All posts by aftermidnightfantasies

May Is Looking Pretty Good!

On May 1, What Happens in Vegas…After Dark released from Harlequin Spice (also in the antho is Anya Bast!)

My story is Sensual Magic and it’s a follow up to last year’s Stripped – it features Nash’s brother William

Two years ago, William Emery believed in love. Deciding to make his permanent home in Boston and start a nightclub there, he was locking down funding and approving the font on wedding invitations.
Until he found out his fiancée was little more than a faithless gold digger.

Emotionally devastated, he moved to Las Vegas where his younger brother lived and began work to create the kind of club he’d always wanted to run. And to drown the memories of his idealism in a sea of female flesh. If you didn’t involve your heart, it never got broken.

Nell Hunter is a witch on the trail of a human who’s stolen from her people. This human is working with a group of mages stealing money and power from the clans and cabals, relying on the need for secrecy to keep their victims quiet and from going to the police. But they hadn’t banked on Nell.
She’s a bonded hunter to the court of the Owen clan.

In Vegas, Nell seeks William out, his ex-fiance is the woman she’s looking for. The sparks between them fly immediately and while Nell knows they’re meant to be, William has a harder time with it. They come together as bullets and magic fly – nothing worth having is ever easy

And then on the 5th, RELENTLESS released.

In this erotic universe, passion knows no rank…

Since the first settlers came through the portals from Earth, fifteen Families have held the rule of the Federated Universes in their hands. There’s never been a better time than now to throw out the old and usher in a new order. Give voice to the unranked. Abbie Haws has spent her life battling the system. A fighter, she’s always been too busy and driven to pay much attention to finding love. But when she’s granted audience with Roman Lyons, the head of House Lyons, who stands for everything she hates, her instant attraction catches Abbie off-guard…

It’s common knowledge that the Known Universe revolves around Ravena—and that Ravena revolves around Roman Lyons, bred to lead since birth. Roman dreads his meeting with a defiant—if stunning—rabble-rouser. But, sometimes, headstrong personalities in the conference room make for hot-and-heavy, guilty trysts in private….

Now, Abbie will show Roman the parts of her world he wouldn’t otherwise get to see. And he’ll give her a glimpse of the Families’ age old tradition and unleash a sexuality he’d never given rein to before.

Icing this cake is the fact that I learned there will be another Federation book – Insatiable, which will be about Daniel Haws, Abbie’s brother and the shadowy Phantom Corps. That will come out in July of next year and I’m beyond thrilled!

And today, I got an email informing me Righteous Blade, a paranormal romance set in Las Vegas, will be releasing from Samhain in September of next year! This book has been with me since March of 2006 when I visited Vegas with some friends and the seed of the story idea lodged in my brain. I can’t wait to get back to it.

So it’s all pretty awesome, I must say. New releases, new sales, great reviews – a very fine way to spend the last several weeks if I do say so myself.

CHAINS…new release by Shiloh Walker

To help promote her upcoming release, CHAINS, author Shiloh Walker is doing a dash through some of the blogs in romanceland, leaving behind excerpts. If you’d like to get entered to win a gift certificate for $100 (your choice from the online booksellers), all you have to do is visit the blogs, read the excerpts and leave a comment. The excerpts are in order, just visit the first blog, Karen Knows Best (http://karenknowsbest.com/) and go on from there!

chainsChains

An all new novel of erotic suspense

They weren’t friends. They weren’t enemies. The only thing the three girls had in common was the high school they went to in Madison, Ohio-until one tragic night. Now, fifteen years later, they’re returning home where passion-and danger-await…

Renee Lincoln was the homecoming queen-with the perfect boyfriend and the perfect life. After that horrible night, she rebelled the only way she knew how: by submitting to her wildest fantasies…

Tall, blonde, and athletic, Lacey Talbot was a golden girl with a bright future. She’s found success as a photographer, but no man has ever been able to satisfy her. No man but the bad boy she left behind…

