On my old website I had a feature called “Behind the Book”, which told readers what the heck I was thinking when I wrote the story. Here’s the story behind Garden of Desire. Tomorrow, you’ll get a chance to win it.

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In the first book in this series (the Desire series), I introduced First Mate Cantor Marlowe. I knew in that first scene that I would be coming back to visit him. He was too sexy, too sure of himself. He was a smart-ass and looking forward to the new adventure the pirates were embarking on—colonizing a new world.

When I finally sat down to write Garden, I wondered what would happen to a pirate who gets everything he ever wanted? The answer came immediately—he’d be bored stiff.

Poor Cantor! Just a few months on the new world and he’s ready to chuck the responsibility of governing a bunch of land-locked pirates and marriage-minded ex-cons. He misses the adrenaline rush of his old profession. I’ve known guys like Cantor—hell, I’ve dated them. Once the first blush of conquest is past, they’re looking for the next one—be it the next woman that catches their eye or the next, greatest adventure.

Once Cantor figures out he’s not made to be domestic, he rejects anything that smells conjugal—new curtains for his cabin, a certain blonde who’s made no bones about the fact she intends to “land” him.

Of course, the story wouldn’t be a romance if I gave him what he thought he wanted—freedom from emotional entanglement. But the right woman had to catch him unawares. Actually, Cantor being Cantor, he needed a lot of encouragement—one woman wouldn’t succeed. Give him two who conspire together—and he’s a goner.

So, first I give him every man’s favorite fantasy—a harem-raised virgin. But while Fahgwat was innocent, she wasn’t stupid. Nor could she be shy. Cantor is attracted from the first moment he sees her, but instantly recognizes that this little bit of eye candy is extremely dangerous to his freedom. He’s never had a virgin, but knows instinctively that once he takes her, he’s going to feel obligated. He resists temptation.

But Martha recognizes a chance to trap Cantor by using his powerful attraction to the girl and offers him teasing glimpses of what life with Fahgwat would be like. A thief by profession, she connives to help Fahgwat, by offering herself as a “safe” substitute to rid himself of his excess ardor. Martha’s relentless and works herself under his skin like a chigger.

When I envisioned the pirate’s new world, I offered a view of my ideal world. I’ve traveled a lot, but have never found anything lovelier than the forests of the Pacific Northwest or Scandinavia. So I blended the two to build my world. Log long-houses like those used in Scandinavia during the times of the Vikings became the temporary homes for my colonists.

But there always has to be a “snake” in paradise. Only the “snake” in my mind isn’t necessarily evil—facing it leads to enlightenment.

I hope the adventure doesn’t end with this book. I don’t have specific plans for my colonists, but maybe I’ll come back in the future to see how they’re doing.

Be sure to post a comment today to be in the running for a free signed copy of this book! And before I forget, let me name the winner of Wednesday’s free download of Uncovering Navarro. The winner is…Deidre!

Released in February 2007, Alluring Tales: Awaken the Fantasy was a collection of short novellas from seven ladies who have become very close friends over the years: Sylvia Day, Lisa Renee Jones, Cathryn Fox, Myla Jackson, Vivi Anna, Sasha White and myself.

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What is your most wicked fantasy?
A television executive lets loose when her favorite heartthrob strides into her office — and gives her the ride of her life.

This one night stand may be too hot to handle for a newly single woman, but that won’t stop her from enjoying every delicious second.

When a mysterious package opens to reveal an oh-so-sexy, nearly naked man, these two have no choice but to hide out…for a good, long time.

A minister’s son harbors impure thoughts about a voluptuous stripper–and sets out to make his erotic dreams come true…

A big city cop discovers that once bitten is not twice shy after spending a tantalizing night with a beautiful vampire…

A sheltered young woman opens a mysterious locket–and is plunged into a legendary battle of good versus evil to set her imprisoned lover free…

A seductive warlock will not rest until the powerful temptress he lusts for is begging to be dominated…

Pleasure beckons and satisfaction is guaranteed in seven titillating stories of love that knows no boundaries. Surrender to the passion and follow your desires into unexplored realms of sensuous delights. Awaken the fantasy!

