UPDATE: The winner is…Tamara Kasyan!
*~*~*

Growing up, my parents would often tout hardship and struggle as “building character” opportunities. At the time, their philosophy seemed self-serving and entirely unfair because 1) I was a teen and already knew everything so didn’t need character, 2) it was surely just an excuse to get me to do housework, and 3) they never said at what point I had accrued enough character… My life was just a series of opportunities.

Flash forward a few *cough*cough* years and, as a romance author, I’m still building character… but this time, it’s on the page, and without all the unfounded teen angst and attitude. However, the concept remains consistent in both writing and real life: greater suffering equals more character. I’m not talking the kind of character I built while cleaning the cat box the night I won a local scholarship pageant, even though the image of being up to my white satin elbow gloves in litter-crusted poop still sticks with me and is good for a chuckle. Nor am I talking about the character I automatically build by simply having tweenagers, even though that character is most often called gray hair.

I’m talking the kind of suffering we put our characters through before they get their happily ever after. Authors talk about making characters earn their HEA. When in doubt, make them suffer more. When the going gets tough, make it worse. If it’s clear sailing until the end, throw another road block at them. Kill off your [non-main-character] darlings. Not unlike those movie chase scenes where the pursued knocks over shelves and lamps and grandfather clocks… whatever they can get their hands on to stall or slow their pursuer. We authors try to slow the progression of our characters toward their happy ending. Because if their journey is too easy, they won’t appreciate the destination.

I’m sure my parents spouted something about better appreciating what was earned versus what was given, just as I’m sure I’ve said the same to my own tweenagers.

As an author, it’s crucial that my characters earn the end-prize, which in romance is… well… the romance. The emotionally satisfying and hopeful ending where the two (or more) characters are assured that for at least their immediate future they are safe and in the company of someone who loves them unconditionally. This is what we want: for our characters to have overcome the most overwhelming, insurmountable obstacles, so that when they finally fall into the arms of their loved one(s), they fully appreciate it because they’ve experienced first-hand how sh*tty their life could otherwise be.

Really, it’s also what we want for ourselves, but without all the overwhelming, insurmountable obstacles. Yet while it’s far more satisfying to read about fictional characters being wrung through the wringer for their HEA, doesn’t life imitate art? Don’t we as individuals better appreciate what or who we have when we personally experience how much our life would suck otherwise? Don’t we suffer and come out on the other side with more character?

So, in spite of my teenage eye-rolling at the concept, building character is a good thing, in both fiction and real life. Now, if only I could convince my tweenagers 😉

Contest

Comment for a chance to win a $10 Amazon gift card.

Blood King: Revamping the Monarchy

Below is an excerpt from my third book, Blood King: Revamping the Monarchy. My hero, Rune, is an alien vampire king who begins the story dead. My heroine is a hair stylist on a getaway vacation. And it all goes downhill from there. 😉

In a blink, she was on her back, prone on the couch with Rune’s powerful body above hers, his hips wedged between her legs, pressing against her instantly throbbing core. She clutched his taut biceps, breathless from the swift change in position and the overwhelming heat of summer lightning which started where his erection pulsed against her clit and zapped along her nerves. He lowered his head to her neck, his hot breath like some snarling predator about to slake its hunger on its prey.

He was going to bite her. The moist warmth of his tongue trailed along the column of her neck. The slight scrape of fangs against the tender skin tickled and alarmed. Her skin prickled and her nipples tightened. She held her breath, her heart racing with an explosive combination of fear and arousal.

“You are so demanding, Kazandra.” His soft murmur vibrated straight to her core and he rocked his hips along the sensitive nub. A needy whimper escaped her lips.

“Should I drink from here?” He nibbled the space below her earlobe.

Kaz held her breath.

“Maybe I shall drink from here.” His fangs gently raked the chord where her neck met her shoulder.

She hissed in a breath, her heart galloping as if it could run away.

