Vixenwriter

I just finished Fated last night so I can now take a quick breath, talk about some books and then dive right back into my part of the proposal for No Reservations - my next book with Megan Hart.

Let’s see…

Click the cover to read an excerpt and to buy!
Candice Gilmer’s Unholy Night releases on May 5!

Blurb: Can love be found on the unholiest night of the year?

There are some things Marissa Van Dyke won’t do — celebrate Halloween is one of them. When she’s guilted into attending a Halloween party, a flamboyant woman dressed as a gypsy claims Marissa will be saved three times before she’s finally free.

Foolish Halloween games, according to Marissa. Her life is fine; not perfect, but good enough, and nothing could save her anyway.

All she wants is to leave the party until a man named Neil Drigan materializes at her side, making her forget everything but his hauntingly familiar green eyes. His animal magnetism is a dangerous temptation on a night she’s always reserved for mourning.

Can there be salvation under his powerful presence — even on such an unholy night?

It’s sexy, sad, emo - all good things!

Also! A fabulous print anthology is now available!

Magical Seduction featuring three of my favorite authors - Anya Bast, Mandy Roth and Cathryn Fox!

Blurb:
Witches, werewolves, things that bump in the night…And three arousing tales of sexual delight.

CATHRYN FOX- Web of Desire
Good witch Ally gets naughty when she discovers her long-lost high school sweetheart caught — literally — in a web of lust and seduction.

MANDY M. ROTH -Solo Tu
When Francy shows up after five years of separation to tell her beloved Dante, a werewolf, that she’s engaged to a vampire, he seduces her with a steamy surprise of his own.

ANYA BAST -Tempted by Two
Not only did Miranda just learn that she’s a half-blood fae, but she’s also got two — two! — deliciously muscular mates. She’d better adjust to all the sexy attention before a vengeful goblin tries to get in on the threesome….

I’m nearly done with Dancing with Werewolves so I’ll hopefully be able to post a brief review next week.

Last Wolf Hunting - I have a teeny bit left to go! I’ve been sneaking peeks around writing but now I can devote more time to it. I will say - so far it’s FABULOUS!

Dirty Girls - anthology with Saskia Walker and Rachel Kramer-Bussell - some of the stories are incredibly well written - I’m going to post on this one later in the week when I talk about what strikes me as good, short erotica and why.

Anyway, my husband has been gone on business all week and he comes home today! Wheee! Off to do laundry and stuff. Have a great weekend!

Heard back from our editor at Black Lace today and he said he really enjoyed TCOB. His comments made me quite happy and I’m looking forward to plotting out the next book with Megan next week!

Early tomorrow I’m off to Anya’s and then on Sunday we’re off to Megan’s! Then we have a photo shoot with the uber fabulous Scott Church on Monday the 14th. Later that evening a book signing at the Waldenbooks in the Lebanon Valley Mall from 6 - 8 pm so if you’re in the area, please do come by to say hello!

And then on Tuesday we’re off again to Pittsburgh for the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention. I’m all atizzy with prep today. The washing machine is going. I’m nearly totally packed but there are always last minute things and I realized Wednesday that I’ll need to take along another small suitcase for extra promotion stuff because we have 68 people and not 50 sign up for our reader party. I’ll also be able to bring back books in it so I suppose that’s a good thing too.

I have not written as much as I wanted to this last week, which sucks. But I’m still good and hopefully I’ll come back as energized to work this time as I did last year.

Cascadia Wolves: Fated

Just wrote a very emotional scene last night but I think it came out well because I cried as I wrote so apparently it translated, or it did to me anyway.

Bookwise I haven’t read much although I did get an early look at Beth Kery’s Wicked Burn and I have to tell you all, this book is freaking amazing. Dark and sharp, totally sexy with an alpha hero who reminded me a lot of Linda Howard’s early heroes. Speaking of La Linda - I read Now You See Her last week and I have to reiterate how much I love her books. I LOVE HER. I’m reading The Ruins now which is uber creepy and I don’t think I’ll be taking it with me on this trip. I did get Karen Chance’s new one and also Meredith Duran’s Duke of Shadows so we’ll see which one I pick for the plane. I may actually do some plotting out of an idea I have as well. I don’t often have large blocks of time that are solely my own so I have a plethora of choices.

