I have news for readers and writers today. It’s a very busy time for me. For you writers, I’ll be back later today with a brand new call for submissions. I have to write it first and run it by my editor, but check back because I have something very HOT and tempting… 🙂

For you readers, I have a new release! Well, unless you bought the self-pubbed anthology Moonstruck, which is no longer available in the e-world. I decided to give the story to Ellora’s Cave to keep all my MIKs in one place. So pretty new cover, newly edited, and here you go. Oh, be warned: I’ve been told this one’s a little freaky.

My Immortal Knight, Book Eight

Melanie Bradshaw is driven to horny desperation by her torrid dreams. When she finally acts on her desires, things go horribly wrong and she witnesses the murder of an overly amorous lounge lizard—whose body disintegrates before her eyes.

Detective Moses Brown isn’t thrilled to get another “full-moon case”…until he meets the delectable Melanie, who took a walk on the wild side straight into vampire territory. Moses doesn’t know why vamps are interested in her, but until he can find out, he’s going to stick to her like glue, doing his best to ignore their instant attraction.

But pretty little Melanie has designs on his body. Her hunger for sex is voracious, even downright insatiable. How’s a brother to resist?

Publisher’s Note: This story was previously self-published under the title She’s All That.

Buy at Ellora’s Cave

You know what I love? Series. Seriously. I’m one of those readers who never wants a book to end with The End. If the story has characters who speak to me, I always hope for another book and then another and another. I was really sad when I realized Meg Cabot’s Mediator series was over at book six. When I finished The Amber Spyglass, the last book in Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy, I went to his website, hoping I was wrong and that there were more. I went into a depression when the Harry Potter series ended for nearly a week. No lie. A real depression because I knew those characters, who had become like family to me, weren’t going to be in my life anymore. The movie releases sort of alleviated that for an extra year or two, but now they’re done too. Sob!

As a result of my love affair for series as a reader, I find myself drifting toward writing series as well. It took me months to write the final book in the Wild Irish series, Any Given Sunday, because I just couldn’t say goodbye to my Collins family. My editor finally put her foot down (God love that woman) and said “Just write the damn book!”

A couple of weeks ago, the last book in the Compass Brothers series, Western Ties came out. I cried for days as I wrote that story. Finally, my hubby looked at me and said, “You know this is fiction, right?” I told him it was still hard because those characters felt SO real to me. Those were some of the toughest scenes I’ve ever written. Plus, on top of leaving the Compton brothers, my collaboration with Jayne Rylon (who is like a sister to me) ended as well. It was a double whammy!

But…my love of series still perseveres! I’m in the midst of some new ones. I’m excited about them so I thought I’d do a bit of shouting here.

I recently finished Misplaced Princess, book one in the Crossed Wires duo, I’m co-writing with Lexxie Couper. They are fun books that take place in New York City and Australia. I’m about to start writing Fix You, the first book in a new series for Samhain called the Second Chances books.

And…last, but not least, the second book in my Cocktales series at Ellora’s Cave, Screwdriver, released yesterday! Woot! It’s a fun series about four friends who own a combination bar/bookstore in Portland called Books and Brew (this is my DREAM business). Each woman runs a different aspect of the business—bartender, bookkeeper/office manager, the marketing/events coordinator, and the bookstore gal.

In the Party Naked, Stephanie Harper receives a parking ticket from hot cop Jarod Nolan and ends up getting way more than a fine. Handcuffs, anyone?

In Screwdriver, Jordan Lance, Books and Brew’s bookkeeper harbors a secret crush on the uber-wealthy and handsome landlord of their building, Gabriel. However when construction worker, Casey comes in to do some work on the store, her attention turns to him…much to Gabriel’s chagrin. How’s a girl to decide? Um…does she really have to?

