Getting Wylde!

Hi, Scribe fans! We have a special treat for you today. I recently discovered Irish author Anya Wylde and now I can’t get enough of her zany historical romantic romps. Anya will be here at some point today to answer your questions. And if you don’t have questions, just say hi to our new friend across the pond.

Tell us a little about yourself, Anya.

I live in Dublin, Ireland with my husband and poodle. I try and write ridiculous books in an attempt to tickle the funny bone which I strongly believe is good for health.

Tell us a little about your latest book, Penelope.

Penelope is a madcap romantic comedy where a clumsy country bumpkin is plunged into a glitzy London society. Along the way people attempt to groom her, help her and try and find a husband for her. What follows is a series of misadventures, love affairs, moonlit balls, fake moustaches, highwaymen, sneering beauties, and the wrath of a devilishly handsome duke.

Are you surprised by how well Penelope and your first book, The Wicked Wager, are selling? To what do you attribute your fantastic sales (other than having written a couple of great books)?

I am stunned. When I published The Wicked Wager I thought only seven of my family and friends would buy the book and thereafter it would languish. They still haven’t bought it but a whole lot of other people have. I think the main reasons it has done well are the low price point, a nice cover and good blurb. Also my husband has been a big help.

Do you have any marketing advice for our readers?

I think bloggers are a great help in getting the word out .Also pricing the book right, having a nice cover and a good blurb.

What made you want to write historicals? Who are some of your favorite authors?

I wrote historical because I enjoy reading them. The first romance book I ever read was Pride and Prejudice and since then the Regency era has become the most romantic time period in my mind. Apart from Jane Austen I love reading Julia Quinn, Wodehouse, Robert Jordan, Agatha Christie, Roald Dahl and so many more.

On this side of the pond there is a fascination with Ireland—and not just on St. Patrick’s Day either! Why do you think there is such a mystique about Ireland?

I am not sure. From where I am standing Ireland has no mystery whatsoever. Now, New York and LA are full of mystique, glamour and Hollywood magic.

How do you battle the Doubt Monster? We define the Doubt Monster as: the nagging feeling that your prose is terrible, your plot is silly, your characters are insipid, and no one in her right mind would read this drivel, let alone buy it.

I am convinced that my prose is terrible, the plot silly and the characters insipid. I don’t battle the doubt monster. I have come to accept him.

Do you have any pets? Tell us about them.

I have an adorable black poodle called Portia. She used to be fat and then we put her on diet and it seems to have worked (sort of). She is still lazy though, can’t do anything about that.

What’s your junk food of choice?

Chocolate éclairs, profiteroles and home-made caramel popcorn.

What are you working on now? When can we expect it to be out?

I am working on another romantic comedy. It is a sort of follow up of Penelope but this time it is her sister Celine who arrives at the Blackthorne mansion in search of love.

Anya Wylde lives in Ireland along with her husband and a fat French poodle (now on a diet). She can cook a mean curry, and her idea of exercise is occasionally stretching her toes. She holds a degree in English literature and adores reading and writing. You can connect with Anya here:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Anya-Wylde/462621383768241?fref=ts
https://twitter.com/Anyawylde
www.anyawylde.com

Do You Remember…?

Do you remember all your plots? I mean, if you had a backlist that dated from the mid-80′s, would you remember every character, every storyline?

Several years ago at an RWA conference, I was talking with a reader who in the course of conversation told me that one of my books she liked best was the one with the nun. I said there was no book with a nun. She insisted. I was firm. She was certain. I held tight. No nuns.

A few months later, for no reason I can say, I picked up ANGEL EYES, the fifth of my five backlist reissues now available in Kindle eBooks, and there, in the opening chapters, Angelene, my heroine, in a bold move to escape the murderous future her mother has planned for her, disguises herself as a nun to try to make her way to her wealthy grandmother in England.

Really. I couldn’t believe I didn’t remember. I felt like an idiot, remembering my conversation with that reader. How could I forget a detail like that?

Since then, I’ve reread several of my backlist titles, and it was like reading someone else’s books, I was that far removed from the writing of them. They felt new, It was fun to read them, and it was interesting to see the evolution of my writing and my perspective. I kept thinking, did I really write that — then? Did I honestly get away with that scene? Those words? That many pages of foreplay and sex?

Apparently I did, and at a time when the language was much more circumspect and hard core words were tacitly not used. That my early books were reviewed as “spicy” and several years later, “erotic” is still amazing to me and a testament to how powerful everyday words can be.

These first five backlist books are all westerns.. But as I’ve written previously, my true love is antebellum romance. I wrote three of those, which are still to be released, and I’m beyond excited that these backlist titles — anyone’s backlist titles — can now have a second and longer shelf life on-line and with it, a new generation of readers.