I meant to do this last week but I’ve been insane with deadlines and then this plague flu so I didn’t get to it. I’ve got quite a few books to comment on though so hold on!

Rhyannon Byrd’s Last Wolf Standing - It’s in books like this in the hands of a fabulous author like Byrd where category can really shine. It takes major skill to write a category paranormal novel because your ability to worldbuild and draw rich characters is reined in by the length. Category novels get a bad rap but it’s hard to do it well.

Luckily for us, Byrd does it not only well but she truly shines in Last Wolf Standing. The story is sexy and fun and the world she’s building is fabulous and interesting.

This is a one true mate story done the way it should be! Mason is a protector, a half-breed wolf/human and he’s a warrior with some pretty deep scars. Torrance is a longer with her own scars but I liked her a lot. I thought her reactions to the various situations were believable - she ran when hello, anyone with sense would have, but she stayed when it made sense as well. She didn’t wait to be saved by the males but at the same time realized they were the ones best trained to fight off the big bad.

I don’t have to tell anyone who’s read Rhyannon Byrd before but the love scenes were really smoking hot and well done for the level of sensuality appropriate for Nocturne.

I’m so on board for the next book, and pretty much anything else Rhyannon Byrd writes, LOL.

Maya Banks’ Sweet Surrender - I read a lot of Heat titles because I like the length for authors to write an actual novel with erotic flavor. Romantic Suspense is really one of my favorite genres so I’m always glad to read them, especially when authors I like write them!! (Jaci Burton, hello!)

Anyway so here’s the lovely Ms. Maya Banks’ second Heat offering - Sweet Surrender featuring cop Gray Montgomery and office manager Faith Malone and Faith has a messed up mom looking for help because of her latest loser boyfriend. Only that boyfriend is the man who most likely murdered Gray’s partner back in Dallas.

Gray’s guilt wars with his attraction to and desire for Faith in a believable way (sadly, this is not always done well!) It’s drawn out sensibly. He’s not a monster, he loved his partner and Faith is pretty much a stranger to him. But because he’s not a monster he begins to see Faith for the innocent she is fairly quickly and he’s a cop - not a man who is prone to harming people who are victims just as much as his partner was.

The D/s is handled with a unique take and one that addresses the emotion as well as the physical aspects. This is not all spanking and handcuffs which is refreshing!

I need to pester her to find out when we get the stories for Faith’s brother and co-workers!

JD Robb’s Strangers In Death - I’m never going to miss a new Robb! The procedural in this one outweighed the personal stuff, which provides a nice flip and a bit of a breather I think. Interesting storyline, the suspect is such a piece of work. More stuff with charles and louise who we haven’t seen in a while and I loved it!

It was a good, solid book, not as emotionally wrenching as the last few have been but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In a series this long, you have to switch things up or it gets old.

One thing - I totally have to say I still don’t think Roarke has done enough to make up for his behavior with Madgalena. I really don’t and when Eve brings it up and says she doesn’t blame him, I still do. He did not take Eve’s side, that’s worse for Eve than having sex with someone else. I really wanted to see him on his knees, totally understanding the depth of the harm he did but I haven’t so it makes me hold back a bit with him and I just love him so much as a character it kills me!

Kim Harrison’s The Outlaw Demon Wails - A few years ago I picked up a paper back book with a great cover and a funky blurb and I’ve devoured eveything Kim Harrison has written since.

Given the deeply emotional crash at the end of the last book, I was wondering how Harrison would write Rachel in this book. I think, with Outlaw, Harrison has written what seems “a day in the life” of Rachel Morgan but Rachel really bleeds. She’s trying to overcome her grief at the loss of Kisten and figure out how to move on. She’s dealing with her true heritage and the rusurfacing of her mother’s place in her life. There’s always Ivy and their relationship to deal with and also, the real fact of the short lifespan of pixies.

In the midst of a whole lot of grief, loss and potential for more loss, Al comes back and Rachel has to deal with demons again. Oh and a new vamp has come to town now that Piscary is gone and of course he’s got his incisors and his eye on Rachel.

Nice twists and turns, a trip to the ever after (which opened a whole new OH MY GOD storyline), more Trent (and who doesn’t love his evil butt), ups and downs with Ivy, a new possible love interest handled well given Rachel’s recent loss.

I loved it and I can’t wait to see what’s next for Rachel Morgan.