“No, from here would be best.” His mouth widened around the jugular, his fangs pressed against the thin bit of skin and muscle protecting the artery.
His body tensed for the attack.

Her body flinched.

Bloody hell, this was it.

Rune straightened to a stand in one fluid motion. His expression transformed from simply Rune to Vahsiil Lahdunae, powerful monarch of an entire species. A frown tugged at his lips and the earlier warmth in his eyes frosted over. His voice was similarly icy. “Please understand if I do not abide by your command, Kazandra. You are not ready to be a benefactor and I will not drink from you.”

Available in both ebook and print versions:
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HDVRCKC
NOOK: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/ava+cuvay?
KOBO: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/blood-king-1

About Me

Ava Cuvay writes out of this world romance featuring sassy heroines, often-alien-but-always-sexy heroes, and an alcoholic beverage or two… Set in a galaxy far, far away. She resides in central Indiana with her own scruffy-looking nerfherder, kiddos who are growing up without her permission, and two kitties that make her laugh. She believes life is too short to bother with negative people, everything is better with Champagne, and Han Solo shot first. When not writing, Ava is thinking about writing. Or wine. And she’s always thinking about bacon.

website: https://www.avacuvay.com/
Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Ava-Cuvay/e/B01E5OIZ0I/
Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15051407.Ava_Cuvay
Facebook: https://facebook.com/AvaCuvayAuthor/
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/ava-cuvay

We recently returned from a two-week road trip through some of our western states: South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, and Nebraska. Being a Midwest (Michigan) born and bred girl, those rugged places have always held a special appeal for me. I was also always a big fan of cowboys (well, the TV kind anyway) and so traveling through towns with names like Medicine Bow, Cody, and Buffalo, takes me back to the many TV westerns I used to watch as a kid. While driving through the mountains and canyons, I can just imagine those characters, as well as the ones I like to read and write about, riding their horses along those trails. While the modern West is certainly different from those long-ago days, much of it remains the same. The people with their fierce independence, the land with its rushing rivers, and the mountains with their amazing peaks reaching to the vast sky.

I have also always loved animals, and most especially horses. I’ve never been without some sort of animal companion, and for ten years owned (or was owned by!) a beautiful little Arabian named Cato. For the past 17 years, I have written a monthly column where I advocate for homeless pets and pet rescue. When I started to write my recent release, it seemed only natural to include animals in the story. It wasn’t hard to come up with their characters, because most of them are based on animals I have known and loved. But I thought long and hard about how I could include my love of the West in the book when it was set in my home state. Then I realized, my hero, Shane McBride, was returning from years of living out West, to the small town in Michigan where he’d first fallen in love, and where Allison Delaney still lives. He is surprised at what he finds.

In spite of a broken heart, Allison Delaney carved out a life for herself and her young daughter on her grandparents’ farm. Her child and the horses she rescues are all that matter. Then a sudden threat to their safety puts her back in touch with Shane McBride, the man she never thought to see again.

Returning to the small town of Silver Creek brings back a lot of memories for Shane, ones he treasures haunted by the ones that made him leave, but this time he is determined to stay and make things right.

Trusting Shane may be her only choice, but now Allison fears not only the threat against her farm but the risk of losing her heart again.

I had such a fun time writing this story, where I could include animals and places I have known. But mostly, I loved writing about a man and a woman who were once deeply in love, but who must now deal with not only their past but with the problems the present brings to them. They soon discover that healing their broken hearts may not be the most difficult thing they face.

Here is an excerpt from Will o’ the Wisp:

“The man who stepped from inside the truck was definitely not Doc. Tall, with shoulders stretching the faded fabric of his denim shirt and shiny black hair that glistened in the sunlight, he would have towered over Doc’s stocky figure. As he started toward the barn, she couldn’t see his face, but the easy swagger to his walk, the way he rolled his booted feet from heel to toe, spoke to her of things she thought she had forgotten. Had worked very hard to forget. Feelings she’d buried ten years ago. Uncomfortable, she dropped her gaze to her daughter who had come to stand next to Gypsy.