Thea Devine is pleased to announce the following titles are now available in KIndle eBooks: Reckless Desire, Ecstasy’s Hostage, Relentless Passion, Montana Mistress and Angel Eyes. She’s currently working on an erotic contemporary romance.

Pictorials, Paper Dolls and Old Magazines

We went to Arizona to visit family over Christmas vacation. It was our first trip there ever and one of the highlights (among many) for me, was our visit to Tombstone, the town that didn’t die. I walked the streets of history that I’d only seen in books — pictorial histories, which I discovered years ago when I wasn’t writing, hadn’t been published, hadn’t a thought I ever would be published.

Pictorial histories put me in the picture. I didn’t have to have lived in that time and place to describe what I saw in those old photographs, I was writing westerns initially — five of my first nine books (I know — who would have thought) — so I relied heavily on pictorial histories (Before Barbed Wire is a good one) to describe how it was from those taken-at-the-time photographs.

I love them, don’t you?

When I veered into the Victorian era, I found troves of photographic histories on everything from harems to Sherlock Holmes’s London. I also loved the reproduction editions of the Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogues from the 1890s. Especially the house kits. I love floor plans.

And for clothes — I bet most of us have the Dover paper doll editions as well as their photographic histories of fashion. But at some point, it occurred to me that there might be a wealth of other kinds of paper dolls on-line : fictional characters, movie stars (from the thirties and forties), teenagers from the fifties, along with accurate depictions of the fashions of the times.

And then — old magazines. I found about a half dozen copies of Ladies Home Journal from the 1920′s in a basement we were clearing out. I pored over them for years. I added to that collection when I realized I could find more magazines from the 20s on-line — from any era, really. Is there anything more immediate than reading a woman’s magazine of the day? The articles, the advertisements, the fashions, the advice — personal and decorating … how different, how the same …

I haven’t succumbed to one of those “build your own” western towns or southern plantations. Yet. (I’m very tempted by the plantation, though.) I do have a Victorian house pop-up book that came complete with its own punch-out family. And lots of furniture. I haven’t set it up. Yet. I just like looking at it and imagining what’s happening there. You know — family secrets, secret panels, something the family album, ghosts on the staircase, eerie dreams, hovering fog, blanketing snow, a haunted attic …

Of course, a lot of this is available on-line. Call me old school. I like holding a book.

And of course, before we left Tombstone — I took loads of pictures. I don’t know if I’m ever going to write another western, but you never know: I do have a couple of ideas.. So — do I even need to say? — I bought all the pictorial histories I could find as well.
Do you love paper dolls, pictorial histories and old magazines? Do you ever use them? Do you have a secret source you’d like to tell?

My Secret, just between you and me: there are Downton Abbey paper dolls on-line.

Thea Devine is currently working on her next erotic contemporary romance — and readying those original backlist westerns for eBook release.

Winnah, Winnah, Chocolate Dinnah!

Hi, all. Suze here. We have a winner in last week’s Valentine’s Day Giveaway: Gail Ingis! Gail, I’ll contact you to make arrangements to get you your prize.

I have lots going on this week so I thought it would be fun to let you know what I’m reading right now. Yes, I tend to flit from book to book and usually have several going at once. How do I choose which one to read? It largely depends on (1) where I set the book down last, and if I can find it again (sometimes not for days/weeks/months later!); (2) whether my Nook is charged; and (3) whether I can get the iPad away from the teenaged Crown Prince so I can use the Kindle App. Here’s what I finished this week:

Buried in a Bog by Sheila Connolly. (Ebook, Nook) This is a wonderful little cozy mystery that just hit the NYT Bestseller list and is the first in a new series. It’s about an American woman who travels to Ireland to learn about her heritage, and ends up finding a home. It’s a little bit darker, a little bit slower paced (and slower paced is not always a bad thing!), and a lot more introspective than most cozies. Loved it!

Nameless Cowboy/Cowgirl Romance by unnamed author. (Mass Market Paperback) Honestly, I did not love this book. In fact, I didn’t love it enough that I’m not going to tell you what it was about or who wrote it (nobody I know personally, BTW!). I will say that this is by a prolific author, and lots of other people apparently don’t agree with me because it has sold lots and lots of copies. So, to each his own! But I’ll be giving this one back to the person who lent it to me, with no regrets.

Manuscript Written by a Friend. (Word doc, on computer) One of the things we writers do for each other is read and critique each other’s manuscripts. I finished one this week–with just a little bit of polish, this is ready to go out into the world. It’s a romantic suspense, fresh with a fun premise, and with a great heroine and a sexy Portuguese hero. I predict a sale this year!

