Aphrodisia Authors :: Blog

So, I’m signing my new book later today at Borders Bookstore in Los Gatos, California. If you’re in the are, come visit!

I’m so excited about this book, I can’t even contain it. It is, hands down, my favorite book I’ve written to date, so…here’s a little squee and all the info and excerpts I can throw at you!

The biological warfare of the twenty-first century changed the planet in astonishing ways, transforming humans into shape-shifters who love to walk on the wild side—reveling in danger and the explosive desire that consumes them…

Half-human, half-lynx, Delilah Chase makes her living as a professional thief. But when half-human, half-hawk Hunter Avery catches her trying to steal his priceless ruby, he makes her a proposition: spend a week in his bed, or take a trip to jail. What follows is seven days of unrelenting, primitive passion neither can live without…

As the owner of Tail, the most notorious techno brothel in New Chicago, mink-shifter Lorelei Chase specializes in fulfilling all of her clients’ kinky fantasies. She just has one rule: Never sample the goods that her customers or workers offer. But every day, jaguar-shifter Nolan Angelo and wolf-shifter Pierce Vaughn tempt her to break that rule—until she ultimately gives in to a burning lust that knows no control…

Places to buy it: Amazon.com · Barnes & Noble · Chapters.ca · Borders · Books-A-Million · Kensington · Indiebound · Powell’s Books

EXCERPT from UNTAMED…

Delilah Chase perched on the corner of the building, her hand braced on the ledge in front of her as she swept her gaze over the city below. From ninety stories up, it looked clean, beautiful, an ocean of multicolored lights against pure ebony.

But Delilah knew the truth. Up close, it was gritty, dirty, and dangerous. A place where someone like her flourished.

She grinned and let the adrenaline humming through her body take over. Her claws slid forward, scraping against the slick metal ledge. She ran her tongue down a long fang, her smile widening. It was always this way when she was on a job. Half cool, calm professionalism, half unadulterated thrill seeking.

Schooling herself to patience, she tilted her wrist and checked her chrono. A few more minutes and the virus she’d seduced a young computer techie into feeding into the building’s security system would kick in. She’d have a quarter of an hour to get in, steal the priceless ruby her client wanted, and get out again.

Kitten’s play, this job.

Still, every case had its risks, and the moment a thief got too cocky was the moment they slipped up. If all went well, by the end of the night, multi-trillonaire Hunter Avery would be missing a gem and Delilah would have a sizeable commission in her encrypted cred account. So, things had better go well. She gauged the distance between the skyrise she stood on and the one she needed to break into. Tricky, very tricky. Timing was everything. The lynx within her purred at the challenge.

This was going to be fun.

Balconies circled the entire penthouse. Not surprising a family of red-tailed hawks would build the glass and mercurite sanctuary for themselves in the middle of the city. High enough they couldn’t see the grime of the real people below.

The newsvids had reported on every aspect of the Avery family’s lives for as long as she’d been alive. Their fortune was one of the few to survive the Third Great War, which made them newsvid darlings, beautiful people in an ugly world.

Delilah had heard all about it when Hunter’s parents were killed in a tragic industrial accident. A few years after that, Hunter’s uncle died, and Hunter had all but disappeared from public view. The buzz on the street whispered that Hunter had done the killing himself, his mind twisted from seeing his parents’ death. A bitter little smile curled Delilah’s lips. Figures that he’d get away with murder. The rich always did.

Now, Hunter was practically a recluse in his tower penthouse, only allowing a trusted few in for business purposes, and only leaving for a few business meetings or high-society parties a year. Which meant conning her way in wouldn’t work, so breaking in was her best option. Her client said Avery was in Los Angeles at a board meeting and wouldn’t be home until the next day. Her intel had confirmed it, so tonight was the night to get what her client wanted.

If a tiny part of her was curious to see the inside of the Averys’ ivory tower, and got a malicious thrill from stealing from the richest man alive, she’d never admit it to anyone else.

Her chrono vibrated against her wrist, letting her know the window of opportunity had opened. Reaching behind her she pulled her grappler gun out of her knapsack, aimed it at the balcony railing and fired. A gossamer-thin strand of mercurite shot from each end forward to form molecular bonds with the railings on both buildings. She flipped a setting so the grappler would move along the wire. Taking a breath, she said a quick prayer that the virus worked and she wasn’t about to get fried by the security field that electrocuted any unauthorized life forms attempting to enter.

