TAKE THE HEAT from Skye Warren Blog Tour & Interview with Elizabeth Coldwell
Today I’m welcoming Skye Warren and the authors from the Take the Heat Anthology. At the end of the tour Skye will be awarding a $15 Amazon gift card to one lucky participant from this tour and the anthology’s review tour. To enter please leave a comment and enter in the Rafflecopter below. Take it away Skye…
Hi, Skye Warren here! I’m the New York Times Bestselling author of dark romantic fiction, and I’m also the editor of Take the Heat, an anthology of criminal romance. I’m so excited to share this release with you.
One of the best parts of putting together this anthology was seeing what each author did—and Elizabeth’s story had a great noir atmosphere and surprise twist. I’m thrilled to have her here today for an interview to talk about her writing process, so here we go…
Elizabeth, h ow long have you been writing?
Elizabeth Coldwell: I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write. I completed my first novel when I was ten and it’s still in a drawer at my parents’ home. The storyline holds up well (it’s about a talking dog who sets out to be famous), but I don’t think I’ll be showing it to anyone.
Skye Warren: Wow, that’s great. (Remember Wishbone? I loved that show!) What advice would you give a new writer just starting out?
Elizabeth Coldwell: Writing is a long game – the overnight successes are very few and far between, and this profession is not an automatic passport to instant riches. And don’t be discouraged by rejections, as we all get them.
Skye Warren: Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? If so, what do you do about it?
Elizabeth Coldwell: No, I’ve been very lucky in that respect. I never look at a page and think that I can’t put words on it. There are days when I don’t want to write, which is a different matter. That’s when I go and do chores, or fill in questionnaires like this.
Skye Warren: How do you come up with the titles to your books?
Elizabeth Coldwell: Often, the title arrives before the story, and then it’s a case of finding an idea that suits it. For instance, Stranded in Paradise could have been set on a tropical island, but instead, it turned into a gay romance about an English student who finds himself in a small town called Paradise with only the clothes he stands up in, and the diner owner who employs him and falls in love with him. My favorite title is probably for a ménage short story I wrote about a couple of tourists on the way to Vegas and their encounter with a traffic policeman – Two Girls One Cop.
Skye Warren: Sounds hot. Can you describe your writing space?
Elizabeth Coldwell: I’ve colonized the sofa in the living room, where I pound away on my netbook. Half the time there’s a cat asleep on me while I’m working – whether I want there to be or not…
Skye Warren: How do you do research for your books?
Elizabeth Coldwell: Mostly online these days. I’ve just completed a paranormal novel that’s set in Amsterdam, and some of the places and incidents in that are based on parts of the city I know very well, but I’ve also had to do some additional research that doesn’t come up in the course of a normal stay there. I now know more about Amsterdam’s cemeteries than I thought I would ever need to.
Skye Warren: Are you a plotter or a pantser?
Elizabeth Coldwell: I started off as a plotter, because when I was first submitting novels in the 1990s, that’s how you worked – you sent three chapters and a synopsis (on paper, none of your fancy email submissions, young people…) and you needed to have a start, middle and end. These days, I mostly start with a vague idea and fill bits in as I go along. It’s not unusual for me to write Chapters 1, 4 and 7 and then patch the rest of the story in between.
Skye Warren: Thanks so much, Elizabeth! And thank you all for coming to check out Take the Heat. If you’re down for a dark ride, I hope you’ll read it!
TAKE THE HEAT
The ultimate bad boys, criminals capture our attention and awaken our darkest desires. Celebrate the illicit in this romantic suspense anthology, where handcuffs are used for more than play. These stories are shocking, sexy, and thought-provoking.
In New York Times Bestselling Author Skye Warren’s Magnolia Hotel, meet the heroine who pays her brother’s debt to a loan shark—who happens to be her childhood crush. Find out if the jury made the right decision in Acquitted by award-winning author Giselle Renarde. Explore a dark and sensual psychology with New York Times Bestselling Author Pam Godwin in Unlawful Seduction.
Ride the edge of desire and see if you can TAKE THE HEAT…
Skye Warren – Magnolia Hotel
Cynthia Richards – Captivated
Pam Godwin – Unlawful Seduction
Sheri Savill – Slipknot
Shoshanna Evers – This Might Hurt A Bit
Candy Quinn – The Bombshell
Tamsin Flowers – Playing with Fire
Elizabeth Coldwell – Disposing of Donnie
Audrey Lusk – Surprise Witness
Trent Evans – Last Day
Giselle Renarde – Acquitted
EXCERPT FROM “SLIPKNOT” BY SHERI SAVILL
Leather. Sexy and tight. Perfect. Yep, this is the one. This is the one I’m taking.