Simply Sexual by Kate Pearce

I bought the book because I like Kate Pearce. She’s a nice person and I’ve read her stuff from EC and Cheek and liked it. Amazon, at the time I purchased the book didn’t have a blurb up (and what’s up with that? I see it all the time - a blurb is um, sort of nice when I can’t pick the book up and look at the back) so when I got it and read the back I admit I put it down for a few days. The former sex slave in Turkey thing just didn’t catch me.

But I have to say, I picked it up night before last and I ended up awake until 1 am to finish it. I loved it. Valentin is such a wonderful tortured hero. He really came to life in the book.

This is an erotic historical and it had just enough detail but not so much I wanted to die. The characters never did things I thought, “why on earth would someone do that?” and I felt like the way Sara finally broke through was edgy and well written. It certainly pushed the envelope in several places without feeling manipulative on the author’s part.

I think the title underestimates the sheer emotional depth of the story though! Simply Sexual is probably one of the very best Aphrodisia titles I’ve read. Great job!

Nights in Black Satin by Noelle Mack

Interesting backdrop and setting, not every day you see Venice during Carnivale in a contemporary book. Fun bit of paranormal thrown in with a time travel plotline. Some interesting commentary about the place of women as a courtesan, etc - in fact that part was one of my favorite things about this book.

The sex was well done, the villain of the book wasn’t actually so much a villain and not a cardboard cutout - which I LOVED.

All in all, the book wasn’t at all what I expected and I liked it even more because of that.

Pick Me Up - Samantha Hunter

A little bit of suspense, a lot of sexin, great chemistry and romance all collide in Samantha Hunter’s Pick Me Up.

First - dewd, have you seen this cover? I love Blaze covers and this one is so tasty! Second, I like Samantha Hunter’s voice a lot and I enjoy her writing. She’s a good fit at Blaze.

You can read the book’s description to get an exact storyline recap but essentially this one is two people at the wrong time in their lives meeting each other, sparks flying and realizing despite how much they want to fight it, it’s really the right time to make something work.

Pick Me Up was a fun way to spend an afternoon!

Good gracious I could not get into this or another blog of mine yesterday at all. My system would not make nice with wordpress for some odd reason.

Nalini Singh’s Mine To Possess came into my inbox and I tell you it’s made me all squeeful since that moment:

Right up front, I love Nalini Singh’s writing. I love her voice. I think she’s an amazing worldbuilder and she has created one fabulous universe with her Psy/Changeling books. I’ve said multiple times she’s one of the people I absolutely believe is worth the hype she gets and that’s so rare! So I opened up MTP with the expectation that I’d love it.

And of course - I did. Clay is such a rich, dark character and the story drew me in right away. I love so much that Tally is a human and lacking the powers of the changelings or the psy and I love that despite it, and despite her weaknesses she’s still strong. I think the match was particularly well done and MTP ranks up there with Visons of Heat, which is my favorite of the series for many of the same reasons I just loved Mine To Possess.

For me, broken people really resonate. It’s a theme done often but not always done well. In Clay and Tally, Singh has given readers some really broken characters but not ones who wallow or whine. Clay and Tally are strong, despite their flaws and I think that’s why the way Singh brings them together works so particularly well.

The emotion on the pages is palpable without seeming manipulative. This one keeps you turning pages as you twist in knots - you have to know what is next for these characters Singh has made you care about so much! The meta story of the building political tension in the Psy universe is also handled well and not short shrifted in the story as a whole.

I don’t want to spoil anything - obviously you know Clay and Tally will end up together but the road isn’t easy and it’s filled with some breathless moments. Mine To Possess is the perfect mix of all the things I love most - great writing, wonderful characters you care about, a fabulously created world, heat, emotion and lots of dark, jagged edges. It’s truly a fabulous book and I can’t wait to see what we’re going to see next from Nalini Singh!

I managed to get two books read this week and both I liked quite a bit.

The first one was Eileen Wilks’ Night Season. I think Wilks’ Lupi books are some of the most interesting and well written paranormals out right now so I’d been eagerly awaiting book four in the series and the telling of Cynna and Cullen’s story.

As with the other books, I woudln’t say so much that the books are paranormal romances but paranormals with strong romantic elements. In this book, Cynna and Cullen are sucked into another universe, The Edge where Cynna is told her father is.

