I have a confession to make, one which likely shows what a sheltered life I’ve lived:

Last year, I discovered that tentacle sex was… a thing. And as I shared my shocked wonder with my fellow author pals, their response was always a shrugged “Oh, yeah, Hentai. It’s been around for a long time.”

*blink*blink*picks jaw off floor*

So, it would seem that the Japanese tentacle erotica, which falls under the category of Hentai, essentially anything that isn’t human-heterosexual-twosome-sex in both the Japanese and English language, has been around since as early as 1814 when a Japanese artist depicted a woman having “relations” with two octopuses in his “Dream of a Fisherman’s Wife.”

Honestly, I shouldn’t have been shocked. After all, the 80s were my formative years, and the movie Better off Dead starring John Cusack was when I learned the difference between covering a love interest with testicles versus tentacles. However, my mind was blown upon the discovery of Hentai, specifically tentacle sex, for two reasons:

1) As a romance author, I thought I fully grasped the breadth and depth of what turns people on (obviously, I didn’t). And,
2) As a Sci-fi Romance author, this opened a whole new area of possibility when crafting my characters and worlds.

Turns out, an old dog can learn new tricks, and I put the knowledge in my back pocket, anticipating an opportunity to use it. That’s when Delilah’s Boys Behaving Badly Anthology call for submissions came. So I played with the concept of tentacles and had a blast doing it. You can read the result in Delilah’s upcoming anthology, currently on pre-order (links below, in case you haven’t already one-clicked).

I hope you like the story about spaceport bar owner, Lorlii Atarga and Fire Force Captain Roark Trekker!

Excerpt from “The Siren’s Song”

While verbal sparring, especially the joking innuendos, with Roark was entertaining, she’d give a bottle of rare Carhind’n Rum to change that into a physical tussle. But how to transition to a more climactic sort of ribbing? She was hornier than a bayhar and ready to ignite with little more than a smooch of his full lips. Her sexual drought had lasted several months at this point. No one seemed interested in her, outside of her mixology skills and Twofer Tuesday specials. A little attention from a handsome man that didn’t involve anything shaken, stirred, or two fingers neat…

Lorlii swallowed hard at the thought of what Roark could do with a couple of fingers. He’d never know, but he starred in all her masturbation fantasies.

First Response: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology Pre-Order links:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086JBGW7W/
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/first-response-7
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1136763722?ean=2940162803409 https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Delilah_Devlin_First_Response?id=o5HZDwAAQBAJ&hl=en_US
https://books.apple.com/us/book/first-response/id1505242080

About the Author

Ava Cuvay writes out of this world romance featuring sass and sex set in a galaxy far, far away. She resides in central Indiana with her own scruffy-looking nerfherder and tween kiddos. When not writing, Ava is thinking about writing. Or wine. And she’s always thinking about bacon.

https://avacuvay.com
https://www.facebook.com/AvaCuvayAuthor/

An interesting thing happened the other day. (No, this has nothing to do with the six hours my son recently spent in the ER but if you’d like to hear the whole crazy hopefully never to be repeated saga, let me know).

I’m nearing the end of my latest hot romance and was barreling ahead getting closer and closer to the climactic scene, when suddenly, I couldn’t get a single word to stick on the monitor. I spent an entire day finding other things to do and was giving myself mental kicks. I tried on an excuse I’ve used a lot of lately, specifically, that an offspring’s health was of primary importance. But he’d recently gotten some good medical news, and I’d felt a surge of creative energy. I wanted to write. I NEEDED to. Riding high on that energy, I wrote for about a week only to hit a wall. Why couldn’t I find a single workable word to come off my fingers? Browbeating myself, I spent the evening staring at the TV.

The next morning while in the shower, something started knocking on my brain. This has happened enough times that I know to pay close attention. I swear my muse lives in the shower. As I ran up the water bill, it came to me. A simple thing really. No need to start the danged book over. Without realizing what I’d done, I’d taken a minor character in a direction that didn’t fit. My narrative about his background was all wrong, nothing my h/h could springboard off. Yes, it was a fascinating story, and one I’d like to explore, but it had nothing to do with helping my h/h get to know themselves and each other.

Fixing said minor character was a simple matter. I needed to jettison his hang-ups and give him new ones that would dovetail with the main storyline.

I deleted a couple of hundred words and replaced them with superior ones my h/h are more than happy to hang their hats on. They can relate to said minor character because they now see themselves in him.

Well duh, Vonna, you’ve been at this writing game to know all the pieces of a story need to fit together. No going off on unrelated tangents regardless of how pretty they appear.

Tomorrow for sure I’ll write THE END.