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Kili sucked in a deep breath and blinked as her eyes adjusted to white, searing sunlight. Her first glance at her vacation setting sent her stomach plummeting. Where was the desert island with the horseshoe strip of pale sand and navy sea? Sure, heat radiated off the ground in suffocating waves, but where was the cabana boy in the Speedo?

Instead, an endless savannah stretched in front of her with tall, golden grass waving in the hot breeze and gnarled, stunted trees dotting the horizon. “What the hell?”

Stones skittered behind her and she spun to find a large, male figure standing on a rocky knoll. At least the program had gotten that much right. The Ice Man’s incredible, burly physique was nude except for a furry loincloth that draped from a slender cord at his waist, leaving the sides of his tanned hips and his massive, sleek thighs bare.

The breeze ruffled his pale hair as he strode toward her, his sharp gaze sweeping down her body, a predatory gleam in his eyes.

Kili’s heart thudded and her nipples tightened, the sensitive tips pressing into supple fabric. She glanced down and noted she too wore an animal’s skin, tanned and buttery-soft. The miniscule top barely covered her breasts and was knotted between them. Another soft garment draped around her hips, and the breeze licking up her thighs revealed she was totally nude underneath the crude clothing. “Now, that’s attention to detail,” she murmured. But if this was her fantasy, why weren’t her hips slimmer?
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Be sure to post a comment today to be in the running for a download of this book!

Originally released in April 2005, Uncovering Navarro was the fifth in the My Immortal Knight series. Enjoy!

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5 Drops of Blood from Vampire-Erotica.net: “UNCOVERING NAVARRO is an action packed, fast paced, scorching, erotic thriller. With delicious love scenes, wry humor and non-stop thrills, UNCOVERING NAVARRO is a guaranteed page turner that’ll delight the reader.”

5 Cups from Coffee Time Romance: ”I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys stories of vampires and things that go bump in the night. UNCOVERING NAVARRO is an extraordinary read by an extraordinary author.”

Sidney Coffey, Seattle’s “News at Nine” girl, uncovers the scoop of a lifetime and her ticket into serious journalism. The only problem is—without proof, no one’s going to believe the victims of recent gang killings are in fact undead and vampires! With her gut telling her there’s an even bigger story lurking beneath the surface, she decides to beard a reclusive vampire master in his den for an interview. But meeting the master only complicates things. For a woman with a voracious sexual appetite, the tall, dark and gloomy vamp proves an irresistible challenge.

When a reporter trespasses on his estate, Navarro is at first amused, then annoyed that the little baggage is close to putting together the pieces of a dangerous plot involving an old enemy and a group of murdered geneticists. To keep her safe, Navarro issues an erotic invitation he won’t let her refuse.

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“Who the fuck does he think he is? Keep me prisoner, will he?”

Navarro raised a brow at the loud mutterings of his houseguest as she paced the length of her room. Inigo had given her the guest bedroom with the hidden cameras and listening devices.

Although the sun would soon rise, Navarro felt no fatigue. The woman had invigorated his blood as no one else had in quite a long while—perhaps in the last century.

“I don’t take another man’s leavings,” she mimicked, her mouth curling in disgust. “Well, I don’t take cold leftovers—that’s what you are, Navarro!” she shouted through the locked door of her bedroom.

Still naked, she flounced onto the bed, beating her heels and hands against the mattress.

Navarro studied her attributes. Alone, each was unremarkable. Her bottom was rounded, firm. Her breasts a scant mouthful, tipped with small cherry nipples. Her body was trim, athletic, but not overly so.

