I’m getting a late start today because I was up until 2 AM. I’m obsessing over Amazon’s ranking of Uniform Desires. Have you seen it? I took a screen shot after midnight:

So before I talk about the blog tour, I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who bought the boxed collection! As always, I hoped for good sales, but this is phenomenal. All of the ladies involved in this project are very, very grateful for your support! If you’d like to help us keep the momentum going, tell a friend, write a review, post something on your Facebook page or blog—every little bit of help you can provide will make a difference.

You already know about the Uniform Desires rafflecopter contest with the huge bundle of prizes we’re all giving away, right? If not, click on the link and head that way. You don’t want to miss out on your chance to win some very cool stuff!

In addition, Book Monster Promotions has organized a blog tour for us. Again, we have prizes, a chance to read sexy excerpts, and we’ll chime in at every stop to answer your questions or comments. Don’t worry if you missed the first day’s stops, you can circle back and comment. The list of stops and their links is below the pretty picture!

Uniform Desires (Make Mine Military) Box Set Book Blast – November 11 – 24

11/11 My Secret Romance Book Reviews
https://www.mysecretromancebookreviews.com/

11/11 Recommended Romance
https://recommendedromance.com

11/11 Shayna Renee’s Spicy Reads
https://shaynareneesspicyreads.com

11/12 Swept Away By Romance
https://www.sweptawaybyromance.com/

11/13 Riverina Romantics
https://riverinaromantics.blogspot.com/

11/13 Where the Night Kind Roam
https://paranormalromancenovel.com/

11/14 Close Encounters with the Night Kind
https://closeencounterswiththenightkind.blogspot.com

11/14 Crazy Four Books
https://crazyfourbooks.blogspot.com

11/15 Book Pages and Dripping Ink
https://bookpagesanddrippingink.blogspot.com

11/16 Mythical Books
https://mythicalbooks.blogspot.ro/

11/17 Snarky Mom Reads…
https://www.snarkymomreads.com

11/18 – Book Monster Reviews
https://www.bookmonsterreviews.com/

11/19 Miscellaneous Thoughts of a Bookaholic
miscellaneousthoughtsofabookaholic.blogspot.com

11/20 For the Love of Bookends
https://loveofbookends.blogspot.com/

11/21 KT Book Reviews
https://ktbookreviews.blogspot.com/

11/21 We Love Kink
https://www.welovekink.com

11/22 Book Lovin’ Mamas
https://booklovinmamas.com

11/22 Celestial Reviews
https://cecesreviews.blogspot.com

11/22 Coffee Talk Writers
https://coffeetalkwriters.com

11/23 Manga Maniac Café
www.mangamaniaccafe.com

11/24 Literal Hotties Naughty Book Reviews
https://literalhottiesnaughtybookreviews.blogspot.com/

11/24 Vampires, Werewolves, & Fairies, Oh My!
https://vampireswerewolvesfairiesohmy.blogspot.com/

Again, big sloppy kisses to all of you who bought the stories! Thanks for the exciting ride!

UPDATE: Congrats to CJ! You’ve won the free download. I’ll be in touch shortly! DD

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Monday’s the day… Veteran’s day and the release date for Uniform Desires! I hope you’ve already pre-ordered your copy and that you’ve entered the huge rafflecopter contest! Tons of prizes will be awarded, so take an extra moment to head on over there to enter! Okay, that’s the end of my commercial.

Let’s talk about today’s flashback…

I love writing short stories—whether it’s for someone else’s anthology or my own, and sometimes, as with “Two Hot,” I like to publish them alone. Not everyone loves a shorter story, but I like writing them and reading them. They are a little slice of life, and the challenge is always to get to the point quickly, serve a satisfying little vignette, and close with a flourish. It’s not easy. I have friends who’d rather write a full-length novel than tackle a short story. Every word counts. There’s no room for a meandering tale. I use every story as an exercise in honing my precision so that when I write the longer stories, I bring that same focus to ensure I make every word and scene count.

But what does one do when they have a bunch of short stories that have appeared in various publications? I like to group them into volumes to give my readers a chance to see them. Not everyone can buy up every collection I appear in, so my Strokes volumes are my way to share them. The excerpt I’m sharing below first appeared in Cleis Press’s Suite Encounters. Then it was featured in the November 2012 issue of Penthouse! But you can read it in its entirety, along with seven other naughty bedtime tales, in Strokes, Vol. 2. Enjoy the excerpt!

