For the next few days, I’ll be sharing posts from His Every Fantasy and the prequel book, Her Only Desire. Today, I just want to play. Well, I’m going to be working at my desk, but I invite you to play. We’re having a scavenger hunt! The winner gets his or her choice of one of these Cross ‘n’ Bones bracelets I’ve made (not the multi-cross one!):

DO NOT POST YOUR ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS HERE! Why would you want to help someone else qualify for the prize, huh?

DO POST HERE SAYING HOW MUCH FUN YOU HAD. Not that I’ll make posting a comment here a requirement to win, but hey, I do like to know whether the things I do here are something you enjoy!

So here are the questions…

1) What is the name of Delilah’s second board among her Pinterest boards? And how many pins has she made?

2) Where does my most recent pin take you? Just give me the name of the website.

3) Which romantic couple do I pay homage to on the home page of my Delilah Devlin website? And what special event of theirs does the video memorialize?

4) What three books are listed on my bookshelf page?

5) Which book on my Coming Soon page do you most look forward to reading?

And that’s it. While you’re visiting my stops, why not follow or subscribe? I do try to think of fun things to encourage you to return. Maybe you’ll discover a passion of your own you have to share.

REMEMBER! Do Not post your answers here! Send them to me PRIVATELY! SEND YOUR ANSWERS TO ME AT: delilah@delilahdevlin.com! I can’t wait to see your answers. Enjoy!

This contest will close on Sunday. So you have plenty of time to play! ~DD

Here’s a sneak peek at Kacey Hammell’s Prank Me…

PRANK ME
Kacey Hammell
Contemporary Erotica
Quickie Short Story
ISBN # 9781419945007
Publisher: Ellora’s Cave

From zero to sixty … no amount of braking will stop this crash course with love.

Race car driver Lark Stevens agrees to help a close friend prove that paybacks can be a bitch. But what she doesn’t expect is to fall in lust with her mark. Or is he who she thinks he is?

Set on her mission, Lark assumes the mystery man who amps up the heat and pushes her heart into overdrive is her intended target. And once they connect, getting even is the last thing on her mind.

As the heat smolders and revs from zero to sixty in mere seconds, Lark realizes she’s on a crash course with love that no amount of braking will stop.

Inside Scoop:  No holds barred sexual teasing, dances meant to titillate and push you over the edge, and M/F love scenes to get engines revving.

Buying Links:
Book Page
 Ellora’s Cave Amazon — US / Canada / UKB&N
Kobo
aRe

Prank Me Excerpt © Kacey Hammell

A Romantica® erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

Lark grinned. So the studmuffin wasn’t used to women who dressed like her. Good. Made it all the more fun to entice them.

“I’m sorry, am I in the wrong office?”

“You’re here to see Bobby, correct?” She knew he was, but didn’t want to give the game away.

“Yes I am.”

“Then you’re in the right place.” She drew open the sides of the belt keeping her jacket closed. Working it apart in deliberate slow motion to heighten anticipation, she again instructed, “Have a seat. I don’t bite.” She smirked. “Unless you ask me to.”

He watched her, eyes bulging as she pushed the material off her shoulders and laid it over Bobby’s desk.

Shock and uncertainty flooded his eyes but was quickly replaced with interest and heat as he took in her scantily clad body.

Good. She liked his full attention on her.

“I’m not sure what’s going on here. Are you Bobby’s secretary?” She opened her mouth to speak but he raised a hand and ushered her to hush. “I’ve never seen a secretary look like you.”

She laughed, ignoring his question about her identity, and winked at him as he sat in the chair in front of Bobby’s desk. “Oh this old thing?” She gestured to her red silk croptop, her black lace bra showing through, and her crimson leather skirt, which was so short her panties would surely show if she bent over. “Just something I threw on this morning.” She moved in front of him and leaned her ass on the desk.

He grinned and stared up at her. “What can I do for you?”

“Oh honey.” She retrieved her cell phone. “Ask not what you can do for me.” She pressed the music button and selected her dance playlist. “But what I can do for you.”

Strains of a bass guitar filled the room and vibrated to her soul, begging her to succumb to the seductive rhythm.

Avid Reader. Romance Author. Redhead…

Canadian-born author Kacey Hammell is definitely a book-a-holic. A romance reader from a young age, she fell in love with happily ever afters.  These days, as a multi-published erotic romance author, she enjoys adding a lot of heat, sass, and emotion to the many genres she writes.