Then she tightened her grip on the grappler, jumped, and let gravity carry her down the wire with a soundless rush of speed and wind. Her heightened vision took in every detail as she went. So, she knew the exact moment something started to go wrong. The mercurite was designed to dissolve after one use. It left no evidence behind. The wind was especially intense this evening and she might just reach the end of that one use before she reached the other building.

Shit, shit, shit.

Heart pounding so loud in her ears it drowned out everything else, she tilted her feet forward and hoped for greater speed. Tensing every muscle as she hit the perfect spot in her downward flight, she kicked her legs hard. She swung up and around the wire, launching herself into the sky. The cable slackened and she knew it was no more than silver powder beneath her. She twisted midair, flipping until she landed lighter than a cat’s paw on the edge of the railing. Triumph rushed through her, making her grin. Perfect.

She loved it when a plan came together. Almost as much as she loved it when the plans went awry and she had to think on her feet. It was why she was the very best at what she did.

I’m fortunate enough to live in one of the most beautiful states in the US, and one not many people know about. New Mexico. Have you ever visited? (No, I don’t work for the New Mexico Tourism Department.) Fall in New Mexico is amazing. In September, the scent of roasting green chili fills the air, signaling the approach of cooler weather. In October, we have Balloon Fiesta. This year, I stood on my patio drinking mimosas and watched hundreds of balloons pass over. Beautiful! And today, I drove home from Taos, entranced by the beauty of the cottonwoods’ golden and yellow leaves. Sandia Peak wore a lacy shawl of snow that will probably be gone by tomorrow, but it will be back.

Fall is my favorite season. It starts off the holidays with one of my favorites: Halloween. And it inspires me to write. In spite of being overrun with work, I’ve spent more time writing the past two weeks than I had in the past two months. Something about the cold does that to me. I’ve also been inspired to set my stories in New Mexico, which is something relatively new for me. I’m finally feeling comfortable enough with my chosen home to portray it in stories. The first that hit the stands set in NM was ADDICTED, and I thoroughly enjoyed writing that one.

What does fall inspire you to do?

Happy fall, and Happy Halloween! (This time of year, maybe no one will notice my fangs. )

Query letters. Mention those two words to a group of writers and a fair number will break out in a sweat. Those who aren’t hyperventilating lick their lips and change the subject. Countless articles have been written about the care and feeding of queries and has there been an interview of an editor or agent that doesn’t include the question, “What do you look for in a query?” Unfortunately, there’s no uniformity in the responses which means writers, multi-published or not, are left to bang their heads against their keyboards.

I got to thinking about queries after reading my agent Laura Bradford’s posts on Twitter. The other day she twittered that she’d been called incompetent after rejecting a submission. She allowed as how the same thing has happened when she said ‘no thanks’ in response to query letters. She didn’t go into details about why the query didn’t hit her hot buttons but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was because the writer tried to interest her in something outside her area of interest/expertise. Her website details what genres she specializes in so why would someone ask her to take on something such as economic non-fiction.

Something interesting agents are seeing now that the Internet has taken over the world. Multi-submissions of queries. By that I mean the writer shotguns a generic query to as many agents as he/she can get email addresses for. How’s that for making an agent feel special, not. A twist on that is something else agents are twittering about–a suggestion-request-demand that the agent go to a web site to access the material. I’ve yet to come across a single agent willing to do that. Come on, lets get real here. Who doesn’t know not to trust all web sites. Who wants a virus.

Tempted as I am to pontificate about the perfect query (like I have a clue) I’m not going to. Instead, I’ll leave you with what I heard from none less than Tami Hoag at a conference a couple of weeks ago. “Oh,” she said. “I’m spoiled. I just drop my editor an email saying I’m kind of interested in such and such and am thinking of writing a book about it. That sound ok?”

Okay, I paraphrased here but you get the idea. And my guess is since this is Tami Hoag you know what the editor will say.

Then there’s the rest of us.
Vonna
www.VonnaHarper.com

Last weekend I was at the fabulous Emerald City Writers Conference and participated in the book fair. I had a couple of books for sale, plus cover flats for three upcoming titles. It was really interesting to see which covers readers gravitated to.

OK, call it a mini focus group. What most appeals to women readers of sexy romance?

Of course, we writers usually have very little input when it comes to covers. And of course, our expertise is in writing, not marketing, so maybe that’s a good thing!

What I’ve noticed, especially for the steamier romances, is that there are two trends these days: the hottie guy and the clinch – often headless, in both cases.

Among the women who stopped by my signing table on Saturday, I’d say there was roughly a 50/50 split as to who preferred which.

