Well, I finally wrapped up the next installment of Cat Tails: Bad Moon Rising. It’s making it’s way through my critique group this weekend. Once they redline the crap out of it (I slammed it, so I’m sure I have tons of typos), I’ll ship it to my webmistress for her to format it and put a link to it on my Free Story page. So, if you haven’t already read chapters one through three, you might want to head over there now to catch up! Chapter four is sexy and all about DiDi and Mason, so those of you who were a little worried that Bobby S might turn her head…well, not this time around. 😉

Did I mention how hard it is to write a serialized story? Especially an erotic one? I have to keep my audience in mind, which means I have to figure out ways for DiDi to find herself without her clothes with some hot guy every single chapter. And except for chapter one which introduced the characters, I’ve managed it. I’ll be looking for your help to plot the next installment, like always (this is your story!), so keep the need for it to be as erotic as hell in mind when I put out the call for what happens next. If you’re new to how we’ve been working on this together, you might want to check out what the readers have helped me decide so far:
Cat Tails Plotting Posts

Here’s an unedited snippet. So forgive any typos, choppiness, whatever. Enjoy!

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“DiDi, do you want me to kiss you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Please, or hell, I’ll just ramble on and reveal some really embarrassing things because I was just working my way up to—“

His mouth landed on hers.

She hadn’t known it, but she’d been as tight as a bow until he’d taken the initiative. Immediately, her body went boneless, relaxing as his arms surrounded her, taking responsibility for holding her upright.

His lips opened. She sighed into his mouth, then thrust her tongue inside, licking the edges of his teeth, stroking over his tongue, while his mouth suctioned, pulling her arousal into near frenzy.

She broke the kiss and rested her forehead against his. “You won’t make me wait, will you?”

“Do you know any speed but fast?”

With a choked laugh, she shook her head. “It’s your own damn fault.”

Chuckling, he laid her on the blanket. Then resting on one elbow beside her, he slid one thigh sliding over both of hers. His hand dove beneath her blouse, sliding over her ribs. Fingers tucked beneath her bra to caress her breast, pinching the tip and pulling. She felt the tug all the way to her pussy.

“Take them off,” she rasped. “My clothes. Too many.”

His mouth glided over her cheek, and he nuzzled into her hair. “Do you want to move inside the house?”

“Who’s gonna see? The cats?”

The sound he made, a near perfect, animalistic growl, should have alarmed her, but the tension in his shoulders, and the thickness of his sex rubbing against her hip, sent her own arousal soaring. “Now,” she said. “Fuck me right here.”

Mason pushed up quickly beside her. She sat and thrust up her arms for him to tug off her shirt. Then she reached behind her for the snap of her bra, watching as his fingers flew down the row of buttons on his own shirt. He tossed it to the side, rucked up his white tee, then reached for his belt.

“Not fast enough,” she breathed, eyeing his chest. She pulled off her shoes, opened her pants and wriggled on the hard wood, shoving them off her hips.

His pants were already shed, and he grabbed the ends of hers and ripped them the rest of the way off.

Panting hard, her belly tight, her pussy wet and pulsing, she opened her legs and reached for him.

He knelt between her legs, slipped his hands beneath her buttocks and tilted her to receive his first, forceful thrust.

They both groaned as he entered her. “Fuck, that’s good.” “Move, just move.”

Their voices blended. Soft, short murmurs. More praise than instruction. Already, they knew what the other liked.

“I am tough, ambitious, and I know what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay. I can throw a fit, I am a master at it.” Madonna

I promised pictures from Romanticon today, but I think I will have to wait until Saturday. I’ve been struggling to master all the changes going on in my life and make my daily page count. Monday through Friday, I’m babysitting little ones for my daughter. So, my work schedule has to be crammed into nap times. (Did I mention that my daughter and her two children moved in with me?)

Good news is, I did make progress yesterday—on both the Viking story and the next Cat Tails installment. I should have chapter four of Bad Moon Rising ready to go by the weekend. I know some of you have been eager to see what happens next to DiDi and Mason.

I chose Madonna’s quote today, because it resonates with me right now. It’s Thursday. I’ve been feeling my way through a workable writing schedule all week. I’ve had to really focus on what’s most important right now. Kids first, of course. But for those spare moments, pages! And based on what I wrote yesterday, very sexy pages. My Valkyrie girl is learning what it is to love someone and learning how to receive pleasure from a man. Yummy stuff!

