A Sexy Urban Fantasy with a lot of Southern Soul

Thousands of years ago, Sparta's greatest warriors gathered at the narrow pass at Thermopylae to face down throngs of Persian invaders. Selflessly battling to their deaths to buy time for their vulnerable country, Ajax Petrakos and his fallen Spartan brothers wake at the banks of the River Styx, prepared to cross to their rewards in the Elysium Fields. Instead, the war god, Ares offers Ajax and his comrades Immortality in exchange for their agreement to protect mortal souls from evil for all Eternity.

When an Immortal Ajax returns Earth, he rushes home to Sparta to see his beloved wife and sons. But the Djinn Demon, Sable, has beaten Ajax home and worked a curse that prevents Ajax's family from recognizing or remembering him. An enraged Ajax battles Sable, and strips him of the one thing he loves--his glittering wings. With Sable banished to the underworld, Ajax turns his back on Sparta forever, alone, heartbroken, and not at all sure that living forever is such a good thing if he must do it without the ones he loves.

Ajax flees to London, where he has spent centuries spending the time he's not battling demons medicating his loneliness with ale and women.

When his friend, the Oracle tells Ajax that the "highest god of all" has asked her to send him to Savannah, Georgia to battle an evil that could lead to his death, he really isn't concerned whether he lives or not. Honestly, death would be a better fate than living forever for a cause he has lost the heart for. Ares has grown in increasingly fickle in his demands of the Spartans. With rumors of this new god, he's not at all sure where his loyalties should lie. At least in death, Ajax could return to the family who waits for him in Elysium. At least there, they would know him, love him. Forever.

When Ajax arrives in a Savannah graveyard, he finds a beautiful woman in a heated battle with Sable, who has escaped banishment. Only after rescuing her and taking her to safety does he realize that this woman is Shayanna Angel, the one promised to him.

But Shayanna isn't quite the demure, helpless lass he'd expected. A demon huntress in her own right, Shay is just now learning the limits of her own power, and she isn't all that sure Ajax is one of the good guys. But neither can deny that the passion growing between them could well destroy them. As the pair battles an evil that threatens to devour every pure soul in its path, they find themselves drawn into a love they are helpless to deny.

But what good is losing his heart to Shayanna Angel when death will only steal her away? She is, after all, a mortal. And he is sworn to live forever.

Deidre Knight pushed the boudaries of urban fantasy with this deeply spiritual story of good vs. evil. The lush southern backdrop makes for a sensual background and Knight works it to the hilt, creating an erotic, heroic passion that burns larger than life itself.

Highly recommended by Writers Gone Wild.

***don't forget to join our sister blog at Inked In. We've logged over 500 comments this week!

What's S-E-X got to do with it?

What's love but a second hand emotion? (Tina Turner)

I've been captivated with the topic of emotion rising out character interaction lately. I'm coming to believe that the white space on the page is every bit as important a means of communicating character passion as that bit of paper which is filled up with words.

As a romance writer, I am often caught up with different ways to describe the wild and wooly act of "doing it". Preferably, I want to communicate those moments in such a way as to stir my readers both emotionally and physically. Doing this in a way that's fresh and new is a challenge far easier said than done.

The spectrum of human emotion during the act of having sex is huge. One one end, we have down and dirty animal sex. On the other end, we have tender, reverential physical manifestations of love between two people. A million different scenarios fall in between. And I won't go into the criminal manifestations of the act, as those have nothing to do with romance. :)

When I write love scenes, I'm trying desperately to communicate my characters' relationship and lovemaking to my readers in a way that they have not experienced it before. But honestly, how many ways can a girl find to say pebbled flesh and rising length?

Not that many, right?

I'm learning by deconstructing sex scenes that have appealed to me that for the characters involved, the act of making love isn't *just* about the sex, at least not at first. It's about a character attaining an end goal that has little to do with the act of sex itself. Like the sexual act that frames such scenes, the build up of conflicting goals makes for a lot of delicious tension between the hero and heroine. Working those goals between the sheets can make for more than just sizzling sex--it can also advance story.

No more gratuitious sex!

Ah. Bingo. I'm thinking of Deanie and Bud in Splendor of the Grass as I write this. For Bud, sex was about sex, spending some of the pent up testosterone that his love and lust for Deanie has fired in his loins.

For Deanie, at least at first, having sex wtih Bud was about something else. It was about keeping Bud from "doing it" with anyone else.

In pouring over clips from my favorite movies,and scenes from some of my favorite novels, it has occurred to me that the most successful moments do not rely on words to carry the emotional impact of the act. I hope you find this scene from Splendor in the Grass as useful as I have.

Got Spartan?

The boys had 300, and truth is, many a woman enjoyed the movies obvious...assets...as well. But before there was 300, author Deidre Knight was already spinning the story that would bring her readers Ajax Petrakis and his band of immortal Spartans.

Now you all know I've been waiting for this book for the proverbial Coon's Age, and hark...it's here! So while I'm over here glued to the pages, allow me to introduce you to Deidre Knight's Red Fire You can bet my review will be posted here shortly. :)

“Powerfully sensual and mind-blowing,”* Deidre Knight’s novels have set the standard for boldly erotic paranormal romance. Now she unleashes an electrifying new series in which seven Spartan warriors, immortal protectors of humankind, battle their passions—a collective weakness that could lead to their downfall.