No, her curves and pretty face weren’t what held his interest. It was her courage, the surprising twists her mind took, and the sensuality that plumped her lips and kept her nipples tight and hard, even now when only anger fired her passion.

No one had stirred his cock into any semblance of an erection in too many years to count. But here he was, his flesh pressing against the placket of his trousers while she threw endless insults at his head. Delightful!
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My old website had a special feature for every story—a look behind the book at what I was thinking when I wrote it. Uncovering Navarro is old enough that it appeared on that old website. This is the book I’ll feature on tomorrow’s “Flashback”. You’ll get a chance to win a free download of this story. In the meantime, here’s what went through my mind when Navarro was conceived.

I’ve wanted to write Navarro’s story for a long time—well, since he first appeared in All Hallows Heartbreaker. I had a sense he was very reserved, but craved…connection. He was also very jaded.

The problem was finding just the right heroine. If I could have planned the story, I would have thought his would be very dark with Navarro facing an old adversary—perhaps the woman who turned him hundreds of years ago. But that decision wasn’t mine to make. Okay, now you get yet another hint I’m not wrapped too tight!

I don’t just decide to write a book about…something. I wait for the first scene to come to me. After several months without working on a MIK, I really wondered whether the adventure was over. But then there was this pesky reporter—not the brightest watt—but so stubborn she’d make Simon Cowell look indecisive. And she was trying to break into a vampire’s den. The first scene with her falling from the brick wall all the way to her “wardrobe malfunction” rolled through my head like an old movie reel in a theater.

It shot the hell out of my dark prince story.

Once the scene presented itself, I was faced with a dilemma. I’m writing erotic romance, but Navarro isn’t a man who’s led by his manparts. So how could I add the sensual intensity (or rather quantity) that my genre requires?

If Navarro was reserved, my heroine had to be a very busy girl. She also wouldn’t be the kind of girl waiting to find her prince. She’d be out there doing lots of test runs! So number one, I needed to show how fast and loose she played it. I also felt like this story would be more closely tied to the first book in the series than any other, so I placed my heroine, Sidney Coffey, at the first scene of my first book—but in Uncovering Navarro you are seeing that first scene from a whole new perspective. I really liked how that all worked out, and I can’t claim responsibility for any cleverness—Moses Brown came knocking at my door.

Who the hell is Moses might you ask? Well his name came from a boyfriend in college who had a penchant for making love on the edge of cliffs. I’m not at all sure that was his real name—it probably had to do with his long, curly blonde hair and beard and the peasant shirts and sandals he always wore. He looked very “biblical”.

But while I liked the name, another face wore it. Between the buff, bald model Rodney (who is on the cover of the Tales from the Temple III anthology) and Ving Rhames, well there you have Moses. A big, tough, sexy guy who has an innate tenderness he rarely lets anyone see. Moses is already calling me to write his story.

Originally released in 2006, Arctic Dragon was my first fantasy tale and has since been released in print as part of the Royal Bondage anthology.

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5 Angels & Recommended Read from Fallen Angels Reviews: “…Delilah Devlin is an awesome author who knows how to get a reader’s attention and keep them coming back for more…Ms. Devlin has written a fantastic story that explodes right off the pages…”

Headstrong, and seeking a little respite from a suitor’s relentless wooing, Queen Larikke rides the arctic wind far beyond the bounds of Northland, only to have her horse bolt at a shot from a hunter’s gun. Her “rescuer” is a handsome, mysterious man who lives alone in the wilderness, his cabin filled with erotic images of women.

Rather than fearing her fate, Larikke sets out to seduce him, hoping for one last fling before she settles down to do her duty and wed. Thinking he was saving a life, Drake dragged a very strange woman home, stripped her, and warmed her by his fire. Now he finds his long, self-imposed isolation may have made her allure impossible for him to resist and that he’ll endanger her when he shares his special kiss.

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A blanket of fresh powder muffled his footsteps. For a moment, the bitter cold wind died down. The stillness invited him deeper into the clearing. Something in the air alerted him, an intuition that was part of his true nature told him to wait.