“Is he Doc’s helper, you think?” Lizzie scrunched her nose. “I don’t think I know him.”

Sudden awareness clutched Allison’s heart, giving it an extra beat, as if to prove the man walking toward her was still easy on the eyes but hard on the heart. He’d certainly been hard on hers.

*~*~*

Will o’ the Wisp, published by The Wild Rose Press.
Buy links:
Amazon https://tinyurl.com/y687pwdu
Barnes and Noble https://tinyurl.com/y4d8khde
Kobo https://tinyurl.com/yy5et299\

Is there any place special you like to travel to?
A setting you love to read about?

About the Author

I’ve been making up stories for as long as I can remember, starting with animal stories and graduating to an historical romance I wrote while in junior high school. In college, I took several creative writing classes, and when my children were small, I wrote and sold a number of short stories to Woman’s World magazine. Those stories are now included in the five anthologies on my Book Page.

I’ve been a member of Romance Writers of America and Mid-Michigan Romance Writers for over thirty years and have written articles for chapter newsletters. I’m also concerned with animal welfare issues, and I write a monthly column called “The Pet Corner”, where I advocate for homeless pets and local shelters and rescue groups. Some of those columns appear on my Zeke Chronicles blog.

My husband and I live in southwest Michigan, near the sunset coast of Lake Michigan, with our dogs; Ace, a silly Terrier mix, and Foo Foo, a crazy Pomeranian, and two kitties, Zombie and Sandwich.

We have two grown children and a number of granddogs. We love to travel, especially out West, where I’m always on the lookout for a new setting for my books.

My website: https://lucynaylorkubash.com
Author Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LucyNaylorKubash/

Our summer vacation destination this year was Europe. We started our trip in London then relied on trains to travel to the cities of Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples. To be able to fit all these cities within two weeks, our stay in each city was brief. We would not have been able to visit all these locations with the time available if not for the convenience of high-speed trains.

As a Regency romance writer, this trip brought to mind the Grand Tour of the eighteenth century. The Grand Tour was typically taken by young men to round out their education. The young man, considered to be an inexperienced cub, traveled with a bear-leader or tutor. The tour would start by boarding a boat at Dover and crossing the channel to Calais, then travelling over land to Paris. Other cities visited included Dijon, Geneva, Avignon, Rome, Florence, Venice and Naples. Although France and Italy were the highlight of many tours, itineraries and the length of travel were flexible depending on the wealth of the individual and personal preferences. The condition of the roads played a role in a location’s popularity.

Paris was considered an important city and it was included in many itineraries. Part of its popularity was that the city could be reached in three days, food was of high quality and accommodations were plentiful. Men in Paris would participate in French society and visit sites such as the Louvre. While in Italy, they would study art in Florence. They also visited architectural sites such as the Colosseum in Rome and Pompeii.

Despite traveling with a bear-leader, supervision could be lacking. There were some who engaged in sexual liaisons and return home with venereal diseases that would eventually lead to their death. There was pressure to gamble and some men lost a considerable amount while abroad.

Although, the Grand Tour was generally undertaken by men, some women did participate. Mary Wollstonecraft, known for her work A Vindication of the Rights of Women, embarked on a tour after her book’s success. During this time, women were expected to be companions and raise children. Women with a desire for independence and intellectual pursuits, such as Mary, were often ridiculed and became outcasts. Divorced women also faced censure from English society. As a result, they would travel or move to places such as Paris where they would be more accepted.

The French Revolution and Napoleonic wars put a halt to the Grand Tour in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Once the wars ended, families began traveling to Europe. The era of the young man embarking on a Grand Tour with a tutor was largely over.

I love researching and traveling to historical locations. While books and photographs are great resources, experiencing a place in person provides details that are hard to glean otherwise.

What is on your list of places to visit?