Then after edits I’ll start the journey again. That’s how this writing gig works.

P.S. I’ve been pimping a couple of spanking stories I self-published, but it’s time for a change. Carnal Days is as dark as I’ve ever gone. I gave it a BDSM label, but that really isn’t what this story about a sex slave training facility is. There’s no HEA. Instead, it documents a new reality for a woman caught in a world not of her making.

A Dark Thriller: Carnal Days

A commanding man hires Carnal Incorporated to provide him with a pleasure-trained submissive woman who will see him as her master.

Two experienced Carnal operatives capture quiet, beautiful Shari Isle. It’s more than a job for the pair of trainers. There’s nothing they’d rather do. The reclusive artist is forced into a world of restraint, lessons, revelations, and unrelenting sexual stimulation.

Shari has no choice except to submit, but it’s far from a nightmare. Day by day she slips deeper into the dark lifestyle she’s been forced into. Far from being horrified by her new reality, she opens herself to the reality of being owned and used. She obeys, not simply because she has no choice, but because the dark side of BDSM is so seductive.

Her time at the training facility ends, and she’s delivered to a dominant man haunted by demons he has no intention of ever sharing. Escape and freedom for Shari? Impossible. Life with a powerful man who sees her body as his playground? Yes.

Carnal Days taps into many women’s fantasies about giving up control. That’s the keyword, fantasy. In no way does Vonna condone such behavior in the real world. She writes escapism for a mature audience.

Get your copy here!

I am so excited to be selected for a second Boys Behaving Badly anthology with Delilah Devlin! This one is near and dear to my heart. For over a decade, I was a paramedic/firefighter in the urban jungle of Atlanta. When I saw the call for submissions for this anthology, I knew I had to enter. I had so many stories to share. But, it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I abandoned several stories before I finally found my stride in “Crossing the Line”. I struggled to find the balance between fact and fiction, and it brought a lot of long-forgotten emotions boiling back up to the surface.

I was surprised how much I missed the firehouse and the guys as I went on my stroll down memory lane. The camaraderie in a firehouse rivals any family. I loved my guys, and on the days that I wanted to be anywhere but there, I still looked forward to seeing them. I knew their kids, wives, girlfriends, and boyfriends. We cooked dinner every night and slept in one great big bunk room. You can’t help but get close. I knew who snored, who talked in their sleep, how they liked their coffee, and who I could count on to have my back when the chips were down. They were my brothers, and I miss them.

I get asked a lot about station house romances. Oh yeah, they’re a thing. I never had one in my own house (that’s never a smart move), but I married a guy from the neighboring station! I had known him for years, but when I got stationed in the same battalion and started bumping into him on calls, the attraction that was there had a chance to grow into something more. At first, I wasn’t sure if I was imagining things. He was a nice guy, doing nice guy things like holding the door, bringing me a Gatorade after a fire, and helping me clean up the truck after a bad call. Surely, it was nothing more than that.

Then, in the wee hours of the morning, the battalion was called out on a house fire. We could see the flames from the station, and everybody’s heart started to go a little faster. Middle of the night fires tended to be tragic. Smoke detectors really do save lives! Fortunately, on that night, the fire was in an abandoned house, and no lives were in jeopardy. Unfortunately, the house, which was still under construction, sat down at the bottom of a hill, and it had been raining steadily for days. The lot had turned into a sea of red mud.

The roof and three out of four sides of the structure were blazing. My crew was assigned the backside of the house, which meant we had to cross the ocean of mud. At first, we made pretty good progress, but as we got to the rear of the structure, the mud swallowed my leg and refused to let go. Other companies had begun the attack. Water cascaded down on the fire, slowly filling the area until a pond began to collect on top of the mud. With the guys’ help, I managed to pull my leg free, but my boot was forever lost to the sucking mud. We sought higher ground, I borrowed a boot, and we got back to the fight. Finally, we got the blaze under control, and as the sun came up, we began the long process of cleaning up. Mud covered everything from hoses to firefighters.

As we were packing up, I realized I had lost my face mask, part of our breathing apparatus. It had been clipped on the front of my harness as we’d approached the house, but somewhere in the slog, it had gone missing. My stomach clenched. It was an expensive piece of equipment, and on top of my boot, the logistics officer was not going to be happy with me.

My crew reassured me they weren’t going to take it out of my paycheck, but my captain sent me to look for it. Suddenly, the rest of my crew had lots of other things to do that didn’t involve going back to the mud pit to look for my lost mask. Resigned, I skirted the worst of the mud in my mismatched boots and started to hunt. I soon had company. I smiled at the man who would become my husband as we waded through the mud in the early morning light. (We found the face mask by the truck. It had fallen off before we’d even got started!). I figured any man who would willingly crawl through mud to help me was worth getting to know a little better. He took me to breakfast, and I’ll leave the rest to your imagination!