So you get lots of great action, magic, interesting worldbuilding and the deepening of the connection between two very well defended characters, both outcasts, both saved in a very real sense by Rule Turner - Cynna and Cullen. It’s a very emotional story and I liked it a great deal.

I must admit several things - first, I love Lily and Rule and I want more. I’d be quite content if Wilks kept the series about them and other people were side characters. But I’m greedy that way and it’s a testament to what wonderful characters she’s written. I wanted more of Cullen. I am fascinated by his character, much more so than Cynna. Although I did come to really like her in this book which was not the case in the last one where I thought she was a bitter, nasty cow - again I think a huge testament to Wilks’ talent as an author.

And then Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Side of the Moon

Now see, I’d read this review and the reviewer was spitting mad over Acheron’s behavior with Artemis and Nick’s character changes. But you know what? She’s been setting that up for some time. Do people really think Nick has turned evil forever?

No Kenyon has given readers some really complicated characters and some fabulously ambiguous villains - in fact I love how the daimons aren’t evil for evil’s sake but are victims. Sure, they’re killers and yes, they need to be destroyed but I think over the last several books Kenyon has taken assumptions about all sorts of characters and turned them upside down.

Stryker is a bad guy with major daddy issues but cripes, he’s got a reason! And I think Ash is just bone tired of having to continually use his one big card with Artemis to give his Dark Hunters the one thing he needs so badly. I think it’s an excellent build to whatever will happen between Nick and Ash in Ash’s book later this year.

I wouldn’t say I was a fangirl, but I do enjoy the series and I think Kenyon’s skill at creating really interesting and layered characters is totally underrated. These are not cardboard villains in any sense. There are times when I read when I really feel for the daimons, even the Spathi.

The main coupling wasn’t my favorite of the series although I liked both Susan and Ravyn separately. I just wasn’t that drawn into them together as much as I was into them as individuals. However, in truth, that was the smallest part of the book for me as I’m continually drawn in and interested by this cast of characters and meta story arc Kenyon creates with her DH world.

So this week I put the final touches on Undercover and today it was mailed off to my editor. All 460 pages. Yikes. I hope she likes it. Now on to obsessing about the next book.

In the last week I read: Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs - Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs was the first book I read in 2008 and it wasn’t a disappointment!

In Iron Kissed, we get back to mechanic and Walker, Mercy Thompson’s story. This time, she’s asked by her friend and Fae, Zee, to help them solve a spree of killings on the local Fae reservation. From this point on, the stakes rise higher and higher for her.

Iron Kissed isn’t a romance so I went into it with different expectations but I was quite pleased with how Briggs handled the romantic resolution of the love triangle in the first books. The resolution made sense and while it made me sad, a decision had to be made and I think it was handled perfectly.

The action was riveting including a very intense scene toward the end that had me in tears. Excellent, taut storytelling here and I hope Briggs gives us more about the Fae in later books.

And then Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty and The Silver Bullet

I’ve been a huge fan of this series since the first book. what I’ve liked most is how Kitty’s character starts off as scared and flaky and has grown with each new book. Grown into a character who continues to become more likeable.

In Silver Bullet, Cormac is in prison for murdering a monster in order to save Kitty’s life. She’s got big guilt about it. She’s also with Ben, yes *with* Ben who is now a werewolf too.

They need to go back to Denver because Kitty’s mom is ill and needs her but unfortunately they step into a war between the current vampire master and the guy who wants the job. And don’t forget Kitty’s old, abusive jerk of an Alpha, Carl.

So you get all kinds of political machinations here. Interesting background on vampires, nice romantic asides between Ben and Kitty too. there were, I admit, a few moments when I got very frustrated with Kitty as a character and was like, “GET OVER IT ALREADY!” but I think Vaughn handles this so well because well, sure Kitty is a werewolf but she’s also human.

The action was well done, the writing and dialog, as in past books, was quick and clever. Kitty and the Silver Bullet was another great installment in the series and I am so on board for the next book!

I usually read more weekly but I’ve been totally slammed with work and home stuff. I’m about 3/4 finished with Night Season and loving it, so I’ll talk about that one next week.

I was going to do both Riding Wild and Wicked on Friday but really, each book deserves its own day, I think and as I’m a reader as much as an author, I love, love, love it when I can share great books.