I’ll post the winner of today’s contest Monday morning!

Post a comment and you’ll be entered to win a free download of this book!

From National Bestselling Author, Delilah Devlin, comes another naughty collection of seven bedtime stories—a week’s worth of nighttime reading pleasure.

Ride along with two soldiers, just returned from war, who find sweet release in “The Long Ride Home.” In “Tailgating at the Cedar Inn,” a woman has one last fling with two sexy construction workers. A cowboy kidnaps his “Runaway Bride” to get some sweet satisfaction. A woman travelling alone in Europe enjoys a hot steamy sauna in the “Textile Free” zone. In “Love in Bloom,” a florist tempts her high school crush. A naughty nooner with an office colleague ends in a “Quick Draw.” A dispatcher kicks inhibitions to the door when she seduces a younger truck driver in “Drive Me Crazy.”

Four of the stories have appeared in separate Cleis Press anthologies. Two of the stories were featured in Penthouse magazine! All the stories are featured in one sinfully hot collection…

From “Tailgating at the Cedar Inn”

I stepped out of the shower onto chipped and cracked aqua blue tiles with grout so dingy I couldn’t tell what color it had been. Not that the bathroom was dirty, thank god. Just old. Like the rest of the 60’s-built motel I’d found on the little back country road.

Standing before the sink, I toweled my hair then shook my head like a dog, not caring where the droplets landed. The mess wasn’t one I’d have to clean. For one last night, I could be irresponsible, messy, even if only in a small way.

I draped the towel over the edge of the old white tub and sauntered naked into the small room with the double bed. The air smelled of tobacco and industrial cleansers. The bedding looked clean if a little nappy from wear, but I peeled back the quilt-top and tossed it on the floor anyway. Pristine white sheets beckoned.

Just as I lay back, sighing with relief, sounds from outside the room jarred me from my happy haze. Tires squealed, masculine laughter bellowed through the thin walls, and car doors slammed.

A sigh escaped and I stared at the bared rafters above. The laughter faded. I reached across to flip off the switch to the nightstand lamp with its yellowed shade. Lying in the darkness, I willed my body to relax, one limb at a time. That day, I’d driven three hundred miles. I’d have gone another fifty for a decent hotel, but the shorter route my Garmin dictated led me through narrow two-lane roads deep in the Ozark Mountains. I doubted I’d have found anything nicer.

Maybe I should have stuck to the Interstate, but I’d wanted to shave some miles. Little did I know the route would keep my foot busy pushing on the gas pedal then the brake the whole way. Exhausted with nerves shattered, I’d seen the crooked Vacancy sign outside the Cedar Inn and made my decision on the spot, swerving into the empty gravel parking lot. Not until I’d opened the door to my tiny, musty room did I have second thoughts about my decision. But how bad could the room really be? I’d turned on the swamp cooler set into a window frame and felt my hair frizz instantly.

Not that I’d really cared. No one was around to impress. Other than the clerk at the front desk, a skinny, twenty-something redneck with puppy dog eyes, the place was deserted. At the thought, I’d shivered a little bit, double-bolted my room door and checked the lock on the window. Visions of the shower scene from Psycho didn’t put me off taking a long, lukewarm soak to wash away the road grime and sweat.

The cooler purred, spilling muggy air into the room. The sheets felt clammy. Still, I grew calm as my body warmed the sheets beneath me, then a little horny when I wondered if the room might have little peepholes for the clerk to watch me. He’d been cute, if a little skinny. I wouldn’t mind if he watched—at least not in my fantasies. Who knew how long before I felt comfortable enough, private enough to indulge in a little one-handed play when my grandmother slept in the room next to mine.

I slipped a hand between my thighs and lazily trailed my fingers through my cleft until my breath caught and heat pooled. I raised my knees and let them fall open, tilted my hips and thrust two fingers inside my pussy. I wasn’t in a hurry. I wasn’t even that eager to come. The motion soothed and excited, allowing my mind to let go of my troubles—the firing, the break-up, the move to my grandmother’s house—and focus only on the pleasure curling deep inside my core.

When the blare of a TV sounded from outside, I had third and fourth thoughts about my decision to stop here for the night. What the hell? Why had someone moved their television set outside rather than watch in the seclusion of their room where the sound would be somewhat muffled.