Mia took a deep breath and, in one smooth move, rolled and tucked the metal hanger—and the soft black leather miniskirt still clipped to it—into her black shoulder bag. Right over the open zipper and down into the gaping hole at the top of the purse, all without a hitch.
Thank God the fucking price tag didn’t catch on the zipper track.
Once it was all pushed down inside the darkness of her purse, she rested the crook of her elbow over the opening again, for extra camouflage, in case prying eyes should happen to look too closely as she left the shop. Four hundreds dollars’ worth? really? The tiny skirt was easy enough to conceal. It was an obscene price for a leather mini, anyway, she rationalized. Even for a skirt as sexy and well-made as this one, that was too much money. She could smell the richness of fine leather wafting from the other skirts still on the rack in front of her as she glanced sideways again. All quiet. Not a soul in the shop but her and the guy behind the counter. And he was still gone.
God, that was really just too easy.
She felt her lips pursing together a little in spite of herself, barely suppressing her self-satisfaction. Still, no reason to be cocky. She’d planned this carefully enough in advance. Stupid thieves were always being caught because they didn’t think things through, or they became too brazen, too greedy. The news was full of dumb criminal stories. She’d resolved not to be one of them.
Mia shifted her weight a little in her black heels and then took a few small steps down the aisle toward the ball gags, crops, hoods…glancing sideways again toward the cash register, now bathed in a soft greenish glow of a banker’s lamp on the counter. The dimmer-than-usual lighting meant that Flesh Factory—the largest kinky sex emporium and BDSM equipment supplier in the city—was empty, about to close for the night—which was exactly what she had counted on. But even as the last customer of the day, she’d taken no chances and sent the lone employee—friendly, handsome, ever-so-helpful “Michael”—on an errand to the stockroom to check for fence-net thigh-highs she knew he wouldn’t find. They didn’t even carry them anymore. She knew the stripper-wear section well and pretty much owned one of everything they sold by now.
She continued to pretend to browse, exhaling another slow breath. It was exciting, breaking the law. She’d done it. And now the leather skirt was hers. All that was left to do was make a hasty yet friendly exit shortly after Michael returned, apologetic and empty-handed, from the goose chase she’d sent him on.
The short, low-cut white dress she’d worn tonight—no bra, of course—had been extra insurance that she’d have his cooperation. The idea was to disengage his brain while engaging his cock and she noted earlier, with pleasure, that her chosen outfit had indeed done just that. The bulge in Michael’s jeans confirmed it more than once, even before she’d made a point of bending to examine sale items set on a low shelf. Oh, but men were so easily entranced, so easily guided. And she knew now that her bare pussy and the twin curves of her ass just peeking from under the tight white fabric of her dress had done the trick with Michael. Plus it just made her feel sexy and like a bad girl; the playful exhibitionist side of her submissive tendencies, she supposed, now helping her steal a skirt.
Her thoughts snapped back to the present. A voice. Michael’s.
“Sorry…Mia, was it? Looks like we don’t even carry those anymore. I can call the supplier tomorrow, if you want, and see if we can special order them. That could take a few weeks, though. You probably don’t want to wait …” He shrugged and turned a key in the register, locking it for the night.
She smiled at him.
“Oh no…Michael. Sorry for the trouble. I just thought—”
He was still aroused, his erection huge and straining in his jeans, and he was making no effort to hide it now. He’d come around the counter and was looking her up and down, his dark eyes taking in her nipples, the corners of his mouth turning up, approving. His eyes then moved down to her long tanned legs in the black heels.
“Love the white dress.”
“Thanks. Look, it’s late and I’ve already kept you from closing up on time. I gotta get going. But thanks, again, for checking on the fence-net stockings.” Her elbow squeezed the shoulder bag in closer to her body as she turned toward the exit. Another rush of satisfaction flooded her. She’d just scored a premium leather miniskirt and was about to walk right out the door with it and leave a hunky guy with a huge hard-on.
“You have a good night, then” she heard his husky voice calling behind her. The red neon of the “open” sign in the front window flickered a little, buzzing, and then went black. Maybe he couldn’t wait to get her out of the store. Probably wants to jerk off.
Her hand closed around the doorknob when she sensed someone moving up quickly behind her. Before she could turn, a large hand encircled her throat as an arm clamped around her belly, pulling her backward. It happened so fast.
A deep male voice—not Michael’s—breathed into her ear.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
Ride the edge of desire and see if you can TAKE THE HEAT…
Read Take the Heat now: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | More buy links…
About Elizabeth Coldwell
Elizabeth Coldwell is a multi-published author and award-winning editor who lives and writes in London. Her work has appeared in a variety of anthologies including Crimes of Passion and Women With Handcuffs. She can be found at The (Really) Naughty Corner, elizabethcoldwell.wordpress.com.
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