Resources
Black, Jeremy, The British Abroad: The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century (Gloucestershire, The History Press, 2009)
Dolan, Brian, Ladies of the Grand Tour (New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2001)
Laudermilk, Sharon and Hamlin, Teresa L., The Regency Companion (New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1989)

About the Author

Cynthia Capley is working on her first novel set during the Regency era. She enjoys writing stories with strong characters that triumph over challenges to achieve their happily ever after. Cynthia lives in the Pacific Northwest where the rain and numerous coffee houses make the perfect writing companions. She lives with her husband and a menagerie of pets and likes to spend time playing fetch with Natasha, a tortoiseshell colored cat with an attitude.

Website: https://cynthiacapley.com

One Sunday in May, many years ago when I was in college, I got a call from my sister. Since it was Mother’s Day, I was expecting that she had called merely to remind me to call our mother, but it wasn’t that. She was calling to warn me that Mom was a mess because our father had just that morning left her. I found out later that after 28 years of marriage, Dad had learned that a woman he had known more than 10 years before, the wife a fellow naval officer, was now a widow. He had been to see her and had received enough encouragement that he had found an apartment and was leaving Mom.

A pretty crappy thing to do, no? And on Mother’s Day, too! Our family was in shock for years. Mom was especially hard hit because she had been a Navy wife for 20 years of her marriage. We had moved every two or three years. She had a college degree, but had never worked outside the home or had a chance for a career of her own. Even after he got out of the Navy, we moved twice for Dad’s job.

I spent a lot of time pondering whether my mother was better off knowing the truth about how Dad felt about her, or worse off because she had been so dependent on him for so long and was now alone. I could never decide. Neither alternative sounded good.

It was many years later, after I had started writing science fiction, that my parents’ divorce planted a seed in my brain. What would life be like if there was no such thing as divorce? What if finding a mate was a matter of biology and not feelings? And furthermore, what if a mated-for-life pair experienced total empathy with each other? They couldn’t then hide their true feelings. This was obviously not possible with humans, so I came up with a whole new species. I named their planet Wakanreo and the people Wakanreans.

Once I got going on the story, I had two main tasks. First, I had to decide how this quirk of biology would affect Wakanrean history and cultures. Second, I had to decide how it would affect individuals, more specifically my protagonists.

For the first task, I decided that one effect of uncontrolled life-long pairing off would be that Wakanrean society is less stratified than ours. Even if there was an aristocracy, arranging marriages only with other aristocrats wouldn’t be possible. Ergo, people could not be kept in their “place.” In modern time, a corporate CEO could step away from his or her desk and suddenly be mated to the office cleaner. Also, being good looking counts for a lot less. No one tries to alter their looks to attract a mate because that doesn’t work. Since biology does the deciding when it comes to mating, there would not be cultures with different family structures—no polygamy, as such, although I did allow for the rare instance when one person pairs off with two others simultaneously. And all cultures have to accept the results of biological mating. If you bond to someone of the same gender, or to two people instead of one, everyone knows it’s not a choice. Sex is in no way related to morality.

As for how this circumstance affects individuals— are Wakanreans better off than humans or worse— I decided that would vary. Luck is very much the decider; if you are a kind person and you bond to another kind person, then the chances are you will both be happy with each other and thus happy in life (Although you could make that case for human marriage, too, I think). But on Wakanreo, if you are a kind person and you bond to a selfish, cold-hearted person, you are truly out of luck. If they dislike you or hate you, you will feel it. And since you can’t divorce a biological process, you are stuck for life. In the end, I decided that Wakanreans are luckier than humans in that they can’t be deceived in a mate, but less lucky in that they have fewer options.

Of course, Wakanreans exist only in my head, and in my books. This is one of the few instances where I knew where a story idea came from. Usually a situation or a scene just pops into my head, but for Alien Bonds, I knew exactly what had planted the idea.

NOTE: the views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and not the SFR Brigade.