Sherra Salinger has always looked like a princess out of some fairy tale. The books she writes, though, stem from the nightmare of that one night. And she shrinks from any man’s attention-especially the one stalking her…

They’re coming back to Madison-and it won’t be happy reunion. There are three men, all dangerous in a different way. And when each of them surrender their bodies to the heat, when they succumb to desire, they’ll find the safety they desperately need…

Order from Borders, BN.com, Bamm.com or Amazon

To enter visit the participating blogs, including Shiloh’s and leave a comment 🙂 Winner’s name will be drawn from those comments. Participating blogs, listed in order:

Karen Knows Best

The Good, the Bad, and the Unread

Book Binge

Stacy’s Place on Earth

It’s Not Chick Porn

Trivial Pursuits (Shiloh’s blog)

Disclaimer: Only one entry per household. Open to everybody, as long as the author is able to purchase/email you a gift certificate for one of the major online booksellers-Amazon, BN.com, Borders, Powell’s, etc. Winner’s name to be posted on Shiloh’s blog the last week in May-author will ATTEMPT to notify the winner via email, but cannot be held accountable if her email bounces back- please make sure you enter the correct email and that you add Shiloh (shilohwalker(at)gmail.com) to your addy book to prevent problems. Void where prohibited. Please do not post to sweepstakes sites-the author reserves the right to end the contest at anytime, and likely will end it early if the contest ends up posted to sweepstakes sites.

Beautiful May

Last month I posted a day late, so I decided to average it out by posting a day early. I think that works, right?

May has been a rockin’ awesome month so far. One of those months that my face is permanently locked in a smile. Why? A couple reasons that all add up to me feeling darn good.

After six months of bundling up in layers, with my numb fingers trying to find the right keys on my laptop, the weather has finally turned around. It’s warm. Gloriously so. I’d go so far as to say it’s hot. Today, for the first time, I’m wearing my favorite denim capris and a short-sleeved cotton tee that have been tucked away in my closet since last October. I took a walk today, enjoyed the feel of the sun soaking into my pasty white skin. I’m enjoying it now since within a month or so it’ll be hitting temps in the high 90s and low 100s and I’ll be avoiding outside as much as possible. But for now…for now, I’m opening the windows and enjoying the breeze.

Another reason May has been so good? Lisa and I are writing, really, honest-to-God writing, again. Now, for the last few months we’ve been trying to write a novella, and we were getting words on the page, but it was going ridiculously slow, even for us. We were suffering some serious writer constipation. Finally, we sat down and talked and realized that although we loved the idea behind the story, clearly it wasn’t what we were supposed to be writing since we’ve never suffered that type of challenge before in getting a story written. We put the novella to the side and pulled out the book of our heart. The book we get more fan mail requesting than any other. Eternal Talisman is back in progress. And all I can say is why the heck did we wait so long? In the last few days Lisa and I have written more than we managed in the last few months combined. The fire we’d thought had burned down to an ember has blazed up again. Not only do we want to write, but we love what we’re writing. We love writing so much we’re going without sleep to write, we’re skipping meals, we’re staying attached to our computers. The reason I’m writing this blog post now, a day before my scheduled blog day here at After Midnight Fantasies, is that I sent the scene in progress to Lisa, and figured I’d spend the time waiting for her to send it back to me taking care of my blogging responsibilities before diving right back into Talisman Bay as soon as Lisa sends it my way.

Is this what addiction feels like? Although addiction has such nasty negative connotations. I think this is pure and simple happiness. And you just can’t beat that feeling. So here’s wishing you and yours happiness, in whatever form pleases you most.

Eve of Darkness

9780765360410EVE OF DARKNESS
by S. J. Day

Tor Books
ISBN: 0765360411
ISBN-13: 9780765360410
April 28, 2009

Cursed by God, hunted by demons, desired by Cain and Abel… All in a day’s work.

For Evangeline Hollis, a long-ago fling with a bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks just became a disaster of biblical proportions. One night with a leather-clad man of mystery has led to a divine punishment: the Mark of Cain.

