It's Magic Time! Elaine Lowe With "Magic Eights"

Hi everyone --
It's my delight to welcome a new friend to the blog. Author Elaine Lowe thrills her readers with books full of excitement, surprise, and hot romance. Today she's bringing just such a book to us. Magic Eights sounds like dream fulfillment for a lot of people -- and Elaine will be giving away a copy to a lucky reader so be sure and leave a comment. Elaine's visit has some special little juxtapositions for me too. My maiden name was Lowe and my current WIP is about -- magic! Welcome Elaine.

Yesterday, I finally got the babysitting, the time, and the husband willing to go with me (he would mope if I saw it without him) to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. I think I’m the last of all my Potter mad friends to get to see the show! And it was so worthwhile. I know there are many folks who don’t quite “get” why Harry Potter is so popular with adults as well as children, but I have been in love with Rowling’s work since the moment I picked up the first book way back in 1999. Why?

Magic.

I’m a sucker for magic in storytelling. Almost all of my books have at least a hint of magic in them. I think a lot of people yearn for that touch of magic in their lives. When you read about it, watch it, even write about it, it allows you to sense a little bit of the wonders all around you, and appreciate the small magics we encounter every day. Love is the greatest magic, and every great story echoes that truth.

And even the fun, flirty, fast little stories of romance that I write benefit from that touch of magic. Magic Eights, my latest release, involved one special bit of magic. Especially here on the “beautiful boys” blog, you readers appreciate how tempting the idea of multiple men can be. But what if all the complexities of managing different lovers were gone? What if your one true love, your soulmate, could pleasure you over and over again, sometimes in glorious combinations?

Susanna Walker Wong is lucky enough to be friends with Esme Morgan, and when the witch sends her and her husband William an odd looking Magic Eight ball as a gift for their eighth anniversary, Susanna is amused. But when she asks that ball her questions, she gets a whole lot more than vague answers. She gets seven luscious copies of William, all ready and willing to do her bidding. With her real husband watching with an avid eye, she does her best to best through the attentive demands of each of them. Through it all, this bit of magic helps Susanna understand her husband and his love for her more than she’d ever thought possible.

Interested? Comment on this post and ask me a question, and win the chance to have a free ecopy of Magic Eights!

Have fun reading!

Elaine Lowe

http://elainelowenovels.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/elainelowe

Magic Eights is available: http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9413-magic-eights.aspx

And on Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Eights-ebook/dp/B005E8AL8Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312068824&sr=1-1

Blurb:

A casual wish by a frustratingly horny wife results in a most unexpected bit of magic…

Susanna walks into her kitchen to see two copies of her husband of eight years, William. When they both seduce her, she’s helpless to resist. Who would want to? When another copy walks in and makes love to her, and another, she ceases to ask why, only, how much can she take?

Seven copies, one original, and all of them want to push her to the very brink. Can she handle them all? Sinful satisfaction is the best anniversary present, and eight is Susanna’s lucky number.

Excerpt:

Blowing a frizzy strand of reddish-brown hair from in front of her face, Susanna Walker-Wong tried valiantly to relax into the suds of her bath. Truly soothing rose and chamomile scents floated into the hot air of the bathroom, and hot water always relaxed away the tension she held in her shoulders. But all these luxurious bubbles and steam didn’t really get to the core of her problem.

She was horny. Despite, or perhaps because of all the stresses in her life, she was ready to burst with the need for someone to touch her. Well, not just someone. It would be really fabulous if her husband would get a clue and look up from his computer screen long enough to notice her panting after him.

But instead, she took a bath. Really, she shouldn’t be this desperate. It was their eighth anniversary, and that morning their son had been taken to his grandparents’ house where he was likely being spoiled rotten. For lunch, she had been the entree and Will had worshipped her thoroughly before taking her out to a sumptuous dinner that they’d enjoyed and debated like the foodies they were. It should have been perfect, she should have been completely satisfied.

Her career was humming along, though she was only working on contract, part-time, with Nathan being only four years old and just starting preschool. Yeah, the dishes needed to be done, and there was yard-work that begged to be finished and the floor required vacuuming desperately. But if she ever finished her entire “to do” list, she’d be dead, right? She should be completely content.