Alien Bonds

A story of two very different people from two very different cultures, a sort of AVATAR combined with PRIDE & PREJUDICE. In ALIEN BONDS, two lives are changed in an instant. Industrial chemist Dina Bellaire travels all the way to the planet Wakanreo to advance her career. Her carefully planned life goes up in flames the second she meets Kuaron Du, a Wakanrean who makes his living singing ancient songs in a dead language. Both of them know they can’t go back to the way they were before they met. They just have to convince the rest of the universe that what happened to them is real.

Get your copy here!

About the Author

A voracious reader since childhood, Carmen Webster Buxton spent her youth reading every book published by Ursula LeGuin, Robert Heinlein, and Georgette Heyer. As a result, her own books mix far-future worlds, alien cultures, and courting customs.

Carmen was born in Hawaii but had a peripatetic childhood, as her father was in the US Navy. Having raised two wonderful children, she now lives in Maryland with her husband and a beagle named Cosmo.

Carmen’s blog https://carmenspage.blogspot.com/
Carmen’s Amazon Page https://www.amazon.com/Carmen-Webster-Buxton/e/B004V8MM8U/
Carmen on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/carmenwebster.buxton
Carmen on Twitter https://twitter.com/CarmenWBuxton

What do you think the future will look like? We’ve had a lot of television shows and movies depicting different possible futures. The most well know would be the STAR TREK series. The series portrays humans in the future as explorers who have gone into space to see who and what is out there. The film BLADE RUNNER gives a dystopian view of the future. There are cartoon shows like FUTURAMA and THE JETSONS which give a different twist and serious programs like THE EXPANSE and ENDER’S GAME. The future is limited only to the imagination of the writer.

There are difficulties in imagining what things will be like in thirty or fifty years. In the 1985 movie, BACK TO THE FUTURE, the DeLorean travels thirty years forward in time where Doc Brown gives it a flying upgrade because all the cars thirty years in the future could fly. Well, 2015 has come and gone and we still don’t have flying cars. In 1987 my father passed away from a heart problem of a leaky valve. Last year my husband had robotic heart surgery to repair a leaky valve. We have made amazing advances in medicine in the last thirty years. What will the next thirty look like? In 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon using computers with less computing power than most people carry around in their pockets today, smart phones. What will the machines and computers of the future look like? Today we can buy devices for our homes that turn on and off lights, music, television and appliances. What new innovations will we have in the year 2050?

In my latest novel in the Love through Time series, A WAY BACK, my character, Jack Sinclair, is accidently sent eighty years into the future and has to deal with all the strange things he finds there while figuring out a way to get home.

I’ve had to think a lot about what the world will be like in eighty years. What changes and advancements do you think we’ll have by then?

A Way Back

Time travel only seemed like a good idea.

Like many before her, Sarah Anderson is determined to make her fortune in the Wild West. She loads up her skirts with twenty-first-century necessities, gives her fiancé a kiss, and takes the leap. Only to land in the wrong decade. She’s lucky. She finds a job. But until she can save enough pennies for the return trip, she must contend every day with the fear of discovery, slop buckets, and roving hands.

Jack Sinclair returns from yet another business trip only to learn that his fiancée has left him for another time. They are now many miles and two centuries apart. Jack is stunned. But only for a moment. He sets out to find Sarah and bring her back home. Or die trying. Jack’s only fear is that he might be too late to save the love of his life.

Buy Links
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Back-Love-Through-Time-Book-ebook/dp/B07QGQ5S4K/ref=sr_1_8?crid=1LAQO6U9NSFRZ&keywords=augustina+van+hoven&qid=1558639326&s=gateway&sprefix=Augustina
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-way-back-augustina-van-hoven/1131176479?ean=2940156513673
ITunes: https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1459110731
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-way-back-5

Officially, summer isn’t over until September 22nd, but the last of August marks the unofficial end. It’s the time of year when the kids go back to school and vacation time is almost done. The Labor Day weekend is the last kick at holding on to summer.