Anyway, I bet you want to know who won yesterdays’ contests. I’ll have to wait to hear from Taige to see who her winner is, and I’ll make sure she posts the name in the commments on her post. My winner from the Access Romance contest is…Patricia K [horseunicornkey@aol.com]!

Back to being a bitch. Hoo-ah!

Two prizes will be awarded today!
See Taige’s prize below and be sure to post a comment here.
Then head to Access Romance for another contest and another chance to win!

Because I love it
By Taige Crenshaw

A conversation that I’ve had a few times in the past and more recently got me to thinking. A lot of blood, sweat, time, sleepless nights and tears go into anything that you love. Whether it is sewing that fabulous outfit, painting a picture, crocheting a throw or any other number of things you do. With each it takes all of what I mentioned above on my your to get to that finished point. It is the same with being a writer. Let me break it down.

Blood – I’ve typed so hard that I’ve left blood on the keyboard or gotten paper cuts while reading through pages of my manuscript. Hey paper cuts hurt something awful. (grin). I put my figurative blood into each book I write. My heart and soul are on each page.

Sweat – I’ve broken into lots of sweat as I pounded away at the keyboard trying to get a scene just right. Talked with a reader which I love to do. Since I am shy this is the hardest for me. Hush those who know me that are laughing. I am shy, just not with those I know and am comfortable with. But I digress. I’ve sweated about a variety of things. Waiting anxiously to hear back on a submission. Edits for my book. Opened a review of my book.

Time – The amount of time spent with writing the book, doing self editing, then again self editing, crit partner editing, your editing again and then off to publisher who you will have to wait for a response. And if you get that all lovely response of “yes” then even more waiting to get to the process. When in the process even more waiting to get through the process. Then after process even more waiting to actual release. Then release then more waiting to see what people think. Whew I am tired of even imagining the time. Yet each moment is worth it. So worth it all.

Sleepless night – The idea in your brain that will not understand that you are sleeping that forces you out of bed in search of paper to write it down. The book you are writing that will not let you rest until that last scene is just so or that last word is complete. The excitement of a new project. The wait for the submission that you sent. Or waiting for a note/call from your editor on something.

Tears – Oh the tears I have cried as I write a scene in a book or read a letter from a reader who actually got the story as intended. The awesome review that said that one phrase that made you smile that the story did as you intended it to do. The bad review that even though they didn’t like the story there was something constructive in it that you took away for future reference. The tears of completion that you finished the story and it was written to the best you could get it. The tears of relief for the contract that you went after or publisher you wanted that story to be with. The tears of making hard choices that will be best for your career.

I could go on and on with a list of what all the things above mean in correlation to writing. I’ve been asked many times why do I write. My quick response is “it’s in my blood, soul and heart”. The more complex one is “because the blood, sweat, time, sleepless nights and tears go into it because I love it.” I get lots of confused looks when I give the complex one so I usually give the simple explanation. With the complex response I’ve never tried to articulate what I meant until now. There are so many layers to it all. So much to say. If you think about it all those points cover many things you do in your life. I have many creative outlets that I pursue. I draw, love to sew, do crafts and cook. Each are things I love and that I want to be my best at.

No matter what you are pursuing. The things that you put your heart into – that you bleed for – figuratively and in reality. The things that bring you closer to people you would never have expected to have anything in common with. Things that may, take time away from family and friends. What you sweat over because you want it to be you upmost best and create a reaction – good or bad. The nights you cannot sleep because your thoughts are consumed with whatever project you are working on. Or the wonder when it is seen by the world and how will they react. The tears you shed to get there, between going there and as you get there. Each tear has a purpose to make you go forward. They each make you learn and grow.

In each thing you do that involves blood, sweat, time, sleepless nights and tears none of it matters because it all boils down to one thing. You do it because you love it.

CONTEST: One commenter will win a chance to choose one pdf download of any one book from my available e-book backlist.

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Taige Crenshaw is a multi-published author with books available at Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Liquid Silver Books, Loose Id, and Total-E-Bound. Taige has been enthralled with the written word from time she picked up her first book. It wasn’t long before she started to make up her own tales of romance. With novels set in today, in alternate dimensions, or in the future she writes with adventure, fun sassy heroine’s, and sexy hero’s. Always hard at work creating new and exciting places Taige can be found curled up with a hot novel with exciting characters when she is not creating her own. Join her in the fun, frolic, interesting people and far reaches of the world in her novels. You can find out more about Taige at her website: https://www.taigecrenshaw.com or blog: https://www.taigecrenshaw.com/blog.