So why was she absolutely burning with lust? Every time William breathed, she watched the rise and fall of his chest and wanted to tear off his T-shirt and run her hands over his pecs and lick his nipples until he groaned. She wanted to thread her hands in the blue-black of his unkempt hair and tousle it even more while she pulled his lips to hers. She wanted to knock his laptop to the ground and climb astride him and ride him until he screamed her name and woke up the neighbors in the next condo.

She moved slightly to get her shoulders deeper into the water and relieve the tension there. The soft rose scent of the bubbles fluttered up to try to console her, mixing with the subtle spiciness from Esme’s present. She sighed, her hands drifting over her clit, only to retreat quickly to her side when the door swung open.

Will stood in the doorway for a moment, taking in the soap-obscured view of her naked body and flashing her a brief but devastating grin that still made her heart go pitter-patter.

“Hello, my water nymph. How do you find your bath? And is that incense I smell?” He turned away from her and to the toilet, nonchalantly taking a piss, while she observed the curve of his ass in the ancient pair of khaki shorts that he wore.

“Bath’s searing hot, just like this nymph likes it. And no, the scent is something Esme sent us for our anniversary.” She looked him up and down. “Care to join me?” Her voice dripped with invitation, but she knew he didn’t share her particular fetish for baths.

“You’ve got to be kidding me! It’s like ninety-five in the house, and it’s only going to get hotter. How you can stand to take a hot bath in this weather is beyond my ken!” With a drip and a zip and a quick wash of his hands, he turned back to her, his eyes eating her up and making her throb even more than she had been. With his dark shining eyes carrying that edge of lust and his wicked goatee reminding her how much she liked the drag of his chin against her thighs, she was practically melting with need for him. But she didn’t let it show. Her appetite for him was simply ridiculous after all the years they’d been together and she’d never been completely comfortable letting it all out. He was everything she ever wanted, and she didn’t feel like scaring him off now.

Okay, i think we're all ready for THIS magic. Leave a comment and you can win a copy of Magic Eights.  Thanks to Elaine for being my guest and thank you for visiting the blog.  :  )

The Scientist and the Supermodel Secret Contest! Fun Guest is Coming!

First, let me tell you that i have a special guest who will take over the blog on sunday and Monday. Many of you know Elaine Lowe, author of an array of super hot novels. She'll be bringing her new book, Magic Eights, here to the blog and giving away a copy so plan on coming by.

I also want to tell you that The Scientist and the Supermodel is now available EVERYWHERE!!!!!!

Available at :  Amazon  ARe  Fictionwise   Sony  

Plus, it's been getting some hot acclaim from reviewers.  You know it was rated Best Book and voted Book of the Week at Whipped Cream Reviews. This is one of my favorite reviews ever, so if you haven't read it, check it out. 

And NOW the book has received a Reviewer Top Pick at Night Owl Reviews! You can read the whole thing at this link, but here are a few lines from the review:

I absolutely loved this book. I loved meeting Jake’s family. I loved seeing Jake grow into himself. I loved seeing Roan as a multidimensional character. I didn’t want to put it down and I sure didn’t want to be bothered while reading it.

I have to highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good romantic story.

Now, here's the coolest deal. Today, i started a spur-of-the-moment "secret" contest to WIN a copy of The Scientist and the Supermodel. All you have to do is go to my Facebook Page, LIKE the Page, post a comment with your email that says "Tara sent me" and you'll be entered. BUT DO IT QUICK! I'll be drawing fro the winner on Saturday before Elaine comes to visit on Sunday. Also, if you haven't entered to WIN Volley Balls, what are you waiting for? Go NOW. Last drawing of the Blog Tour is this Saturday! Go on over to the Facebook Page and enter.  Thanks so much for visiting the blog.  :  )

Why Read a Male/Male Romance?

As many of you know, I write male/male and M/M/F ménage. Chances are, if you visit my blog you may have read a male/male book or two. But if you’ve never read a male/male romance, why not  give one a try? 