I gritted my teeth, swung my legs over the side of the bed and reached for shorts and a tee, slipping them over my nude body and jammed the keys in my pocket before I stomped to the door and flung it open.

Not that the two men sitting on the truck noticed me—at first. Read the rest of this entry »

Can you tell how excited we’re getting about the release of our boxed collection, Uniform Desires? Well, here I am again, pimping it out, but you really do want to pay attention. We’ve got a huge contest starting, and you don’t want to miss your chance to enter it. The list of prizes is…well, HUGE. So follow the rafflecopter link for details!

And if you haven’t already pre-ordered your copy, do it now! The price for all 6 stories is just $.99, and that won’t last long!

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

WHY I LOVE REVIEWS

I learned to read before I went to kindergarten and have always loved books. When I began to write, I knew how to create a memorable story because I had read so many. Every book provides a lesson of its own.

Book clubs are great places to make friends and read books you might not have chosen on your own. I belong to three book clubs and each has it own personality and focus. One group loves mysteries and sci/fi. Another reads women’s fiction, and the third has potluck dinners and selects a lot of nonfiction. If you have never belonged to a book club, you might want to join one or form one with your friends. You’ll be surprised at the different reactions to books. Some people will love a book and call it a favorite while others find it too tedious to finish.

This month, one book club read THE FAULT IN OUR STARS by John Green. It’s been on the bestseller list for more than a year. It’s told by 16-year-old Hazel Grace who meets 17-year-old Augustus at a cancer support group. It’s a poignant story about life, love and death, important issues at every age. There are sure to be tears when you read it, but it’s also one of the best books I’ve read this year, or ever.

Most of the book club also loved the book, but one woman who is a hospital lab technician said some of the hospital details weren’t accurate, and that spoiled the book for her. We accept everyone’s opinion without asking them to justify it, but she made me wonder what the reviews were for the book on Amazon.

As of today, there are 5,795 reviews posted with the majority being 5 stars. Those who didn’t love the book often thought the teens were not realistic, and yet there were 5 star reviews written by teens. Obviously, not everyone loves the same thing. I once dated a man who ate only vanilla ice cream. Vanilla! When there are so many delicious flavors to try, why would anyone stick with vanilla? We didn’t argue over it, however, because there is no point in arguing over tastes, but I digress.

Many authors are so sensitive they cannot bear to read a poor review of their work. Should I receive one, I study it to learn why the reader didn’t enjoy the story. Many people leave lengthy, detailed reviews to categorize every aspect they found objectionable. Some comments are simply due to taste. Others are helpful if they point out something I should have caught, or could improve in later books. Perhaps I didn’t make motivations clear enough, or show why the heroine’s attitude toward the hero changed over time. Whatever the problem was, I give it a lot of thought and hope each of my books is better than the last. Thank you to all of you who take the time to write thoughtful reviews.

Do you buy books based on the reviews? Or will you buy a favorite author’s new book even if the reviews aren’t entirely positive? What if a friend recommends a book, but it has very few positive reviews? Do you write reviews?

My latest book, FIERCE PASSION is a November 5, 2013 release from Samhain Publishing. It’s the story of Ana Santilan, an haute couture model who has lost the great love of her life, a famed matador. She finds a new love, who comes with serious complications, and a stalker who wants her all to himself. With both passion and danger, it follows the Aragon family introduced in FIERCE LOVE, and FIERCE PRIDE.

I will be happy to give an ebook copy to someone who comments, and I hope you’ll want to write a review of FIERCE PASSION.

Thanks, Delilah, for letting me visit today and talk about my new book, Cougar’s Courage (Duals and Donovans: the Different, Book 3).

I love world-building. Long before I fell in love with romance novels, I was a fantasy reader, and I loved escaping my little central New York hometown by immersing myself in the lush, vivid exotic worlds of Middle Earth, Pern, Narnia, and more. And of course, since then I’ve become engrossed in many other imaginary worlds. In creating the paranormal Duals and Donovans: the Different series, I looked for inspiration not to the complex mythological realms of  Tolkien and other epic fantasy but to  the nearly real worlds of urban fantasy authors such as Jim Butcher and Patricia Briggs, worlds that might pass for ours…for a few pages, before the weirdness hits again.