In Bachelor’s Bait, Sophie Kennedy, marketing/event coordinator for Books and Brew can’t stand Marc Garrett, a free-aid lawyer and do-gooder who rubs her the wrong way. When fate steps in, tossing them together, Sophie’s passionate anger turns to another kind of passion…

In the final book, Screaming Orgasm, Jayne is depressed. She’s watched all her friends meet their Mr. Rights and fall in love. Little does she know, Elias Clark, the unassuming professor who is a regular at the store has had his eye on her for quite a while, but Jayne will find out he’s not at all what he appears to be. Underneath his quiet exterior lurks the Dom who speaks to her submissive heart.

To read more about this series and the others I’ve mentioned, please stop by my website, www.maricarr.com.

Screwdriver, Cocktales, Book Two

When Jordan Lance isn’t pouring over spreadsheets for Books and Brew, she’s fantasizing about the store’s landlord. Too bad she’s squarely in Gabriel’s “just friends” column.Jordan’s prepared to pine forever—until she meets Casey. The handyman is hot, handsome, charming…and Gabriel’s best friend. Suddenly her wicked fantasies are porntastic times two.

Casey has suspected his friend’s interest in Jordan. If he can push them together, he might get Gabriel off the bimbo train he’s been riding. The plan? Jealousy. And it’s working. It’s not long before Gabriel’s deeper feelings for Jordan emerge. Problem is…so do Casey’s. What happens when two friends want the same woman? Red-hot ménage, baby.

Two gorgeous men playing every inch of her body? Um, yes please!Jordandoesn’t know if threesomes are considered acceptable, but she’s sure of one thing—being this bad feels far too good.

Excerpt:

Casey looked closer at the AC unit. “Damn. I was afraid of that.”

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I was hoping it was an issue with the belt, but the motor bearings are shot. I’m going to need to order a part.”

“So it’s not getting fixed today?”

“I’ll see if I can rig a work around for the time being.” He stood and stretched. “God bless it, Jordan. I apologize if this offends you, but it’s hot as hell in here.” Reaching for the hem of his t-shirt, he whipped the thin cotton over his head and fanned himself with it.

Her now-familiar blush returned and Casey felt compelled to prod, to see if his suspicions about Jordan’s underlying naughty side were true. “Just so you know, I absolutely will not be upset if you decide to follow suit and work shirtless for the rest of the afternoon.” Read the rest of this entry »

Visiting Old [Fictional] Friends

I love characters. Characters who are funny, characters who are sweet but try to hide it, characters who have strange quirks and don’t care who knows about it. Plot’s lovely, evocative writing adds a lot to my enjoyment, but if the characters don’t grab me, I won’t enjoy a book.

I think I create pretty good characters. (At least the male ones – I’m still working through my issues with writing female romantic leads, but I’m pretty pleased with Tara, the MC of Shining Armor, due out April 2 from Liquid Silver Books). I love my boys. But I love other people’s boys, too. Do you guys remember S.E. Hinton’s books? I fell in love with the characters from The Outsiders with full pre-teen passion.  When that book was over, I would have happily read about the characters cleaning the house, going to school, watching TV… anything, no plot needed, just so I could get my fix. When there was a mention of them in one of Hinton’s other books (Rumblefish, maybe? Or That was Then, This is Now?) I was like a cat on really good ‘nip. It was perfect – my boys were still okay, and living their fictional lives.

Dark Horse is the first book I ever wrote, the first thing I tried to get published, and I had no idea how long books were supposed to be. So I just wrote. I wrote the main story, the one that’s told in Dark Horse and Out of the Darkness, and then I wrote a lot of little extras, because I wanted to see how my boys were doing. I missed them, and I wanted to visit.

I said I wouldn’t write any more in the series, because I felt like I’d left the boys in a good place, and because I’d already written so damn much!  But then I started thinking about the guys again, wondering if they were okay… and wondering how well they’d stand up to a crisis. Of Dark and Light (due out March 26 from Dreamspinner Press!) is the book that came from me putting them through that crisis.