I had never read M/M until a couple years ago.  In fact, I didn’t even know that M/M fiction existed and, if I had known, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to read it. I didn’t own an e-reader so I bought my paperbacks from Amazon. But I did like erotic romance. I discovered an EROM author I loved named Jet Mykles. I read one of her Dark Elves series, a M/F book, and really enjoyed it so I kept reading. When I ran out of elves I ordered a book called Heaven Sent. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the description since I knew I liked the author. Imagine my surprise when it arrived and was a M/M book. Two, in fact. It was an anthology of two books called Heaven and Purgatory, both M/M. I started to read, kind of looking over my shoulder to be sure no one was watching!  LOL. And I was HOOKED! 

Now I write my beautiful boys in all descriptions. My new novel, The Scientist and the Supermodel, is male/male but it’s the prequel to a M/M/F ménage called Genetic Attraction so there is a female element to the book. The other new book, Volley Balls, is a M/M/M ménage with a beautiful man from Laguna and two hunky Australian volleyball players. Here’s what I’ve learned reading and writing male/male books:

• ·         Male/male books have fewer gender stereotypes. It’s not unusual in these books for both men to be hunky alphas, for one of them to be more effeminate but still very dominant, or any combination.
• ·         If you are a female reader, you don’t have a woman in these books with whom you automatically identify so you get the experience of identifying with a man.
• ·         If you’re a gay man reading a M/M book, you get to see your world imagined by someone who has no limitations of your real life constraining the fantasy. No “but that never happened to me so it can’t happen.” You get a bigger fantasy.
• ·         You get to see two men (or more if you read my books LOL) in love which is very cool. It’s not the same as women in love with men. It’s just not. Since, for many male couples, marriage and family isn’t yet the common practice (hope it will be soon), the relationship has to be about more than security or fulfilling family or societal expectations.
• ·         Gay or bisexual men still bear huge burdens of discrimination so, even if those issues play a small role in the story, you get to admire the bravery of men who declare their love for each other.
• ·         And, of course, the simplest reason. If like me you adore men, then two is better!

And just think. If you own an ereader, you don’t even have to glance over your shoulder to see who’s looking!  LOL I hope you’ll let some beautiful boys creep into your reading among those alpha men. Of course, i'd be delighted if you want to start with mine but there are a ton of great ones to choose from. 


Have you read male/male? What was your "first time"? 


Thanks so much for visiting the blog. We're giving away a copy of Volley Balls over at my Book Blog. Just come over, comment, leave your email and follow the blog. There are other fun parts to the game, but that's all you have to do to enter.  Thanks for visiting.  :  )

The Edge of Glory

First, a happy congratulations to Teresa for winning Mina Carter's Feral! Thank you for your comment and persisting to see it got posted.

This video made me cry. It's long, but listen to Gaga and know that it "not only gets better, it becomes beautiful." : )

Welcome Mina Carter. Let's Get Feral!

Hi everyone --  Welcome back my friend, the talented author, Mina Carter. (If you want to see one of her many talents, check out the brilliant blog header she did for Beautiful Boys Books.) Mina is bringing her new release, Feral, to us today. Be sure and leave a comment and your email address, because Mina is giving away a copy of the book to some lucky person. This one sounds special to me with this hunky alpha and some pixies! He's in a heap of trouble. Take it away, Mina

Wheeeee! Okay, heya! I’m here and many thanks to Tara for agreeing to have me guest again and I promise not to break anything or bite (much).

So, today I’m going to talk about Feral. Feral is my kinda guy. Tara and I have many conversations over our different tastes in men. I love alpha men, there’s just something about them I love writing. Usually big, think built like a brick shed or the size of a rugby player but here’s the thing…most of my guys can never be described as pretty boys.

Take Feral for example. He’s a vampire warrior, born to protect the civilian population. But among the warrior caste, who run to designer clothes and long hair, he’s the odd one out. Feral is built like a shed, and sports a shaved head. He’s a mean, lean (or heavily muscled) rogue killing machine. He doesn’t even fight in a civilized manner, he uses the ancient weapons of his kind…weapons that are little more than razor blades attached to knuckle-dusters. And he’s lethal with them.