Now that I’ve told you what I finished this week, here’s what I have in progress:

Penelope (A Madcap Regency Romance), by Anya Wylde. (iPad, Kindle app) I’ve fallen a bit in love with this indie-pubbed Irish author (just a coincidence, btw, all the Irish stuff in this post!) since I read her previous book, The Wicked Wager (A Regency Murder Mystery & Romance). These books are great fun, a bit offbeat, and only 99 cents each–so I recommend picking them both up if you like historicals/regencies. In fact, everybody go buy them, read them, and report back here with questions/comments in a few weeks, when I’ll be interviewing Anya!

Wedding Day Murder, by Leslie Meier. (Mass Market Paperback) This is another cozy mystery by a veteran author. I can’t get enough of Lucy Stone and the inhabitants of Tinker’s Cove, Maine. I’m reading this series out of order–but the author does such a good job of making each a standalone, I can easily keep the stories straight.

Portrait of a Dead Guy, by Larissa Reinhart. (Ebook, Nook) Just getting started on this mystery, but how can you not love this first line? “In a small town, there is a thin gray line between personal freedom and public ruin.” Can’t wait to dig into this one.

How about you? What are you reading these days? Are you a one-at-a-time reader, or do you have several books going at once?

The Unlocked Secret of the Niche Market.

So what is Niche Marketing? Wickepedia says, “A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing.” Really, Wickie? Who wrote that? Is that the best you’ve got? Of course they go on to explain further with words like demographics, market shares, and some other marketing terms and examples that didn’t do much to help me figure out how to define where my books might land on the book shelves.

The first question a professional marketer asks is, “Who is your target audience?” Truly understanding this question is probably the number one best marketing tool a writer can have. We’d all like to say, “everyone, of course.” And while that may be sort of true that many different demographics might enjoy your book, it’s more likely and infinitely easier to reach a smaller group of readers specifically interested in your genre, subject matter, and characters. Think “low lying fruit.”

Targeting “your” readers may be easier if your book falls into a specific genre. If you’ve written a cozy mystery about a librarian who is a quilter turned amateur sleuth, you might consider marketing your book to librarians and quilters, a pretty small “niche” market that might be easier than trying to reach “everyone.” This is why agents and editors want to know what “genre” you are writing. So they can determine the marketability of your book based on their experience with that particular readership and their understanding of where the market is currently trending. Women 30-55 years old are the greatest book-buying demographic that marketers are competing for. Publishing houses are trying to meet that supply. So sending a query for your “Sci-fi/ Historical, Inspirational/ Regency might be a tough sell.

The problem for many authors is that our stories don’t always fall into one genre. Diana Gabaldon had difficulty getting OUTLANDER published at first because she couldn’t clearly define it as a romance, a historical, a science fiction/fantasy, or a time travel novel. Of course it’s all of those, but it was so fabulously written that some smarty-pants publisher decided that they would take a chance and market the book to readers across multiple genres, essentially including “everyone,” and the series took off.

It worked out well for her, but most of us aren’t so lucky. In most cases, if your book falls outside of a specific proven market, agents and editors don’t want to touch it. Most of my rejection letters a few years back were because my manuscripts didn’t “fit the market.”

Now that I’m self-publishing, I see their dilemma. When I put my books up on Amazon, BN, and Smashwords, I have to pick categories that best describe them so that they are listed where my target audience would find them (good old search engine optimization-SEO). The frustrating part is that the choices are limited to the old model of publishing and haven’t caught up with new trends. “Teen/YA fiction” refers to books with protagonists ages 14-17 and are a subcategory of “children’s fiction”. But the books coming out these days for teens are arguably for a much more mature audience, and the demographic isn’t so clear-cut. Ideally, they should be much more delineated. There should be choices that would target older teens and adults who enjoy reading about that all-important transition from teen life to adult experiences. I had no idea when I chose my categories that some sites would lump my books into “Children’s fiction” because I labeled it a YA. They aren’t likely to find a readership there!

So what’s a writer to do? Well, you can choose to write for a particular market, ie; cozy mystery, romantic suspense, thriller, or romantic comedy. This is a very viable approach and is the most likely road to becoming traditionally published if you do your research and watch what’s selling and who’s selling it, and target your agent/editor query appropriately. But if you consistently find your stories falling into “genre no-man’s land,” you can join the new age of genre-bending authors who have literally created new markets by taking risks and writing what they want to write, self-publishing, and then finding their readers by focusing on certain niche markets and using that SEO to their advantage.