I’d like to know what you think. Here are covers for my two next books. The first (late October) is MEN ON FIRE, and the cover says it all, doesn’t it? It’s a sexy anthology with three hot firefighter heroes (written by Rachelle Chase, Jodi Lynn Copeland, and me). The second (late November) is SEX DRIVE, the first book in my Wild Ride to Love series. It’s a sensual, romantic, attraction of opposites love story. And again, isn’t that exactly what the cover conveys? And then, in Anne Rainey’s post (below Devyn’s), there’s the cover for the March antho I’m in with her and Kate Pearce, SOME LIKE IT ROUGH (and you can see from the comments to that post, readers love that cover too).

So hurray, I think Kensington did a great job with all these covers. But how about you? Which one would you pick up first if you saw them – face out, of course! – on the shelf in your local bookstore? MEN ON FIRE, SEX DRIVE, or SOME LIKE IT ROUGH? What stands out for you about that particular one?

I’ll draw a name from among those who comment, and you’ll win autographed cover flats for all three books. I’ll announce the winner on Sunday, in the comments to this post.

It’s been a wild and crazy last week around here. First my mom got a new Pekinese puppy, Honey, which is absolutely adorable. Then my cat Tinker had kittens. Though she had 5, only two lived, a black and a yellow one. I call the boys Wooley and Jay, as they are such a wild and wooley duo when it comes to nursing, LOL. But that’s not all the cats that have shown up around here lately. Two days ago I found a little 5 week old Siamese under the porch! His eyes were badly infected, so he’s getting treatment for that problem. Luckily I have a vet who always keeps me in animal meds for the kittens, so I was able to begin treatment right away. Hope to have that cleared up in a few more days. Luckily Tinker likes him and she is letting him nurse with Wooley and Jay. I need to snap a pix of that trio, as it looks so cute to see one big kitten and two newborns all nursing together.

But that’s not all. Today I got a surprise when dad bought me my very own Pekinese! That’s Peeka, my new dog, on the left and Honey on the right.

You may think my day could not get any better. Well, you’re wrong! My author copies of Soul of the Wildcat arrived today. It’s hard to believe that back in late April I hadn’t even started the book, and now it’s in print!! And I am thrilled with the 4 star review it got from Romantic Times: “Quinn’s tale of a shapeshifting tribe facing extinction and a woman with a rocky past is well paced, with exhilarating suspense and terror, matched with calmer scenes of characters cautiously falling in love. The fine heroine is torn between U.S. law and Native American sovereignty, and readers are sure to empathize with her struggles.”

To celebrate, I’ll be giving away a few signed copies. Just leave a comment to be entered in the drawing. I’ll make a selection in the 18th and announce the winner shortly thereafter.

Meanwhile, with 25 cats, 5 ferrets and 2 dogs, I’m going to be very busy taking care of pets!

I’m a new Aphrodisia author and this is my first time posting here at the blog. Some Like It Rough (don’t you just love that cover?!) will come out March 2010. I know, it’s a long way off still, but I’m very excited to be in an anthology with such lovely authors as Kate Pearce and Susan Lyons.

Here’s a little bit about each of our stories:

“Some Like It Rough” by Kate Pearce
Luke Warner wants to chill out when he cashes in his hectic life in Silicon Valley and return to his hometown. But things heat up when he reunites with his best friends, Julia and Paul, and invites them both to share in a sexual adventure like they’ve never had before…

“Private Eyes” by Susan Lyons
Assigned to work undercover as an exotic dancer, straight-laced Haley Croft discovers the thrill of strutting her stuff. And when she catches sexy PI Ry Montana checking out her moves, she can’t wait to give him his own private show…

“Cherry on Top” by Anne Rainey
When massage therapist Cherry DuBois rubs her oil-slicked hands all over Dante Ricci’s rock-hard body, red-hot desire courses through her. She longs to lose control and give herself to the pleasures of sexual submission…

Sexy enough for ya?

Okay, so I feel like giving away an ebook! All you have to do is leave me a comment, telling me what you think of the blurbs above, and you’re entered to win. I’ll announce the winner IN THE COMMENT SECTION tomorrow morning. The winner will get to pick one ebook from my list of current releases. Easy, huh?

Also, if you wan to read the unedited first chapter for my story, “Cherry on Top” in Some Like It Rough click here

Who am I? I’m Chloe Harris a debut Aphrodisia Author. My book Secrets of Sin will be coming out in February. Here’s the blurb:

In 1745 on an alluring Caribbean island, Emiline du Ronde-Barhydt’s inheritance and dazzling beauty insure that she’s granted her every wish, but one…freedom from her wayward husband.