It has been mentioned by a few people that I favor shaven headed heroes. It’s true, I do, and there’s a story behind that. My husband is not as young as he was, and as is wont to happen, he started to go a little thin on top. He whittled and whined, panicking about his appearance (seriously, men can be worse than us women for worrying about how they look). He’d look in the mirror and try and work out whether it was any thinner than the day before until I BEGGED him to shave it off. The fact that Jason Statham and Vin Diesel sport the same cut has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with it. Honest. Don’t believe me? Nah, I wouldn’t either. So, to convince him, I wrote Feral. A shaven-headed hero who isn’t afraid of kicking ass and taking names. I purposely made him different, in appearance and attitude, to other heroes I’d read. And you know, I kinda liked it :D So more shaven-headed heroes were born to populate my stories. It’s not just about the hair, it’s more about a mind-set, at least to me. The shaven-headed part reminds me to step outside the box…to create a hero who is a little different from the norm.

And maybe, one day, I’ll even create a beta hero especially for Tara…

So, tell me, if you could pick one aspect for the heroes you read about, a quirk like a purposely shaven-head, what would it be?

Mina xx

PS. Leave a comment for a chance of winning a copy of Feral (ebook of course ;) ) and, check out Vixen, the story before Feral – it’s on cut price at the moment to celebrate Feral’s release (Vixen available NOW from: Summerhouse Publishing | ARe | Amazon UK | Amazon | Smashwords)!

Thank you so much for coming to the blog. Don't forget to comment and leave your email for a chance to win Feral.  :  )

Contemporary Erotic Romance: Reality or Fantasy?

I recently read a male/male romance by a wonderful writer and i am a huge fan. It is an excellent book  -- but i cringed a lot of the way through it. Why? Because it was too realistic for me. The life situation for the heroes was sordid, the circumstances of their meeting angst-ridden. It was like ... well, real life. It was truly a great book, brilliantly written and realized, but i had to take a deep breath to get to the finish. I was glad i did but it makes me realize that romance readers tend to fall into two categories. Those who want their stories to approach real-life and those that enjoy fantasy.

Fantasy readers can easily play out their addiction with stories of vampires and fairies (the fae kind). But what if you like contemporary romance and you still want fantasy? That's where i come in -- and a lot of other writers as well. We are the creators of over-the-topness. Yes, our heroes may have a drug problem -- but they are rock stars! The gay lover may have been abused as a child but he's a supermodel and the most "beautiful man in the world". We write unabashed fantasy romance that happens to take place in a contemporary setting. Even if our heroes seem like "everyman" on the surface, they are still extraordinary -- very beautiful or wise or talented in some way. (Maybe they look like Adam Lambert with a snake!)

In over-the-top world things happen a little differently than in real-life world. Two people may fall in love faster, three people may form a deep, abiding relationship more easily, men who always thought they were straight may realize that they are in love with another man. Don't tell me these things don't happen in real life. That's not my job! We'll leave that to the real-life romance writers. LOL. That is not to say that we writers of over-the-top world don't deal with true human emotion. We do. Hopefully, we do it with depth and sincerity. We simply apply it to situations that don't happen to everybody everyday. Perhaps we write about a gardener who falls in love, but his partner isn't a salesman or a street sweeper, he's a drag queen (Thank you, Jet Mykles.)

Happily, things get pretty mixed up between real-life world and over-the-top world. I recently read another "real-life" romance that had all the grittiness that many readers demand, but the two heroes fell in love faster than in any over-the-top book of mine! When we get down to it, everybody loves a little splash of fantasy.

Which is your favorite? Real-life world or over-the-top world? :  )

Thank you so much for visiting the blog.

What are the Key Elements of a Great Story?

Not long ago, i had the opportunity to guest at Dawn's Reading Nook with the marvelous Dawn Roberto. She asked such fun questions about creating great stories and characters, i thought i'd reproduce some of that interview here. Hope you enjoy it.  

What do you consider to be the key elements of a great story?

It all starts with characters for me. If I love the characters, I’ll forgive a lot of other things. I also love books written in deep point of view that take me on the characters’ journey through their eyes and heart. After that, I enjoy clever dialogue that sounds like real people say it. A great story will also have a tight plot with believable conflict. While I’ll forgive a lot for great characters, I get real annoyed with conflicts that go on and on when they could be resolved with one good conversation.