Wind had blown snow against large tree trunks, forming deep banks where the tall green sentinels stood close together. Everywhere pure, pristine white dusted the tops of branches, cloaking them in rich, thick wonder. Precious sunlight peeked from behind a dark gray cloud and refracted like a billion tiny prisms on frozen crystals that gilded the uppermost layer of the snow.

His breaths seemed loud, intrusive and he concentrated on being quiet so that he didn’t disturb—not that anyone was would hear him this deep in the wilderness.

Rather, all was hushed, expectant. Quiet like he preferred now. Content at last with his own company.

The first few months had been the worst. The silence had nearly driven him nuts. Now, he barely noticed. Sounds other than voices, the hum of electricity or the roar of a passing engine were replaced with softer, more predictable ones—the rustle of pine needles as a breeze swept through outstretched branches, the resonant creaking when snow weighed the branches down. The rustle of animals as they scratched in the snow for food.

The voices inside his head had also faded. The strident ones that had called him a freak and the startled screams—well, they couldn’t reach him here.

If he missed the company of a woman—so be it. Other parts of his existence flourished in the solitude. Almost filling the aching void. The decision he’d made had been the right one. He’d spend the rest of his life—however long—alone.
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While The Cat’s Away Countdown – Day 3…

Be sure to post a comment today to be in the running for a download of this book!

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In a post-Apocalyptic future with cities decimated by a nuclear winter, people have fled to rural areas to become the prey of criminals and werebeasts. Rancher Kate McKinnon runs “Sanctuary” — a last refuge on the western frontier. While driving her surviving wranglers and integrating refugees into their self-sufficient refuge, she escapes her responsibilities the only way she has left — via ham radio to pockets of other survivors. One man, Ty Bennett, is her confidante and she thinks she might be falling in love with him. Although they’ve never met, he seems to know her heart.

On a patrol to siphon gasoline to run the ranch’s generator, Kate and her cowboys are attacked. They are rescued by Ty and a band of his ex-military “brothers”, who are there to bring her and her refugees to a safer place. She soon discovers he and his men are another breed of monsters — vampires! And she’s brought vampires into the refuge.

Already half in love with the human woman, Ty fights his own nature and appetites while seeking redemption for his many sins. Can he overco me Kate’s prejudice and choking responsibilities to get her to trust him with their lives, even as she succumbs to his seduction?

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“How much ammo you got on you, girl?” Shep shouted from the opposite end of the church.

She patted her duster pockets. “Enough. I don’t miss much.”

“Don’t look like we need silver load.”

He was right. What surrounded them wasn’t werebeasts—it was the lowest form of human life—those who preyed on the survivors.

“Well, this will be easy pickin’s,” she murmured and steeled herself for the coming confrontation.

Kate didn’t wait to hear what they might say.

The only thing they wanted was her—women were a scarce commodity on the frontier. She took a bead down the barrel of her pistol and squeezed off a shot through the windshield of a pickup, pleased at the splash of red that exploded against the glass.
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While The Cat’s Away Countdown – Day 7…

Remember to post a comment for a chance to win this book!

All Knight Long was released in March 2004, and is the third in the My Immortal Knight series!

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From In The Library Reviews: “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.”

5 Angels from Fallen Angels 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.”

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”.

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The small sign in the café window read: Welcome Vampires and Sanguinarians! (No blood products provided—none permitted on premises! The Management).

Joe Garcia snorted. Every human in the place was a walking, breathing blood product—a portable soda fountain for the Fanged Ones.

He pushed through the glass door and tried to dampen the hope that rose in his chest, causing his heart to beat faster and his hands to sweat. Thusfar, he’d met only disappointment in his long search. This might be just another dead end—the last one he could afford before his cash ran out and his credit card was maxed.

Professor Carlson was his last hope.
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