Thrust into a world where sinners are drafted to kill demons, Eve knows her learning curve must be short. A longtime agnostic, she begrudgingly maneuvers through a celestial bureaucracy where she is a valuable but ill-treated pawn. She’s also become the latest point of contention in the oldest case of sibling rivalry in history…

But she’ll worry about all that later. Right now she’s more concerned with learning to kill while staying alive. And saving the soul she’d never quite believed she had.

“Great characters and terrific storytelling in a hot-blooded adrenaline ride. A keep-you-up-all-night read.”

Patricia Briggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Excerpt: http://www.sjday.net/excerpt/

Video: http://www.sjday.net/trailer/

Reviews: http://www.sjday.net/extras/

Sony eBook: ebookstore.sony.com/author/s-j-day_111324

Kindle format:
www.amazon.com/Eve-of-Darkness-ebook/dp/B002FSTJLQ/

ALWAYS is now Available!

Sometimes you have to go more than halfway to meet in the middle.

Caitlin Moore has every reason to celebrate. She’s through with law-school finals, and out for some post-semester fun when she runs smack dab into Eamon Blake, the Irishman with whom she had a summer fling years ago. Time hasn’t dimmed their lingering friendship—or their sexual chemistry.

Eamon isn’t looking for love when he bumps into Cat while he’s in Seattle on a job. Yet over the next year, he finds himself involved in a rekindled long-distance romance that moves from casual to a lot more.

That’s the rub. Cat is determined not to repeat her past mistakes with men and give up the dream job for which she’s worked so hard. Independence is something she’s spent years achieving. Eamon can start over so much easier than she can—why shouldn’t he make the sacrifice this time?

But Eamon doesn’t much relish leaving the life he’s been building in Los Angeles—and he really doesn’t like ultimatums. At an impasse, goodbye seems the only direction to go. Ending it is the right thing to do…or the biggest mistake they ever made.

April for Ashleigh Raine

Ack! I forgot to post yesterday. Can I blame spring fever?

April’s been a great month so far for us. Why you ask? The redone, spit-shined, hot, happy and yummy Forsaken Talisman was released a week ago from Samhain Publishing.

Between all the contests and chats and other release-day stuff we’ve been doing, Lisa and I have been making progress on what we hope will be our next release, which is a novella based in the Talisman Bay world. I can’t really say too much more about it than that, other than we’re in love with the heroes and wish we could be the heroine.

Keep an eye on Ashleighraine.com this week. We’ll be posting a new contest, and we’re going to begin posting quite a few deleted scenes from Forsaken Talisman. We’d also love to start chatting with readers more, so make sure to come on by and post comments on our blog. If there’s anything you’re dying to know, any questions you want to ask, we want to hear from you!

A change of scenery

I had a deadline for April 1, 2009.  The follow-up to Fragile was to be turned in.  Except about mid-February, the book was still fighting me.  I had this idea for the story and about 1/3 of the way through it, I realized the hero needed a different heroine.  Now the one I was giving him…he wanted her.  But she wasn’t right for him.  I started getting these glimpses of this other heroine…now she was right for him.  But I ignored it.

And what happens?  The story bogged down.  The heroine just wasn’t working for the hero, no matter how much he thought he wanted her.  So I trash the story in January and start rewriting.  From the original story, there is exactly one line that is the same in the finished version.  One.

That’s a lot of rewriting, yes?  I had 2 words.  I needed 90,000.  By mid-February, I had…oh, maybe 50k.  I also had edits coming in left and right, and a vacation coming up (the week before my deadline-what was I thinking?).  And the damn story just wouldn’t come.  Even though the new heroine was working for my hero, and for me, the story wasn’t coming.

About two weeks before my vacation, I decided one morning that I wasn’t going to keep writing at home.  For some reason, I decided to go to Panera Bread and write there.  Write, munch on a bagle, write.  And it worked.  There were no distractions-other than other bagle munchers and the lure of wireless internet access.  But there was no laundry.  There was no TV. No toys laying around that I had to pick up.  No mailbox.  No list of errands glaring at me from the corner of my eye.