Whether traditional or indie-published, when it comes time to market your books and find your readership, look at who your target audience really is. Be creative and look at it from all angles and try different approaches. If you aren’t reaching readers by promoting the book to one segment of the population, try another. My book ON THIN ICE could be marketed to ice skaters, teens who become pregnant, sufferers of eating disorders, or teens experiencing the grief of losing a parent. Over time, I can market this book to several different niche markets, keeping it relevant as long as I can keep reaching new readers and targeting new niche audiences who might not otherwise have found the book. That’s why SEO is so important. And why creating whole new genres may be the best way for your target audience to find you.

For instance, I’ve been promoting HEAVEN IS FOR HEROES as a “Contemporary YA Romance.” But the story deals with the tragedies of war, overcoming loss, and the determination of one seventeen year old girl to find the truth—pretty mature themes that 14-17 year-old readers wouldn’t necessarily be looking to read about. Because of the protagonist’s age, the book falls into the YA market, but our hero is a nineteen-year-old Marine Veteran struggling with a difficult recovery, which changes the demographic for this story. Because the focus of the book is a tenuous teen romance with the underlying plot of a family’s search for peace in time of war, HIFH will appeal to adult readers as well as older young adults, but listed as a YA, it may never reach those adults who might enjoy the book.

The hero’s age and the subject matter make it fit more appropriately into the New Adult genre—a relatively new niche market targeting 19-23 year-old readers previously forced to read “teen” novels or jump right into “adult” romances. This segment of readers wants more than the typical high school experience, but they may not be ready for the white-picket-fence-via-total-abandonment-to-love-and-sex that rules the adult romance world. They are looking for relatable characters faced with real life issues that they themselves might be facing; such as leaving home, going off to college, or dealing with friends coming back from war.

Filled with moments of poignant reality, hard lessons, and the angst and sexual tension of first love, HIFH combines family drama and the relationship between childhood sweethearts, Jordie Dunn and Alex Cooper, who must overcome some pretty “grown-up” obstacles to find their way to a hopefully ever after ending.In Savage Cinderella, Brinn is eighteen and Justin is twenty-three. Add the subject matter and this book clearly falls into the New Adult category rather than YA. I might have tried marketing my books as Mainstream fiction and put them up against books from authors like Nicolas Sparks and Jodi Piccoult, but that would again put me in a very large pool with some very big fish, and without publisher backing, it’s tough to swim in that pond. Literary fiction is an even tougher sell than genre fiction.

With many of today’s YA books fitting more appropriately into the New Adult category, this niche market is catching on. Entangled Publishing, St. Martin’s Press and I believe even Harlequin Teen are adding New Adult titles to their acquisitions. Publishers are finally willing to recognize that yes, college students do read for pleasure in their limited time, and that they want more of what the New YA market has to offer. There are loads of twenty-something’s looking for books that go beyond the teen dramas focused on high school but who still want stories that deal with all of those wonderful (and hideous) firsts. Many of my readers fit into this category. If I had to guess, my average reader is between 19 and 33. That’s a pretty big demographic, but by listing my books as YA, I’m potentially focusing on the wrong group of readers. I don’t want to misrepresent the books by having them listed in the “Contemporary Romance” section either, since they definitely have a younger voice and reader expectation is important to consider.

Re-branding my work might take a bit of time and effort, but if it means reaching my target audience, I owe it to my books…and my readers to give it a shot.

Have you thought about who your target audience is, and what niche markets you might be missing?

THE BOOK I HAVEN’T WRITTEN

Thea Devine today.  I’m working on a variety things, but I’ve been thinking a lot about the book I haven’t written.  We all have one of those, the one you started, wrote, rewrote, set aside, tackled again, fell into a rut long before the middle, and packed away because you knew you were absolutely going to finish it — someday.  I think mine is buried in the attic right now just because I’m itching to get my hands on it and of course, Murphy’s Law, I can’t.

I started this book back when I was working for that big multi-national advertising agency I wrote about previously.  In fact, nearly everyone in the copy department, when they weren’t working on copy, was writing a book.  I had no idea what I was doing — I was maybe twenty-three or four.  I just loved to write and the intermittent stabs I made at writing advertising copy petered into one interesting idea one of my bosses used in a tv commercial she pitched which ultimately got shot down.

So definitely not copywriter material (remember I was very young).  But a book … that was a whole other story.

There was small branch library across the street from where I worked, and there I came across a pictorial history that piqued my interest.  From that I devised a scenario with an unconventional heroine,  her male friend, a missing family member (little did I know then that I had one too), an ambitious father, a prim and proper older sister, the daughter of a family friend who comes to stay with the heroine’s family, a housekeeper with a mysterious past, a stranger in town who falls for the heroine, and the town madam.

Sounds promising, right?  I had NO idea how to write it.  I started with the heroine and her male friend on an adventure, but that seemed to go nowhere.  I wrote a prologue with the missing family member, a brother, which made more sense, but then what?  Okay, so what about the daughter of the family friend?  Or better yet, what about the interconnections between the families, and why was the old friend’s daughter even there?  Yikes.  Now I had to go back and account for that somehow, but if I did that, I’d throw some other plot points off kilter.