I didn’t steal their worlds. But I did shamelessly adopt the notion that little touches of reality highlight the oddity of a dangerous world where magic is part of life and beings out of mythology might just end up either eating dinner with you or eating  you for dinner.

Thus Cara, my heroine in Cougar’s Courage, starts out in the very real city of Toronto. She has a smart phone and isn’t thrilled when it doesn’t work in Couguar-Caché, the mysterious village where she ends up. (Turns out her cell phone coverage stops when she left this dimension. Important safety tip: check your contracts for this detail if you’re planning to plane-hop!) Jack is a shape-shifting cougar Dual who’s also a shaman—not exactly the guy next-door— but he attended Queens University, a very real place where my college roommate did her graduate work. The characters miss Tim Horton’s coffee because they can’t get it easily where they are. Cara’s grandfather is a magical powerhouse…who loves old school Saturday morning cartoons and flannel shirts.

But the real-life details, in the long run, don’t matter as much as real-life emotions. Cara and Jack may have powers most of us lack, and may spend a lot of time in an alternate dimension. But they’re people, if not exactly humans. The most important challenge was to keep their path from uneasy allies to a couple looking forward to Happily (and Crazily) Ever After believable.

I think I succeeded. I hope I also succeeded in making even the most bizarre residents of Couguar-Caché emotionally accessible. Even an ancient nature spirit can mourn a lost lover and regret a disastrous relationship with an evil ex. In this case the evil is on a scale beyond “ran up your credit cards and slept with your best friend” or even “beat you up.” More like “wants to destroy everything you hold dear including the land and has the power to do it.” But the pain of loss is universal, as is anger at being duped and regret for bad decisions that come back to haunt you years (or in this case centuries) later.

Let me know if I succeeded in making the bizarre believable!

Series blurb: Welcome to an America where the non-human Different and magically gifted humans live among ordinary people. Witches are both feared and honored, but shape-shifting Duals are treated as second-class citizens. The Agency, a government agency that’s supposed to monitor illegal uses of magic and Different abilities, has developed its own dangerous agenda. But when Duals and witches join forces, the Agency and other bad guys aren’t going to know what hit them.

And neither are the witches and Duals. Witch magic grows from the positive energy of love and sex–and the only thing better than one Dual is two of them! And then there are shamans, who work their chaotic magic to comfort the afflicted and shake up the comfortable. Once shamans get involved, everything gets weirder…and sexier.

Blurb: Toronto cop Cara Many-Winters Mackenzie is still reeling from her fiancé’s murder when her orderly life takes a turn toward the weird, complete with voices in her head and phantom bleeding wounds.

This violent awakening is the rise of her Different gift—a chaotic, Bugs-Bunny-on-crack magic that she must learn to control before it destroys her. There’s only one place to get help: her mother’s ancestral village, and a mentor who seems to have stepped straight out of the smoke of her erotic dreams.

Cougar Dual Jack Long-Claw reluctantly agrees to take Cara under his wing, though he’d much rather take the beautiful city girl into his bed. As he guides her through a crash course in shamanic magic, sparks fly—some sexy, some snarky. But when an ancient enemy attacks the village, they must work together to hone a magical weapon against certain destruction.

Common sense tells them it’s a terrible time to fall in love. Their spirit guides have other ideas. And shamans who don’t listen to their spirit guides are dead shamans…

Warning: Hot shape-shifting feline hero. Strong but shell-shocked heroine. Snarky, meddling spirit guides. And lots and lots of sex: angry sex, crazy sex, magical sex, and just plain sexy sex.

Amazon US/Amazon UK/Kobo /Barnes & Noble Nook/Samhain

Like the sound of this? I’m running a contest on my own website for a chance to win this book and the first book in the series, Lions’ Pride. Commenting here or at my site enters you. Comment here and there, get two entries.

The winner, chosen by random number generator, is…SR Roddy!

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Sometimes, we writers write what we think others want. Sometimes, we write what we want. DD is the latter. I love fairy tales—the premises of the stories, anyway. I’m usually disappointed in the execution. I want to know how the curse works, what will break it, what it feels like to walk through life with the affliction. And then of course, I can’t help taking my “what if’s” to their sexy conclusions. That’s what Dragon’s Desire is. A big ole game of “What if…?” Hope you enjoy the excerpt!