It was just me, the laptop, the bagle…and the story.  I spent about four or five days writing at Panera Bread and I got the story up from 74k to 95k.

I don’t have a depressing workspace.  I have nice pretty blue walls, I have my iPod close by, I have a big windows, an office full of books, both the kind I read for pleasure and the kind I use for research.  And normally, I can work at home just fine (usually).

For some reason, though, this story needed a change of pace.  And now I’m hungry for another bagle…damn it.

Shiloh

http://shilohwalker.com

New Covers – Doomsday Brethren

I’m so excited, I couldn’t wait to share my new covers and backcover copy!

SEDUCE ME IN SHADOW
Doomsday Brethren Series, Book 2
Publisher: Pocket Books
Release Date: September 29, 2009
ISBN 13: 978-1416578444
Genre: Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Romance
Pre-Order: Amazon | Borders | Simon & Schuster
When a villainous wizard escapes from exile, the devastatingly sexy Doomsday Brethren must defend all magickind in the spellbinding second book in bestselling author Shayla Black’s seductive new paranormal series.

Ex-Marine Caden MacTavish has shunned his magical heritage all his life, but he will do anything to heal his desperately ill brother, a Doomsday Brethren warrior in mourning for his missing mate. Posing as a photographer, Caden must convince firecracker tabloid reporter Sydney Blair to reveal the source of her recent exposé on a supernatural power clash. Unfortunately, keeping his hands off the sizzling redhead proves as hard as getting them onto the potent and mystical Doomsday Diary he discovers at her bedside. A bloody rebellion led by an evil, power-hungry wizard is imminent. If Sydney divulges the book’s existence, she will jeopardize magickind’s most deeply guarded secrets and become the ruthless wizard’s number one target. Caden has never trusted magic’s cruel and dangerous powers, but he will protect Sydney with his life and magic—even if it means risking his heart.

Possess Me At Midnight CoverPOSSESS ME AT MIDNIGHT
Doomsday Brethren Series, Book 3
Publisher: Pocket Books
Release Date: October 27, 2009
ISBN 13: 978-1416578468
Genre: Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Romance
Pre-order: Amazon | Borders |Simon & Schuster

An apocalypse approaches in the new novel from bestselling author Shayla Black’s electrifying Doomsday Brethren series, as a magical warrior and a spirited witch ignite a smoldering passion that could destroy them both.

As a mysterious dark cloud drains the life of her beloved brother, Doomsday Brethren leader Bram, Sabelle Rion can think of little else. Still, every time she meets Ice Rykard’s intense green gaze, her body aches with need for the sexy warrior. Their attraction is explosive, incredible—and forbidden. As dangerous as he is unpredictable, Ice is her brother’s sworn enemy. But as Bram weakens, a more sinister force is gaining power. Evil Mathias and his ruthless Anarki army are on a bloodthirsty hunt for the Doomsday Diary. Sabelle must guard the potent book with her life—and Ice vows to protect the beautiful witch with his. Duty demands that Sabelle deny her lover’s fiery call of possession and mate with a man who can sway the magical Council against the impending rebellion. With the fate of magickind hanging in the balance, will she forsake the burning desires she can’t ignore or turn her back on her people for the courageous man she can’t resist?

The covers aren’t absolutely final. The verbiage will be added to and/or changed. But the images are set. I’m really thrilled. What do you think?

Only three weeks left…

Only three weeks left until Forsaken Talisman is being released from Samhain Publishing. Lisa and I are bubbling over with excitement that release day is almost here. When we contracted the book with Samhain, we looked at what we’d originally written and were really unhappy with it. We’d grown a lot as authors and the book didn’t reflect where we are now as writers. So we scrapped the book and started over. It’s still Dusty and Skylar’s love story, but rewritten from beginning to end.