The two fall under a spell of the most forbidden sensations and Reinier risks losing control of his own carnal game. At the mercy of his own raw shattering needs, the three red hot days may just turn into a lifetime of smoldering passion…

I guess I should I said our book. Chloe Harris is really the pseudonym for two writers, Noelle and Barbra who’ve joined forces to write intriguing and sexy stories.

We’d love to tell you a little more about ourselves and get to know you too! So here’s four questions answered by both Barbra and Noelle and then hopefully you too.

What’s your all time favorite book?
Noelle: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Where to begin. I completely identify with Nick Carraway the master observer and bastion of sanity watching the wild world crumble and change around him. The end of innocence, unrequited love and oh those shirts that bring you to tears!
.
Barbra: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I never got over my infatuation with Mr. Darcy.

What are your Hobbies?
Barbra: Besides writing you mean? Why, reading, of course. What an asinine question.

Noelle: I love to cook, read, kayak, try to learn how to play tennis and walk in the woods.

Who is your favorite actor?
Noelle: Jonathan Rhys Meyers. He just has that something you can’t describe but you know you want some of it.

Barbra: Hm. Difficult question. There are several for various reasons. But I think I can say that Johnny Depp definitely pushes all – and I mean all – the right buttons.

What turns you on?
Barbra: I’m prude. And frigid.
Oh-kay… does that still count as a little white lie?

Noelle: The cerebral. Sex is 90% in the mind.

Okay we’ve opened up, what about you? Do you have any hobbies or a favorite book, or actor? Do you dare spill about what turns you on? Do share, we can’t wait to hear!

To learn more about Chloe Harris and Secrets of Sin check out www.authorchloeharris.com

Hi. I’m a newer author at Kensington, and delighted to be here. : waves : My first Aphrodisia title, Sweet and Dirty, will be released in January 2010. My agent says this post-holiday release date means people will have something great to buy with those inevitable book store Christmas gift certificates. Here’s hoping.

A little about Sweet and Dirty, which contains two contemporary BDSM stories:

Embrace your most illicit desires…

“Baring It All”

From her relationships and her home life to her job as a dog trainer, Michelle Gray is too often the obedient one. So when she crosses paths with Ro Kaliph, the owner of an S&M nightclub, she decides to take a few lessons in being more dominant — but discovers instead that surrendering to Ro’s every command brings her the most intense, satisfying pleasure.

“Forbidden Heat”

Workaholic Nora Sabine has finally made time for a vacation with her fiance. And she’s pleasantly surprised to learn the B&B where they’ll be staying is actually a Bondage & Breakfast. Indulging in every blissful sexual punishment, Nora can’t seem to get enough. But when she meets the inn’s owner, Sylvester, he takes her over the edge as he introduces her to a fantasy world where ecstasy has no boundaries…

To read an excerpt, enjoy some free short fiction, see current giveaways, or to check out Coffee Time Romance’s full pre-publication review of Sweet and Dirty, please drop by my website.

When it’s my day to blog, whatever is in the news or on my desktop tends to be fodder. This can be good, but it can be… weird. For instance, yesterday, I ended up blogging about Komodo dragons on my myspace page. (http://www.myspace.com/lucindabetts) How often do people blog about Komodo dragons? It involved spit and bacteria and staggering deer. Ewe. (If you leave a comment there, you might win a Christina Crooks book!)

Today is just as wacky, I’m afraid. The stuff in the news isn’t a lot more blog worthy than yesterday. (Although it IS cool to find out that the First Lady is a descendent of a slave and a white man. America rocks.) But the stuff on my desk… well, there is a blog-in-the-making right here in the pile of crap on my desk.

I don’t know why this article has been printed out and is sitting here. I share my computer with my kids. I suspect them. But the photo and the headline are so disgusting, I’m going to share both of them with you.

Headline: Spider Builds Life-Sized Decoys.
Picture:

See what I mean? Gross.

As a child, our summer cottage (I know that sounds glamorous, but it wasn’t, trust me—no one wanted to shower or sleep in it) was filled with mallard decoys. My uncles would put them on the lake during duck season and shoot the poor saps who fell for the dirty trick. But what the hell is a spider doing with a decoy? Despite the photo, I find I want to know.

This is what I found out. The answer wasn’t obvious. First, the scientists discovered that spiders with more crap (they call it ‘decorations,’ but please) in their webs get more predators. If so, I wondered to myself, what the hell are the spiders thinking? (And if you find yourself wondering what is going on in a spider’s brain, you should probably be an author, too, because you are just as deranged as I am.)