So — send the family friend daughter back to her father.  But then, the only ones the heroine is at odds with are her sister and her father and maybe the housekeeper.  I also had the mystery of the long-gone brother permeating everything, because the heroine wouldn’t let go of the hope he’d return someday.  Well, okay.  But what if he didn’t?

Put the mss aside for a bit.  And then — start the story with the stranger coming to town who will fall for the heroine.  How do they meet?  Should they meet?  What’s his business in town anyway?  Is he a good guy or is he dangerous? Did I really have to know all that before I started writing about it?

You bet.  And worse, as I continued flailing along, the daughter of the family friend started taking over the story. She was beautiful, greedy, outspoken — that girl could have been the heroine but that wasn’t how I envisioned the story. I wanted unconventional girl to be the heroine.  She flouted conventions.  She was at odds with her family.  She had more at stake.  Wait — what did I mean by that?  So time to put the thing down and think about it some more.

So I thought about it some more — like, oh, 40 years, and now, even though there are days I don’t think I know what I’m doing, I do think I finally know how to write this book. I think it could be pretty good.

I could be wrong.

I still haven’t found the original mss pages I wrote, but I do remember the plot points.  I’m thinking I should just start all over, divef in and see what happens. We all should start all over and see what happens.

After all, we all know how to write it now.

Do you have a book you haven’t written?  Or you want to write?  Or never want to tackle ever, even though the idea of the story haunts you?

Thea Devine is working on her next erotic contemporary romance (and peripherally the book she hasn’t written).  Her sequel to The Darkest Heart. Beyond the Night, will be a September 2013 Pocket Star release.

Who Influenced You?

Thea Devine posting today.  So tell me if this isn’t a bookaholic’s dream.  You’re buying a house and strewn all over the living room floor are books, a hundred or more of them.  You’re buying the house from the estate of a recently deceased widow, and you know it had been broken into, but the important things were not taken: the fireplace surrounds, the sliding doors, the books.

Among them was a uniformly bound set of novels by Augusta Evans Wilson –

– who, I came to find out, was a best selling author of her time with her novel, St. Elmo.  St. Elmo has to have been the original bad boy hero who had to redeem himself to win his orphaned heroine love.  The book sold hundreds of thousands of copies just after the Civil War and allegedly was so popular that people named children, homes, streets and towns after it. and it was also said that Rhett Butler was supposedly modeled on the character.

There were a half dozen of Wilson’s novels, of which I’ve read 3 — St. Elmo, At the Mercy of Tiberius , and Inez, a Tale of the Alamo.

Which led me to think about the other best selling romance authors of their day, some of whom are long-time favorites of mine:  Faith Baldwin — who wrote career girl (usually nurses or secretaries) romance;  Kathleen Norris (rags to riches, usually set in the Mission section of San Francisco, vividly portrayed);  Emilie Loring (hometown girls in New England, richly evoked in a very distinctive voice).

I know there are some I’m forgetting, but I’m so glad I read those long ago authors long before  the idea of becoming an author myself was ever remotely possible.

Because of them, I found what I liked to read, and what I wanted to write.  From Wilson, and latterly, Catherine Clinton’s The Plantation Mistress,I discovered the pre-civil war south through the women’s eyes, so I’ve been collecting women’s civil war diaries for some time now, just out of my fascination with the time period.

Because of them, I came to love stories of heroines returning to their small town roots.  If they’re going down south, I’m there.  If there’s a plantation, I’m up all night reading it.  I love married-to-the-wrong-guy-but-maybe-not stories;  stories especially of wounded heroes and heroines overcoming their pasts and finding each other;  heroines caught in circumstances manipulated by someone else for nefarious purposes;  ghost stories; stories with conspiracies simmering under the surface that are just hinted at as the solution to the overt problems of the heroine (read gothics).

I just love old books. Love reading the “commercial fiction” from before the turn of the century, even having to plow through the dense Victorian prose and quotations from obscure poets and philosophers.  Love finding old books, as I’ve posted elsewhere.  Love it all, as witness my bookshelves and desk room floor.

But who’s on my current TBR pile then, you might ask.  Well, Gone Girl, Tatiana de Rosnay, Kate Morton, Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks, Karen Rose,  A Victorian Household, Carla Neggers, Georgette Heyer’s Regency World, and  Macaria (another of Wilson’s novels written during the Civil War), among a dozen other books.   What about you?

So who were your influences, who’s on your To Be Read pile?  Do you like old books?  Have you read Norris, Baldwin or Loring?   Do you have other favorites, old or new?