 

Could you tell us a little about how you develop your characters? Who has been your favorite character to write? The most challenging?

I always start with heroes. Of course, a lot of my books are M/M or M/M/M so they are all about the heroes. I get inspired by an idea for a man – wouldn’t it be fun to have a serious scientist meet a man so different from him he can hardly relate? How about a supermodel? Wouldn’t it be great if I wrote a hero who is a ballet dancer? Then all the other characters arise from that central idea. The idea character isn’t necessarily even the main POV character. I did write a book about a ballet dancer – my romantic suspense, Golden Dancer, coming out on September 27. But the ballet dancer, while the heart of the story, is actually secondary in POV to the news reporter who falls in love with him.

My favorite characters? A toss-up between my wonderful supermodel, Roan Black, in The Scientist and the Supermodel, Genetic Attraction, and later in the year, Deceptive Attraction. I adore him. He is my baby. But I also love my hero David Underwood from Volley Balls. I describe him as a “flaming gay boy from Laguna”, but he is gutsy and wonderfully original and I totally loved writing him. 

My most challenging character? Mac MacAllister in Golden Dancer that comes out on September 27th. He was difficult because he is torn between his love for his reporter’s craft, “getting the story”, and his love for the art collector billionaire who he is investigating. It puts him in a terrible conflict of trust and honor and it was very challenging to write.

How would you have answered Dawn's questions? What do you consider the key elements of a great story? And BTW, i'll be back at Dawn's answering a new set of questions later this month. Check out the Book Blog for dates. Thank you so much for coming by.  :  )

"Before Two Guys Can Get the Girl" ... The Scientist and the Supermodel

Hi everyone --

You may have heard about my new book, The Scientist and the Supermodel. It's been rated a Best Book and voted Book of the Week at Whipped Cream. The Scientist and the Supermodel is the prequel to Genetic Attraction, the yummy menage about a famous woman scientist who falls for her younger research partner only to learn he lives with his boyfriend! The new book is the love story between the younger scientist and his beautiful male lover, the supermodel, Roan Black. It's a story of how we sometimes resist the very best things because they don't fit our pictures. So, while we are touring the beach with Volley Balls on my Blog Tour, i thought you might enjoy a delicious excerpt from The Scientist and the Supermodel. (This is everyone's favorite excerpt.)

The Scientist and the Supermodel

Tara Lain

Genre: Contemporary Menage; please see Publisher's Note

Length: Short Novel

Price: $5.99

http://www.loose-id.com/The-Scientist-and-the-Supermodel.aspx

Geneticist Jake Martin has brilliant scientific vision, but he's blind to
his own nature. Despite his flagging interest in women and his past
experience with a man, he's convinced himself he'd be happy if he could
just have his older boss, Emmaline Silvay, as his lover. Living in his
closeted dream world, he's unprepared for the powerful attraction he
experiences to supermodel Roan Black, "the most beautiful man in the
world."

Jake can't resist the gorgeous, androgynous creature. Who could? he thinks.
But Roan refuses to accept him until Jake admits that it's a man he wants
and this man in particular. Jake tells himself it's just sex, but his
refusal to understand what he really needs threatens the best chance at
happiness he's ever had. Is there a future for a PhD scientist who refuses
to see and a high school dropout supermodel who understands all too
clearly?

Publisher's Note: This book is predominantly a romance between two bisexual
men and features primarily male/male sexual practices; however, it contains
m/f and m/m/f scenes and is therefore classified as menage, not strictly
LGBT.

Read an excerpt at
http://www.loose-id.com/The-Scientist-and-the-Supermodel.aspx

The following excerpt occurs after Jake has had an unexpected encounter with a man in LA. He is at his parent’s home in Brooklyn, has just asked out a girl who was invited to dinner and is now talking to his brother in the guest room.

The daybed was a little too small, and Jake shifted, trying to get his feet in a comfortable position. The room was dark except for reflections from a streetlight shining through the one window. Yeah, he was tired after the flying and the socializing. He sighed.

“You liked her, huh? You’re going to take her out?” his brother’s voice murmured across the room.

“Yeah, I asked her out.”