Wilde Seduction – What happens when a woman who doesn’t know how to relax meets a man whose lust for life will change her and make all her deepest desires come to life?

Buy here at Total-E-Bound

…when you’d rather get a good night’s sleep than party all night.

…when you have the urge to burp a cover model. (Okay, so I never had the urge to do that!)

I could go on, but you get the idea. I’m back. And wanting to sleep for a week. I had a wonderful time, catching up with old friends, meeting new ones, and watching the antics of those naughty cover boys. Mmm-mm.

I have pictures, but I haven’t had a chance to download them yet. I came home to computer issues I still haven’t resolved. And I have a ton of laundry to start. God, I really do sound old now. I’d rather talk about my dirty Mickey Mouse PJs than Shayla Kersten’s lap dance. Did she tell you? Ha! I have the pics to prove it!

On Thursday, I’ll upload some of that blackmail material, talk about seeing old friends (Cerise DeLand, Desiree Holt and Allie Standifer) and all the new friends I made (Regina Carlysle, Nicole Austen, Maggie, Jen and more!). But in the meantime, I do have laundry to do! It’s good to be home.

(My T-shirt contest is still running. See Saturday’s post for details! ~DD)

Role Reversal
By Vivi Andrews

Thank you, Delilah, for letting me visit today!

Gender roles in romance novels fascinate me. The hero is often the Big Strong Man who Denies His Feelings and the heroine frequently fills the role of Emotional Cornerstone of the Relationship. Those tropes are popular for a reason—the big strong Alpha male is sexy as all get out and the vulnerable, emotional heroine is relatable. Just what we want in our romance, right? To be able to admire his studliness and empathize with her feelings?

But not everyone in life fits neatly into their prescribed gender role and neither do every romance hero and heroine. I love characters that break the mold and I absolutely adore flipping stereotypes on their head. What if the hero was the emotionally centered one? What if the heroine was the stalwart pragmatist, ruthlessly denying her emotions?

In my current release, Serengeti Lightning, those are the questions I played with. Michael is utterly masculine—there’s no doubt about that—but he’s also deeply connected with his feelings. He’s passionate, impulsive and unashamed to live his life governed by the touchy-feely side. He sees the strength in owning his emotions. Mara, on the other hand, is trying to control every aspect of her life and make smart decisions. Decisions that have nothing to do with the way she feels. She’s the yin to his yang. The rational pragmatist who needs to be shown—just as many a tough-guy Alpha hero has been shown in the history of romance novels—that love isn’t a weakness.

I loved exploring the different dynamics of this relationship—the battle between the man ruled by his heart and the woman ruled by her head—but I also love the classic romance archetypes. What about you? Do you like a little variety or do you always gravitate toward certain types of heroes & heroines?

What do you think defines the masculine and feminine in romance novels? Do you look for different gender dynamics in books than you do in your real life relationships?

Vivi Andrews lives in Alaska and writes paranormal romance for Samhain & Carina to keep her warm during the long winters. For more about Vivi or her books, please visit www.viviandrews.com.

Love can be a force of nature.

Mara Leonard is through hitting the snooze button on her biological clock. The Three Rocks Pride schoolteacher is ready to get serious about starting a family, and she needs a serious man to make that happen.

Regrettably, that means crossing less-than-serious Michael Minor off her list of potential mates. Michael is impulsive and passionate, but his spontaneity leaks into shapeshifting whenever his emotions run high—a tendency he should have outgrown long ago. As a sex buddy, he’s delicious. Daddy material? Disqualified.

Michael is blindsided by Mara’s rejection. Nine years separate them, and his genetic malady means no one in the pride treats him as an adult. But if she thinks he’ll simply slink away to lick his wounds while she steps into the arms of another man, she has seriously underestimated him.

The tricky part will be convincing his over-analytical lover that he’s more than a disposable sex toy. That real bravery means tearing up her damn checklist and following her heart. And doing it without letting their explosive sexual chemistry expose the Pride’s secrets to the outside world.

Warning: This book features break-up sex, make-up sex, a lioness who’s a cougar and a hot young lion who’s grown up in all the right ways. Note: All electrical shocks are purely metaphorical.