Eternity has become a prison for Ajax Petrakos. Centuries after he and his Spartan brothers made their bargain for immortality, Ajax struggles to maintain his warrior’s discipline. His only source of strength is his hope that he will soon meet the woman once foretold to him—the other half of his soul, Shay Angel.

Ajax searches for his destined mate on the haunted streets of modern-day Savannah, but he isn’t the first to find her. Shay, the youngest of a powerful demon-hunting clan, can see the monsters that stalk the steamy Southern night—an ability that draws the deadly attention of Ajax’s worst enemy.

As she and Ajax race to solve a chilling prophecy—one that could spell Ajax’s death if they don’t succeed—a fated passion arises, threatening to sweep away everything in its path.

Read an Exerpt here!

By the book here!

I love you. Really, I do. Why don't you Believe me?

"Marsha, I love you."

"No, John, you don't!"

"But I do! Really!"

"Oh. Well. Then I guess I love you, too."

"So let's get married."

"Yes, Let's do."

"Kiss, kiss."

The End.

Emotions.

More specifically, writing emotions. Ought to be a piece of cake. After all, who hasn't felt mad, happy, afraid, or in love?

"If you're a romance writer who relies on emotional words carry your character's journey, then chances are you've failed at youre genre." (Alicia Rasley, editor, Red Sage Publishing)

Yeah, I know. She's right. Blows, doesn't it?

Writing realistic depictions of emotion that spring to life on the page is one of most difficult lessons to learn as an author. Yet, there is no more important lesson to learn.

I was fortunate enough to attend a day conference yesterday hosted by editor/author Alicia Rasley. She's a brilliant teacher, and certainly lives up to her reputation for holding her audience in the palm of her hand.

Much of our discussion was emotion in writing. I walked way with two "aha" moments, particulary when it comes to building up to those dramatic, emotional moments that define love stories.

1) Trust your reader's intelligence. Never. Ever. Spoon feed.

2) Remove the emotional words from your scene and try again. Once done, you are forced to rely on your character's actions to carry the emotion.

You want me to write a Menage a What?

Have you ever considered some subjects taboo in your writing?

I have. But first, a warning...if you're fainthearted and disapprove of racy romance, you might want to click off this post right now, cause we're going to talk about pushing personal boundaries when it comes to creating erotic content.




Still reading? Don't say I didn't warn you. :)

~

Erotic romance. My little genre just gets wilder and wilder. When it comes to heat levels, the trend is burn, baby burn, the hotter the better.

Even though I write some steamy--fine, downright sizzling--stories, I've always considered the growing presence of erotica that includes menage scenes off limits for me, as both a reader and a writer. Fine, I write hot, but I don't do gratuitous. Ever. So in my mind, this was the one barrier that I could never envision myself crossing in real life, much less writing about. In my mind, how could a menage be anything but gratuitous?

But then, one of my writer friends whispered "cop out", which, for me, is right up there with the good old backwoods triple-dog-dare. A girl just can't back down on it, you know?

"And Liane," she continued. "Since when did any of your stories resemble anything that happens in real life?"

Fine. She had me there. I write paranormal and speculative romance. Magic always finds its way into my stories. So do glow in the dark, underwater orgasms. So, yeah, a bit of world building, and anything goes.

That conversation got under my skin. Was I copping out? Maybe. Reading a few well done menage stories like Sex and the Single Pearl by Mia Varano, and Fires Within by Roxana Blaze cured me of my assumption that menages are, by definition, gratuitious content. Both authors have my official permission to flog me. :)

Cops outs just don't sit well with me. With my gratuitous argument shot to hell, I started anylyzing *why* I still refused to cross the menage a trois boundary in my writing. And it boiled down to this. While I write outlandish worlds that dabble in magic realism (in the loosest sense of the word), my stories are still, by definition, traditional romances. My heroes and heroines always end up with happily ever afters. They walk away at the end bound for a committed, lifelong, monogamous relationship. And in spite of truly enjoying the stories I mentioned above, I didn't see any way I could compromise my traditional roots in the genre by including a menage in that romantic journey.

So there was the *real* challenge. How could I write an emotionally viable menage, when I believed that it threatened the happily ever after component of my hero/heroine relationship? While I write about magic, I need a certain amount of emotional truth in my stories, or I'll never find my way to "the end". I doubt any resulting readers would, either.

Both writers, Varano and Blaze, found their way to menage scenes through the emotional roots of their characters. And I envied them for their ability to do what I (almost) turned my nose up at and copped out on.

Now, artistic challenge before me was huge. Spinning a menage story because my editor said that's what was selling just wasn't going to happen for me. But to build a world where those sorts of scenes drove my hero and heroine one step closer to their ultimate HEA was what I, as an author, needed to fulfill my creative vision. Question was, could I invent a world where the menage element was part of the journey toward reclaiming a "lost" happily ever after.

Hmmm....now there was a thought. And that thought led me to a tagline: Beyond the bounds of pleasure, a single chance for redemption...

From that tagline grew a concept for a series. The emotional validity of the Hero/heroine journey took some hard work and revision, but in the end, I think I found a way to blend what my publisher was asking for, and my need to pursue a the raditional and ultimate happily ever after. When I submit the resulting linked stories to my editor at the end of the month, let's hope she agrees that I followed through with the concept I pitched to her. In my opinion, it's the most emotionally compelling piece I've ever written. The stakes for this couple to reclaim each other are huge.

Is there a moral here? I think so. In the future, I'll be careful what I turn my back on as a writer just because I'm feeling squeamish. I'll be very careful about allowing my personal reservations inhibit my ability to stretch as an artist.