“She really turned you on. That date should be hot.”

Realizing hormones pretty much ran his brother’s twenty-year-old life, Jake asked with a grin, “Now why do you think that?”

“Hey, man, I saw you trying to hide that boner when you ran out.”

Jake flushed, glad that the room was dark. “Did everyone see?”

“Nah, just me. I was beside you, remember?”

“Yeah, well, I was thinking of someone else.”

“Ohhh. Your boss, I’ll bet. You’ve got it bad for her.”

Should he go with that suggestion? “Yeah, I do.” Then he decided to be at least a little more honest to encourage Caleb to be the same. “But actually it was someone else.”

He heard his brother sit up in bed. “No shit? You got another woman?”

Why did he have to phrase it quite like that? “Just someone I met in LA.”

“Wow. No wonder you’re so tired, big brother.” He laughed. “What’s her name?”

“I’d rather just forget about it.”

“No fucking way. Is she one of those LA chicks? Is she an actress? Wow. Is she famous?”

“Famous? Yes, that’s right. Now give it a rest.”

Suddenly the daybed was a lot more crowded, and Caleb was sitting on his legs. “Ya gotta tell me, Jake.”

“I don’t gotta tell you.” Shit, why didn’t he keep his mouth shut?

“Why don’t you want to tell me?”

“It’s personal.”

“I’m your brother,” he wailed.

“I know, but I can’t tell you about this.”

Cal was quiet for a moment. “Why not, Jake? Will it shock me? Will it despoil my lily-white ears?”

Jake sighed. “Yeah, it would shock you.”

“Really? Awesome! Let me guess. Threesome?”

“No.”

“S and M?”

“No!”

Cal flopped backward. “Orgy?”

“God, no. Hey, baby brother, what the hell are they teaching you in that college? Are you speaking from experience?”

“Shit, no.” He gave an evil grin. “Wish I was, though.”

“Come on, you like to be tied up?”

“I might consider it.”

“You want to be with a bunch of women?”

“Well, no, not really. But don’t change the subject, bro; we were talking about your indiscretions, not mine.”

“No need. I’m not talking. Get off me. Let’s go to sleep.”

The big body didn’t move, and all Jake’s pushing didn’t budge him. Okay, he’d just go to sleep. Jake turned his head on the pillow and sighed. Ignore the runt.

Cal was quiet, then a voice came out of the darkness. “Jake, did you have sex with a man?”

Jake swallowed hard. “Why the hell would you think that?”

“’Cause I remember that guy. Tom. So did you?”

 “Yeah, sort of, but don’t think it was something major. I mean, it just happened…”

 “Awesome.”

“What?”

Caleb shifted and brought his face down so he was looking straight at Jake in the dim light. “I said, awesome.” He was quiet for a minute, then seemed to have made a decision. “Jake, my roommate is my lover. His name is Charlie.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah.”

They both just rested in the moment. Then Caleb practically pounced on him. “Tell me, Jake. Who was it? What did he do?” Suddenly Jake was being lifted by the shoulders and hugged by his giant of a brother. “Oh crap, Jake, I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have someone to talk to.”

Jake extricated himself gently from the bear hug and scooted back so he could sit up against the pillows. The light coming through the windows illuminated his brother’s handsome face. “Cal, why haven’t you told Mom and Dad?”

He looked a little sulky. “I didn’t hear you sharing your adventures at the dinner table.”

“Yeah, well this was a one-time thing. How long have you known you were…uh, liked guys?”

“It’s okay, Jake, you can say gay. That’s what I am, and I’ve known it since I went into puberty and all my raging hormones were pointing me in the wrong direction. Then I realized it was the right direction for me.”

“But you never told the folks.”

“For a long time I just kind of denied it. Then when I met Charlie and really got committed to the lifestyle, I just got tongue-tied. You know, Dad and Sean are such alphas.”

“I notice you didn’t include me in that description.”

“Well, you’re the pretty one. And you were always so comfortable with Tom. Man, I thought he was cute. Of course, I was just a kid, and he couldn’t see anyone but you. Fuck, that guy loved you.”

“You knew that?”

“Fuck, yeah. Didn’t you?”

“Not for a long time.”