Traditional fiction is pretty rigid about what constitutes a story: we all know the plot graph from English class, and writers know what publishers are looking for. But the world is changing. Fan fiction, I think, did a lot of this, with writers playing with characters created by others, giving them new adventures and new worlds. But maybe it’s time for original fiction to catch up. With e-publishing, we’re no longer so limited by how much it costs to print a short story, or the challenges of distribution. Maybe e-publishing will lead to authors writing their own time stamps and AUs and all the other fun little fandom traditions.

I’d love to see it, as a reader and as a writer. When I really fall in love with a character, and the book ends, I don’t want the relationship to be over! I know we can’t go steady anymore, but couldn’t we at least have a few reunion dates?

Which books have left you guys with that aching sense of sadness at the end, just because you don’t get to hang out with the characters anymore? Would you like it if your favorite authors wrote little extras with the characters you love, or is your own imagination enough?

Today, I’ll be on the road again. Yeah, when am I supposed to write? I’m headed to the big city of Hot Springs, Arkansas to see a lawyer about a will. My will. Not that I plan to kick the bucket any time soon, but I don’t want to leave my affairs in a mess. I’ll make it simple for my family.

I hope you all are taking advantage of the free book offer (see yesterday’s blog for details). If you’ve downloaded the book and enjoyed it, I’d love for you to “like” and “tag” it, and if you have time, please post a review. Not really that much to ask in return, is it?

So today’s question is purely for fun. Take a leap of imagination. If you had the nerve, the perfect bod, all the planets aligned and you had the opportunity to choose two characters or celebrities that you’d like to have a threesome with, who would you choose?

Here are mine. I expect it would be rough and tumble, a lot of jockeying between these two super heroes for who’d be in charge, but in my fantasy, I’d be the winner. Is it any wonder that Thor and Xena are in my writer’s toybox?

The winner of yesterday’s ONE-DAY-ONLY CONTEST is Lisa Collins!
Lisa, send me an email to let me know which email address you’d like me to send your
free download of All Knight Long to!

No excerpt today. You can sample the entire book! If you’ve never read the 2nd book I ever published, and the 1st book in the My Immortal Knight series, then now’s the perfect time. The book is free for the next two weeks! And even if you already have this book in your Kindle or Nook, get a fresh copy with this gorgeous new cover!

Find it at Ellora’s Cave
Find it at Amazon
Find it at Barnes & Noble

The winner of yesterday’s ONE-DAY-ONLY CONTEST is Trish! Trish, send me an email to let me know which email address you’d like me to send your free download of Relentless to!

I’m driving to Dallas and back, today—a nine hour round trip. I’ll be sure to take my Smart Phone along to check the posts! Enjoy the excerpt, and remember that tomorrow, the first book in this series, All Hallows Heartbreaker will be free!

“Author Delilah Devlin’s My Immortal Knight series is a wonderful group of books that’ll keep the readers anxiously intrigued through out all the series.”
In The Library Reviews

“Ms. Devlin knows how to use her words to draw you into her story. She has created characters that are easy to fall in love with. When you combine her excellent characters with the great plot, this story becomes a must read.”
5 Angels, Fallen Angel Reviews

“Vampires, werewolves, and babies — oh, my! ALL KNIGHT LONG is a sensual and thrilling ride into the world of the paranormal.”
Romance Review Today

A member of an elite police unit sworn to hunt vampires, Joe Garcia’s life is turned upside down when he’s transformed into one. On a quest for a cure, his search brings him to New Orleans in a last ditch effort to recover his humanity.

Professor Lily Carlson, a renowned expert in vampire lore, has a “condition” of her own. Her sexual libido has been in hyper-drive for months. Her only defense is to hide behind her glasses and tweed suits and stay as far away from men as possible. However, she’s thrilled to discover vampires really do exist when Joe shows up on her balcony.

Although Joe deflects her attempts to make him a case study and confirm a few vampire statistics, he is drawn by her powerful allure. When werewolves join the chase and track her through New Orleans, Joe’s cop instincts tell him there’s a mystery to solve. Intent on protecting her, he must seek help from the last vampire on Earth he wants to ask. While his hopes for deliverance from his fate dwindle, Lily’s life is forever altered by an unexpected “inheritance”.