Thea Devine is working on a new erotic contemporary romance and will be putting five backlist titles on-line soon.

The Vampire Secret

Thea Devine today,having just finished Beyond the Night (Pocket Star eBook April 2013), the sequel to The Darkest Heart, and I thought you might enjoy a little insight into how I got the idea for the Darkest Heart.

Actually, I’m Romanian on my father’s side, so you’d think I’d be steeped knee deep in vampire lore.

But in fact, apart from being scared to death on viewing Dracula when I was eight years old, I never gave vampires a half a thought until I was looking for an idea for my thirteenth book. And even then, and in the subsequent vampire book I wrote, the hero was not a vampire.  In Sinful Secrets, the whole English parliament were vampires;  in Forever Kiss, the vampire had a doppelganger who pretended to be him, so that when the vampire finally returned to his stomping grounds, he had to pretend to be the doppelganger pretending to be him.  Believe me, he was royally peeved — for lots of fun-to-write pages.

However, I couldn’t find a way to wrap my head around vampire as romantic hero.  So when I was thinking about my next book, which it was suggested to me should have vampires, I really was at a loss.  I needed an idea and I needed this vampire to be a hero.

And I really needed to figure out some real ways a woman would feel an attraction to a vampire — because all I’m thinking is blood, gore, dessication and rot.  Coffins and fetid grave dirt.  NOT very sexy.

I was in a local store one day, talking about this current project, when the teenaged clerk overheard me say, vampires, and she exclaimed, “Oh, I love vampires.”   I asked her why and she said, because they were sooo Romeo and Juliet.

Right:  yearning for something, and never to have it.  And it all ends in bloody gory death.  Murderous immortality.  Not hardly romantic.  Not quite the jump-start I was looking for.

So I listed all the reasons why a vampire is supposed to be seductive:

He is the love that cannot be

He’s immortal.

He has super-powers

He’s dangerous to love

He’s super sexual

He’s protective (paternal and sexual)

You yearn for what you can’t have

Reckless endangerment:  death is but a kiss away

Still — nothing in that list sent plotlines roaring through my head.  I was discussing it with my husband one night and I read him the list.  Then I asked him why he thought vampires were so seductive.   I mean, there’s nothing like the male perspective, right?

John said, “they’re victims.”  He said, “they have no choice.”

My jaw dropped.  The heavens opened.  Light flooded the earth, angels sang, and everything fell into place.  Of course.  Genius.  But my husband always says genius things just when I need to hear them.

Victim.

A whole other side of the vampire.  Immediately plot questions steam-rolled through my mind.  What would he do, feeling like that?  How could he take anyone else’s life?  How would he live?  Did he want to die?  How would he survive?  What lies would he tell himself?

AND, if he’s a victim, you then have a heroine wanting to somehow help, nurture, make it better, change it.  If you have the love that cannot be, one might feel the call to sacrifice for the other at some point.  And there was the bedrock of the story — vengeance and sacrifice.

So I wrote this as my logline:

He’s been exiled to the dank bloody world of the undead

He lives solely to destroy the one who sired him

He’s been living to die

Until he encounters the one he can’t live without

And eternity is not an option.

And from that one astute observation, I wrote The Darkest Heart, and the sequel, Beyond the Night.

Thank you, John!

What about you?  Has your husband ever contributed something brilliant to your plotting and planning?   Does he have any input at all, ever?

Thea Devine’s books defined erotic historical romance.  She just completed Beyond the Night (April 2013, Pocket Star eBook), the sequel to The Darkest Heart.  The reissue of her erotic contemporary romance, His Little Black Book, is available now.

Interview – Debut Author – Gerri Brousseau!

Happy Friday everyone! Casey here with a special guest -  debut author Gerri Brousseau! Stay tuned until the end to find out how to for a chance to win a Gerri’s contest!

Tell us about your debut novel – A Pirate’s Ransom?

Despair filled Lady Catherine as she boarded the ship for England, and toward marriage to man she’s never met—the Duke of Devonshire.  But the sea is no place for a lady.  She’s captured by the Pirate Captain, Edmund Drake and held for ransom; a ransom that has nothing to do with coin.  But when she’s stolen from him, he realizes she has captured his heart. She becomes the pawn in a dangerous rivalry between two pirates—the handsome pirate Captain Edmund Drake and his notorious and fearsome opponent, Blackbeard.  How far will Captain Drake go to reclaim his prize?  Which pirate will decide her fate?  And who will pay … A Pirate’s Ransom?

And if you think this story ends with the clash between Captain Drake and Blackbeard, let me tell you a little secret … there is so much more. The Duke has a large part in this tale and who the heck is the Contessa Theodora de Lorenzo?  Guess you’ll just have to read it to find out.