And make no mistake, Jaci Burton’s Riding Wild is a great book. First of all, it’s a really fantastic, action packed, well plotted suspense book. Secondly, it’s a great romance - reunion stories, wheee! Lastly, guh, just guh to the fabulous sex in the book. I think Jaci Burton’s Riding Wild is my favorite Jaci Burton title, which says a lot since I love her writing.

The tension between Mac and Lily is already in place due to a parting ten years prior. But Burton doesn’t rely on the past to tell you about it, she feeds it to the reader in incremental bits, drawing it out, making it taut and very believable. Romantic and sexual tension is hard to create effectively and really hard to sustain. But in Riding Wild, she does it quite handily.

It’s that thread of emotional heat between Lily and Mac that I felt threads the entire book together so solidly. The sex is wildly hot of course, but the sexual tension is what makes the entire book so sexy. The external threat, the way Burton has crafted a great tale of suspense and weaved it around the romantic elements - this is the books’ strength.

I loved the little bits that make the story ring true - the wonderful smattering of biker life just made me smile. Oh and *wipes brow* the other Wild Riders she introduces? Yum. I loved their camaderie, it lent a nice bit of family to the story.

In all, honestly, I think Jaci has seriously outdone herself here and has set a really high bar for erotic romantic suspense, hell for single title erotics period.

You can pre-order Riding Wild now. It comes out in February and hello, it’s the first in a series so I’m SO on board for the next book.

So I brazenly and totally unashamedly made it known to Sasha back when I read Trouble just how much I wanted to read Karl’s book. Like, as in early and stuff. She took pity on me and sent me Wicked and I read half of it, got slammed and couldn’t finish until very recently so I wanted to get a revew up because hello, it’s releasing soon and you should all run out and pre-order this book because, yet again, Sasha kicks ass and hits it out of the park (whoo, two cliched phrases for the price of one, I rule)

In Karl and Lara Sasha flips the trope around a bit. At first it appears it’s a matter of two people very much alike attracting, but really, it’s Lara who’s the one who does the running and Karl who realizes he wants something permanent with this woman.

Of course there’s hot sex, this is Sasha after all. There’s one scene which made me distinctly pissed off, but upon further reflection, it worked for who this couple is. For who Lara is.

We get into not just Lara’s head, but really into Karl’s head. He’s been a mystery for a while so I enjoyed this being as much his story as it was Lara’s. I like to get the hero’s POV in a romance and White does it well here.

One of the things I like best about Sasha White’s writing is her voice is very unique and young. Her books are not carbon copies of anything else and I always feel, as I read, that she’s very true to the story inside her.

Wicked releases January 2 and it’s another Sasha White book I can heartily recommend - especially to anyone looking for an atypical romance with some great emotion and really well written sex scenes.

Blurb: I had everything a woman could want…
My husband, James. The house on the lake.

But I wasn’t the only one.

Temped by Megan Hart is shipping from Amazon and Barnes and Noble already! This is the third of Megan’s Spice books and like Dirty and Broken, it’s a disturbing, engaging, intense and emotional read. It could just be me but I don’t really think that blurb does the book justice. The book isn’t about James and Alex so much although they’re both integral to the plot. It’s about Anne.

Anne is a compelling character because she’s so real. She’s a wife, she’s got to deal with her in-laws, her household, her job, her life, her husband. She loves her life and then something gets tossed into the mix and it turns her universe upside down. The strength of the book is Anne’s journey. Who she is, what happens to her. How the addition of Alex into her universe upsets the balance.

Tempted is about unintended consequences. It’s about love and connection and in many ways, it’s about what happens when you take a fantasy and make it real. It’s never what you expect and quite often you realize it changes you in ways you can’t take back, you can’t forget.

It’s a beautiful book in many ways. Smart, sexy. Megan is an amazing writer (and yes, she’s my friend but I’m certainly not the only one who thinks so and even if I did, it’s still my opinion). Tempted takes risks. It’s not a typical romance novel at all. In fact, I’d say it’s more a novel with strong romantic elements because the HEA is more Anne’s than anyone else’s.

Anyway, I quite honestly can’t think of too many authors right now with the kind of talent Megan has. It’s pretty awe inspiring sometimes to read something so intensely beautiful and to know from my perspective as a crit partner, just how she constructs her books.

Tempted isn’t lighthearted. It’s intense so it’s not an afternoon of lazy happy reading. It’s not a downer either, it’s just, well intense. It needs some time and attention. But you won’t be sorry.