A mom of three, Kacey has made certain each of her children know the value of the written word and the adventures they could escape on by becoming book-a-holics in their own right. She lives her own happily ever after with her perfect hero in Ontario, Canada, and is a true romantic at heart.

Connect with Kacey…

Website / Newsletter / Facebook / Facebook Author Page / Twitter / Amazon / Goodreads / Pinterest / Instagram / Triberr

I can say that. It’s true. I have a book coming out with a major publisher next week, and Amazon won’t give it a pre-order button because the publisher, Hachette, is at war with Amazon. I could care less who wins. I just want readers to find my story. I labored over every word in the 70,0000-word novel. When I search my booklist on Amazon, His Every Fantasy doesn’t even appear, so there’s a double whammy of them hiding the book unless the reader knows the exact title.

So, today, I’m reminding you the book exists—and that it’s releasing in just one week. And that there are other options for purchasing/pre-ordering the story. I’ll be back this weekend to share excerpts and run a special contest to help you remember my book that Amazon doesn’t want you to know about. His Every Fantasy is the sequel to Her Only Desire which released in May. You don’t have to read the first to enjoy the second, but I think you’ll really love the first, so why not start there? 🙂

A Sultry Summer Nights Novel

The last thing ex-SEAL Sergei Gun needs is a complication. As part of a powerful black-ops company, he’s led an extraction team into the Mexican jungle to rescue two men who have been kidnapped. Everything has gone according to plan until Serge discovers a third hostage-an exquisitely beautiful woman with a secret haunting her stormy gray eyes . . . a woman who refuses to make this rescue easy. With no choice but to bring her back to the compound deep in the sultry, steamy Louisiana bayou, Serge vows to protect her, body and soul… 

Kara Nichols never imagined that she’d capture the interest of a powerful man like Serge. Yet from the moment they met, she’s fantasized about his strong hands caressing her naked skin, his musky scent lingering on her sheets. What began as a simple rescue mission ignites into a passionate affair. As Serge teaches her the tantalizing art of surrender, Kara finds herself more than willing to shed every last one of her inhibitions and submit to him fully. But the dark, dangerous forces that captured Kara aren’t ready to let her go so easily… 

Pre-order at Barnes & Noble
Pre-order at Books-A-Million

* * * * *

So, I did promise a question…

I quite smoking a week ago. I still want a cig every time the phone rings (I always stepped outside to take my calls). And it’s been hard concentrating on work because every time I reached a place where my brain ran out of story, I’d find another scene while staring at smoke rings.

Have you ever had to give up something you loved
because it was bad for you? How did you do it?

When deciding what to write next, I consult one of my many voices to see who has the most to say and is the loudest in my head. Once I have that character, I have them gather the rest of the cast and crew together and then my kick ass hero(s) have to whoop some ass to get the rest of the voices to settle down and wait their turn. If he didn’t ride herd on them, I’d never be able to hear my hero and the others tell me what to write.

Lately the voices have been pulling me in a different direction that has me a little worried. I love writing just about any subject except pure inspirational or what some call chick lit. I’m also not very good at young adult. Just about anything else is fair game. The problem I’m finding with the way the characters have me leaning is that some of it is much darker than what I’m writing right now. All of my books have, had, and always will have happy endings, but some of these stories follow hard journeys to get them where they need to be.

I can’t help but wonder what readers think about books like this. Do they like them or hate them. Do they enjoy one every once in a while, but prefer the lighter ones? I think that there is a group of readers who enjoy them from the huge amount of biker and cage fighting books I’m seeing rise to the top of the top seller lists, but is it something I want to write?

What are your favorite type of books, the light hearted ones, the ones with a little suspense or angst written in, or the ones where the characters are tortured and look as if they will never be able to get together but finally do? It takes all kinds of writers to meet the needs of readers out there, but it takes all types of readers to support some of the niche writers too. How far from your favorite type of book do you explore when looking for something different? Will you go out of your normal comfort zone to try something or do you stick with what you like and that’s it?

I look at it like a favorite restaurant. Do you try different dishes all the time or do you get the same exact one every time you eat there? Maybe you choose something different every third time you go, or maybe you try something from someone else’s plate to see if you might like to try it for yourself. I think readers do that, too. When they want to try something new but don’t want to buy it in case they didn’t like it, they sometimes borrow a friend’s book or browse the Amazon free books to see what is out there.