Favorite pastime when not writing?

When I’m not writing, I like to read and watch movies. I enjoy reading books written by my friends and fellow authors. I enjoy watching movies that inspire me and stretch my imagination.

Guilty pleasure?

Chocolate, Vampire Diaries (especially Ian Somerhalder) and Project Runway.

 Sexiest man on earth? Sexiest woman?

That would depend on the age group. Isn’t it so unfair that when men age they become distinguished and when women age they become hags. Let’s see … sexy men, so many men, so little time.  I do not believe anyone would be surprised to find that I love Johnny Depp, but I also love Antonio Banderas, Gerard Butler, Robert Downey, Jr., Oh there are too many to mention. Why only one?

Women: Hmm, I don’t generally find women sexy, but I’ll give it a shot here. Sofia Vergara (who reminds me a lot of another sexy woman, Sophia Loren).

Who would you cast to be in a movie version of A Pirate’s Ransom?

I have never given that much thought since if Hollywood sought to make a movie, I would probably not be consulted. There are many handsome guys out there in Hollywood. I would like to be present when they do auditions though!  Does anyone have Gerard Butler’s phone number? Oh, did I say that out loud?

What’s a pirate’s favorite letter?

Oh, that would be the Ceeeee.

And now for an excerpt!

Scene set up: Lady Catherine speaking to the Quartermaster, Tobias Smith:

“To devil with the Captain and his orders.”

“Me Lady, I must insist,” the Quartermaster replied.

I realized too late that his sideways glance served a warning.

“Is there a problem here, Mister Smith?” Captain Drake asked.

“Nay, Captain.”

“Yes, Captain, there most certainly is a problem,” I contradicted.

“Countess?” He raised an eyebrow.

I longed to slap that smirk from his face.

Mustering what I considered to be my most authoritative and condescending tone, I replied, “I wish to go ashore.”

“Unfortunately, that is not possible.”

“Why not?”

“It is far too dangerous. You and your maid shall remain here aboard The Lady Victoria together with a few of the crew, who have ever so graciously volunteered to remain aboard as your guards.”

“Guards? Surely you cannot believe I have any intension of trying to escape.”

“It is not an escape that worries me, but rather an abduction.” He started to walk away.

“Captain,” I called after him.

“Countess?” he said, facing me.

“Are you telling me that you fear someone will abscond with your kidnapped prisoners?”

“Yes.”

“And of course your men will be far too engaged in drinking and whoring to guard me so that I might be afforded the joy of a day ashore.”

“Precisely.”

“Captain, I demand to be allowed to go ashore.”

“Countess, why must I continually remind you that you are, in fact, my prisoner, and as such, you are in no possession to be making demands? Now, if you would kindly excuse me, my crew awaits.”

He left without another word or even a backward glance and climbed into the launch, which was lowered down to the water. I watched the men rowed away from the ship and toward the island, and anger burned deep in my gut.