I’ll post the winner of today’s contest Monday morning!

Post a comment and you’ll be entered to win a free download of this book!

His need becomes a knight’s quest and a virgin’s gift.

An ancient, cursed creature, Drago, Lord of Drakkenberg, dreads the anniversary that marks the moment he must devour a virgin or visit a plague of destruction on the world around him. Once every century, he becomes a dragon…

Only now that his castle has moved to the U.S. in a vain attempt to break the curse, suitably mature virgins are hard to come by. In the midst of his transformation, he sends his loyal knight, Guy D’Alba, in search of a woman during the Renaissance Faire they are hosting.

Guy understands his duty well, but chafes against the curse that binds him in servitude to the dragon.  Until he meets a sweet young reporter who meets his overlord’s requirements—young, blonde and beautiful—and lo and behold, a virgin. But the moment he discovers her fitness, he knows he must relinquish her to Drago or their small mountain community will suffer the dragon’s wrath.

Angela Bowman is smart, young…and a lonely virgin ready to find an adventure. The moment she sees Guy, she falls beneath the spell of his smoldering sensuality. When he asks her to meet Drago, and then produces a blindfold, she finds herself so intrigued she consents.

She’s ready to surrender her innocence—but to which man? The sexy and attentive Guy—or Drago, the mysterious and dominant man she hasn’t yet seen but whose dark aura calls to the woman inside her, yearning to break free?

Ragged wisps of clouds crawled across the face of the full moon, lightening then darkening the barren precipice. Local villagers called it The Dragon’s Atoll. The bürgermeister had given him directions, told him when to begin the climb, warning him the atoll only existed during the full moon before it disappeared for another hundred years.

An hour earlier, the knight had climbed the rocky precipice and now hid behind a stone pillar, sword drawn. He listened to the soft sobs of the girl the villagers had chained to the pillar according to rules handed down for a millennium, or so the elders had said. She was their sacrifice, their gift to the winged demon to pacify its hunger and spare them its wrath.

The knight had silently scoffed at their fear. He didn’t believe in dragons or demons. At least, not mythical beasts. He’d seen enough in his travels to Palestine and back to know evil existed. True evil resided in the hearts of greedy, bloodthirsty men.

Still, the purse filled with gold the villagers offered him to slay the dragon and rid them of their curse convinced him to remain where he was.

“I shall die,” the girl whispered, “savaged by the beast.”

“You will not die,” he whispered, casting her a sideways glance. “’Tis only a tale.”

“You weren’t raised on tales of the horror. Do you think they are only stories told to frighten children?” she said, her voice rising toward the end.

She was a comely thing with golden hair and gentle curves. He’d fought shock and disgust when the old men had cut her clothing from her body to leave her nude. The night was chilly and the sound of her teeth clacking as her body shivered had him reaching for his cloak. If they were bound to wait together, she needn’t freeze.

Come morning, he’d lead her from the mountain and deliver her to her father, the bürgermeister who’d hired him, safe and sound. He stepped around the pillar and bent over to slip the cloak around her.

Instead, she shook her head. “You mustn’t.”

“You are cold.”

“I’ll not be the reason my village suffers.” Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Halloween! I hope you all have your candy ready for the Trick-or-Treeting kids. I live in a rural area—behind a gate. If anyone shows up at our door, we’ll think we’re about to be robbed. So, needless to say, we have to take our own kidlets to Halloween “events” in order for them to have some fun. Hopefully, the strong storms we’re expecting today will be gone by tonight… So, tell me your Halloween plans…

October’s Winner

It’s the 31st, which also means it’s the end of my October contest! I promised one lucky winner a bracelet, one I’d make according to her color preferences. The winner can take a look around my Etsy store to see what I do and then we’ll talk. I’ll make a stretchy bracelet, something she’ll love wearing. But who is our lucky winner?

I chose the blog date and the name of the winner using a random number generator. October’s winner is…Danielle Estes (Oct. 12)! Congratulations, Danielle! I’ll be sending you an email!

New Contest for November

Let’s make this super easy. Since Christmas is just around the corner, I’ll help one reader with her gift budget!

What can you win? An Amazon gift card worth $20!

What do you have to do to win? Simple. Comment on my blog—on any posting, from now thru November 30th! I’ll choose a winner at random from among all the comments. Good luck!