My time on the streets of Atlanta adds depth to my stories. My experiences taught me that I could do more and go farther than I had ever dreamed. I weave those lessons throughout my writing. “Crossing the Line” is a blend of fact and fiction, but I’ll leave it to you to sort out which is which!

To find out more about me, visit my website acdawn.com and like my Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/A-C-Dawn-2317750851796803! I’ve got lots more stories coming for 2020!

Wicked Disclosure is a very naughty little novel, and so the likelihood of it being turned into a feature film is, well, very far fetched. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t envisioned what my dream cast would be if it ever were to be made into a film. I write all of my books as though they are movies. Every scene plays through my head like it would on screen and I’ve given a lot of consideration to the actors I’d choose if given the chance.

Sabine Cowan

“The only way to get what you want from a man is through sex. Whether you use it as a bribe, as a threat or as a promise, it’s the only real power a woman has. Anyone who tells you different is full of shit.”

Caity Lotz can definitely pull off the commanding and sultry look of my fiery Sabine. I could see her in Sabine’s signature pencil skirts and five inch stilettos with her hair piled up on top of her head and her lipstick a deep, dark red. She’d pull all eyes to her no matter what room she walked into and would send the message that she gets what she wants no matter what.

Trent Brooks

“I’m going to make you beg, baby, but not tonight. Tonight I’m going to f**k your brains out.”

This is Dave Franco, brother of James Franco and, OMG, so sexy! A perfectly tempting younger man for Sabine. He has that dark dangerous look about him but when he’s smiling he’s completely disarming. There’s a youthful charm about this guy that I think would appeal to Sabine quite a lot. With Sabine on his arm, can someone say power couple?

Adam Lancaster

“You got it, boss.”

I have a soft spot for Adam (so much so that he’s getting his own book) and I wanted to pick just the right actor to play him. Adam is a big teddy bear with a heart of gold. He’s loyal and very skilled at what he does, namely, protecting Sabine. I think Channing Tatum could do this character justice. He’s got the right kind of muscles and can definitely pull off sexy while giving that strong bodyguard vibe.

Roy Miller

“Keep your dick and every other part of yourself away from that witch. She’s nothing but trouble.”

Every book needs a bad guy, right? Benicio Del Toro is the perfect villain for this book. Just one look from him and you know you’re in for a world of hurt. I can see him as the CEO of Morgan and Miller, mentor to Trent Brooks and nemesis of Sabine Cowan. He does sly and devious extremely well and when he loses his temper, well, it’s a fury that you’ve got to see.

Contest

To celebrate my new release, I’m giving away a $25 GC for Amazon!
Enter my giveaway here: https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/bc3156ea10/?

Wicked Disclosure

Pushing his boundaries was always her plan. What she didn’t expect was how much she’d love it when he pushed back.

Trent Brooks is young, hungry and on his way to the top as a newly appointed Lead Communications Officer at Morgan and Miller, a conglomerate of family brands. After the death of the company’s CFO, Trent is dispatched to navigate a delicate situation involving the deceased executive and an escort agency known as Kitty Calls.

Sabine Cowan is the take-no-prisoners owner of Kitty Calls, who has no use for men other than for her business and her personal pleasure. When Trent presents her with the confidentiality agreement, she dismisses it. But instead of dismissing him, she decides he may be just the type of fun she’s been hungry for.

When compromising photos of Sabine and Trent together are leaked to the media, both of their worlds explode, just in very different ways. Sabine is used to being painted as a sexual deviant. Trent, not so much. With his reputation and his career hanging in the balance, he’s determined to figure out who’s behind the leak.

Screwing Sabine Cowan is every man’s wet dream, including Trent’s. Falling in love with her, however, is not what he bargained for. Exploring the depth of their passion in whatever way she wants could destroy him completely, but his quest for the truth may be something worth dying for.

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About the Author

Angela Addams is an author of many naughty things. She believes that the written word is an amazing tool for crafting the most erotic of scenarios and likes telling stories about normal people getting down and dirty and falling in love. Enthralled by the paranormal at an early age, Angela also spends a lot of her time thinking up new story ideas that involve supernatural creatures in everyday situations.

She is an avid tattoo collector, a total book hoarder, and loves anything covered in chocolate…except for bugs.

She lives in Ontario, Canada in an old, creaky house, with her husband, children and four moody cats.

