I’ve gotten a string of fantastic reviews for Begging For It. I want to share them in case you’ve been on the fence about the story or didn’t know that it’s out there. Here are some review snippets, and following them is an excerpt. A dirty one, so be sure to be alone when read it! Cross gives over control to TJ—but that doesn’t last long! 🙂

“This was the most gripping, emotionally charged sexy foray into BDSM (heavy on the S&M) I’ve ever read. If you are a reader who thinks there could never be pain with pleasure, then this story will change your mind…in the end, you’ll be so gripped by the brilliance of Ms. Devlin’s storytelling abilities, that the final pages will twist your guts in knots. I breathed with both Cross and TJ. I ached with them. And when it was over, I couldn’t stop thinking about them.” A “10” for Story, Seriously Reviewed

“…I absolutely loved this book… With these two dynamic characters, the emotional pull of this story was outstanding… Emotions ran the gamut and reached out to draw you in.” 5 Stars and Top Pick!, Night Owl Reviews

“…This story is an emotional rollercoaster that will make you laugh, cry, and overheat… Devlin weaves an enthralling tale… It’s a novella that’s impossible to put down, a definite gem worth reading again and again.” 5 Hearts, The Romance Studio

“…Delilah Devlin is at her finest with BEGGING FOR IT!… It is heartbreaking but real. Yes this is a very hot erotic novella but the story really spoke to me… BEGGING FOR IT is outrageous and perfectly delicious!” Joyfully Reviewed

What the story’s about…

She needs punishment…before she deserves pleasure.

Tragedy scarred TJ Lipton. Now, the only way she can find pleasure is when its delivered with a heavy-handed dose of S&M. But finding a lover who can give her what she needs proves an elusive quest—until she finds the sex club Unfettered and a Dom named Cross McNally.

Cross understands all too well what drives TJ. He takes command of her body to give her everything she needs—restraint, the stinging kiss of a flogger, the thrill of a three-way—a sexual adventure that pulls her beyond her painful past and has her begging for more of his tender brand of domination.

She released him and sat back, wiping a hand across her mouth as she looked up.

His eyes were narrowed slits. Skin stretched taut around his square jaw.

TJ backed away and stood, quickly stripping off her clothes until she was nude as well and panting with excitement.

“What do you want, baby?” he asked with another slow up and down glide.
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After spending a very pleasant time in Des Moines (I’ll post tattoo pics another day!), we headed home again. Next destination: The Crescent Inn Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. It’s one of the most haunted places in America. Ghosthunters episode #13 was filmed there.

Wierd things happened even before we arrived. The Crescent lies in the Ozark Mountains and sits on the crest of a hill. We had the address plugged into the Garmin. The GPS worked fine the whole trip, up until the point when it took us up a goat trail of a narrow, gravel road. Halfway up the rutted trail, we met a Hummer. There really was only room for the Hummer, so he had to climb a hill while we squeezed by with our wheels on the edge of the trail. It was a nail-biter staring down the long drop into the ravine.

This is the Crescent Inn Hotel. Built in the 1800’s, it’s had many lives—as a resort hotel for the rich, as a school for girls, a cancer treatment-torture facility, and again as a hotel.

This is our room and the very first picture where creepy things happened. I have a very good little Cannon camera that takes crisp, clear pictures. I took hundreds of pictures on this trip and this is the first one that’s blurred this way. But here, you can make out a shadow. Do you see the outline of a head and shoulder? As it turns out, our room has a ghost that plays outside the door. A child died from a fall and is “seen” playing and “heard” to say “It’s not fair!” when he sees people dressed comfortably because he hated his own fussy clothing.

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Where to begin?! I’ve just come off the most unproductive three months I’ve had in forever! My ability to shut out “the noise” around me has been compromised. Until this week, I seriously considered renting a cabin somewhere away from family and the Internet to get some work done. But things do change.

This week, I received acceptance for a short story I wrote entitled Drive Me Crazy for Cleis Press’s Best Erotic Romance of 2012.

I put together the After Midnight Authors Fantasies newsletter and published that.

I completed the draft of a new lesbian vampire story that will accompany a story by Paisley Smith for a two book anthology that Ellora’s Cave will publish! (Long enough sentence for you?!) I’ll be sending it to the editor today!

What else? My daughter was married in the swimming pool on a day where the weather crested 100 degrees. Most fun I’ve had in a while!

The Six-Year-Old turned seven, so she had her choice of favorite things to do that day. McDonald’s was part of the list. Bleh.

I spent a day painting a room for my grandmother’s newly converted garage suite.

And there you go—my week in a nut shell. I’m hoping things will continue to hum along this next week, writing-wise. I have a new book and a new short story to start. Do y’all have any ideas for a 1500-word lesbian short story? Yeah, I can’t come up with anything other than a coffee break in that short a space.

The Book Dragon Contest continues!
Be sure to check out my Contest page for details! ~DD

In Ravished by a Viking, most of the story takes place either on the ice-bound planet of New Iceland or aboard the starship Proteus. Unusal enough, right? Wait until the sequel when Dagr’s brother Eirik fights his way off the planet Helios. I’ll share snippets from Enslaved by a Viking soon!