It had taken Joe half an hour and a quarter pint of blood to find her apartment in the long, white two-story stucco building in the center of the French Quarter. The super led him straight to the door, then walked off, his eyes glazed under the influence of Joe’s suggestion he give his wife a tumble.

It took another half an hour to feed from the man who lived in the apartment next to the professor’s until he slept, just so Joe could climb out on his ironwork balcony and make the leap to hers.

Finally, he stood hidden in the shadows while he watched her through lacy curtains, her French doors opened to the sultry night air. With only light from the streetlamp outside to chase away the darkness, Joe could discern every detail of her bedroom. She lay not five feet from him atop pale pink sheets. Naked. Her knees bent, her creamy thighs splayed. So close he could smell her ripening scent.

She was pleasuring herself.
Read the rest of this entry »

The winner of yesterday’s ONE-DAY-ONLY CONTEST is Amy A! Amy, send me an email to let me know which email address you’d like me to send your free download of Love Bites!

Continuing my journey down memory lane, this scene is from Book 4 of the My Immortal Knight series. Enjoy meeting Max, and be looking for All Hallows Heartbreaker, which will be offered for free come Monday!

“RELENTLESS has suspense, intrigue, and surprises that grab your attention and never let you go until the last page.”
5 Stars, Just Erotic Romance Reviews

“A wickedly funny and passionate series, fans of paranormal erotic romance will enjoy RELENTLESS tremendously. Ms Devlin has done it again!”
Romance Reviews

“Her realistic writing of well-packaged vampires and werewolves leaves the reader thirsting for the forbidden and a driving need to be possessed within her erotically charged worlds.”
5 Blue Ribbons, Romance Junkies

To supercop Max Weir, the only good vampire is a dead one. Since his special police unit integrated with vampires, he’s had to suppress his natural hatred to work side-by-side with the undead to hunt down and terminate the deadliest killers. Now the unit is hot on the trail of a new menace in town, a pack of werewolves prowling for vampires, who don’t care whether humans get in their way.

When a stakeout goes awry, Max enters a bar looking for a fight or a woman to help him blow off a little steam. What he finds is a winsome siren who has sexual appetites to match his own.

Vampire Pia D’Amato is on a secret mission to take out Max — either by seduction or by turning him. He’s become a liability to the Masters’ Council setting up jurisdiction in southern Florida, and she isn’t leaving until she’s done the job. But Max is more man than she bargained for and has a deadly secret of his own.

Max pushed through the door of the bar determined that tonight he’d either get shit-faced or fucked. Which, didn’t matter. So long as he could blow off the steam that had been gathering a head since the botched mission hours before. The bar was a regular haunt—only a block from his house. If need be, he could crawl home. The smoky air, the loud grinding music, and the smell of stale beer appealed when he had an axe to grind.

The SU had swept the area for signs of the wolves that killed the vampires before turning on the humans in a mutilating frenzy. Their bloody paw prints led beyond the house to a gravel road where they’d disappeared. The pack had made their getaway in cars. This hadn’t been a roaming band’s target of opportunity, but a takedown.

The grim faces of the vampires telegraphed their worry. He hoped they were shaking in their boots. Not that the thought of a rogue wolf pack wasn’t just as unsettling to Max.

But seeing the cocksure Quentin lose his perpetual smirk was gratifying. Dylan had been grim-faced and pale. Perhaps the bastard saw his own fate in the house.

However, Joe’s silence had been the most telling. He hadn’t looked the least bit surprised.

Max made his way through the tables ringing a small dance floor. The place was nearly empty, save for the men hovering near the bar for the night’s last drinks. The tension in his shoulders knotted tighter. All it would take would be one smart-ass comment. He hungered for an excuse to drive his fist through something.

The crowd parted, and a flash of a slim white ankle snagged his attention. Every trace of anger, bitter regret, and frustration coalesced into a single, burning need.
Read the rest of this entry »