“Wow. Poor guy.”

“Yeah.”

“So is that who you were with? Did he move to LA or something?”

“No, it wasn’t Tom.”

“Yeah, and I guess he wouldn’t be famous, or I’d probably have seen him. So who was it?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“If it doesn’t matter, why won’t you tell me?”

“Don’t want to.” Shit, what was he, five?

“So what did this unknown guy do?” Cal grabbed him again. “I’ll bet he sucked you off, didn’t he? That’s a pretty heteroflexible activity. Who doesn’t like getting their cock sucked? Right?”

“Yeah, right.”

“So who was it? Tell me, Jake. You know I’m not gonna tell anyone. C’mon, tell me.”

Jake sighed. “Okay. Have you ever heard of a model named Roan Black?”

Dead silence was followed by a soft whisper. “You are shitting me.”

“No.”

His voice rose. “Roan Black sucked your cock? The most beautiful man in the world sucked your fucking cock?”

“Shhh!”

Caleb fell back on the very crowded bed. “Baby, that doesn’t make you gay, it just means you’re smart.”

 Jake burst out laughing. 

And for you movie lovers, here is the Book Trailer. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0glXEW3_fM

Hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget to stop by the Book Blog for our Blog Tour Contest. Thank you for coming by!  :  )

Erotica or Erotic Romance? What’s the Difference?

As many of you know, I’ve been on a Blog Tour to celebrate the release of my two new books, The Scientist and the Supermodel and Volley Balls. Since I write pretty steamy books, I get the question from readers,  “what is the difference between erotica and erotic romance?” It’s such an interesting question I did a blog about it on my Tour and I want to repost it here in case you missed it.

I write erotic romance. First and foremost, erotic romance is romance. Romance has an important requirement. It has to have an HEA (happily-ever-after) ending, or, at minimum, an HFN – happy for now. Other stories including erotica can end in angst or uncertainty, but not a romance. Both a well-written romance and well-crafted erotica have a developed plot, significant character growth and arcs, tight pacing – in other words all the characteristics of any well-written novel – but in an erotic romance at least one of the major story lines will be the love between the principal characters – be they boy meets girl, boy meets boy, or boys meet girls or .. you get the idea. The romance will be an important part of the plot (though preferably for most readers, not the only part of the plot). Erotica can have any storyline, and, while sex will be involved, love and relationship don’t have to be. I also think a good romance needs to have significant emotional content. Erotica may have it, but it’s not absolutely required. Romance readers want to be involved in the feelings of the characters, not because they are silly and syrupy readers, but because love and other feelings are what the book is about and to not involve the readers’ emotions is to short-change them from the purpose of the book. Erotica can have many different themes and feelings may be only a small part of the story.

Okay, you ask, where does all that sex come in? As I’ve said, I’m no expert on erotica, but I do feel that the sexual content is generally a reason for the story to exist. It may be beautifully written and literary in style, but it is, to a great extent, about sex in one way or another. A good erotic romance is about the romance and uses sexual expression as a means to convey character development, changes in relationship and plot shifts. Certainly in real life, sex is a catalyst for all of these things, so why should we shut the bedroom door just when an important turning point in the story may be occurring? An erotic romance could be a good romance without the sex. It just wouldn’t be an erotic romance. A piece of erotica might be a good story with no sex, but generally it would be something else, not erotica.

Erotic romances are written with all “heat” levels. Some are slightly explicit (Hmmm. That’s an oxymoron, but you understand.) Others melt the paint off the walls. My books get close to that latter category. Since I write a lot of ménages – M/M/F and M/M/M – people often think my books will be more about sex than love. I’m always delighted when a reader or reviewer says, “These people really care for each other and it’s obvious on every page.” I smile. My books may be really sexy, but I never forget I write romance. 

What do you think are the differences between erotica and erotic romance? 

Thank you so much for coming by the blog. We're having a Blog Tour Contest right now to WIN a copy of my new M/M/M novella, Volley Balls. Just go over to my Book Blog and leave a comment with your email and follow the blog (if you don't already). You'll be entered to win for the next FOUR drawings. There are more chances to win and they are all explained there.Come join us. It's FUN!  :  )