When the voices tell me to write, I write. But sometimes, what I write ends up sitting on a jump drive until I have the courage to bring it out and find a place it will fit. Sometimes, it never sees the light of day. If I try to ignore the strongest voices in my head to strain to hear the ones I want to listen to, they wait for me to fall asleep and torture me in my dreams. Sometimes, they just keep me awake and wear me down until I give in and write their story.

Regardless of who wins or cheats to be heard, I have to write. I have to get them out of my head and onto the paper. Going more than a couple of days without doing that will have me climbing the walls and banging my head against them in an effort to shut those pesky characters up long enough for me to get back to the computer. Writing for me is like good drugs for someone with a personality disorder. They help me tell the difference between the ones to listen to and the ones to ignore.

www.marlamonroe.com
Follow her on Twitter   @MarlaMonroe1
Facebook www.facebook.com/marla.monroe.7
You can find her books at https://www.bookstrand.com/marla-monroe
Or at Amazon    https://amzn.to/1o3gqq6

Between 2002 and 2008, I was highly involved in Romance Writers of America (RWA). For few years, I was on the local chapter board and served as the events coordinator for a couple of those. I loved my monthly meetings and the connections and relationships it fostered. And friendships. I went to our local biannual retreat and attended multiple nation conferences, traveling across the country to Dallas, Denver, Reno, New York, Atlanta, San Francisco.

I participated in online chapters, which were still just getting off the ground, and in 2007 I was part of the group of dedicated and talented ladies who founded Passionate Ink and coordinated out first ever chapter event at the Atlanta Aquarium during conference that year. For those who don’t know, Passionate Ink is RWA’s erotic romance chapter, and getting acceptance all those years ago was no easy feat.

I was part of the ‘rising’ crowd, I think <grin>, having scored a top notch agent, made sales to multiple traditional publishers, sold rights overseas, had books get book club selections. I didn’t need to pitch books or ideas since I had an agent to do that for me and books under contract already, so that freed me up to just learn and have fun. I sipped cocktails and giggled with coveted editors, I danced after the Rita’s with them, too. I had a great time at the conferences and thought my career was on cloud nine.

And then, in the fall of 2007 the bottom fell out on my world. I should have seen it coming. Actually, I should have made it happen half a decade sooner. My marriage had been bad for years, but I suffered in silence, keeping that part of my life a secret. I never thought I’d have the courage to leave my ex-husband and I was resigned to a life of sadness and loneliness. I may have suffered, but my characters did not. All the pain and anguish and emotion, I felt over years of a bad marriage was poured into my books.

But in the fall of 2007 my ex-husband acted out against my oldest child. I was resigned to being a wife in this life, I was not resigned to being a mother in it, too. I left him, but the next few years weren’t easy. I could write an entire blog post about the following years, hell, I could write a book about them, but this post isn’t about my personal life, it’s about my experiences with RWA.

Over the next year, I tried to hang onto my RWA friendships and relationships. I tried to write through my suffering, finished out what remained on my contracts, and attended conference in July 2008, but writing was already taking a back burner by then. Life was messy and complicated and difficult.

Months slipped into years. Six of them, actually. During those six years, I found my joy again. Lost weight, found a day job, met an amazing man, had a new baby, went back to college, and though characters drifted by to say hello, I didn’t have any stories scratching to be set free. I thought I’d lost the need to write and since I was happy, I didn’t need to pour my sorrow out on the page. But I missed the relationships and friendships. I missed the feeling of a story burning to be written. I missed the feeling and elation of writing ‘The End’.

In the spring of 2013, I began to write again. I self-published a few stories and did fairly well navigating a brand new world of writing and publishing. We’re in a new time and so much has changed since I quietly backed away from writing and publishing. In 2007 erotic romance was seen as the red-headed step-child, but now those hot stories are mainstream and bestsellers. Small presses and self-publishing was frowned upon. But now Amazon rules the market.

So this year, I decided to venture back into the world I’d been so deeply rooted in, so in love with, so involved with. This year, I went to San Antonio to Romance Writers of America’s national conference.

It was exactly how I remembered. But everything was different. Girlfriends I had before who were just starting their careers when I was are now super stars in this industry, or they’re gone, not having the thick skin needed to sustain.  And there are so many new faces.