Maybe spider scientists are wacky, too. (And they must be. I mean, can you imagine meeting them at a dinner party. “Hi, my name is Lucinda, and yes, I write steamy romances. What’s that? You’re a spider scientist?” Lucinda nods politely and tries not the get creeped out. “Nice to meet you.” Lucinda runs for cover and wipes her arms free of imaginary spider legs.) Because they tried to figure out why spiders put extra crap in their web.

It turns out that spiders who put decoys in their web have a lower probability of getting eaten by wasps than do the same kind of spiders with plain webs. Why? The wasps get fooled by the decoy. While wasps try to eat the spider-shaped glob of mud (which, really, wouldn’t that taste better than a spider?), the actual spider runs for cover.

As for the spiders who put non-decoy decorations in their web and promptly get eaten? The scientists wave their hands (only two, not eight) and make some crap up. They don’t have any idea.

Which is fine by me. Because when they figure out the answer, I’ll have something new to blog about. And speaking of a decoy, maybe I could make a mud version of myself and park it in front of my computer. Then my kids wouldn’t print out these disgusting articles and leave them sitting where I have to look at them.

************
When I’m not getting revolted by things my kids leave on my desktop, I’m writing paranormal romances with kickass characters and non-stop plots. My newest release, SCARLET NIGHTS, comes out next month. I just received a huge box of books from Kensington. Leave a comment and I’ll pick a random winner on Saturday.

For those of you who belong to Novelists, Inc.: highlights!
For those of you who don’t: a teaser! Feel free to ask me about joining!

My feelings about NINC Goes Platinum last week? Totally awesome! And totally gratifying for the Board and Conference Coordinators: we remember a time when, if we didn’t have x-number of registrations, we couldn’t justify spending NINC funds on a conference no one wanted to attend. The economy seemed so bleak . . . many members were between contracts . . .

Until—Ta DAH!—we created that half-price stimulus package and set up a star-studded Forensics Day. Added in some midnight ghost tours for a little woo-woo by a full moon, and just kept packing in the programs. Who ever dreamed we’d need an overflow hotel? We attracted several new members and coaxed a lot of non-conference types to come out of their caves for the first time in YEARS.

And can you IMAGINE? I heard NOT ONE COMPLAINT about speakers, or our visiting editors and agents, or the relevance of our topics! The food got raves, and the Drury was so wonderful several members want to have another conference there! Never have I met a more cordial, efficient hotel staff, from the managers to the guys revamping our meeting rooms between sessions, to the gals who cleaned up after us at breakfast. Beautiful lobby with lots of tables and upholstered chairs for chatting. Three free drinks each evening, and popcorn in the lobby! Even the notoriously grumpy among us felt amazingly upbeat and recharged as we reconnected with longtime friends and made new ones.

Instead of telling us to “write the book of your heart” and that they’d “know it when they see it,” our publishing pros gave us informative, insightful views on the future of the book. How writers and houses would be affected once e-readers came down in price and the digital market finally took off like a shot.

The most interesting prediction? That this technological overturning of publishing as we know it will not REPLACE print books. Just as mass market paperbacks threw the hardback industry into a tizzy in the 1950’s, digital media is providing a new FORMAT option for our stories. The transition might feel like a rollercoaster ride these next couple of years, but it will also provide amazing OPPORTUNITIES for writers who choose a “write-your-own-adventure” mindset.

And gee, some of us even attended social networking
sessions on Facebook, Twitter and Squidoo–and came away thinking we could DO that! And still have time to write!

Maggie Osborn’s wonderful “history of NINC” got our Saturday night gala off to a humorous start. And after we recognized Harlequin’s 60th anniversary and enjoyed a fabulous buffet, publicist Scott Manning had us howling over anecdotes from his career.

Even the Annual Meeting was well attended…perhaps because our sealed envelopes promising a major gift enticed so many to show up. Karen King won our drawing for a free conference fee for next year, when we’ll be “Brainstorming on the Beach” at the TradeWinds Island Grand resort in St. Petersburg!! Mark your calendars for October 6-9th and plan to be INSPIRED, RENEWED, and RECONNECTED with your Inner Writer—and probably your Inner Kid, too!

And speaking of kids! Our Kritters for Kids drive was SO successful we needed three “little red wagons” plus a large flatbed cart to carry all our toys and books into the Children’s Hospital! What a heartwarming, hopeful place. Many thanks to all who donated!

And many thanks to all who made this NINC Goes Platinum event such a spectacular success!