I get energized this time of year. My school days are long behind me but I still love the big displays of school supplies for sale. I’m a sucker for markers and pens, journals, and all the lovely color-coded folders. It’s the kid in me.

I look at September as a time for new beginnings. Maybe it has something to do with the school year starting. Even more than New Year’s Day, I find this a time of renewal and possibility. I love the crisp autumn air and the splash of color and the start of the holiday season, which begins in October.

But I’m not quite there yet. For now, I’ll hold on to the final gasp of summer, pray for some nice weather, and enjoy it while it lasts. Hope you do the same.

And if you’re looking for a book to read, maybe you’ll check out one of mine.

If you love space mercenaries, you’ll love the Marks Mercenaries. These brothers are tough and focused. Their goal—finding their sister who was abducted years ago.

The first four books in the series have been released—Rescuing Rory, Unexpected Angel, Liberating Lacey, and Salvaging Abby.

Here’s a teaser from Liberating Lacey…

Liberating Lacey

Like a heat-seeking missile, he stayed on target until he hit his target. He’d never wavered in his goal to find his sister and protect his brothers, never faltered.

Until now.

No other woman could have done such a thing. Only Lacey.

And he was going to leave her behind.

Liberating Lacey
Marks Mercenaries, Book 3

Garth Marks and his brothers are space mercenaries and traders. Their life’s mission is to find their younger sister, who was kidnapped ten years before. Their search has led them to Eden, a planet that is home to a cult-like group.

Lacey Freshlan wants to get away from Eden, and the strangers who have come here might be her ticket out. Garth is willing to use the sizzling attraction between them to get information from her, but he won’t agree to take her with him. As much as he’s drawn to her, Garth won’t risk the safety of his family.

When Lacey foils a plot to poison them, Garth takes her with them when they flee. But they are not free yet. Betrayal and lies lead to a battle not only for their safety but also for their hearts.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TW5VSFR/
Evernight Publishing: https://www.evernightpublishing.com/liberating-lacey-by-n-j-walters/
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/946620
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/liberating-lacey-n-j-walters/1132291334
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/liberating-lacey-5

About the Author

N.J. Walters is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author who has always been a voracious reader, and now she spends her days writing novels of her own. Vampires, werewolves, dragons, time-travelers, seductive handymen, and next-door neighbors with smoldering good looks—all vie for her attention. It’s a tough life, but someone’s got to live it.

Visit me at:
Website: https://www.njwalters.com
Blog: https://www.njwalters.blogspot.com
Newsletter: https://eepurl.com/gdblg5
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/N.J.WaltersAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/njwaltersauthor
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/NJWalters
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/njwalters
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/n-j-walters

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Are there really? From the expression of Edwin Booth on this 1866 playbill from the New York Public Library’s digital collection, he looks like he’s thinking that might not be such a good thing. I first encountered Hamlet’s sentiment in an eighth grade English class. I always thought it strange that he would feel the need to say it when both he and Horatio have just seen and heard the ghost of Hamlet’s dead father. It is a line that has stayed with me fifty years later as I have pondered just what those “things” might be. Those things we can only detect through a mind open to the possibility of the sixth sense or extrasensory perception (ESP).

There are nine types of ESP that, when explained, show how being attuned to the feelings and/or our surroundings, ESP feels quite logical and for a writer pretty darned cool elements to incorporate into a story.

Precognition – The ability to see into the future.
Retrocognition – The ability to see into the distant past.
Clairvoyance – The ability to see events without being physically present.
Mediumship – The ability to communicate with spiritual world and talk to the deceased.
Clairsentience – The ability to feel the emotions of others.
Clairaudience – The ability to receive messages and information through “psychic hearing”.
Telepathy – The ability to read the minds of others and know what they’re thinking.
Clairalience – The ability to get psychic impressions from the sense of smell.
Clairgustance – The paranormal ability to taste a substance without putting it in mouth.