“A steamy and fascinating adventure…” Romance Reviews Today

“Clash of cultures, clash of myths, clash of powerful personalities…how many authors can bring out on paper the excitement and more-than-willing suspension of disbelief that old fashioned adventure stories once brought us?…a wonderful, action-packed, emotional roller-coaster of a read.” Alien Places

“With the intriguing meshing of the past with the future this was an engrossing read…”
Top Pick!, Night Owl Reviews

What a Viking wants, a Viking takes.

When his younger brother goes missing, Dagr, Viking warrior and Lord of the Wolfskin Clan, will do whatever it takes to get him back. But nothing could have prepared him for Honora—a feisty, intelligent woman who is nothing like the women of his world—women who are content to serve their men in all things. Drawn to her despite her recalcitrant nature, Dagr is determined to show her who’s boss both in bed and out.

When the two enemies-turned-lovers join forces to find Dagr’s brother they are thrown into a rousing adventure full of danger, intrigue and erotic abandon. Can their passion truly unite them or will their different worlds lead to destruction for them both

The journey to Skuldelev passed in silence. Strapped into the back seat of a small, two-man snow-eater, she watched the endless drifts of white, stirred only by the shifting winds and blowing toward the frozen sea that bordered the lowlands they crossed. In the distance, the jagged peaks of the Keel Mountains sawed into the face of Sunni, the sun goddess, stretching the shadows of night to cloak the mountains and the city fortress of Skuldelev at its base.

Birget straightened to peer over Dagr’s shoulder at the city few Bearshirts had ever willingly entered. Where her own fortress stood as evidence of strength and precision, the keep rising several stories high, Skuldelev stretched like a lazy dragon resting across the top of the foothills. The fortress wall hugged the contours, turrets spiking like ridges on the beast’s back. Even the great, gated entrance gave the appearance of a dragon’s large, crenellated head with its mouth gaping.
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I’m soooooo wiped out. Too much happening on the homefront. Yesterday, it was the Red-Headed Hellion’s wedding. Today, it was painting grandma’s newly converted garage suite. I hurt all over and need a week’s sleep. So, you’re lucky I showed up to play at all. 😥

Here’s the question…

If you had to choose your own epitath of eight words
or fewer, what would it say?

I know I’m getting the photos of my trip up slowly, but my life’s crazy busy. The 6-year-old had a birthday party yesterday, so she’s no longer “the six-year-old”, and she had a list of favorite things she wanted to do: get a manicure with the girls, eat at McDonalds, and swim in the moonlight. Today, there’s the Red-Headed Hellion’s wedding to get through.

I still have pics to share, as well as some spooky happenings to relate. Wait until you see what my camera caught! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, which I did when I posted about Powell Gardens and Joplin, Mo.

What makes a good journey?

Great travel companions who are as eager to explore as you are.

Coffee. Lots of it. We didn’t even make it out of our own home town without stopping for breakfast and getting two to-go cups to take with us!

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TAM LIN AND THE ORIGINS OF
THE SURRENDER OF LADY JANE

or “Where I Didn’t Get My Ideas From”

by Marissa Day

All things considered, traditional ballads and broadsheet songs are not a fertile source for good Romance. Seriously. If you are a hero or a heroine in, say, a Child ballad, your odds of successfully achieving the Happily Ever After are really, really small. You’re far more likely to be betrayed by your lady love over a very small misunderstanding, which will cause you to die of a broken heart (Barbara Allen). Better yet, she could kill you herself over a badly timed joke and have her servants throw you in the backyard well (Proud Lady Margaret). On the heroine’s side, you could be accidently shot because your lover turns out to have bad eyesight and you’ve got an unusually large apron (Polly Von), or the guy you thought was going to marry you could show up already married to another woman, after which she kills you, which causes him to kill her follows that up with his public suicide at the wedding feast (Fair Ellen). Alternately, you could elope with a guy who turns out to be a serial killer and have to chuck him in the ocean and then talk your parrot into not ratting you out (The Outlandish Knight).

Mothers are particularly hazardous to your Trad. Ballad couple. Your mother could leave your true love out in the cold (The Lass of Roch Royal), or you could get the double whammy where your mother curses you, and then the heroine’s mother leaves you out in the cold (The Drowned Lovers). Fathers aren’t any good either. They tend to do things like follow up the arrangement an advantageous marriage for you by trying to perform a public confirmation of your virginity, forcing you to either die of embarrassment or turn into a tree (The Arbutus). For an exciting variation, there’s the possibility that your husband will murder both your shapeshifting lover and your son (The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry), or you could just get murdered by your jealous brunette of a sister on general principles (The Twa Sisters).

Of course, this is not a problem limited to the Scottish and British ballads. Do not even get me started on the dope slap needed by all the players in the traditional Appalachian ballad “The Long, Black Veil.” I’m telling you, it is just not a grand ballroom of glamour and romance out there.

And yet, it was a traditional Ballad that furnished me with the basics for THE SURRENDER OF LADY JANE. The ballad was “Tam Lin.”
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