“You shall be sorry, Captain. I know not how, but I swear it … you will regret the day you denied me and left me behind,” I said aloud, slamming my fist on the rail.

~~~

Something I would like to share with your readers:

I’m having a contest! Make sure to visit my website www.gerribrousseau.com and click on “Claim the Ransom” to enter for your chance to sail away with all the booty.

About Gerri:

Gerri was born and raised in Connecticut. She attended Central Connecticut State University, majoring in English Literature.  Although she lived on the west coast for several years, she relocated back to her roots and birth place of Connecticut, where she presently resides with her two pugs, Mimi and Milo and her cats, Louise and Harry.

As a young girl growing up in Waterbury, Gerri spent her summers writing stories and often times, together with neighboring girls her age, would present original plays for an audience of their parents.  When she moved back to Connecticut, Gerri took a job that required her to commute 4 hours a day by train to and from work.  After a year of reading a book a week, she decided to make the time work for her, when one night after a strange dream about a dream catcher, she was inspired to write her first book.

Lest you think all of her time is spent in contemplative pursuits, freefalling out of airplanes gave a whole new meaning to the word “adventure”.  Yes, a former skydiver who chose to retire from the sport, Gerri assures us that freefall is totally exhilarating and one of the most amazing and thrilling experiences anyone can have.  Her energy and zest for life is found in the imaginative and page turning adventures she writes.

A Pirate’s Ransom is available now from Soul Mate Publishing, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble

According to Legend will be released in November, 2012.

Thanks for being our guest today! Have a question for Gerri? Don’t be shy!

Let’s Have That Sex Talk

Thea Devine today, talking sex.  Or writing sex, actually, based on a talk I gave at the NJRWA meeting this month.

I’ve been writing erotic romance for nearly all my writing career.  I don’t plot and plan all the sexual compass points.  I have an idea of something I want to do, like, oh say, nipple rings, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t ever started a book knowing just when and where I’d use something like that.  It all comes organically out of the plot and conflicts, and that’s overlaid by other things, like my watching an HBO show one night with a belly dancer and those rings, and thinking, after a week of walking around with my arms crossed over my breasts, what if the rings weren’t pierced, what if they hung there. Just so.  Just so you feel them.  Where could I use that?

As it happened, I was writing Beyond Desire at the time and the heroine was in a harem, and there were all these bare breasts and …  Beyond Desire was the first historical romance that RT reviewed as erotic romance.  That was 1993.

It didn’t cause even a ripple in the industry.  But in 1999 Kensington books shook up mainstream publishing when it released Captivated, a trade paperback anthology of steamy novellas. And they put the words “tales of erotic romance” on the cover.

Nobody fainted.  And the book blasted onto USAToday in about thirty seconds.  Fascinated, the follow-up, blew out of the stores and onto USAToday as well, proving — obviously — that women will pay for sex.

Erotic was suddenly the next new thing.

Then recently, for the last two years or so, there’s been a pull-back on the assumption that readers were going to the internet for erotic content because — why? more privacy, more variety, more tailored-to-the-taste choices, easier access, e-readers.

And then came 50 Shades of Grey , and erotic was suddenly the next new thing.

So what about erotic romance as a platform for you?  Can you write erotic romance?  There are editors who believe that authors who write it can’t NOT write it, that it’s absolutely integral to the way some authors write.

If you’re wondering what your husband will say, your mom, your sister, your minister, if you think people will wonder what goes on in your bedroom — then maybe erotic romance is not for you.

I never had those qualms.  I’ve written explicitly from the get-go, right from that scene in my first book where, as I’ve recounted elsewhere, I had the cornered heroine put her hand between the hero’s legs.  In that scene, I found my erotic philosophical footing — that adversarial relationship which gives a just-can’t-help-themselves edge to the sex and the story.

But when I first started out, in 1987, I couldn’t use four letter words, or proper terms for body parts.  We used none of those one syllable hard hitting hard-core words you would expect when writing a sexually explicit book.  .

Try to describe something which is essentially indescribable:  I mean, how do you describe a kiss?  And orgasm?  A man’s touch?  How do you do that without relying on those time-tested sex words?  There’s no language for it.  Yet we could — by using plain old every day household words to write about sex from a woman’s point of view.

I think that was extraordinary and a revolution all on its own.

Now, when nothing is off the table,  you can be as over the top as you want or care to get.

Is anything goes right for you?  How far are you willing to go?

I essentially write erotic male/female relationships, with the heroine and the hero constantly wresting for control, tons of sex, and a happy, or cusp of happy, ending.

My own guidelines from day one were:  no negative visual images (she isn’t on fire;  he doesn’t impale her with his molten rod). He doesn’t hurt her (he can, emotionally).  She has some control.  Sex is consensual (no matter what’s going on).

But you could push even further — orgies, male/male, triads, foursomes, bestiality, hard core bondage/domination/punishment, corset discipline …  There’s a place for all of it now, and readers for every taste, from graphic and raw to sweet and super romantic..  Only you can decide where to draw the line on how far you’ll go.

A guest at a conference once asked me how much of what I write is really me. That’s a question to strike full-blown terror in a writer’s heart. I really had to think about it.  And truthfully, in the end, some of it.  Not everything.  But that scary thought is huge barrier to some authors to actually put themselves “out there” that nakedly in fiction.  I mean, what if someone thought all of that sex toy play was all about you?  Was it?

If you have constraints but you want to write erotic, why not try?  It’s you and your computer screen.  No one ever has to see it if you don’t want them to.  You can let yourself go — or you can say NO — and delete before things go too far.

But if you really love to write explicit romance, write those scenes as if your characters are Adam and Eve and they just discovered sex — and you did too.

I have to confess I have been asked to tone things down a couple of times.  Once I was told there was too much semen in a particular novella.  Really, people, can there ever be too much semen — in fiction or in life?

You could view erotic romance as a love letter to men — or as a sex act in and of itself (lots of foreplay, climaxes and reader satisfaction).  It’s safe sex, and the best fun in the world.  And if you choose to play, I promise I’ll respect you in the morning.

Can we talk?  Do you write, or want to write, erotic romance?  What are your boundaries? What won’t you do?  What won’t you read?  How far can an author go with you?

Thea Devine is nearly done with Beyond The Night, the sequel to The Darkest Heart.  She is the author whose books defined erotic historical romance and the USAToday best-selling author of 25 historical and contemporary erotic romance novels and a dozen novella. She is looking forward to the reissue of His Little Black Book next month.