unrepentant, delighting in the torment and torture of their victims. Sorta like Dawn is, actually.
The story before me is that a horrified Dawn finds she has fallen for one, which is problematic in two ways. One, she despises vampires for the destruction of everything she has ever loved, and two because sex between them would be the end of the twisted romance. 
It's a GOOD story, and I love Dawn as a character. I just hope I can do it justice. Doing my research this week on medieval Bulgaria circa 1300 to better understand where Dawn was born, and reborn; the migration of the Romani out of India and into Europe during the High Middle Ages; and getting to know Dixon Kane, the young vampire who turns Dawn's world upside down.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

[image error] Emma Adler just headed to the publisher. Now comes holding my breath for a couple of weeks while they look it over.

She came to me in a snippet of a dream. I saw a girl, sometimes standing before me and other times I looked through her eyes, peering through the window of a tar paper shack at an entire family dog piled atop a single, full sized bed. The parents had their heads at one end, along with a couple of the kids, and the others had theirs at the other, with feet and arms all tangled up in the middle.

Suddenly I was in the room, standing quietly next to them as they slept. Reaching out I gently woke up a boy, putting my fingers on his lips to keep him quiet and then taking his hand. We were young, sixteen maybe, and clad in threadbare clothes with dirty, unkempt hair. The home was a hovel, dirt floors and barren walls and a tin roof that let in more moonlight than it kept out.

Then we were outside. She/I touched his chest, and stroked his arm, and then he pulled her/me to him and we began to grope and kiss.

That's when the 44 ounce iced tea I drank before going to bed woke me up and sent me scurrying to the can.

The Evolution of Emma Adler is set in the 1930s, during the Great Depression and in the middle of the seven year drought known as the Dust Bowl years. I did a surprising amount of research on it; slang, prices, automobiles, typical meals, and thanks to Emma's obsession with the sirens of the silver screen, endless reading about and studying the photos of 1930s starlets. I have developed a new appreciation for Mae West back in her heyday, and a rabid dislike of the plucked and painted on half circle eyebrows that somehow managed to set the style back then. Anyhoo...

Sending Emma off to be weighed and measured is like sending a child off to college. You've done all you can, now all you can do is sit back and watch and hope it all turns out ok.

All Hail Twitter Babylon

"You don't understand Twitter"

Said a friend to me the other day after reviewing my tweets. According to her Twitter is for networking and promotion, not for boring people silly with accounts of my weekend or the fact that I consider my satin cheetah print with pink trim pajamas to be suitable every day wear around my house. a fact yet to be tweeted about, but still she worries

"Look here, see how this one does it? She constantly puts out snippets of her book, along with links to her blog."

"BORING" I protest, and she rolls her eyes at my mulish behavior.

"Seriously what do you hope to accomplish by telling people the dog is asleep on your chest? You write sex. You need to be sexy. Dog hair in your bra? Not sexy."

I know what she means, I do, but seriously, yawnfest. I freaking hate reading tweet after tweet of self promotion, thanks for shopping here, and endless snippets of titillating and sexy phrases that, without the accompaniment of photos or more details, are more awkward than panty wetting. I suppose this is why some hire a PR person to handle their tweets and blogs; otherwise the feed would disintegrate into endless Ashton Kutcheresque babble that reveal us all to be ignorant fucks when limited to 140 characters or less.

Except I *like* Babylon, the he said she said tit for tats and spats that make up the vast majority of tweets. I like knowing that Marci's dog came home from the vet without complications and Ray's ex girlfriend is a "stank ass skank ass ho" and that G Busta be pimpin@9th and wondering where his hos at, and I like knowing that the people I follow are real people, not some shill in an office somewhere pimping for a paying customer.

Small wonder I'm not in sales.

Pass the vodka please

"I hate it here. Why don't we ever go anywhere? This place sucks!"

Seventeen in a small town. Need I say more? The exact phrasing changes from day to day but the overall sentiment is unyielding and harsh. Boring. Stupid. Hate.

She says we are old and boring and lame and stupid and a half dozen other unflattering adjectives, usually when she thinks we are out of earshot but not always. She cannot and will not comprehend budgets and bills because she's never had to fend for herself, and refuses to accept that vacations are more than just loading in the car and heading down the road. After all, her parents go on holiday at least once a month, to places like Italy or Switzerland or the Black Sea. Her parents have regular parties with wine and friends, and her parents would not be caught dead in a town like this.


She isn't ours. We agreed to host her for a school year, a child of obvious privilege from an eastern European country where public transport puts everything within reach and entire countries just an afternoon's drive away, where the legal drinking age is eighteen but younger are served without fuss. From a town of 350,000 to one of barely 1000, culture shock has nearly sent her into the fetal position, and taken us along with her.

She doesn't grasp the idea of an American mortgage, or the fact that our modest two bedroom home cost more than the flat and summer cottage her parents own combined. Cars should only cost a few hundred dollars, a few thousand at most, and should be tiny and fuel efficient. Any observation that contradicts her worldview only proves that Americans are stupid.

She can prove it, lest I care to argue. Her mother once showed her a research paper that showed American IQs to be significantly lower than the rest of the world. According to this paper, (which I have yet to see produced) it is a marvel I can tie my shoes without assistance. I counter by pointing out that despite my two digit IQ I have watched every episode of Dexter, CSI, and NCIS, and will have little trouble disposing of her once she finally wears out my patience. We'll see who is stupid then, when I'm standing topside and she's dissolving inside a barrel.

She started in on me again the other day, and finally I'd had enough.

"You want to go somewhere so badly, then you pay to get us there."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you pay the gas, plus 1/3 of the hotel costs and your meals while we're there. Or buy three roundtrip tickets. I don't care. You pay to get us there and we'll go. Otherwise shut up."

Having calculated it to be cheaper to rent a small car and fuel it over pouring diesel into our ravenously hungry 4x4 she agreed to pay for the rental instead, a move that is not sitting well at all with my husband. Rightfully pointing out it has a habit of snowing in the Rockies during late December, he insisted on the 4x4, offering to cover the difference in fuel.

She balked. The truck is not environmentally friendly, she says, and she will not be a party to the waste of fuel or yet another display of American arrogance and over consumption.

Tomorrow morning I leave in an overloaded Corolla driven by one pissed off husband determined to get us stuck in a snowbank somewhere so he can make her get out and shovel, and flanked by one self righteous and world weary teenager who will no doubt find the entire trip horrid and boring and take every opportunity to kick the hornet's nest that I am rapidly becoming.