I felt brand new. I knew what to expect, how to navigate a conference, but the people had changed, attitudes about publishing had changed, acceptance of my genre had changed. I was in a weird space. I am an award winning multi-published author, and yet, I am a nobody. I belonged there, but didn’t feel like I belonged. It was a strange feeling. I’ve been home for a few days now and it’s still surreal.

So much about RWA is the same. The same amazing classes, the same authors using classes to self-promote, the same talented speakers, the same giving agents, and sought-after editors. I saw them all, recognized them, but doubted that they remembered me. Some I had partied with, drank and danced with, but  right now, right this minute, I am a newbie and not in the ‘in crowd’.

What’s different now is that I have confidence in my ability to write. I know I belong in this world. Whereas before, I was scared and insecure, I am now a confident woman sure of what I want and what I want to is to be back in the loving arms of Romance Writers of America. This is the world in which I belong. Sure, I adore the control of self-publishing and admire those doing it full time and on their own, but I yearn for my old friendships and relationships born from my time involved with RWA.

So while everything remains the same, everything is also different. And I am going to EMBRACE those differences!

Hello RWA and readers. Get ready, because I’m BACK!

~Renee Luke

For those of you who don’t know, I have interests other than writing my own stories. Years ago, my sister and I decided we wanted to do something to share what we’d learned about the writing biz because we’d bumped along the hard way without much support. The publishing industry is cruel enough. Why not offer writers a place where they can hone their skills before they enter the fray? Why not give them a safe place to ask questions and make friends?

I came up with the name “Rose’s Colored Glasses.” Rose was a morphing of my sister and I. She wore large rose-colored glasses, through which she saw the stories living inside her mind come to life. Our mother drew the cartoon character of Rose; sis developed a website, and we invited some of our closest friends to join us.

We offer online courses, some of them for free, but all at very reasonable prices. We travel to writing groups and provide in-person plotting bootcamps. We host and organize an online critique group.

In September, we will start our next interactive, online, at-your-own-pace Plotting Bootcamp—a month-long endeavor that is so popular, we have many writers return again and again to plot their next novels. It doesn’t matter whether you are a seasoned author or a newbie without a clue where to start, you will find value in our process!

What you can expect:
PREMISE  Pushups
LOGLINE Lunges
CHARACTER Strengthening exercises
CONFLICT! CONFLICT! CONFLICT!
Breaking through the STORY STRUCTURE stronghold
Battling the PLOT LINES

We do more in one month than some people do all year!
Get tough! Get motivated! Get Plotting!

Join your Drill Instructors, Elle James and Delilah Devlin to learn a methodical approach to harness your creativity in order to produce an in-depth plot for your next novel.

Sound scary? It is!!!! Especially when you’re staring at an empty page without a compass and a map to guide you through the novelistic jungle. Your DIs will lead you through four weeks of tactics, exercises and training that will help strengthen your abilities. Elle and Delilah will accomplish this with weekly lessons, bi-weekly chats and daily online communication.

Join us for bivouac in September—now that the kids are back in school! We will be leading a month-long plotting bootcamp. How’s our workshop different from every other one out there? We provide feedback and brainstorming every step of the way.

Here’s a description of the class. It’s a great time to join, especially if you plan to do NaNoWriMo in November.

Your DIs (Drill Instructors): Elle James and Delilah Devlin
Dates: Sept 1-28
Cost: $45.00—cheap, considering everything you get!

What can you look forward to during Plotting Bootcamp? Learn a methodical approach to harness your creativity in order to produce an in-depth plot for your next novel! Sound scary? It is-when you’re staring at an empty page without a compass and a map to guide you through the novelistic jungle. Your DIs will lead you through four weeks of activities that will help strengthen your abilities to: capture the conflicts, the major plot line and subplots; deepen your knowledge of your characters; and conceive of and develop an in-depth, by-chapter description of your book. Elle and Delilah will accomplish this with weekly lessons, bi-weekly chats and daily online communication. Be ready for bivouac!

Interested? Follow this link to sign up: Rose’s Plotting Bootcamp

One of my earliest memories is of a plane ride. I remember being very small, looking out the windows into bright sunlight on the way to Jamaica. My family is Jamaican, and so I was well into adulthood before I realized how different that travel memory was from those of my friends who’ve been to the island. They described a kind of party atmosphere on the plane and at the airport, a merriment rising from lots of honeymooners and tourists getting ready to start an island adventure. When I finally flew into Montego Bay, I understood what they were talking about.