My T-shirt contest is still running. See yesterday’s post for details! ~DD

Don’t you just love Halloween? It’s always been one of my favorite holidays. Christmas, of course, carried with it the excitement of church and school pageants, gifts and visits to family. But Halloween was just for fun. For using our imaginations, trying to scare ourselves silly. For stuffing ourselves with caramel apples, popcorn balls and home made cookies.

I remember the excitement of choosing just the right plastic mask and flimsy costume (the ones that tied in the back) from the dime store. Trekking through the lamp lit streets of our little town with my sisters and neighbors, peering through the mask and lugging my plastic jack o’lantern for treats. I remember cutting through a pasture near our home and then running like the dickens to get away from the cows pastured there. They were just curious heifers, but in the dark they were BIG, SNORTING BEASTS. Very different from the friendly companions of the daytime, who would come and eat from our hands. On Halloween night, shadows held monsters, witches rode the skies and anything was possible.

When my boys were little, Halloween meant trips to the fabric store to find just the right pattern and fabric to make costumes – dinosaurs with removable heads and dragging tails, alligators (same costume with a little ingenuity and a different head), Ninja turtles, cops, firemen, ninjas, Frankenstein and army rangers. All the fun of planning how to make parts move, look kind of realistic, and keep growing boys warm on a Halloween night in the Rocky Mountains. One year we held a carnival in the school – the whole town came. We played games, and the children trick-or-treated around the gym.

Now that all of us are too big to trick-or-treat and my school is too focused on surviving The Test to have time for Halloween parties and parades, I enjoy the little princesses and space-ninjas who come to my door to yell (or mumble, prompted by a parent a short distance behind) ‘Trick-or-treat!’

And I still enjoy scaring myself – just a little – with a spooky movie or story. Sometimes I even spin them myself. I think a good romance should be like a Halloween costume – it should fit the mood you’re in this season. Do you want to be a princess this year, honey? Or a warrior who can kick the ass of any man she meets? Or how about a cowgirl ridin’ the range with a handsome cowboy? Or perhaps someone a bit edgier – a vampire, or even a demon queen?

You don’t even have to dress up, girlfriend. Just curl up with a great story, and let that new romance carry you away into a world where magic is still possible.

And here’s a great place to start … my Samhain Free Read, Touch Not the Cat.

Her new neighbor is as irritating as he is hot, but is he also dangerous?

You can read the first half on the Samhain website. To get the exact web address, which will be up by October 15th, visit my website at https://www.cathryncade.com . And stop back by to read the oh, so satisfying conclusion. I’ll be posting additional pages each week until Halloween. Trick or Treat!

Okay, so I know that according to the schedule that I gave you before I left that Vonna Harper was supposed to be here, but Vonna and I got our wires crossed. She appeared here in September, and I thought she wanted a second date here, but ah well.

This works out anyway because I have WiFi connection here, and this won’t take long. I have a book coming out with Berkley in January, a futuristic story entitled Ravished by a Viking, and I’m trying to do some different things to get y’all excited about it. I was talking to an artist friend of mine about some of the things I’d like to do, like T-shirts and art for the website, and she did a couple of water colors for me that depict places in the book.

Here’s the first one. This painting comes from her interpretation of a scene I wrote where one of the characters is describing her first view of Skuldelev Castle, the hero’s home. Don’t you think this would look lovely on a T-shirt or coffee mug?

What I need now is some text to go along with the picture. Of course, I’ll want to add my website logo to the bottom of the picture—very small and subtle. However, I want some kind of banner across the top that has a message that reflects something about the story.

I could just put “Skuldelev Castle” across the top, but I’d love something a little more exciting. So, I’m offering you a chance to do some brainstorming. I’ll even offer a prize. Like a free T-shirt—first off the printing press as soon as I finalize the art work.

Following is the back cover copy for the book so you know what the story is about. Have fun! Post your ideas here, and if one of you comes up with an idea that you spin off of someone else’s posting, well I guess I’ll have to give away two shirts!

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?

And here is the description of Dagr’s keep from the point of view of his future sister-in-law, Birget:

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.

A shiver rippled down her spine. The day’s happenings had passed in a whirlwind, and only now did it strike her that this might be her home for the rest of her life—this foreign, craggy, monstrous castle where men as rugged and unforgiving of weakness as their clan-lord lived.