Where can you find Angela?
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When I was last here, (April 6 to be exact), I chatted about my linked erotica titles, His Purchase and His Filly, before turning to what still consumes most of us—Coronavirus or whatever name you call it by. I mentioned that my son’s cancer surgery had been canceled at the last moment. We had no idea when it could be rescheduled. Well, two weeks ago he got The Call and a week ago today he underwent 7 hours of surgery. The operation took place in a major hospital five hours from where we live. Pulling rank, he and his brother insisted that Mom stay home and said brother would take, stay there, and retrieve him. (They actually spouted some nonsense about my ‘advanced’ age putting me in a high-risk category.)

I’m hugely relieved to report that the patient is home and recovering. (We live together.) We went to the local wound center yesterday where the nurse practitioner said the surgeon’s work was the best she’s ever seen. No infection. Wounds from laparoscopic surgery healing. He still has a long road ahead of him, but something happened to me on the way home I want to share.

For the first time since the diagnosis a year ago February, I truly want to write. I need to! I’ve pounded out words to meet contracts and because that’s what I do, but my heart and concentration hadn’t been in it. Now the damnable tumor is gone from the body of one of the two most important people in my life! (Of course, his brother is the other.)

I’d wondered and half-believed the drive, the need to create, that has always been a vital part of me was gone. I’d never get it back. That writing came in such a poor second to the risk to my son’s life that my career longer mattered. But it was there all this time, waiting for my mind and heart to unlock.

I’m more than halfway through my latest story. Diving back into it today will be a celebration. I want to share that celebration with readers. This is what I’ve come up with. If spanking stories are your thing and you’re one of the first five readers to contact me at VonnaWriter@gmail.com and mention you saw this on Deliah’s blog, I’d love to send you a free copy of either His Purchase or His Filly. No strings attached but if you leave reviews on Amazon and are so inclined, that would be wonderful.

To give you an idea what you’d be getting, here are a couple of Amazon links plus cover images.

His Purchase: https://www.amazon.com/His-Purchase-Society-Book-1-ebook/dp/B07FNHM37V/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=His+Purchase+by+Vonna+Harper&qid=1587579243&sr=8-1
His Filly: https://www.amazon.com/His-Filly-Society-Book-2-ebook/dp/B07FNHRK6S/ref=sr_1_1?crid=228PI8UYUL3CT&dchild=1&keywords=his+filly+vonna+harper&qid=1587579211&s=digital-text&sprefix=His+Filly%2Caps%2C220&sr=1-1

So I’m sitting at my table at the big Shameless Book Con sale with copies of my Brewing Love series spread out in front of me. A browsing shopper pauses. “What are these about?” she asks. “They’re about a craft brewery in a Colorado mountain town,” I explain. “The brewmaster is the heroine of the first book, Love On Tap, and her brother, who also brews, is the hero of the second book, Saison For Love. They’re both trying to get their brewery back on its feet and find a little romance along the way.” “Oh,” says the browser. “I don’t like beer.” And off she goes. Sigh.

There’s this prejudice about beer: it’s not romantic. Wine is romantic. Champagne is romantic. Even whiskey is romantic (go figure). But beer? Not so much. Maybe it’s all those “bro” commercials featuring guys watching football and getting soused. Maybe it’s the image of beer as part of masculine rites of passage. For whatever reason, nobody seems to think of beer as part of a romantic evening. Add to this the fact that American beer manufacturers seem to have given up on marketing beer to women, and you can see that beer’s a hard sell in the romance department.

But I live in Colorado, aka Craft Beer Central, and I’ve seen lots of women drinking beer, serving beer, and brewing beer. Moreover, I’ve seen lots of couples nuzzling over their steins and grabbing their growlers to go. In real life, in other words, beer is just as likely to lead to romance as any other form of alcohol.
I got interested in doing a series built around a craft brewery as I started visiting some of the local breweries in my town. It takes less time to brew most beers than it does to make wine or whiskey, and it’s not as expensive to establish a brewery as it is a winery. Thus a lot of craft brewers are young people with a talent for brewing and a yen to share their unique beers. That’s the situation with Antero Brewing, my mythical brewery in the equally mythical Antero, Colorado (full disclosure: Antero bears a striking resemblance to the real Crested Butte). Antero Brewing was founded by a brother and sister duo, Bec and Liam Dempsey, along with their good friend and financial backer Colin Brooks. But Colin took off after a couple of years, along with his money. Love On Tap dealt with Bec’s struggle to keep the brewery afloat based on a barrel of imperial stout. She gets some help from Denver brewpub owner Wyatt Montgomery, who manages to save Bec from disaster while the two fall in love. In Saison For Love, Liam confronts his own crisis when he tries to find a way to stay in Antero and convince his own lady love, Ruth Colbert, to give him another chance. In the end, he wins by brewing a special saison just for Ruth.