Check out this link if you’d like more detail on them: https://www.psychics4today.com/types-extrasensory-perception/

Hamlet and Horatio experienced mediumship. I wonder if during the African-American walking tour I did last Fall I didn’t experience it as well. Was it only my vivid imagination that allowed me to feel, see and hear the spirits of those Africans and African Americans striving for freedom, for a better life?

Why can’t a person be so sensitive to another person’s body language that they can feel what someone is feeling? Couldn’t you be so knowledgeable about a place, an era and particular events that when you’re in that place you can connect to the energy still inhabiting that place and see what took place there as if you had actually been present?

A smell, a sound, a taste can thrust us back to a moment and cause us to from the past only be stored in memory?

What if we intentionally trained ourselves to use our five sense to their fullest capacity? It’s a myth we only use 10% of our brains, but I’m willing to bet we’re only fully focused and intentional is using our brains 10% of the time. What if we could harness our ability to see, hear, taste, smell and touch to the point where we transcended time and space?

Being in the moment doesn’t only have to mean we’re only aware of what’s here and now. William Faulkner wrote “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.” Being in the moment also means being aware of what came before and by extension what might be to come. I like to think so. How about you?

Better To Marry Than To Burn

Freed Man seeking woman to partner in marriage for at least two years in the black township of Douglass, Texas. Must be willing and able to help establish a legacy. Marital relations as necessary. Love neither required nor sought.

Caesar King’s ad for a mail-order bride is an answer to Queen Esther Payne’s prayer. Her family expects her to adhere to society’s traditional conventions of submissive wife and mother, but Queen refuses. She is not the weaker sex and will not allow herself to be used, abused or turned into a baby-making machine under the sanctity of matrimony. Grateful that love is neither required nor sought, she accepts the ex-slave’s offer and heads West for marriage on her terms.

Her education and breeding will see to that. However, once she meets Caesar, his unexpected allure and intriguing wit makes it hard to keep love at bay. How can she hope to remain her own woman when victory may be synonymous with surrender?

Excerpt

With thanks to God, he pushed past her flimsy drawers to the moist welcome of her center. Her vaginal walls gripped his fingers with surprising force. No amount of twisting or turning wrenched them free. God, to have that grip surrounding his shaft.

He pulled back and studied her face. Eyes still closed, a sly smile bowed her perfect lips. She enjoyed this battling as much as he.

“Was I too brutal for your enjoyment, Mrs. King?”

Her eyelids rose with the slow grace of sunrise. A gleam as sly as her smile shone in her gaze. “You call that brutal, Mr. King?”

She unclenched her lower muscles, allowing his fingers momentary retreat. With great care, she grasped his hand then slid his fingers between her folds once more.

“Holy Christ, woman. What—?”

The gentle rubbing robbed him of his ability to think.

“Jesus, have mercy,” he wheezed.

She slid his fingers from her wet sex into his mouth. He moaned, lost in her delectable taste.

Without taking her gaze from his face, she raked her gloved hand down his chest, across his belly, to his groin. Anticipation tensed his muscles in the wake of her touch. He watched mesmerized as, with a practiced ease, she unbuttoned his fly, pushed past the fabric, sought, found and stroked his cock. Her woolen gloves imparted a delicious friction he couldn’t oppose, even if he’d wanted. Delight enlivened every muscle in his body, including his jaded heart.

Jesus. This couldn’t be more than arousal. Could it?

Her fingers squeezed and his body arched upward on the yes swelling his spirit with joy. He threw back his head, mouth open, ready to shout as he neared the point of release.

Then she let him go.

He doubled over, slain by the abandonment. His lungs constricted, bereft of air. Reason deserted him too.

She stood and smoothed down her skirts with the hand that had massaged his shaft more deftly than he ever had. Reseated, she grabbed the reins and snapped the leather against his horse’s rump.

“Get up there.”

The wagon jostled Caesar from side to side. Still unable to straighten up, he looked into eyes gleaming with triumph. Her lips curved in a regal smirk.

“Was I too brutal for your enjoyment, Mr. King?”

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