So to celebrate the upcoming release of the brand-new version of Forsaken Talisman, we’re having a contest. We love this book and hope you’ll love it too when it comes out on Friday, April 3 at Samhain Publishing. Mark the date! Although, we’ll remind you. 😉

But more about that contest. We’re giving away lots of awesome stuff–seven chances to win! 4 necklaces, a purse and two ebook copies of Lover’s Talisman.

And a little tease of one of the prizes we’re giving away.

And that’s just one of the prizes. You can find all the details on how to enter on our contest page. So go forth and enter the contest. Have fun and good luck!

Oh puh-leeze

cross posted at my blog(s)

So the reason ebooks are taking off so big is because us women can read our ’salacious’ content in private?

According to this guy…yep.  he says:

Well, once again it seems like porn is blazing a path to a new media format. Of the top 10 bestsellers under the “Multiformat” category, nine are tagged “erotica” amd the last is “dark fantasy”. from the ITworld.com blog

First off…we don’t like it when people call our erotic romance porn.  Most die-hard erotic romance readers will tell ya that if the romance isn’t any good, the book’s not worth reading, no matter how well written, how hot the sex scenes are.  Please note…romance doesn’t equate sex scenes.  Romance is that slow slide into love, or that crazy free fall.  It’s the development of a relationship-the sex is just a bonus, because we need that romance.

If all we needed was porn or salicious content, (and felt the need to hide it) we’d buy playgirl and claim we read it for the articles.

From a romance reader, from a romance writer, from an ebook author, here are some reasons why ebooks are taking off.

  1. More and more people are becoming aware of them.  The gadget on that one little site…uh…oh, yeah, Amazon!  is making more and more readers aware of ebooks.  That Sony doo-dad that is in the Books a Million stores, Borders store, Target…many who were unaware of ebooks are now aware.  Once made aware, they are more likely to check things out, rather than when they didn’t know it existed.
  2. Storage.  I’ve got three tall bookcases crammed full.  One is for research.  One case is for keepers.  One case is my yet to be read.  I can only get so many books on those cases.  And I have no room as of yet for more.  Different story with ebooks.  I can store as many as my heart desires.
  3. Instant gratification.  Say I’m cruising an author site and a title catches my eye.  Now I’m impatient.  I could wait until the next day, the weekend, when I have time to go buy the book.  But if it’s in ebook, no need to wait.  Viola, it’s there.
  4. It is a little more earth-friendly.  No paper.  That simple.
  5. Bookaholics can tote a lot more books on an e-reader than they can in their suitcases.  Instead of taking 10 print books and hoping I don’t wish I had something else, I can take my reader, which has upwards of 75+ books on it at all times.
  6. Availability.  Perhaps the guy that wrote the blog post isn’t aware that many ebooks aren’t available in print.  Books from the smaller independent epubs like Ellora’s Cave, Samhain, Loose Id, Changeling, etc put the books out in ebook form only and the print format doesn’t come along until later.  I’m not inclined to wait for print, not if I really want to read it and it’s only in ebook format.

The only time salacious content comes into play for me is if the cover is so blatantly erotic, I can’t keep it on my shelves-not because I’m ‘embarassed’ or I need ‘privacy’.  I’m protecting my children.  I have three children.  Three young children.  They don’t need to see a book with some chick caught in a nekkid clinch with three guys. So if the cover of the book crosses my limit, but I want to read it, I will then see if it’s in ebook.  It has nothing to do with me needing:

the privacy they offer, both during purchase and when reading.

I’m an adult. I read what I choose. I don’t care what the opinions of others are when it comes to my reading material. I’m the one reading it…not them. If they don’t like my reading material, that’s fine…nobody is making them read it.

Have I gotten knocked for reading romance or erotic romance? Oh yes, but those knocks don’t leave me inclined to ‘hide’ my reading. It only irritates me or amuses me, and my response tends to be…well, what was the last romance you read? Most people can’t answer the question.

So there’s the opinion of a woman who has been reading and writing romance for years. I’ve been epubbed since 2003 (I think) and I’ve been reading ebooks since 2002 (I think). Shame or some need to hide my reading material didn’t figure into my purchasing choices then, and they certainly don’t now.