Wild Love, the third book in the trilogy, begins with the return of Colin Brooks. Bec and Liam are both justifiably furious with him for leaving them in the lurch. And to compound his problems, Colin has lost all the money he had to invest. He has to prove himself to the Dempseys and everyone else associated with Antero Brewing. It’s a tough situation, and the only thing Colin has going for him is Peaches Guidry, baker extraordinaire and collector of lost souls. Colin must prove himself to the Dempseys and show Peaches he’s worthy of her love. And beer plays a big part in his journey to redemption.

So here’s the thing: these are books about people facing tough situations and coming through. And finding love along the way. You can read them even if you don’t like beer. On the other hand, if you’re open to some new tastes, you can find out some bits and pieces about beer and how it’s brewed and how it can make food taste a little better and love work a little more easily.

Beer and romance. Trust me, it’s a winning combination.

Wild Love can be found at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and Google Play.

As I’m an erotic/steamy romance writer, the title of my post can only refer to one thing: the Cone of Learning. Ha, ha. Made you look.

One long ago Easter from my childhood, I made a Sunday School craft that continues to have a lasting impression on me almost fifty-five years later. What I recall is the first part of the tri-fold craft showed Jesus’ body being laid in the tomb. The second part depicted the stone rolled into place. The third showed the tomb empty. I remember thinking “How was that possible?” Precisely the point of the lesson: it was a miracle. I remember being hit with a sense of wonder like a flashbulb going off. Why is it the recollection of that craft has the same impact on me now when I’m sixty-three years old as it did when I was seven or eight? The answer is the Cone of Learning.

I came across this concept when I trained Sunday School teachers. Developed in the 1960’s by Edgar Dale, the Cone of Learning posits these points: people generally remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, 50% of what they see and hear, 70% of what they say and write, 90% of what they perform. In other words, the deeper you go, the longer it lasts. As I think back on that Sunday school craft, I’m sure I heard the story being told while I colored and cut and pasted in the company of other children doing the same thing. I probably read or repeated bible verses, too. That simple little craft took me deep into the cone.

The Cone of Learning takes on new meaning for me now I’m a writer. As I revise and edit my stories I have to do all I can so the 10% my reader recalls is truly memorable. This is why we writers are encouraged to show don’t tell, to evoke as many of the senses and to get as deep into the character’s point of view as possible. Think about the stories that have stuck with you. Think about passages you read over and over again to relive some delicious thrill or surprise. Your senses were engaged by sensory-rich sentences and settings. Emotion coursed through you as the character’s thoughts and feelings became your own. These authors took you deep and impressed you in ways that guaranteed you’d remember the 10% of what you read long after you put the book down.

With this in mind, my goal is to write thrilling, evocative and emotionally satisfying stories, stories so striking that fifty-some odd years later, the 10% my readers recall will be as fresh and impactful as my recollection of that Easter Sunday School take-home craft.

“$5.00 Kiss of Life” from First Response

Trapped by the small-town conventions imposed on her, a pastor’s spinster daughter finds rescue in the town bad boy’s very public kiss…

Excerpt from “$5.00 Kiss of Life”

Loose lips sunk ships during the war, Bev. And still do. Only now the ships are voter registration drives and lawsuits and attempts at economic self-sufficiency. It’s not Nazi spies listening and betraying but law enforcement officers who first tip-off Klansmen and other night riding types then stand by as they target the Negro lawyers, teachers and ministers who educate and encourage the folk of color to claim their rights. It’s not Tokyo Rose undermining Negro pride and confidence but those among our own people who choose the safety of their present limitations to the risks of a future determined by the freedom of true independence. Loose lips sink ships, Bev…and they still do.

You’d expect the ones oppressing you to do all they could to keep you down. But for members of the race to sow envy and fear and suspicion so as to undermine efforts to uplift the race was most distressing.

And most familiar.

A good reputation was the battleship in need of protection where she lived. To keep it afloat peer pressure, tradition and societal expectation waged a constant battle against the loose lips of gossip and scorn and lies.

As the daughter of the town’s minister she’d experienced the looks and the whispers and the dressing downs that kept her in her place. The freedom garnered by her one small rebellion – becoming the town librarian rather than the dutiful wife of her father’s associate pastor – turned out to be as limiting as the choice she’d rejected.

Preorder – https://amzn.to/3dRvwLE

Author Contact –
Twitter: @ mscottauthor1
Website: www.michalscott.webs.com