All this time I’d been flying into Kingston. For my family, there was still the experience of joy, but without all the fanfare that goes with Montego Bay. Traveling into Kingston means you’re traveling like the locals.

Even without the luxury, though, I love vacationing in Jamaica’s local authenticity for a few great reasons.

1. The food’s fantastic. I’ve never been to one of those all-inclusive resorts, so I can’t speak to what the food there is like. I can tell you, however, that the meals I’ve had in some of the island’s roadside stops are some of the best I’ve ever eaten. Delicious doesn’t begin to describe the freshness of ingredients that were literally growing on trees earlier that day. Breadfruit roasted in its husk. A mango’s slippery golden flesh. Fluffy yellow ackee, mixed with slivers of saltfish and rich green callaloo. I could write about it all day if it weren’t already making me hungry.

2. The scenery’s breathtaking. On my last trip, my family took a day trip to the riverside. We spent an afternoon wading in cool water so clear I could see the tiny stones of the riverbed, and we watched a little group of elderly gentlemen playing dominoes on a tree stump. Later that week, I watched waves crashing against rocky cliffs at my uncle’s place, where the sea was a dark sapphire blue. And one night, from the hilltop near yet another uncle’s home, I looked over the water at Cuba’s city lights, as they flickered out in one of the neighboring island’s frequent blackouts.

3. Diversity. Remember the Volkswagen ad from a couple of Super Bowls ago? The one with the white guy speaking to his coworkers in the Jamaican accent? I remember shaking my head over the controversy that briefly surrounded that ad. So many people took offense at the idea that a white person would dare to take up a Jamaican accent, when the reality is that the island is home to many, many white Jamaicans. The island’s motto — out of many, one people — is very much alive on Jamaica. Jamaicans from Great Britain, India, China, and locations all over the world have contributed to the island’s inimitable mix of cultures for hundreds of years.

I’ve been fortunate to see the Jamaica that lies outside the resorts, and I’m hoping to share a little peek at it with Turnabout Day. In just a few pages, you’ll get to visit a sugarcane estate, have a taste of Jamaican cuisine, and meet a hot Scot who left Jamaica after a period of indentured servitude. The story might be set in a Jamaica that never was, but I think it’s true to a Jamaica that’s very real and not so far away.

In the story, sugarcane heiress Chloe Newton said goodbye to indentured servant Peter Darrow with her first kiss, on a hillside one long-ago summer night as mechanized cane cutters worked the fields below them. Now Peter’s returned, no longer a boy and no one’s servant, to take charge of the fleet of machines that work Chloe’s estate. On Turnabout Day, Chloe takes on the uniform and duties of a maid, and she seeks the courage to offer Peter more than a celebratory drink. By giving in to his commands, she’ll surrender to his need and become mistress of her own desire.

Here’s just a touch of the action:

 “Listen to me, Chloe,” he whispered before releasing her hand. “I won’t be like those rich boys you’re used to. I won’t treat you as if you’re made of glass.”

His promise, his desire-laden voice, made all her empty places ache, and she sighed. He slid his hands down her bare arms.

“Tonight, you must do as I say, love. You must do anything I say. Is that what you want, Chloe?”

She flattened her hand against his chest. “What do you think?”

He leaned down toward her, moving with a torturous slowness, and she pressed her lips to his. Her skin burned where it met his. The smooth, soft surface of his generous mouth teased her. Need erupted in her, and she fought the desire to wrap her arms around him.

He pulled away from her. “Chloe, kiss me. Kiss me.”

She pulled him to her and kissed him hard, the way she’d wanted other men to kiss her. She locked her mouth to his, but she’d only begun to ease his mouth open when he parted his lips for her. Then he took control, his tongue eagerly taking possession of her mouth.

Oh, yes. Yes!

Turnabout Day arrives at Musa Publishing today; pick it up for a short trip into Jamaica’s alternate history! And be sure to catch up with me on Facebook, on my website, or on Lady Smut every Sunday morning. I’d love to hear from you!

The buy link:
https://musapublishing.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=808
My Facebook page: www.facebook.com/alexajday
The website: www.alexajday.com
Lady Smut: www.ladysmut.com